let's talk turkey

I think turkey may be the only thing left we can talk about...well, that and that latest episode of (fill in the blank)...not NY sports...there ain't enough Zantac for Giants and Jets fans...Mets fans have to bite nails thinking about losing Syndergaard...which according to Mike, unless the trade would involve Hank Aaron, well you get it...we could spend three minutes discussing the weather...and whether we should kill all the weather forecasters...the divide is deep...it could easily rip down the middle of your beautifully set table today...so on this day...this Thanksgiving day...perhaps we need to look inside and what drives the divide...and mostly it is fear...fear of random violence...it is all we see and hear...it moves closer and no longer sits at the proverbial six degrees of separation...it is fear of losing that job...that check...the one thing that might separate you from that guy sprawled at the bottom of the subway stairs in Penn Station...or maybe you are getting older...seeing it all from new perspective...and your deepest fear is that there might be fewer hands to grasp around your bountiful table next year...so let's skip over the intensely politically incorrectness of a holiday rooted in the premise of how happy the Indians were that we took their magnificent land, trashed it, pushed them to near extinction, left them on reservations...ahem...let's just give thanks for what is around our table...and if the conversation gets heated...turn on the tv...turn up the game...pass the stuffing....Happy Thanksgiving!

open your eyes, look up to the skies....

one of the most ironic moments in "Bohemian Rhapsody" comes when snippets of music critics reviews of the song flash on the screen...not very flattering...were they talking about the same song?...I had to laugh inside...it was just like the snippets of the movie's reviews...and for this hard core movie goer...critical many times...gotta tell you...when the movie was over the critics really didn't matter to me...and I saw every criticism glaring in front of me...like swiss cheese...and it didn't matter...perhaps there is another movie script out there...one that is less sanitized...rougher...created without the surviving members of Queen over a writer's shoulders...a film with one director...and certainly not PG-13...Freddie Mercury was not PG-13...and I'd love to see that one...but back to this one...perhaps you need to be of a certain age...an age where you vividly remember first hearing that voice soar from the radio...maybe you need to have actually owned "Bohemian Rhapsody"...as a 45...worn it to shreds...or the sheet music...what a beast for the piano...maybe you need to remember how as a society there was a time when we liked to keep our artists closeted...put them way up on pedestals and never thought what their personal life was like...how their needs to please us denied them that ultimate luxury...maybe you remember what it was like to toss off youth and become an adult in a decade of monetary excess...while horrific death from a disease that at first had no name slithered along...watching Mercury's genius, vulnerability and loneliness broke my heart...every note and lyric took me back in a way that few movies have...last week was a week in this country where pressure meds didn't cut it...blood in the streets and fire in the sky...but once there was a boy...not a "Paki" boy...but a boy with a voice that soared to the heavens...and sent shivers down my spine...still does...