I Woke Up This Morning...

I Woke Up This Morning...

A female friend asked me yesterday why so many men commit so much evil. I couldn't stop thinking about that.. especially with the brutal killings in the Congo, poisoned political landscape here and next door.

I think it's more about conditioning. We exist in controlled randomness .. we've learned how to corral and arrange a few things to convince ourselves of our infallibility. If men weren't a murderous lot then there would be no established enforced law followed by degrees of punishment.

I remember the indoctrination sessions at Ft. Campbell,KY - stabbing a dummy with a bayonet - yelling gooks die. To that point of my life I'd never encountered a gook and could only imagine what that meant - was it a monstrous little being with beady eyes and fangs or was it as I come to learn a peasant farmer clueless to the world beyond his rice paddy.
3,000,000 of these folks were killed defending and defeating all comers. What was gained by such monumental failure -59,000 young Americans dead, 250,000 injured - 100,000 plus suicides, living scars that deprive the soul of spiritual peace?

The male bond with insanity is repeated daily whether in the Congo or the streets of America - the boardroom or politics. You blow a person's brains out because you can. It's all about control. Money is just a bit of candy the real pay-off is control. The illusion of conquering and forcing your will on others.

I think men have never adjusted to life. It was much easier kill for survival - much more complicated after learning to garden - too resist.

I'm surrounded by plenty stable and lovely men but beyond that things get shaky. There are times I brush against the other types and it makes me uncomfortable. There's always that awareness the life we have invented and cultivate is far removed from others of our species. Far away there is a young man stuffed in a box being tortured for just being in the wrong place, saying the wrong thing or just denied membership in club humanity.

Three Faces of Eve – Joanne Woodward..

While browsing the in rack in Queen Video of recent blu rays, I come across a digitally upgraded version of the classic film; ‘Three Faces of Eve.”

Recently, I’ve been fixated with HBO, AMC, Netflix,  etc series .. any thing, thirteen episodes or more - much to do with the past three months of stiffs. Stepping away and back into black and white seemed my only option.

What a great call! I so much admire Joanne Woodward. The acting has always been grand but the real story has always been the marriage to Paul Newman.

So many times through the years I have marveled at their relationship a marriage than endured fifty years absent scandal and one of profound love and respect until his death.

Kristine and I were captivated by Woodward’s Oscar winning performance – the moments she switched between Georgia party girl, to mortally wounded, to Miss Common Sense.

Woodward was born in Georgia and at age nine attended the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta sitting in the lap of the star – Vivien Leigh for the showing.

She first met Newman in 1953 and would marry after his divorce in 1958 a year after winning the Oscar.

They would appear in eleven films together – which brings me to my point.

We couldn’t resist exploring YouTube for all things Woodward and Newman afterwards.

The two were on What’s My Line – damn, were they a joyful delight. Movies .. watching them seduce and toy with each other on set is a thousand times more powerful than today’s stripped down bodies that offer tentative shock but deliver little passion. These two had amassed so much electricity between to light cinema for decades to come.

Kris and I then watched the photo essays. My God, the moments together are extraordinary. These are two of the most captured Hollywood types on record. You could argue Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton but those aren’t images of burning long-term desire.

I was looking through the insipid celebrity photos in the morning Star and thought back to last night and the artful captures, the locations, the kisses, the sweetness, playfulness – the respect and admiration.

A great marriage has that to offer and the Newman’s understood what they had – protected and remained loyal and committed. Now, get me a Kleenex!