Al Pacino’s rant for the ages from Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross has particular resignance, as a former president would have said, in this me-too age.  It was 30 or so years ago , but can we not hear the plaintive cry of the alpha male, resisting the New Age of Woke, a New Era of perfect mutual respect and harmony between the sexes,  a rant improbably delivered against – tell me that the forces of the universe are not governed by  infinite  irony – Kevin Spacey. You fairy. Jeezus.

Here’s a tangent squared. How many of you boomers are Beatle Fans, hell, Worshippers? Okay, so the four lads are touring America in 1964, say, and we know that a batch of eager young ladies, shall we say, were escorted back to the quarters where  their heroes had just finished a show, night after night, to help them replenish their energies,  shall we also say. Joan Baez told a story about the time she was served up for John Lennon’s refreshment in one such scenario, but her virtue was saved after she  suggested that he was too tired to do another performance, and he gratefully agreed, because he was. [She probably really wanted Paul anyway]. But, my question is this: who was in charge of checking the young ladies’ birth certificates? Did you need one to attend a show in 1964?  They look pretty young to me in that black and white footage. How many counts of statutory rape are on the mythical rap sheets of all of our musical heroes?  We know that Ted Nugent practically brags about his, uh, tastes, but how comfortable are we excoriating the scorned goobers of Alabama for supporting Moore, when our first heroes undoubtedly did much the same thing?

Back to the show.  Pacino’s world in that movie, which has its counterpart in the high pressure world of our financial ‘services’ industry today, maybe the same place you work, is governed by the alpha- male ethos, albeit of the comic strip variety.  How many women want to deal with this shit? Most men can’t stomach it either.  So, even if the C word and the F word are never used, the culture itself excludes from the top jobs almost all women [not all; we all know some women who would make tough guy Pacino flee whimpering into the room to speak to the Detective in that scene].

Bit of a problem.  How well are the all-female law firms, for example, set up to compete with the big swinging Richards, doing?  Probably a mixed picture, although I had a hearing with a very tony, well-credentialed all-woman firm that handles discrimination cases, and off the one case, they would seem very good indeed.  Certainly, the individual lawyers were aggressive and as skilled as any, but who knows?  The Pacinos [and Baldwins] still predominate in this racket.

But the point is, it would seem that the effort to promote perfect story book harmony in the work place is doomed to failure, and we should start realistically trying to promote something less, something which is actually achievable. For example, any time a male worker makes any remark about a woman’s appearance [your hair looks nice that way] –the alarms go off. It doesn’t matter if he’s in a supervisory position over her or not; game over. He might as well be copping a feel or demanding that she go out with him; he is a cad; a knave who is little better than Weinstein and Cosby.  Zero tolerance; what an inspired notion.  And it takes so little thought. As a concept, it has done wonders for the prison guard unions, and destroyed much of America. What could go wrong.  Senator Al? You want to say something?

But men will always say dopey things to women; don’t be a schmuck. And women say them too, as often, and probably more often. And, [horrors] there’s always going to be underplayed flirting, frequently in the most improbable scenarios [e.g. 65 year old spinster female supervisor, 22 year old office boy].   Its harmless because its improbable, and it happens because we’re human .  Can we design some approaches that accurately reflect  human behavior, address the problem with some precision, punish the guilty, and don’t trivialize the behavior of the real scumbags who populate some offices? Can you do that for me? Good. Let me know what you come up with, Sweety.

We have this proclivity for lumping together unrelated things. It started at about the same time that we started this practice of making interminable lists of everything.  I always think of Monty Python’s “Society in Favor of Putting Things on Top of other Things”.  But it’s a brain dead practice.

So it’s Cosby = Franken = O’Reilly = Prairie  Home Companion Guy =Roger Ailes etc.  But the Lumpers are everywhere in our culture.

How often do you see polls that ask the learned respondents whether they “can trust Congress to do the right thing for America”, as opposed to Trump, or Kevin Spacey, or whoever?

Or what is the “approval rate” of the Congress? Which one you want, Keith Ellison or King? Which one, Peter or Steve?  Or Louis Gohmert? What is the point of this poll, exactly?

Or, would I prefer a Generic Democratic congress in 2018 [although somehow everyone  seems to vote for their own incumbent anyway]. What if the generic guy is Marion Barry? Same answer?

Or, “Do you Trust THE MEDIA more than Trump?” MSNBC, Fox, Breitbart, Red America, Glenn Greenwald?  I don’t trust Project Veritas, which is part of THE MEDIA. So I agree with Trump on my answer to the very stupid question you just asked me.

This type of polling is, has been and always will be hideously stupid, and its easy to do. Who do you know who is picking up the phone to talk to these guys, and who still has a landline?

Our other terminology used in public discourse itself is just as bad. What is the point, for example, of continuing to use the phrase “populist” to refer to zenophobic, white ethnic racism?  So, the rest of the population, , the 65%, apparently are not ‘populos.’  Blacks and Hispanics are not people.

Can it already. Get rid of it.  You’re embarrassing yourself.  Go get a real job, and by the way, how great a job are the pollsters doing lately in the task of, uh, predicting things?  Who pays them to do work like this?

That reminds me of the Courts, which I will return to presently, but till next time, radix malorum est cupiditas. Your hair really does look nice, though.