A Review of Lost at Sea

December 18, 2014May 26, 2024 RilalyLeave a comment

Journalists are not your friend

Let me start off by saying, I am not a fan of the music of rap duo Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, otherwise known as Insane Clown Posse (ICP), and other than the occasional, “This is the type of music they play … ” cuts I’ve heard in news clips, I’ve never listened to them. I have no alliance to them, in other words, but I harbor no ill will for them either. I know that they exist in the universe, they make music, they wear makeup, and their rap songs are violent. Other than that, I don’t care about the theme of their material, I don’t care that they “outed” themselves as evangelical spiritualists, and I don’t care that their fans (Juggalos and Juggalettes) stated that “They felt deeply betrayed and outraged” by the revelation of the rap duo’s spiritual nature. I am not overtly religious, but I do not condemn organized religion in the manner I once did … in my youth. I also don’t have any particular allegiance to fellow writer, Jon Ronson, either. I say this to let you know that I do not have a dog in this fight. I don’t have an ideological stake in one side appearing better at the end of this article, and I don’t see my side being represented by either party involved in this interview.

What bothers me most about Mr. Jon Ronson’s interview of the ICP, presented in the form of an Have You Ever Stood Next to an Elephant essay, in Mr. Ronson’s Lost at Sea collection of essays, is the sense of trust the rap duo ICP display with Mr. Ronson. I don’t care that that level of trust Jon Ronson attained from these two produced an entertaining article. All the power to him for doing so, but I am not a member of the Jerry Springer contingent that enjoys watching people make fools of themselves. Had I been present at this interview, I may have laughed a little, but at some point I would’ve said, “All right, all right! Enough!” I would’ve then turned to one of these two rappers and said, “This man is not your friend. He is a journalist devoted to exposing the truth, your version of the truth, or the truth, as he sees it.”

I see this level of trust, displayed by religious people, in a number of journalistic enterprises, and I always want to ask the subjects of these interviews if they’ve read a newspaper in the last twenty years; if they’ve listened to the radio; and if they have cable. If you have, I would say, why would you think this man is going to give you a fair shake? Why wouldn’t you walk into the interview with less than a healthy dose of skepticism? Why would you, after witnessing the last twenty years of journalists ripping and tearing at the heart of religion like starved hyena, not approach every question the ask you as if it were a trap? I understand that you appreciate the opportunity this journalist is offering you to “get your message out”, but if you were paying attention you’d know that 9.8357 times out of 10 the only reason a journalist is going to agree to sit down with you, or seek you out for an interview, is that you said something stupid, dumb, or just plain wacky that feeds into their narrative that all religious people are stupid, dumb, or just plain wacky. The latter may be hard for you to swallow, and it may be untrue as far as you’re concerned, but you should approach this interview with that mindset.

I don’t know what Mr. Ronson did to gain the level of trust he attained with the rap duo ICP. I don’t know if he is blessed with such a pleasant demeanor that he disarms the subjects of his interviews, if he was in any way duplicitous with the ICP, or if the rap duo was so excited about getting their message out, in The Guardian, that they didn’t pay enough attention to how they were being presented. I do suspect, however, that the rap duo may have fallen prey to the very human conceit of believing that they have such a command of the issue that they could control the debate that they would be having with a journalist, even if that journalist may be approaching the subject matter from an adversarial position.

As pieces of this type go, Jon Ronson was not as adversarial as some have been, but there are moments when Mr. Ronson characterizes this rap duo as … less than fluent. In one particular section, Ronson writes that Violent J says: “Huh?” to a relatively innocuous, leading question that Mr. Ronson asks of him. The author clarifies his question. Violent J comes back with yet another “Huh?” that the author suggests is due to the fact that Violent J is mystified. This is then followed by Ronson writing that: “There’s a silence.” After this presumed “mystified” silence, Violent J proceeds to answer the question. Whether or not, Violent J actually said “Huh?” on those two occasions, or spent a moment in silence gathering his thoughts, is not the point as far as I’m concerned. The point –that should be remembered by those religious people, excited by the prospect of being interviewed in such a prestigious publication– is that Mr. Ronson considered it germane to include those three reactions. The point, as it see is that the writer chose to include those three reactions to help him frame the interview for his readers, and presumably his colleagues and friends, so that they could laugh about it later. The point is, also, that the editors at The Guardian considered them so germane to their writer’s point, and their writer’s framing, that they allowed it to be printed in that manner. The point is that we’ve all read interviews with rock stars, and movie stars, and can all guess –based on the totality of what we’ve read concerning the knowledge base of rock stars and movie stars– that these stats have a loose, half-baked grasp on the geopolitical issues they claim expertise in. We can also guess that some, if not a majority, of those interviews are littered with “Huhs?” and spells of silence that are deleted from the final piece prior to publication. For some reason, and I think those reasons are obvious, ICP were not extended this professional courtesy.

The point is not that Jon Ronson misrepresented the rap duo from ICP. We don’t know what happened in that interview, an interview that occurred backstage at an ICP show. We don’t know how long that interview lasted, or why Ronson decided to include what he did. There are only three people that know exactly how that interview went down (unless there were others in the room of course), and only they know whether or not the rappers Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, of ICP, were properly represented. And if it is the case that this is how these two wanted to be represented, then it appears that Mr. Ronson was more than happy to oblige.

Why would Mr. Ronson allow these two to represent themselves so poorly? If you asked him, I’m sure he would say something along the lines of: “I’m a reporter, and this is what I do …Report the facts and all … I report you decide,” and he might say the latter with tongue firmly planted in cheek. A truer motive might also be that Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope further a narrative that Mr. Ronson has of religious people in general, a point that as I wrote answers the question of why he would decide to participate in this interview in the first place. Would Mr. Ronson enjoy a “Why do you not want to meet (with) scientists? Because (science is a way of) explaining things to people” debate with a C.S. Lewis type of rational advocate for religion? Mr. Ronson very well may enjoy such debates in his private life, but he probably knows that such a heady debate might only find a home in a scholarly journal.

A rational, religious figure, like C.S. Lewis, might argue that while Mr. Ronson may not agree with the explanations religious leaders offer, they are, just like science, “explaining things to people”. Mr. Ronson might then reply with a Richard Dawkins-type reply: “Just because science hasn’t advanced to the degree that it can explain everything, doesn’t mean that we should fill all those gaps with some form of divine intervention.” The C.S. Lewis type thinker could then talk about how the highly regarded physicist Albert Einstein believed in “a supernatural creative intelligence”. To this, Ronson could say that Einstein was dealing with a level of science even less advanced than ours, and he may have had such an ego about his abilities that if he couldn’t explain it, then no one could, and therefore we must fill the gaps of what I, Albert Einstein, cannot explain with the mysteries of a supernatural power. To this, the C.S. Lewis type of rational, religious thinker would remind Ronson that physicist Max Born commented that: “(I do) not think religious belief a sign of stupidity, not unbelief a sign of intelligence.” While I am sure that this debate would be far more intelligent than the one I craft for example, enthusiasts eager for substantial debates of this nature, would view it in the manner sports enthusiasts viewed the epic battles between Michael Jordan’s Bulls versus Patrick Ewing’s Knicks, battles that resulted in blood, sweat and tears being shed before a game seven victor could be declared. For reasons that are endemic to the argument that journalists (and their readers presumably) prefer, we get a preordained pickup game with the Washington Generals in which the journalist is allowed to dazzle the audience with their wordplay, and their Keats quotes, in a debate where the victor is so obvious that it’s an afterthought.

Instead of Michael Jordan skimming the inbound line to throw up a shot that Patrick Ewing barely misses, or John Starks throwing down “The Dunk” on Jordan, we get a Generals’ guard chasing Curly Neal around in a circle:

“Have you ever stood next to an elephant, my friend?” asks Violent J. “A f—— elephant is a miracle. If people can’t see a f—— miracle in a f—— elephant, then life must suck for them, because an elephant is a f—— miracle. So is a giraffe.”

We also read:

“Nobody can explain magnets,” “Gravity’s cool, but not as cool as magnets,” and “Fog, to me, is awesome.”

Finally, we receive the culmination of why Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope prefer the idea of describing natural events as miracles, as opposed to the science explanations:

“Well,” Violent J says, “science is… we don’t really… that’s like…” He pauses. Then he waves his hands as if to say, “OK, an analogy”: “If you’re trying to f— a girl, but her mom’s home, f— her mom! You understand? You want to f— the girl, but her mom’s home? F— the mom. See? Now, you don’t really feel that way,” Violent J says. “You don’t really hate her mom. But for this moment when you’re trying to f— this girl, f— her! And that’s what we mean when we say f— scientists. Sometimes they kill all the cool mysteries away. When I was a kid, they couldn’t tell you how pyramids were made…”

“Like Stonehenge and Easter Island,” says Shaggy. “Nobody knows how that s— got there. But since then, scientists go, ‘I’ve got an explanation for that.’ It’s like, f— you! I like to believe it was something out of this world.”

It makes for great theater, as I said, for those the love bearded ladies, wolf boys, and illustrated men, but if any of you laughers are religious, you should know that Jon Ronson, and his colleagues in journalism, are not laughing with you in such pieces. They’re laughing at you. You, the religious person, may deem these explanations, and this summation on science, as ridiculous as anyone else, but journalists don’t know that. They may consider the ICP a bit of an outlier, but they know that for something to be truly funny it has to have a germ of truth in it, and I’m guessing that most of them find Jon Ronson’s piece hilarious. They are not your friends.

If you are, by and large a religious person, and you are open about it, so open that you hope to encourage others to be religious, you will be considered “the other side” by most journalists, and they will do whatever they have to to characterize you as “that side” for their readers. And you will learn, no matter how nice that interviewer appears to be on the surface, that most modern journalists are on that side, and they will do whatever they have to do to score points on you.

“There are myths and miracles at the core of every belief system that, if held up to the harsh light of a scholar or an investigative reporter, could easily be passed off as lies,” Lawrence Wright writes in the epilogue of his book Going Clear.

They could also be passed off as ridiculous, as this essay proves, and while most religious people may agree that Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope’s version of the Christian belief system is ridiculous, the greater import of Jon Ronson’s narrative appears to be that all religion is this ridiculous, but that the ICP version of it is just a slight exaggeration.

As I wrote, I don’t care that ICP were skewered by Mr. Ronson, and I don’t care that he took a few hours out of his day to attempt to skewer religion, insofar as I’m getting used to it. What bothers me is the confusion that the members of ICP felt when the members of the music media pounced on them after their announcement. This confusion is, as I see it, an exaggeration of the fact that most religious people are shocked to find out how anti-religious the media, as a whole, have become. Soon after the announcement, Blender magazine listed them as the worst band in music history; and that “the worst musical moment from the worst band ever, is The Wraith: Shangri-La, the album that climaxes with Thy Unveiling” (the song where they reveal that they have been Christians all along). They received negative responses to Thy Unveiling that spanned from science bloggers, college professors, and even Saturday Night Live.

When Mr. Ronson asked ICP if they anticipated such a reaction, Violent J said:

“No, I figured most people would say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know Insane Clown Posse could be deep like that.”

Deep is, of course, a relative measure, and I’m going to guess that most that read the lyrics to this song are going to agree that depth is a relative measure, but I still can’t get over Violent J’s surprise. When my religious friends express similar surprise, I ask them if they’re paying attention. I ask them if they have cable, if they’ve ever read the newspaper, and when they say they do, I ask them how they can still shocked by it all. If you had been paying any attention at all, I reply, you would know know that even mainstream religious views have been the subject to public scorn, and while I’m sure you regard your views as mainstream, you should know what all religious people paying attention to the current climate of the society should know: journalists are not your friend.

If a journalist asks you if you’d like to be interviewed for a major publication, go ahead and assume that they’re not going on a fact-finding mission that will help their readers learn the essence of your religion. They want kooky ideas, medieval practices, a Svengali-like leader to herd the sheep, racist tendencies, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and any vestige of hatred that you may harbor to entertain their readers in a manner that characterizes your ideas and practices as those of the “other side”. Even if you don’t harbor such hatred for your fellow man, and you haven’t said anything stupid that you know of, you should wonder why this journalist is so eager to interview you, and why they’re being so nice to you. You should be skeptical of every question they ask you; treat every “friendly” story they share with you as a way of making you talk; and you should regard every smile as a duplicitous method of disarming you, even if it’s simply a pleasant smile from a relatively pleasant man. You should wonder why a journalist, from a major publication, appears to be on the border of being your friend. You should wonder why he just wants you to tell your side, why he just wants you to talk, and why he thinks the things you say are so funny. I know you think you’re funny, but everyone does, and everyone enjoys making other people laugh, but in this particular case you’re probably not half as funny as he’s leading you to believe. And he’s probably not laughing with you, he’s laughing at you, because he’s not your friend.

Hipster Hoedown

December 16, 2014May 29, 2024 RilalyLeave a comment

“Did you think that Andy was a complete jackass last night?” my hipster host friend asked me one day. She asked this in a manner that suggested that I was there. I wasn’t. As with most leading questions, my hipster host friend continued without leaving me the space to answer. “I wouldn’t call it funny, jackass behavior either.” This was said, presumably, to cut me off at the pass, as I was usually the one left to inform serious critics of jackass behavior of the idea that the subject of their criticism was trying to be funny. “I would call it the kind of behavior that no one recovers from, and no one wants to be around again.” She went into detail to describe some of Andy’s actions, but again, she did so in a manner that suggested that I had intimate familiarity.

I didn’t put this altogether at first. At first, her tone of familiarity had me so wrapped me up in a like-minded cocoon that I was laughing in a manner that suggested that I thought she was hilarious, that she should continue down this road, and that I agreed with everything she said, until it dawned on me that I couldn’t agree with her, because I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Wait a second … party?” I said. “What party?”

This was my inadvertent notification that I was no longer a member of the hipster circuit. Was I upset? An adamant “No!” would be a lie. Indignant would probably be closer to the truth. Indignation wrapped up in a big, old ball of confusion. The confusion was based on the idea that I was never sure what landed me in their hipster world in the first place. I was not their type, and every conversation I had at one of these hoedowns, only reinforced this idea.

I have been informed, throughout my life, that I have a tendency to over think, and that if I ever want to have any fun in life I would need to learn how to relax. If I would’ve over thought my inclusion in this group, I might’ve guessed that I was the court jester brought in by the Athenians to provide the party goers some entertainment, I might’ve also believed that there had been a calculated decision made in the high court of hipster hosts that I now belonged among their ilk, but I chose not to over think this matter. I chose to relax, as prescribed, and enjoy the few parties that I had been invited to attend. As a result, I never basked in the inclusion, and I wasn’t crushed by the exclusion. I was left with the conclusion that the whole matter was simply a big old ball of fogginess that I would never be able to understand, because there really wasn’t anything to understand, because the whole selection process was so much more arbitrary than I had ever imagined. I realized that I had fallen prey to that very human belief that beautiful people have a more organized purpose.

This hipster host’s reaction to my “Party? What party?” query told me all I needed to know, before she said a single word. Had I walked up and slapped her as hard as I could, I don’t think her reaction would’ve been as revealing. She was a calm, composed, and confident woman that could approach most otherwise revealing matters without even blinking, but this incident left her naked and exposed to the fact that I had either been “the Andy” of a previous report, or that my name had arbitrarily been taken off the list. Whatever the case was, the hipster host forgot, for a moment, that I was no longer hipster du jour.

She looked to a friend, a fellow hipster host, searching for rescue. Her expression suggested that she was pleading with that fellow host for some support, or some out, while affixing a pleasant, composed smile on her face for me. When no assistance was offered, my hipster host, friend looked back at me with a smile that pleaded with me to just let it go. I did, because by that point we were both fish flopping on the shore, and I knew that the definition of victory in such a contest is relative. Before this incident could come to a close, however, I noticed an eavesdropper —an individual that had never been invited to one of these hipster parties— shoot me a “Welcome back to the other side pal” look.

Years later, this hipster host –long past her hipster status— invited me to a party. We were, by this point, friends on Facebook, or friends that were declared friends for the purpose of showing the world we had friends. We rarely spoke, and when we spoke it involved recalling days gone by that were probably never as great as our dressed up memories remembered. I immediately thought this invitation was conciliatory. “An apology for all those ostracizing years,” is something that should’ve been printed along the masthead of her email invitation.

Calling any party, at this point in our lives, a party is kind a joke, at least when compared to the parties we all knew in our prime drinking years where all of the beautiful people involved did everything they could to control their sexual urges, lest they be the talk of the town the next day at work. These forty-something parties often involve no one saying anything inappropriate, for at this point in our lives we’ve all learned the lessons from the indiscretion of youth and alcohol that have guilted us into never saying anything inappropriate again. And these nights turn out to be as memorable as family get-togethers that involve extended family that you’ve never met, with which you have a loose connection that you’re trying to establish for the purpose of having a conversation you really want no part of. The natural selection process this hipster host once used to determine who would populate her party is gone, and in its place is a desperate procedure devoted more to the quantity that could constitute a proper party than it was the quality of her hipster heyday.

When some confusion came into play regarding the specifics of the party, she asked me asked for a full-fledged commitment regarding whether or not I was actually going to be attending. Hipster hosts never ask for a full-fledged conviction. They simply feel sorry for those that decide not to attend. Her request for commitment sounded a little desperate. Did she want me at her party, because she loved me so much that she didn’t think it would be a proper party if I didn’t attend, or was she receiving so many vague commitments that she needed one solid one? I still don’t know the answer to that question, but her desperation made it obvious that her once, much ballyhooed hipster status punch card had been punched.

“My husband and I just thought it might be fun to start a little tradition,” was the almost-apologetic follow up email the hipster host sent to the confirmed attendees. It asked you not to expect a hip party even though its host was the one that conducted the parties of her era. This was simply a gathering of people she knew, that almost-apologetic follow up stated, nothing more and nothing less.

When we undesirables got one look at one another, we realized how necessary that follow up call for a full-fledged commitment must have felt to her. One attendee, a fifty-something, single guy decorated the various corners of my hipster host’s home. How did this guy get an invitation, I wondered while watching him carry on about an amazing amount of anything he could think of saying, just to say it. My hipster host friend would’ve been more apt to send this guy a “Don’t come within fifty yards of our party” restraining order for even thinking of nearing one of my hipster host friend’s party a decade ago. Why was he invited? Is seven attendees always better than six? What if someone doesn’t show up? We may want to invite the overweight, single neighbor we barely know, even if we run the risk of him showing up with dried cheese in his mustache, because seven is better than six. This man was emblematic of not just a fall from hipster status, but a screaming, mile-long fall at the Grand Canyon.

He was the type that you invite if you feel that you may have too much food. He dropped the “I came for the free food,” joke on everyone that everyone politely laughs at. He was the type you invite if you hope to have one of your party goers make a joke about some girl’s tits; he was the type you invite if you fear that you may have bought too much beer; or if you want at least one of your guests fall at one point in the party. (He did drop the line about food, he did drink at least four beers, he didn’t make the joke about some girl’s tits, but he did fall at one point.) He was the type you invite if you fear long stretches of silence, because his presence will prompt your guests to keep talking in fear of this man coming up with another Cliff Claven conversation that prompts obnoxious guests that are always looking to say what others are only thinking when they tell him to “Shut UP!”

The other attendees were an invisible couple that had little-to-no apparent ability to start a conversation. They smiled politely at the conversations of others, and they occasionally giggled. They had the kind of innocuous, vacant characteristics drug smugglers salivate over in their search for individuals with indefinable characteristics.

I notice these quirky things, and I mentally list the deliciously uncomfortable things that I will say when everyone loosens up, but in the back of my mind I know no one will, and I’ll have to save all of this obnoxiousness for my after-party summation. Our uncomfortable, prime drinking years that will lead to something obnoxious, are over, and my conversation topics have switched from mentioning the fifty-something, single guy’s abundant nipples, and those innuendo laden comments that gained me some fame in my prime drinking years to conversations that concern how my dog that has trouble eating regularly, and a quirky thing that my child does to provide the room some comfortable titters.

In the midst of my search for some fun topics to discuss, I recall a day when I brought a fifteen-foot inflatable Shrek on stage at a friend’s rock concert and danced with it. ‘This is one of the most obnoxious –and perhaps most hilarious– things I’ve ever done,’ I thought with this inflatable blocking my view of the audience. You know when you are engaged in epic hilarity. You feel that chill of impulsive artistic ingenuity. You know that someone, somewhere will remember this for a generation. You wonder how you are going to characterize this, and you are already pondering how you’re going to answer all those questions –in between the laughter– regarding why you did something so out of character. You know that your friends will be on the edge of their seat waiting for the conclusion of your recap, until you look out into the audience and realize these people are not paying any attention to you. They’re dancing, sure, but they’re dancing with the same amount of apathy they danced with throughout the show. In desperation, you look back to those that know you, and you see that they’ve returned to their conversations, and you’re just a little bit older than you were before your last vestiges of youth drove you into doing something this hilarious.

I silently recall that night, and a handful of other nights, when my impulses drove me to do something epic and obnoxious and hilarious, and how it probably wasn’t any of the three. I recall how I cashed in on almost all of them, and I do not do so in the manner a Spartan may his conquests on the battlefield. I see nothing but regret laced with shame, and remorse for those times when I should have remained in the customary role of anonymity for which I’m better-suited. This is age creeping up you, a like-minded listener may comment when I’ve concluded my story, and how I came to be a man that looks to his past more than his present or future.

Age has you regretting your past, coupled with the desire to relive it without that sense of regret. Age has you examining your present state with a desire to live it with twenty years removed from your odometer. But does it necessarily mean attending parties with no sexual tension, no beautiful people, and a sense of boredom among your new crowd of ostracized people that only feels bona fide through quantity over the quality.

A half-hour in the hipster host’s home recalls those extended family reunions where everyone involved struggles to find conversation topics among those they barely know, but should know by blood. When they speak about their dog’s stubborn inability to eat on a regular schedule, you look over to the fifty-something, single guy in the corner hoping that he’ll say something about food or someone’s tits to make everyone uncomfortable. When the invisible couple says something about their quirky baby, you realize that this is not going to happen. You know that even the obnoxious guy has enough decorum to avoid interrupting that moment when they take out the phone and reveal the pictures of their newborn. You notice how many times the otherwise invisible wife, and mother of the baby, has sipped on her hot tea while she speaks. You hear the cartoons in the background that the hipster host was congenial enough to dial up for your child. You see people tell innocuous stories with the kind of excitement, and edge-of-your-seat laughter that used to accompany dangerous, innuendo-laden stories that would embarrass the storyteller when they woke up the next morning, and your reactive laughter is so polite, it feels regurgitated.

The hipster host and I could’ve been an item, and I recall that window in time when she speaks. Regret is inevitable when one calculates her ‘beautiful people’ score, but the polar opposite of everything she is –coupled with an equal measure of physical beauty– makes me happier than I’ve ever been. The hipster host is the typical, beautiful person that defines herself by those things beautiful. Ask her who her favorite actor is, way back in her hipster host days, and she’ll ruminate over the exploits of Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, the elf from Lord of the Rings, and on and on. In the course of redirect, when you inform her that their acting ability is either suspect, or inconsequential, in their otherwise, innocuous movies, she would’ve spat, “Who gives a bit, he’s hot,” and you would’ve felt stupid for not recognizing that while immersed in her beautiful world.

Lying on the opposite, “You can’t be serious” pole of that discussion are Tim Conway and Don Knotts. Two largely forgettable actors in a serious conversation about movies, that had the simple goal of making people laugh. There was nothing glitzy, or glamorous about anything those two comedic actors did, and the mere mention of their name in such a discussion, would probably land one the same expression the paparazzi would give Tim Conway and Don Knotts if they ever deigned to step foot on a red carpet.

What does it mean that one person loves Don Knotts and Tim Conway, thirty to forty years past their prime, while another stays hip with those that exude sexuality? No one knows. No one knows why one thinks it’s a little endearing that a person wants to watch movies with “Who gives a bit, they’re hot” actors in it, and to be bluntly honest few care about the differences. Those that do, know that it matters, but they don’t know why either.

It was her party, and for everything her forty-something party lacked, it still had an amiable host that was willing to do whatever it took to remind you why she was considered the host of her era. Her sense of humor was still cutting edge, in a forty-something vein, her conversation topics were wide-ranging and provocative, and when she was afforded center stage there was never a lull. It made this attendee remember a life that was, versus a life that is, and in every other sense, is as it should be.

The Psychology of Travel

December 8, 2014November 21, 2023 RilalyLeave a comment

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” is a line that service industry employees know well. The squeaky wheels are our rant and ravers, adults that throw child-like temper tantrums. They scream and throw things, and they call the service employee before them every profane name they can think up to get what they want. Squeaky wheels know that the standards of the service industry are set up in such a way that no self-respecting manager is going to allow a squeaky wheel to stand at their desk and create a spectacle. They know the standards of the employee’s job duties are set up to appease the screaming minority that call corporate offices and write letters. Squeaky wheels also know that frustrated, low-level employees –those who want to rebel against these standards and treat the screaming minority in the same manner they treat the more deferential majority – are mere stepping stones to a manager that will step in and just give the squeaky wheels all the grease they need applied to make them go away.

“Imagine what it must be like to live like that every day of your life,” the front desk manager informed me after my frustrations reached a boiling point with one particular shrieking wheel, and the favorable treatment he received from the manager after the man acted like a petulant child that wants a lollipop. ‘You’re not going to get anything if you continue to act that way young man,’ was my stance, but my manager stepped in and gave away the farm.

The idea that no discernible punishment awaited the hysterical man that stood before me was the source of my frustration. I grew up believing that there was a social, karmic contract that we all enter into where we attempt to treat others the way we want to be treated, and that the definition of character is formed on how we treat those that can do nothing for us. Watching the way this man acted, and the way management reacted, led me to believe that those standards are nothing but mottos that we’ve developed to keep the rubes in line, while the shrieking minority walks away with all the spoils. The gist of my more reasonable manager’s reply was that this shrieking wheel’s punishment for acting the way he did, was having to live the way he presumably lives.

“A person cannot be that obnoxiously miserable,” he stated, “without being obnoxiously miserable.”

No one involved in this obnoxiously miserable man’s spectacle knew what happened to him after we resolved his issue. We concluded, however, that the remaining moments of his trip would be as miserable as the rest of his life would be, because he was miserable, and that the greatest impediment to him having an enjoyable trip was the decision he made to take him with him.

Happy people tend to get lost in the shuffle in the course of a day at a hotel. They do not have chocolate truffle apologies sent to their room by the manager, they do not have extra-amenities lying in wait for them in their room, and they will not gain the sense of satisfaction that the miserable must gain by conquering an eighteen-year-old service industry employee’s desire to do everything they can to avoid rewarding the obnoxiously miserable. Happiness has its own rewards in all of the intangible ways everyone knows, but some it appears, would rather have a chocolate truffle.

It’s been my experience, working at a hotel in a decidedly non-tourist spot, that happy people can have great, enjoyable vacations no matter where they decide to travel, whom they vacation with, or what their vacation destination has to offer. Their happiness is so infectious that it bleeds over into their daily life, in much the same manner misery does for the miserable. To the happy, the very idea of travel is but a luxury afforded to those who know how to budget accordingly. The miserable, however, can find something to be miserable about in the most luxurious, five-star destination spots the world has to offer, because they make the unfortunate decision to take them, and all of their baggage, with them on vacation.

No vacation can make a person happier, or any more miserable, than they already are. The weather will not act according to plan, everything will be more expensive than calculated, some members of the service industry will be miserable jerks in a manner that makes a vacation more miserable, and a vacationer will run into some unreasonable jerks –in the general population of the locale to which you travel– because these people always seem to find a way to be miserable. It’s been my experience, on both sides of the travel industry, that Murphy’s Law (whatever can go wrong will go wrong) will come into play whenever one decides to go on a vacation. I’ve also learned that Murphy’s Law doesn’t apply to places and things as much as it applies to people, miserable people that seek out misery.

If you are one of these miserable people, and you’ve arrived at the realization that the greatest obstacle to having a great time on vacation is that you have to take you with you, you may want to consider another course of action that will save you, and those you encounter on vacation, a great deal of headache and heartache by finding some way to avoid taking you with you. If that means staying home and watching TV, stay home and watch TV. You can complain about the dwindling number of shrimp in your takeout, or the amount of commercials on TV, from the comfort of your own home, and you won’t have to ruin a vacation for all the happy people around you that enjoy all that life has to offer.

Head in the Sand Gains

Traveling will not change a person, their intelligence level, or any personality traits that are endemic to character. If a person believes that the only way one can know anything about the Vadoma tribe of western Zimbabwe (called “The Ostrich People” in a derogatory fashion) is to travel there and shake hands with a tribal leader, they make a mistake by degrees. They might be able to use a line like this one for the rest of their life: “Oh, you simply must visit the Vadoma people personally. Gluck Gluck, the tribal chief, is an amiable host.” It may enrich a life somewhat to touch the Ectrodactyly-ridden toes of the fraction of this tribe that suffers from the ostrich-like condition, and that may provide a person a conversation piece that lasts the rest of their life that centers around the smell of their refuse, the particular foods that they eat, and the opportunity they had to share that quaint meal with the tribe, or they might even gain a perspective on their life that gives them a renewed appreciation of the extravagances life has afforded them. They will not become smarter, happier, or more miserable by travel alone.

There are people –and they know who they are–who believe that they are somehow worldlier, smarter, and more experienced than others are, based on the quantity and quality of their travels.

“How would you know?” a world traveler (who traveled beyond our borders once) asked me in a debate, completely unrelated to travel. “You haven’t traveled extensively.”

Few people are as bold, or as stark as that, but there does appear to be an element of this mindset in most world travelers. We should all take a moment out of our lives to inform them that some can derive intelligence by reading, and by the manner in which one studies a subject. If a person is one that already knows most of what there is to know about everything, and I think we can say that based on our experience with most world travelers think that they approach most subjects with this mindset, their prospects for greater intelligence are probably going to be limited. If their general nature is such that they approach various subjects without ego, and an insatiable curiosity, their intelligence level may reach a “boundless” characterization by those that listen to them, and they can accomplish this without travel.

This person that questioned my level of intelligence, based on comparatively limited travels, appeared to believe that by traveling in tour groups –on the yellow brick roads that the travel industry built to allow them to view the indigenous people of third world countries from behind proverbial velvet ropes that protected them from “icky” involvement with the indigenous, and basically allowed them to view indigenous people in the manner zoo patrons might view a rhinoceros– that she was somehow smarter, or worldlier than me. She was there, in western Zimbabwe, and no one can ever take that away from her, but she didn’t eat with the people, sleep with them, or spend any significant amount of time with them. She viewed them in the manner zoo patrons view baboons, refraining –we can only assume – from tossing them peanuts.

“I did it for the experience,” is something she might have said. “I did it to be a well-rounded character that has a greater perspective about the world.”

No one can deny these possibilities, but listening to her one can’t help but think that she took this particular, third world vacation with an unspoken enthusiasm for the mileage it might gain her in the face of those that haven’t. What good is taking such a vacation, if a person doesn’t talk about it, feel worldlier in its aftermath, and lord it over those that have never taken such an excursion?

If this is not enough for a world traveler, and that world traveler wants to view a world beyond the proverbial velvet ropes that line the chamber of commerce’s yellow brick road, and they want to step into the world of adventurous travel, they may want to check to make sure they have an American, OHBM (outrageously hot, blonde mom) in their tour group. If there isn’t one, my advice would be to find the closest thing available and ask her and her husband to join you on your adventurous excursion. The reason for this is that no country –that makes any revenue from tourism– wants to see their country mentioned in the U.S. media, and there’s nothing the U.S. media loves more than a “Something happened to an outrageously hot, blonde mom (OHBM)” story. When something happens to an American overseas, it makes the news. Depending on the severity of what happened, the story may only make the local news and a few internet outlets, but the ability to tell a heart wrenching “Something happened to an American OHBM” story, coupled with the image of that OHBM, might just land the story Malaysian Airlines flight 370 style coverage. One has to guess that the minute a member of a country’s chamber of commerce gets one look at this OHBM, they might assign her their country’s special forces to make sure she isn’t so much as spoken to by the indigenous.

Know Thyself, Know Thy Family

Domestic family vacations offer a far less dangerous adventure, of course, but some of those vacations involve reunions with long lost uncles and aunts. We’ve known them our whole lives, but our love for them jades our perspective. This trip makes it clear that even some of our people, in accordance with the ratio of all people, are miserable. We might acknowledge the idea that every family has one person that is a little angst-ridden, but we never thought one of ours could be that person, until we witness a side of them we never saw before.

Those of us exposed to this side of humanity, take comfort in the idea that we can always return home to our immediate family. We know our family, and we have a firmer grasp on how our parents raised those people. We might reserve some space for individual variance, but we cling to the idea that those who have ventured too far from the path will eventually have a redemptive “come to Jesus” moment that brings them back. We might find those moments laced with regret, but even if it’s not, we continue to hope that that moment will arrive before it’s too late. They usually don’t for reasons that are foreign to us. They usually don’t, because some people don’t believe that they’re been headed in the wrong direction. It’s there course, and if they could see that path, they would’ve corrected course long before the need for a redemptive moment arrived. What usually happens, in my experience with such matters, is that the finger crossers realize they don’t know their people half as well as they thought. These people are miserable, angry people who have some psychological underpinnings that prevent them from acknowledging what everyone else sees, and they have to live with themselves, but so do we.

We’ve all witnessed redemptive moments arrive for the subjects of our concern, and we’ve waited on half a bun while their “sure to arrive” realization tottered on the cusp. We’ve witnessed all of the past events that should’ve led them to a realization, and some of us have even had others corroborate our version of those events, in the company of our subjects. To our utter amazement, these people manage to move away from their vulnerability on the matter, they may offer some sort of excuse regarding their involvement, or they might inform those concerned that they were not involved in the matter. They might even accuse those of us that suggest that they have any vulnerability on the matter of either rewriting history, or being limited in our view on the matter. Long story short, those waiting for an “aha!” moment where the subject comes to the realization that they’ve been doing it wrong in ways large or small, are rarely granted satisfaction.

Bill Murray said that if a person is considering a wedding proposal, it might be a good idea to take their significant other on a long, extended trip with them before doing so. “Travel the world with them,” Murray suggests. The import of this suggestion has something to do with the stresses and strains of boarding a plane, transferring flights, engaging with hotel employees, visiting tourist destinations together, and all of the interactions in between that involves elements outside the other person’s routine. Watch how they engage with service industry employees, examine the trip in the aftermath, and gauge how they conducted themselves throughout. Did they make the most out of every day? Did they inhale the small, otherwise inconsequential sights and sounds of the preferred destination, or did they impatiently attempt to keep the vacation on track? In the aftermath of the vacation, how did the prospective mate describe the trip to others? Did they lord it over people that they had been to one particular location that the others had not? Coupled with all the virtues and pleasantries of travel, are the stresses and strains, and how a person deals with them can define them in ways that may not be apparent in those situations where they are able to keep their best foot forward. The point of the Murray suggestion, given in a prospective groom’s toast, was that people thinking about getting married should place their prospective mate in situations where they don’t know anyone else is looking. It might give a person some insight into whether their prospective mate is a happy person or a miserable person before they invite that person to join them in their journey through life, and how that journey might end up being a happier one if they decide not to take them with them.