BELLINGHAM!
I've got a bad feeling about this
“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. ...”
Who wrote that? Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was a cool guy with a febrile mind who never suffered fools gladly. Imagine watching Here Come the Kardashians with him.
Anybody who uses the word hobgoblin is all right with me. It’s our unalienable right to change our minds, to reverse our positions, to be shamelessly inconsistent. Hobgoblins be damned.
If you’re a pessimist, these are terrific days for you. If you’re an optimist, you’re lucky. Things will have to get better. A cascade of bad news rained down on us all through the cruel month of April. It did not disappoint, if you are among the bleak and the murky. That’s the mirthless version of the young, and the restless. You know who they are: the real crepehangers. A crepehanger is someone who maintains a delicious sense of doom. He doesn’t bother to whistle past the graveyard. The crepehanger hangs out at the graveyard, even if it’s only in his mind.
When McDonald’s offered near minimum wage jobs to 50,000 people last month, the crepehangers spotted it as a publicity stunt. The optimists thought it marked an improvement in the economy. That’s really optimistic. Panglossian is more like it.
As I peruse the news, I think of that quote from Star Wars, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” My grandmother had that phrase embroidered, in a frame and hanging on her kitchen wall. Yes, I come from a long list of crepehangers. Aw, I’m just kidding. It’s just crepehanger humor.
I wonder if people who work at nail salons in the Marina have noticed that their customers have been biting their nails more often lately. It’s a sign of these edgy times. I’ve never had the urge to bite my nails – or anyone else’s, now that I think about it. I’m sure I manifest my uneasiness in other ways. Instead of the old regimen of pouring Jägermeister over my shredded wheat in the morning, I seek more healthful activity these days. Honest. Walking, for example. San Francisco is a great walking town. That’s a good thing because you can get an ulcer looking for a parking space.
“When I have a problem I walk, and walking makes it better.” So said Kierkegaard. He ought to know. He hated to drive. “I have walked away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one can not walk away from it.”
That’s quite a tall order. It could save the health care system – if it worked. We could walk away from our lumbago or our manic depression and take Catherine Zeta-Jones with us. Have you ever noticed the public won’t recognize a serious malady until a celebrity has it?
Meanwhile, I’ve gone sane. Who knows how long I can keep up this self-improvement shtick?
The world, on the other hand, is insane. Someone asked Zelda Fitzgerald why she drank so much. She said, “The world is in chaos, and when I drink, I’m chaotic.” Fair enough. I know that the news is abundant with terrifying images. I love news. Because I’m given to excess, I often keep the radio on and the television on – as long as it’s news. At the same time, I have the computer with a live stream from Al Jazeera, the clear winner of all the battles in the Mideast and Africa. Al Jazeera? Sounds like the name of that Palestinian shopkeeper down the street. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell calls Al Jazeera “indispensable,” and says the State Department watches Al Jazeera to find out what’s going on in the world.
Who knew that a news network based in Qatar could become such a powerful part of what people watch in this country? The Brits and the French send “liaison officers” to Libya. The optimist sees this as a humanitarian effort. The crepehanger is reminded of how the Vietnam War got started – with “advisors” who just liked to watch. Harmless, right?
I’ve got a bad feeling about all this. I think I’ll go for a walk.
Bruce Bellingham also writes for Northside San Francisco. He’s grateful for his walking shoes, but dismayed to see that his Chuck Taylors are now made in China.
