Happy No Year
As I sit here, sipping a droll and pricey Chenin Blanc, watching the clock wind down to the inevitable series of cheque-writing errors to come, I am given pause to reflect on how yet another odd year has managed to pass under the bridge of my stifled existence as I listen to music apparently inappropriate for my aged ears, such as Lorde and my contemporaries, The Offspring. It’s an eclectic mix, whatever the hell that actually means anymore. Dido, too.
I was born in an odd year, during a hurricane, I was told, although that chronicle of my coming- to-be was not exact. This year, I believe I finally achieved the unusual goal of every misanthrope, that is, to do away with every lingering meaningful human connection. But a misanthrope is didactic in his approach to humankind. The real reason for the resentment and derision that arises from observation, for which contact is a prerequisite, is to effect change. By this, a misanthrope is ultimately optimistic, like a lion tamer who hopes that house cats can be taught to jump through hoops of flame. But humans are much like house cats and resist the challenge to become some version of better. Poor kitties, lonely misanthrope. After all, to stretch a naught-catchy metaphor to a nearly-unusable limit, cats generally dislike fire, not only because of the singe-worthy properties of combustion, but also because it’s too much work. Unlike the characters in As Good As It Gets, most folk just plain don’t want to be bothered with ‘complicated’ personalities. “Which of these is not like the other?” children are asked, and this lesson extends to the narrow parameters by which humans are furrowed into their mundane collective existence in which they fulfill, dutifully, their roles in a putative and figurative ‘Matrix’.
Groucho Marx once quipped, as he was given to do, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s just too dark to read.” In an age where ‘friends’ are just so many pixel-ed representations on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google +, it becomes crystal clear who is what. Those tools are delusions as entertainment. Real friends bring you soup and go to SlopRite with you, just because. A had a real friend once, blew it, meant to go back there, but Thomas Wolfe knew from whence it was, and wherce, for that matter.
All the regret in the world doesn’t change the fact that a card-carrying derider of humankind is tapping quietly on a keyboard not feet away from a sleeping dog instead of carousing with loud people slugging Polish vodka and Finnish herring or stamping feet sorely mad at the bitter cold in Times Square or hoping someone can drive me home after that last set at the Mohawk, ’cause, God, I think I overdid it. I may be a misanthrope, but like Frankenstein’s monster, it’s not because I really hate humans, it’s because I’m misunderstood. (Insert Animals track here.)
So, because a new dawn (god, I did not mean to use that word) is upon us, I make the following resolution. I will be more like you other pitiful humans, resolute in my blindness to our collective sufferable faults and foibles, plowing headfirst into a tomorrow without any consideration for the likeliest of scenarios. Yes, I will be forthright in my . . . oh, bullpoop. Ain’t gonna happen.
Like Jesus, I love you all. I may seem occupied at the moment, but keep praying. I’ll be at your apartment before you know it. Maybe we’ll have some herring. But that toilet will get plunged. Groucho Marx also said, “Those are my principles and if you don’t like them, well, I have others.”