Be a Lady, Tonight

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 10, Verse 6

"The good man is covered with blessings from head to foot, but an evil man inwardly curses his luck."

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CHIPPED WISDOM:

I've been thinking recently, a lot recently, about luck.  Like organized religion, popular movies, and nice things people say about me, I am inherently inclined to think negatively about it.  Luck is for people who view life not as a disconnected series of encounters and events that are disorganized and chaotic, not ruled by a benevolent watchmaker or constructed to let good things happen to good people.  Luck is for the lucky.  They see it, they appreciate it, they acknowledge it and celebrate it.  

For the rest of us, luck is a crock of shit.  

That said, I have been what one might call "lucky".  I have had fortune favor me in many ways, and for however sour and scowling I may be (and I am) I know that I have far more often than not been shown the kinder, smiling side of life, rather than its pale, pock-marked, bristle-haired ass.  And, for that, I am grateful, because, where I work, I see more than my fair share of asses.  

Usually, you don't understand how lucky you are unless your life is viewed in the context of another's.  This is kind of a shitty thing to do because, of course, you're essentially saying, "Well, at least I'm not as fucked as THAT guy!", which isn't nice.  

But it is what we do.  

And, really, compared to you-- I'm not so bad.

(See what I did there?)

Often times I suggest to people that they should make a gratitude list.  Most of the people I with whom I deal daily are, um, negative.  They're fond of wallowing in their own shit (sometimes literally) and decrying the injustices of their tiny world and the people in it, even the people who have tried to do them a good turn.  They are focused on the pain and the darkness and we all know you can't see in the dark, so the gratitude list is a little reality check of sorts.  It sounds corny and disingenuous, like everything in the field originally sounds when first introduced, but it is what it is.  

So I thought I'd try it.  

Here.  

Now.

Okey dokey.  Here we go:

We'll run down the obvious ones first, to prevent eye-rolling.

wife, kids, dog, health, reliable car, functioning kidneys, reasonable mortgage, lots of stuff, 3 functioning toilets in the house

NOW we get to the interesting stuff:

I was lucky back in 2006 or something.  Aside from that being the year I got married, it was also the year (at least I think it was) that I won tickets to "The Lion King".  It was playing as part of the Broadway at the Academy series and it was part of a contest that 90.1 WRTI, the classical radio station, was running. I was the lucky caller.  I was so stunned when they told me I'd won that I must have sounded like those dickballs on "Antiques Roadshow" when they get told that their 1937 mint condition Jackie Robinson autographed syphilis is worth $788,000. 

Speaking of syphilis, I used a public restroom in a restaurant a couple days ago, and that got me thinking about how lucky I am that I've never seen another man's penis in a public restroom.  And this got me thinking about homophobia, and I truly don't think I'm homophobic (SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE LIMP-WRISTED POUFS WHO, UH, REALLY LOVE COCK!) but, that said, I just really am not particularly interested in seeing someone else's penis.  I'm not all that enamored with mine, why would I wanna see the dick of some random Asian guy in a Members Only jacket, Phillies cap, and glasses from the eighties standing next to me at a urinal?  I'm sure many guys have had to see other guys dicks in restrooms, especially highway rest-stops, because guys are digging around inside their flies at highway rest-stops as they're rounding the corner into the bathroom, but I've been lucky.  And I'm grateful for that.

While I can sail into and out of a public restroom without viewing whang, I have other talents.  I'm comfortable acknowledging that I have acting talent and writing talent, and a reasonable facility with human-to-human interaction.  One thing I have terribly poor confidence in is my singing.  I am thankful that Gilbert & Sullivan created their operettas and their patter roles for people for whom singing is not necessarily their forte.  And I am thankful that stage directors and music directors and casting committees, many several times over, have thought, "Maybe he can't sing very well, but he can sing well enough to do this" and have cast me in patter roles in just about half the G&S canon.  

Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. (twice)

Major-General Stanley

Sir Despard Murgatroyd

Reginald Bunthorne

Lord Chancellor 

John Wellington Wells

I never thought, long ago, that I would ever have the chance to publicly proclaim my love for these delightful, beautiful, and funny operettas by slipping into these roles, walking, talking, singing.  For an audience.  Who paid money.  But I've been lucky.  

When I think of the G&S roles I've done, I think about the costumes and the Herculean efforts undertaken by seamstresses, including my wife, to make these costumes fit my, um, delicate frame.  And that reminds me of something else for which I am grateful: clothes that fit.  If you're ever at a loss for what to get me for CHANUKKAH:

Shirt: 15 neck, 34/35 sleeve

Trousers: 30 waist, 32 length

Yeah, I say "trousers".  So?

I'm of course, lucky to have you.  Whomever you are-- you're here.  Maybe you got here by Googling "airplane crash goat sex" and, yeah, you'd probably get here eventually, or maybe you're one of my closest friends, who knows my neuroses like the way to work in the morning.  Whoever.  Whatever.  I don't care.  You're here.  And that makes me the luckiest sonofabitch who never saw a dick in the next stall over.  

Thank you.