Some of Buddy Holly, the working folly / Good Golly Miss Molly and boats / Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi Ballet / Jump back in the alley, add nanny goats

Today, you may have noticed, is Thanksgiving. I will step away from the issues involving Puritans, Christopher Columbus, and native Americans for the nonce solely because, go figure, Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks.

I’ve never seen more that distracts us from this reasonable goal. The United Nations released a major report on Earth’s environment and where it’s going (spoiler alert: to hell in a plastic bag), while many of us feast today many more go hungry, and we remain stuck with a sociopathic, petulant five-year old brat of a president who acts as though he just broke the neighbor’s picture window. I’m not thankful for any of that, but in the spirit of the holiday I am taking this day off from Bughouse Square duty.

We all need to take a breath, together.

Which, by the way, is the meaning of the word “conspiracy.”

A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it / You’re welcome, we can spare it, yellow socks / Too short to be haughty, too nutty to be naughty / Going on forty, no electric shocks

I think those who tell us to appreciate the small wonders of life are absolutely right. Yeah, things suck – they’ve always sucked, they always will suck. But as the 18-wheeler of life comes barreling down the hill aiming to crush us all, it passes by all sorts of stuff that entice us to get out of its way.

You know the stuff. The closeness of a loved one. Music that reaches into your soul. A brilliantly prepared meal. An inspiring turn of a phrase. The panorama of nature.

Humor. Especially humor. Without it, life is tedious. The survival skill of humor is irony, and, damn, we need buckets of that.

Little things to be sure, but they quickly aggregate into the bright side of life. A balance. A purpose. A reason not to feast on that cyanide pie.

Take your mum to Paris, lighting up the chalice / Wee Willy Harris / Bantu Stephen Biko, listening to Rico / Harpo, Groucho, Chico

Because the Gold Mind works in ways both mysterious and frustrating, often when the world looks most bleak my brain reaches for Ian Dury. A great performer and singer, Dury was a founding fatherfucker of British punk / new wave / whatever with a great sense of perspective. He knew a lot about personal tragedy who, at seven years old, got nailed in the 1949 polio epidemic and the left side of his body kind of shriveled up. Dury succumbed to cancer in 2000; his life became the bio-flick Sex and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll, starring Andy Serkis.

Yes, yes, dear, dear / perhaps next year / Or maybe even never / In which case…

The moral of this story – there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful. They’re here for the taking. Save your sanity and embrace the good.

• • • • •

Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3), written by Ian Dury, Chas Jankel, Davey Payne and the Blockheads.