Traditionally, Thanksgiving has been a holiday where people get together with family members they usually deny being related to in every other social situation and consume more food in one day than the National Food Bank, UNICEF and three Orson Welles clones consume in an entire year.
First of all, America already has a problem with overeating and obesity. We don’t need a day that encourages it. We’re one pie-eating contest away from losing our seat with the World Health Organization.
Second of all, filling your body with so much food that your heart doesn’t have room to pump blood isn’t what Thanksgiving is really about. Yes, the pilgrims and the Indians came together to share a large meal to symbolize their friendship and generosity, but they also took time between bites of turkey leg to breathe.
The reason they had a meal is because while they didn’t have much at the time, they wanted to show their appreciation and love for the things they did have, which at the time only included each other, a log cabin with a lousy mortgage and yellow fever.
Every year at Thanksgiving, in between the turkey and the pie and the straining and the praying for God to take me,I try to take at least one moment before I pass out to look back over the previous year and appreciate the things I have that allow me to have a career and do what I love for a living: People with big mouths who go on TV — If more people thought about what they said before they actually said it, I wouldn’t be in business. Instead, I’d probably be selling coconuts from a shopping cart on the side of the highway and the world would be a better, calmer, saner place. So thanks, Rush Limbaugh. Thanks for keeping me off the streets. Keep up the good work.
Hollyweird — They keep churning out the crap like a crap printing press and I keep making fun of it. My only fear is that one day, everyone will realize just how low movies have sunk and will stop going to the theater altogether and Hollyweird will be forced to make smarter, fun-nier and more thought-provoking movies and I’ll have to go back to whining about the guys at Foot Locker who smell like feet.
The Democrats taking back the Legislature — Now this is by no means a love for the left wing. I think both parties have put bipartisanship above the national interest at a level that is borderline frightening. But I’m glad the Democrats took back the House and the Senate because I was starting to run out of ways to make fun of the Republicans. How do you make fun of a party that if given the chance, would present a bill requiring zoos to teach the concept of intelligent design to monkeys?
Stupidity — Part of me feels conflicted about praising the value of ignorance and stupidity. But, to be honest, if stupidity didn’t exist, the fish wraps would have a lot less stories in them, people wouldn’t be so eager to shine the spotlight on themselves, movies like “Employee of the Month” and “Snakes on a Plane” wouldn’t see the light of day and I wouldn’t have anything to write about. Also, Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t have a career.
Coffee — It’s the writer’s heroin. If it didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be able to stay up until the ungodly hours of the morn to meet my looming deadlines and I’d also be addicted to heroin.
Danny Gallagher is a freelance writer, humorist, reporter and self-proclaimed “nice guy” living in Texas. His web site is www.dannygallagher.net.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 23, 2006. Read the original PDF.