A situation developed at the Temple Beth El Hospital in southern Orange County (CA), when a crazed Steven Colbert broke into an operating room and absconded with Barry Manilow's double hip replacements, at the very moment doctors were about to install them. Colbert was somehow able to get to the roof, and onlookers gasped as he held the synthetic hips over the edge, proclaiming through a megaphone that "If you ever want to see Barry walk again, this Emmy situation damn well better get rectified!"
Doctors in the operating room kept Mr. Manilow sedated, as they frantically sought a pair of back up hips from storage. The man who brought America so many memorable tunes was admirably brave, and did not wake up from his sedated state.
LAPD terror negotiators arrived on the scene and immediately offered to give Mr. Colbert the Emmy that "that woman from Will & Grace stole." Colbert consented, on the grounds that the nameplate on the award be changed to reflect that he had won the "biggest balls in the biz" award, and demanded to be prosecuted and sentenced in a way that would benefit his burgeoning career. Police agreed, the stand-off ended, and doctors proceeded to replace Manilow's hips.
Just in time for him to be nominated for Best Performance in a Prime-Time News Story.
samedi, septembre 16, 2006
lundi, septembre 04, 2006
Classic Rock--and other things everybody with a lick of sense HATES
I don't like classic rock. Actually I hate it. I want all those doped up, long haired, sweaty, over sexed free love left over groupie humpers to disappear. I know, I know, they'll all burn in hell forever, writhing in pain as their own endless masturbatory guitar solos torture their swollen eardrums. But I take no comfort in that.
And I don't like dancing.
I love music. I love exercise. I even love to combine the two. And I've seen a few people who can even hold my attention while they dance. But to stand in a crowd, with or without a partner, and flail, or gyrate, or whatever? It's difficult to think of anything more pointless. I still remember the last time I went "clubbing." There I was, surrounded by people dancing--flashing lights, driving beat, the scent of sex clinging to the fake smoke--and suddenly I just stopped. I couldn't figure out what was fun about it. I couldn't justify my presence in that meat market. After a few motionless minutes on the dance floor, I walked off, and never went back. Since then, I've danced, but only under duress. And I hate the people who guilt or jilt me into it every second. It is NOT fun. If you think it is, you're wrong. Enjoy it. But you're wrong.
I don't generally like concerts, either. Occasionally an intimate evening with someone I've admired for years pops up and I'll . . . On second thought: No. It doesn't. Concerts are loud, sweaty, merchandise ridden mob fests. They disgust me. And they should disgust you. Don't give me this crap about somebody having all this great energy or sounding better live. Nobody sounds better live, or they wouldn't bother releasing a studio album. And all that "energy" you talk about is really just jumping around like an idiot three-year-old with adult genetalia that pump caffeinated meth into the brain. I saw Iggy Pop on a DVD, and I swear I almost shot the television. What a truly revolting and infantile display. If I wanted to pay to watch someone have a seizure, I'd give my money to a real epileptic. Iggy Pop is a dog on speed with a microphone. He comes to you with his tongue out, turns you around, bends you over and violates you. And you give him money for it.
It's starting to sound like I have something against gyration. I assure you that isn't the case. And now that I think about it, I'll have to give you my first Tori Amos concert, because it was just her and a piano, no screaming teens and I swear she looked me right in the eye twice and the second time was really intimate. I'll bet she remembers me.
I might also concede They Might Be Giants, because I laughed enough to forget that I was exchanging sweat with a stranger through a thirty dollar T-shirt.
And I don't understand the attraction of the tropics. I love the ocean. I love snorkeling, scuba, the whole bit. But I'm not impressed by palm trees and balmy temperatures. The beach has very little to offer. Who cares about soaking in the damn sun? Maybe if I was born there, or had to work there, I could appreciate it. But going out of my way to vacation in some tropical paradise? Forget it. I love the climate where I am, that's why I live here.
Which brings me to cruises. Everybody talks about a cruise like it's the Holy Grail of vacations. I say go ahead and cram that oversized sardine can full of people who somehow like the idea of overeating, dancing the night away to the "musical stylings" of someone so talented they couldn't get a gig on dry land, tipping flunkies until your kid's college fund is dry and sleeping in a closet. Just leave me the hell out of it. I watched The Love Boat. It was nightmarish. Take your cruise and shove it. Choke on it. Whatever. Just don't talk to me about it.
I also hate protests. Hate them. It is my sincere belief that any crowd that begins a sentence with "Hey Hey! Ho Ho!" and finishes it with "Blah blah blah blah [something that rhymes with 'Ho']!" should be mowed down with a firehose. I'd turn the water on. I MIGHT admire someone who held up a sign that said: "I'm not smart or influential enough to play a real role in our representative republic! I'm politically impotent! But I'm angry and I wanted to share that with random passers by!" But even that is not worth broadcasting, is it? To hell with all of them.
The reader should know that I am a young man. A young man in super hip low slung pants made for women. A happy Gen X-er with a lust for life.
I am not a curmudgeon.
Some things just get my dander up.
And I don't like dancing.
I love music. I love exercise. I even love to combine the two. And I've seen a few people who can even hold my attention while they dance. But to stand in a crowd, with or without a partner, and flail, or gyrate, or whatever? It's difficult to think of anything more pointless. I still remember the last time I went "clubbing." There I was, surrounded by people dancing--flashing lights, driving beat, the scent of sex clinging to the fake smoke--and suddenly I just stopped. I couldn't figure out what was fun about it. I couldn't justify my presence in that meat market. After a few motionless minutes on the dance floor, I walked off, and never went back. Since then, I've danced, but only under duress. And I hate the people who guilt or jilt me into it every second. It is NOT fun. If you think it is, you're wrong. Enjoy it. But you're wrong.
I don't generally like concerts, either. Occasionally an intimate evening with someone I've admired for years pops up and I'll . . . On second thought: No. It doesn't. Concerts are loud, sweaty, merchandise ridden mob fests. They disgust me. And they should disgust you. Don't give me this crap about somebody having all this great energy or sounding better live. Nobody sounds better live, or they wouldn't bother releasing a studio album. And all that "energy" you talk about is really just jumping around like an idiot three-year-old with adult genetalia that pump caffeinated meth into the brain. I saw Iggy Pop on a DVD, and I swear I almost shot the television. What a truly revolting and infantile display. If I wanted to pay to watch someone have a seizure, I'd give my money to a real epileptic. Iggy Pop is a dog on speed with a microphone. He comes to you with his tongue out, turns you around, bends you over and violates you. And you give him money for it.
It's starting to sound like I have something against gyration. I assure you that isn't the case. And now that I think about it, I'll have to give you my first Tori Amos concert, because it was just her and a piano, no screaming teens and I swear she looked me right in the eye twice and the second time was really intimate. I'll bet she remembers me.
I might also concede They Might Be Giants, because I laughed enough to forget that I was exchanging sweat with a stranger through a thirty dollar T-shirt.
And I don't understand the attraction of the tropics. I love the ocean. I love snorkeling, scuba, the whole bit. But I'm not impressed by palm trees and balmy temperatures. The beach has very little to offer. Who cares about soaking in the damn sun? Maybe if I was born there, or had to work there, I could appreciate it. But going out of my way to vacation in some tropical paradise? Forget it. I love the climate where I am, that's why I live here.
Which brings me to cruises. Everybody talks about a cruise like it's the Holy Grail of vacations. I say go ahead and cram that oversized sardine can full of people who somehow like the idea of overeating, dancing the night away to the "musical stylings" of someone so talented they couldn't get a gig on dry land, tipping flunkies until your kid's college fund is dry and sleeping in a closet. Just leave me the hell out of it. I watched The Love Boat. It was nightmarish. Take your cruise and shove it. Choke on it. Whatever. Just don't talk to me about it.
I also hate protests. Hate them. It is my sincere belief that any crowd that begins a sentence with "Hey Hey! Ho Ho!" and finishes it with "Blah blah blah blah [something that rhymes with 'Ho']!" should be mowed down with a firehose. I'd turn the water on. I MIGHT admire someone who held up a sign that said: "I'm not smart or influential enough to play a real role in our representative republic! I'm politically impotent! But I'm angry and I wanted to share that with random passers by!" But even that is not worth broadcasting, is it? To hell with all of them.
The reader should know that I am a young man. A young man in super hip low slung pants made for women. A happy Gen X-er with a lust for life.
I am not a curmudgeon.
Some things just get my dander up.
jeudi, juin 22, 2006
An Open Dialogue
Scientist 1: Global Warming is obviously the greatest threat to humanity since Nuclear Winter.
Scientist 2: Which never happened. And never could have happened. And was a giant pseudo-scientific farce designed to propagandize people into political reactionism.
Scientist 1: You just spoke out in favor of Global Warming! I hate you, goddamn selfish conservative anti-environment/pro-pollution idustrial capitalist bastard. Nothing you say has any value, and when you speak at Universities, people should throw pies on you to illustrate that your ridiculous ideas do not even merit an intellectual response.
Scientist 2: I believe that global warming is a reality.
Scientist 1: Oh, then welcome to the fold. I have some lobbyist friends who can get government funding for your research.
Scientist 2: Global warming has been happening slowly and steadily for the last 8,000 years. It caused the renaissance. It ended the most recent Ice Age. It seems to be part and parcel of a planetary climate system in which the only constant is change. The question is, what can we calmly do to better manage our role in a system so variable and complex as nature? There is ample evidence that in some ways, things are getting better, not worse. Which is NOT to say we shouldn't seek improvements and minimize our impact. I just really don't think panic or hate speech is the answer.
Scientist 1: [frustrated sigh] You are blinded by your hatred of Mother Earth! You have your head in the sand. Global Warming is a reality; and until you wake up and smell the greenhouse gasses, the planet will continue to sink into oblivion. We will all drown, or starve, or freeze, and with our dying breath we will gasp: "Why did we not stop all this senseless, hateful consumerism?"
Scientist 2: In the ONE scientific part of what you just said, you actually quoted what I just said! Please forgive my attempts to have a rational scientific discussion, I was distracted by my argument. I realize there's no sex appeal in calm rationality. . . Let's see . . . um . . . You came here to collect your exhorbitant appearance fee in a fossile fuel burning private jet, you hypocritical son of a bitch!
Scientist 1: Oh, sure--right to the character assassination! You hate mongers are all the same--
Scientist 2: What about the Private Jet?
Scientist 1: You pander to your ignorant, red neck, homophobic political base--
Scientist 2: What about the jet?
Scientist 1: And you sit there with your Big Mac and your SUV while the rainforest falls all around you!
Scientist 2: Answer the question!
Scientist 1: I mourn for the Earth. I hurt inside. I spend my waking hours going from state to state--
Scientist 2: IN A PRIVATE JET!
Scientist 1: getting the message out. And at night I wet my pillow with tears for the destruction we humans have wrought! We've cut down all the trees! We've poisoned the oceans! We are destroying the future! Why do you hate my children?
Scientist 2: Listen, you tree hugging, dope smoking, hippie whack job: If your tofu breath hasn't sent the ozone layer running for cover by now, then nothing ever will. And let me tell you something . . . I . . . uh . .
Scientist 1: What--c'mon, you were doing really well there. Don't stop now.
Scientist 2: I'm sorry, I just can't get into it. I'm trying, I really am, I just . . . I don't drive an SUV. I get fifty miles per gallon in my diesel Jetta with fuel my friend makes from soybeans.
Scientist 1: Wow. My Subaru outback only gets 20 miles to the galon. But there's a lot of room for bumper stickers, and it's still better than your gigantic SUV.
Scientist 2: I just said, I don't have an SUV.
Scientist 1: Of course you do, and so do half the Democrat senators I support on my popular vitriolic blog. But it just isn't right demonizing people who care.
Scientist 2: It just isn't right demonizing people who care.
Scientist1: And you obviously don't care.
Scientist 2: You obviously don't care.
Scientist 1: Stop copying me.
Scientist 2: Stop copying me.
Scientist 1: Seriously, don't.
Scientist 2: Seriously d--
Scientist 1: KNOCK IT OFF! Why do you have to be so damn childish?
Scientist 2: Sorry. I was just trying to be antagonistic. I keep feeling this urge to say something detached and analytical, and I get all muddled. I guess I'm just old school. I was only bought by the conservatives a couple of weeks ago. Until then I was a real scientist.
Scientist 1: Hey, it's alright. I was new at this once, too. We come from different places. I want to save the world; you still want to analyze it. But we're scienticians now, commentators. You know, pundits. Propaganda is the only middle ground we have.
Scientist 2: And it's "the only way we can BOTH appear victorious with our extremist constituencies." I know. But what if I don't want to be "victorious?" What if I just want to keep science from being railroaded by politicians?
Scientist 1: That's crazy talk and you know it. Politics is the only way to get money from a caretaker government. And sensationalism is the--
Scientist 2: "only way to create the ignorant public outcry that pushes politicians to throw money around in a desperate attempt to keep their jobs." I've read the manual. [takes a deep breath and sighs] O.K. Can we start over at the beginning?
Scientist 1: Fine, but we have to hurry it up. Someone is talking about putting up a windfarm in the harbor, and I have to put a stop to it. It's really gonna mess up my view and drive property values down. Ready? Here we go: All the evidence, without exception, indicates very clearly that Global Warming, the latest tool of Crooked Capitalist Bastards, is going to destroy the Earth TONIGHT after the Eleven O'clock news!
Scientist 2: WRONG! It is a complete myth foisted upon environmentalist whacko lapdogs who need to feel like they're involved in some higher cause because their Godless lifestyle leaves them feeling empty! You won't be happy until the government tells everybody what color to paint their mandatory Yugo! Well, let me tell you something, mister long haired, dreadlocked, left wing . . .
[Fade to black.]
Scientist 2: Which never happened. And never could have happened. And was a giant pseudo-scientific farce designed to propagandize people into political reactionism.
Scientist 1: You just spoke out in favor of Global Warming! I hate you, goddamn selfish conservative anti-environment/pro-pollution idustrial capitalist bastard. Nothing you say has any value, and when you speak at Universities, people should throw pies on you to illustrate that your ridiculous ideas do not even merit an intellectual response.
Scientist 2: I believe that global warming is a reality.
Scientist 1: Oh, then welcome to the fold. I have some lobbyist friends who can get government funding for your research.
Scientist 2: Global warming has been happening slowly and steadily for the last 8,000 years. It caused the renaissance. It ended the most recent Ice Age. It seems to be part and parcel of a planetary climate system in which the only constant is change. The question is, what can we calmly do to better manage our role in a system so variable and complex as nature? There is ample evidence that in some ways, things are getting better, not worse. Which is NOT to say we shouldn't seek improvements and minimize our impact. I just really don't think panic or hate speech is the answer.
Scientist 1: [frustrated sigh] You are blinded by your hatred of Mother Earth! You have your head in the sand. Global Warming is a reality; and until you wake up and smell the greenhouse gasses, the planet will continue to sink into oblivion. We will all drown, or starve, or freeze, and with our dying breath we will gasp: "Why did we not stop all this senseless, hateful consumerism?"
Scientist 2: In the ONE scientific part of what you just said, you actually quoted what I just said! Please forgive my attempts to have a rational scientific discussion, I was distracted by my argument. I realize there's no sex appeal in calm rationality. . . Let's see . . . um . . . You came here to collect your exhorbitant appearance fee in a fossile fuel burning private jet, you hypocritical son of a bitch!
Scientist 1: Oh, sure--right to the character assassination! You hate mongers are all the same--
Scientist 2: What about the Private Jet?
Scientist 1: You pander to your ignorant, red neck, homophobic political base--
Scientist 2: What about the jet?
Scientist 1: And you sit there with your Big Mac and your SUV while the rainforest falls all around you!
Scientist 2: Answer the question!
Scientist 1: I mourn for the Earth. I hurt inside. I spend my waking hours going from state to state--
Scientist 2: IN A PRIVATE JET!
Scientist 1: getting the message out. And at night I wet my pillow with tears for the destruction we humans have wrought! We've cut down all the trees! We've poisoned the oceans! We are destroying the future! Why do you hate my children?
Scientist 2: Listen, you tree hugging, dope smoking, hippie whack job: If your tofu breath hasn't sent the ozone layer running for cover by now, then nothing ever will. And let me tell you something . . . I . . . uh . .
Scientist 1: What--c'mon, you were doing really well there. Don't stop now.
Scientist 2: I'm sorry, I just can't get into it. I'm trying, I really am, I just . . . I don't drive an SUV. I get fifty miles per gallon in my diesel Jetta with fuel my friend makes from soybeans.
Scientist 1: Wow. My Subaru outback only gets 20 miles to the galon. But there's a lot of room for bumper stickers, and it's still better than your gigantic SUV.
Scientist 2: I just said, I don't have an SUV.
Scientist 1: Of course you do, and so do half the Democrat senators I support on my popular vitriolic blog. But it just isn't right demonizing people who care.
Scientist 2: It just isn't right demonizing people who care.
Scientist1: And you obviously don't care.
Scientist 2: You obviously don't care.
Scientist 1: Stop copying me.
Scientist 2: Stop copying me.
Scientist 1: Seriously, don't.
Scientist 2: Seriously d--
Scientist 1: KNOCK IT OFF! Why do you have to be so damn childish?
Scientist 2: Sorry. I was just trying to be antagonistic. I keep feeling this urge to say something detached and analytical, and I get all muddled. I guess I'm just old school. I was only bought by the conservatives a couple of weeks ago. Until then I was a real scientist.
Scientist 1: Hey, it's alright. I was new at this once, too. We come from different places. I want to save the world; you still want to analyze it. But we're scienticians now, commentators. You know, pundits. Propaganda is the only middle ground we have.
Scientist 2: And it's "the only way we can BOTH appear victorious with our extremist constituencies." I know. But what if I don't want to be "victorious?" What if I just want to keep science from being railroaded by politicians?
Scientist 1: That's crazy talk and you know it. Politics is the only way to get money from a caretaker government. And sensationalism is the--
Scientist 2: "only way to create the ignorant public outcry that pushes politicians to throw money around in a desperate attempt to keep their jobs." I've read the manual. [takes a deep breath and sighs] O.K. Can we start over at the beginning?
Scientist 1: Fine, but we have to hurry it up. Someone is talking about putting up a windfarm in the harbor, and I have to put a stop to it. It's really gonna mess up my view and drive property values down. Ready? Here we go: All the evidence, without exception, indicates very clearly that Global Warming, the latest tool of Crooked Capitalist Bastards, is going to destroy the Earth TONIGHT after the Eleven O'clock news!
Scientist 2: WRONG! It is a complete myth foisted upon environmentalist whacko lapdogs who need to feel like they're involved in some higher cause because their Godless lifestyle leaves them feeling empty! You won't be happy until the government tells everybody what color to paint their mandatory Yugo! Well, let me tell you something, mister long haired, dreadlocked, left wing . . .
[Fade to black.]
lundi, mai 22, 2006
Transcript of Original Speech on "Immigration"
My fellow Americans: I come before you tonight to tear this whole immigration charade a new one. First of all, can we drop the whole "immigrant" thing? We don't have an immigration problem. The system of legal immigration is as backed up, as bloated, and as constipated as it is supposed to be. As with all things bureaucratic, it is designed to be just broken enough to justify more money in the next budget. What we do have a problem with, is illegal immigration. And the problem is, you don't get it.
I know you don't, because 75% of you are unhappy with the millions of illegals pouring over an unsecured border, which means that 25% of you think that's just fine, and since 75 plus 25 equals one hundred, clearly, one hundred percent of you have your heads so far up your derrieres that you can't tell a fish taco from a hole in the wall.
Let me explain. You see, as President, I have a unique perspective that 100% of you do not have. I occupy a singular postition, riding a fence that most of you don't have to ride. For instance, you either don't know, or you have forgotten that as president I am beholden to the worldwide communist movement, and I am therefore dedicated to making sure that our nation is flooded with uneducated, unskilled, underprivileged scofflaws. It's the only way to strangle the life out of those who control the means of production, cripple our government services, and bring our system of representative government and free enterprise to its knees.
But I am also in the breast pocket of Big Business, and am therefore dedicated to the task of importing an ever growing army of laborers who are willing to work for insanely low wages, and without the benefit of union membership, workman's comp and disability protection, or a health plan.
Beyond my obligations to seemingly oppositional and ultimately mysterious forces, I care. I care about the mexican people. I believe we must not punish people for wanting to participate in building up, not to mention the destruction, of our great republic. In my humble opinion we must reward the raw tenacity of anyone willing to cross the dark night of uncertainty and drop a baby on the hot sand of the Arizona desert. I believe that we must reward the ingenuity of anyone willing to subvert the system in a way that gives millionaires one more thing they don't have to pay for, and activists one more thing they can scream about.
For those of you who believe that Mexico is passively taking back land that we took by force, I congratulate you on your historical insight. I have it on good authority that the nation of Mexico has been surreptitiously acting all along to return the land to the Native Americans they took it from, at which point they will pack up and go home . . . to Spain, which they will then abandon to the barbarian tribes who took the land from the Romans who took it from them.
So I hereby propose to do what every president and every politician on both sides of the aisle have done since the days of Julius Cesar: I will appear in every way to care, and appear in certain ways to act, and will in the mean time trust America to understand that doing anything substantive is absolutely out of the question.
I know you don't, because 75% of you are unhappy with the millions of illegals pouring over an unsecured border, which means that 25% of you think that's just fine, and since 75 plus 25 equals one hundred, clearly, one hundred percent of you have your heads so far up your derrieres that you can't tell a fish taco from a hole in the wall.
Let me explain. You see, as President, I have a unique perspective that 100% of you do not have. I occupy a singular postition, riding a fence that most of you don't have to ride. For instance, you either don't know, or you have forgotten that as president I am beholden to the worldwide communist movement, and I am therefore dedicated to making sure that our nation is flooded with uneducated, unskilled, underprivileged scofflaws. It's the only way to strangle the life out of those who control the means of production, cripple our government services, and bring our system of representative government and free enterprise to its knees.
But I am also in the breast pocket of Big Business, and am therefore dedicated to the task of importing an ever growing army of laborers who are willing to work for insanely low wages, and without the benefit of union membership, workman's comp and disability protection, or a health plan.
Beyond my obligations to seemingly oppositional and ultimately mysterious forces, I care. I care about the mexican people. I believe we must not punish people for wanting to participate in building up, not to mention the destruction, of our great republic. In my humble opinion we must reward the raw tenacity of anyone willing to cross the dark night of uncertainty and drop a baby on the hot sand of the Arizona desert. I believe that we must reward the ingenuity of anyone willing to subvert the system in a way that gives millionaires one more thing they don't have to pay for, and activists one more thing they can scream about.
For those of you who believe that Mexico is passively taking back land that we took by force, I congratulate you on your historical insight. I have it on good authority that the nation of Mexico has been surreptitiously acting all along to return the land to the Native Americans they took it from, at which point they will pack up and go home . . . to Spain, which they will then abandon to the barbarian tribes who took the land from the Romans who took it from them.
So I hereby propose to do what every president and every politician on both sides of the aisle have done since the days of Julius Cesar: I will appear in every way to care, and appear in certain ways to act, and will in the mean time trust America to understand that doing anything substantive is absolutely out of the question.
samedi, mai 20, 2006
Please see below
A post entitled: "Dear Mr. Baldwin" has appeared below "Sense and Sensitivity." I don't know why it is out of order.
vendredi, avril 28, 2006
Sense and Sensitivity
I remember scoffing--scoffing with extreme prejudice--at the concept of Sensitivity Training.
But I might need it.
Never mind even that I believe with absolute, unshakable faith in a glorious resurrection. And forget about my nasty habit of enjoying life enough to feel like kissing it goodbye wouldn't be a soul shattering tragedy. I've just always been OK with Death. Really OK.
Which is really not OK in the eyes of people who want to make a big deal about it for whatever reason. (The reason is usually melodrama, hystrionics, or ignorance--but pointing that out will get you slapped with the old "Judgemental Ass" label. For whatever reason.) So I keep my opinion mostly to myself. People don't want to hear it. Never mind that I believe in meeting people where they are.
Recently, when a co-worker's distant relation passed on, even as I refused to sink to the maudlin level of the proletariat and spout the usual meaningless condolences, I did refrain from spouting anything beyond an earnest: "He was lucky to have you in his life." (I highly recomend this approach. It obviates acrimony and contention by changing the subject away from Death. As an added bonus, I really meant it.) And as I turned to walk away and savor the sweetness of dodging a bullet, she murmured, "It was just so sudden."
Obviously, she was looking to tangle. She needed the drama, I guess. And when someone throws down the gauntlet like that, you cannot with impunity ignore it. Your honor is at stake.
"Hold on a minute," I said. "What do you mean, 'it was just so sudden?'"
"I mean, it was unexpected."
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't have heard you correctly. Did you just say that the only absolute eventuality since the dawn of time was unexpected?"
"I didn't--"
"Did you miss the fact that 100% of the people who have been born on this earth have died, most of them at random junctures or in coincidental circumstances?"
"It wasn't that--"
"How DARE YOU? How dare you claim the responsibilities and trappings of adulthood and slather them all over with the sickly sweet frosting of infantile expectations! How dare you come in here asking to exchange the basest emotional childishness for sympathy! I mean COME ON!"
Naturally, she was speechless. "Probably can't find the words to thank me," I was thinking. I had just offered her exactly the hystrionics she had been seeking. Or if not, at least I had given her some simple facts that should have, in my mind, taken the edge off her so-called loss.
My lawyers have instructed me not to describe in any way what happened next. But suffice it to say, I was wrong.
But I might need it.
Never mind even that I believe with absolute, unshakable faith in a glorious resurrection. And forget about my nasty habit of enjoying life enough to feel like kissing it goodbye wouldn't be a soul shattering tragedy. I've just always been OK with Death. Really OK.
Which is really not OK in the eyes of people who want to make a big deal about it for whatever reason. (The reason is usually melodrama, hystrionics, or ignorance--but pointing that out will get you slapped with the old "Judgemental Ass" label. For whatever reason.) So I keep my opinion mostly to myself. People don't want to hear it. Never mind that I believe in meeting people where they are.
Recently, when a co-worker's distant relation passed on, even as I refused to sink to the maudlin level of the proletariat and spout the usual meaningless condolences, I did refrain from spouting anything beyond an earnest: "He was lucky to have you in his life." (I highly recomend this approach. It obviates acrimony and contention by changing the subject away from Death. As an added bonus, I really meant it.) And as I turned to walk away and savor the sweetness of dodging a bullet, she murmured, "It was just so sudden."
Obviously, she was looking to tangle. She needed the drama, I guess. And when someone throws down the gauntlet like that, you cannot with impunity ignore it. Your honor is at stake.
"Hold on a minute," I said. "What do you mean, 'it was just so sudden?'"
"I mean, it was unexpected."
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't have heard you correctly. Did you just say that the only absolute eventuality since the dawn of time was unexpected?"
"I didn't--"
"Did you miss the fact that 100% of the people who have been born on this earth have died, most of them at random junctures or in coincidental circumstances?"
"It wasn't that--"
"How DARE YOU? How dare you claim the responsibilities and trappings of adulthood and slather them all over with the sickly sweet frosting of infantile expectations! How dare you come in here asking to exchange the basest emotional childishness for sympathy! I mean COME ON!"
Naturally, she was speechless. "Probably can't find the words to thank me," I was thinking. I had just offered her exactly the hystrionics she had been seeking. Or if not, at least I had given her some simple facts that should have, in my mind, taken the edge off her so-called loss.
My lawyers have instructed me not to describe in any way what happened next. But suffice it to say, I was wrong.
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