Thanksgiving gets shafted...

So while I am not the biggest proponent of Thanksgiving food(don't really like turkey, mashed potatoes are just meh, I'll pass on the stuffing), I am a fan of the holiday and know that a ton of people LOVE it. Don't have to worry about gifts, just get after it family style, and eat your face off. Sounds like something to be appreciated. But recently, Ive discovered a disturbing trend in the retail world which completely screws Thanksgiving, much like the Pilgrims eventually screwed the Indians after a lovely start near Plymouth Rock. Namely, there are 3 seasons...Spring, Summer, and Christmas. Everything else is forgotten, collateral damage in the never ending quest to make you buy stupid shit you don't really need. And not awesome products like Bagel Guillotines. Dumb shit like the Jonas Brother's Christmas album.

I love Christmas, but for me, as a kid, the best part about Christmas was the sudden rush and swell mid-December and then that frenetic week leading up till December 24th-25th, and then all of a sudden, the sudden comedown and mild sadness on December 26th when you realize its all over. That made you crave more Christmas. That tease, that build-up, and then all of a sudden some hot passionate sex with the Christmas season, then all of a sudden it disappears like a thief in the night without staying to cuddle. That is what makes Christmas for me.

However, recently, that tease and buildup is getting deluded by department stores and radio stations excessive need to thrust Christmas upon me at the earliest damn moment. For example, the week before Halloween, I entered Macy's in Downtown Chicago and was i knocked back by the smell of Christmas scents, breathless and annoying Mariah Carey Christmas songs, and red and white as far as the eye could see. Let me remind you, its still October, and I expected to see spiders and ghouls and other appropriately themed Halloween decorations, or maybe, at the very worst, browns and oranges and turkeys all about for Thanksgiving. But noooooo, f-ing Christmas as far as the eye can see. And as I told my mom about it, and she informed me that at Chicos, where she works, they started the Christmas music on Oct. 1. October fucking first?!!? Are you kidding me? Its still like 70 degrees at that point. I am thankful my mother is a strong and resilient woman, otherwise I fear she would have lost her damn mind or been muttering Bing Crosby/Burl Ives impressions incessantly.

This year I have taken to just avoiding premature Christmas nonsense. Working in a predominantly Jewish office helps, except when they play Christmas music on the radio...is that a little...umm, odd to anyone else?

Quick hits from my blogging hiatus:

-With the release of The Fame Monster, Lady Gaga is no longer a peculiarity or intriguing figure to me as she once was. She is flat out one of my favorite artists around right now and I'll argue with anyone who tells me otherwise. Is she a little bit crazy? Yes. Eccentric? More than a little bit? Quite certainly. Absurdly talented with a vision that she continues to execute despite critics and haters not quite understanding or enjoying it? Damn right. Bitch is damn talented.

-The Jersey Shore is a train wreck of a television show but in the same vein, 5 times more compelling and intriguing. People love watching shows about shit that is completely foreign and strange to them...aka the mysterious and mind boggling world of guidos. Its like watching a show on the Discovery Channel. I mean, if my son or daughter even started hinting at tendancies of being a guido later in life, I'd probably bash them in the head with a rock and start over. However, from an outsider's perspective, I love watching the misguided and delusional hubris of all these clowns. Fist Pump!

-College basketball makes me happy. That is all.

-I hang out with a few kids that still are in school at Depaul. They are now on Winter Break for a month and a half or so. And pretty much all of them, with the exception of like 2 weeks or so, are staying in the city. The worst part about winter break was that after New Years, things got kind of boring till you went back to school. If I had been down in Oxford, its a damn ghost town, so that kind of sucks. And back home, I love being home and my family, but I get a bit stir crazy once my little sisters go back to school and my parents are busy during the day. If I had gotten to have 3 weeks of awesomeness essentially at school, but without the school work and responsibility? Kickass. Those lucky bastards. Meanwhile, I have to work on Christmas Eve and still haven't accrued much vacation to take days off. FML...and why you should avoid those damn college kids (life used to be so easy.)

So, Manchester Orchestra, I just can't say enough about this band. I've liked them for awhile, but when I saw them a little while back with Brand New, it was like I was hearing them for the first time. Such an electric stage presence, such intelligent melodies, cryptic lyrics, really the total package. One of those bands who finally got a little radio play recently, but ironically, it was not what I would consider anywhere near one of their best songs. I Can Feel a Hot One is hauntingly smooth and lyrically brilliant and may or may not be a song I've fallen asleep to multiple times. Shake It Out literally shakes you to musical consciousness. And finally, The River closes out their most recent cd and has some of the most appropriate and meaningful lyrics I've heard in awhile. I highly recommend you giving it a spin if you are a fan of the Backstreet Boys, Jay-Z, Led Zepplin, Abba, or badass music in general.

"I think I talk to you best when I sing, I sing about almost everything..."

JW