Winokur - The Portable curmudgeon redux

Copyright 2011 Jon Winokur

Smashwords Edition

Drawings by Everett Peck

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cur.mud.geon\,kr-mj-nn [originunknown]

archaic: a crusty, ill-tempered,churlish old man

modern: anyone who hates hypocrisyand pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habitof pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorousmanner

TO NOBODY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The following well-meaning persons insisted ontrying to help: Peter Bell, Reid Boates, Norrie Epstein, RonHammes, Nancy Lea Johnson, Howard LeNoble, Anita Nelson, SusanNethery, John Paine, Al Rasof, Susan Rogers, Tobi Sanders, SteveSchuhle, Susan Soriano, Nancy Steele, Linda Takahashi, LawrenceTeacher, Stuart Teacher, LuAnn Walther, Robert Weide of WhyaduckProductions, Bobbie Weiner, Elinor Winokur, and Mark Wolgin.

CONTENTS

H. L. MENCKEN

INTRODUCTION

Dictionaries define curmudgeon as achurlish, irascible fellow; a cantankerous old codger. The originof the word is unknown, but it might come from an old Scottish wordthat meant murmur or mumble, or from the French coeurmechant, evil heart. The archaic definition made it a synonymfor miser, and the word has had recent currency in asomewhat milder connotation, to describe a not entirely unlikablegrouch.

A curmudgeons reputation for malevolence isundeserved. Theyre neither warped nor evil at heart. They donthate mankind, just mankinds excesses. Theyre just as sensitiveand soft-hearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerabilitybeneath a crust of misanthropy. They ease the pain by turning hurtinto humor. They snarl at pretense and bite at hypocrisy out of ahealthy sense of outrage. They attack maudlinism because itdevalues genuine sentiment. They hurl polemical thunderbolts atmiddle-class values and pop culture in order to preserve theirsanity. Nature, having failed to equip them with a serviceabledenial mechanism, has endowed them with astute perception and slywit. Offense is their only defense. Their weapons are irony,satire, sarcasm, ridicule. Their targets are pretense, pomposity,conformity, incompetence.

When I was a small boy, my father took me to theStage Delicatessen in New York, having told me beforehand to keepmy eyes open for celebrities. By the time we were seated at adouble table next to a tall, dour man, I had unsuccessfully scannedthe place for Uncle Miltie or Captain Video or even Dagmar.Disappointed, I blurted out, I dont see any celebrities!Our tablemate slowly looked up from his mushroom barley, and withhis patented scowl, Fred Allen did a very, very slow burn in mydirection. It was the dirtiest look Id ever received, but I wasntintimidated. Rather I felt that wed shared a joke, that Id beenhis straight man. He never let on, but I knew he was amused. Myfather introduced me to Mr. Allen, and as he gently shook my handwithout cracking a smile, I felt his unmistakable goodwill behindthe curmudgeons mask.

Curmudgeons are mockers and debunkers whosebitterness is a symptom rather than a disease. They cantcompromise their standards and cant manage the suspension ofdisbelief necessary for feigned cheerfulness. Their awareness is acurse; theyre constantly ticked off because theyre constantlyaware of so much to be ticked off about, and they wish things werebetter.

Maybe curmudgeons have gotten a bad rap in thesame way that the messenger is blamed for the message: They havethe temerity to comment on the human condition without apology.They not only refuse to applaud mediocrity, they howl it down withmorose glee. Their versions of the truth unsettle us, and we holdit against them, even though they soften it with humor.

H. L. Mencken was the quintessential curmudgeon,the one against whom all others must be measured. He wrote thirtybooks and countless essays, columns, and critical reviews. He was alexicographer, reporter, and editor, the literary champion ofSherwood Anderson, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, and EugeneONeill.

Mencken was the scourge of the middle class,which he called the booboisie. In spite of his condescending toneand lack of faith in his fellowman, he was a crusader againstbigotry and injustice. He championed libertarianism and deridedpiety Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, maybe happy, he wrote.

The other great curmudgeons who have contributedto the general sanity of mankindfrom Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierceto G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw, from Groucho Marx andW. C. Fields to Dave Barry and Lewis Blackhave all had thefacility for pointing out the absurdities of the humancondition.

If there was a Golden Age of curmudgeonry, itwas during the 1920s and 30s at New Yorks Algonquin, an otherwiseundistinguished hotel on West Forty-fourth Street. A dazzling arrayof wits and raconteurs gravitated to the table of AlexanderWoollcott, the New York Times theater critic and bookreviewer, and made it a bastion of urbanity and sparkling repartee.Edmund Wilson dubbed it an all-star literary vaudeville.According to Groucho Marx, The admission fee was a vipers tongueand a half-concealed stiletto. It was a sort of intellectualslaughterhouse. Clare Boothe Luce, no doubt because she was afrequent target of some of its members, was not amused: Youcouldnt say Pass the salt without somebody turning it into a punor trying to top it.

The regulars among the artists, celebrities, andintellectuals who frequented the round table included Franklin P.Adams, Marc Connelly, George S. Kaufman, Harold Ross, HeywoodBroun, Ring Lardner, Robert E. Sherwood, Robert Benchley, andDorothy Parker. Other habitus included Oscar Levant, the MarxBrothers, Tallulah Bankhead, Herman Manckiewicz, Herbert BayardSwope, Edna Ferber, Noel Coward, Charles MacArthur, and S. N.Behrman. As a result, the Algonquin Round Table is the singlegreatest source for the quotations and anecdotes in this book.

The featured curmudgeons in these pages arenot necessarily typical. Indeed, curmudgeons are fierceindividualists by definition. Nevertheless, an examination of thelives of W. C. Fields, Oscar Wilde, George S. Kaufman, RobertBenchley, Oscar Levant, Dorothy Parker, and Groucho Marx, revealscommon threads. Many of them had unhappy childhoods and grew intoneurotic, reclusive, self-centered adults. Many remained shy andinsecure in spite of their celebrity. An inordinate number wereprone to alcoholism, drug addiction, insomnia, hypochondria,misogyny, even suicide.

The contemporary curmudgeons I intervieweddisplayed none of these tendencies. Theyre all intelligent,articulate, and personable. Many are happily married or mated, andthey all appeared healthy and sober when we met. They wereunanimous in their reluctance to characterize themselves ascurmudgeons without the proviso that anybody who isnt acurmudgeon nowadays is just not paying attention. They wereinvariably forthcoming and responsive to my questions, bothpertinent and impertinent. Im grateful to all of them for theirun-curmudgeonly cooperation.

You dont have to be a curmudgeon to make acurmudgeonly statement, so quotes from non- and quasi-curmudgeonsare included hereinapparently even the terminally Pollyannaish canhave flashes of clarity. But the majority of the quotes in thesepages are from the world-class curmudgeons listed herein.