Happy Festivus For the Rest of Us!

Happy Festivus. I have to admit that as a journalist I cringe at

your mistakes in the Festivus Item. First, My book, Festivus: The

Holiday for the Rest of Us came out BEFORE Mr. O'Keefe's. Second, I am not his father, not related in any way. My very funny and entertaining book, which has a foreword (note correct spelling of the word FOREWORD) by Jerry Stiller, is about how people in the real world are actually celebrating Festivus.

To learn more facts, you can watch this short film, certainly also

worth a Gothamist link.

http://www.vidlit.com/festivus

An interview with me can be found on your sister site SFist at

http://www.sfist.com/archives/2005/12/10/sfist_interviews_allen_salkin.php

One excerpt from SFist:

Favorite Festivus memory?

Arriving at The Festivus House in Oxford, Ohio and finding Josh

Fawley, 21, sitting alone on a pleather couch playing a video game in the late afternoon. The pole in the front lawn had blown over in a storm weeks before and no one had the gumption to fix it. The scene summed up college in the US better than any Hollywood movie ever does.

You STILL haven't put my comment up here even though you promise in the item that you have.

Jen, Thanks for listening, but you still haven't fixed it properly. My book came out first, a month BEFORE the other book. And I really do think you should note the vidlit in the main body. Nor is my earlier comment showing here as promised. The grievances are piling up!

http://www.vidlit.com/festivus

Long SFist interview with me:

http://www.sfist.com/archives/2005/12/10/sfist_interviews_allen_salkin.php

One excerpt from SFist:

Favorite Festivus memory?

Arriving at The Festivus House in Oxford, Ohio and finding Josh Fawley, 21, sitting alone on a pleather couch playing a video game in the late afternoon. The pole in the front lawn had blown over in a storm weeks before and no one had the gumption to fix it. The scene summed up college in the US better than any Hollywood movie ever

does.

Thanks, Brian.

And Allen, please accept my apology - I've updated the post. And I'm not sure what you're talking about re: a post about the book this month, but okay!

Folks, As a journalist I cringe at these loose facts. First, My book, Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us came out before Mr. O'Keefe's. Second, I am not his father. My very funny and entertaining book is about how people in the real world are actually celebrating Festivus. An interview with me can be found on your sister site SFist at http://www.sfist.com/archives/2005/12/10/sfist_interviews_allen_salkin.php . Thus, my grievances are with you, Gothamist, for not running the feature about my book that you had said in November you were going to run! Happy Festivus to you.

If you want to learn the facts without having to actually read words, you can watch this short film:

http://www.vidlit.com/festivus

--Allen Salkin

allen salkin is not daniel o'keefe's father. he's a journalist who wrote an article on festivus last year for the times, in which he credits daniel o'keefe's father dan as the inventor: http://www.cbrsd.org/nessacus/festivus/nytimes/19FEST.html

Do we need to make a pilgrimage to H&H Bagels as part of our Festivus celebration?

Note: The H&H on Seinfeld looks nothing like the real H&H (either on Broadway across from Zabars or on 46th Street near 12th Avenue), but Seinfeld is one of the few shows set, but not filmed in NYC that I forgive.

As for grievances the TWU and MTA are #1 and #2 for this year.

The TWU for being greedy bastards

The MTA for wasting money on their stupid "Holiday Bonus" while stations crumble.

boingboing had a post this week about festivus poles for sale

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/12/21/festivus_poles_for_s.html