We duped the Indians. We enslaved the Africans. We denied women the vote. Happy Thanksgiving. It’s tempting to say Happy White Guy Day, but every day is White Guy Day.

We’re living in this wonderful moment in time when you can see how cruel laws codified by sadistic men who scribbled with quills on parchment created an elite class of baby-men. We call it The Constitution, we call them The Founding Fathers, but let’s call it what it is…

A Fucking Sham!

I call it a wonderful moment in time because only those complicit in the crime, only those still benefiting from generational theft, only those intoxicated with self-importance can enjoy this madness and if you’re one of those people, there’s no denying it.

If you’re not grossed out by Donald Trump, if you’re not embarrassed by him, if you’re openly rooting for him or pretending you’re not going to vote for him, when you know damn well you cannot wait to pull the lever for a 2nd term, then you’re in on the heist.

I’m thankful. I’ve run out of patience for the pretenders.

Gratitude runs opposite to the flow of my nature. I’ve internalized so much animosity, so much abuse, so many cruel notes masquerading as well intended advice that I crave the struggle of undertow. I have an easier time listening to someone talk shit to my face than standing there calmly, accepting a compliment.

What is that?

I’m no engineer. I cannot change the flow of a river or damn momentum for the perk of electricity. At best, I can summon the angels of irrelevant penmanship to catalog the bittersweet triumph of a song I wrote that no one sang along to, of blogs I wrote that were overwhelmed by an avalanche of vitriol, of friends from childhood who, in the darkest hour of my five decades, offered advice instead of a hug. I did not get what I wanted but I got what I had coming and even if it wasn’t fair, I can’t help but notice I got off so much easier than so many others who were punished mercilessly for pigment or gender or sexual desire or the randomness of geography stamped on a birth certificate.

I’m thankful. The things used against me, used to twist my perception of self-worth into the stank of dog shit on a shoe ended up clearing the air by silencing the chorus of imposters who betrayed themselves by showing me how little they actually thought of me when it was convenient to rub my nose in it.

I’m thankful for tweets and retweets, for presidential temper tantrums, for MAGA TROLLS and SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS. I’m thankful for the college roommate who started our friendship by threatening to squash me like a bug and all these years later sends me text messages with videos of his daughter kicking ass on the basketball court. I’m thankful for the ex-wife of my first bandmate who I find more kinship with in adulthood than I ever found in the band of my youth, where I chased away rooms filled with people by not knowing how to connect emotion to a key. Call it what it was: Songs In The Key Of Asshole. I’m not an asshole anymore. I’m thankful for the time I was granted on This Brief Earth to know my parents long enough to see them as flawed people hooked on money, hooked on status but whose love I cannot deny. I’m thankful for shedding the skin of a snake sibling who I love better from a distance, without his fangs in my neck. I’m thankful for surviving the sting of a poisonous cousin who I love within reaching distance of an EpiPen. I’m thankful for the recognition of feeling crazy, but not knowing what to do about it, by an invisible force in the community of my youth and then being granted the adult perspective to name it: White Nationalism. I’m thankful for Prince and Stevie Wonder and Perry Ferrell and Foster The People and and Lizzo and Laura Jane Grace and Grimes and Friends withOUT Benefits. I’m thankful for Redd Foxx and LaWanda Page and Richard Pryor and Madeline Kahn and Phoebe Waller-Bridge and The South Park Guys. I’m thankful for never winning a single night on the open mic at Uncommon ground on Devon. I’m thankful for the quilt of community stitched together by Stann Champion and Michael Hollywood at Independence Tap. I’m thankful for Lex Wilder, the Paul McCartney to my John Lennon. I’m thankful to every girl I kissed in my teens and 20’s, every woman I kissed between 33 and now. I’m thankful to Emily Anne, I can’t say I love you more but I can say I love you now which is my way of promising that I’ll never let them treat you like Yoko Ono, blaming you for what I wanted.

Happy Thanksgiving. Gobble Gobble.