A Contrarian's Guide to Thanksgiving

A Thanksgiving rant...

Here's an unpopular opinion: I don't like Adele. She has a very powerful voice, but her music is depressing. The extreme hyperbolic reaction to her album release this week has been nauseating. OMG SHE'S SO BEAUTIFUL. She's not. She's like maybe a generous 5. I get it, she drunk tweets and stuff, but those isolated vocals from SNL didn't really make you believe in God. That video where she put on some disguise and sang her songs was mediocre at best. I think the popularity of people like her and Sam Smith is a reaction to PC culture. People want an average looking woman and an unfortunate looking gay man to succeed as pop stars. I just read an article that said if Pretty in Pink was remade today, Molly Ringwald would chose Duckie.

That's pathetic. At least Sam Smith and Adele have talent. Duckie was just a clown. Cheering for Duckie is like being the parent at a youth soccer game that gets mad when other parents unofficially keep score. Cheering for Andrew McCarthy? That's like cheering for the Biebs.

No one embodies white privilege more than this little Canadian cunt and I love him for it. He spent his teens fucking hookers, throwing raging parties, getting hammered, doing drugs all the while laying the pipe to the most bangable Disney Channel star and paling around with the most despicable athlete of our generation. A DUI arrest and a felony vandalism charge later he was labeled persona non grata. Bieber's heel turn was complete.

…and then a mere 6 months later, people love him! It's hilarious. He is COMPLETELY out of the woods. He closed the AMAs last night and I think every woman age 16-49 came several times during his performance. Just a year after people were calling for his deportation Justin has the number 1 album in America.

This Thanksgiving I'm thankful for Justin Bieber and Johnny Manziel, because if I had millions of dollars on the line I probably wouldn't stop boozing or doing coke either. /endrant

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Thanksgiving can be a stressful time for people as it can involve tenuous travel and some awkward encounters. I've seen some holiday guides popping up on the internet and I thought I am as qualified as any other fat mouth-breathing blogger. So, without further ado, the SingleDude Thanksgiving guide.


ON BLACK WEDNESDAY
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving used to be my favorite day of the year. I would cruise into some town and cause absolute mayhem for a few hours, then evacuate the scene before someone could ask me to come pick up the pieces. Now I do my black Wednesday in LA where I will either go on a onesie bar crawl or go out in hollywood with some legitimate prostitutes. But you probably don't work in a fascist industry that forces you to work a full day today, so for those of you going home this year, here are some tips…

1. Definitely go out...
You will have 'friends' from high school that are married or have kids now. They will stay in or go see Mockingjay part 2. This is a real Hufflepuff move. The little sister gets blown up and it's somehow Gale's fault. Ending up with Peeta instead of Gale is like choosing Sam Smith over Justin Bieber. I cannot fathom it. A lot of your friends will say they are too old to go out on Wednesday night and that it will be dominated by people that were 5 classes under you in high school. This is a good thing.

2. Definitely hook up…
You will undoubtedly see someone's younger sister out at the bar but she won't be 11 anymore. She will remember watching her brother and you play All Star baseball in 6th grade. She had a crush back then, but she was still playing with Barbies and you weren't sure you were into girls yet. But 10 years later that spark is still there. You're still the cool older guy that could jack 280 foot home runs on the Skiles Test minor league diamond. IT. IS. FUCKING. ON. Buy her and her friends a few drinks and make jokes about how she's still 11, it will annoy her and she will try to prove that she's not a little kid anymore. This is a fool proof plan. Take her to a hotel, take her to your parents house…this is a personal preference based on your tolerance for awkward interactions with your parents.

If there is no little sister around to hook up with, target an ex girlfriend and tell her you still have feelings for her, if for no other reason than to fuck with her head. If you can't have her, no one can.

3. Demand a ride home from a family member…
On the rare chance you strike out (unlikely) and can't find some college buddies to go after party with (unlikely) make sure to wake your parents up at 3 in the morning for a ride home. You grew up in the suburbs, an uber home would be like $40. You flew all the way home to see your family (albeit on their dime) the least they can do is offer you a ride back home and swing you through the 24 hour McDonald's drive thru. Make sure to tell them you are not to be woken before 2pm the following day for any reason.

This goes for Thursday morning too. If you happen to bang an old high school ex at her parents house, don't you dare hail a taxi. Tell your mom to come pick you up in Carmel or wherever you end up. You know what? Invite her in for breakfast when she gets there, it would be the polite thing to do. We're adults, casual sex between consenting former high school friends is something that should be celebrated.

ON THANKSGIVING
If you're a pro like me, you will wait until Thanksgiving Day to fly. One, it's substantially less crowded at the airport. Two, Southwest gives you a free cocktail when you fly on holidays. But let's start the morning of…

1. Get to the airport 30 minutes before your flight...
I know what you're thinking. Shouldn't I show up super early to avoid the lines? Don't be foolish. If you're running through the terminal about to miss your flight, just roll up to the TSA pre-check line. It's a colossal pain in the dick for your airline when you miss a flight, so they will typically bend over backwards to accommodate you.
Here are a few phrases to remember.
"My father has status!"
"The shift supervisor sent me here!"
"I was upgraded!"
None of this really means anything, but most TSA agents didn't graduate high school, leverage this information and you should breeze through LAX/O'Hare or any other major airport in 15 minutes or less. NOTE: This will probably only work if you are white.

2. Start drinking at the airport/on the plane…
A great way to alleviate the potentially uncomfortable beginning of Thanksgiving dinner is to be halfway in the bag when you already get there. For this reason I suggest pounding at least 3 cocktails at the airport before boarding a flight. I know the Terminal 3 Gladstone's at LAX offers beer and a shot for $10. Also, if you are flying Delta you can upgrade to comfort plus for at little as $19. That $19 includes unlimited free booze. My cock could drink $19 worth of booze in its sleep. Not only will you be allowed to imbibe the entire flight, there is no chance you will sit next to a fat/smelly/poor/baby person…because fat smelly poor babies typically don't pay for upgrades. LPT!

3. Bring liquor and Adderall to dinner…
Obviously someone that flies on Thanksgiving day can't be expected to cook for the dinner. In fact, you want to time your landing so that you arrive at dinner like 10 minutes early. Not so early that you can be expected to help with meal prep at all, but not late enough that you get a shitty seat. Give all of your family members and friends non-committal answers when they ask personal questions "When are you getting married?" I'm not, I'm gay. Shit like that. That will shut up your conservative relatives. But here is where you get the chance to be a holiday hero. When dinner is done and the tryptophan is kicking in, pull out a bottle of fireball and a vial of Adderall (which is basically socially acceptable cocaine) Then the men can go downstairs for a marathon ping pong tournament or some shit while the women clean and gossip. Women LOVE to clean and gossip.

4. Have all your buddies over and throw a raging party…
I mean MY Thanksgiving tradition involves a 3 hour pre game in a Granite Bay garage, followed by a game of capture the flag that we call 'The Vietnam War,' followed by us getting yelled at for setting multiple couches on fire and chokeslamming someone through a table while we eat Thanksgiving leftovers. But that's just my tradition. Feel free to follow the more conventional route of playing flip cup and trying to bang chicks.

FRIDAY
If you get up at 5am to go get some shitty TV or a $9 Adele cd I don't have anything in common with you and I can't believe you made it this far. If your Friday plan is to go see The Good Dinosaur with your little nieces and nephews, I ain't mad at cha, let me know how it is. But if you are with a bunch of your homies in the shitty town you grew up in there is only one thing to do…Road Trip.

1. Leave your house early and leave the carnage from the night before. Remember, women love to clean and gossip.

2. Check into a hotel…
But definitely only 1 hotel room. You may be in your late 20's but there will never be an age where it isn't fun to squeeze 8 guys into a 2 double bed room at the Hyatt.

3. Start drinking…
If you're on the west coast there should be college football on by now. Go to a bar and start playing shot hat. Shot hat is like Russian Roulette but without the messy brain matter on the walls. Nothing is more attractive than a group of cocky out-of-towners peacocking at a bar.

4. Go buy a piñata…
Pinatas are fucking dope. Have you ever had a bad time with a piñata? Do you know what would happen if you were spending like $300 at a bar and then you busted out a piñata under the guise of it being someone's birthday? The bar will probably be cool with it and ~3.8 of you are going to be given blow jobs immediately.

5. Host a hotel pre game…
Think back to every time you have partied in a hotel room.
Formals, vacations, homecoming, prom, that time you ordered a lot of molly and got a room at the W just for the fuck of it…all those nights were epic. Hotel pre games are epic.

6. Take turns in the shower…
I'm kidding we're not in college anymore. You guys should probably just spring for a second boom boom room.

7. Go out and bring home an Asian…
I'm being too SF specific. Go out to some shitty club, get a bottle and bring home someone that isn't American. You'll have a good story and it will save you $200 bucks from the rub and tub joint in the Mission.

SATURDAY

I don't know man…it's a big football weekend. Go tailgate somewhere, or go see The Good Dinosaur. Go to a fucking casino, this post is running long and I want to start drinking. In all seriousness, I used to love my Thanksgivings in St. Louis with my family. There was almost no partying, but our hotel had a basketball court and the zoo was across the street. Thanksgiving is the shit, so wherever you are, whoever you're with this weekend, have a good time and stay safe. When you wake up Sunday morning, it will time to dust off that old Christmas sweater. December is aggressive. We've made it through the bullshit part of winter. Buckle in, it might get loud.