Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong...

I love the beginning of the holiday season. When the air starts to change and everyone (O.K. maybe only me) gets excited about donating coats and buying underpants for the needy.  When the focus is on the Thanksgiving menu; just before the focus becomes how many gifts can we get under the tree, how big can we make the tree look, how much money can I spend, how much shit can we have, which of these things will make me look the most successful on social media. 
I think Thanksgiving may actually be my favorite holiday.  There really aren't any rules-no awkward gift exchanges-it's all about breaking bread and that feeling, I think, of a sense of community.  At least it is for me- because I haven't spent Thanksgiving with a single blood relative since I was a teenager.  (And this makes me less likely to become a holiday season suicide statistic.)  I love that the house is warm and dark, and there's food in every room. I love the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade--when all those singers we've never heard of lip sync badly into microphones swaying with the movement of the float they're on, slapping their unknown little faces like unplugged electric dicks.
And I love to feed people. (I also secretly love aprons.  Not kidding.)  Chocolate pecan pie?  I do that.  From. Scratch.  Dressing?  From. Scratch.--including but not limited to homemade croutons--Green bean casserole?  Not a can of anything in sight.  OK, I don't make those little fried onions but c'mon...  I will admit that it does skeeve me out to rub all over a dead turkey.  And it does always make me a little sad the first time I see the carcass unwrapped and headless in the sink.    But I cook on anyway.  Because to feed people is to love them. (GROSS!  who am I?!) I zest lemons, I toast pistachios.  I caramelize sugar, I make roux.  And every year I make a fancy dressing to toss into a leafy green of some kind.--This year it was pear and red pepper vinaigrette with mesclun.--And every year it never makes it to the table.  Because no one is looking for the salad on Thanksgiving.
But I have a dark confession to make.  All of the bread in my house is store bought.  Even 'special occasion everything is homemade' dinner bread.  Baking bread has always illuded me.  I have only recently mastered biscuit making, after many years and countless fails.  I just felt biscuits weren't quite refined enough for my elegant holiday buffet.  So there I stood shoving Sister Schubert's frozen yeast rolls into the toaster oven.  I think my guests doubted the talents of this enigmatic freezer section Jewish nun baking genius.  But after a couple of passes of the "appetite stimulant" around the table, we were all singing the praises of Mama Eunice.  Or Sister Celeste.  Or whatever it is her name turned out to be.
And the next day there was just enough wine and pie left over for my 'I-don't-leave-my-pajamas-on-Black-Friday-much-less-my-house-so-I'm-gonna-snuggle-under-this-blanket-&-watch-embarrassing-chick-flicks-all-day-then-pretend-I-missed-my-wife-when-she-gets-home-from-work' movie marathon.
Thanksgiving success!!  Thanks Sister Schubert!

How That Music Used to Make Me Smile...

How awkward were the American Music Awards?  Who decided Jay Pharoah and Gigi Hadid (and her Knots Landing hair) made a charismatic pair?  Why was everyone in the crowd 11 years old? Where did they find all those overly enthusiastic audience gays?  Why does Janelle Monae suddenly think she's Lynn Whitfield?  I may never know the answers to these conundrums.  But I do know this:

Uptown Funk already happened, Bruno Mars.  Please don't pull a Carrie Underwood and sing the same song for the rest of your jheri curled career.

Oh Twenty One Pilots--to be young and self-important again.  I'm so into your edgy image--it's clear you have a lot to say.  Unfortch, your lyrics don't say it.  I get it--you want your fans to be cutters, but instead you got white kids with dreads.  That's a tough one.  

Shawn Mendes gave me Jessie's Girl era Rick Springfield realness. 

It's so strange how jarring it is when actual talent shows up on an awards show.  Everyone is so shiny and pretty and immobile, and then along comes some asshole who didn't have time to brush his hair because he was busy being a person--or tuning his guitar.   Or how Sting was like someone's grandpa who couldn't be bothered to put a shirt on for company.  Because he doesn't have time to glue his eyelashes on, he's busy being Sting.  (Although I'm convinced he was the first man to pull duck lips.)

Is it me or does the Weeknd seem gayer?

John Legend, I love that you rocked one of Blanche Devereaux's old track jackets.  But please don't perform without the piano again.  It embarrassed me.

WTF Ariana Grande??!!  Good for you for learning to move less like a retarded giraffe, but was that your fucking grandma in the audience watching you flop all around in the sand with Nicki Minaj's vagina?

My second favorite thing about the whole show was all the girls losing their shit at the Justin Bieber show.  Crying, shaking, some of them looked like they were in a catatonic state.  I loved every minute of it.  My wife had the nerve to roll her eyes and laugh at them, but she cried at a fucking UB40 concert.  And not in 1988--it was like 3 months ago.

Lady Gaga once again tested my gag reflex.  Affecting that country sanger drawl.  Isn't she from Long Island or something?  I haven't been that offended since Iggy Azalea tried to go full T.I.  And besides, doesn't she know the only woman who can pull that off in country music is Keith Urban? P.S.  You're guitar isn't plugged in.

My very favorite thing about the American Music Awards was Robert Downey Jr.

Thank you Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Future,and August Alsina for not even attempting a lip sync game.  You all mostly just walked around with a mic to your mouths.  And I appreciate that.  No need to exhaust yourselves on my account.  Oh, and DJ Khaled--shut...the...fuck...up.  That is all.

And finally, the big finale.  Adam Levine in a dad sweater.  You really did it this time AMAs.  But ain't that America?

And the calendar's cluttered with days that are numbered...

Every day is End of Days.   I stood in the kitchen chopping vegetables a week before Prince died and said, "If something happens to Prince, put me on suicide watch."   I've yet to be forgiven.  And a few weeks ago when You Want It Darker was released, I sat listening to Songs From a Room and thought to myself, "What am I gonna do when Leonard Cohen dies?"... I mourned Leonard Cohen alone in a hotel bed. After dining alone in a town unknown to me, a stranger in a hotel bar.  Fitting.  I dare not even think the names of the songwriters still breathing that I worship every day.  I've fallen radio silent.   I know.  The weight of the world affecting me more than I had anticipated.--Election fatigue, the 2016 deadpool, a cloud covered supermoon, Sophia Urista not even making it to the top 12 on The Voice.
When I was a kid I listened to my friends talk about kissing boys and holding hands.  I always thought no one wanted to hold my hand because I gnawed on my cuticles, biting until they bled when I was nervous or bored.  But there was a girl named Shannon who bit her nails down until they were gnarled up little strips.  And she always had boyfriends.  Even though she had a bad perm and claw bangs.  So I thought maybe it wasn't about her hands at all, it was because she was skinny and blonde.--Because according to my mother, "not too many boys will be interested in a girl that looks like you, and no one is going to be perfect so you should probably just find a man who won't hit you." --Shannon had a normal name, and laughed a lot.  She probably didn't spend as much time as I did sitting in a closet reading book after book.  Or recording her own radio shows.  Turns out not that many people are attracted to that, even as adults.
Much, much later I found myself in bed with someone I'd never expected.  He was the cocktail waitress at my regular watering hole.  I fucked him with my knee high combat boots on--though it was mostly missionary and with the lights out.  When it was all said and done, I hinted for him to leave.  But I'm a gentleman so I at least walked him to his car. There on the sidewalk as the sun came up he asked me for my phone number, said he wanted to spend real time with me, that I was a cool girl. And I, completely naked except for the boots and a pillow to cover my lady business, refused.  I told him he didn't have to do that--to pretend he was interested when we'd already fucked.  He protested.  And I never really thought that much about it as he continued bringing me cocktails.  Until I started taking stock in my thirties.   And I realized that I could've given that kid a chance.  And a lot of other kids really.
I'm not sure how last Wednesday's nausea and circulatory shock translates into any of this. Why I wanted to drink myself to death this weekend.  (Spoiler alert:  I didn't.  I mean I drank until I couldn't feel my tongue, but I didn't die.)  Why the only love letter I've ever written was to say goodbye.  It's just train of thought maybe-word vomit.  A breaking the silence. An exhale?   Too Angela Bassett...
Grieving. End of Days.

"The false trumpet concealing madness will cause Byzantium to change its laws."