On his happiness hour Friday, Dennis Prager took a call from Connie in Sacramento.
Connie: "People have a fundamental moral obligation to be real. That’s the problem in our culture right now. It’s the opposite of what you’re saying. Everybody who has brought about critical change that we’ve needed regarding social justice, for instance, African-Americans who fought for civil rights, Gandhi… These are people who did not act happy all the time… In our everyday lives, we need to do the same thing. We need to show how we really feel and not be fake."
Dennis: "Are you married?"
Connie: "That has nothing to do with it. Stay on the topic, Dennis."
Dennis: "No. I’m allowed to ask what I want."
Connie: "That’s an isolated question. It doesn’t matter whether I am married or not."
Dennis: "I assume from what you’re saying that you’re either unhappily married or not married."
Connie: "You’re very unprofessional to make such an assumption."
Dennis: "My profession is to offer my reasoned thinking."
Connie: "Don’t make assumptions."
Dennis: "I make assumptions. I would not be married to a woman who felt like you."
Connie: "You promote pretentiousness."
Dennis: "I suspect that if more people acted like you, they would increase the amount of bitterness and anger in our lives. You sound bitter and angry and I don’t."
"It’s inauthentic that my breath smells good. It’s completely inauthentic. I use gargle. I use toothpaste. Perfume and deoderant are inauthentic. Daily showers are inauthentic. Not flatulating is inauthentic. Men not grabbing women in the elevator is inauthentic.
"By the way, Gandhi did not walk around angry and bitter. Ever. Ever."
I can’t wait for someone to say to Prager, "Have you been divorced twice? You sound like someone who’s on his third marriage. I would not want to be married to someone like you. You radiate something that does not make for a stable family life."
Talking about his speech to high school students on the moral obligation to be happy, Dennis said: "I infuriated at least one of the teachers. He said, ‘No. Unhappiness is a great thing in so many people. If Mahler had been happy, we would not have had the Mahler symphonies.’
"He used classical music with the wrong guy. I not only know Mahler’s symphonies, I conduct symphonies. I know the keys of all of Mahler’s symphonies and even fragments of the tenth. I went through all of Mahler’s symphonies. While it is true that the sixth is called the tragic and the ninth he knew he was dying, but the eighth, the beauty of the fourth. I don’t think he expected this speaker to tell him about the keys and the happiness of the different Mahler symphonies."
In his third hour, Prager said: "I won’t change the definition of marriage because I want gays to be happy."
This gay Hollywood producer told him: "You’re on the wrong side of history."
Dennis: "That may well be and it has absolutely no impact on my thinking. I know I am on the wrong side historically on capital punishment… That history is moving in the direction of X does not make X right."
