My daughter asked me one day if I was born cranky or if I had acquired the gift as a result of growing old. Her question inspired me to write my latest book, A Curmudgeon Before My Time. I've not yet found a publisher for the book, which is par for the course. But I have hope that I can one day spread my aches, pains, and downright crabbiness to the rest of the world with a NY Times bestseller.
So, why am I curmudgeonly, grumpy, irritable, bad-tempered, and cranky? Part of it has to do with my sparkling personality. Part of it I had drilled into me by well-meaning parents and teachers. Most of it, however, comes because the world is not a perfect place in which to live.
To give you a treat, I've compiled my top Ten Things I Hate About You. Well, not you personally and certainly not to be confused with the movie by the same name, starring that one famous - dead - actor. These are ten of my pet peeves that characterize the messed up world we live in.
10) Hollywood
Hollywood is a vast wasteland of unrequited talent and lackluster life. I mean the place, not the industry. I lived in LA for seven too many years and found Hollywood proper to be the least likely place I would ever live. LA was bad enough with riots, earthquakes, crime, shootings, traffic, and a black hole that sucked out my life and the lives of my family. (The black hole was located on the UCLA campus.) My family took to calling LA the Vampire City, and we didn't mean the good, "shiny" kind of vampire like Edward Cullen. Hollywood is like LA on steroids. Add to that the movie industry that produces, for the most part, vacuous drivel, and also activist actors who think that just because they make a gazillion more dollars than any of the rest of the world, they should express their opinions about fairness, and you have one shining example of Dumb and Dumber.
9) Microsoft Vista
I'm not a big fan of Microsoft. I never have been. In fact, I belong to the Church of the One True Computer. (Apple is not just an operating system. It's a religion.) I do, however, have to live in a world crippled by Windows computers. So I had high hopes when Microsoft released its newest operating system, Vista. My hopes were dashed, like chickens thrown against a brick wall, when I actually started using Vista. Now I avoid it like I do Hollywood.
8) Federalized Education
Out of all of the things GW Bush got accused of, in his tenure as president of the United States, out of all the problems his presidency held, no one seems to have noticed the passing of the worst bit of legislation in US history: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind). We've had serious problems in our educational system in the US for a long time. This act takes all of the problems inherited by activist "educators" for 30 years, wacko teaching theories, "feel good" education and "collaborative" learning, and then hides all this garbage under the rug of "teacher accountability." For more curmudgeonly views on this topic, check out my rant against students called School Is Dead.
7) Duplicitous Politicians
And by duplicitous, I mean lying. PJ O'Rourke once said: "Politicians are wonderful people as long as they stay away from things they don't understand, such as working for a living." And Walter Simons once wrote: "Politicians are mostly people who have too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers." One recent poster child of politicians is Jerry Brown, former governor of California and now the California Attorney General. When Prop 8 passed this past year in California, he at first said he would defend the choice of the people. But on reflection, no doubt mirrored by his desire for reelection, he filed a brief with the California Supreme Court arguing that the Court should not accept the vote of the people. Few have pointed out that his filing was not acting in accord with his job as Attorney General. For more on this, read "Way to Go Jerry!"
6) Planned Parenthood
I dislike Planned Parenthood. I dislike its reason for being. I dislike its abuse of power. I dislike its political agenda. I dislike its abuse of public monies. Seriously, can anyone argue (with a straight face) that Planned Parenthood isn't anything but a business that makes its living by selling abortions? As a baby killing factory, it is unequaled in world history. As anything but an advocate of abortion, it fails every test. And it has the audacity to hide its evil agenda behind the Holy Writ of Women's Rights.
5) Keanu Reeves
Seriously. This guy single-handedly has reduced the cumulative IQ of the people of the world by eighteen and one quarter percent. For him to get so many roles in movies, he is either the most brilliant actor in the world or he has the most brilliant agent in the world. I suspect the latter.
4) Reality TV
If Keanu is responsible for reducing the combined scale weight of the human brain, reality TV shows are responsible for the brain's total demise. How can any American hope to remain unscathed under the spell of such shows as The Bachelor, For Love or Money, Boy Meets Boy, Temptation Island or Farmer Wants a Wife? These shows portray empty and ofttimes abusive shadows of human behavior, encouraging the bad, tasteless, ill-mannered, and empty-headed attitudes of America's finest. Who's worse, the dysfunctional participants or the viewers who watch them? And to think, all of these people are allowed to vote....
3) The Gay Agenda
I know. I know. Simply everyone insists that there is no such thing as the gay agenda. Years ago, Steve Martin starred in one of those vacuous Hollywood films I warned you about, entitled The Jerk. (I'm sorry to say that I suffered through about a half hour of it once.) The only thing remotely funny in the film was the scene with Steve Martin leaving his family and insisting he didn't need anything. For those of you spared this film, I've quoted it here:
Well I'm gonna to go then. And I don't need any of this. I don't need this stuff, and I don't need you. I don't need anything except this.
[picks up an ashtray] And that's it and that's the only thing I need, is this. I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that's all I need. And that's all I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one - I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that's all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.
Here's the crux of the gay agenda. They insist that all they want is to be left alone. Well, to be left alone and have tax breaks. To be left alone, have tax breaks and medical privileges. To be left alone, have tax breaks, medical privileges and be allowed to marry. To be left alone, have tax breaks, medical privileges, be allowed to marry and openly teach gay sex in school....
This is just like Steve Martin's agenda, only not funny.
2) Gay Pride Parades
I might have missed this one on my list if it weren't for the recent news story of four brave fire fighters who were required to represent the city firefighters in a gay pride parade in San Diego and were subsequently verbally and sexually harassed. I'm sure there are lots of ordinary folks who participate and watch the parade, but if a Google search on gay pride parade photos is any indication, all the attention is on the lewd, obscene, and lascivious dress and behavior. Here's a tip for men, gay or otherwise: thong bikinis are really, really ugly on men. If the right to openly dress in a thong bikini or to wave your private bits around in public is what equal protection has come to mean in the US, we're doomed. I didn't have the guts to see what photos would have turned up by turning off Google's smut filter.
1) Evangelical Atheists
These are atheists who just can't leave God alone. Evangelical Atheists live with the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may actually believe in God. And they are willing to spew the gospel of atheism at the rest of the world as long as they can hide behind the shield of "tolerance." Interestingly enough, Evangelical Atheists share a venerable tradition with some of the most notable people of the 20th Century: Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot. The only difference is that these five individuals not only preached the gospel of atheism, but they set themselves up as gods in an attempt to replace the one, true God.
Well folks, if you've made it this far in my article, I suspect that you too may be a closet curmudgeon. The best thing you can do is first, admit it to yourself. Then it may be time to come out of the closet and let your true, curmudgeonishness shine on the rest of the world. Who knows? Maybe you'll make a difference.
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