Pet Peeves

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Pursuit of Happiness

By Mark D. Crantz
By Mark D. Crantz

This year’s Pageant of the Masters show is entitled, “Pursuit of Happiness.” My initial reaction was “wow,” they’re doing a show about the 1963 Rockefeller marriage and the pursuit of Happy Rockefeller by the angry spouses and families left behind. But then I realized the show couldn’t be about that because the breakup was too emotionally charged and scandalous at the time. Today’s sophisticated audiences wouldn’t believe the divorcees and kids could stand perfectly still in the story’s renderings and not be jumping in to ring Happy and Nelson Rockefeller’s necks until death do them part.

My second thought was to have a beer. My third thought and I believe the correct one is that the show’s title comes from the well known phrase “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” found in the Declaration of Independence and the marriage vows between Happy and Nelson Rockefeller. The phrase says that these three examples are “inalienable rights” given to all human beings by their Creator and for which governments are created to protect. An inalienable right means that an alien does not have life, liberty or any hope to pursue happiness here on earth. So parents should tell their kids before the show that there are no outer space life forms in this year’s pageant. I know it will come as a disappoint not to see “Men in Black XXV,” at this year’s Pageant of the Masters. I’m pretty bummed out myself.

One alert Indy reader wrote me that she believes this year’s pageant is about the pursuit of Happy by six evil dwarfs and the woman who snows them into chasing him. The show’s original title was going to be called “Outside In,” and delve into today’s kids psyche to try and understand the emotional tats kids wear on their sleeves: Bashful, Dopey, Grumpy, Sleepy and Sneezy. And why today’s children won’t just tell their Doc what’s ailing them instead of putting their symptoms in indelible ink.  The third and final act compares today’s children to yesterday’s children, who always inked, “I Love Mom,” and the subsequent increase they got in allowance because of it.

Quite frankly, I’m not sure what this year’s show is about. Usually ignorance is bliss, but not knowing just makes me sad. Worse I didn’t pursue this sadness. It’s very clever of the Pageant to make me sad first and then promise me that the pursuit of happiness will happen when I attend a performance. I guess I’ll just have to go. But first I have to see a doc to get this indelible frowny face off my arm, while convincing my mom to pay for my managed care deductible. That’s why I’m keeping “I Love Mom” on my other arm.

See you at the Pageant where we’ll find happiness together.

 

Mark splits his time between California and Michigan, but is always in the state of confusion and befuddlement. His wife told us so.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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