Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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6 OCTOBER 8 -14, 2014 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM 79th Season Friday, OctOber 17, 2014 7:30 pm at the Crown Theatre Master of Ceremonies Co-Producers The Fayetteville Observer Chuck Weber Hinkamp Jewelers Executive Producers Judy DiBacco ERA Strother Real Estate Jernigan-Warren Funeral Home Spring Lake Dental Group - Mid-South Lighting Dr. David G. Dickerhoff Nationwide Insurance - Michael L. Warren Powers-Swain Chevrolet Producers Rogers & Breece Funeral Home - Robert W. Breece Bryan Honda Sandhills Oral Maxillofacial Surgery - Bullard's Furniture Dr. Gary Jones, Dr. Gerald Beatty Mohler Homes, Inc. Up & Coming Weekly Dr. & Mrs. Micheal Ruff Valley Auto World Dr. Robert Calabria DDS - Orthodontist VantageSouth Bank Nathan's Heating & Air, Inc. Village Green Real Esate & Development Wellons Realty Presents Tickets on sale NOW! For Scotty McCreery Tickets call: Ticketmaster at 1-800-745-3000 or Visit the Crown Box Office For Season Memberships and Info: (910) 323-1991 or (910) 303-3513 www.community-concerts.com Scotty McCreery Everything Is Great BY PITT DICKEY Is the world too much with you? Does the thought cross your mind that this is not the best of all possible worlds? Are you feeling cranky like the line in Bob Dylan's ode to pessimism, "Subterranean Homesick Blues": "The pump don't work/'Cause the vandals took the handles." Have the vandals taken your handles? Has your well of optimism run dry? Is your half empty glass broken and stuck at the back of the dishwasher? Has the tidal wave of disturbing news washed away your personal Inn of Seventh Happiness that you had constructed to help you avoid reality? Do not despair, help is on the way. Anti- depressants are not the answer. Let not ISIS, Ebola or Russkies in the Ukraine trouble your heart. There is a cure for what ails you nestled in the German language. We may be too old to die young, but we can still die good looking. Pull up a chair and ponder a great German concept and fun word to try to say — schadenfreude. Say it loud and there is happiness playing. Say it soft and it's almost like praying. Schadenfreude means pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. As carbon based life forms, we wallow in other people's misery to perk ourselves up. Misery loves company, for example. Consider the quote from the late sensitive author, Gore Vidal who once said: "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies." Admit it, you sometimes feel the same way. Moral: Get friends less successful than you are. I got to thinking about schadenfreude recently when I was in a store in the Blue Ridge mountains buying some mundane item. As I stood in line, I recalled Peggy Lee's song, "Is That All There Is?" Shopping in the mountains allows you to have more celestial thoughts than buying stuff in the flat lands. Had I been produced by uncountable millennia of human evolutionary progress just to stand in line at a convenience store? Yep. That's all there is. The guy in front of the line was having trouble with his credit card. The cashier ran it through multiple times. Nothing. She then typed in the numbers and still nada. She called the supervisor over. Still nothing. The line behind him grew longer and more restive. I entered the land of boredom. I experienced a slice of personal irritation asserting itself as it became more evident that his card was never going to be accepted. I try to remain zen in lines and think about lofty stuff. Zen wasn't working. As time continued to slow down, my sunny disposition started to set in the west. Then I saw it. Next to the check out line was a magazine about Celebrity Plastic Surgery Gone Bad. Schadenfreude came through! Huzzah! While I stood waiting for Godot to have his credit card accepted, I could look at scary plastic surgery results among America's ideal human beings. Like Andy Warhol once said, I am deeply shallow. Pointless things entertain me greatly. The discomfort of these celebs made me feel better about my lot in life. Standing in line was not so bad. One celeb was noted to have Trout Lips. Her collagen runneth over. Her lips did in fact appear to belong on a fish instead of human being. My time on line was not for naught. Semi human faces loomed all over the front cover; shiny, taut and mannequin like. Eyes glittered behind layers of embedded chemical froth. One celeb's bottom in a bathing suit resembled a pair of supertankers going side by side through the Panama canal. I felt better already. These celebs were in worse shape than I was standing in an endless line. So there is the key to happiness. With all due respect to Mr. Natural, he was wrong when he advised to "be like two fried eggs, keep your sunny side up." If you want to be happy, look for misfortune in others. Think of the people who are worse off. You are not Michael Jackson's doctor. You are not former congressdude and late night joke butt, Anthony Weiner. You are not the Secret Service agent in charge of keeping people from jumping over the White House fence. You are neither Joe Biden or Ted Cruz. Now don't you feel better already? Put on a happy face. Remember Bob Dylan's words that strike fear into the heart of Channel 5's meteorologist, Greg Fischel. "You don't need to be a weatherman/To know which way the wind blows." PITT DICKEY, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910.484.6200. Think things are bad? Remember, you could be Anthony Weiner.