|
VIEWPOINT
view from the 27th floor
As an editor for DC Comics I included an op-ed column in most of the comic books I edited. The column, called "View From the 27th Floor," was so-named because my office looked out over Seventh Avenue. This is an archive of unassorted and unapologetic observations on the human condition. As much whiny complaint as sermon or essay, and of only marginal literary value at best. But, hey, it's my website, so I get to blather on and on and on and on and on about the death of intimacy brought about by the minivan, and other scintillating topics.
gone
Divorce is a lot like a death that you just keep on dying. The
cynical view of divorce, of relief or even joy at having parted
ways with your hated enemy, is a wholly inaccurate and immature
view of what is the most painful process imaginable. If you are
considering divorce and think divorce will bring you relief from
your struggle, please think again. Divorce only brings you a new
struggle, a new emptiness and a new unhappiness. Like abortion,
it creates as many problems as it solves and leaves you the
shell-shocked walking wounded, trying again and again for the
kind of Cinderella love we were promised as children. Those
gentle lies our well-meaning but ultimately ignorant parents
told us as they ingrained severe un-truths in us. Un-truths
about Happily Ever After. Programming we spend our lives trying
to overcome as we continue to search for a Happily Ever After
that simply does not exist. Since the divorce, the closest to
love I've been was one Christmas when I kissed her. I pulled
away and just kind of assaulted my dear friend, who meant the
world to me, with a truth I was actually startled to hear myself
saying out loud: I still love her. It was a terrible
thing to say, but my new friend caressed my cheek and whispered
back: I know.
family plot: the last safe american bigotry
 The
Colorado Springs City Council, now front-loaded with white
conservatives, repealed four month-old ordinance that extended
health benefits to same sex partners of city employees. The vote
came as no surprise and they made no secret of the fact that
their very first order of business was going after this
ordinance. This is such a lovely town, this little place in
paradise. But, like many other little places in paradise, this
town hides a terrible ugliness: a smug intolerance for anything
and anyone who is not them. As lovely a place as this is, and
surely there are few lovelier places in the world than rural
Colorado, beneath the surface lurks a rural thinking, one driven
more by fear than logic. A mid-1960's Leave It To Beaver
mindset that endangers the most basic freedoms of Anyone Who Is
Not Us. I presume this to be a mystery, if not exactly a
paradox, that God condemns homosexuality while, at the same
time, creating homosexuals. No rational vein of thought suggests
homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, but, it is, rather, part of
the human genetic makeup. In that context, making criminals of
homosexuals seems wrongheaded. To suggest someone can be born
into an inescapable sin is to deny the power of the cross. To
suggest that a person must war against their own nature or, I
dunno, lock themselves in a closet, and embrace shame and scorn
just to make it into heaven and be embraced by a loving God is
paralyzingly stupid. In this context, "Family Values" becomes a
kind of code. Whose values? Whose family?
the
gospel of george
 My question is, does knowing there's a reasonable and possible explanation for extremely bad behavior excuse the behavior? This is my struggle. As a minister, my job is to understand. Or, even if I don't understand, to at least dress like I understand. Does God send us to hell, even if our poor choices were caused by sleep depravation? If we have some chemical imbalance inside our brains, isn't that His fault?
Figuring out where the line is between dysfunction and, say, evil, is a tough nickel. Maybe the best advice I can offer (or solicit) is understanding the dysfunction, likely, inhibits our impulse control. This suggests the disorder doesn't actually cause us to be selfish, mean, arrogant narcissists. It just reveals that character by removing our behavioral safety locks. If it wasn't already in someone's nature to be, well, the bad friend, then all the ADD in the world couldn't make them become that. But a lack of sleep can certainly amplify something you already are.
Which is my armchair know-nothing psychologist's way of suggesting there is a case for setting boundaries and, yes, for figuring out where to draw the line.
i would have liked to have seen
montana in high definition
 Paramount Pictures has recently re-issued the Jack Ryan "franchise" films on DVD. A franchise by only the thinnest definition, since they keep re-casting the Ryan character and since only one of the films was any good. John McTiernan's Hunt or Red October, better known as Die Hard On A Submarine, is, simply, one of the greatest pop action adventures ever made. It is a canonical A-List Must Have film for any home theater enthusiast. Unfortunately, the re-release of Red October is, at best, marginally better than its original slapper. A brand new transfer clearly and obviously made from the same telecine as the THX Laserdisc (I would know: I own the LD), the reissue fails miserably at giving this fine film the dignity and respect it deserves. The film suffers, painfully, from a lack of resolution, a clear indicator that the telecine was not a new high-definition print prepared for DVD's ultra high resolution but the same ol' print made for the murky Wal-Mart crowd's $8.99 VHS rack. This is painful, demoralizing hack work. Which now passes the torch of least favorite home video vendor to Paramount.
the
elvis-ing of mj
 It is entirely possible nothing even remotely sexual transpires in Jackson's room with those boys. Jackson, in his mind, could still be eleven years old. At eleven, many of my friends bunked out at one house or another, guys sleeping on the floor, on sofas, on beds. Nothing even remotely sexual went on, and, frankly, the issue never even came up. But, it is just as possible that Michael falls in love with the boys or the boys fall in love with him and, in the pre-dawn of their sexual awakening, the boys are much more vulnerable to a weeping, heartbroken Jackson who may cross the line between playmate and predator. Whichever case it is, I am convinced, based on what I have seen, that in Jackson's mind, at least, he has done no harm. The scariest part about the documentary, for me, was Jackson's bald-faced lies. Most obviously the lie about his extensive and terrible plastic surgery. Jackson, I am sorry to say, is a guy who just lies. And this doesn't help him make his case for the harmlessness of his communal bedding of preadolescents. Jackson intended to charm and to warm his image for us, but instead he creeped us out. He is a creepy, lonely, lost guy. I have great empathy for him, for what has brought him to this sad place in his life. And for the sad fact that, like Elvis before him, Jackson has grown too powerful and too isolated for anyone to intercede and halt his spiral.
his
way
 Having learned absolutely nothing from
history, President Bush is pushing forward into a war without popular support of the American people. Bush, who has no apparent sense of political timing, has alienated the five African Americans who actually may have liked him (National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice among them) by taking on a Supreme Court case regarding collegiate affirmative action practices. Why the president chose now, when he needs the nation to rally around him, to toss so explosive a political grenade over the fence is just beyond me, other than it speaks to the utter political ineptness of the man. Maybe it was yet another diversion attempt from the fact Bush never caught bin Laden, is powerless to do anything against Kim Jong Il, and really has no case for sending a quarter million Americans to Baghdad. These guys in the White House are criminals. They are criminally petty and possibly criminally stupid or possibly OJ Stupid. Or, maybe they're just nuts. Michael Jackson dangling his kid over the rail. Whichever it is, there is no excuse, none, for the United States to ever start a war.
those
who reman
 The
Remans looked goofy. The enslaved alien race from the Romulan sister-world
Remus, the Remans were cast as slimy, pale-skinned bug-eyed
freaks in prosthetics so laughable bad that I, and many around me,
could not stop laughing whenever they appeared on-screen in this
year's spectacular Trek flop Star Trek: Nemesis. Eking out, at this writing,
less than $40 million at the U.S. box office, Nemesis is the
worst Stark Trek disaster since the William Shatner-helmed The
Final Frontier. Adjusted for both inflation and
budget-v-income, Nemesis may be the biggest Trek feature flop of all
time. Nemesis writer John Logan, who also
co-penned the Oscar®-winning Gladiator, knows a lot about
Romans but little about Trek and apparently nothing about how the
Romulan villains function. Nemesis misses its mark early
on, bouncing off of the atmosphere and trailing off into space. We
are left, mouths agape, wondering precisely what drugs Trek
executive producer and chief bottle washer Rick Berman is on. Word
of mouth is disastrous as the good ship Enterprise sails off in
this unsatisfying, humiliating finale. Nearly as big a disaster as Joel
Schumacher's gay love fest Batman And Robin, Star Trek:
Nemesis is, as that film was, an extinction level event. A franchise killer.
cop
out
 My favorite TV show, NYPD Blue, is simply no longer worth watching. I will probably continue to tape the rest of the season, but then, adios! as I, and doubtless thousands if not millions of other deeply saddened viewers, retire the 15th Precinct from our viewing schedule. The show has lost its way, going from bizarre to bad over the past three seasons. But even bad is preferable to lame. Bad has a certain entertainment value. Lame is just inexcusable. There is no greater crime in broadcasting than boring your audience, and NYPD Blue is, finally, boring me. Bochco and Clark have either lost interest in the show or can't remember how to make it work anymore. Or, maybe they just don't know any good writers. I could take the show being weird. I could even take the show being bad: every show has its highs and lows. What I can't take is the show being dull. I suppose I will continue taping on inertia, hoping the show will pull out of this tailspin, but I am not overly optimistic about the show's chances. The wheels have come completely off of the wagon this season, and worse than being bad, the show is criminally dull. I think it's time for me to collar up.
oj
stupid
 In this Age of The CEO Perp Walk, changing the tune of the American press from the economy to national security would seem a good idea. It is, of course, preposterous to assume the administration would actually put anyone in harm's way for political gain. I am not suggesting this is what they are in fact doing. I am also not saying anything about Iraq having the world's second largest oil reserve. Bush is not saying anything about it, either, not even if only to dispel the thought that we're out to grab the oil. This is how evil, how conniving this all looks. Not talking about the politics or the oil only encourages that line of cynicism. Even if the administration's motives are absolutely pure, their good takes on the appearance of evil by the timing of their initiative and their silence on these kinds of issues. Skepticism is a cancer to any military campaign. While preparing this country for war, the administration has done itself and this nation a disservice by encouraging our cynicism with maneuvers that are either too clever for us to parse or are exactly what they
appear to be: stupid. I am suggesting that they are stupid. Very stupid. Or perhaps they are OJ Stupid: pretend to look stupid, leave blood trails, drop gloves, low speed Bronco chase, so the defense goes, "You can't possibly think he's that stupid? It's a frame up!" which makes OJ Stupid a very smart maneuver. So Clinton was the victim of a vast right wing conspiracy, OJ was set up, and this Iraq business can't possibly be about the 2002 elections because that possibility really is just too ridiculous and obscene. Which, to me, means the Bush White House is either Stupid Stupid or OJ Stupid. Stupid Stupid if they are genuinely protecting vital US interests while not muzzling Karl Rove and Andrew Card (and not hiding
a clearly uncomfortable Colin Powell). OJ Stupid if all of that chaos was meant to make us suspicious of the administration's motives, while dismissing the obvious because it's just too skeevy to be contemplated.
short view
Excerpts
from my weblog, on whatever's on my mind at the time:
Cop
Block: CBS Scores With Hack and Robbery Homicide Division
DeBunk:
Diamonds Are A Despot's Best Friend
Off
The Wall: What Michael Jackson Should Do
1
Simple Rule: What Your Teenage Daughter REALLY Needs To Know
Still
The One: Bill Clinton on Letterman
Still
Waving: The Profit & Loss of 9|11
black
out:
fox's whitewashing of bulworth
 Black
people. by and large, did not go see
Bulworth. Bulworth was a film almost nobody saw, grossing
only $26 million, despite very good if not rave reviews. What made Bulworth
interesting to me, and the subject of my latest rant, was 20th Century Fox's
concerted effort to un-play the race card in its marketing of the film, a
campaign that focused on the high farce of a U.S. Senator having a mental
breakdown and putting out a contract on himself, while downplaying, if not
completely obfuscating, the fact that Bulworth is, largely, a black
film starring Warren Beatty. In its misguided effort to appeal to Beatty's
white-shoe fan base, and perhaps to not offend blacks, Fox splashed images
of Jack Warden, Christie Baranski and Oliver Platt all over the place, and
largely dismissed the huge cast of black actors and their fine performances.
Marketing Bulworth was, certainly, the rock and the hard place for
Fox, but I think their handling of the film was ham-handed verging on
capricious, as they, from all appearances, deliberately tanked Beatty's
film, and never made much effort to market it to the audience who might have
embraced it— African Americans.
Bulworth is brimming with African American actors, most with
speaking roles. Intelligent roles, funny roles, a wide spectrum of
intelligently and credibly drawn characters, led by Halle Berry and Don
Cheadle. I didn't even know Berry was in Bulworth until I saw
her walk into the church scene and, delighted, said, "Hey— Halle's in
this!"
Bulworth is not an easy fit in our new uber-PC Great Society, but I
can't help but hold Fox accountable for burying this very funny film, with
this great cast and this great soundtrack, just because they don't have
enough faith in themselves, in Beatty, in the work, in the performances or,
frankly, in America, to believe a film like Bulworth could go out
and do business. I find it insulting that, apparently, Fox feared the
African American community was either too thin-skinned or too stupid to get
the joke, and that the credibility of the fine black actors involved did
not, apparently, bring enough gravity to the roles or the film to earn it
credibility within our community.
stranger
than fiction
 In Nixon,
Anthony Hopkins was clearly doing Nixon, but he was obviously
Anthony Hopkins as well. A composite character, a neo-Nixon, emerged from
this combination of personalities that satisfied us that, yes, this
was Nixon on the screen, but it was also familiar enough as Hopkins for us
to not be jolted out of the story. Alternatively, Aussie film director
(and Bill Clinton clone) Roger Donaldson opted to not even try for a JFK
clone in the melodrama Thirteen Days,
choosing Bruce Greenwood, a man who has, I guess, a head shaped like
Kennedy's but otherwise does not look or sound much like him, to fill the
film's center chair. Thirteen Days succeeds, however, on the sheer
strength of Greenwood's acting ability. Greenwood simply runs away with it,
turning in an understated and restrained but weighty performance that
delivers every knot in JFK's stomach during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In
Ali, however, director Michael Mann reaches for Muhammad Ali at the
expense of Will Smith, losing Smith in the process, and most of Ali's
potential audience with him. Had more of Smith been in the mix, had we gone
for the composite Ali rather than the literal Ali, this film would have been
hilarious, I mean a scream, and the box office would have been far
healthier. In a film that got so very much right, I am stunned at how wrong
they got Ali. I have absolutely no clue how Smith won a nomination for this
performance. The difference between this film and a great film would have
been to let Will Smith not only be Ali, but be Will Smith at the same time.
That, my friends, would have truly been a knockout.
philly:
case closed
 I was getting ready to turn in last night, figuring I'd taped
NYPD Blue, only to discover I had not, in fact, taped Blue but taped the series finale of
Philly. An odd leftover show, I suppose, as they'd just had their season finale two weeks ago. I was stunned by the suggestion that this show had been canned, and wondered what moron at ABC programming made that call. This was a show just bursting with potential, and stocked with colorful characters who would only become more colorful; an infrastructure that would become more dense and purposeful as the show found its way. But it needed to be allowed to find it. I suppose the main problem with
Philly was the show's star herself. Kim Delaney has always been a delightful and talented actress, but, perhaps, in struggling to flesh out Kathleen Maguire, Delaney still grapples with the toughness of Diane Russell. Diane always worked well in an ensemble. She was an interesting voice in the chorus and occasional lead singer, but she was not a solo act. Kathleen Maguire lacks the gravity of Diane Russell, and Kim Delaney thus far lacks the injunctive demand a soloist must impose to get us in front of the tube every week. I'm not sure what it is, but Delaney does not have it: the stuff that makes me not wanna
tape her but watch her.
a
bug's life
 The
Goblin mask sucked. And, I'm sorry, but maybe I missed a meeting: to me,
Kirsten Dunst just isn't that hot. Both Peter Parker and Mary Jane were
both way out of character: Peter was too wimpy (Peter is not a wimp),
and MJ was, well, there really wasn't enough to Dunst's portrayal to
even characterize what she was way too much of. Having said that, let me
say this, as sincerely as I possibly can: this is, possibly, the finest
super-hero film ever made. Had the movie only had great stunts, had it
only had a script you could swear Stan Lee wrote (except that his Mary
Jane was way more interesting than Dunst), had it only been a fabulous
special effects bonanza, I still wouldn't have cared. What absolutely
floored me was not just that spider-Man could move, but that he moved
like Spider-Man. Not like Tim Burton's idea of how Batman moves, but how
Spider-Man actually moves. This was a film obviously created by people
who actually knew something about Spider-Man. People who loved
Spider-Man and who cared a great deal about getting it right.
sex
& the single minister
 I'm
trying to work through this, this communications gap between men and
women, between ministers and laity, between Christian and Jew, between
New York and California. Between us, whoever that is, and them, whomever
"they" are. The only thing we can ever be sure of, in this
life, is that they are not us, and we certainly are not them. And,
somewhere, some of "them" are confused by why a practicing
minister has a picture of a half-nude woman on his website. The short
answer is, of course, that it's none of your business. But, see, I've
made it your business by posting all of that whiny blather, by telling
you how to live. I really don't tell anybody how to live, I just tell
you how I live. The rest is up to you. But, the last thing I want to do
is confuse anybody. And, besides, just talking about all of this gives
me an excuse to post more shots of happening babes in bathing suits, so
why not. I'm not sure I understand in what way Carla is demeaning. Is
she demeaning in the sense of many rap groups are demeaning to blacks—
that they make our struggle that much harder because they reinforce
negative and superfluous stereotypes about blacks in this country? Does
Carla's pinup shot set back the cause of women's rights and encourage
men to continue to objectify women? If that's your case, then, I suppose
you have a strong one.
the
secret garden
I'm not certain why society has traditionally seen female sexuality as a
threat. I have a notion the main reason men have abused and subjugated
and repressed women over the centuries owes more to our own insecurity
and massive yet fragile egos. There is enormous power in the eyes of
woman. In her smile. In her warmth. I suppose men have traditionally
seen that as a threat, one to be severely dealt with. By extension, I'll
suppose the open warfare on female sexuality speaks directly to the
issue of male domination. If a woman learns she can satisfy her own
sexual needs, it vastly diminishes the power men have over her. A
woman's body is a male asset, and he will stand for no one touching her
intimately— not even herself. In a world where sex is used to sell
virtually everything, masturbation is used to sell absolutely nothing.
Where television is inundated by couples of varying marital status
engaging in on-screen coitus, masturbation, a much safer alternative to
intercourse, is still too taboo to make the airwaves, and arrives on
film only in the context of baked goods.
noprah
 David Letterman's valiant campaign to become
an invited guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show came to a
tragic end today. Dave glibly noted in his now infamous Oprah
Log: "Day 82: I no longer want to be on your damned
show." I liked to bust a gut laughing, even though I
was sad to see this, one of Letterman's best bits in years, go
packing. Taking a joke to its logical conclusion and
then stretching it (and his audience's patience) far, far beyond
all reasonable tolerance is a Letterman specialty. Stevie Wonder
once said something like, "First, I do it right.
Then someone else will come along and do it neat."
Wonder was referring to his trademark over-long songs, wherein
he hammers the listener with a hook for seven minute stretches,
bludgeoning the listener into picking up the irresistible
melody. And, that's Letterman: drilling us with the
same joke, relentlessly, week after week after month, going on
hiatus and coming back with the same gag, wearing out our
patience beyond all reason, until, finally, the joke morphs into
a tribal experience. It becomes greater than itself, humor
on a whole new level, as America (at least Dave's
America) assimilates the phenomena into its cultural lexicon.
jingle
this
 Christmas,
to me, meant the Grinch made my mother go away so I could have some
flashing robot that I'd play with for exactly nine days and three hours.
Christmas was my being intimidated by the local "cool" kids
bragging about their spoils, and my own sister, my own blood, joining in
the chorus of people who despised and rejected me because I was
different.The cumulative effect of this tradition, of a childhood like
that, was to develop thick skin and an arsenal of weapons of mass
intimidation. I suppose part of the reason I come off fairly acidic and
sardonic is it's a learned reflex. Hurting my feelings is beyond the
powers of most mortal men, as I have learned to just roll with the
critical punches, and unleash the fury of a childhood spent in solitary
confinement. The field mouse grown to become Mighty Field Rat, Slayer of
Narcissists.
a platinum complication
 Sara
is an artist. She paints with words. Art conveys ideas, emotion and
concepts in a visceral and intellectual way. Art connects the producer
and consumer, linking them in a common experience. Sara is webmaster of
plantinumcomplication.com,
a site that exists, apparently, as a hobby (much as this one does). She
is a 20-ish college senior from upstate New York who likes some band
called Orgy and (shudder) U2. Sara's studying something she calls "neuropsych"
and is currently being hammered by her GRE's. She is, frequently,
terribly happy and terribly miserable and she parties with her friends
and hides from psychotic stalkers and worries about her future and her
place in the world. About right for someone her age. The site is
taken from two of her favorite songs, Platinum from Orgy's album Candyass,
and Complication, an instrumental track of off Fragile, a
release by the band Nine Inch Nails. Now, this is either the most
cynically calculating manipulative bitch I've ever met, or, more likely,
this is horrifyingly real. A personal bulletin board on
How Sara's Feeling At This Very
Moment. We're on the ladder outside her bedroom window, watching this
person make the painful transition from child to woman, and she is
brazen enough or desperate enough to not mind that we're there, fogging
up her window. I've chosen to believe this is more bravery than
manipulation. Actually, I've chosen to receive it as art. Cumulatively,
as a piece of work, the content and design rise to that standard,
evoking emotional and intellectual response and connecting producer with
consumer.
the
emperor's new nose
 I'm
not quite sure what to say about Michael Jackson. Certainly, most
everything that can be said has already been said about Jackson,
arguably the greatest living pop performer in the world. Does that make
him the king of pop? Hardly, and Jackson's insistence on grasping for a
crown nobody has otherwise awarded him makes him seem desperate and out
of touch— two things no true pop king should ever be. The
first thing you notice about Invincible, Jackson's first new
record in a great while, is Michael appears to have a new nose. It's a happy nose.
A mortal nose. A What, me worry? nose.
wave
this flag or else
 The
gulf between Them and Us has never been wider, and the greater tragedy
of this new war is the rallying of White America, in a plangent
strum that is certainly heartwarming and glorious to behold, but is, for
many of us, merely a spectator event. We applaud and cheer and are
brought to tears by this great coalescing of America, but it's not our
America that's being coalesced. And the sloganeering all sounds like
code. Patriotism as observed through a chain link fence. This is why I don't like
talking about 9.11. Because a great many people who want to discuss it or
want me to discuss it really don't want to hear what I have to say. They
want another voice in the chorus. Wave This Flag Or Else.
room
with a view
 The first thing
Keys does is curse at me. Besides being artistically empty, the cussing
demeans Keys as a woman, and cussing over Fur Elise demeans the music
and the musician. It prejudices an entire segment pf her potential
listeners against her: clean cut, family oriented, church-going youth
may be taken aback, and old farts like me may be flatly turned off,
rightly assuming that whatever follows her shit is likely equally
idea-starved. Now,
I guess I should preface this by saying Alicia Keys vaguely resembles
one of my cousins, a girl I adore like she was my own child, while still wanting to drown her after being around her more than five
minutes...
the
ostracized negro
 I'd
like to think it's just that I've outgrown it. That my disdain for much
of the hip-hop culture is borne out of generational differences and the
arrival of middle age. But, by any rational objective standard, the main
thrust of the urban black culture is anti-moral and, ultimately,
self-loathing. It advocates the ontological rape of black women ... it
imposes an anti-intellectual standard on young black men while
incongruously defining their existence by an unsustainable standard of
material wealth, sexual acuity, controlled substances and binge
drinking. Failing to achieve or sustain that lifestyle, especially in
the absence of a quality education, leads many young black men into
often unrecoverable spirals of low self-esteem... The patterns are, by
any reasonable and objective standard, pathological; a race subsumed
with self-genocide by means of centuries-old unreparated wounds growing
increasingly cancerous with each successive generation.
the
emperor's new limo
 George W. Bush was sworn in yesterday as
the 43rd president of the United States, and I have experienced a profound
epiphany: the new presidential limousine is just
hideous. The car, however, is completely adequate,
in tone and spirit, for our new president. I could have wished no more
appropriate a banner for our new, ideologically bankrupt president, a
coward of epic and stunning proportions who clearly does not himself
believe he was actually legitimately elected. Emotionally, this
"transfer" of power feels to me like a game of jacks played by
ten year-olds, where one of them snatches the prize from the other and
then goes on to stonewall, in the thinnest and least defensible
kid-argument, as to why he "won" the game.
in
search of a sister
 I didn't write this. This is exactly the woman I'm looking for. But I'm not
looking.
And this person of
maturity, spirituality, intelligence and strength either doesn't exist or
is already married, probably to some dope named Leroy who guzzles beer and
cheats on her, but that's a rant for another day. In the meantime, there
is this. And, yeah, if I could find her, she'd be the one.
the
regretted child
 The
death of sexual intimacy usually coincides with the purchase of the
minivan, the worst idea a wife could ever have. In the ongoing struggle
between emotion and intellect, most wives I've met sabotage their
family's future by alienating a man from his manhood, forcing him into
maroon or tan Plymouth Voyagers and so submerging herself in motherhood
that she denies him the mystery, thrill and hunt of his glory days. To
many a married man, the arrival of the minivan signals his best days are
behind him and the decay of his relationship with his best friend
is a slow retreat into eunuch-hood...
|