Years ago, I began researching what women would consider attributes of a truly civilized man. I asked the question, "What is the first requirement you would expect to find in a truly civilized man?" Some answered in a word, some in more than one word, but all answered with little hesitation.
Debbie (40)-Humble
Carrie (25)-Respect
Kelley (30)-Chocolate, lots of dark chocolate
Karen (18)-Maturity
Kathy (50)-No profanity
CJ (70)-Heart
Joy (28)-Table manners
Dina(25)-Manners
Trish(22)-Honesty
Elaina(25)-Honesty
Marlene(30)-Respect
Paulette(45)-Respect
Lisa(19)-Maturity
Paula(35)-Honesty
Jimmy D's chick(Manners
Roberta(64)-One who can get in touch with his feminine side
Wendy(28)-Honesty
Dani(26)-Humor
Joni(28)-One who has something besides sexual innuendos coming out of his mouth every other word
Janice(55)-Compassion
Cirress(30)-Intellect (Inquisitiveness)
Becky(33)-Manners
Barb(34)-Manners
Julie(27)-Taste
Jeri(33)-Monogamy
Ande(23)-Honesty
Diana(33)-Purity
Cristina((36)-Honor and honesty
Tiffiny(21)-Not in jail
Originally, I intended to write a how-to guide to becoming a truly civilized man, overcoming feelings that civilized means sissified and convincing men that manners are irreplaceable when dealing with women, and win far more support from most than manhandling will.
While doing "research," I visited The South End Bar, an establishment that hadn't changed much, in looks, from the thirty-five years that had passed since I used to frequent the place; long and narrow with the right side taken up with an original elbow-oiled bar as you enter the front door.
The rest of the floor space on the left, is occupied by heavy wooden card tables. Euchre is the game of choice and the stakes are kept to a quarter per point, tallied by erasing sections of chalk marked X's on the table.
I sat on a stool at the bar, near the front door, and drank a Blue Ribbon. The table furthest from me had a game going. At the table nearest me, a guitar picker was playing for drinks. When I needled him for not playing some rock and roll I could sing to, he moved to the last stools at the far end where two females were sitting. He began feeding them lyrics to a country song, prompting them to sing to his harmony. "Who were you thinking of when you were making love last night?"
A card player stood, pulled down his pants, his underwear, then exposed himself, singing along while hanging out. The rest of the players left the table and moved to the bar, but said nothing. I laughed aloud, figuring it was an isolated incident by one way under the influence of alcohol.
Xx-raze was tending bar, thus in charge and told the guy to pull his pants up. He implored me not to tell "The Cap'n" and then asked, "What could I do? That's Will Sour, he's crazy, man!"
I told him I wouldn't mention it to the owner. "Hey, you did all you could, you told him to pull 'em up."
The guitar man finished, after a few more stanzas, returned to the nearby table, put a gratis drink down and sat on the back of the chair, with one foot in the seat and the other on the floor. He began singing for the drink after stating it was his last song before leaving the bar. Will was walking around with a grin, mingling for approval. I asked Xx-raze about our friend Dijerido. A nephew of an old friend bought me a beer and I listened to his family update.
The door opened and a young boy walk in. He had an earring, a unisex hairdo with chopped top and length in back. He had on a bloused shirt and was cute enough to kiss. Xx-raze questioned his want. The kid said he was with the people who had entered the bar from the back. Xx-raze waved him through and I turned to see the couple standing at the euchre table nearest the end of the bar. The chick was getting a thorough checking out by myself and every other male in the place.
Her husband was shorter, dressed in a blue work shirt and matching trousers. His boots had two-inch heels and he was still around five-feet tall. He was near drunk and appeared to be a father showing off a young daughter, especially to the muscular fellow who'd just bought me the beer. The husband was trying to hang on to the huge bicep the smiling acquaintance was flexing for him. The kid was seated nearby and the little man gave him a protective hug, then whispered into his wife's ear.
Before sitting at the table, she checked out the rest of the patrons who would be behind her. I smiled when she looked in my direction. She had long brown hair and smooth tan skin. Her black denim jacket and pants were form fitting, matched by black 3/4-style boots with unique side laces. She presented a sort of biker chick image. From my vantage, she looked lean and mean, tempered with natural beauty and a hint of innocence. An Apache princess in gunfighter garb.
While I was watching her and watching different men watching her, a dude I'd been recently introduced to, sat down beside me and began to roll a joint after showing me a crystalline coated bud about four-inches long. I alluded to the waste in joints and offered to go to my car and get my pipe. He said no, that he liked the taste of a joint, making it clear quantity was no object since he had a substantial stash. Xx-raze warned him about letting anyone else see him twisting a number on the bar. He said OK, finished and invited my outside to toast it.
My generous friend was standing where he could see inside the bar, while passing the number. He was a tad shocked to witness another lewd denuding incident inside. The nephew came out and I offered him a hit. He waved it off and exclaimed, "I don't believe it! A guy in there pulling his dick out in front of people and you guys out here smoking dope...why if Trapper knew this, he'd bring his dozer down and wipe this whole place out." He got into his high rider 4X and roared away.
The guitar picker and two other men cleared out, rushed by the rude behavior. The guitar was put into the trunk of a car, a couple short tokes were taken and they drove away. The t'ic and I went back inside. Things had settled down to drinking, TV and a card game. "Crazy" Will was partnered with Kight Henri against the couple.
I took my question to the ladies who'd been singing. They both answered that honesty would be the first requirement they would expect to find in a truly civilized man. I wrote it down and returned to my stool, but then, for whatever stupid reason, I went back to challenge their choice. I stated they might not recognize honesty and probably couldn't handle it. The brunette said that an honest man couldn't be found in this town. Since it is an attitude about all men, why limit the search to one city. In my attempt to defend our (men's) honesty, I compared it to ruling on a woman's intelligence, which is stereotyped as less than that of men. Between the alcohol and pot was a space which precluded courtesy, so I thanked them and returned to my beer.
Most of the small crowd were standing near or sitting close to the table, watching the game. Styler nodded towards the game and guaranteed there would be a fight. I was intent upon questioning the foxy wife, and asked my freak friend if he thought I should ask for the husband's permission to approach her. He said it wouldn't matter so I walked over, pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. She kept her eyes on the cards as I explained, "I'm doing research for this article I'm writing and I'd like to ask you what would be the first requirement you'd expect to find in a truly civilized man?"
She glanced at me, went back to the cards and was silent. Figuring she didn't have an immediate reply, I told her to take her time and went to get my beer. Returning, I sat down and asked if I should repeat the question? She turned directly to face me and said, "Respect."
Within seconds of thanking her and getting up, it was obvious her opponent, the exhibitionist, was upset and bent on challenging her. He argued she and her husband were passing signals. She said it had to do with kid who had left the bar while I'd been outside. The bully questioned her worth as a mother if she didn't know where the kid had gone. The confrontation grew louder and more insulting.
The card game was in limbo, already, when she stood up and indicated for him to, "Come on, if you want to settle this!"
Mr. Sour got to his feet and they stood, toe to toe. The way she had the confidence to call him out, I was expecting her to wield a weapon. When none showed, it became obvious she probably wouldn't be able to drop him as he continued with spittle-spraying castigating.
"You don't have the balls to take me on!"
She made a quick swipe between spread knees and stated incredulously, "I don't have balls!"
"You don't have a clit that can get stiff enough for you to take me on.
She just shook her head enough to cause those long brown tresses to flutter, stepped back and said, "Well, well now," obviously as stunned as the rest of us at the depth a person could sink to insult a woman.
The haranguing continued and at one point she countered an accusation with an allusion to his showing himself to "...all these...men." It seemed a call for any of us to counted as a man, but none stepped forward.
I was still seated furthest away from the argument, giving my nephew, who had just came in, a speech on the evils of alcohol. He'd just been beaten in a short arm-wrestling match and was now getting stirred about how the opponent couldn't fare as well if they were to get into a row involving fisticuffs. Xx-raze called the card game off and the table emptied.
But nothing was solved and the berating continued. Only now the aggressor was standing among the guys, reaching and pointing, visually raping the lady. Finally, she broke, tears flowed and she retreated from the threat. She cried, "Leave me alone!"
"Hey!" I shouted towards her. Everyone got quiet.
"Hey, come here."
I got off the stool and went to her. I put my arm around her shoulders and led her back to the stool beside where I'd been sitting.
"Sit down, right here. Wipe those tears away, you stood up well, don't blow it by crying. You stay with me and I'll guarantee he'll leave you alone."
Once seated, I told her she had lied because she had more balls than anybody. There was a short confrontation when Styler brought the boy down to where I was so he could be with his mother. I asked the kid if this was his mother and he said she was as close to a mother as he had. I went to get the husband.
When I put my hand on his back to direct him to his wife, he became incensed for the first time. A man had been insulting his wife for as long and as loudly as he wanted, and the husband did nothing. Not a word, not a move, except at one point he motioned for her to sit down and play cards. He pushed my hand away and told me not to tell him what to do.
Before I recovered from surprise, the bully approached, raised my right arm with his left and told me not to get into this.
"I'm already in it, motherfucker," I warned, then hooked him with a left and crossed him with a right. He fell backwards against the bar, knocking over a stool.
People will allow a fight to begin with no interference, then jump in to separate combatants. By the time I moved to feed him more knuckles, there were two or three sets of hands trying to restrain me. This allowed my adversary to get hold of a beer bottle to try to break over my head. After the first blow, my face went down and I blindly reached for his eyes. The second blow split skin, so there was some blood.
Decades ago, my father recalled the instructions of a martial arts expert in a US Navy basic training class. He had alluded to the ease with which a person's eyes can be easily popped from sockets with a well-placed thumb or fingertip. While being pummelled with the bottle, I tried to pluck an eye out. I had my thumb in one eye and a finger inside the orb of the other eye. No doubt I'd have done major damage if I hadn't been stopped.
While being held, I screamed to be allowed to finish him. I grabbed a bottle off the bar and held it at arms length on my right side. Styler told the others to let me go. Will was slumped at the bar, leaning against the adjoining wall. Trying to focus through gouged eyes, he asked what I intended to do with the bottle? I told him I was going to use it on him.
He didn't move and for a split second I visualized busting him up, but I didn't. Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming need to end the madness and make some sense of why I allowed myself to interfere. I put the bottle on the bar, snatched him upright against the wall and began questioning.
He wasn't too pleased by my intensity and wondered if him showing his cock was my problem. He tried to justify his actions with the card cheating theory and his knowledge of the girl and her family. But he accepted my right to interfere when the odds were tipped and declared I was a "real man."
Then he bought me a beer. We talked for some time, and I became aware of why he was called Crazy Will. In fact, I told him, I figured I'd have to half-kill him in a fight because I supposed he really was insane. He assured me he wasn't, even though he'd done eight years of prison for trying to torch a house with his in-laws inside.
After another beer, we began to view our altercation in the base terms of maleness. I alluded to the fact the bitch split as soon as the first blow was thrown, and how if anyone should have access to that leg, now, it should be me. Accusing him of having thoughts about screwing her, he straightened and bragged he had a fifty-year old woman taking care of him. Pressing, I challenged that the girl he had been so antagonistic towards was a turn-on for him. He smiled as he walked away and said, "Yeah."
I remember feeling a very earned path to her body, as if I'd fought my way to the right to have her. Which may prove that no matter how civilized a man may think his reaction to a situation involving a woman, it is really a rude visceral feeling connected to his desire to sire.
For a long period of time, I was convinced there is no God; man is here because of the millions of years of evolution, and the genes are in charge. Those microscopic blocks which have constructed us by increments throughout millenniums. One has to believe in genes. Especially now that we can see them, count them, figure them out and manipulate them.
Genes are heartless little bastards and they will be the last bottom line when we write ourselves off. When they have boiled us down to the last finished brew, we'll be through. We may never get nearer to that than now. We can control our genes. They can be spliced to serve us. We can physically alter and redirect our genes. We can do in the laboratory what was only possible via the individual mind The natural evolutionary method is the most fair and equal.
We follow it constantly while developing after birth. Then more slowly once the genes are content with traits we can pass to the next generation. It ends in senility when the mind no longer can push an aged body to pursue new ideas. The genes do not care. They are as anxious to shut us down as they were to peak us out.
The next generation may be the one which hand carries the future to the world. It is too fragile to be passed - or dropped - onto the coming generations. Can the USA change enough to to lead the rest and preserve the planet? It may be up to us.
I used to pray to me. I am the only one that ever did anything to make my prayers more answerable. You can pray to God. You can pray to Jesus. Or Buddha. Or Allah. Or Anybody else. But you are the one who will or will not initiate the necessary effort to change your situation to one requiring less prayer. You have to make the commitment, sign on the line or resign. Nobody else can change, charge or control your life like you can. Pray to yourself to make the move in the direction of your happiness. Then answer your prayers.
When Jesus said man can not live by bread alone, he didn't mean man can live without bread. He didn't believe himself to be God. He asked no one to pray to him. His Father was the same one he alluded to sharing with us. His power was the same one we are capable of using. His message was peace and devotion to God. It still is. Yet, people are still being crucified without the ritual for reasons just as benign.
All the ways men consider other men too different are dealt with fast. Faster than we can think, we can kill. And the faster we arm ourselves by continent, country, county and city, the faster we speed to the end of the future. Without devotion to God's peace, we are incapable of containing our predisposition to destroy others.
For this country, the words of Jesus are the final instruction for salvation and they were meant for the USA. Nobody has added a Third Testament. The first two have come to represent cultures which typify a defense posture based on armed aggression, Jews and Christians. Israel and America. The Old Testament and the New Testament. The old guard and the new warriors. Both have sacrificed devotion to God for sectarian acceptance. Devotion to God is separated from the pursuit of peace. We avoid the effort required for devotion to God and prefer panoply to pacification.
God is the glue that binds the genes of all humans. This combination sacred and scientific has all the time to perfect us, either in our present form or in those to follow. If this present race of man annihilates itself completely, the genes will begin anew, even if they have to evolve from nuclear waste mud. And once again, after the brains have been developed to the point of intellectually asking the eternal question, God will appear to those who seek the path of the never-ending.
To be enlightened, we must be truly civilized. We must control our lives, thus our future. The present time-frame is limited. We must get into the best physical condition and begin to change the direction of the universe. We must live to seek harmony with God. We must live to be as good as we can to the most number of people, starting with ourselves.
Sadly, there are those who we can't reach to teach as they continue to live to die. They are the result of civilizations slow, tortuous development. Their intelligence is limited by ours. We have to teach them to live to live.
Monday, June 18, 2012
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