[music]
Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, how did it go this weekend? We'll end the show today with a post-Thanksgiving call-in for a few minutes. What happened at your Thanksgiving that was very 2021? What kinds of political talk with that certain uncle? What kinds of drama, or awkwardness, or collaboration over different people's different COVID risk tolerance, or any other story from Thanksgiving that is very 2021? Who has one? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.
We have this question, too. This will be a chance for you to tell us if you tried the experiment that our friends at The United States of Anxiety came up with and came on the show about last week before the holiday, the host, Kai Wright, and senior digital producer, producer Kousha Navidar, if you were listening last week, they let us through an experiment here to try to identify our information bubbles. We all entered the word patriot into YouTube, and compare the first results we all got.
The idea being the first few search results would reveal the types of sources you may be more inclined to engage with, and show us something about what kind of media echo chambers we are in, thanks to the algorithms out there, YouTube in this case. Did anybody do it? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I'm sure Kai and Kousha will be dealing with this on The United States of Anxiety, their own show, this Sunday night at six o'clock.
Since they did it with us here, and we had a number of you call in after doing it live, and I did it, and they did it, to see what came up when you searched patriot on YouTube. Some of you got right-wing, Trumpy things. Some of you got New England Patriots football things. Did you do it? If so, what were your results and how do they compare to others around your Thanksgiving table? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.
Anything that happened at your Thanksgiving that was very 2021, COVID precautions and risk tolerance-related, politics conversations-related, or if you did that YouTube experiment, 212-433-WNYC, or anything else, social, food. Any food that was really 2021? Did anybody see Eric Adams get elected and then decide, "I'm going to be a vegan, I'm going to start on Thanksgiving."? 212-433-9692, and we'll take your calls after this.
[music]
Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All right, we've got some very 2021 Thanksgiving story calls coming in. Jennifer in the Bronx. You're on WNYC, Hi, Jennifer. Thanks for calling.
Jennifer: Hey, Brian, I appreciate you and your work. Yes, this is a sad and cautionary tale. My family and extended family get together every Thanksgiving up in Maine. We were all making plans and making sure we were safe, vaccinated, booster shots, a test before coming, all the rest of it, in part, because there are two new people in the family, a baby who's six months and one who's nearly two years old, so not old enough to be vaccinated.
My younger sister, there are four of us siblings, had told us all that she had gotten the one dose J&J vaccine back in April. In general, she was saying that it was her business and she didn't appreciate pressure to get vaccinated, et cetera. In checking around with everybody, in the days and weeks just before Thanksgiving, she was being very cagey.
My older sister, who hosts this gathering every year, actually called her the morning of Thanksgiving, and my younger sister hadn't left her home in Vermont yet, but was about to get in the car, and discovered that in fact, my younger sister had fibbed about getting vaccinated, was completely unvaccinated, and didn't want to wear a mask, and was planning to come into this family gathering with two little ones on that basis.
Brian: Wow, this is like Aaron Rodgers in the family, right?
Jennifer: Exactly.
Brian: When he lied to the world and said, "I have immunity," when he was asked if he was vaccinated. She lied to you about being vaccinated?
Jennifer: She lied. She was only discovered at the last minute and asked not to come. Everybody went on without her, and there's now as you can imagine, all sorts of backlash and family repercussions.
Brian: You fire her from Thanksgiving?
Jennifer: She got fired.
Brian: Jennifer, wow, thank you for that story. I hope everything works out in the family. Jim in Cold Spring, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jim?
Jim: Hi, Brian, how are you doing? Thanks, again, for all the great content in all the years.
Brian: Thank you very much.
Jim: I was enjoying the Thanksgiving dinner, and negotiating the discussion at the table, trying to navigate through any minefields there, but once the Ahmaud Arbery topic came up, that was fine, because there was an agreement when I pointed out that the DA, what the original DA did, and the coercion almost there. Now, I got to preface this by saying I was seated next to my-- [coughs] Excuse me, folks, seated next to my cousin's husband, who is a police officer. Then the reverse side, flip side of the Arbery's conversation was Rittenhouse, and I heard my cousin, the police officer's wife say, "He's coming up to the line."
Brian: What about you?
Jim: In my opinion, that if Rittenhouse was Black, he would have never made it out of Kenosha alive. Then she said, "Now he's crossed the line." That's resonated with me ever since. It was like a--
Brian: Well, how'd you all pull back from that at the Thanksgiving table? How'd you go on after that?
Jim: It was odd, because I just got into a very private conversation with the police officer, my cousin's husband, and we danced around, not talking directly to it, about different types of ammunition that Rittenhouse was using. Unfortunately it then, in the discussion, I said, "Well, you're an ex-Navy guy." I said, "You're a Navy man." His response was I took an oath to the Constitution, which only made it worse for me because inside I'm saying, "I don't want to hear--" Don't tell me you got involved with Oath Keepers which is like, because in my mind, that's an oxymoron. You're an oath breaker.
Brian: Jim, I'm going to leave it there so we can try to get two more in our remaining couple of minutes. Let's see if we can do two 45-second stories. How about-- okay, we're going to make them food stories. I think we have the idea of what was going on. How about that? Lying that she was vaccinated, that one sister, and then got into it over Rittenhouse. These are very 2021 Thanksgiving calls. Sean in Brooklyn. Hi, Sean, we got 30 seconds for you. Go.
Sean: Hi, Brian. Good morning. I woke up in a fog at 4:30 to put the brisket in the oven before getting it onto the grill. Around 11:00 AM, my wife turned the oven up after transferring it out into the barbecue to 350, for the pie, and we suddenly noticed black smoke coming out of the oven, and we realized we had started a grease fire, so I got the fire extinguisher immediately, turned off the oven, put out the fire, and that ensued a two-hour cleanup so that we could get back on track and put Thanksgiving on the table by the evening.
Brian: Wow, but you got back on track and you got Thanksgiving dinner on the table. That's great, instead of all having to go out to Boston Market for Turkey or something like that. Julie in Chatham, you're going to get our last 30 seconds. Hi, Julie.
Julie: Hey, how are you doing? Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukkah. I just returned from Thanksgiving table, very eclectic, in Los Angeles. I went to visit my daughter. We had Korean dishes, we had Indian dishes and then we had a twist on the American table. The best dish were the green beans that were diced up, a little bit of chili heat, that were made by my Indian friend's sister, and still bugging her to give me the recipe because it was amazing. I want all my green beans to be like that, anytime.
Brian: You had a multinational Thanksgiving, culinary-wise.
Julie: I did, it was great. Yes, absolutely.
Brian: Great way to end, Julie. Thank you very much. Thanks for all your calls. Talk to you tomorrow, Brian Lehrer on WNYC.
Copyright © 2021 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.
