Jack Nicholson got it right. He makes a speech in this movie that I had to copy down. His delivery surpasses the written word and I can hear his voice when I remember "the Noodle Salad" speech that he delivers from the back of a sports car. Why post this now, you ask?
I have some family members who are going through something hellacious. And it isn't just a bad time or a downturn. It's like every conceivable avenue of horrible has laid itself before them to walk. I didn't even go into detail, but someone said to me upon hearing this, "We all have hard lives." And I thought, Uh, no. Hard things come and go for everyone, of course. Much of that is their perception and what feels hard to them. But some people just plain have it hard by any standard. There are situations that are like something out of Dickens, except too modern to be comforting by virtue of being quaint. Whole new levels of hell get invented as mankind progresses. There is nothing wrong with perception in certain cases. Some situations can make our eyes boggle. Rough stuff at the holidays? Well, so is evergreen and holly.
With all of the hardship that can coincide with a lengthy holiday season, I admit I find it perplexing that there are seminars advertised to people for how to "survive" the holidays, whether it comes to their careful eating habits, their family relations, their expectations, their spending or their frenzied activity. There are magazine articles, books, television programs, church sermons, lectures and cartoons that try to teach us how to get the most out of the holidays without everything turning ugly and burned out. That's a lot of time spent explaining to us that we don't have time to pay attention to extraneous activities such as attending seminars that sell tickets about how to survive the holidays.
Thanks, Santie, but the dolly is much nicer and less confusing
The concern with materialism surrounding Christmas started in the late 1800s, so this problem isn't going away anytime soon, apparently. There is so much discussion about it and strategizing and conferring that it now seems like death and taxes. The Holiday Problem will always be with us. That's crazy, but that's how it is. Yet, there could be something good in all of that. The conflicting values get people thinking and communicating about how to do it better, and as bizarre as that is, the Problem is a gift that demonstrates what we are blessed with-- the freedom to even think and talk about it at all. That is not true for everyone in every society.
Back to the "Noodle Salad" speech. It's more appropriate for summer-time festivities. But it came to me now, and feels like a humorous shadow side to all of the twinkling lights, without falling into bleakness. I offer it to all of the people who are feeling bad-- and feeling bad about feeling bad-- as permission to not have a jolly attitude on what can be a really spirit-trying day. The Grinch would not be so fun to watch, if he didn't start out grumpy. (Of course, I don't advocate being unpleasant or jaded to such a bright green, or stealing from others out of spite. Not good form, at the least.)
I give you St. Nicholson, the original Bad Santa:
Jack in Coke
"Some of us have great stories, pretty stories, that take place at lakes, with boats, and friends, and noodle salad-- just no one in this car, but a lot of people. That's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're that pissed that so many others had it good. "
-- from As Good As It Gets, written by Mark Andrus and James L. Brooks
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