Nice Lights
A good friend who goes to a lot of parties and film festivals often talks about how delightful it is to run into people who are “so nice.” Meaning that they’re friendly, gracious, funny, witty, open-hearted. It’s the easiest thing in the world, of course, to turn on your nice lights at a social gathering. The worst psychopath in the world can put on a “nice” face anywhere, any time. About as meaningful as a snow cone.
What impresses me is whether a person exudes a straight, no b.s. vibe, and looks you in the eye when they shake hands and seems to know one or two things. And if they have that steady Zen thing going on. And, once you know them a bit, if they’re reliable and trustworthy. And if they’re “nice” to waiters and shuttle drivers and phone company employees. (Unless, you know, the waiters and/or phone company employees are stupid or something.) “Nice” and $1.75 will get you a bus ticket.
But can they change a flat? It’s a key question.
There seems to be no question that the willingness to change a tire, and the skill in doing so, is THE defining indication of good character in a human being.
Why does that always come up? Who the fuck knows how to change a tire? And who would trust themselves to do so? I have NO EARTHLY IDEA how you change a tire and never wanna know; That’s what AAA is for. I’ll be goddamned if I’m putting OTHER PEOPLE at risk driving around with loose lug nuts because of my own machismo. You shouldn’t be changing your own tires either… leave it to the Armenian kid at Pep Boys.
Sorry, back to topic. Eh, I haven’t been to a real “party” in my entire goddamn life, so I’m getting sick of hearing about these schmoozy dick-sucky soirees from everybody on every blog and on my Twitter feed. Wouldn’t you rather just stay home and watch American Idol?
It’s been long time since I got to chat with someone that was “nice”, even the “possibly faking it” kind of nice. I suspect that the social contract in Washington, DC implicitly discourages it, so that even the truly nice people learn to suppress it.
Also, internet message boards. Oh, I’ve wasted my life!
Maybe I just don’t have the same vision of what a truly decent person would look like. When I talk to people with a “no b.s. vibe”, it means they are perfectly comfortable ripping apart every one and everything that the disapprove of, meaning they are unable to pretend to be polite. Ever.
Someone waited for you while you were taking a picture again, huh?
Putting on nice lights is easy yet exhausting when not used to it. Check http://www.buikvet.org how easy it can get.
Nice is to Hollywood what chastity is to the Moral Majority.
Let me try that again.
Nice is to Hollywood what fiscal restraint is to the Republican Party.
I find it hilarious that the display of friendliness at a party devolves into the possibility of sociopathy, phoniness, and how only suckers change their own tires. Seriously, I’m sitting here in a college library with a demented grin on my face to keep from laughing too audibly.
“Nice is to Hollywood what fiscal restraint is to the Republican Party.”
Too kind. Hollywood doesn’t even pretend niceness is a goal.
“Who the fuck knows how to change a tire? And who would trust themselves to do so? I have NO EARTHLY IDEA how you change a tire and never wanna know; That’s what AAA is for.”
You’ve obviously never lived in a time before cell phones, or been too broke to afford AAA, or had friends who were too broke to afford AAA, or spent much time driving where you’d have to wait forever for AAA, way out in the great beyond away from urban centers.
In fact, I’ve changed flat tires out in semi-wilderness places in Utah and New Mexico that aren’t even served by AAA, unless you’re willing to wait half a day and pay a multi-hundred dollar surcharge, assuming you can even get a cell phone signal out there. It’s a basic adult competency.
Whenever someone is trying to set you up with a girl, and the response to your “What’s she like?” is met with “She’s nice”, you can bet she’s gonna be boring as fuck, a fatty, or both.
It’s a safe placeholder description of someone who has nothing interesting to offer.
“Hollywood doesn’t even pretend niceness is a goal.”
“It’s said in Hollywood that you should always forgive your enemies – because you never know when you’ll have to work with them.”
- Lana Turner
“You can’t find any true closeness in Hollywood, because everybody does the fake closeness so well.”
- Carrie Fisher
“There are a lot of guys in Hollywood who clap you on the back just a little too hard.”
- James Caan
“There seems to be no question that the willingness to change a tire, and the skill in doing so, is THE defining indication of good character in a human being.”
Didn’t the Zodiac change tires for people?
I’ve done it five feet away from a busy road and in a parking lot with three inches of snow. One time the tire that needed to be removed was worn to the point where tiny pieces of steel stuck out like dirty little needles. And it sucks to get every piece of clothing that you are wearing caked with road grime.
But there is an extremely uplifting and generous and euphoric feeling with everyone involved when you change a stranger’s tire. They are so grateful for the fact that you essentially give their transportation back to them.
Highly recommended.
Changing a tire is easy as fuck. Have some self-reliance and learn how to do it. This is a further example of the pussification of the American male. Strong young men wheeling their bags around airports like they’re decrepit grandmas. Clicking open the handle and mincing off with their wheelie bag. Carry your bag like a man, you wuss. Hatchbacks that open and close automatically. Like it’s so fucking difficult to open a car’s hatch? And then so eternally taxing to close it? Numbed lemming douches.
You’d rather be at a party where they belch in your face? Turn on the nice lights! I’ll join the tire-changers.
How fucking dumb do you have to be to not know how to change a tire?
You jack the car up, take off the lug nuts, and switch the tire out. There is no secret or complex procedure.
three things they should teach in HIGH SCHOOL
How to change a tire
How to fill out income tax forms
How to deliver a baby
what a wonderful world it would be
I recall long ago the very first time I came to LA. I worked in the music business in New York and was a record label exec, so I had worked in business for years, but I had never, and I mean never ever, encountered people like this.
At first I though ‘gee, they are so nice!’ What I found was that perfectly polite people would feign interest in what I was saying or proposing or advising because they did not want to appear not to understand it or they wanted to reserve the option to maybe do something about it in the future and call you like you were their best pal but that to a man (or woman) they were the most mendacious people I had ever met. I’m from New Orleans were people can be falsely gracious but if they don’t like something, you know it.
It is very hard in business to deal with people who lie all of the time. It’s tiring, it’s mystifying, it’s tiresome. I high tailed back to New York where people will look you straight in the eye and say ‘that’s a terrible idea, I’m not doing that’ or ‘that’s great, let’s do that’ and they mean it.
This false camaraderie thing, it’s a very LA thing, and it’s very hard to navigate.
And in a side note of straight talking; BasOverdoorn stopping fucking spamming or fuck off.
AnnaZed remindes me of that oldie but goodie:
“Hollywood is the one place on earth where you can die of encouragement.”
- Dorothy Parker
If you argue that Pauline Kael said this, I will be impressed and admire you very much. We should talk soon.
DukeSavoy – YES! Couldn’t agree more.
I don’t understand how a grown man isn’t CRUSHINGLY EMBARASSED by his inability to CHANGE A TIRE.
If I sound sarcastic, I’m not – I’m genuinely incredulous. This is basic,basic stuff and should be second nature to any man – not just to be self sufficient but, as mentioned above, to help out the less fortunate traveller who – due to age or disability – can’t help themselves.
That guy at the party? The one with the firm handshake, the steely glint in his eye? The guy with the no b.s. vibe who seems ‘know a thing or two’? The ‘Lee Marvin’ type, if you will?
He agrees with me.
DukeSavoy, yeah, you said it! Jeff’s original point has a lot of merit but it is funny how the opening comment made the subsequent thread go off in a largely different direction.
Oh, and it looks like Spielberg is going to make that Moses film with Warner Bros. after all. What Jeff thinks about this, the world wants to know.
Nice to phone company employees? For a week I’ve been begging Verizon to fix my phone/internet line with no luck. Verizon is pure evil.
I can change a tire easily enough, but I still don’t know which end of the jumper cables goes where first through last. I can switch out your wheels and blow up your battery in ten minutes flat.
The jacks that come with cars are worthless. If you intend to change your own tires, be advised to buy a heavy duty jack.
I quit changing my own tires 15 years – too much damn trouble. Road service through my insurance company is ridiculously cheap – it makes no sense whatsoever to not have a road service deal.
People who judge manliness based on what tasks you can accomplish are always a bit ridiculous. I spoke to a guy once who insisted that a “real man” only needed to take a shit once every couple of days. Apparently holding in shit was somehow “manly” to him. Fuck that noise.
http://artofmanliness.com/2008/09/11/how-to-jump-start-a-car
I’ve never driven. Fuck tires.
I can change a tire, but I don’t do it if I don’t have to. I am after all, a woman and I don’t like fucking up my hands. I can change a bicycle tire (or just tube usually) as well, which comes in much more handy because I’m not calling AAA to do that.
@Hallick, I’m right there with you on the jumper cable question. Ghost072′s article aside, I’ve never found a decent mnemonic for this. So I bought a pair of jumper cables that has a plastic label attached with directions. The label won’t rot off and as long as I’m careful not to tear it, I’ll always have it right there. Problem solved.
I can change a tire, but when I got one on a busy highway and wound up parked on a slight slope, I called AAA.
In basic agreement with Jeff, but I’d add that often the self-styled “straight shooters” are assholes too.
My dad taught me to change tires before I was allowed to learn to drive. That is, he removed the tire from the car and wandered inside whilst I sat on the driveway figuring it out.
JR is right – Jacks that come with cars are pieces of shit. I totally need to buy a good one to store in my boot. The one that came with my VW was pathetic. The three times I have had to change a tire (OK, the first time was a block away from a friend’s house, so I called her and got her stepfather to change it) I spent 20 minutes trying to jack the car up. Granted, of course both times were on a slope uphill, but people got out and helped me. Being a girl sitting on the road ineffectually turning the jackscrew made me an object of pity, I suppose.