kevin barnett

I have lost count of how many years my family has sat down to watch Christmas Vacation during the holidays. It is, by far, my favorite tradition of the fun old-fashioned family Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all — and to all a good night.

This year, I spent Thanksgiving away from family and with friends who might as well be family. We had a great dinner (for which I supplied the requisite side: cornbread dressing), which was accompanied by good food, drinks, company, Trivial Pursuit (90’s edition) and the Cowboys beating the Jets 34-3.

New York is an interesting scene on Thanksgiving in that it actually gets quiet for a day. It’s not quite Will Smith in the I Am Legend previews that have been lynching the TV lately but still a little eerie and suspicious when you’re walking around the city. Of course if you’re out for a more typical 4am curfew, you can greet the Black Friday shoppers arriving in the city and lining up ready to feed at the trough.

Walking down Broadway through the 20s the next day, I noticed some sketchy-looking guys putting out boxes of random retail product on the sidewalk to move. A crowd would collect around each one until it was sold out and the ravenous shoppers would move on to the next one. It could have been socks or iPhones, but I think just the prospect of getting a deal — never mind how the product came to be in an unmarked shipping box on the street — was enough to attract customers.

My own consumerist thirst - which is rarely quenched - has never been enough to get me out on Black Friday not to mention enough to scope out the Red Hot deals I witnessed on Broadway Ave. For that, I am thankful. And a short list of other stuff like my 5 senses and my health, my family and friends, my career and employment.

Oh and I am also thankful for Dennis Franchione’s resignation, delivered in the press conference immediately following Texas A&M’s win over Texas for the second year in a row.

Texas fans will be quick to point out how that win is nothing compared to a National Championship that they won in 2005 against USC with Vince Young, blah blah blah… But in a year in which Missouri is the #1 team in the nation going into the Big 12 Championship game as an underdog to #8 Oklahoma — not to mention A&M’s mediocre season — you take what you can get.

I was just listening to Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas

It appears I can no longer put off, what I’ve known for years: that I need to have some bothersome and useless teeth (molars) removed. I can tell my bottom row of teeth are getting cramped, as it’s a tight fit while flossing. If left unattended, my teeth might start looking like a toxic Chinese-made Halloween costume accessory.

Of course I immediately think of the Ren and Stimpy classic, Ren’s Toothache. It makes me laugh yet offers little comfort from the inevitability of severe uncomfort:

I love my new neighborhood.

I was just listening Radiohead - 15 Step

Watching this film makes me want to hop on the LIRR in the morning. I even looked at the train schedule – the first train leaves Penn at 7:49am. Maybe I should wait for the dead of winter…I’m crazy like that.

A stray pit bull on the streets of Detroit, MI (photo: coyoteblues)

That was part of the vetrinarian’s response on HBO’s Real Sports’ segment on dog fighting in which he was asked what he thinks about the people that facilitate the underground “sport”. What the old man didn’t realize is that HBO doesn’t have to bleep out his commentary that the people involved in the dog fighting subculture are, as he went on to say, “…low-life pieces of shit.”

Exactly.

The segment, inspired by one of the low-life pieces of shit in the NFL, was difficult to watch, and not just because it had footage of actual dog fighting. And it wasn’t just the video and still captures of the casualties and injuries sustained by dogs — some abducted/kidnapped — to help train the fighting canines. Nor was it the scene in which they euthanize a former dog fighting pit bull; the only humane choice these abused animals are left with.

No, the hardest part about watching the dog fighting segment was the low-life piece of shit they interviewed (his face, hidden in shadows to remain anonymous) who had only just recently quit training and fighting dogs because his “wife couldn’t stand it”. When asked if he missed dog fighting, the low-life piece of shit replies in a sentimental tone, simply “…yes. I loved it.”

It appears that dogs have become the niggers in a persistent American subculture who insists that someone — or something — are slaves for degenerates’ amusement and profit. Perhaps this is why I expected a little more from the NAACP on this issue. Then again, I typically get burned when I hold political action committees up to a high standard.

Tomorrow is my first fantasy football draft. I tried to name this team “My Dog Shit in Michael Vick’s Mouth” but it was too long.

I was just listening to Deerhoof - Our Angel’s Ululu