and canada and mexico and trinidad and australia and europe and africa the motherland and the middle east and asia and all our ships at sea.

today as we celebrate the invasion and domination of north america it’s easy to be cynical and politically correct and genx and disrespectful… so lets go for it.

fie on our teachers who told us the kiddie tales of pilgrims and turkey and columbus sailing the oceans blue and having us put construction paper feathers in our hair and dressing up in orange and brown and working for the clampdown.

fie on our forefathers for being ruthless and treacherous and ignorant and fortunate.

as kurt vonnegut so perfectly wrote in breakfast of champions:

1492 the teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. that was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.

…

the chief weapon of the sea pirates however, was their capacity to astonish. nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, how heartless and greedy they were.

and thats why revisionist conservatives like the instapundit dont like kurt vonnegut and would never grow up to be a lit professor.

which we should all be thankful for.

so on this celebration of misery and gluttony, anti-vegitarianism, and highway accidents, a blossom has risen from the turd of shame: thanksgiving.

instead of pretending that we are grateful for this unbelieveable land that the Lord allegedly gave to us, we do have the option to review our real blessings and share some of those with our fellow man and woman.

i am grateful that i live in a city that is perpetually warm and dry. im grateful for the great jobs ive had and the ability to blog at them during my government mandated 15 minute breaks. im greatful that at my advanced age young women from around the world desire me sexually and men from around the globe wish to buy me drinks and shake my hand.

im grateful that i am here with my mother and sister and loved ones who find it necessary to wake up early for a thanksgiving dinner. and here it is 11am and my mother is pacing nervously as somehow we’re “late” so i must finish this up, but im grateful for her as shes given me everything except for my receding hairline which was donated to me by her father.

gravitas.

im grateful to live in a country who may have been jesusland a year ago but woke up from their drunken stupor and who if they had their druthers would run the GOP out on a rail for lying to us, sending us to war for no good reason, and then lying about their lies.

we may be a young country but we dont all love young country and we werent all born last night. or something.

im grateful that i live in a time where i can broadcast such messages across the transom and it reach all of your homes and im thankful that you’ll probably be back tomorrow. im the luckiest man i know, i know i dont deserve it, but i will take it and before i defile your sisters i promise to wash my hands prior and thank the Good Lord afterwards.

im grateful for rock band tsar, for all of my friends, for ac/dc, and for peer to peer technology which has given me the world on a platter. im grateful for blank media costing pennies per disc and im thankful for directv tivo and the kama sutra.

none of this could have happened without the Lord Jesus Christ who probably winces every time He hears my name but hopefully chuckles when he hears my prayers and perhaps will see through the blackness of my heart and allow me entrance into Paradise where i will host a danceclub best known for its urinating cherubs.

im thankful for my health and wealth and position in life. i know i could have been born anywhere at any time and as much as we kid being Americans, we are the most fortunate people on this planet, other than the scandinavians, and canadians, and trinidaddians, and hawiaans, so we should learn to help those lesser than ourselves.

and hopefully the next election we will learn how to help ourselves.

God bless everyone who reads this blog and links to it and talks about it and buys crap from it. i love you, i think about you always, and i hope that noone at your table chokes on a turkey bone, unless they really have it coming.

happy thanksgiving and may this year we bring some astonishingly excellent things to those less fortunate than ourselves.

matt welch + alecia + JaG + raymi + matt good