How To Live Your Life and Answers to Other Trivial Questions

Jerry: OUR LIVES!! What kind of lives are these? We're like children. We're not men.
George: No, we're not. We're not men.
Jerry: We come up with all these stupid reasons to break up with these women.
George: I know. I know. That's what I do. That's what I do.
Jerry: Are we going to be sitting here when we're sixty like two idiots?
George: We should be having dinner with our sons when we're sixty.
Jerry: We're pathetic… you know that?
George: Yeah, Like I don't know that I'm pathetic.
Jerry: Why can't I be normal?
George: Yes. Me, too. I wanna be normal. Normal.
Seinfeld, "The Engagement"

Warning! Although most of this doesn’t apply to this blog’s three regular readers, it’s kind of dark. Dark indeed. Dark like a Doors song or a Robert Mitchum movie. Or one of those dreadful “America isn’t powerful or prosperous anymore so you rednecks better get used to it and ride in the back of the bus (and pay higher taxes)” Obama speeches. I never get tired of those. Like a Ronald Reagan speech, only exactly the opposite. Apologies in advance.

Its such a shame too, because it’s a beautiful day today in the People’s Republic of Austin. We’re enjoying San Diego weather which seems to have come from out of nowhere. The Austin Reggae Festival (official symbol—a magic mushroom. Any hidden meanings there?) seems to have caught 78704 in a deadly gridlock, thus causing me to flee for greener and less baked pastures. Soon, six months of Hell will descend upon us. Global warming, or climate change, or the greenhouse effect (whatever msnbc.com is calling it these days) will have to step back though. I’m staying inside and turning the AC down. Way on down. I’m sorry if the asphalt turns into liquid tar and orange groves start sprouting in Boston, I’m not going to spend the summer roasting like a Cornish game hen. You self-righteous climate fanatacists will just have to deal with it. Go pick on some SUV drivers. After all, I do recycle.

If you’re still reading, it means you’re probably a devoted Affirmer. Yeah, that’s right, you’ve got a name. The Big Lebowski fans are “achievers.” Glee followers are called “Gleeks.” You are “Affirmers.” Congratulations. Enjoy your new positive class-identifying moniker. I’m having some t-shirts made with a cool fist symbol, or a tiger…something cool. Isn’t it awesome being part of a group? Even a pathetic group like this one. Its like being in the Jets or the Sharks, but without any singing or dancing or Natalie Wood.

OK, we’ve gotten on a tangent here people. Let’s get back to the point.

So as a devoted Affirmer, I worry about you. I worry about you succumbing to the moral and cultural funk that has engulfed the American Public. An Affirmer needs to live a life that stands for something. Its part of our official Affirmer Pledge (summarized in a future posting). A life that at least stands for something other than eating pudding or obsessing over which anorexic blonde schoolteacher or cheerleader wins The Bachelor, that is. Not only is an unexamined life not worth living, a life spent eating Cinnabons and playing Wii is pretty undeserving as well. It doesn’t mean you’re fun, it just means you’re a stoner, probably sponging off someone who actually works.

Last fall I attended a continuing legal education course in Lafayette. Louisiana requires that these courses include a professionalism component. Not ethics exactly, but more like obeying the unwritten rules of lawyering. This particular course described numerous instances of downright appalling behavior that lawyers throughout the country had committed. Really bad stuff. Lying, stealing, cheating stuff. Keep in mind, this is from people who have advanced university degrees, have to maintain a (largely) clean criminal record, devoted their lives to upholding laws, and had to pass a relatively difficult test to enter their profession. If they can’t act like members of a decent society, what about all the rest of the unwashed, grimy, Dancing With the Stars-watching slugs out there? It opened my eyes.

If you watch the news, read the newspaper (I guess that’s archaic, right? Ok, if you read the news on line), or if you, I don’t know, live your life around other people, you should have at least begun to suspect that a very unpleasant reality has been unfolding in our midst. Americans are pretty much going down the tubes. Its just shocking how many of us have become so…well…tacky. And annoying. I don’t exclude myself from that category. You’re going to have to face some harsh truth. As my old high school friend Betsy Clark once said liltingly during Shadow Box rehearsals, “You All Suck!” No, really, I’m sorry, but except for the three documented Affirmers whom I’m trying to help here, its true. In so many ways, you, typical American, suck.

You look like slobs. You men wear Tommy Bahama to work (Don Draper is the look you want, people), like you’re some character out of a Hemingway novel (only a lot less interesting). You women wear belly shirts, despite that extra-wide whitewall tire you call your gut. Men and women alike, you wear cheap, cheap jewelry. You go everywhere looking like you just got out of bed. You wear white after Labor Day. Your hair looks like a sparrow nest or a grease trap. Your gut looks big enough to have its own gravitational field, and you probably haven’t seen your toes since 1985. You have no idea how to tie a tie. You wear jeans to church. On Easter Sunday. Not long ago, I saw a teenage girl wearing Daisy Dukes to church and it was awesome. I mean, it was appalling.

You act like children. 50 year old men are getting tattoos, going to tanning salons, wearing baseball caps backwards, getting facials, riding motorcycles (without helmets), going to fantasy baseball camps and playing fantasy football, hanging out at Hooter’s, and amassing enough electronic equipment to launch the Space Shuttle or spy on the Jordanian Defense Ministry Headquarters. You can’t bother to help your kids with their homework, or, you do their homework for them. You eat Cocoa Puffs for dinner and cold pizza for breakfast. You credit rating is worse than Central America’s.

You run off and play instead of shopping for insurance or fixing the hot water heater. You divorce your wife of 20 years because she isn’t hot anymore or she hassles you about being a complete loser. You put springs on both your legs and wear a helmet with bunny ears and bounce down South Lamar to get around. No, really, I just saw that not ten minutes ago. Austin is still the weirdest town.

You stand for absolutely nothing. You vote for the candidate you’d most rather play golf or have a beer with. You constantly lie, cheat, spread rumors, and plot at work, despite being at the top of major corporations, governments or professional firms. You cheat on your spouse. You have no opinions about anything, except that whatever most benefits you personally is the “right” thing to do.

You are criminally ignorant. You can’t name the Vice President. You have no idea who’s running for any office, much less the differences between them. You don’t know that we’re at war, or the difference between Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam. You think Shakespeare is a pub or a martini. You haven’t read a book without pictures in 20 years, but you know the name of every character on Jersey Shore and Three’s Company. Basically, if it doesn’t happen within a 50 foot radius of your sluggard body, you don’t know or care about it.

You behave repulsively. You treat the movie theatre as your living room or the ball park, carrying on high-volume conversations and smacking on your Milk Duds like they were your last meal. You dart in and out of traffic at your own personal speed, like you’re the only car on the road or you’re qualifying for the Daytona 500. You stick your filthy hands in the buffet, oblivious to the vile and loathsome diseases your fingernails are spreading to everyone. You have the manners of a farmhand. A prison farmhand.

You raise your kids as savages. After naming them something completely bizarre to suit your own sense of creativity, of course. I can hardly imagine the burden these kids will carry through their lives, having to answer to names like “Grandma Apple,” “Aunt Suri,” or “Uncle Kal-El.” You take them places they clearly don’t belong, like Tiffany’s, and chuckle as they rampage through the place like rutting wildebeests stalking their prey. You let them turn their brains into mush watching TV and playing video games. You let them engorge on pop tarts and pizza rolls to the point where they make Augustus Gloop look like Lance Armstrong. I look for kids to be putting pig heads on sticks soon.

In short, you stand for nothing, your life contributes nothing, and your “belief system” is the moral equivalent of wearing whatever’s at the top of your dirty clothes pile. You can’t hold a job, even though you’ve had 16 years of school. You watch Dancing With the Stars. You eat McDonald’s French fries and double-stuffed oreos every day, substitute Fruit Loops for your Cocoa Pebbles when you want to diet, exercise by playing video games, and walk around with an untucked shirt everywhere. You ignore your kids and wonder why they won’t mind you. You ignore your wife and wonder why she’s divorcing you. Everyone hates you, but won’t say it. You’re convinced all your problems are because your boss/teacher/government clerk/minister are jealous and screwed you over.

You are Charmin soft. If squeezed, you will bruise and break. You are an irritating, entitled, whining, pretentious douche. In other words, you, my friend, are an American.

Still, by reading this far you show signs of hope and redemption. Or you’re a true Affirmer, and want to know how to avoid falling into this trap. Like a frat boy working on his resume, you’re still capable of making wise choices. But you need guidance. You need a value system.

What you need, quite frankly, are some rules. Without rules, we are bereft, left solely to our horrifically misguided sense of right and wrong. Welcome to the “Daily Affirmations How to Live Your Life” series. Think of this as the nosy, meddling Italian mother you never had. Like Joe Pesci’s mother in Goodfellas (who was in reality Martin Scorsese’s mother). Through the next few posts, I’ll lay out the simple rules you should follow to live a better, more productive, satisfying, and meaningful life. You won’t get rich or qualify for the Olympics or get a street named for you. But you might just wake up one morning without that queasy feeling gnawing at the pit of your stomach that your life amounts to nothing.

So look out for the next in our series. First up-the cardinal rule!