Where Is Santa? Where Is Blitzen, Baby?

When I think of my family, I think of that classic Marx Brothers moment from Go West:

GROUCHO: You love your brother, don't you?
CHICO: Nah, but I'm used to him.

That's the way it is with family. You love 'em, they drive you crazy, they push all your buttons (even when you're covered in armor), and when you get together with them over the holidays? Well, with my family, it always goes something like this:

It’s A Замечательная Life!

This year, as you get all bundled up in front of the TV to watch your favorite Christmas movie, it is well to remember that, if your favorite movie is Miracle on 34th Street, you are actually celebrating Christmas in the best way possible, by watching a film in which a miracle happens not only in spite of, but because of, the self-interest of every single character except Kris Kringle. And if your favorite movie is It’s A Wonderful Life, you are actually celebrating not Christmas but the triumph of Communism over capitalism. That’s right, all you Bedford-Falls-loving Mister-Potter-hating fans out there—if you worship the message behind this thinly-disguised piece of propaganda, then you’re nothing but a bunch of left-wing commie-symp pinkos. And I can prove it.

Don't let the Xmas decorations fool ya.

Bedford Falls is Moscow. Make no mistake--you know exactly what country you’re really in right from the opening. Because it’s not just one person praying, it’s the collective town, and that’s why The Powers That Be actually step in to take action. The voice of the individual never gets the same response as the combined voice of the people. Only the voice of the people as a whole has weight--unlike in a democracy, where each individual voice has exactly the same weight as every other, and their combined voices are a Babel of special interest requests, rather than a unified demand for a redress of grievances. Individual prayers are never answered, not even George Bailey’s. Only when a lot of people make a lot of noise--or make the same noise--is there a response.

Smiling faces . . . sometimes . . .

The root of all evil.

CLARENCE'S VOICE: Who's that -- a king?
JOSEPH'S VOICE: That's Henry F. Potter, the richest and meanest man in the County.

The first time we see Potter, he's compared to the hated enemy of all good Socialists, the Tsar a king. We never see him walk. He's either in a carriage or a wheelchair, and in both cases he employs someone else's labor just to get around (cough) slave driver (cough). And in case you miss the point, he's described as a man who “hates everybody that has anything he can’t have.” As literally embodied by Mr. Potter, the desire for money cripples you and makes you so greedy and nasty that, next to you, Ebenezer Scrooge looks like a Smurf. When money is your God, inhumanity is your house of worship. There is no better definition of the evils of capitalism.



George Bailey, Perfect Socialist. And who better to oppose The Evils Of Capitalism than The Perfect Socialist, as embodied by Жорж Байлий George Bailey. The good socialist never thinks about himself. George always puts other people first. The good socialist always chooses the good of the community over individual achievement or recognition. So too does George -- every time something threatens to tear the community apart, George drops another dream by the wayside as he runs off to pull everyone together. A dream that usually involves travel, education, . . . and money.



“It sure comes in handy down here, Bub.” In the socialist community, the temptation to make money is relentless, it's everywhere you look, and giving in even for a second has drastic consequences for you and the world around you. "I wish I had a million dollars," young George says, and the next thing you know, his depressed boss is asking him to deliver poison to an old woman. "Maybe I could sell tickets," George idly remarks to Mary as she hides her nakedness behind a bush. Thirty seconds later his father is dead. The only time in the movie when George despairs? When a bunch of money is lost. It makes perfect sense that the answer to this despair is Clarence, someone who doesn't have a dime on him, someone who doesn't even see the need for it. Clarence is who George was before Uncle Billy lost that bank deposit. Clarence is George's inner socialist angel.



"Fresh Air." "Times Square!" If Bedford Falls is the socialist paradise, thanks to everything George is and does, then Pottersville is that haven of capitalism run amok, New York City. Without George to embody them, the community values and shared morals that protected the comrades of Bedford Falls from rampant consumerism have vanished, and in their place we see a perfect representation of what 8th Avenue and 42nd Street looked like in 1947: bars, liquor stores, houses of ill repute, and theatres that once ran The Belles of St Mary’s now advertising “Girls Girls Girls.” One of whom is probably poor Vi. If she isn’t walking the streets somewhere. Or all dolled up and drinking herself to death as Potter's mistress.

Ever wonder why she's the only one besides Potter whom we don't see in Pottersville?

Christmas miracle, my ass. Like The Wizard Of Oz, there's a crafty sleight-of-hand to the conclusion of this film. In Oz, we think that, because the Wicked Witch of the West is dead, that means Miss Gulch is dead too. But she's not. She's out there waiting for Toto to dig up her garden one more time, at which point she'll probably feed the little mutt a steak dipped in strychnine. It's the same here -- just because George wakes up from the nightmare of Pottersville, we think that means Potter has been defeated. But he hasn't. He's out there waiting. And the next time Uncle Billy has one drink too many and misses a deposit, George will be on the firing line yet again. It's a fairy tale to think that the struggle for socialist victory over the evils of capitalism will actually result in a winner-take-all victory. The struggle never ends. Whenever you win a battle, you have to remember that the war goes on. Victory is always temporary. The Potters of this world are single-minded, powerful, and eternal. They keep coming back, and they have have to be confronted and beaten again and again, like Sauron in Middle Earth.


Socialism now! The reason this movie was a failure when it came out? Nobody in 1947 wanted to be told that money is bad, sacrifice is good, and the needs of the community come first. Which is as much to say that nobody in post-war America wanted a neo-socialist parable shoved down their throats. But their children, on the other hand, wanted nothing more—which is why the movie has grown in popularity since the 60’s. The country itself has moved far enough to the left so that the message is not a hard-to-swallow horse pill, but an embodiment of current social(ist) values: bankers are evil, health care needs to be universally available, and everyone no matter how poor has the right to own a house. Yeah -- I know -- that last one is the belief that got us into the current depression, the one that the bankers are surviving very well, thanks to corporate welfare. Which is nowhere near as taboo as welfare for the poor. Or, at the moment, housing for the poor, which is effectively dead in the water as a political issue. Chalk up one more victory for the Potters of the world.


Putting the red in Santa's red suit. I could go on, but I think it's obvious by now that people who think It's A Wonderful Life is about Christmas are like children who still believe in Santa Claus: the only way they won't go through life avoiding reality is when an adult breaks the truth to them. And the truth is that the George Baileys of this world will always be anti-capitalist, and though they might win a fight here and there, in the long run they will always lose to the Mr. Potters of this world. Or, to be totally honest (I'm breaking it to you gently here), the Potters of this country. Why do our home-grown robber barons always seem to win in the end? Simple. Because the socialist goal in America is something that always has been, and always will be, attempted through capitalist means. Which is why it will always fail. And why even the best of us will always wake up to find ourselves in Pottersville.

Put that under your Christmas tree.

What I'll Be Listening To, Reading And Watching Over The Holidays

The Manhattan Sonnets - 12

(The Day Job Sonnet)

The things I have to do to be with you
  Are like slow poison to my soul and heart:
I have to smile at those I’d rather sue,
  Bow to the stupid as if they were smart,
Nod with respect to those who irritate,
  Saying, “Yes, please,” and not an expletive --
Profess to love what I confess I hate,
  All for the salary that lets me live
With you -- a life where something in me dies
  Each time my conscience with my wallet quarrels
And I embrace a fiscal compromise
  By banking paychecks that bankrupt my morals:
     Kingdoming devils in a daily hell
     To woo the angel that I love so well.

Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells


Other posts in this series:

Sonnet 1
Sonnet 2
Sonnet 3
Sonnet 4
Sonnet 5
Sonnet 6
Sonnet 7
Sonnet 8
Sonnet 9
Sonnet 10
Sonnet 11

Blue Christmas

Looks 10, Plot 3.

The Manhattan Sonnets - 11

The winter makes you sullen, gray and cold --
  You’re dark and dreary almost all the time.
Your bitterness is keen and uncontrolled;
  Your winds are raw and vicious, like a crime.
You greet the sunshine with a frigid hate
  That like Medusa stares the world to stone.
Your fingers are like whips that flagellate,
  Lancing through flesh and muscle to the bone.
Only the snow can scarf your biting edge --
  It muffles your complaints beneath a quilt
That blankets skyscrapers into a hedge,
  Softening stings like good deeds soften guilt,
     Till all your coldness, anger, distance, spite,
     Are hushed away in kissing drifts of white.

Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells


Other posts in this series:

Sonnet 1
Sonnet 2
Sonnet 3
Sonnet 4
Sonnet 5
Sonnet 6
Sonnet 7
Sonnet 8
Sonnet 9
Sonnet 10

That's too long for a play

In the study-versus-stage debate that is (or should be) Shakespearean scholarship, I’m totally on the stage side. To me, Shakespeare was not a poet who held his nose while handing perfect first drafts of his poems to rude uneducated actors, he was a working actor from a rude uneducated background who was paid extra money to write plays with particular actors in mind. Which, when you think about it for more than ten seconds, means that the man probably rewrote more than he wrote.

THE SHARERS: Hey, Will –- you know the guy we just hired to play Albany? He’s better than the guy we had before, so can you rewrite King Lear to give him more to do?
SHAKESPEARE: Sure. But then I get to publish a quarto with that version and pocket the proceeds.
THE SHARERS: Hey, Will -- we’re mounting a touring production of The Scottish Play to bring to Edinburgh. Can you cut it down to about 90 minutes so nine actors can do it?
SHAKESPEARE: Sure, but that’s the version that’ll end up in the Folio.
THE SHARERS: The what now?

These are the kind of activities which the ShakeStudy readers, who have little or no idea of what it’s like to mount a play, never mind act in one, think are beneath their lofty Bard. But those of us in the StageSpeare troupe know that these activities are precisely what Will the actor did every day of his working life. He had to perform in and create plays which would not only keep the half-drunk groundlings in the pit from throwing food at the actors, but amuse the merchants in the galleries and flatter the titled lordlings lounging on their stools stage left and right. To paraphrase Peter Brook in The Empty Space, if Shakespeare hadn’t created 30-odd scripts which combine Mel Brooks, Tom Stoppard, and Tennessee Williams, critics would be saying that it was impossible.

All of which is prologue the following statement: based on the production of Love’s Labor’s Lost that’s being done at Pace University through this weekend, the Globe Theatre in London is the best thing that has ever happened to Shakespeare since the publication of the First Folio.


Why? Because the Globe Theatre productions, by their nature, rescue Shakespeare from the culture-snob study and put him back in the popular theatre where he made his daily living. You get the high, the low, the smart, the silly, poetry, fart jokes, music, dance, tenderness, silliness, and a lot of interaction with the audience –- everything, I’m guessing, that was done by the Chamberlain’s Men at the Globe to keep their audience entertained enough so that they didn’t walk out to watch Harry Hunks fight off a couple of dogs in the bear-baiting arena down the street.

Which is no mean feat for a play like Love’s Labor’s Lost, a young man’s look-at-me-I’m-clever script with a ton of wordplay, a piece that feels like it was written for an educated audience (no groundlings allowed) to be performed in an indoor setting (wordplay does not travel well in the gusty Southwark wind). It has the feel of the later Blackfriars plays, which are three parts pageant to one part theatre. And, like Midsummer Night’s Dream (which was probably written to celebrate a particular wedding), LLL has a play-within-a-play in which the audience talks back to the actors (The Pageant of the Nine Worthies). It’s hard not to imagine, while you watch the on-stage lordlings heckle the actors, that this was the sort of thing the Chamberlain’s Men had to put up with every fucking time they did a play for those snobby nobles with their inbred belief that they are by birth smarter and funnier than any lowly actor. Which means that all the onstage backchat is Shakespeare’s way of needling the lordlings about the snarky way they needle actors. You have to believe that the gentles felt a verbal slap when they heard Holofernes’ walk-off line, “This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.”

Take that, you twits.

To illustrate how times have changed, Shakespeare scholars used to think that LLL was one of the earliest plays in the canon (nowadays they place it around Romeo and MND). To me, it reads like the son of a Stratford glover being told one too many times what a country yokel he is, and finally saying, “Oh yeah? I’ll show you!” with a pitch-perfect mimicry of his university-trained betters, like a John Lyly play with actual characters. Ironically, it’s the university wit part that makes this annoyingly clever play so notoriously hard to perform well –- it contains references to everything from the Armada to Raleigh’s so-called School of Night (a reference which was cut from this production, if memory serves), and it’s totally made up of in-jokes that must have had them rolling off their stools in 1594. It’s the Elizabethan equivalent of stringing together 15 Johnny Carson monologues from 1965 and performing them for people born in 1970. There’s no way you’re going to get any of the jokes without reading 10 pages of footnotes before the show. And that’s the challenge: how do you perform a play which is that site-specific without boring a modern audience so much they start watching bear-baiting videos on their IPhones?


Well, if you’re director Dominic Drumgoole, you attack the problem head-on by making your production as site-specific as possible, with the site being the outdoor stage of the Globe and the specific being 1594, so that it’s a total period piece, from costumes to musical instruments (I cannot tell you much my time-displaced inner Elizabethan was kvelling at hearing shawms and sackbuts). And then (because nobody’s going to get the in-jokes anyway), you direct the actors to (a) always speak as if they know what they’re talking about, (b) add business wherever possible to get a laugh, and (c) generally lark about like college kids whose bright ideas always backfire in their faces. Result: an audience-aware delight that doesn’t try to make the lines live so much as make the play live. If I can echo a comment to the New York Times review, which quotes an anonymous student: “I didn’t understand a word of it, but it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” That’s good Shakespeare, folks.

And since a review of a play that needs footnotes should always have a footnote of its own:


The play at Pace right now is a touring revival of the original production, which was done in 2007 with a slightly different cast. One of those slight differences is Thomasin Rand, who plays Rosaline. Her voice is so light and airy that a row full of people inhaling at the same time could drown it out, and if she's not facing you when she speaks, then goodbye audibility. All of which makes me wish I had seen Gemma Arterton (picture above) who originated the part in '07. You might recognize Ms Arterton as Tess from the recent BBC Tess of the D'Ubervilles, or the British agent in Quantum of Solace who has an unlucky run-in with a couple of cans of diesel oil. If you don't, that's all right -- she'll be all over the place in the next couple of years as the title character in Tamara Drewe, Catherine Earnshaw in the remake of Wuthering Heights, and I-forget-who in the upcoming West End production of The Little Dog Laughed.

The Manhattan Sonnets - 10

I hear your song calling me from outside
  My bedroom window, and I scorn to sleep.
There are no dreamy airs that can abide
  Comparison to tunes we two will keep --
No fantasies to equal how the real
  Will rapture us as we reel out the night --
No might-have-beens to dog us at the heel --
  No burning maybes yearning to ignite.
Those are the promises I hear in your
  Quick whisper as I’m wrapped up in my sheets --
Today, tonight, tomorrow: I will soar
  And you will swing me high above your streets
     And beckon for a stare with ginger eyes
     And gershwin me with clamor till I rise.

Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells


Other posts in this series:

Sonnet 1
Sonnet 2
Sonnet 3
Sonnet 4
Sonnet 5
Sonnet 6
Sonnet 7
Sonnet 8
Sonnet 9

The Manhattan Sonnets - 9

And when I wake up, everything is pain.
  I blink my eyes and feel my face explode.
My skull is home to cactus spines, not brain.
  My mouth tastes like the inside of a toad.
I shake with drumbeats like twelve time bombs ticking.
  (What is that sound?  Wait -- it’s my cells dividing.)
Some stallion in my gut just won’t stop kicking.
  (Oh God -- that’s all my molecules colliding.)
This is what happens every time we play --
  For every late night laugh, two days of groans.
The bill comes due and I will always pay
  A price that troubles me down to my bones
     And swear you off for good, till you ask “When?”
     And I say, “Now,” and pay the price again.

Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells


Other posts in this series:

Sonnet 1
Sonnet 2
Sonnet 3
Sonnet 4
Sonnet 5
Sonnet 6
Sonnet 7
Sonnet 8

The Manhattan Sonnets - 8

And when I’m drunk with you and all the world
  Shouts answers to my every silent prayer,
And hope is king, and life’s an oyster pearled,
  And every street I walk is bold and rare,
There’s nothing you can play that I can’t sing --
  Nothing you want that I cannot supply --
Nowhere I go where I won’t be the king --
  Nobody else alive but you and I.
We’ll laugh at jokes that no one else will get
  (And I will grab your hand and draw you near),
Pick random numbers and win every bet
  (And you will stick your tongue into my ear),
    And I will eat life up from lips to legs
    And drink it till I drain death to the dregs.

Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells


Other posts in this series:

Sonnet 1
Sonnet 2
Sonnet 3
Sonnet 4
Sonnet 5
Sonnet 6
Sonnet 7

The Manhattan Sonnets - 7

"Do this," you urge, and how can I refuse?
  You know I crave whatever you can give.
Just lead the way and I will go, my muse.
  You are the opium I need to live.
We two will share such highs that all the lows
  Will feel like small inconsequential bumps.
We’ll chase the dragon wherever it goes,
  Your smile the height that lifts me from the dumps.
You are my queen: command me anything.
  I am your puppet speaking with your voice.
You are the balm that cools my suffering.
  You are the road and I am your Rolls Royce.
     Lead and I’ll follow; feed me and I’ll chew.
     I’m nothing till you tell me what to do.

Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells


Other posts in this series:

Sonnet 1
Sonnet 2
Sonnet 3
Sonnet 4
Sonnet 5
Sonnet 6

The Manhattan Sonnets - 6

Some nights you stare at me as if I were
  Metal too soft to meddle with, and say,
“Let’s take a rain check on the massacre.
  We’ll do some mischief, dear, some other day.”
And some nights you can see I’m fit to fly
  And hale enough to hazard life and limb,
And so you gentle me into the sky
  Where I will wheel and hover at your whim.
And some nights you’re the one who’s weak and needy –-
  Who trembles like a fawn that’s terrified --
Who looks at me like Dunaway to Beatty
  Before the bullets end Bonnie and Clyde:
     A world-without-end look, as if to say,
     “Come, paltry death -- we two have lived today.”

Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells

Other posts in this series:

Sonnet 1
Sonnet 2
Sonnet 3
Sonnet 4
Sonnet 5

The Manhattan Sonnets - 5

I hate it that you’re never there with me
  At spots I can’t afford; it hurts like sin
To see you as some moneybag’s jeune fille,
  Like you’re first prize and Rich Boy cries “I win!”
While he throws me a look that screams: “You lose!”
  And by his rules?  I have and always will.
I can’t compete with him; you’ll always choose
  Suites over sweet and T-bills over Bill –-
At least when you’re with him.  When you’re with me,
  It’s places he would not be caught in dead.
His rooftops and my dives lack alchemy:
  His silver will not marry with my lead.
     He dazzles you with gold, and cannot see:
     In your eyes, even lead is currency.

Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells

Other posts in this series:

Sonnet 1

Sonnet 2

Sonnet 3

Sonnet 4

Santa Claus Needs Some Lovin' - The 2009 Christmas Comp

Every year, around this time, I haunt the Virgin Megastore, Tower Records, and J&R Music World in search of Christmas CD's from which I can make my annual holiday compilation.

This year it's a little different. Virgin is gone, Tower has fallen, and although J&R is still around, I don't go there as much as I used to. What does that mean? It means this year is all Amazon and the Internet. Especially the Internet. I'm usually online a lot these days, but trolling for Christmas MP3's is a refreshing change from what I usually do on the web (cough) download porn (cough).

So, with modern technology as my guide and inspiration, I've decided to take a tentative step into the 21st century and, instead of burning my song choices to CD, loading the tracks up on this blog. They're all below. Let me know if you have any problems acessing them.

For anyone who's counting, this is the 10th comp I've done. (And I've already started working on the 11th.)

Enjoy.

01 Lieutenant Sulu sings The Christmas Song

02 Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin' - Lynyrd Skynyrd

03 Humping Santa - Ms Jody

04 Back Door Santa Getting It On - DJ Schmolli

05 Nuttin' for Christmas - Sugarland

06 Must be Santa - Bob Dylan

07 Christmas is Cancelled - The Long Blondes

08 Season's Greetings From Michael Jackson

09 Velvet Santa - Divide and Kreate

10 Winter Wonderland - Liz Phair

11 Happy Christmas - Bily Rock and the Snowcats

12 White Christmas - Allen Toussaint

13 Christmas Comes But Once A Year - Amos Milburn with Charles Brown

14 Angels - Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey

15 Merry Christmas (Thanks for the Roses) - Antje Duvokot

16 The Reindeer Boogie - Hank Snow

17 Just Because It's Christmas - The Gougers

18 She's Underneath the Mistletoe Again - Antsy McClain

19 He's The Best! Santa - Colby O'Donis

20 The World To Me - The Canadian Dollars

21 Tall Trees - Matt Mays and El Torpedo

22 Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - Wizo

23 Angels We Have Heard On High - Relient K

24 Snowday - Bleu

25 Liam and Me - Winter Paradise (I Miss You This Christmas)

26 The Raveonettes - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

27 It Doesn't Often Snow At Christmas (new version) - Pet Shop Boys

Zip file:

Santa Claus Needs Some Lovin' - The 2009 Christmas Comp
 

The Manhattan Sonnets - 4

You never come to me -- I go to you,
  And always find you in fast company:
Cabbing from the passé to some debut,
  Ditching Group A for up-to-date Group B.
You’re always in the swim, so I must try
  To win Olympic gold just to keep up --
Only the next chic place will satisfy;
  The au courant alone will share your cup.
But in the end you’ll leave us all behind
  And find a fresh crowd at the latest spot,
And we will envy them but be resigned,
  For everything grows cold that once was hot:
     No matter where we stand or who we’ve been,
     We’re always on the outside looking in.

copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells

The Manhattan Sonnets - 3

I wake up and you’re home, but when I reach
  To hold you closer, I grab empty space.
You’ve vanished like a wave does on the beach,
  Drawn back into the city’s deep embrace.
You splash my face with hope and disappear;
  You touch, then drift away like luck and fame.
You say, “What will I do with you, my dear?”
  Then whisper everything except my name.
My love, I know you treat your loves alike:
  You keep them distant every time you kiss,
Say no to Mark, and then stroll off with Mike,
  And then swing back like nothing is amiss.
     But I know this with total certainty:
     You will be different when it comes to me.

copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells

Flores para los muertos

I could use five thesauruses to find synonyms for "brilliant" and still come up short against what my friend Rob said after the (4th?) (5th?) (6th?) curtain call at Streetcar last night:

ROB: You can cross that off your list.
ME: Huh?
ROB: You'll never need to see this play again.

And that about says it all.


So why is it definitive? Or better yet, why does it feel definitive? A couple of things. It's an ensemble piece. (There was no Blanchett-only curtain call, and even though I wanted one, because she was magnificent, I cannot tell you how happy it made me not to see her take that star turn.) The way it's staged, you literally get a window into the apartment on the second floor throughout the entire evening. (It's a world you're seeing, not just a room.) It goes from funny to tragic a smoothly as Fred Astaire goes from tap to ballroom.


And, most important of all as far as Blanche is concerned? She does not walk onstage with a big sign over her head that says I AM DOOMED. You actually see it happen. I can't tell you how rare that is when you see a so-called tragedy. It's what I call the Desdemona Law. The Desdemona Law says that there is never a moment when you get the feeling that a doomed character might make it out of the play alive. The law owes its origin to the National Theatre production of Othello (with Simon Russell Beale as Iago) in which the first time we see Desdemona, she's wearing a blood-red nightgown. "Oh great; she's already dead," I said to myself. "So why am I sitting here waiting for the inevitable? And really, when have I ever NOT seen a Desdemona who was doomed from the moment she says 'My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty'?" (Twice, actually, but they're the exceptions and not the rule. They were also the best two productions of Othello I've ever seen.) Point being, it's incredibly rare to see the Desdemona Law broken. This production is one of those rare moments.


But the true test of how good this production is? I didn't think of Marge Simpson once. Which is like hearing "The William Tell Overture" and not thinking of The Lone Ranger.


Oh yeah; the title of this post? Back in high school we used to use that phrase as an all-purpose Woo Woo Moment; no matter what we were talking about -- politics, literature, Homeric Greek participles -- at some point someone would say "And then the old lady walks on saying 'Flores para los muertos,'" and it would be good for a laugh. Part of the greatness of this production? Not only is this moment chilling, but you actually think for a moment that Blanche is totally imagining it.

Guide to Guys - Tiger Woods Edition

"I nailed it!!!"

Why do men cheat? Why does anybody cheat? Well, to quote me, the answer is very simple. Here’s the beginning of a scene from a play I wrote a few years back called Donna Paradise. It tells you all you need to know about adultery:

[SCENE FIVE: HAWTHORNE'S. ED IS SITTING ON A BAR STOOL STAGE RIGHT; JOYCE IS SITTING ON A STOOL NEXT TO HIM.]

ED: So you’re a divorce lawyer.
JOYCE: Guilty as charged.
ED: So tell me. Why do people get divorced?
JOYCE: Because they get married.
ED: Why do they get married?
JOYCE: Because they’re stupid enough to believe that you can get happiness by pushing a button. “We just got married! [SHE MAKES A BUZZER NOISE] Now we’re happy!” Well it doesn’t happen like that, it’s work, and nobody tells you it’s work. Nobody ever tells you how much work you have to do just to keep it alive. It’s a lot more exciting to chase after someone than to live with him. Which is why married couples who don’t do the work end up chasing after anybody they can’t get their hands on.
ED: You think that’s why people cheat on each other?
JOYCE: Sure. Bottom line? It’s exciting. Marriage is not exciting. Marriage is cleaning up the kitchen and doing the dishes after you’ve cooked the meal. Adultery is take-out. Marriage is playing three rounds of golf and hitting into sand traps. Adultery is an instant hole-in-one. Marriage is going to the dentist’s and hating it. Adultery is getting drilled and loving it.
ED: You ever been married?
JOYCE: No, but I’ve had a root canal.
ED: So how do you know why people cheat on each other?
JOYCE: Because I see it every day, and believe me, it’s not just the excitement. It’s because you can never get one hundred percent of what you want out of another human being.
ED: Sure you can.
JOYCE: No you can’t. Think about it for a second. How do you share someone’s alone time?
ED: [BEAT] You can’t.
JOYCE: Or the time he spends with his wife.
ED: Or the time she spends with her husband?
JOYCE: Exactly. I think of it this way. Human beings are like twelve-inch rulers. You and I meet; we hit it off. What does that mean? It means our rulers overlap. If they overlap more than six inches, there’s something special there. If it’s close to eleven inches, we’re made for each other. But that means there’s an inch on my side that you don’t touch, and an inch on your side that I don’t touch. There’s always some piece of us that never connects with the ones we love. Which means it can always connect with someone else. And when that happens, because it always does, it’s exciting and it’s thrilling, it’s intoxicating -– why? Because that untouched piece of you is like an erogenous zone. Once it gets stroked, you have to decide whether you want to give up the seven inches you have for the five you don't. Or the nine for the three; or the eleven for the one. That’s why people cheat. Because they think what they’re not getting is more important than what they are.

That’s my own personal theory, by the way. (I should probably copyright it; now that it’s on the web? It’s everybody’s theory.) So, given that brilliant explanation, the question is not, “Why do men cheat?” Men are always going to cheat. So are women. The question is, who do men who cheat always want to get caught? Because they do.

This one's totally up for grabs.

Take Tiger. This is a guy who obviously likes to booty text. Does he buy a pay-as-you go phone and never let it out of his sight? Does he set up a clean e-mail ID and use a netbook he keeps locked up in his golf bag? Hell, no. He hands out his real cell number and waits for his wife to scroll through the un-erased messages (un-erased messages!!!) to see all the par 3 blondes he’s been holing in one. (Okay, I know, totally not true. Technically they’re brunettes.) The point being, when you don’t even delete some skank’s text to you, are you not asking your wife to come after you with a nine-iron? (Great mental picture, though, huh?

ELIN: [swinging away] From where I'm standing, your head's a par one!

Just imagine if Guy Ritchie had gone after Madonna with a nine-iron for nailing one of her bimbeau tour dancers. Every single tabloid in the world would have the same headline: "GUY RITCHIE PLAYS GOLF?!?")

But of course, when your wife holds up your cell phone and says "Who the fuck is 'Rachel'?" you get to play the wronged one. (Guys love to play this one.) You get to say, "You went scrolling through my texts? I can't believe this. You trust me that little?!?"

ELIN: [swinging away] That calls for a driver!

There are two other pertinent aspects of the whole Tiger’s Woodie media storm. One of them is what I like to call Letterman’s Law. Letterman’s Law says, “If you’re being chased by a dog, always throw red meat.” Or in other words, if you’re about to become tabloid fodder, divulge everything. This is because the Tabloid Hive Mind is consumed by two questions: (1) Where’s the hole in the story? and (2) Who can fill in the hole in the story? Letterman, savvy son of a bitch that he is, went the TMI route when his scandal was about to hit. And it was a big story for what, a week maybe? But now? Ancient history. The Tabloid Hive Mind said, “No story there,” meaning “No hole we can start excavating in that story,” and moved on. Because Tiger went NEI* instead of TMI, the tabs are having a field day, and every adipose-enlarged blonde bleached-blonde he’s ever done Jello shots with is angling for a book deal.

*Not Enough Information.

"Sorry; I must be off my stroke."

And the other aspect? Not to get all Aristotelian on Tiger’s ass, but he brought this on himself. From all accounts, before he got married, he was something of a hound when it came to the ladies. But when he got all those endorsement deals, he chose to become a squeaky-clean role model. So he had to stop being the Tramp, totally content with scarfing down sloppy seconds in gutters, and start being an afghan or a whippet or (insert favorite champion breed here) and dining off the spotless china. His every public and commercial move said, “I am perfect.” And now that all his imperfections are showing up in string bikinis on the cover of the New York Post? Sorry, dude. You want us to judge you by the spotless china? Then don’t chow down from a garbage can.

Gutter sweet gutter.

The Manhattan Sonnets - 2

I know I cannot chain you by my side.
  I know you need more loves than mine to live.
I know we'll never be husband and bride:
  Your Take is king, and beggar is my Give.
I know you have to feed your appetites --
  You're on the town with pearls and a chignon.
I know the way you like to spend your nights:
  You're drinks till 3 and after-hours till dawn.
You're seeing shows with tourists in Times Square.
  You're Sunday brunch and afterwards the Met.
You're sipping kir royale at the Pierre.
  You're cocktails in a Slipper Room banquette.
     I know, too, even though you love to roam,
     That, when I wake up, you'll always be home.

12/5/09
Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells

someone else not me

You walk out of the bar
with someone else, not me.
You stand beside a car
and touch his arm, while he
leans down to brush your lips
with his and, like a key,
his kiss unlocks your hips
which grind against his knee --
which stabs me like a knife
and kills me when I see
you go home in a cab
with someone else, not me.

12/5/09 3AM
Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells

The Manhattan Sonnets - 1

The white noise of your breathing falls like snow
  And swirls up to my smile, drifting and heaping.
I feel your heartbeat everywhere I go:
  It's fierce and peaceful,like a goddess sleeping.
Your wind bites like a hundred thousand knives.
  I meet each slice as if it were a kiss:
Promising love in neon-dappled dives,
  Keeping me distant with your tiger's hiss.
You shred me like the legs of the Rockettes;
  I want to eat you like Red Devil Cake.
You fill me up with yearning and regrets;
  I need you like the vampire needs the stake.
    My terrible desire, vicious and pretty --
    My harsh and tender love -- my soul -- my city.

12/4/09
Copyright 2009 Matthew J Wells

You tell 'em, Ralph

"You do something because you love it, and you do it with everything you’ve got. And then you die. What you leave behind doesn’t matter. How much money you make doesn’t matter. What people think of you doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is how you spend every fucking day of your life, how you feel about yourself—and not in the narcissistic, egotistical way."