Happy Endings I have, in the past, been accused of negativity. To be fair, this is not my fault. In America, things must always have a happy ending: movies, books, even the news. Think about it. Your evening news starts out with murder and tragedy and ends with a heartwarming fluff piece about puppies, clowns, or seven year olds who fly airplanes. These pieces tell you relatively little about the nature of the world. America is, after all, the nation that worships the pursuit of happiness. Diet plans and real-estate scams are all based on selling you the idea of happiness. The MX missile was sold on the premise of peace. Americans are suckers. Anything without the prerequisite happy ending is suspect. I distrust people who see a silver lining in every cloud. I’m not a scientist, but I’m pretty sure a silver lining to every cloud would be a sign of some serious ecological problem. I know that the silver industry says up to ninety percent of the earth’s atmosphere can be safely composed of powdered silver, but I have lingering doubts. These doubts nag at me. The studies they cite, some of them, appear to be tobacco industry studies with the word “tobacco” crossed out and replaced with the word “sugar,” which was replaced with “saccharine” and then, finally, “silver.” But they are conserving paper, and saving trees, so I guess I can applaud that. Let it not be said I am one of those nay sayers who are in it just for the opportunity to say nay. When I edited a newspaper I once had a woman come in and say, “why does your paper print all ‘the bad things’? Why can’t you just print ‘the good things’? I prefer to see just the good things in the world and not the bad.” We all have our preferences. I explained to her that the press was indeed made up of bottom feeders and suggested she direct her attention to the matter upon which we feed. I distrust people who are happy all the time. The people who are “more than happy.” People who are “more than happy to be here.” People like -- WalMart Greeters. People who have no reason to be that happy. But they are. They are as happy as happy can be, plus. I don’t know. It all seems just a little... selfish. What if happiness is a finite quantity? What if there is only so much to go ‘round? These people are hogging it all. It doesn’t even mean anything to them anymore. Happiness Junkies need more and more in order to feel anything. Still, they don’t want you to take that buzz away. I think the dark side is an integral part of life. Look at the make a wish program. So, you get your day. And let’s assume it lives up to expectations, which is a heavy assumption. But I give it to you for the sake of the argument. You have your day. Then the next day comes. Where do you go from there? “Please sir, may I have another?” “No. You’re Done.” I'm sure that when Shindler's List was screened, a guy in a suit from the studio said, "Why is no one smiling? I look at the screen and NO ONE is smiling. Not for two whole hours. I only laughed three times the whole film Spielberg; Jesus, lighten it up a little. We've all seen Hogan's Heroes- we know it's not as bad as all that. Where's the guy with the monocle? And Black & White? BLACK & WHITE? We're shooting for commercial viability here, buddy." I also thought about when the books of the Bible were being shopped around for a publisher. Envision the apostle Paul sitting down with the publishing representative. "I don't know, Paul. It's short. We do appreciate that. Means we can publish it with similar stuff, an anthology. Maybe we can even serialize it in some of the popular Judaic magazines. We may even be able to give a kind of a running reference to the Torah; you know, bibliographers can do wonders these days. Hey, now there's a snappy little title- "Bible." We just want to make sure we don't saturate the market. I mean, if we put this sucker on every night stand in every inn, who's gonna want to see it? We don't want to breed resentment. That's why we're nixing the Latin version. Keep it in Hebrew, that's where the market is. Too many in-jokes for the goyem. They'll never understand." "Also, Paul, I want to talk to you about the end. How can I put this? We can't publish a book where the main character... Dies at the end. Especially in such a nasty way. Crucifixion, now that hurts." "Don't get me wrong. We love the betrayal with a kiss. Maybe we could get some more milage out of that. About that end though, I know it's cliché, but how about making it all a dream? You know, like, he had a lot of wine at the last supper and dreamt the whole thing. You've got to resolve this thing. Look, find a way to bring him back and we'll publish it. We gotta leave the door open to a sequel. David Raffin is the editor of Vision? Nary! magazine. A writer and a performer, he may be contacted though his home page. This column is available by email. If you are interested in running this column as a regular feature in your publication, contact here.