I Hate People

It came out in conversation the other day that I hate people. Not any particular group, race or orientation, just people.

I think the seeds of my personal philosophy were actually the product of a friendship that I had in high school. Tippi was the guy's name (don't ask) and he reminded me of Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show. Nothing pleased those two old curmugeons and Tippi had their act down to a science. Won the lottery Tippi? That's great!

"Fucking taxes."

You get the picture.

I didn't realize at the time that Tippi had a genuine dislike for people in general. Old, young, black, white, male, female, straight, gay, it didn't matter. He would take one look at you, size you up, immediately do the math in his head and come to the conclusion that you weren't worth a damn. The funny thing was that as he got older, he actually converted a whole house full of people to his way of life. You would go over to their old bungalow in Cooper-Young and they would all sit around smoking one cigarette after another, slamming down Guinness and watching CNN.

They spent most of their time calling people in the news "Fucking idiots" and that was their term of endearment. If they really disliked the person they saddled him or her with "hippie communist" which was kind of funny considering the Charles Manson cult of personality thing they had going.

The highlight of the evening was when the phone would ring. Tippi always screened his calls and he would completely ignore the phone on the first two rings. On the third ring he would casually turn his head and blow cigarette smoke in the direction of the offending sound. The fourth ring, his eyes would squint like Clint Eastwood. Finally the machine would pick up and it would be some poor bastard that thought Tippi actually wanted to hear from him. The message would be left and Tippi would stare at the machine for several seconds before slowly turning his attention back to CNN.

"Fucking idiot."

Why was I over there watching the slow ballet that was Tippi's life of hate? I think that I subconsciously realized greatness when I saw it. As I got older, I began to understand that Tippi was a man ahead of his time. He didn't need anything from anybody and made damn sure they knew it. Last I heard from Tippi, he had moved to Taos, New Mexico and set up a tee pee out in the wilderness. I imagine him in the scrub, meeting the Gila monsters eye to eye, blowing smoking in what passes for their faces, and uttering "fucking idiot."

Now that I've had a chance to step back and look at my life and my personal philosophy, I see that Tippi had it right. What I was missing was the why. Why do people sicken and disgust me? Is it because the world is full of bullies and sycophants? But there has to be a pecking order, right? Otherwise it's anarchy.

I finally hit upon the answer the other night when somebody asked me why I hate people. It isn't that I hate all people, just the ones that don't do what I think they should. Drink Pepsi? Fucking idiot, you should drink Coke. Wear suspenders? Only a fucking idiot wears suspenders rather than a belt. And so on and so forth. If you want to stay on my good side, do what I think you should.