Thanksgiving dinner is supposed to be a fun family get together. At times this fall celebration of the harvest can erupt into ugly political and social disputes. Time for some ideas to flip the script in Thanksgiving Thought Starters-Fight Starters-Fight Enders-Podcast 679.
Welcome To The Rollercoaster
Especially relevant is the fact that the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas, can be an emotional rollercoaster for almost all families. Whether you’re hosting the dinner or heading out to a relative’s house it’s a good idea to be prepared.
Freedom of Choice
In Thanksgiving Thought Starters-Fight Starters-Fight Enders-Podcast 679 I share some personal thanksgiving and family experiences to get you thinking. Most important is to remember we all have the freedom of choice about what we think about social or political issues. If you want to hear an example of my own personal thanksgiving experience a few years ago, click here.
What He Said!
When it comes to politics these days, you can bet there will be discussion at the Thanksgiving table about much of the reactive coverage about politics. Add alcohol to the mix, and you will have to decide whether to engage or not, depending on your situation. Of course, give yourself permission to keep your mouth shut, or leave right after dinner, if necessary.
SeaChangeTone
Should you make the decision to engage your crazy uncle on a political level Thanksgiving Thought Starters-Fight Starters-Fight Enders-Podcast 679 gives you ideas on how change the tone of the conversation.
In conclusion when it comes to politics and social issues we could all do with a change in tone. Do we want to be leaders or followers? Rather than fighting about what someone else says on a TV Show why not talk about what we are for? What kind of a world do we think is coming? Where does our energy and advocacy belong.
The Old World Is Passing
Moreover we are seeing fewer positive interactions with the age old institutions of our society like government and religion. What kind of world is coming and what is our role in it? Throw that out over the mashed potatoes and see what happens. Or not.
There is a sudden nostalgia for the 1970’s. New TV Shows. Fashion. Summer’s end is a time of nostalgia. Something about the drier air and State Fair time in Minnesota. We’ll talk about it in Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660.
Where Were You in ’72?
Back in the day, the week before Labor Day we went to Sears. New Jeans as hard as concrete. Some collared shirts. Heavy t-shirts. New tennis shoes. New Hard shoes. By the end of the next summer those jeans would be tattered and worn. The shoes unrecognizable. T-Shirts worn out.
Summer’s Long Goodbye
End of Summer also meant new school supplies. Pencils. Notebooks. Things like protractors. Cartridge Pens. Fresh paper. The first day’s of school were hot and uncomfortable. They were also filled with hope and the promise of new romance. In Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660.
The second half of the 1970’s wasn’t so good. Vietnam. Nixon. Violence and Protests. AM Radio and Black and White TV was fading. Things started to go bad. Inflation. Gas Lines. Watergate. Urban Decay. Racial Strife. Drugs. Why is the 1970’s suddenly imbued with all this power?
There was a sense, in that time, that things were spinning out of control. The 1970’s were not a fun time economically, especially the second half. Yet there was a sense of innocence. If you were born just after the 1970’s perhaps the decade holds a little more sway in the imagination.
Winter IS Coming
Something to think about listening to the sounds of summer, mourning the passing of the heat and intensity, welcoming the coolness and color of fall but not thinking too hard of the inevitable winter to follow. Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660.
In Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616. March 29th, 2017. Noon Pacific Time. Burning Man 2017 tickets on sale. Already did my ‘burner’ profile. 2 weeks ago waited on line to register for the ticket sale. Third year in a row. All out for tickets to the biggest party in the universe. Out in the Nevada desert. August 27th to September 4th.
Gonna Get My Burning Man Tickets!
Tick tock. One minute to 12 Pacific. Count it down. Here we go. This won’t take long. I won’t have to cancel the big client meeting at three in the central time zone. I’ll get on. Get my tickets. Smooth as silk. A friction free transaction. Forty-Five minutes later I’d canceled the meeting. Oops, tickets sold out. In Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616.
Scalpers
Quick Internet search. Stub Hub has tickets at double the price. Frustrated. Angry. Must have done something wrong. Maybe I should register for the STEP program like last year. Yeah. Or maybe call some ‘burners’ in Chicago. If you ingratiate yourself with the ‘burner’ community you might be able to score some tickets from someone who isn’t going to use theirs.
Jeff Bezos Party of 20? Come right in
Remember. Tickets to burning man in the general sale are 400 plus dollars and nearly 100 dollar for a vehicle pass. There’s a final sale coming up. Those tickets are 1200 dollars. What’s under my skin is the way Burning Man is sold. Over Sold and Under Delivered. Clearly there’s a lot of people who want to go and can’t get tickets. Fix it. Find out about my experience trying to buy tickets in Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616
We’re Hippies. Really rich hippies
This year Burning Man will gross 43 million dollars from ticket sales alone. They say It’s something you need to experience. A city in the desert. A culture of possibility. A network of dreamers and doers. Oh wait that’s the commercial. Reality is you’ve been waiting for 30 minutes for the kid with dreadlocks who can’t remember whether you ordered a strawberry smoothie or an emerald peanut butter…for the third time.
Not Radically Inclusive
Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616. Burning Man still sucks because if you’re wealthy enough to buy a thousand dollar ticket from some ticket reseller, which I am told Burning Man ‘doesn’t endorse’, you’re a ‘burner’. Part of a ‘radically inclusive experience’. Yeah. No. “A citizen of the worldview that is Burning Man. May it be encountered everywhere”. It won’t.
Drive a Maybach Motor Home? Coming out from Santa Rosa for the week to do some acid? Like the old days before, you know, all the corporate stuff. You’re in! Welcome Burners. And all your cash. A unique and distinctive culture awaits people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, but not us working stiffs.
Welcome To The French Revolution
Ten principles for Burning Man: Radical Inclusion, Gifting, Decommodification (which basically means no sponsors), Radical Self Reliance, Radical Self Expression (although any and all media ‘projects’ have to be pre approved), and on and on. It reads like the French Revolution’s ‘Rights of Man’ Declaration. You know the one where the peasants are crushed and everyone ends up living through Thermidor II.
Stupid Rules At The Radical Burning Man Festival
And the rules. Don’t run that noisy generator at night. If your truck is old bring plywood to catch the oil dripping from that nasty crankcase. Watch out for the undercover cops checking up to see that you’re not trafficking. Be careful of your carbon footprint. Oh by the way, Burning Man has a bigger carbon footprint on average than the dirtiest of the dirty polluters. Don’t worry about that though. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
Burning Man is a symbol of the possibilities of Silicon Valley. That’s why I wanted to go. A temporary society built on the ‘No Rules’ Punk and Anarchist pathos. Sadly the Burning Man approach to customers is basically ‘so long suckas’. So yes. Sadly, Burning Man is in fact a symbol of the possibilities of Silicon Valley.
