“There’s a party going on right here

A celebration to last throughout the years

So bring your good times, and your laughter, too

We gonna celebrate your party with you.”

                                         -Kool and the Gang, “Celebration”

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We are human, therefore we party.  We party for all occasions, all seasons, and for some real stretchers for reasons.  We can’t get Lent started without prefacing it with a Mardi Gras or Carnaval.  Frat parties, office parties, Tupperware parties, TGIF, Super Bowls, and Hangover Bowls are all part of the program.

Why do we spend so much time celebrating, and what the hell are we really doing, anyway?  Personally, I think it has to do with the awesome spellbinding nature of our very existence.  I’ve heard plenty of explanations for our being, some patently absurd, others even less credible.  I’ve even heard people say we don’t really exist, though I have quit pinching myself to disprove that notion.  Besides, if I can hear these people, that means they are at least as real as all the other voices in my head.

What no one tells me is that we are here because we deserve the honor.  Even Bible-belters say we screwed that up with the first apple harvest.  I go for the cosmic joke theory.  National Lampoon’s “Radio Dinner”, back in 1972, gave me the straight skinny, in “Deteriorata”,

“You are a fluke

of the universe

You have no right to be here.

And whether you can hear it or not

The universe is laughing behind your back.

                                 -lyrics by Tony Hendra

Gazing at the Milky Way, it is very easy to say that we are fortunate to be here, and that there is no sense in trying to count all those lucky stars.  Early civilizations held feasts giving thanks for food and fertility, a tradition we carry on today when we wash down a super-sized triple-cheese-Viagara-burger with a ten-gallon Mondo-Cola.