Happiness – stuffiminterestedin

Every day we see them,
In all the magazines,
They don’t look like anybody,
We’ve ever really seen,

They make us feel so ugly,
But now it’s time to stop,
They don’t look like that either,
Without the aid of Photoshop,

So, love your love handles,
Love your double chin,
And your receding hairline,
And all your saggy skin,

See your folds and creases,
In a whole new way,
Starting today.

Love Your Love Handles
by: Mitch Benn

It’s Not Fair

I am not a looker. I never have been. I was not “hot” in college. I was not a “handsome young man.” I’m pretty sure I didn’t win any beauty contests as a baby. I was a bony, skinny, scrawny teenager. I graduated into a pudgy, lumpy, bumpy adult. I have, you will note immediately, a big nose. I have gaps in my teeth, a ruddy complexion, and an aspiring double chin. My butt sticks out too far and, as a sort of hilarious joke by God (that trickster) my belly has expanded as a counterweight. I did not get my brother’s good looks nor my Grandpa’s stature (He was 6’ 3”). I am never gonna make the cover of GQ. And I am OK with that …now.

There is a time in our lives, though, when we certainly lament our genetic deficiencies. Adolescence is the worst, of course. Just at the point in our lives when we are most desperate to impress people (read that as the opposite sex) our bodies start doing weird and unexpected things. No one on the planet is crueler (more cruel?) than other teenagers. If we are not in that tiny club of genetic lottery winners, the cheerleader with the blemish-free skin or the football quarterback with the muscles and the freakish good looks, we begin to view ourselves as outcasts – garbage, to put it bluntly. We start to think that this is a judgement from an angry and arbitrary god, the jock god, if you will. We somehow start to think that we deserve this, that we deserve less happiness than these pretty people. Some people spend their whole lives in a kind of funk because of this phenomenon.

The Ugly Silent Majority

I am no Pollyanna. I understand that happiness is not distributed evenly on this cursed planet. I am willing to concede that some people are going to have an easier time of it by virtue of the height of their cheek bones or the slimness of their waist. Research demonstrates that the tips you get as a waitress have a great deal more to do with the color of your skin and the size of your breasts than the skill with which you do your job. I am prepared to admit that the “pretty” people will probably always have an easier time of it. What I’m not willing to concede, and you shouldn’t either, is the idea that they deserve more happiness than you or I. More to the point, I do not believe I, nor you, deserve less happiness because we have crooked teeth or little boobs (big boobs in the case of men) or acne. And the plain fact is – we have got them on the numbers.

Mitch Benn’s song, which I quote above, has another verse which set me to thinking the other day. It goes like this:

We feel like we’re abnormal,
But that’s ridiculous cause,
There’s maybe a couple of hundred of them,
And there’s six and a half billion of us.

That is the point. Look around the airports, and the parks, and the malls. We have the numbers. We are the ugly “silent majority” searching for a ski-slope-nosed, droopy-cheeked Nixon to lead us. Uh, ok, well he’s dead. But the point is that we, the big-nosed, overweight, uni-browed troglodytes should run this country. We should demand our share of happiness. We should redefine what beautiful is. The pretty people are the genetic anomaly and yet they have been able to perpetuate a state of, for lack of a better word, apartheid, on the rest of us.

Jupiter and Callisto
by: Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)

The Three Graces
by: Peter Paul Rubens
(1577-1640)

Rubens and the Evolution of Pretty

Looking back through history there has been some evolution of “pretty.” Many of us, the gravitationally challenged, cling to the notion that in the days of Rubens “fat” was the standard by which women were measured. Plumpness was a sign of health and vivaciousness. His ladies were beautiful and confident and desired and, you know what, they looked like real women. Even in ancient cultures fertility icons were invariably statues of voluptuous women.

Ancient Stone Female Figurine
Willendorf, Austria
(24000 – 22000 BC)

The ideal of beauty represented by the anorexic blond is an arbitrary creation. It has no more basis in objective reality than too-wide lapels did in the seventies or leg warmers did in the eighties or Kardashians do today. And while I would never be so callous as to call Jessica Alba ugly (it’s not her fault she looks the way she does) I will say that beauty, like many things, is a pendulum that can swing too far and hurt people. So, maybe beauty was once defined as something other than emaciated blondness. I hope it was. If so, I’m afraid that boat has sailed. So I say it’s time to swing that pendulum back the other way or sail that ship back into port or whatever metaphor applies best here. When the majority of human beings live their lives feeling “ugly” it is time to redefine “pretty.” Sorry pretty people, majority rules.

The Problem, as Always – Fox News

“Pretty” today can be ascertained by what is on TV. TV “news,” in particular seems to be leading this march away from meritocracy and toward bimbo ascendancy. You will get a whole lot farther today in “news” with big boobs and tantalizingly crossed bare legs than with hard work, good reporting, and brains. Don’t know what I mean? Tune in to Fox and Friends any random morning to get the idea. You don’t even need to turn up the volume. In fact, absolutely don’t turn up the volume. Better yet, tune in to the Fox News show Outnumbered and again, preferably, turn down the volume. You will notice some striking similarities in the 4 color-coordinated female “hosts.” Hint: It’s not their erudition or education or journalistic excellence. Fox has been the driver of this trend, like so many other harmful trends, since their debut in 1996. Sadly the other networks have fallen in line and cut their skirts shorter and shorter. From Lara Spencer’s vapid Betty Boop routine on Good Morning America to the nauseating spectacle of Savannah Guthrie sitting in the same chair formerly occupied by Barbara Walters, Jane Pauley, and Katie Couric on the Today show, this diminishment of Q and A in favor of T and A should be an embarrassment to our culture. Edward R. Murrow would be spinning in his grave. If we could hook a fan blade up to his corpse and prop him up in front of “The Kelly File” we would go a long way toward solving global warming.

But I Digress

My purpose here is not to decry the state of journalism in this country but to decry the unfairness that “looks” trump talent and hard work across the spectrum. Fat people, short people, and “ugly” people on TV are relegated to comedy relief, if they are relegated to anything at all. We must change that in order to open up new opportunities for the repressed majority called “us.”

What To Do

So, what do we do about this sorry state of affairs? How do we use our advantage? First of all, we don’t give away any of the power we have. Don’t give your hard earned money to Christi Brinkley for her Ab Stretcher, or to Cindy Crawford for her Skin Smoother or to Shaun T for his Paunch buster Polka DVD’s. We all know that the only thing that makes you skinnier is giving up bacon and, for God’s sake, it’s just not worth it. And we should know, if we don’t, that the only way to look young is to be friggin’ young – or to make a deal with the devil. (I’m looking at you Dick Clark. Oh, yeah, I guess the devil finally got him.) Also, don’t go see movies with “hot skinny young starlets” in them. If it doesn’t have Melissa McCarthy in it, boycott it. And, you know what, boycott her, too, as a traitor. What is she thinking, losing all that weight. Where is her pride?

Next, we have to organize. If Wayne LaPierre and the NRA can run this country of three hundred eighteen million people as their own private fiefdom and the AARP can spook legislators into a buffalo stampede by saying BOO! what could 317.9 million ugly people accomplish if we just voted our self interest and actually ran for office. And we already have a start in politics. Bernie Sanders is not exactly a GQ model and Mitch McConnell doesn’t have enough chin to put on a pillowcase.

We will call our group SOAP – Society Of Average People or maybe HISS – Homely Individuals Standing Strong or, how about UGLY – United Group of Lummoxes and Yahoos. So, lets get SOAP rolling. I’ll be the President (or Benevolent Dictator if you will) and we will draft a few of our talented brethren who have become famous to do PR for us. I envision a PSA starring Steve Buscemi, Dawn French, and Sandra Bernhard. In fact, why hasn’t somebody put them in a movie together already? That would be awesome!

Steve Buscemi – No George Clooney in the looks department but one helluva actor!

Dawn French – Not sure if it’s okay to have a crush on a Vicar, but I always have!

Sandra Bernhard – A conventional beauty? Perhaps not. But smart, talented, and sexy as hell if you ask me.

Here’s a Modest Proposal for the twenty-first century; let’s round up those feckless, shallow, phony-boob-bearing, Escalade-driving, wheat-grass-chugging, sit-up-doing, little twits and turn them into Soylent Green (Google that one, youngsters. Who said Charlton Heston never made a good movie?) In honor of Jonathan Swift, our campaign will be called Eat the Pretty Ones and we will get a good New York advertising firm to market it for us – and then we will eat them, too. After all, if we are going to lift up and celebrate the persecuted big-boned American public we are gonna need a reliable protein source.

Finally, we need to heed the words of Mitch Benn. Love your love handles. Love yourself. We are who we are. We look like what we look like. We deserve to be happy. After all, our contribution to this world is just as important as, say Paris Hilton’s, isn’t it?

by: Dustin Joy

Love Your Love Handles – Full Lyrics

Every day we’d see them, in all the magazines

They don’t look like anybody, we’ve ever really seen

They make us feel so ugly, but now it’s time to stop cause

They don’t look like that either, without the aid of Photoshop so

Love your love handles, love your double chin

and your receding hairline, and all your saggy skin and

see your folds and creases in a whole new way, starting today

Some people try their hardest, to make all our lives hell cause

They’ve all got moisturizers, and diet drinks to sell

Don’t have to ask permission, to be heard or seen

Don’t need to make excuses, for being a human being, so

Love your love handles, love your laughter lines

Cause every one’s a medal, for all the happy times

Love your bumpy eyelids and your wonky nose, so everyone knows

All of our imperfections, all our asymmetry

They’re an important part of, what makes us you and me

Who cares what someone looks like, long as they have their health

Be good to everybody, starting with yourself, cause

We’re not all supermodels, we’re not all movie stars

Most of us look exactly, like what we really are

We feel like we’re abnormal, but that’s ridiculous cos there’s

maybe a couple of hundred of them and six and a half billion of us

Love your love handles, love your crooked teeth

Cherish that wobbly tummy, and whatever lies beneath now

Love your fuzzy nipples, and your droopy chest, and all of the rest

Love your love handles, love your dimply thighs

Lanky, dumpy, scrawny, whatever shape or size

You’ll find you can be happy and comfortable in, your own skin

The truth is that I don’t know much about happiness. It’s not that I’m a sad person. I’m not, though I love a good wallow in self-pity as much as the next guy. But, I’m starting to see that I’m no closer to a clear definition or strategy at age 46 than I was when I was a kid.

If happiness is a ratio between things planned and things achieved then I think I should be a basket case by now. My vivid childhood fantasies starred me, the boy genius, as a millionaire by thirty, best-selling author and governor of Illinois by thirty-five, and the genial and beloved, yet tough as nails, President of the United States by forty-five.

Just to keep you up to date I’m a wee bit short in the millionaire department, and if I’m going to be President on my schedule I’m going to have to crack that time travel nut pretty soon. I don’t drive a jaguar, I’m not a good public speaker, and I’ve written no best sellers to date.

Why I’m not a basket case (or perhaps I flatter myself) remains, to me, a mystery. Maybe life’s compensation for dashed hopes is a comforting drowsiness of the spirit that falls over one in middle age. About the time that famous athletes and movie stars become younger than us we begin to make adjustments to reality. Our goals become more reasonable, perhaps. I may not be a millionaire, but maybe I could afford to retire someday. I don’t have a Lamborghini, but I don’t have to drive a bucket of rust, anymore. I’m not married to Claudia Schiffer, but my beautiful and brilliant wife loves me and she’s still here after twenty-four years of my ridiculousness. To sum up life at this juncture I would have to quote the Barenaked Ladies. “I feel fine enough, I guess, considering everything’s a mess.”

What troubles me now, is not my own happiness, or lack of it, but the fact that I am responsible for the happiness of others. I guess I have been culpable in some vague way for my wife’s happiness or unhappiness for years. But, she is a big girl and in most key metrics more stable and sure-footed than me. The problem is these kids. I have discovered, in my new found adulthood, that I have a persistent and powerful desire to have my kids be happy. Unfortunately, I have no clue how to accomplish this and my efforts thus far have backfired worse that a 1972 Pinto in need of a tune-up. In my typical self-absorption I assumed that what made me happy as a kid would make my kids happy. For those of you taking notes this is not necessarily the case.

When I was a child I loved the company of adults. I needed, at some visceral level, the approval and recognition of these authority figures. The constant stroking of my little ego by my parents and more often by my grandparents made me conclude, apparently in error, that I was really something. My Grandparent’s apparent belief that I was a talented artist, a gifted writer, and an all around boy genius met with my approval from the start. The fact that they doted on me and showered me with laurels seemed to me no more than I deserved. I was going to be the millionaire President. Already, the powers that be (the adults) had recognized greatness in me and were giving me my just rewards.

What they had actually recognized in me (and liked, I might add) was obsequiousness. I was a more subtle Eddie Haskell and my earnest interest in and imitation of their views and values met with their approval from the start. I was able to validate their own notions about what a good boy should be. I sat and watched Lawrence Welk with them, for goodness sake. My cousins, who did not stoop to such obvious flattery, must have found my Grandparent’s favoritism alienating and unfair. I can only say that my cousins were right. In my own defense, I was just a kid.

Now I find, as an adult with kids of my own, that my daughter is a very different child than I was. She is headstrong where I was pliant. She is determined, where I was malleable. She is as eager to assert her own will as I was eager to please. She flies at the world with fury and righteousness. She speaks truth to power. I love her so much but I don’t always understand her.

It is well known that people, at a certain age, begin to live vicariously though their children. I never thought that would happen to me when my daughter was four. At this tender age she did something I have been too scared to do all my adult life. While we were visiting the Library in Muscatine, Iowa on May 5 2003 a local band had blocked off the street and were warming up with a few numbers in preparation for the Cinco de Mayo celebration. The avenue in front of the Library had been roped off for the street dance and nearly a whole city block was empty with pedestrians standing outside the roped area watching the mariachi band playing on the back of a flatbed semi trailer at the head of the street. Before we could stop her my daughter ducked under the rope and ran out into the vast expanse of empty pavement and proceeded to dance. My wife was chagrined and worried as our first born writhed and twisted to the Latin beat and to the gratification of a hundred bystanders. I will now admit that my weak paternal response was not fear, nor embarrassment, but sheer jealousy. I would have given any amount to possess the courage and lack of self-consciousness that celebration of joy required. In her exuberant dance I could see the shortcomings of a life lived on the safe side. I decided I could do worse than live vicariously through this little force of nature.

Now she has purple hair; or is it green today? And she lectures her Republican grandfather about gay marriage and a woman’s right to choose. She is brilliant and tough and unyielding and witty and clever and manipulative and logical and emotional and she loves little kids and she is kind to old people and she gives money to the poor and I watched her warm a little kitten’s cold, lifeless body in her hands and bring it back to life. And she doesn’t give a damn what you think about any of that.

Thinking back on our time as parents my wife and I say to each other, “what are we going to do with her.” I still don’t know. But the idea I’ve come up with lately is this; I’m going to encourage her. My daughter is not me. I desperately want her to be happy, and I know that butting heads is not going to be an easy path. I can only assume that she will get knocked down and bloodied as often as she does the knocking and bloodying.

But I have no monopoly on wisdom. Most of us are able to see the world through our own rose-colored glasses and we accommodate ourselves to the necessities of living. Some people, though, see the world as it actually is and feel a compulsion to tackle it and wrestle it to the ground kicking and screaming. My daughter is of the latter school. It is her nature as surely as grass is green and sky is blue. I have always been a mutable fellow. Why should I fight against this force of nature. I might as well be on the winning team. I love my daughter so much. If she has to wrestle the world, I aim to help her. I hope she puts a full nelson on the son-of-a-bitch.

Tag: Happiness

Eat The Pretty Ones

A Force of Nature