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“I suspect a good number of people hate New Year's for the same reason they hate Christmas or Thanksgiving,” my tight bro Kid Nice, aka Mint E. Fresh, told me when I asked him to chime in on why NYE blows.
“It forces them to socially interact with people radically different from themselves, i.e. people that would be starkly out of place in the Holiday Hater's clique of friends, or that would embarrass the H.H. at a party. This socially untouchable caste may include parents, uncles and other 'squares,' but especially unfashionable acquaintances or friends the H.H. knew before college, or people who resemble them in dress and speech. When members of this caste are drunk it amplifies the H.H.'s discomfort.”
Shit. He may be onto something here. So how does that relate to going home for the holidays, I wondered?
“On Christmas and Thanksgiving one goes home and sees these people from one's own past, but on New Year's Eve their equivalents choke the streets by the millions, shitfaced, loud and everywhere (not just in their hometowns) and so these offensive reminders of one's own townie roots cannot be escaped.”
By the way, he said, “I don't think any of the above about you specifically, Luke, it's not a comment about you or anyone else. I know you're always killing it with the hometown brodowns. I've thought that way, like the Holi-Hata. That's my mindset I'm describing, and I think that's the explanation for it. Or a part of it.”
Well, I am embarrassed by my family sometimes, aunts and uncles and so on, I told him. But in front of whom? The invisible judge in the sky?
By the way, he said, “I don't think any of the above about you specifically, Luke, it's not a comment about you or anyone else. I know you're always killing it with the hometown brodowns. I've thought that way, like the Holi-Hata. That's my mindset I'm describing, and I think that's the explanation for it. Or a part of it.”
Well, I am embarrassed by my family sometimes, aunts and uncles and so on, I told him. But in front of whom? The invisible judge in the sky?
“That is it exactly, with respect to your aunts and uncles. I of all people grate when I hear an unreconstructed Massachusetts accent. Why? Why does the accent of my saintly grandmother, or my Ma, or my brother, or myself, grate when I hear it from people other than them? That's unnatural. That's a learned behavior. Really, it's like being a sell out. And it doesn't make any sense. The world will not be a richer place if regional accents are replaced by TV accents. So it's not a reasoned reaction. Whatever it is, it has to be malignant, right?”
So, in other words, I hate NYE because I hate myself. Or at least the original version of myself that I'm tied through my place of origin. (Lovely Kingston, MA, by the way).
But not so fast with your own sense of pride there, big city types. There's more to this small town sense of self here too, my man said.
But not so fast with your own sense of pride there, big city types. There's more to this small town sense of self here too, my man said.
“I read Ol' Chestnut, aka Chesty Morgan," [aka GK Chesterton, British genius, and author of classics like The Man Who Was Thursday] "argue that in a very real sense the universe of the rural or small town person is exponentially larger than that of the city dweller. This was because the small town man doesn't have the luxury of an urban population from which to assemble a society of the like-minded. He doesn't have the luxury of cliques or scenes. He has to interact with and know and befriend and collaborate with his neighbors or fellow towns-folk, whoever they are, however unlike himself in thought or speech or dress. I'm not saying I think this is literally true, but there is truth in the idea, and the Holiday Haterz reminded me of it."
So, if I'm understanding him correctly, in other words, if you hate New Year's Eve you're racist against yourself. That sounds about perfect for me.
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10 comments:
Kid Nice FTW
He did his thing.
Aren't townsfolk in a specific town mostly the same? Isn't that why we escaped to the city? So that we could develop relationships with people who are different from us. And realize that all stereotypes small town folk believe are absolutely and unequivocally correct.
Yeah, I think that Chesterton's premise may be a little flawed.
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