It's the weekend

Go out for a beer.

cured vehicle?

Backstory

Is there really any other way to serve food?

Grandma caterpillar putting on lipstick

via

This happened

I caught an airing of The Dolly Sisters while home sick a while back.  It included a musical number of The Dark Town Strutter's Ball sung in french and in black face make up.  To further the bad effect there was a presentation of  a long  Ziegfield-esque line of white girls, in black face smiling at the camera for closeups to show how pretty they were.  I tried to tell a female African-American friend about it the next day but felt I couldn't quite capture how odd it was as(let alone wrong) without actually showing her the number, which I unfortunately cannot find on video to embed here.  I think it was a combination of the make up artist using a dark caramel/gingerbread color  universally on every girl and the fact that each chorus girl was of course wasp white and so had no African-American features.

Of course don't get me started on June and Betty's hairstyles pictured above.

Happy Thanksgiving!

with love from Joan & il duce!

And there's plenty of breast meat to go around!

Time to start prepping....

And if you need some impetus to remain in the kitchen....

I think this calls for an ABC After School Special.  Don't you?

True to life

Who knew the gun show was in town?

WTF???

What are you wearing to Thanksgiving Dinner?

Let's be thankful we're not homeless and not in as dire straits as these:

The movie Johns came up in conversation at the gym yesterday morning, We were discussing the problems of homelessness and  basically trying to stay physically clean on the streets.  I was reminded of  David Arquette's character's obsession with having a weeks worth of clean clothes lined up ahead of you at all times and how much planning it took.

In searching for information on Johns to send to the guys I was talking to, I came across the film below:

THE STORY

On Christmas Day of 2003, a man was found shot on the campus of Johnson & Wales. Propped up against a chain link fence, it was clear his murder was a message to others. But he wasn’t a student; this man was a hustler, one of the many men who sell themselves on the streets of Providence everyday. Despite the gruesome nature of his death, Roy Weber’s murder has never been solved.

More information here

THE STORY

On Christmas Day of 2003, a man was found shot on the campus of Johnson & Wales. Propped up against a chain link fence, it was clear his murder was a message to others. But he wasn’t a student; this man was a hustler, one of the many men who sell themselves on the streets of Providence everyday. Despite the gruesome nature of his death, Roy Weber’s murder has never been solved.

THE PROJECT

There are many men who roam the streets of Providence, Rhode Island who remain unseen – unless you are looking. Invisible delves into the world of male prostitution through interviews with the men who live the life. These men live in two worlds: one at home, where they are fathers and husbands, and one in the adult bookstores, where they are addicts and hustlers. Many find themselves trapped in a cycle of addiction and incarceration that leaves little room for escape. What drives a man toward this lifestyle, and why is this phenomenon so overlooked? Invisible explores these questions by looking at masculinity, sex, poverty, drug abuse, and the city where it all happens: Providence, RI.

Wrapped up in it all is Richard Holcomb, founder of the outreach program Project Weber. A former hustler himself, Rich now finds himself on the same street corners he used to live on, reaching out to those who still sell themselves. Though a town like Providence is known for its progressive social attitude, Rich has found that advocating for health and human services for sex workers is more often met with disgust rather than compassion. Despite this, Rich soldiers on with his outreach bag and the memory of those who were lost to the streets.

The Wampanoag side ot the first Thanksgiving story

While many paintings of “the First Thanksgiving” show a single long table with several Pilgrims and a few Native people, there were actually twice as many Wampanoag people as colonists. It is unlikely that everyone could have been accommodated at one table. Rather, Wampanoag leaders like Massasoit and his advisors were most likely entertained in the home of Plymouth Colony’s governor, William Bradford.

Too often the story of the 1621 Thanksgiving is told from the Pilgrims’ point of view, and when the Wampanoag, who partook in this feast too, are included, it is usually in a brief or distorted way. In search of the Native American perspective, we looked to Plymouth, where the official first Thanksgiving took place and where today the Wampanoag side of the story can be found.

Plimoth Plantation is one of Plymouth’s top attractions and probably the place to go for the first Thanksgiving story. It is a living museum, with its replica 17th century Wampanoag Homesite, a representation of the homesite used by Hobbamock, who served as emissary between the Wampanoag and Pilgrims, and staffed by 23 Native Americans, mostly Wampanoag; 17th century English Village; and the Mayflower II, a replica of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth.

According to a Plimoth Plantation timeline, the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Harbor on December 16, 1620. The Pilgrims settled in an area that was once Patuxet, a Wampanoag village abandoned four years prior after a deadly outbreak of a plague, brought by European traders who first appeared in the area in 1616. The museum’s literature tells that before 1616, the Wampanoag numbered 50,000 to 100,000, occupying 69 villages scattered throughout southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Rhode Island. The plague, however, killed thousands, up to two-thirds, of them. Many also had been captured and sold as slaves.

And yet, when the Wampanoag watched the Mayflower’s passengers come ashore at Patuxet, they did not see them as a threat. “The Wampanoag had seen many ships before,” explained Tim Turner, Cherokee, manager of Plimoth Plantation’s Wampanoag Homesite and co-owner of Native Plymouth Tours. “They had seen traders and fishermen, but they had not seen women and children before. In the Wampanoag ways, they never would have brought their women and children into harm. So, they saw them as a peaceful people for that reason.”

Massasoit Statue Native Plymouth Tours

But they did not greet them right away either. The English, in fact, did not see the Wampanoag that first winter at all, according to Turner. “They saw shadows,” he said. Samoset, a Monhegan from Maine, came to the village on March 16, 1621. The next day, he returned with Tisquantum (Squanto), a Wampanoag who befriended and helped the English that spring, showing them how to plant corn, fish and gather berries and nuts. That March, the Pilgrims entered into a treaty of mutual protection with Ousamequin (Massasoit), the Pokanoket Wampanoag leader.

Brownscombe

Turner said what most people do not know about the first Thanksgiving is that the Wampanoag and Pilgrims did not sit down for a big turkey dinner and it was not an event that the Wampanoag knew about or were invited to in advance. In September/October 1621, the Pilgrims had just harvested their first crops, and they had a good yield. They “sent four men on fowling,” which comes from the one paragraph account by Pilgrim Edward Winslow, one of only two historical sources of this famous harvest feast. Winslow also stated, “we exercised our arms.” “Most historians believe what happened was Massasoit got word that there was a tremendous amount of gun fire coming from the Pilgrim village,” Turner said. “So he thought they were being attacked and he was going to bear aid.”

When the Wampanoag showed up, they were invited to join the Pilgrims in their feast, but there was not enough food to feed the chief and his 90 warriors. “He [Massasoit] sends his men out, and they bring back five deer, which they present to the chief of the English town [William Bradford]. So, there is this whole ceremonial gift-giving, as well. When you give it as a gift, it is more than just food,” said Kathleen Wall, a Colonial Foodways Culinarian at Plimoth Plantation.

The harvest feast lasted for three days. What did they eat? Venison, of course, and Wall said, “Not just a lovely roasted joint of venison, but all the parts of the deer were on the table in who knows how many sorts of ways.” Was there turkey? “Fowl” is mentioned in Winslow’s account, which puts turkey on Wall’s list of possibilities. She also said there probably would have been a variety of seafood and water fowl along with maize bread, pumpkin and other squashes. “It was nothing at all like a modern Thanksgiving,” she said.

While today Thanksgiving is one of our nation’s favorite holidays, it has a far different meaning for many Wampanoag, who now number between 4,000 and 5,000. Turner said, “For the most part, Thanksgiving itself is a day of mourning for Native people, not just Wampanoag people.”

 Plymouth Rock

Plymouth Rock is believed to be where the Mayflower's passengers disembarked in 1620. (Courtesy Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism)

At noon on every Thanksgiving Day, hundreds of Native people from around the country gather at Cole's Hill, which overlooks Plymouth Rock, for the National Day of Mourning. It is an annual tradition started in 1970, when Wampanoag Wamsutta (Frank) James was invited by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to give a speech at an event celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival and then disinvited after the event organizers discovered his speech was one of outrage over the “atrocities” and “broken promises” his people endured.

On the Wampanoag welcoming and having friendly relations with the Pilgrims, James wrote in his undelivered speech: “This action by Massasoit was perhaps our biggest mistake. We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end.”

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/11/22/wampanoag-side-first-thanksgiving-story-64076

And then there's this.....

Post by Everything is Terrible.

And even better! THIS:

So how's your Monday going?

7:53 p.m. last night, with a bottle and a half of wine underway

I would have killed, LITERALLY  killed, for this delivery.

Available!

That's a pretty precise target audience.

Yup

Winter's a comin'