I can't believe people are even upset by this. Feigning outrage in our present climate of rudeness is just hilarious to me. Has anybody else noticed that courtesy and civlility in this culture are disappearing faster than a pack of smokes at an AA meeting. And you know it appears as if we've given up even trying to preserve it. Most people seem to accept this disinegration of manners as a fait accompli and have simply lined the borders of their personal space with razor wire.

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here but we've devolved over the last few decades from a Barry Lyndon gentility to a bunch of thunder domed mooks. Nowadays thoughtless clods all across this once great land of ours do everything from clipping their fingernails at a funeral to checking themsleves for polyps in the buffet line.

As a matter of fact you can't go anywhere without suffering intrusive inconsiderate incivility. You go to the mall to pick up a smokey linkeg gouda combo gift set at Hickory Farms you come out, your car's been keyed and some societal fringe player has left a flyer on you windshield for 10% off on all gay porn films at Dicks Video Shack. You go to the supermarket, you wind up in a line that's clearly marked 10 items or less cash only, you're waiting behind some ninja drifter with no ID who's attempting to pay for 14 cartons of pudding pops with a personal check from the bank of Tehran.

People no longer understand the basic rules of courtesy.
Rule number 1: You must wait and let people get off the elevator before you can get on the elevator O.K.!
Rule number 2 Rule number 2: You call somebody at 3:15 in the morning and get the wrong number don't just say "oh this isn't charlene" click. Say, "I'm very sorry to have pestered you, I am an assface.
And Rule number 3: Turn your god damn car stereo down! Did you ever think that maybe I don't want to hear the bass line to Baby Got Back resonating in the deepest part of my skull?

And even when I try to escape the cold rude world and isolate myself in a darkened movie theater for 2 hours of unencumbered escapism I get stuck behind some idiot faux Trufeau who's gonna cliffnote the entire fucking film for me then I miss the flick because I'm trying to decide whether to ignore him or bludgeon him to death with my Anna Nicole Smith size box of milk duds. But you know the fountain head of all this bad behavior has got to be the day time talk shows. What an intergalactic fucking freak show these are. You tell me what Rusty the Bailif fan club meeting did they go to to harvest these losers huh? Ricki Lake, Richard Bey, Jerry Springer, these people shouldn't be allowed to own a TV for christs sake much less be on it. And you know their guests not only aren't ashamed of their asinine antics they positively revel in their own grand mal shitheadedness. Screaming in peoples faces, screaming at the audience, the audience screaming back, you know it's enough to make me want to bag this whole scene, pack up some jerky and go time share with Jeremiah Johnson.
Look, I'm not some tie dyed carma maitre'd trying to seat everybody in the no confilct section. As far as I'm concerned the new age goal of perpetual smiling bliss would be a far worse hell than anything imagined by Quentin Tarantino on window pane. I don't want some vacant headed defanged Quaker land that's not civlility, that's benality. And I'm not talking Amy Vanderbilt civility either, where there's nine god damned forks arranged around your dinner plate like some cuttlery stone henge and if you choose the wrong one you are sent away to become Edwin Newmans personal sex toy. But you know I am saying that when civility breaks down the fall of civilization is close behind. Is it suprising to anyone that the least courteous of all countries has 222 million guns. The fact is that it's gotten so weird out there that we've all turned inward and in the process we seem to have forgotten there are other human beings schlepping around the pebble. That's where civility comes in. Civility is acknowledging that we don't live in a solusisitc universe. We do share this planet with each other and we should strive to coexist in some civilized respectful manner. And so to all of you out there who don't cover your mouth, who don't have the money ready when you get to the toll booth, who do burp so loudly in public that others wonder where the epicenter was. To all of you dwelling out there on the crassy knoll if you don't want to come and join the rest of us in this noble pursuit of good manners we all cordially invite you to please go fuck yourself.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
--DM



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