Sitting in a Bar... Musing About Life, the Universe and Everything

This one is really rambling. So, be ready to flip between every topic and back again. I'm sure I look like a rambling lunatic.

I was driving Shirley Moocher home. Her car was in the shop, so she needed to be picked-up from work. I'd done this favor repeatedly for her while her car was being fixed, and each time, she'd gush what a Nice Guy I am. (Ugh, stop saying that!) She had her hair done that day and was asking me over and over if she looked good. How is it a woman can manage to talk for fifteen minutes straight about her hair?

"Shirley, you look beautiful. Seriously, you have nothing to worry about."

"Thank you." She smiled.

"You know..." I chuckled. "Now I kind of wish that I was attractive..."

"Well, you ARE attractive."

"What?"

"You're an attractive guy. Way better than average." She said. I stopped the car at a stoplight.

"Thank you." I said in my most sincere voice. "You are the first woman who's said that to me this year. I don't get told that hardly ever."

"Well, women never tell guys that they're good-looking."

"They don't?" (In hindsight, this was a dumb question for me to ask.)

"No."

I looked her right in the eye.

"When I was growing up, only my mom and grandmother told me that I was good-looking. Do you have any IDEA what it's like to grow-up hardly ever being told that you're attractive?"

"No, I don't." She said.

"Do you have any idea what kind of WARPING effect that has on a child's psyche?? I swear, if an adult woman didn't have at least THREE men tell her she's beautiful on a daily basis, she'd freaking LOSE HER MIND... and women don't even make the slightest effort to return even one TENTH the favor?!?!"

"Well, women don't tell guys they're attractive because the guy might get a swollen head." She explained.

"Oh, I see. And he might get vain and demanding?" I asked.

"Yes." She nodded.

"Vain and demanding LIKE A WOMAN?!?!" I almost yelled.

I drove her home in frustrated silence. Women are black-holes when it comes to compliments. They keep sucking them in and never give any back.

Calm down, man. You're losing it.

I drove back to my place and walked to a nearby bar

"Ahh, I think I shall wet my whistle." I say to myself.

It was a rather upscale place, and the music wasn't so loud as to destroy conversation. I was in a very good mood, as I've just had a string of fun-filled days-off.

I'm watching people. The folks around me are in their twenties and thirties.

A guy sits-down to me, he looks like Al Borland from Home Improvement. He's even wearing flannel. (Al Borland is, of course, a Nice Guy and never gets any respect from anyone.)

We get into a conversation.

"So what do you do for a living?" I ask.

"Oh, I'm a social studies teacher. I also teach civics." He says.

"That's great. I love history and civics. Hey, is it just me or does the 2001 Anti-Terrorist Bill suspend the 4th and 5th Amendments of the Bill of Rights?" This sets him-off.

"HELL YES!! Why the HELL does no one notice that?!?" He is very passionate, I can see. (Aside note: this piece of legislature was also called the 'U.S.A. Patriot Act'. Heh, as if anyone in Congress would have the balls to vote-against something called the 'Patriot Act'. It was signed into law on October 26, 2001, days before this bar conversation took place. -- NG)

I point to Al and turn to the bartender. "Get this man a drink, on me!" I say loudly.

We launch into an explosion of excited, mile-a-minute discussion on 'executive privilege' actions that have infringed the Constitution. He brings-up the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, I excitedly bring-up the 1918 Sedition and Espionage Acts. He brings-up the Japanese internment during World War II. I bring-up the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. He brings-up the forced-removal of the Cherokee and Cree from the U.S. Southeast under Andrew Jackson even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it illegal beforehand. We both agree that John Ashcroft has got to be the worst Attorney General since the days of the Woodrow Wilson administration.

Holy shit, this is the most exciting and stimulating conversation I've had in a long time. We both know our stuff and we're both really passionately into it. I tell you- this is one of the many good things about being in the U.S.: you can discuss such things without being thrown in jail. We're both obviously patriotic fans of the Founding Fathers, (er, their ideas, but not their slave-owning of course) but disallowing discussions like ours is un-American.

He finishes his beer and says goodbye. Wow, that was fun. I'm feeling on top of the world.

On the tv, I see a picture showing the ruins of the World Trade Center. I no longer feel on top of the world- my mind suddenly switches to thinking about the thousands of people who died in an eyeblink on 9/11. A hell of a lot of people ran out of luck that day. And I also think about the emergency crews who ran right into the blazing buildings to get everyone out... only to have the whole damn thing collapse on top of them. I have more respect for firemen and police than ever; I never fully appreciated them until that day. I also thought about the passengers on the plane in Pennsylvania who stormed the hijackers in an attempt to prevent more deaths, and did so at the expense of their own lives. I remember what a scary day that was. In one day, everyone in the country got belted in the face simultaneously.

Until October 7th, when the air campaign finally began against the Taliban, I remember I was walking-around in anger. "Hit 'em back!" I'd yell to myself. "Why haven't we hit 'em back yet?! Why the hell are we giving them a chance to move their people underground?! Send a Tomahawk flying at every Taliban ministry, barracks and outhouse! Send-in the Apaches and take-out every rattling, shitbox Taliban tank, jeep and donkey they have! Get in there with the Delta Force and sweep the mountains for Bin Laden, Mullah Omar and the whole lot of 'em! Riddle them with bullets, put their heads on a pike and feed their fetid corpses to rotweilers!"

Now I realize... we waited because Colin Powell was saying patiently "No, no. We're not going to lose our heads, we're going to do this right." In hindsight, perhaps this was the correct thing to do. God, I like Colin Powell. That's probably why I shouldn't be in charge of foreign policy.

I swear, the bastards who crashed those planes picked on the wrong damn country. They have to pay. As I think this, I realize that B-52's are presently in the process of flattening Afghanistan into one big, smoldering crater. I remember that we're dropping BLU-82 'daisy cutter' fuel-air explosives on the Taliban front-lines... the largest non-nuclear weapon on the planet. I remember those things from the Gulf War. Know how it works? This 15,000-pound baby gets dropped from a cargo plane and on the way down, it sprays-out a flammable slurry into a huge cloud. The whole cloud gets ignited and incinerates everything within 600 meters. I heard a rumor that the underpressure created by the air being sucked-into the conflagration is strong enough to rip your lungs out through your mouth!

So now, we are hitting them back; I guess I'm getting my wish. God, what a fucked-up world we live in!

I try to push these thoughts from my mind. I'm here to relax. I sigh.

I notice the table behind me is full of twentysomething women who are yammering-on and on about whatever flickers across their minds. I hear little snatches of conversation. It's mostly frivolous twaddle. Their asshole boyfriends. Shopping.

One outtake: "John is totally obsessed with boobs. I swear, I catch him looking at other women all the time. He won't cheat on me, because he knows I can kick his ass if I find out."

I shake my head, disgusted. I won't even pay attention to the little shrews. I mean... here we I am with Al Borland, talking about the big things that effect our Lives the Universe and Everything- these chicks can't even see beyond their own narrow little lives. Ugh.

Another guy sits-down next to me. He's a tall, African-American guy with a goatee. I crack a little joke about the light shining off the bartender's balding head, and I get a laugh from the new guy. We start on a conversation.

He's a videographer and he's worked as an intern in Hollywood. He's trying to start a small business, and his dream is to make documentaries. I love documentaries and we talk about PBS's Baseball. I also ask him a few questions about his work in Hollywood. He said most of the time he fetched coffee for people. That's what Hollywood interns do, he guesses.

On the tv, there's some clip showing scenes from the old O.J. Simpson trial. We start to talk about early celebrity media-circuses in the 1920s and 1930s. I bring-up the Lindbergh Baby. He brings-up Fatty Arbuckle.

"Ah, with the Coke-bottle!" I grin.

"Wow, you've heard of Fatty Arbuckle!" He laughs, genuinely amazed. (If you don't know the Fatty Arbuckle Scandal, I invite you to have a look.)

After a while, I say goodbye and walk home. On the way back, I re-realize something that I've known all along: Men aren't that bad at all. Some men are bad... but, I think on average, a lot of guys are pretty decent folks. Look at the firemen who ran into the World Trade Center. They were putting their own lives at risk to rescue both men and women who they didn't even know. A lot of what women say about dumb male selfish pigs isn't true at all. Here I was in a bar, and me and those guys weren't talking about sex or disrespecting women. (Well, the Arbuckle thing was a possible exception, but you know what I mean.) My first impression was that these guys seemed pretty decent. Real straight-shooters.

I started to get upset. You know, the U.S. and Canada seem to be among the few countries on the planet where it is acceptible for women to openly encourage each other to have opinions about men bordering on bigotry. Men have a THOUSAND double-standards working against us, and we can't utter a PEEP of protest about it because we have to shut-up and "take it like a man".

I hear it all the time. Dumb male pigs. Oh, men are hopless when it comes to raising kids. Men are whiny babies that need to be saved from themselves. Men are scum. Men are assholes. Men are swine. Men deserve to be cut into thin slices and fed to wolves. Women do not even recognise, let alone acknowledge their crucial part in the cultural inequalities for both men and women. I make an effort to respect women. I want to see women treated decently. But very VERY few women ever make even the tiniest, slightest effort to see that men are treated decently. VERY few women ever give a flying crap. They are largely unenlightened. They walk-around with their heads up their asses, totally oblivious that anything could possibly be wrong about themselves.

Good God...

Do you want to know one of the reasons why men and women behave so differently? Because if a man behaved the way women typically behave, he'd get his ASS KICKED! Most men restrain themselves and show incredible patience and tolerance towards women, so women have the freedom to walk around with that smug "My shit don't stink" and "I can kick my boyfriend's ass" attitude.

Well, of course you can kick your boyfriend's ass if he won't hit you back! And like dopes, men keep showering them with praise about how good looking they are and how great they are.

I hear women making bigoted comments all the time, and there are DAMN few women who'll stand-up for males when they are said. If I come-over and say "What you're saying is sexist, and I think it's offensive and wrong." Typically, they'll either act dumbfounded as to what the hell my problem is, or they'll laugh their asses-off at me. "Oh, take it like a MAN!" You mean take it like a human punching bag, right? That's all you regard me as, obviously. I'm expected to put on a happy face about it and go on my merry way.

This goes way beyond name-calling: Men have been denied jobs or lost their jobs because of politically correct intolerance or frivolous harassment litigation. Men are routinely denied access to their own children by divorce courts, and they are hounded for child support for the children they are disallowed to see. Men die on the job and commit suicide in HUGE numbers every year, and yet society is fixated on strictly female victimhood. Women still do not recognise or acknowledge the profound impact that their behavior and demands are having on interpersonal, social, economic and political events. Women are blind to any male problems and are crushing the male half of the human race in the process of addressing their own desires.

It was wrong when Native Americans were routed from their homelands.

It was wrong with blacks were enslaved and terrorized by lynchings and Jim Crow laws.

It was wrong when women were disenfranchised in pre-suffrage days.

It is wrong today when women are openly encouraging each other to treat men like animals and then LAUGH ABOUT IT afterwards.

We live in a society where a woman can come-up to me, knee me in the balls as a joke and run-off giggling- and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I can't hit her back, and she knows it.

The freaking pendulum has swung too far. At one time, males were the bigger problem- but I declare to Heaven, nowadays it's the women who are the bigger problem! *SCREAMING* Turnabout is NOT fair play! Only FAIR PLAY is FAIR PLAY, GOD-DAMMIT! Got that!?!

Stop expecting the male half of the planet to kiss your asses if you're not even going to offer us at least a modicum of respect in return fer chrissakes!!! Stop abusing the rules and ethics that have been set-up to protect you!! Stop taking advantage of our self-restraint!! Stop acting unaccountable!! EVEN DUMB-ASS MALES HAVE FEELINGS TOO! I'm doing MY PART, ladies- why the HELL won't you do the same?!?!

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"A woman's power lies only in the degree of unhappiness with which she can punish her lover." -- Marie Henri Beyle

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