Rage

It's the four-letter word of the moment. If the Seventies were the Me Decade and the Eighties the Greed Decade, we're now in the Decade of Rage, the era of the raised middle finger, the throat-popping, lip-splitting Fuck You. It comes in one flavor--bitter. There's road rage, sky rage and work rage, and now "rageaholic" has entered the vocabulary. It's the stuff of Saturday nights. "Smack my bitch up," the hit refrain of Prodigy, is the anthem. The angry beat continues through Sunday morning, when pundits and politicos rail at one another on television talk shows. Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, James Carville and Pat Buchanan all speak the language of rage.

Trouble is, so do bullets, and the corpses that have littered the nation's high school corridors, city streets and corporate offices are testimony to the damage that extreme rage can cause.

Meanwhile, daily rage--in real life and in entertainment--is an integral part of the American consciousness. So if you wish to understand the soul of our nation at the beginning of the 21st century, tune in to rage--but first take a look at these pages. And whatever you do, please try to remain calm.

Rage Sells

Book industry sources report that over 75 volumes on the subjects of rage and stress management sell briskly--and that is just in the self-help department.

What to do about it

"How do you manage your rage?" Dr. Hannibal Lecter asks Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs.

Some good answers:

"When angry, count ten before you speak. If very angry, a hundred."--Thomas Jefferson

"When angry, count four. When very angry, swear."--Mark Twain

Some bad answers:

"I tried to turn, but then I saw I had my husband's penis in my hand. And I screamed and threw it out the window, and I just drived as fast as I could."--Lorena Bobbitt

"The gun went off."--Amy Fisher, Explaining how Mary Jo Buttafuoco, The wife of Fisher's boyfriend Joey, happened to fall to the ground after Amy rang the doorbell.

Not a bad answer, just a little late:

"The one thing I've learned is that I have to do a better job of controlling my temper when I'm put in a situation where frustration mounts and you want to lose control."--Latrell Sprewell, After he choked and threatened coach P.J. Carlesimo.

"What's interesting, though, is he's very articulate."--Spike Lee, After sprewell served out a suspension and became a New York knick.

Be careful at work

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, I million workers are assaulted and more than 1000 are murdered every year (an average of 20 homicides a week) in acts of workplace violence.

A recent report found that the taxicab industry has the highest rate of workplace homicides--nearly 60 times the national average, encompassing both rage-related and robbery-related incidents. Those people who work in health care, community services and retail are at greatest risk for nonfatal assaults.

Federal investigators encounter so much workplace rage that they claim to be able to identify the warning signs. Does anyone near your workstation demonstrate any of these symptoms?

"Harassing, stalking or showing undue focus on another person; intimidating or frightening others; physically aggressive acts, such as shaking fists at another person, kicking, pounding on desks, punching a wall, angrily jumping up and down, screaming at others."

Here are excerpts from the federal guidelines on rage in the workplace. Again, be sure to approach certain co-workers with caution.

"Level one: (early warning signs): The person spreads rumors and gossip to harm others. Consistently argues with co-workers. Makes unwanted sexual comments.

"Level two (escalation of the situation): The person argues increasingly with customers, vendors, co-workers and management. Verbalizes wishes to hurt co-workers and/or management. Sees self as victimized by management (me against them).

"Level three (further escalation, usually resulting in an emergency response): The person frequently displays intense anger resulting in destruction of property, commission of murder, rape and/or arson."

Rage around the House

According to the Department of Justice, 4000 women and children are beaten to death every year. Of all female homicide victims, 42 percent are murdered by a male partner.

In a flamboyant example of household rage, TLC singer Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes got so angry at her boyfriend, Andre Rison (then of the Atlanta Falcons, now with the Kansas City Chiefs), that she smashed several of his automobiles with a baseball bat. Then she set fire to Rison's million-dollar mansion in Alpharetta, Georgia and all of Rison's personal possessions.

"Luckily, no one was hurt," Rison said. "It's over with and what's gone is gone. You have to move on."

Merry Fucking Christmas

"When the store opened at midnight, there were about 200 people, and they became overzealous," a policeman said, referring to violence that erupted at a Wal-Mart in O'Fallon, Illinois a year ago last December when shoppers demanded Furbys--cuddly toy pets that belch and fart. "One lady claimed she was bitten, and an older lady was knocked down." Furby fury destroyed the holiday spirit, if there was any to begin with. "We heard every word in the human language, and then some," a checkout line supervisor said. "It was chaos," said a customer.

Friendly Skies

Last summer, The New York Times took note of reports of "an alarming trend of angry passengers who punch, kick, scratch, bite and head-butt airline employees, or even one another."

During a flight from Buenos Aires to New York in 1995, a banker from Greenwich, Connecticut became vexed at a flight attendant who refused to give him any more to drink. The banker assaulted the attendant and defecated on a food cart.

"People's attitudes have changed. They are aggravated with long lines and flight delays. They're becoming more aggressive. People lash out, scream at ticket agents. I'm concerned for my personal safety."--Timothy Peterson, A Baggage Handler at Newark International Airport, quoted in the Times.

No wonder. Shortly before Peterson spoke, John C. Davis Jr. had tussled with Continental Airlines gate agent Angelo Sottile when Sottile attempted to stop Davis--who was not holding a boarding pass--from entering the jet way. Davis was pursuing his toddler, who had run down the jet way and who was already being pursued by Mrs. Davis (who had had the good sense to take another gate agent with her). Sottile was hospitalized with fractured spinal vertebrae and head injuries. Davis was charged with aggravated assault.

Road Rage--Road Kill

I brake for no apparent reason.--South Park bumper sticker.

"One day I was horrified to find myself giving another driver the finger," said etiquette maven Letitia Baldridge. "Of course, it was the wrong finger, because I'm new to this. But there I was all the same. Self-control is no longer one of our great aspirations."

According to NBC, road rage has cost $24 billion over the past decade in medical bills, property damage and time lost from work. That information appeared in a press release for Road Rage, a television movie in which Yasmine Bleeth portrays a woman who turns a delivery driver into a crazed stalker by inadvertently cutting in front of him on a freeway.

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Rage

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She was lucky.

In Woonsocket, Rhode Island in 1994, Donald Graham, a Baptist deacon, got into an argument with another driver after each had used high beams on the other. Graham fetched a crossbow from his trunk and killed the other driver with an arrow to the chest.

Be careful if you hear someone barking like a dog in the lane next to you or if you hear a nearby driver giving a play-by-play broadcast of his own driving. Dr. Leon James, head of the Traffic Psychology Program at the University of Hawaii, suggests these rage management techniques for drivers who are about to go beserk. (His nickname is Dr. Driving, and his motto is Drive With the Aloha Spirit.)

New York governor George Pataki calls them "road rage vans"--seven unmarked Chevrolet Astros, each equipped with $6000 worth of surveillance equipment, that state police use in their attack on road ragers. Over 45 million American drivers engage in aggressive driving, according to a 1998 AAA study. "You see people who have over-scheduled their days, rushing to get from one place to another," said Marta Genovese, director of government affairs for the Automobile Club of New York. "People get a road-warrior mentality. And it doesn't matter if you're a soccer mom or a corporate executive with a $2 million deal on the table, the phenomenon is the same."

In a recent survey of AAA members in New York, 55 percent said that they see people driving dangerously daily or even several times a day. And 42 percent of the members admitted that their own driving behavior is sometimes affected by anger.

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The video game Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Now is a "very violent game," according to a customer-relations agent for the manufacturer. "You chase people down while they scream and try to run away from you." The basic idea is to rack up points by hitting other cars or people with your own car--what the maker calls "pedestrian splattering action."

The original Carmageddon was created in England and remains wildly popular there. Its promotional material says "you pit your wits and wheels against 30 other maniac drivers over 30 massive race circuits in your quest to become the King of Carnage." According to a spokesman for the American version (which is much more violent), "For some reason the British really enjoy running people over."

Nevertheless, swearing at another driver in the UK is punishable by as many as two years in jail.

For those who love to watch high-speed horror, a Los Angeles-based website--pursuitwatch.com--offers a paging service that alerts the curious whenever a high-speed car chase develops.

Mancow Muller hosts the profane, sex-oriented Mancow's Morning Madhouse on a dozen radio stations nationwide and is a favorite of Joe Vandergriff, a school bus driver in Tennessee. The driver's enthusiasm for the racy chatter is a source of extreme displeasure to William Bond, father of two middle school students who ride the bus. One morning last autumn Bond followed his kids onto the bus and crouched next to the driver, intending, he said, to engage him in a calm and reasonable conversation and persuade him to switch stations. Just then, the show turned to the subject of oral sex.

"I was telling him, 'For the love of God, change this radio station,'" Bond said. "He said he didn't have to. I said, 'Yes you do,' and I grabbed him by the collar. He put his bus in drive and took off with me standing in it." Bond then reached down and turned off the ignition. The driver brought a misdemeanor assault charge against Bond, claiming the irate dad "grabbed me around the neck and jerked and twisted repeatedly."

Muller found new material for his show in the incident and brings it up often--when not discussing blow jobs. "They were both right and they were both wrong," said the suddenly Solomonic shock jock.

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Every Reason to Rage

The following people could be forgiven for angry outbursts:

• Chelsea Clinton

• Elizabeth Hurley

• Mary Jo Buttafuoco

• John Bobbitt

• Richard Jewell

• Pamela Anderson Lee

• Carmen Electra

A Simple Difference of Opinion, and A New Word

In August 1999 Jay Leno observed that all Republican presidential candidates are white, compelling Alan Keyes' spokeswoman Becky Fenger to demand a correction. Leno in turn called Fenger a "psycho woman" and said Keyes was doing badly in the polls because of staffers like her. She claims Leno acted like a "nut cake" and was a "rageaholic."

Going Postal Pisses People Off

"Would you have stated, 'This Irishman decided to go Irish and have someone killed,' or 'This Spanish person decided to go Hispanic and have someone killed?' I don't think so. Would you use the phrase going scholastic to describe the violence of several disturbed children who have killed their schoolmates during the past two years? I don't think so."--Pat Mcgovern, a Spokesperson for the United States Postal service, in a letter protesting a Fox Files segment called "The Hit Man" In which the narrator said, "This Postal worker Hired someone to go Postal."

Get out of my Face Rage

Sean Penn was dubbed the paparazzi pugilist by Entertainment Weekly. "He had a rage, I think, an addiction to rage that he's conquered," said Susan Sarandon, his co-star in Dead Man Walking. Penn once spent 34 days in the Los Angeles county jail for hitting someone who tried to take his picture.

Early last year in London, Johnny Depp screamed obscenities at paparazzi and chased them off with a menacing piece of wood when they tried to take his picture outside a restaurant.

It's only a Game

John McEnroe's tirades against officials may have set the rage standard in tennis, but plenty of sports guys got the hint, including:

Ray Buchanan, the Atlanta Falcons cornerback who body-slammed Baltimore Ravens receiver Patrick Johnson last October after Johnson (a) beat Buchanan on a 52-yard touchdown catch and (b) taunted Buchanan after the score. "It's something I regret," Buchanan said later. "Before I could even think, I reacted in the wrong way. It was out of the ordinary for myself, very uncharacteristic." Buchanan was ejected from the game and fined $7500. Johnson was fined $3500 for his taunts.

Lou Piniella, who, as a player for the Kansas City Royals in 1973, was so angry when he grounded into the last out that he kept running past first base, down the right field foul line, into the stands, out a door and all the way home. As Seattle manager, Piniella once attempted to lift third base from its moorings after what he thought was a bad call by an umpire. After another disappointment, he kicked his own hat around the field and into the dugout. In fact, Piniella got so into kicking that he once erased the outlines of the batter's box and "inadvertently" kicked an umpire in the foot while trying to kick dirt. One of his recent disputes with (continued on page 164)Rage(continued from page 92) an umpire got heated after the umpire ejected him and Piniella appeared to have left the scene. But he sprang out of his dugout and went nose-to-nose with the ump, jabbing his thumb and forefinger into the ump's face, presumably to show the size of the strike zone.

The New York Yankees' Paul O'Neill, who abuses the dugout watercooler on a regular basis, though not so spectacularly as Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Carlos Perez, whose vigorous assault on a cooler after a poor outing was captured on camera in a classic sports video.

When he was with the Mets in the late Eighties, David Cone, who, while still holding the ball, went into such a rage at an umpire that he ignored an opposing runner who scored the winning run.

Philadelphia fans who, in the summer of 1999, rained batteries down on Cardinals outfielder J.D. Drew, who hadn't signed with the Phillies two years earlier, when they drafted him. Philly fans wrote the book on rage. In a city where blood-thirsty fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus, homicidal fury is a way of life at Veterans Stadium.

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The Food-Rage Connection

"Spitting in the food is for amateurs," says Christopher Fehlinger, an angry former waiter who created bitterwaitress. com, where enraged restaurant employees can report on bad behavior by customers. Fehlinger told the New York Post that "if a customer is a real jerk, Visine is the way to go. It gives people diarrhea. I've seen waiters unload a whole bottle in somebody's coffee."

Let's not forget the heavyweight title bout on June 28, 1997, when Mike Tyson chomped off a piece of Evander Holy-field's ear the size of an escargot.

Vending-machine madness has been identified as a medical problem, sometimes fatal, by no less an authority than Carol Tavris, author of Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion. Tavris cited a Journal of the American Medical Association report on "irate men kicking or rocking soda vending machines that had taken their money without producing the drink. In the fatal cases the men rocked the machine so hard that it fell over and crushed them."

Small-Screen Rage

Jerry Springer, any episode.

On The Sopranos, nephew Christopher gets so angry waiting in a bakery that he shoots the counterman in the foot.

Ally McBeal thumps her pillows, beats her blowup doll and once knocked down a woman in a grocery store who took an item that Ally wanted. Another time she kicked a girl for not being friendly. "You're not sorry," she said to a man who bumped into her on the street--before she threw her shoe at his head.

Cinematic Rage

"How may I help you?" a plump, cheerful, female car rental agent asks a harried Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

"You can start by wiping that fucking dumb-ass smile off your rosy fucking cheeks," Martin replies. "Then you can give me a fucking automobile. A fucking Datsun, a fucking Toyota, a fucking Mustang, a fucking Buick. Four fucking wheels and a seat. I want a fucking car, right fucking now."

The clerk asks for the rental agreement and Martin says he threw it away.

"Oh boy," the clerk says.

"Oh boy what?" Martin replies.

"You're fucked," she says, with a smile.

Cameron Diaz uses a coatrack to wound Christian Slater when he gets in her way on her wedding day in Very Bad Things. Slater's character finally perishes when he falls down a flight of stairs on his way to the wedding.

In Office Space, three colleagues deal with their anger at an unreliable machine by taking it outside and beating it into little pieces. Two of them have to pull the third away, but not before he keeps a piece of the dead machine as a souvenir. "I could burn the building down" is the wish (or threat) of Norman, the stapler-stealing, cubicle-loving loser. He finally does just that.

Denise Richards and Neve Campbell fail to see eye-to-eye at poolside in Wild Things and engage in a moist fistfight.

In Casino, Joe Pesci uses a vise--the kind found in a basement--to squeeze an adversary's head in a fit of eye-popping rage.

"We're going to have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fuckin' Kaye, and when Santa squeezes his fat, white ass down that chimney tonight he's going to see the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse," says Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation. One reason for his distress is a road-rage episode in which the family Taurus lands in a snow-bank after having been stuck under a log truck. "Made pretty good time," he says.

Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt, tells the story of rage-prone young men going at each other in no-holds-barred brawls until one of them can no longer stand. "What else is a guy in the Nineties to do?" asked a reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times. "Building on the premise that men don't like to talk out their problems or get helpful hints from Oprah, the movie looks into other forms of expressing aggression."

Music to enrage a savage breast (don't step on their blue suede shoes or they'll bust a cap in your head)

"My older brother's friends would pick on me so much for liking rap that one time I had to pull a sword on them."--Kid Rock, Reminiscing. Kid's Devil without a cause went Platinum.

Limp Bizkit wound up Woodstock 1999 with an incendiary version of Break Stuff, and peace and love turned into arson, rape and pillage.

Music and rage have been friends for a long time. Two decades ago a 16-year-old high school girl blazed away with a .22-caliber rifle at an elementary school near her house, killing the principal and a janitor and wounding eight students. She later explained, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." The Boom-town Rats, an Irish group, took the cue and recorded I Don't Like Mondays, which sold half a million copies. "I don't like Mondays/I want to shoot/The whole day down" is the refrain.

They're just cartoons, Yeah

MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch pits celebrities, past and present, against each other in luridly drawn, bloody battles. In one episode, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Monica Lewinsky go at each other with metal fence railings and chairs. In other gory struggles Genghis Khan rips into Mahatma Gandhi and Cameron Diaz fights with Meryl Streep--in good, dirty, animated fun.

These people are obviously pissed, but is it really Rage?

• Hillary Rodham Clinton

• Rudolph Giuliani

• Martha Stewart

• Matt Drudge

• Linda Tripp

• Bobby Knight

• Janet Reno

• Bob Dornan

• Latrell Sprewell

• Christopher Hitchens

These people are going to blow sky-high--any minute

See above.

"To have this much rage when things are so good, to me, indicates that if things get bad, there'll be nothing to hold society together. If the economic prosperity suddenly blows and we have a depression, then we'll really know what rage is about."--Norman Mailer