#15 The Greatest Love of All

"I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way..."

Ok, so this song really really pissed me off when it came out. I guess if you know me, you can probably guess I was a bit of an uppity kid, and I was hyper-aware of being condescended to and generally treated like an imbecile in the way adults do because, for the most part they resent kids, and simultaneously begrudge them their freedom and innocence while placing all the responsibilities for the future of the world on their shoulders. Maybe it's the home I grew up in, or maybe it's growing up Jewish, or maybe it was just me with a severely underdeveloped denial mechanism, but I never envied adults. I saw (and I think I was right to see) that for the most part we kids had it way better, with other people taking care of our needs in ways they clearly found extremely stressful. I just didn't see, even at that age, the profit-margin in adulthood. Sure, they had more freedom of movement, but at what cost? For the most part such freedom came saddled with the kinds of responsibilities and worries that were written in 24pt font all over their sad, tired faces. Yeah, I resented the fact that adults got to vote and I didn't, especially because I didn't really see any evidence that their opinions were any more considered than mine were, but I was willing to accept that because otherwise, the system really kind of worked in our favor.

But then this song came out and it just literalized how goddamn condescending and disingenuous adults were. You know how old Whitney Houston was when she recorded The Greatest Love of All? 22 freaking years old. 22!

How about you be the future for a little while?! I thought to myself. How about you lead the way and let me be a freaking kid instead of trying to pawn off all your frigging problems on me?! OK?! How about that?

And, you know what? You're not allowed to not like The Greatest Love of All. We've all been to that party at the end of the night when the DJ plays it and everyone starts singing it in the worst possible drunk-screech like it's the most profound freakin thing and every time I hear it, every single time I hear it, I'm that kid again, thinking about how shallow, how cowardly and impotent and flat-out unfair the sentiment of that song is.

And that's just the first line!

"I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadow" What? When you were 12?

"They can't take away my dignity." No but you're doing a pretty good job of that yourself.

"Give them a sense of pride, to make it easier, Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be." You're 22! How about reminding yourself how you are right now! and get the frack out my face trying to recapture the youth that hasn't even gone away yet, no matter how much coke you shove up yourself. It's creepy and annoying. I've got my pride ok, pride comes from within, which is what the frigging song you're singing is ostensibly supposed to be ABOUT! so not only is it condescending but it's also internally illogical!

Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all. Now that might be the first honest thing you've said because if this frigging song demonstrates ANYTHING, it's that you completely and totally love yourself so much it isn't even funny.

Ok, so maybe I'm channeling a young and mixed up I'mNotBobby, but I mean, you know what I mean, right? It's wrong. It's just all wrong.

#13 PAIN!

No pain, no gain! Push! Do it! Keep going! 2 More! GO GO GO!!!!

And that's when my foot cramps up.

Pain is your body's way of telling you to stop doing something. I know we learn from pain, probably more profoundly than from anything else, but that's kind of misleading. What we learn from pain is to not do the thing that hurts. Pain avoidance has to be highly correlated to genetic advantage, that's why the learning mechanism is so strong. Now of course women have to endure a certain level of pain for obvious reasons, but for the most part, our anti-pain instincts have to have served the species better than the pain-seeking aberrations. I mean the caveman who was really into burning himself was probably not the most attractive prospect for procreation.

But if Nike commercials and pilates-fascists tell us anything, it's that if we're not constantly pushing our levels of endurance and cheerfully working through the pain we're not worth our

weight in child-labor.

People with high pain tolerances don't understand how much it hurts for the rest of us, and that doesn't mean we're weak. Yeah, there're genetic predispositions toward variant pain-thresholds and I'm ok with that, I mean if you've got a high threshold and you don't mind feeling that burn and even kind of get off on it, well, OK, mazel tov, G-d go with you, go get 'em buddy. You're probably gonna look better for the first 30 or 40 years. But don't condescend to the rest of us. You're the freak, you're the aberration.

But you can't say that, you can't complain about the pain because that makes you a wuss and G-d in heaven if there's one pariah-class in this lonely, busy world, it's the wusses. Well the wusses inherit the earth. The wusses avoid situations that might get them into trouble and pay people to move their pianos and grandfather clocks and sofabeds and consequentially don't get crushed by them (at least as often). The wusses say, you know, I know getting hit in the face hurts and so I'm going to avoid situations where that might happen, and, over time, in the long run, they get in fewer fights, and survive longer. Sure, fighting toughens up the winners, but Goliath went through a whole bunch of young go-getters before that punk David suckered him with a lucky shot. It was the cowerers, the wusses, who carried on, married, had babies and passed on their wussful genes.

I say, "no pain, no pain."

#7 Dive Bars

"Where should we go?"
"..."
"I know! There's this great place called Grimey's. Cheap beer, a bunch of regulars, it's awesome, follow me!"

And so there you are. Feet sticking to the floor where a thousand drunks have spit, drooled or spilled their beer and bourbon. The yellow-red light bouncing around the place. The palpable sense of hopelessness and despair. A couple of 50-year-old alcoholics glaring at intrepid you. And you, you trying to act like this is all perfectly normal; you act your absolute coolest with the overweight and lazy bartender who repays you by adamantly refusing to suspend disbelief and treating you like you don't belong. Oh and what's that playing on the Jukebox? "Downeaster Alexa" by Billy Joel?! Awesome!!!

Well, it isn't awesome. It sucks. Invariably. Dive bars suck. I mean I know the booze is a bit cheaper, and that's great and all but really, is the extra dollar or two you're saving per drink worth all this disgustingness? Slumming it is stupid, it is; it's simultaneously disingenuous and condescending. Are we so ashamed of our preference for nice things that we have to wallow in this filth just to make ourselves feel like we're not privileged even though the entire experience of being in the dive bar only literalizes how out-of-place we are? Isn't your disgust at the fancy-pants snoots at the nice, upscale bars really just disgust and shame directed at your reflected selves? The fact is, a nice uptown bar in a hotel or some such is going to be better in every possible way.

First, no one will look at you (RIGHTLY) like you don't belong (because you, my readers, don't belong at the dive bar, you don't, you're not "down" with the "people." If you're under 50 and you have a college degree you are OUT. You're privileged. Even if you have no money, you are still privileged and do not belong with those people...they know it and you know it, so stop pretending, because it's unseemly .). Second, the bathroom will work and afford you privacy or not make you want to kill yourself. Third, there will be plenty of places to sit, comfortably, at a table or at the bar, like a real-live adult, instead of surrounded by either people who are nothing like you or people who, like you, are trying desperately to be something they aren't. Either way, you'll be yourself and not some complete douchewad pretending your life away. Finally, the place will be nice, pleasant, you won't stick to anything, the lighting will be muted, neither too light nor too dark, the decor will be unobtrusive and will not pride itself on its obnoxiousness, tastelessness and/or low-scale destitution. In short, you will have a simply wonderful time, I promise.

All tolled dive bars are fine for their audience but that's it. They are not for you. Drink someplace nicer where you can ask for the top shelf stuff and the 55-year-old bartender in his bow-tie and sock garters will call you sir and make you a Don Draper-worthy sidecar.

The next time you and your friends find yourself at one of these dive bars (named "Flippo's" or "The Absolute End of the World" or "Grotesquerie" or, worst of all, "Dive Bar") and you're squatting there in the bathroom, staring at the drunk-retarded mutterings that seriously call into question the lasting value of the human race etched into the wall of the commode because that's the only place you can look without vomiting into your mouth, ask yourself whether the 3 dollars you're saving on that pitcher is really worth it. Ask yourself if you're just trying to prove something (i.e. that you're not a privileged little twit) that isn't really worth proving both because a) it's untrue and b) because lowering yourself to this level only re-enforces your pampered twittery. I think you'll find, if you're not too drunk and full of your own bloated self-importance, that you don't belong there.

So get up! Get up now! All of you! and leave the dive bars to those who have truly abandoned their hope. That's what they're there for. And you are just making them more miserable by sitting there, trying to take part, like the absolute worst kind of tourists. Unless your goal is to actually become one of those people (i.e. a miserable alcoholic shell of a human being) which honestly I have absolutely no problem with whatsoever...seriously, if that's the choice you want to make, go for it, but don't half-ass it and just visit and call it "awesome" or "fun" or "more real" because it's none of those things. If not, go to your own bars and leave them be. They are not for you.