It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

It doesn’t take a lot of energy to hate.

When you stop to think about it, it’s a lot easier than loving or laughing. Hatred doesn’t require a high IQ and, in fact, is defeated by too much smart.

All you’ve got to do is sit there and let the heat wash over you like the cozy warmth of an approaching brush fire. Well, yes, eventually the fire’s going to get you, but meanwhile it feels sooo good.

Even acting out hatred is fairly easy. How much work can it be to write a letter, burn a cross, paint a swastika, carry a sign . . . or pull a trigger?

Beating someone requires a bit more sweat, but if you do it in a group it spreads out the energy requirements, right? That’s why war works.

I’m thinking about this because I’m sort of wrapping things up before going on vacation. We’re heading for China and hatred is on my mind.

It seems like only yesterday during the Korean War that we were supposed to be hating the Chinese. I never did hate anybody, but you couldn’t avoid the propaganda. Now I’m going over there to say, you know, no hard feelings.

You shot at me and I shot at you and, thank God, we both missed.

That’s the way the world works. One minute we’re supposed to be despising someone like the Germans or the Japanese or the Chinese or the Russians, and the next minute we’re drinking and singing together. Go figure.

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Hatred seems to come in waves. I’m suddenly receiving mail, both electronically and otherwise, in which the letter-writers find it necessary to take on what they refer to as “your people.”

They figure that My People are coming across the border in such numbers and gaining such power that pretty soon all the rest of you are going to either be driven into the sea or forced to live on refried beans the rest of your wretched lives.

I’ll try smuggling in some onion bagels now and again, but I’m not promising anything.

Then there’s the filth. My People, one man e-mailed me, are trashing America. He’s particularly upset at finding soiled diapers stuffed into the shelves of supermarkets behind the macaroni and cheese.

I don’t think he’s saying the stores are selling used diapers. He means My People are putting them there after changing the baby because they’re too damned iggorant to know what to do with them.

The man says he knows it’s My People doing it because he saw the same thing in Mexico City. What he doesn’t understand is that it’s a cultural tradition. I haven’t changed a baby’s diaper in a long time, but when I did, I always looked for a supermarket to dispose of the dirty ones.

I preferred Ralphs, but Lucky was OK too.

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One writer proclaimed that the reason My People always get the lousy jobs is because we are mentally impaired. Well, actually, “impeared” is the way he spelled it. He is, of course, correct.

I didn’t do all that good in school because I was always dreaming of things like senoritas and mama’s homemade tortillas, and look how I ended up. If only I’d have concentrated more, I could’ve had a nice job delivering mail and shooting up a post office somewhere.

But, hey, it wasn’t my intention today to dwell on hatreds. I’m too busy trying to find clothes that’ll dry overnight to worry about angry gringos. Cinelli, my wife, is trying to get me to pack light for our China trip, but I’m not taking anything flimsy.

“That’s woman’s wear,” I said when she held up a pair of silk undershorts at Robinsons-May.

“But they’re soooo sexy,” she whispered. Her hot breath tickled my ear. So I got 200 pair.

Her assumption is that the Chinese are tired of their Rickshaw Reputation and we’re probably going to have to carry our own luggage. Silk shorts and nylon shirts lighten the load.

I don’t blame them. My People are already becoming weary of cleaning houses and shlepping burgers. They’re reaching up. They’re contributing. They’re keeping dirty diapers off the supermarket shelves.

The world is changing. New hatreds emerge along with new accommodations. Loving, because it requires patience and understanding, is more difficult than hating. But we’re getting there.

I’ll do my part in Beijing. Everybody drink up. This round’s on me. Salud!

Al Martinez’s column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com.