Danehy

Y’know, you learn new stuff every day. For example, recently, I’ve
learned that:

• Guys are pigs. I was reading an article in Time magazine
about this new, fake-ass societal subclass, people who refer to
themselves as Committed Unmarrieds (CU). They’re not the stereotypical
commitment-phobes, but people who claim to have evolved past the
stifling convention of marriage.

Some CU people note that nearly half of all marriages end in
divorce, but they conveniently fail to mention that CU couples split up
at twice the rate of married couples, and they usually do so in the
first five years of CU-dom.

I don’t really care that much. If a guy doesn’t want to marry his
woman, and she still lets him see her naked and everything, I guess,
good for him. What kills me is that instead of sitting back and
fighting to hold back that canary-eating grin, guys open their mouths
and say really stupid things.

This one guy said that he’d like to marry his woman, but he refuses
to even consider it as long as Proposition 8 is in effect in
California. Apparently, Brad Pitt is his patron saint.

I’m reminded of the anti-war jerk in Forrest Gump who slaps around
Jenny and then blames his abuse of women on Richard Nixon.

C’mon, guys; sack up. You don’t want to get married? Don’t get
married. And don’t bother trying to explain your decision; it’s really
not that important. Although it would probably make for a pretty good
reality show 10 or 15 years down the road when you try to explain that
decision to your kids.

• Sometimes, the grass is greener. J.W. Lown, the mayor
of San Angelo, Texas, resigned his office the other day, because his
male partner lives in Mexico, and the mayor didn’t want to break any
laws by bringing his partner to San Angelo without proper
documentation.

Lown was recently elected to his fourth consecutive two-year term,
receiving 89 percent of the vote in the process. He was supposed to be
sworn in last Tuesday, but called from Mexico to say that he wouldn’t
be there. He said that if his partner can get a visa, they’ll return to
San Angelo “if the people would welcome him back.”

Oh yeah, the mayor’s job has an annual salary of $600.

Raise your hand if you would trade Tucson’s political problems for
San Angelo’s.

• Star Trek has been, and always will be, better than Star Wars. I was a nerd/geek/comic-book guy long before they had
derogatory names for it, and I’ve always taken the Gene Roddenberry
side of the argument over George Lucas (although I’m also a big fan of
Lucas, all the way back to his experimental film THX-1138. Did
you ever notice that the license plate number of John Milner’s yellow
hot rod in American Graffiti was THX-138?).

The new Star Trek movie certainly piles up the points for my
side. It’s cleverly advertised with the line, “This is not your
father’s Star Trek.” I went to see it with my son, who has spent
most of his life ridiculing my love of the series. I’ve paid him back
over the years by using the split-finger Spock move to say goodbye to
him on the way to school—in front of as many of his friends as
possible. One kid told him, “My dad drinks, but your dad is way
worse.”

Anyway, the new movie is quite good. I would like to say that it’s
better than the three most-recent Star Wars things, but I can’t
honestly say that. I’m one of those people who saw the first three
Star Wars movies (Episodes 4, 5, and 6), waited 20 years for
another, and then ran screaming from the theater after sitting through
The Phantom Menace. I’ve never even bothered to see Episodes 2
and 3.

• Smart people can be really dumb sometimes. I have a
friend who is a doctor. He moved to another city about four years ago
and bought an overly large and overpriced house. Now, on paper, it’s
worth less than what he paid for it. He’s freaking out, talking about
declaring bankruptcy, and in one phone conversation used the term
“upside down” more times than a hooker would in a month.

I tried to explain to him that the only way he would lose money is
if he were to sell it right now, or abandon it altogether. As long as
he’s living in the house, it doesn’t really matter what the market says
it’s worth. And does he really think that the real estate market is
going to remain depressed forever (or even for another year, for that
matter)?

For most of my adult life, my pattern has been to buy a new car,
drive it for seven years or so until something goes wrong, and then go
buy another one. As soon as I drive the thing off the lot, I’m “upside
down” financially. But there comes a point where I pull even, and then
I move ahead. I have a car to drive, and there’s a few thousand dollars
left at the end to put toward a new car. Not once did I freak out about
being upside down.

I can’t believe they give a Nobel Prize in economics.

This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2009.