A Thanksgiving Prayer Your In-Laws Will Never Forget

So you're sitting around a cornucopia of Thanksgiving delight: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sides, salads, and three pies your mother-in-law bought at Sam's Club and put in metal dishes so they look homemade. It's a smorgasbord and your arteries are hardening just thinking about it.

Everyone is anxious to eat and a little buzzed from two early afternoon glasses of wine when someone (that pie-faking mother-in-law, most likely) suggests that you, of all people, recite grace before the big meal.

What do you do? Play it straight with few simple words of thanks? Nah, too predictable. Go for a laugh by praising the baby Jesus like Ricky Bobby? No way, it'll go right over everyone's heads.

No, the best way to make an impression on those in-laws is to quote the greatest author St. Louis ever produced: William S. Burroughs.

Here is the heroin-shooting, queer-as-folk, beat genius' charming ode to Thanksgiving. Start memorizing it now.

Info on the poem and the origins of this video, after the jump...
The video is taken from Gus Van Sant's short film "Thanksgiving Prayer," aptly described on IMDb as "An indictment ballad of all the different political groups in America" that anyone who has ever felt "bloated and full of self-loathing after Thanksgiving dinner," will appreciate.

Happy holidays, eh?

Burroughs composed the poem as part of the chapbook "Tornado Ally." It's full title is "Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986."

Now go pass out on the couch watching football.