Many Angry Thanks to "The Indy Thinker..."

Which saw fit to fuel the rage! See my angry rants at http://paper.li/irf01/1305612770.

Dammit.

Testing Positive...

You know how it is in college.

You're not careful. You drink., You expose yourself to a lot of people, in numerous meaningless encounters.

Well sometime in late 1986—I tested positive for the GOP virus.

It’s got a lot of names – some of them are clinical: Republicanism and conservatism, for example. But there are a lot of unpleasant names for it too, hurtful ones. We’re right-wingers, reactionaries. We’re bigots, we’re narrow-minded.

I had my first outbreak of GOP in my sophomore year. (I'd felt some stings before, but kept my mouth shut. Somehow anti-Americanism is equivalent to intellectualism, on campus, and I hadn't wished to appear dim.)

Some French Canadian girl I was going out with, a poly-sci major, said about our president “Your Reagan is such a clown. He’s like a dancing bear in a circus. We sat in bars back in Montreal [she pronounced it ‘Mon-Ray-Ahl] and turn him on for amusement.”

I did what we Yanks do when some foreigner talks like this: all of a sudden, I became Texan.

“Izzat so?” said I. “Know what we think of your president?”

“No.”

“We don’t. Who in Hell is he, anyway?”

“Typical of an American!” she spat. “You know nothing [pronounced ‘nussing’] about the world. I’ve met Americans who think Canada is a state!”

“We wouldn’t have you. America stands for something. We do stuff like liberate deathcamps and send in our Army Corp of Engineers after a natural disaster. We’re that tough uncle who’s a lot more adventurous than your father. Canada’s that finger-wagging maiden aunt who corrects your manners all the goddamned time and doesn’t want you to sit on the furniture.

"And another reason you couldn't be a state, is because your armed forces couldn't break an egg. The National Guard from our smallest state, which is Rhode Island, could knock the Canadian military on its ass. Hell the crossing guards from Rhode Island could do that.

"And that, Arlette, is how the cow ate the cabbage."

Too bad, I liked her. Until she opened her goddamned mouth.

GOP turned out to be just like an STD. A few women – a very few – didn’t mind at all. But mostofthem dumped me then and there.

“Don’t tell them!” said a GOP-positive friend of mine. I brooded that over. That would make life a whole lot easier for me. But I concluded—your partners have a right to know. So—round about the third date, when I was beginning to get invested in the relationship, I’d tell them. Usually and no matter how well we were getting along, I was discarded without a second thought. 

So instead of waiting, I was completely open about it. I’d tell them on a first date—or even before.

I met a charming woman, who seemed charmed by me, ‘round about when Bush was running against John Kerry. She was kicky, she was smart. She was elegant and charming and good humored and professional and warm. She had said somewhere in the conversation that she was volunteering for the Kerry campaign. She also said that when it came to dating, she’d tolerated smokers, tolerated guys who were shorter than her, overweight guys, uneducated guys, but there was one dealbreaker. Guess what it was. “You know, I really like you,” she said somewhere during the talk.

“I like you too,” I said, and meant it. “But,it seems that your prime mover is your politics. You call yourself a liberal – I call myself a conservative. Frankly, I like being with the opposite of myself, I’d be bored out of my skull with a woman who thinks precisely as I do – then what in Hell would we talk about?

“Besides which – I value how a woman treats a dog far more than how she votes. I value a woman who treats people who disagree with her decently far more than I value a woman who agrees with me completely. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” she told me. “But I just wouldn’t be able to get past it. We’d enjoy each other, but it would keep coming up. Does that make sense?”

“It does to you,” I said. “Do you imagine that we sit around telling ethnic jokes and trying to figure out how to get the vote back from women?”

“Yes,” she said.

Nonsense. There’s a minority subset like that. Reactionary is one word for them, jerk-off is another. They don’t define us, any more than eco-terrorists who spike trees define the left. We on the right don’t all own a locker full of guns, and you on the left aren’t always stuffing flowers in them. 

Sara (the liberal whom I eventually married) and I went out on a first date to a Cajun restaurant. We discovered quickly that we were not quote unquote compatible, in terms of politics. To this day she recalls the conversation – eating gumbo and disagreeing on presidents and foreign policy – when I said, “You haven’t changed my mind. but you’ve given me a lot to think about.” What I meant was, “I promise I WILL think about it,” and I did. And she in turn, thought about what I said.

Sara talked about her exes, every one of which suited her perfectly and politically. But they were twerps. The guy who opposed ROTC on campus also smoked his intelligence away on weed. The guy who accused her of holding him back as an actor is now doing community theatre, and badly.

So at last I can speak aloud about my GOP. I’ve learned to control my outbreaks, with a bit of tact and maturity. Not every snarky comment by a Canadian or German graduate student must be met with anger, and opponents need not be enemies.

Did you know, a lot of famous people are GOP positive. Robert Duvall, who’s been married for years! GOP Positive. And who would you rather have a beer with – Tom Selleck, who's GOP Positive, or Tim Fricking’ Robins? Kurt Schilling, one of the heroes of the Red Sox first penant win in decades, is positive for GOP. And Dennis Hopper who was in that counter-culture classic Easy Rider? Surprise. You can keep Rosie O’Doughnuts, we’ve got Sandra Bullock.

Short of it; I had to meet a really open-minded woman to accept my condition. We won’t have children and we cancel each other’s vote in every election. But Hell. If it weren’t for her kind—we’d all be my kind and that would be dull.

What in Hell would we talk about?

Quick Quiz for Teenagers who Wear These Shirts:

1. What was Che's last name?
2. Seriously - I've told you his first name ("Che," a nickname, he was born Ernesto); what was his last name?
3. Che was __________________'s second in command.
4. Che was a __________________ by education.
5. Che did/did not recommend rape as an effective weapon of war when consulting in the Congo.

You don't know the answer to any of these five simple questions?* 

Well then - take off that goddamned T-Shirt that you bought at the Army/Navy store. You, having been sent by your parents to a college two states away from them to major in something purposeless, have positively nothing in common with Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.

But don't feel bad. Che himself was no Che. If he had been so goddamned magnificent, you'd know his name. But you know Ronald Reagan's last name. Che was like John Kennedy who had more prestige dead than he really deserved.

So you think Cuba's some kind of paradise, do you? Ever met a Cuban? Notice the gold frame around his gray and dead tooth? That's nationalized dentistry. Notice his missing finger? That's nationalized health: don't bother to sew up the wound and reset the bone when you can just cut it off. Notice what he drives? He doesn't. And those cars that are still running in Cuba have no windshields or wipers. (Those Russians and Chinese who funded his revolutions sent bullets but no cars; they screwed off when the revolution was over.) Notice where the Cuban's kids go to college? They don't, ever, if that Cuban is a restaurant cashier; they will if that Cuban is a surgeon. Cuban equality. But why should that kid aspire to be a surgeon? If he works as a cashier, he'll be in the 0% tax bracket. If he works in the medical field, he'll be in the take-everything-you-earn tax bracket and live in the same tenement as the cashier. More Cuban equality.

Michael Moore in "Sicko," one of his anti-American propaganda flicks, portrayed Cuba as some advanced healthcare paradise which does things better than the US. With that idiotic smirk on his face, he and a boatload of US veterans lay anchor off Cuba's shore and begged over a bullhorn to be let in for that magnificent treatment so readily and freely available to Cubans.

Wrong again, Tubbins. Cuba is famous for "medical tourism." Show up with a wad of cash and you can have an enviable set of dentures or a vagina in place of male genitalia. Do not, for a minute, believe that the average Cuban gets that level of healthcare.

Whatever Che envisioned when he donned a beret and stared with soulful eyes into some camera, to be immortalized on T-shirts, we do not know. But we know that what he thought didn't turn out especially well. He and Bin Laden would have liked each other, I think. Murder; it's moral. Guevara was a brutal torturer; our guys made some Iraqis wear panties on their heads and it's a scandal.

You, Mr. Guevara, had nothing to tell the world about decency or fair play. But you took a hell of a picture. Once, in your life.


* 1. Guevara
2. Still Guevara, dumb-ass. I bet you think Malcolm's real last name was X.
3. Castro.
4. Dentist.
5. He did. Che thought rape was an effective weapon that blinded the enemy with rage, thus dragging them out of hiding.

Dear Cathy: Order a Salad, For God's Sake!

A random annoyance today. They come that way, for An Angry Man. 

The Angry Man was reading his comics online, and finds a couple of "classic strips," meaning the strip has been retired but the old strips are in circulation. This is just fine, because that's how An Angry Man reads "Tarzan." But it also means that this twerpy strip is still in circulation. 

This strip debuted in 1976 (look it up kids - your parents were kids and the country had turned 200) and ended in 2011, when cartoonist Cathy Guisewite retired. That's 34 years of ice cream, fat thighs, and chasing some nerk named Irving. 

Here's what I don't get. I must have heard a dozen women over the years identify with "Cathy." Or with Ally MacBeal or with the nutty one from "Friends" (don't know her name, never sat through a full episode), or those vexatious harpies from "Sex and the City," or "Sex in the City," whichever in Hell one it is.

What's great about us guys is that, generally, we identify with strength. We watch a James Bond flick, a John Wayne flick, an end-of-the-world flick in which some unassuming guy becomes a complete hero when faced with privation and marauding hoards of bikers and say "That would be me." It wouldn't, but still, we identify with strength.

Tarzan, Mad Max, The Ringo Kid in "Stagecoach," Shane - that's who we take for inspiration. OK, there was Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, but Kramden was a stand-up guy who provided for his family and maintained good friendships. He might have been a little downtrodden, but he was always strong.

And along the way, sports heroes. Did the American Male ever identify with the underdog? Hell no. You had to be a DiMaggio to get our attention, a true champion. The occasional weasel like Jake LaMotta who threw fights and hit his wife, or Dennis Rodman who played well but destroyed the tenor of what was an elegant sport, well, them we can do without, just fine.

Sure we've had a few missteps along the way, as entertainment goes. That icky Belushi period of the 70s and 80s when we identified with sloth. But baseball, football, James Bond and Dirty Harry still plowed along.

So Cathy Guisewite (author of "Cathy"), you retired, PLEASE retire the strip. It's anti-feminist. And Cathy (the character), enough whining about chunky thighs. Quit trying on bathing suits and stretching them out to the point that they're unsellable and decry the unfairness of it all. Order a salad, and leave Irving the Hell alone. He wants no part of an absurdly one-sided relationship with a perpetual whiner. You know what you call a whiny guy with a weakness for food? Undesirable, and the reverse is also true.

Gotta go. "Tarzan" starts a new story arc today, something about poachers and Watusi. Cool.

An Angry Man's Birthday, Part III: Friend

Today happens to be my best pal's birthday, just two days after my own. A guy named Bill. We were born the same year ('63), less than 50 miles apart. We met when we were 16 in high school, skinny as rakes, and we're pals still.

Sixteen is a formative age. Sure, our parents raised us, but I've come to believe we raised each other, kind of. We had our first upchuck-drunk in one another's presence. Crashed on each other's bedroom floors should Saturday night go long, bailed each other out when one of our cars croaked and curfew was looming and whichever one of us it was, was out with a girl he wasn't supposed to be out with by edict of her parents. I learned some of what I know of forgiveness and charity from Bill. What did he learn from me? Damned if I know - I hope it was of equal value. 

Our friendship flamed and flickered but never went out. In our mid-to-late 20s, with Bill in California at grad school and me in grad school and then the work force, months would go by without talking, but we'd talk when something got desperate. Something was going wrong with a woman, a job, or we were just finding adulthood overwhelming. We became foxhole friends who turned to each only at the worst of times. The typical phone call went like this:

     "Hey, man - just calling to say 'hi'."

     "Never mind that - what's wrong?"

Whatever it was, either way, we had all the time in the world for each other, and all the understanding, forgiveness and empathy it was possible to muster. I forget what jerky thing I did or said or otherwise screwed up in one of our calls, but will never forget how my pal sighed, struggled for some way to tell me that I WASN'T a jackass, found it simply impossible, and at last settled upon this:

     "Ya know - maybe that wasn't the best way to handle things. But to some degree - you've got to be who you are."

Yeah.

Friendships go two ways, and at times I've felt like a tick on his hide saying "What a team we make!" I was never the easiest friend to have (angry guys aren't the easiest of friends), but this friendship has endured. I truly, truly hope that he gets as much out of it as I do.

Happy Birthday, old pal. It's a day I'm grateful for.


Guys like Clooney and Pitt have "bromances." Guys like Frank and Dean, and my friend Bill and I, are pals.

An Angry Man's Birthday, Part II: Wife

"Wife" has become a quaint word, but it's a wonderful word. Neck-and-neck with "mother," it's the most wonderful thing to call a woman. It says - "You're everything I wanted, and all I've got."

I like being a "husband." Like having a wife - mine in particular.

A husband earns money, dresses up for his darlin', takes her to her favorite place, adores her, thinks she's pretty on their first date, lovely on their second, and exquisite and awe-inspiring as time goes on. That's what a husband does - he doesn't force himself to do any of that. If he has to force himself, then, he married the wrong woman.

What does a wife do? I'm not judging, saying "a wife should be this," I'm going on the experience of having a magnificent wife. She treats her husband like, out of 3 billion possibles, he was the best and only choice. Treats his birthday like Christmas and New Year's combined, like the day is a fireworks event.

She looks like your perfect fit. My darlin' and I have been compared to Duke Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in "The Quiet Man." If some Hollywood casting director were casting husband and wife, we'd have been cast.

She draws upon her own creativity and talents and drive to do amazing things, then gives her husband all the credit for inspiring her.

She loves the dog she and her husband bought together and even though he's only four years old, her heart is already breaking at the thought of losing him.

She thinks her husband's faults are a riot (e.g., crankiness), until those faults become injurious. Then she talks to her husband not like a child, but like a partner in life, about tobacco, whiskey, whatever it may be, asking, what does this do to us? How does it come between us? How does it come between you and everything you want?


Finally - she endures when she should be indulged. Suffers when she should surfeit (it's an old word, look it up, means "having plenty"), compliments when she has every right in the world to complain.

Doesn't mean An Angry Man shouldn't be angry. Good thing there's laws against vengeance and vigilantism, else, I'd be one busy guy. My first order of business would be to tour the United States looking up a succession of wankers who weren't worthy of my darlin', knocking on their doors, and saying, "Hey! Remember S___? She's got a message for you, and I'm it." Then seriously, furiously, mercilessly, delivering that message.

So no - having just the right woman in your life doesn't mean An Angry Man should start smelling daisies. But it means there's respite from that anger. Every day, An Angry Man can for a time shut off his ticked-off-itude, smile and laugh, and be grateful for something.

And on his birthday? Selfsame woman, who makes every day magnificent and worth living and worth fighting for, puts on that killer black dress and gives him a cake. As if the day before wasn't fabulous already. She's more happy about my birthday than I am.

So - Happy Birthday, my cheeky darlin'. It's my birthday, not yours, but you make it a holiday.

An Angry Man's Birthday, Part I: Mom.

Think of your birth day - not your Birthday, that once a year anniversary, but, the day you were born.

We were each of us, welcomed into the world with screams and blood. By someone who was willing to endure that kind of agony.

Later in life, maybe, she failed to come to your school plays, didn't like your new girlfriend/boyfriend, hated the clothes you chose for yourself. But I'm convinced that if you could, like Scrooge, leave your own body and see your past, especially your birth, you'd gain a new respect. And you'd do a hell of a lot more for her in summer camp than make her a bookmark and a hell of a lot more for her on Mother's Day than take her to Denny's.

But, c'mon - in your teens, you must have wasted your time on some real twerps; your momma knew that. She may have forbid you to see that new person, may have let you see that person knowing full well that you'd learn a lesson, but either way - did she not care about what happened to you? No. One momma wished to spare you the harm, the other wished you the harm (like she wished you the chicken pox) so you'd have done with that unavoidable life lesson and move on. She knew it could not be avoided. Both cared.

(Sure there are toxic mothers. Family court is full of them. But they're not the usual. Most mothers mean nothing but good, The Angry Man believes.)

My momma?

I'm not much easier on September 16, 2011 than I was on that same date in 1963. I don't cry as much but I complain as much and I still can't sleep the night through. I'm also still easily distracted by shiny, jingly things and believe every body function is cause for celebration. Not much progress.

Still - I've surrendered one infantile value judgment, and that is, that my momma lives to serve me. Scream and be served! Weep, and you shall receive! Mom taught me otherwise when I started sniveling at the age of 9 because I wanted a newt from the fishstore. She told me that sniveling would ruin my chances of ever getting that newt, and that lesson was a far bigger gift than the newt itself. (I behaved as instructed, earned the newt, and it died overnight.)

If, now that I'm newly 48, my momma dreads my phone calls of misery and angst and doom, she doesn't show it. I do try to spare her here and there; if I have a tragedy on a Friday I may wait all weekend to tell her. Other times, when I need to hear the most tolerant and comforting voice I've ever known , I can't help but call. She's got caller-ID now, but has never used it. That's my momma.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Tell me what law SAYS I gotta like Oprah?

Years ago, in the 1980s, I actually liked Oprah. Know why?

'Cuz she was slapping Phil Donahue around in the ratings. For you younger readers, look him up. He was a creampuff who defined the 1980s 'sensitive male.' He proclaimed to have a well-developed 'feminine side' and declared himself unafraid to cry. That passed for a man, back in the '80s. Phil was the original mid-day confessional show with oddballs before Oprah rose out of Chicago and ate Phil's lunch. She was better than him, and a lot less full of it. She was then, anyhow.

But alas - like that Kudzu grass that invaded the southern states - she never ceased to grow. And this (see photo) is what we have wrought. Oprah's Lifeclass. 

Y'know - Oprah - you promised you were going away. Hell, you threw yourself a year-long goodbye party telling the world you were going away. Instead, you ended your show and started your own goddamned network and recruit ninnies like Rosie O'Doughnuts to staff it. Yik.

A dear friend of my wife was scandalized when I referred to Oprah as a "narcissistic bison." I was sincerely unhappy to have upset a decent person, but I stand by my conviction.

What's not to like about Oprah, you ask?

Well, replies An Angry Man - do you want the whole list, or just the Top Ten?! The Angry Man will restrict himself to five.

#1. She lies. Oprah has claimed over time to be descended of slaves. That is a glorious history, frankly - her success from a slave heritage? That's a powerful statement. She has also claimed to be 100% Zulu. The Zulu is perhaps the mightiest, most dangerous tribe in Africa. Their kings Chaka and Cetewayo each schooled the British about how to treat the locals. But - the Zulu are a South African tribe which was never enslaved by anyone, American or European. So Oprah - pick a glory. You can't have both. But you are Oprah and you Will Not Be Denied.

#2: She lies, some more. Oprah on her show told a young addict that she, in her 20s, was also a crack addict. "I relate to your story so much because of what Patrice just said about being introduced to drugs by men in your life." Izzat so? Oprah was born in 1954. Crack was not conceived until the mid 80's - about when Oprah was burgeoning as a talk show host. Put it all together, and whatever is interesting, Oprah's got a story; so An Angry Man has to wonder if all the personal tragedies she's trumpeted over the years were not just for effect. 

#3: "Oprah's Big Give." A 2008 reality show in which people competed to be the most charitable, for the chance to win $1 million. The winner would donate $.5 million, and pocket the other $.5 million. I am not making this up.

#4: "East of Eden (Oprah's Book Club) [Hardcover]." Actual tagline from Amazon sales of Steinbeck's classic. At some point, Oprah declared Steinbeck to be good; as if we didn't know that already. The Angry Man has read every word that Steinbeck ever wrote. Respectfully, after the Pulitzer, an Oprah endorsement is a bit of a come-down. Especially after she endorsed James Frey's made-up memoir A Million Little Pieces, and after Jonathan Franzen whose The Corrections was already a New York Times Bestseller, told Oprah to keep her endorsement. Franzen declined to have what he called "that poker chip" (the Oprah Book Club insignia) ugly-ing up the paperback editions of The Corrections.

#5: Goodbye! I'm leaving! Seriously! This is it! That year-long goodbye party she threw herself on her own show was absolutely absurd. She invited back Frey (whom she beneficently forgave) and Franzen (who, in a most gentlemanly fashion, went easy on her). She toured the world, plunking her self-important girth down in the center of the Sydney Opera House, for instance. And as An Angry Man said before, she capped off her farewell by announcing the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Contrast her exit with that of Johnny Carson. His last show in May of 1992 was his last show. His last guest (actually, the night before) was Bette Midler. Johnny signed off by saying, in his final minutes on air, "I can only tell you that it has been an honor and a privilege to come into your homes all these years and entertain you."

And that is why Oprah Winfrey is completely unqualified to wash Johnny Carson's jockstrap in the sink. For Johnny, the privilege was his. For Oprah, the honor and the privilege is entirely yours.

She seems to think.

What if you sincerely want God to damn something?

“God Damn It,” we cry on occasion. (The Angry Man declares it frequently.)  We are taught during religious study, and while we are still in short pants, “Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of The Lord, Thy God, in Vain.” 

And I don’t. When I cry “God Damn It,” I am sincerely asking a boon.

We pray for wealth, for love, for fertility. We pray to find lost heirlooms. We cast our eyes Heaven-ward and ask a boon.  

Sometimes God does damn, else, there would be no Lucifer and Hell (if we believe in it) would be empty of souls. God shuns, else, The Book of Genesis would have ended happily. Instead, it ended with two people who were left to their own devices. Not damned, but not protected, either.

 

Sometimes, as amateur theologians are fond of pointing out, God says “no.” The budget bishops of the online journal “Heartlight”  put it this way: 

     "We do not always know what this purpose is,

     but we can affirm THAT it is;
     and because of what God has revealed to us of Himself,
     we know that His purpose is all-loving and all-wise.”

So it’s up to Him (and he’s a he) whether or not he grants it.

In GB Shaw’s play “Saint Joan,” the French general Dunois declares to Joan of Arc:

     God is no man’s daily drudge, and no maid’s either.

     If you are worthy of it He will sometimes 

     snatch you out of the jaws of death

     and set you on your feet again; but that is all:

     once on your feet you must fight 

     with all your might and all your craft.

     For He has to be fair to your enemy too.”

So, you may cry "God damn you!" and your enemy may cry for salvation. Contradictory, and so God is left with an impossible dilemma; two prayers, one of which must be denied. You may ask God to Damn It (be It what it may), but cannot depend on it. We cannot depend upon deities for much, really. An old Islamic aphorism goes, "Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel."  

Still, there is no harm in asking. 

Perhaps it would be less offensive if it were formed as a prayer. Every hymn or prayer we say seems to have been written by some fusty old German, so I guess The Angry Man is as qualified as them to write one and here’s my attempt:

     “Father, in thy Omniscience and Omnipotence,

     Wouldst thou in Thy wisdom,
     Pass Thy most dread judgment upon [name  item/person].
     I believe that [It/he/she]  is unworthy of Thy most powerful protections, 
     Of the joys of Thy love.
     Of a place by Thy side. 
     The Judgment is Thine,
     But the request is mine own.
     I submit [It/he/she] to thy judgment,
     And await on bended knee, Thy boon.

     Amen.”

And wait to see.

What is "Ask an Angry Man?"

What in Hell does it sound like?

You want the advice of some old lady like Ann Landers, why waste time writing to one? Just mind your own damned business and in time, some old dowager will wander by and tell you how to live.

Or ask me. I promise, I will NOT tell you to turn the other cheek, or that a frown is a smile turned upside down. A frown is a sign that you are ticked off. Welcome to my world.

That, my friends, is Ask an Angry Man.

And while we're talking - it's up to me to decide if we're friends. Dig?