I was merrily skipping through my exorbitant amount of TV stations (skipping being a deceptive word as I have Direct TV and trying to surf their channels is very much like the unlikely event of my mother literally surfing. (Up! And she’s down…Uh, uh, up, no she’s down, etc.) when I came across TMZ, a show populated by third grade graduates, wait…I’m being told they are, indeed third graders, who seem to think they have a career in journalism when in fact they are simply bed bugs dressed like wannabe hipsters.
These six-legged pests crawl into the world, bother people and then return to their nests with tales of how angry people get when they are annoyed by biting insects.
Now, I am not a celebrity and TMZ seems completely uninterested in accosting me as I go about my life, no matter how many times I call ahead to give them a heads up as upcoming whereabouts. So, one might assume that my displeasure, bordering on simmering disgust is out of proportion to the situation and that I would choose to ignore them since there has been no legislation enacted requiring me to suffer fools gladly. You’d be wrong, because on this particular day, TMZ was harassing Coldplay’s frontman and my pretend gentleman friend, Chris Martin.
I know what you’re thinking, aren’t you a middle-aged woman who should have matured beyond crushes on rock stars? A: Is this the first blog post you’ve read of mine? Go back and do your research before accusing me of teen-aged behavior B: Shut up.
Anyway, this post is not about Mr. Martin as much as I’d like it to be. This post, eventually, will be about misplaced anger and why it is unhealthy. Now, back to Chris Martin.
The reason I paused to watch TMZ (which stands for, you rat bastards, you’re going to hell,) was that I glimpsed Chris Martin getting into a car at an airport, which naturally needed immediate attention from the press and never fails to garner mine.
As he was stowing his luggage, wannabe arachnoids skittered towards him, throwing out the kind of questions that are completely appropriate to yell at human beings who write music, sing and put on a sensational show. “How many times do you go to the bathroom everyday?” “Is there a sexual position you prefer when cheating on your wife?” “Can we see your feet?”
Chris attacked ne’ery a one of them and hopped into a car with a smile and a wave. This is where I should have changed the channel, but instead, to my everlasting regret, I lingered, having never had a close up view inside the nest of nuisance insects.
At this point, the “reporters” discussed what was surprisingly evident to them: that the questions asked were less than professional. Then-get ready for irony to make a guest appearance-a female of the species offered, that given the opportunity to accost Chris Martin, she would have asked, “… how he stays married to that insufferable woman,” (Gwyneth Paltrow, presumably.)
Now, I have only achieved an Associate Degree in Ms. Paltrow in the course of getting my doctorate (cyber stalking) in Chris Martin studies. Much to my chagrin she seems to be quite cute, smart and funny, so much so that I almost hate to put my fiendish kidnapping plan into motion.
Even given that information, however, there is absolutely no reason for me to borrow rage from her loved ones, and yet I made the decision to gnash my teeth and carry that insufferable woman (insect girl) with me for more than a week, to my admitted detriment.
(OK, here comes the social commentary portion of tonight’s entertainment.) There are many things which should anger humanity as a whole: injustice, war, and why we can’t cure static electricity, but still, we feel the need to drop coins into the anger vending machine and take whatever random item that drops into a less than sanitary receptacle slot, holding our dubious treasure tightly in our hands and wandering off eating, even though it tastes like the stuff your mother used to make which could only be made relatively palatable with large doses of catsup or ketchup, whichever makes you less angry.
Of course, indignation on behalf of celebrities is a purposeful exercise of which we should all indulge, but do we have to turn our stomachs into acid milkshakes over our neighbor’s rickety fence? (And we’ll be working on it this summer, neighbors, FYI.)
My mother is the queen of random anger, (which is a good name for a band). High on the top of her list, which rivals the government’s Facebook files, are high heels and the women who wear them. On the bright side, neither she, nor I, nor anyone we visited while she was here, wears them. Plus, we agreed that the huge lifts that pass for an elegant shoe these days resemble what The Bride Of Frankenstein might wear to The Bride of Dracula’s open bar wedding reception.
I argued that, since we were neither shopping for these items or are required to wear them to avoid a fine, we might as well laugh at them and then go about our business in the closest thing to slippers we can legitimately wear out of the house.
Instead, my mother chose to grunt like an amplified tennis players every time a woman on TV or in a magazine slipped on these monstrosities and stumbled into view before careening into the next available wall.
My mother has the same reaction to women in low cut dresses, men in low cut dresses and women who dress very modestly (Ellen Degeneres). She hates teenagers, Ann Margret, the idea that she should have to pick up her dog’s poop (She doesn’t. Feel free to become infuriated if she lives in your neighborhood) and the other political party, when she figures out which is which.
Early on in her visit, I explained that anger is a destructive thing which turns in on ourselves unless it’s directed at my middle brother. However, for whatever reason, she chose not to change her lifelong view of the world because I told her to and continued to harrumph at an alarming rate for her entire visit.
I suppose we all have our triggers which we should be able to ignore but, instead offer a rent free room in our mind so we can conveniently visit at our leisure. Whether it’s politics, sports, who lives in the stupidest state, (I won’t name names, but it starts with In and ends with ana…I’m KIDDING! Can’t you take a joke? Why are you Hoosiers so angry all the time?), we choose our own destruction via pointless temper.
Maybe as a New Year’s resolution, we can all attempt to release our anger and find the peace which would replace it.
But don’t @#$% pick on Chris Martin or his circle of loved ones or I will torture myself with unfounded fury. I’ll do it! Don’t think I won’t!
Namaste, dammit.