Think Mean Thoughts

Recently I was watching a rerun of “The Sopranos”. It was the episode where Tony finds out his mother has passed away and he ends up confessing to his therapist that he not only felt relief that she was dead, but that he had wished that she would die. And he went on about how that makes him a horrible son. But if you have watched the Sopranos at all you know that Mama Soprano was no saint and I actually could understand why Tony would just want her out of his life for good. (She actually wished herself dead a lot too. “I wish the lord would take me now.”)

It reminded me of a conversation I was having with a friend where I wished some misfortune on someone and just couldn’t be bothered feeling bad about it. Maybe some of us do this kind of thing all the time but I have always been a “live and let live”, “the best revenge is living well” kind of person. But after an exercise of thinking about some of the people that have wronged me or just irritate me and thinking of all the negative things I could wish for them I realized I felt better. I did it with a friend, it was funny, it made me laugh and I felt lighter after just spewing the meanness that I never really allowed myself to think about. And after that I still know that I’m the same “live and let live”, “the best revenge is living well” kind of person. I am now concluding that wishing negative things for people you don’t like can be personally rewarding from time to time. Go ahead and try it. Does wishing bad on someone else mean bad things will happen to you? Does wishing well for others bring you lots of good things? I call bullshit. What proof do we have of any of this?

Back in the day Camron had a song called “Hate Music” that might help get you started. Some of the lyrics are

“I hope your girl get AIDS, your brother crash and dash Or your mother die, and your sister is a topless dancer No answer, glaucoma, and your pops got cancer”

 Oooph! That’s rough! You might wanna start a little lighter than that if you are new to this.

And In This Corner....

This morning they announced yet another hate crime against a gay man in NY. He was beaten up pretty bad coming out of a McDonald's in the West Village. My question is, if you can't be gay in the West Village where can you be safely be gay at 4am?
NYC is a very diverse city but the neighborhoods are not really diverse at all. Everyone has their corners and we might mix and mingle during the day for work or entertainment or eating but for the most part everyone returns to their corners. And we all know which parts of which borough are whose "corner". We know where there are a lot of Blacks, West Indian Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Asians and Indians. We even know where there are middle class families versus rich ones verses poor ones. We know where there are Greek neighborhoods and Russian ones. We know where people that aren't from NY like to live and where tourists frequent... And we all know that the West Village is gay. It's not like no one else goes there but you know what it is and why should anyone really care? This is New York City? If you don't like gays or people of different races or cultures or value systems or religions or people who smell weird or eat on the train or piss in the subway or preach about Jesus from the sidewalk, or people who jay walk or ignore "DON'T WALK" signs, or if you don't like paying a different price for a Snapple depending on what neighborhood you are in then you gotta move to Wisconsin. And I'm not saying we all love each other here. But we sure as hell tolerate each other and we damn sure can't be beating people up and murdering people because they are gay (especially in the West Village) or because they charge 50 cents extra for a Snapple in wealthy or touristy areas.