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Shakespeare on Lust

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William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129 is one of those poems which I have read again and again over the decades. The subject is lust, a frequent topic in the Bard’s poems and plays. When I first encountered it, I thought it was a bit on the ugly side; but as time went on, I began to see a certain beauty in it. Tell me what you think of it.

Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Selfie With Barbie

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Yours Truly with Barbie

Who is that skeptical-looking muckenfuss with lovely Barbie? Oh, that’s me. I must have been making that sour face because both Margot Robbie and director Greta Gerwig were unfairly denied Oscars for their part in making what, to my mind, is the best film of 2023. Why should I be surprised? Awards, particularly in show biz, reflect the petty hatreds of professionals. Rarely have I agreed wholeheartedly with the Academy’s choices.

Now that I am on my way with Barbie to the Real World, I’d better check my bright yellow inline roller blades and my rad duds for making the scene on Venice Beach.

I guess I loved Barbie because it was so refreshing to see a purely feminine viewpoint unmarred by crass mansplaining. Mattel actively participated in the film even though its 100& white male Board of Directors in the film is actually pretty evenly split between six men and five women.

Barbie and Ken on Venice Beach

What struck me is that both Barbie and Ken were totally naive and un-selfconscious about their roles. It was like the story of Pinocchio, with both characters striving to become real people, or at least contented to be themselves. I felt for Ken and his attempt to set up the patriarchy in Barbieland, to be renamed Kenland. The Barbies ultimately win, but then the Kens accept their second-string status.

In a way, it was a pity to see the Mojo Dojo Casa House disinfected and returned to Barbie. Some, like Bill Maher, see the film as ultimately a man-hating product. I did not.

Sonnet 129

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The Waikiki Malia Hotel in Waikiki

It was our second night in Honolulu. We had a room on the 12th floor of the Waikiki Malia Hotel’s Malia Tower. The next room away from the elevator was occupied by a couple of young women who were entertaining young male guests. Because the two rooms were connectable by a locked door, we could hear pretty much everything that was said.

Martine and i were pretty tired by 10 pm, because that was the same as 1 am Los Angeles time. Still we were entertained by the goings-on next door. All four were obviously on on liquor and possibly worse, and the girls were doing a major snow job on the guys. After three quarters of an hour, all four left to go out; but before long one of the couples returned to have very noisy sex.

After about ten minutes, the sounds from the other room were of conflict. The guy was complaining that his driver’s license was missing. After the act, there appeared to be no love lost between the two. As I lay in bed, I could easily have predicted this. After the guy left in a huff, everything went quiet; and we dropped off to sleep.

I was reminded of Shakespeare’s famous Sonnet #129 on the subject of lust:

Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and, till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight;
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad,
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and proved a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
    All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
    To sun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Zero Tolerance Policy

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The Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Downtown Los Angeles

Martine likes to spend a day in downtown L.A. once a week. While there, she spends some time around the Twin Towers Correctional Facility operated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. It holds more than 2,000 inmates. Crumpled up outside the jail are interesting sheets of paper which give a lurid picture of life in stir.

Today, Martine handed me an information sheet entitled “Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Comprehensive Inmate Education.” It and other informative pieces of paper are tossed away by released inmates. At the top of the sheet is the usual administrative huffing and puffing by the Sheriff’s Department (which refers to itself as the LASD):

LASD maintains a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY for sexual harassment or sexual abuse of all inmates in its custody.

This means you have the right to be free from sexual harassment and sexual abuse by anyone, including staff, volunteers, contractors, medical and mental health staff, and other inmates, while in LASD’s custody.

You have the right to report if you have been sexually abused/sexually harassed, or if you know of someone else who has been or is being sexually abused/sexually harassed. No one deserves to be sexually abused/sexually harassed.

You have the right to report if you have a suspicion or know of threats that you or someone else will be sexually abused/sexually harassed.

Of course, if you have a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY, it pretty much means that it is probably widespread across the institution. It is typical that the prison administrators will wish the problem away by burying it in reams of paperwork, of which this Inmate Education sheet is an example. It gives detailed information on whom to contact and how. Also included are the following tips on how to protect yourself from being victimized:

  • Stay away from gambling or trading goods with other inmates.
  • Do not use drugs or alcohol [about which there is another ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY]. Being intoxicated puts you at higher risk for sexual abuse.
  • Do not accept gifts or offers of protection from other inmates.
  • Keep this information sheet with you for future reference.
  • There are PREA posters in each housing unit that provide this information.
  • You will also see a video about PREA in your housing unit that is played on a regular basis.
  • PREA is also discussed during town hall meetings with staff.

Nowhere is the point made that if you stay out of prison, you are more likely not to be raped, abused, or harassed.

A Lemming Named Desire

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Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and Wife Geri

If you’ve seen Martin Scorsese’s film Casino about the mob days in Las Vegas, you’ve seen Sharon Stone in the role of Ginger McKenna as well as Robert DeNiro as Sam “Ace” Rothstein. Throughout the film, names were changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty. The actual characters were named Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and Geri McGee Rosenthal.

Between 1976 and 1983, Rosenthal was in charge of four casinos that were secretly skimming profits to Chicago and other Midwestern mobsters. As a nationally known sports bettor, he had in 1969 married a Vegas showgirl named Geri McGee.

Vegas Showgirl Geri McGee

Geri was one of those tall, lovely showgirls for whom most men would sell their souls. Not that Lefty had not sold his soul early on, but hooking up with Geri turned out to be a nightmare. Although Lefty and Geri had two children together, Geri started taking drugs and having a not-well-hidden affair with mob enforcer Tony “The Ant” Spilotro (played by Joe Pesci in the film).

As her marriage began to implode, Geri had a very open break with her family and took thousands in cash and jewelry that Lefty had in a joint safe deposit box to prove his trust in Geri. She left for Los Angeles and was dead within months of a drug overdose. Lefty, meanwhile, was the victim of a car bomb, which, fortunately for him, he escaped without major injury. But shortly after that, he was finished in Vegas and moved on to Laguna Niguel, California, and then Boca Raton, Florida, where he died in 2008.

Sharon Stone in the Role of Geri

As men, most of us dream of falling for a long-stemmed beauty like Geri McGee, but it rarely ends well. There’s something about the whole mechanism of sexual desire which seems to militate against long-term happiness.

Influence Numero Uno, 1960s Style

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R. Crumb Was My Guru in Dem Days

The 1960s were a difficult time for me. I was all set to start graduate school in film history and criticism in September of 1966, when, quite suddenly, I was in a coma at Fairview General Hospital, with my body surrounded by ice to bring my temperature down. It was then that my pituitary tumor decided to make a major incursion on my optic nerve and brain that almost carried me into the next world. Somehow, I struggled back to consciousness, received the last sacraments of the Catholic Church (the aptly named Extreme Unction), and was ready to remove a “cyst” (that’s what the doctor called it) from my pituitary.

Did I even know what the pituitary gland was? Not really. Within a few days, my brain was hinged back to allow a surgical suction device to remove the enlarged and inflamed gland. When later I saw my neurosurgeon and asked how big the tumor was, he answered, “About the size of a grapefruit.”

When I finally made it to Los Angeles after Christmas in 1966, I noticed some changes to my ways of thinking:

  1. I felt that because of my weird ten years of illness that I was, for all intents and purposes, from Mars.
  2. Quite suddenly, I lost my faith in religion.
  3. I found myself with a really weird sense of humor.

Self Portrait of Cartoonist R. Crumb

Since I was now in Los Angeles, I drifted toward certain local influences, such as The Los Angeles Free Press, an underground newspaper that mirrored my own sense of disillusionment. Then I made the discovery of R. Crumb, whose Zap Comics, Fritz the Cat, and other series were required reading. There was Mister Natural, Flakey Foont, and a whole galaxy of characters. Admittedly, there was a lot of misogynistic sexuality, which was a Crumb trademark, but that was the way I was feeling  about myself. It rubbed me the wrong way that women seemed to lie so casually and hurtfully. It was years before I understand that was a defense mechanism from weirdos like me.

Some of Crumb’s Early Misogyny

Oddly, I never outgrew my admiration of Crumb’s work. I no longer accept all of Crumb’s own neuroses and psychoses, but I believe he was a great cartoonist, and that his work will be remembered long after I am gone.