Contrarians, Christmas, and Curmudgeons
(Chong Khae, Thailand)


I yell at the TV. I’m like the employee who passed a note to Ken Lay during a meeting where he was trying to reassure everyone that Enron was in no financial trouble that read, “Are you on crack?” I hear a spokesperson for the deficit commission say that 92% of all new jobs come from corporations, and in the next segment I hear a politician say small businesses are the job creators. What! Fortunately, I’m the only English speaker in the house, so the Thais just look at me, raise their eyebrows and mutter.

I suppose this makes me a contrarian. Most issues that baffle me are political or economic, but some are personal, too. When I look back at my life, I sometimes think I could have played the hanging pig that CSI agents stab with various knives and implements to find the correct murder weapon. Leo Durocher once said that good guys finish last and while I’m not in last place by any stretch of the imagination, I admit that slogans like Wait until next year have a very hollow ring. CSI Billy Bob pulls a meat cleaver out of my back and casually explains as if it were a public service announcement that pigs have the same anatomy as humans. I yell, “You think that matters?” I’m that type of contrarian.

I am a contrarian, but I draw the line in places. For instance WikiLeaks seems more like a bad joke to me than in the mainstream of contrarianism.

1st man: Do you have any naked pictures of your wife?

2nd man: No!

1st man: You want some?

It’s that kind of a bad joke. It also seems like an example of European preference for process over product and seems one of those in-your-face issues that the ACLU loves. I yell, “Where is the ACLU on this?” Clearly, I’m circling this issue, waiting for road kill, I suppose.

Contrarians don’t see the downside in all things; they simply admit that there is a downside in all things. Granted, I’m on the short end of the argument most of the time, but you do the best you can. It’s like filching yesterday’s newspaper out of a trash can in the park you now call home and reading that cell phones may cause brain cancer and then seeing your ex-wife drive by in the new Volt your alimony check just bought and yakking away on her mobile. You want to yell, “Talking on a mobile and driving is against the law!” but hold your tongue. I’m that kind of a contrarian.

Contrarians are different than those self-appointed arbiters that see the rottenness in all things. I have a friend whom, on the first day I met him at nine-years-old or so, said, “Your father’s an old fart.” He said the word fart with such huge disdain that I was sure he invented the word. All through high school, whenever I heard the word (and I heard it a lot) I’d smugly think, hey, I know who invented that word. It wasn’t until much later when I read Tristram Shandy and saw the word in print circa 1759 that I had an awakening. I raised my eyebrows and thought, “Well, the boy was well read for a nine-year-old.” I’m a Laurence Sterne kind of contrarian.

Contrarians have good memories of America, too, just fewer than NY Yankee fans. One day I was outside in the driveway washing the car. Don’t get me wrong the car was broken and as I was unemployed I couldn’t afford to fix it, but it was just one of those glorious days where being inside and yelling at the TV just seemed wrong.

Three evangelicals approached me and gave me a magazine explaining how awful the Day of Judgment was going to be. “What do you think about that, brother,” the main dude asked? I wanted to say that I was already a Seven Day Adventurist, but I respect the religious views of others, and, at that moment, I also saw my oldest boy, then nine or so, trying to light bushes next to our house on fire with a book of matches he had found. I nonchalantly walked over - hose in hand - to the burning bush and put out the fire. The three evangelicals followed me across the lawn like the police cars chasing O. J, Simpson. “Well?” the man asked again. “If the Day f Judgment is going to be this bad,” I said holding out the magazine – they all nodded enthusiastically, “then I suggest we enjoy this beautiful day even if God is getting ready to sucker punch us.” The evangelicals took back the magazine and left. Contrarians believe that God works in mysterious ways, too, the Yankees notwithstanding.

I’m writing this because Christmas is coming and I don’t want people confusing the word contrarian with curmudgeon. My father use to pick fights with my sister and I right before Christmas to reduce expectations of getting a pricey gift. For the two weeks before the 25th he was one of the most contrary individuals you would ever want to meet. But he was no curmudgeon.

I live in Thailand now which is not yet a Christian country. This is anecdotal information so I could be wrong. At any rate, I have no fear of roving bands or radicalized Presbyterians showing up in the middle of the night and burning a question mark on my lawn. Usually, you don’t even notice Christmas here. I’ve heard that Santa has a place down in the islands, but he never shows up until after Christmas. Santa is kind of a contrarian, too, when you think about it.

The late Ed McMahon is my idol, not because he was the spokesperson for the Publishers Clearinghouse lotteries and died broke, but because he once said that he never went out drinking on New Year’s Eve because that was when all the amateurs went out drinking. Almost all contrarians take Christmas off for pretty much the same reason.

So Merry Christmas to all. In these tough times it may be well to remember the words of Teddy Roosevelt: Small fare and great good cheer make for wondrous welcome.* See you in 2011!

Forrest

* Teddy Roosevelt was a President of the United States. I mention this for those illegals who may be tired of waiting for blanket amnesty and thinking of taking the citizenship test. I don’t know if Teddy Roosevelt will be on the test and now that you can take the test in your native language his name may translate as Doraemon or Hello Kitty for all I know.

All rights reserved by the author Forrest Greenwood. The wrongs you can do anything you want with.