If you can’t say something nice….

When I was little and I started whining about something or complaining about a kid in school or miserating on my terrible life and how nobody liked me (oh, I was a world-class moaner, as I recall), my Mom would sometimes reply with the polemic “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’

Boy, howdy, did that grate my cheese.

I would have been happier during those moments to have been raised by Dorothy Parker, who famously said ‘if you can’t say something nice, come sit by me!” How delicious would it be to be raised by someone who truly enjoyed verbal sparring of a sort brought to perfection by drag queens and film critics? Very delicious, was my thinking.

Except – those lessons by Mom sank in over time. It might have TAKEN 30 years, but ultimately at least now I do TRY to hold my tongue in conversation. Sometimes though, the tongue can be a slippery little bugger, and all sorts of slightly-less-than-sunny words come sliding out. Takes a lot of doing, but infrequently my brain gets all greased up with rage and there's nothing to do but let it out, lest a flash fire occur and burn something important inside my head.

(now that was a really nice metaphorical string, don't you think?)

One such occasion was in the aftermath of a concert Biff and I attended on Saturday night. If I could write a letter to all the poeple who were the object of my anger, it'd go something like this:

Dear People at the Tim Reynolds Concert on Saturday Night who Obviously Were Bred in a Jackhammer Factory,

A few questions to get things straight before we get to the message -

1) Did you not also pay 30 bucks to go hear one of the world’s best guitarists play a solo concert in a reasonably intimate setting?
2) Did you not notice that the rows of convention-center seats were not accompanied by a BAR or pool table or other contrivance normally found in your local 1-star watering hole?
3) Did you not realize that when one attends a solo concert by one of the world’s best guitarists in a reasonably intimate setting, that talking at the top of your f*cking lungs throughout the show is offensive, irritating, maddening, and lower-class than Pam Anderson’s hot pants?

4) HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THIS?
5) Who raised you to be so self-centered?
6) What could possibly be so important to discuss during this show that you couldn't possibly walk ten feet out to the lobby to talk about?
7) How on this earth could you generate the notion that idle chatter in a room obviously designed for intent listening would extend to listening to YOU babble on about whatever the HELL you were blathering on about incessantly during every single damned piece the man was playing?
8) Can you NOT appreciate artistry, mastery, incredible inventiveness and reverence for an art form?
9) Is your boorishness a product of your being raised by a family of microcephalic howler monkeys for whom the only form of communication is repeated loud hoots or poop-flinging? ( If so, thanks for not tossing crap while you nattered on about banalities in the back of the room where a couple of hundred other people were trying their hardest to enjoy what their hard-earned money bought them.)

Let us just say that it’s a good thing Biff and I decided to leave the show early due to your egregious dunderheadedness, because at the next song break you would have been the subject of a severe tongue-lashing by me and very likely by the other dozen people who tried to ‘shush’ your ignorant pie-holes during the concert. If you had the self-awareness to have looked around at the rest of the crowd Saturday night, you would have noticed people who were throwing death glares at you over their shoulders, but of course you didn’t notice because you’re surrounded by what can only be assumed is a cone of the most dense ignorance available through poor breeding and lack of any manners at all.

I hate you. HATE you. You are scum, you inappropriately self-entitled snowflakes, you pus-filled balloon heads, you odifeorous misassociation of sperm and egg, you unfortunate breathers of my air. I’d still like to preach a thing or 2 at you, to lock you in a room with me and all the other people you pissed off, to give you whatever piece of my mind I feel at my advanced age I can spare, so it’s probably a good thing we 1) left early and 2) I don’t know your name. Know this: that just because nobody called you out on your poor-ass manners doesn’t mean you aren’t among the biggest boors around, it just means that those other people had better manners than you and chose not to escalate an obviously wretched situation.

Secretly, I do hope that SOMEONE took you all to task for your total lack of couth. I would have stuck around for THAT part of the show if it had been on the ticket.

Tiff.

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And now to change the topic and refocus on what is good in life, here’s a picture of a flower blooming in our front garden (now with patented Crappy Cell Phone Picture technology!). We liberated a few of these from the empty lot next door a couple of years ago, with no idea what they were except 1) abandoned, 2) pretty, and 3) free. Not coincidentally, those are the three attributes of a highly adoptable puppy.



A bit of research reveals that it’s likely a “Van Sion’ double daffodil – an ancient variety that is very hardy and often will thrive where other daffs won’t.

So, it’s perfect for our yard, the goofy ol’ mop-headed thing.

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This morning’s rain has turned into a glorious afternoon, with “simpson’s” clouds swiftly drifting across a Carolina Blue sky. I’mma go take a walk around the building before diving into this afternoon’s ‘to-do’ list.

Y’all have a good one!