The manners revolution starts here

The culture of entitlement
And because celebrity news is maybe the only thing we all have in common now, and because celebrities-behaving-badly is the most fun version of that news, and because in the media grinder it all winds up weighing and tasting the same, we get used to it. And getting used to it means eventually enjoying the taste. To aspire to be Halle Berry, to desire the glamorous life, to live above your station, is also to aspire to be alpha dog, to be first in line, to not have to pay attention to anyone else’s rules. To do whatever you feel like doing as long as you get your way. It now goes hand-in-hand with being able to walk into Barney’s and not check the pricetags.

It’s a stupid trap and we all fell for it. But there’s a way out. My run-in with the possibly murderous Hummer jerk — who wasn’t famous but whom I’ll call Busta Rhymes because Busta recently publicly mistreated a gay fan for no good reason — convinced me to start on a new path, one advocated by syndicated columnist Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners: be the politeness you wish to see in the world.  It’s the least I can do.

I’m not going to run around trying to fix the awful people, upbraiding wrongdoers like a one-man clean-up crew. No more righteous indignation, no more flipping off selfish drivers, no more yelling at old guys bugging me while I’m trying to get my art-film-snob on in Beverly Hills. It’s bad for my blood pressure. And it only serves to make the Lindsays of the world more angry and likely to drive head-on into you.

So I’m going to observe the speed limit, I’m going to alert the usher, I’m going to say “Oh by all means, you go first,” when very important nobodies barge into line at the supermarket, yammering into their Motos about all the important nothing they have to say. I’m going to quietly resist the culture of entitlement but I won’t let it get me down anymore. I’ve got too much classy living to do.

Dave White is the author of “Exile in Guyville,” a memoir about learning to love everything wrong with Los Angeles. Find him at www.imdavewhite.com.

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