There is a wonderful scene in "The Godfather" where Clemenza teaches Michael to cook Sunday shaghetti in the kitchen, as the Corleone clan gears up to "go to the mattresses" i.e., hunker down for the onrushing war.
Michael will trigger the war by assassinating the police captain and the captain's gangster patron, and Michael, who has never experienced gangster war, asks Clemenza how bad it will be.
Clemenza, ever unflappable, shrugs and says, "Pretty bad," and continues slicing tomatoes, then adds, philosophically, "This has to happen every five, ten years. Lets out the bad blood."
There is a lot going on in that scene, as Michael girds himself to flee into exile, to leave his home, his girlfriend, his immediate family, as the Corleone soldiers answer the call to arms, as the world is about to change, but Clemenza is saying, this is not really a change, just part of the cycle.
This is what men do. They have to fight every now and then. It kills off the wildest among them, and it sates the appetite for violence baked into the DNA of male homo sapiens, although Clemenza would never put it that way.
The same theme animates "The Fight Club." Men are not snowflakes, well not real men. Phony men, like Donnie Snowflake, but real men need to bloody themselves.
David Brooks, in a very interesting column yesterday, suggests the answer to the gorilla beating his chest should be "modesty." You simply do not pound your chest back, because you cannot win that pissing contest. You shrug and say, that's all phony posing.
Reading about the Amercian Civil War, as I have for years, it strikes me that war served the purpose Clemenza was talking about. About one quarter of the male population who fought in that war died in that war, or came out of it half gone, without a leg or an arm. I can only imagine enough men were heartily sick of fighting after that, and enough men decided to study war no more, it set up the progress which followed. Of course, there are many aspects to the story. Some Southern men took to the hills, even after Lee's surrender, continued to maraud and murder to rob banks and they clearly had not tired of violence. The South has always been a violent place, rivaled only by the West.
But, over the grand scheme, I do suspect the nation had punched itself out, was arm weary, weary of the punishment and turned its attention to building rather than destroying.
Vast over simplification, I know, but maybe this is what is going on now, among that core Alabama of the mindless, out there, who ardently support President Snowflake.
They are simply spoiling for a fight and he promises to allow them to find it.
Michael will trigger the war by assassinating the police captain and the captain's gangster patron, and Michael, who has never experienced gangster war, asks Clemenza how bad it will be.
Clemenza, ever unflappable, shrugs and says, "Pretty bad," and continues slicing tomatoes, then adds, philosophically, "This has to happen every five, ten years. Lets out the bad blood."
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| Sunday dinner |
There is a lot going on in that scene, as Michael girds himself to flee into exile, to leave his home, his girlfriend, his immediate family, as the Corleone soldiers answer the call to arms, as the world is about to change, but Clemenza is saying, this is not really a change, just part of the cycle.
This is what men do. They have to fight every now and then. It kills off the wildest among them, and it sates the appetite for violence baked into the DNA of male homo sapiens, although Clemenza would never put it that way.
The same theme animates "The Fight Club." Men are not snowflakes, well not real men. Phony men, like Donnie Snowflake, but real men need to bloody themselves.
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| Wannabe Tough Guys |
David Brooks, in a very interesting column yesterday, suggests the answer to the gorilla beating his chest should be "modesty." You simply do not pound your chest back, because you cannot win that pissing contest. You shrug and say, that's all phony posing.
 |
| For Real Tough Guys |
Reading about the Amercian Civil War, as I have for years, it strikes me that war served the purpose Clemenza was talking about. About one quarter of the male population who fought in that war died in that war, or came out of it half gone, without a leg or an arm. I can only imagine enough men were heartily sick of fighting after that, and enough men decided to study war no more, it set up the progress which followed. Of course, there are many aspects to the story. Some Southern men took to the hills, even after Lee's surrender, continued to maraud and murder to rob banks and they clearly had not tired of violence. The South has always been a violent place, rivaled only by the West.
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| Tough guy Whites exercising their First and Second Amendment Rights |
But, over the grand scheme, I do suspect the nation had punched itself out, was arm weary, weary of the punishment and turned its attention to building rather than destroying.
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| Tough guy cops, as long as they have their dogs and guns |
Vast over simplification, I know, but maybe this is what is going on now, among that core Alabama of the mindless, out there, who ardently support President Snowflake.
They are simply spoiling for a fight and he promises to allow them to find it.
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