Anger Banger

Ah, wrath is indeed the deadliest sin.

Now I want you all to say that in a Northside Dublin accent.

“Wrath is indeed the deadliest sin.”

Irish readers should know what I mean by now, but if you’re from outside of the island, or if you’re so cotton-wooled by upward mobility and the elocution lessons your Maw insisted on that you don’t know what a Northside Dublin accent is, then go rent out The Commitments and come back when you’ve absorbed every bleeeeeedin’ Jaysus.

“Deadly”, in this instance, means “fucking brilliant”. A deadly sandwich, a deadly remix, a deadly rrrroide … and a deadly sin. Wrath is good for you. Even Jaysus himself let off steam from time to time.

Of course, that’s not to say that you should indulge your inner Hulk to such an extent that neither man, kitten nor begonia is safe in your path. Wrath is one thing, psychosis is quite another. Which may come as a surprise to some people, who in their dribbly reasonings believe that nobody should get excited, nobody should vent, and nobody should say anything at all unless it’s something Nice.

Mary Harney is a dissociated, arrogant cunt? Fashion houses that photoshop models into bobble-headed aliens should be boycotted out of business? Stephanie Meyer’s twisted concept of selfless love is on the batshit crazy side of fucking terrifying? None nice, but all fairly worthy of debate. And all born of cranky dissatisfaction. What a boring bunch we’d be, if we kept our lips zipped and our brains pink and fluffy. Fuck that. Reserve the right to call something shit, if you think it is. Be prepared for someone to argue back at you, mind, but isn’t that where all the fun is? I do love a good argument.

Plenty don’t seem to enjoy arguing with me, but generally it’s because they can’t understand that my saying something is shit isn’t a direct attack on their person. “Well, I like Mary Harney!” they might sniff. “Just because you don’t like her doesn’t mean she’s shit. Don’t be so self-important!” This whinge tends to miss the mark somewhat, because if I say something is shit, I’ll tell you why I think it’s shit. Disagree with me? Then take the point I make and tell me what’s wrong with it. Just because you say the sun shines out of Mary Harney’s sweaty armpits doesn’t mean it does, either. Good fucking Lord, has everyone in Ireland, outside of myself and David Norris, lost the ability to argue?

There’s fuck all wrong with having a good spat; it gets the blood pumping and the libido stomping about the place and it burns off, like, looooads of calories. And either party may learn something pretty great; spats broaden the mind, they do. Wordy wrath is only mighty.

There is, too, the school of thought which states that “Getting angry solves nothing”. Which, of course, I get offended by. Getting angry doesn’t solve everything, and indeed it may sink you into the shite like a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig parachuting onto the surface of a slurry pit, but staying schtum and stoic solves nothing. Anger implies action, reaction, momentum. The beatings will continue until morale improves, kids. And what if the chickens that have come home to roost weren’t your chickens in the beginning? Roast and serve ‘em up with gravy, that’s what I say. And so on and so forth (insert your own artificially-flavoursome proverb here).

This particular philosophy is the reason I can’t watch Curb Your Enthusiasm anymore. Curb Your Enthusiasm, for those of you still stuck watching Ryan fucking Tubridy (who’s shit, by the way … unless you fancy a pop at changing my mind?) features Larry David, a misanthrope and curmudgeon whose total lack of tact, and inability to comprehend etiquette, constantly lands him in painfully awkward situations …

Which I don’t buy at all. At all. I totally identify with Larry. He’s a man whose mistakes are only mistakes because the bullheaded gombeens around him can’t understand the odd He-Who-Dares endeavour and refuse to forgive the slightest sidestep into smartarsery. Larry is a prisoner in a world gone overly right, a world which can’t abide rudeness or sarcasm or wrath for wrath’s sake; the only wrath allowed is that pious scorn to check the uninhibited and unruly. Fuck everyone around Larry! LARRY DAVID LIVES IN HELL!

So yeah. While I may not entertain the notion of pushing over pensioners because you’ve just stubbed your toe, I can think of nothing worse than a world not spacious enough to accommodate contentious opinion, controversy or conviction. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, so long as they’re willing to back it up over a lively dinner table debate (and by dinner table, I mean late-night-kebab-house). Everyone’s entitled to get a little pissy over something they feel just isn’t good enough, something which misses the mark … laziness, or half-arsed nonsense masquerading as worth. It’s more pissiness we need. Wrath, or lack of patience with that which stinks of shite, or challenging debate – there’s no sin in that. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting cranky with the status quo from time to time. It’s fucking cleansing. Or not. You decide.

As Emily Dickinson said, “Anger as soon as fed is dead. ‘Tis starving makes it fat.”

Thin is in, people.