Happy Happy Happiness is a Warm Gun

Yesterday, I found myself walking around Sproul Plaza with a distinctly unusual sense of contentment. The environment was delightfully calm, tablers and flyerers having already packed up for the day. I was wearing a newly purchased sweatshirt; this allowed me to enjoy the crisp air while feeling comfortably warm – and looking snazzy, if I do say so myself – and with the sweatshirt on, I was looking forward to donating the old one I had replaced it with to a homeless dude. (It was stained enough that a student couldn’t reflect well on his colleagues while wearing it, but still in pretty good shape for someone less image-conscious.) To top it all off, I’d just bought myself a Churro, and was lost in its sugary, doughy goodness. Truly, it was a happiness in which I felt secure. Berkeley’s response was so immediate and so perfect I had to stop and marvel.

As I reached the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft, I heard and then saw something I’d been dreading for months: the triumphant return of my first mortal enemy, The Happy Man.

As reported in the Daily Cal some 3-and-a-half years ago (see the article here), Happy Man is J.J. Chin, a native of Taiwan and graduate of the University of Utah – I daresay the second most unloved one in the Bay Area, behind 49er “quarterback” Alex Smith. The near-septuagenarian stands on a precariously balanced bucket all day long, holding up a sign featuring the messages he receives from god while chanting that ubiquitous, obnoxious mantra, “Happy, happy, happy,” on an infinite loop.

Back in my first semester at Berkeley, the only thing that would get me through my morning chemistry classes was the thought of an eventual lunch break at Subway, across the street at the same intersection. This son of a bitch ruined that for me every time, shouting just loud enough for me to hear it faintly over the sound of “My Heart Will Go On” on the radio and my chewing. It wasn’t just that he was interrupting my lunch that pissed me off, though: it was the shit he had written on his signs.

It turned out, Happy Man doesn’t like white people or Jews. His signs usually contained some rant about the satanic George Bush and his rouges’ galley of associates, but they made it bitingly clear to anyone who actually stopped to read them that his main problem with the man was his being white. His constant criticism of Israel worked in the same vein, complete with allegations of Jews everywhere running the world. That blood libel charges never made it into his repertoire was a blessing that can only be attributed to his apparent inability to speak the English language, despite having lived in America for 45 years. That the man’s never gotten into any trouble despite his racist diatribes can only be attributed to the Berkeley Doctrine, which firmly establishes that prejudice against white people is both moral and fair.

With H. in the Oval Office, the name has changed on the sign but the sentiment remains the same – proving once and for all that this is a man with no particular political agenda, rather just an urge to spread his unflinchingly racist prophecies to everyone unfortunate enough to be within a sandwich-eating radius. The only thing more repugnant than the asshole himself is the fact that so many people get a kick out of him.

I’d like to get a kick out from under him.... I need a Churro.