Drunk TV

Thanksgiving, right? I mean…it’s a tough one this year, no doubt. Outside of family and friends and the traditional bird and old timey TV, it feels like there’s not a whole lot else to be thankful for, you know? I mean, you’ll be lucky if family can even visit, what with gas prices the way they are (as well as that one lunatic who refuses to visit because most family members don’t believe in the clot-shot). And that big dinner—if you can find the ingredients on those mostly empty shelves—costs way more this year, thanks to you know who (when given the time-honored chance to offer Presidential clemency to the White House Thanksgiving turkey, he promptly pardoned the Easter Bunny). Hell, even nostalgic TV might not help; I know I had a tough time getting into the holiday mood, after watching 1982’s mostly-okay A Day for Thanks on Walton’s Mountain and 1993’s decidedly icky A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion.

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I read someone once who stated there comes a moment of decision in every man’s life where he chooses either to move forward or back. At the time it sounded faintly ominous, but after a few years paddling around in what suicidally-bored George Sanders correctly referred to as that “sweet cesspool,” I found it a warning largely beside the point. I don’t believe we move in straight lines in terms of human evolvement (or in terms of anything else, for that matter), but rather in a giant circle. We ride wheels within turning wheels (check it: I’m starting to trill like Noel Harrison…), giving the illusion of movement and progress to those inhabitants on other wheels…when all of us are really just pinned down on a piece of drawing paper like a giant Spirograph. Pretty pictures, destined to endlessly repeat themselves.

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