Mark L. Feinsod

Happy post-Thanksgiving!  I hope you spent the holiday surrounded by loved ones and relatives (nyuck, nyuck, nyuck).  Did you have a big family dinner?  Did you waste most of the day driving?

Here’s something I don’t understand about Thanksgiving: Black Friday.  After spending a day luxuriating in the warmth of family and togetherness, and giving thanks you don’t live in whatever crappy country your ancestors came from, you’re supposed to get up at 5:00 a.m. and trample lots of middle-aged people in order to get a Sony Playstation for $20 less than it normally costs.

Let’s analyze that last sentence right there.

Getting up at 5:00 a.m.  It’s a holiday.  If it comes down to getting a better present for the members of my family or hitting the snooze button a few more times, do I really need to tell you which option wins out?  Let’s just say I’ll be sipping coffee and watching CNN at 10:45 a.m.

And what’s with the whole trampling people thing?  You always read about somebody dying during a stampede to get into Wal-Mart or BJ’s.  I can understand rushing to get to a BJ (sorry, couldn’t resist!  I could make BJ’s jokes for hours!  Instead of a present, just give your loved one a gift certificate for BJ’s!  Ha ha!), but isn’t the point of these stores supposed to be that everything is so cheap in the first place because it’s made in China where three-year old children put together iPod Nanos at gunpoint?  Can the prices of disposal crap be even lower?  Besides, the idea behind these stories in the first place is so you can shake your head at the insanity of people willing to risk death in order to get three new pairs of Dockers for $11.  Before you go back to sipping coffee in the comfort of your parents’ kitchen at 10:45 a.m. the morning after Thanksgiving.

If the spirit of the holiday is to give thanks for what we have, then why do most people go rushing about like rabid bulls the next day to accumulate as much stuff as possible?

Then again, I’m OK with this being part of the holiday season, as long as it involves BJ’s.

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In this week’s episode, we ponder what various movies would be like if they had the same ending as James Cameron’s the Abyss, where aliens randomly show up and save the hero at the end.  You’ll never think about Terms of Endearment in the same way again.  You can stream the show here and at SelfAbsorbed.me, and subscribe in iTunes.  As always, please spread the word about the show to your parole officers, toll collectors and the weird lady who works behind the counter at your local bakery.  And write a review of the show and rate us in iTunes!

Hello again, happy listeners!  I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving.  I hope you spend it surrounded by friends and family and pets.  I hope you eat lots of lovely food, and engage in stimulating and mildly educational conversation at the dinner table.  I hope your slightly crazy Republican uncle who nobody really likes but who gets invited every year out of a sense of obligation has really bad laryngitis.

I mean, let’s face it.  The guy smells like an ashtray that hasn’t been emptied since 1973, and we get it.  You hate Obama.  He’s a socialist.  And a communist.  And a Nazi.  And he hates America.  And he’s a Muslim.  And a terrorist.

But after Obama finishes redistributing your wealth and persecuting middle-class white people and putting them in concentration camps and he changes the name of the country to the United States of Goldman Sachs and every citizen has to pray to Mecca five times a day before we formally surrender to al Qaeda, will you please just shut up so I can finish my yams in peace?

Thanks.  Much appreciated.

But if you’d like to talk about something else, how about the fact that you’re almost sixty and still working an entry-level job?  No?  OK, then just pass the mashed potatoes.

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In this week’s podcast, we talk about Thanksgiving and our loving descriptions of the food will no doubt make your mouth water.  You can stream the show here and at SelfAbsorbed.me, and subscribe in iTunes.

As always, we kindly ask that you spread the word about the show.  We don’t charge any money for listening, but we consider our paycheck to be the joy you get from listening to the fruits of our labor.

And there are only three more shows left until the end of season 01!  Then we’re on hiatus until February!

Here’s hoping your uncle crashes his car into a telephone pole on the way to your parents’ house on Thanksgiving.  Not that we’re wishing for his death or anything, but maybe the impact will shock him so that he becomes less of a loon.  Kind of like what happens to Lukas Haas in that Woody Allen movie.