Morning y’all! If you’re a student, I hope your Thanksgiving break provided some rest, and if you’re not a student, I hope your day off work was swell! We’ve got a cool issue today, talking about some thanksgiving food, talking to my mother, talkimg about some music, y’know the usual. Hope you all have a great start to your week! I’m super thankful for everyone that likes to read the writings of our little group of writers!

Monkey Monday #9, gobbling in…

Alright we are SO back with another tier list. It’s Thanksgiving, so naturally, Thanksgiving Food Tier List! I will only be ranking the foods that are either a) frequently at our family’s gathering, or b) foods that are common enough that I feel comfortable putting them on a tier list, even if they don’t make frequent appearances at our Thanksgiving dinner.

Here are our tiers: From bottom to top we have: agony, blank space to affirm my hate for the agony tier, food I generally don’t like, good food, yummy food, and food that I FIEND for.

(I also want to give a shoutout to my Mom’s homemade green stuff, which is basically a combo of marshmallows, pistachio pudding, whipping cream, pineapple, and I don’t know what else. It would probably go in the “good” tier, but it wasn’t on the list template.)

agony tier:

Stuffing - Actually one of the worst foods I’ve ever had. No idea what it even is, but I hate the smell, the texture, the name, the look, and most importantly, the taste. This food has so much scary aura for me that I won’t even try it anymore. I gave it another shot a couple years ago, and I still hated it. Die.

tier of purgatory:

Again, nothing actually goes here. I just want to show how much worse stuffing is from everything else.

generally won’t have tier:

Asparagus - I love veggies, but asparagus really is one of the worst (sorry Archibald and Junior, y’all are chill). And it eating it makes your pee stink, what’s up with that?

Brown Gravy - Not a big gravy guy, sorry gravy gremlins. Don’t have much to say, I just don’t put it on anything.

Cranberry Sauce - Similar to gravy, except I like cranberry sauce a little bit more. But yeah, I don’t put it on anything, it’s too tart for me.

Biscuits - I want to clarify that I like biscuits! They aren’t bad at all! But we’ve got another Cookies & Cream/HFS situation, where there are far, far better bread options, so there’s no reason for me to ever want a biscuit.

good tier:

Peas - Now we move into the good food tier! Peas are underrated. They are great in mixed veggies, and I think they stand pretty strong on their own. Unfortunately, they are in competition with two vegetable GOATs, so they can’t go any higher. Don’t judge them by their lumpy greenness, give peas a try!

Green Beans - Also another fantastic vegetable! Same thing with peas, except they aren’t underrated. Great veggie, no shame if you would have put them higher!

Baked Potato - Yet again, another great veggie! Sadly, I think baked potatoes are slightly worse than their mashed counterpart, but we will get to that later.

yum! tier

Pecan Pie - One of the three pies included in this list (which was sadly missing cherry pie). I’m putting them all next to each other, because I like them all! But as I get older, I can’t stuff myself with as much sugar as I used to. Pie is great! Shoutout Pie!

Apple Pie - Slightly better than pecan, especially if there is ice cream involved.

Pumpkin Pie - The original thanksgiving pie. Used to be far and away my favorite pie, but sadly, I find myself enjoying pumpkin pie less and less each year. Still super yum! Just not in the glory it once was.

Turkey - Turkey turkey turkey, where do I begin with you. The face of thanksgiving, even though it more than likely wasn’t even in the first thanksgiving. Not even the best meat, and awfully unreliable. Normally, our family’s turkey is pretty dry and room temperature, so it’s usually not my favorite. But I have tasted great turkey before, and I know of it’s potential beauty. But yeah, chicken is better than turkey in every way. Next.

Crescent Rolls - Wayyyyyyy better than biscuits. Crescent rolls SLAP. But we never really have them at our thanksgiving. Yet again, they are one-upped by a better bread, so I can’t put them any higher.

Gluttony tier:

Mac & Cheese - Okay now we are getting to the good stuff. Macaroni & Cheese, I will be honest, sometimes sucks. But when it’s good, it’s GOOD good. I put it at the bottom of the tier due to it’s inconsistency. Shoutout Kwik Trip macaroni!

Mashed Potatoes - The better form of the dinner potato, mashed potatoes are so good. I know others like it with gravy, but I just gobble them straight up, no gravy required. Mashed potatoes are consistently a hit, especially if they have bits of the skin in there (am I a psychopath?)

Hawaiian Rolls - This is the best bread, period. Even better than crescent rolls (7 times out of 10). I can eat countless of these bad boys. I can eat them cold, I can eat them warm, I can eat them with dry, or with butter. They are just incredible.

Corn - Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm so good I love corn mmmmmmmmm my favorite veggie just so good. I’m counting corn on the cob as corn here, because just corn wasn’t an option, but both versions are incredible. I want to give a special shoutout to that yummy, heavenly, fluffy, sweet, cream sweet corn soup I had in mexico that one time. I think that is genuinely the tastiest thing I’ve ever had. Shoutout Mexico.

Cornbread - Maybe the dark horse of this list, and I don’t know how confident I am putting it above the others, but who cares, today I’m feeling CORNBREAD! Probably because it was absent from my thanksgiving dinner earlier today, and I’m really missing it. Cornbread is so hype. Put some honey on it? So good. I choke on it every time though, and it’s super messy so thats -points. Anyways yeah anything in the top 5 could be rotated around.

That’s all.

-Nate

Alright y’all I got a new one for you. No band name commences as much confidence, as much bravado, as much aura, as “The Band.” After gaining traction from touring 40 straight shows with Bob Dylan, they would go on to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, among other accolades, yet nobody I talk to really knows who these guys are.

But this band ROCKS. These guys capture the fun, 60s/70s vibe of Bob Dylan, in a more, concise, band-like manner. Leaning more on their fun jamming than story-telling (though they have that too.) Songs like The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Up On Cripple Creek, Jawbone, are all so awesome, I be dancing and wiggling to them whenever they come on.

These guys are just pure, fun acoustic folk rock jams. Give it a shot!

-Nate

So after lots of procrastination, I finally gave in and listened to Purple Rain, the soundtrack album by Prince. My mom kept telling me I’d love Prince, and a lot of artists I love apparently have huge Prince influence, so I figured it was about time I gave it a listen.

Now, growing up I had a radio in my room that was always tuned to the 80’s radio, so I grew up listening to the big songs from this album: Let’s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, and of course, Purple Rain. But the rest of the songs were new to me!

Booyah this thing is pretty good! I liked all of the songs, sans the very uh, intimate track Darling Nikki, that one was a little too sensual for me. But every other song I was quite fond of! I was stunned by how amazing When Doves Cry is, as growing up with this song I never realized just how crazy it was, so upon revisiting it for the first time in a while I was blown away.

Soooo yeah, Prince is pretty cool, rest in peace. Good album.

Favorite Songs: Lets Go Crazy, Take Me With U, When Doves Cry

-Nate

We got back-to-back haircuts in these last two issues! Business is picking up, maybe I should start charging my clients... but I digress. This week we got my young man Ed. We aren’t born of the same mother, but this man is truly my lil brother. Let’s take a look at this mangled, beautiful mess on his head:

He’s truly got some beautiful hair, if only he took care of it instead of letting it get all tangled and knotted.

We were originally going to buzz it, but he changed his mind last second, which I was cool with because I need more practice with longer hair. We consulted for a couple minutes, making sure we were on the same page. He ended up wanting a little taper fade on the sides and back, but also leaving a lot of length on the back “so it can still flow”. So I went to work.

Started with de-bulking the sides and back with scissors, so I could have a clearer vision of where I was setting my guidelines. Then I went to work with my clippers, making sure to follow my guidelines like a boss, just as I’ve been practicing.

Then I went to work on the top and back with my scissors, with him constantly switching from “do what you want bro I don’t care, whatever you do it will grow back” to “WHY IS SO MUCH HAIR FALLING.” I asked if he wanted to go any shorter on the back, and he said no. Finished with going along the top with some thinning scissors, just to get some of the thickness under control, and then we were done!

He was super happy in the end, so naturally I was too! Shoutout Ed, love you bro <3

-Nate