You Can't Please All the People All the Time (However Hard You May Try)

Your scribe was reminded of this old truth the other day, when after a delightful concert of Christmas music he was accosted by a woman who accused him of being "mean-spirited" and "destructive". Ouch! What had he done to incur such opprobrium?

Turns out she didn't like some of the things he'd said in a recent blog. Ignoring the positives, she zeroed right in on what she perceived as the negatives, and with a fixed smile on her face that seemed to say "I hate your guts" lambasted your scribe up and down and sideways. "I'm sorry you took it that way," he said, when he was allowed to get a word in edgewise; "my purpose is not to tear down but to build up, and to try to make things better in this Town." She seemed not to hear a word your scribe said, but merely continued on with her screed.

Well, dear reader, your scribe has never pretended to want to try to please everybody, and this woman represents the reason why: it simply can't be done. No one knows this better than the AuthorBabe, who gets scads of hate mail from various of the village idiots every time she writes her bi-monthly op-ed piece for the Local Rag. She handles it all with grace and aplomb, trying first to apply logic to the situation, and when that fails (as it generally does when one is dealing with the village idiots), politely picking up her marbles and going off to play elsewhere. (At least the AuthorBabe has a full quota of marbles, unlike the VIs.)

The same point has been made in some of the posts on writing that your scribe has read recently. You may have written the best book currently unpublished in the Western world, but until you find an agent and a publisher who recognize your brilliance, you have to spend a lot of time and energy bringing your work to their attention. Perseverance is the key, your scribe believes; a healthy dose of optimism also helps.

But back to the woman who took umbrage. Your scribe has written many unkind words about the former First Selectman, the former chiefs of police, and various others who by their words and deeds have shown themselves to have strayed from the path of righteousness and/or common sense. But the fact remains that everything he has said is true, or at the very least is protected opinion. If he calls a former chief of police a liar and a perjurer, then you can take it to the bank that said excresence has indeed lied and perjured himself. If he tells the tale of how Lincoln Steffens got the Representative Town Meeting to agree that Greenwich is as corrupt a town as any in the country, you can check out the facts for yourself.

The problem, dear reader, is that this woman, like so many other people in this Town, wants to pretend that this is Disneyland and everything is fairy-tale perfect. Well, it just ain't so; and in fact Greenwich is actually a good deal worse than most other municipalities of its size. Probably has something to do with the fact that too many people around here have more money than is good for them, and it leads to the attitude known as "Greenwich entitlement" which allows them to sneer at the "little people", cheat on their taxes, ignore red lights and stop signs, and consume conspicuously enough to give Al Gore a heart attack.

Therefore, dear reader, your scribe will continue on as before, attempting to please no one but himself in what he writes. If the godly applaud him, so much the better; and if the ungodly gnash their teeth and mutter curses, well, at least he knows he's on the right track. "Greenwich Gossip" is not a puff piece, gentle reader; it attempts to present the unvarnished truth about our Town, good and bad alike. Let's all be clear on this score.

"I hope no one reads your malicious blog," said the unhappy woman as her parting shot. Your scribe did not bother to tell her it was too late for that, nor to try again to correct her misperceptions of his motives. Not only can you not please everybody all the time - sometimes you can't even reach them.