The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." — Groucho Marx

Archives for May 2005

Do Men Have Emotions?

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One of the recurring themes of people who stumble onto my blog is a simple search entitled: “do men have emotions?”

The blog entry that they find is my post called Love That Takes Your Breath Away. It is number five on the page, not that it matters.

What I find so interesting about this is just how many women seem to really wonder if men have emotions. It is a common storyline in sitcoms, dramas, soap operas and the stories that my female friends used to tell me about dating. I’d hear things like:

“I don’t understand how he can be so cold and cavalier about this.”

“How can he say that he loves me when he doesn’t show me?”

“Why can’t he communicate with me. Why can’t he tell me what he is feeling?”

The last comment always grabbed me because it sounded like they had an answer to the initial question of whether men have emotions. The simple answer is yes, we do and we always have. As to the communication gap that is a different story.

I am not going to give the pat answer of saying that men are socialized to keep our emotions to ourself because that is only partially true. I think that one of the key elements is feeling comfortable sharing those thoughts and feelings.

No one wants to be exposed without feeling supported and if the guy you are seeing doesn’t feel that support can you blame him for keeping his thoughts to himself. And that doesn’t suggest that one side or the other is to blame for this.

Another thing that I have noticed through time and years of conversations with both sexes is this desire to be understood is not always accompanied with the understanding that mind reading is not universal. If you do not share your thoughts than how can you expect your partner to understand you.

I really do not know where this post is going so I am going to try and wrap it up. Men feel. We hurt, we love, we cherish, we share, we laugh, we cry in both joy and sadness. We are human too.

A Story Using Song Lyrics

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I have decided to write a story using the song lyrics from the music listed in the post below. It is an evolving story so I may adapt and adjust it numerous times. And I should add that I will pull from different sections of the song and may use the same piece several times.

It is the story of a boy and a girl.

Here is the start. More to come.

“There are places I’ll remember,
all my life though some have changed.
Some forever not for better,
some have gone and some remain.
All these places have their moments,
with lovers and friends I still can recall.
Some are dead and some are living,
in my life I’ve loved them all.”
In My Life- The Beatles

When I was seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We’d hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen

It Was A Very Good Year- Frank Sinatra

Billy left his home with a dollar in his pocket and a head full of dreams.
He said somehow, some way, it’s gotta get better than this.
Patti packed her bags, left a note for her momma, she was just seventeen,
There were tears in her eyes when she kissed her little sister goodbye.

They held each other tight as they drove on through the night they were so exited.
We got just one shot of life, let’s take it while we’re still not afraid.
Because life is so brief and time is a thief when you’re undecided.
And like a fistful of sand, it can slip right through your hands.

Young hearts be free tonight. time is on your side,
Don’t let them put you down, don’t let ’em push you around,
Don’t let ’em ever change your point of view.

Young Turks- Rod Stewart
I’ve fallen in love
I’ve fallen in love for the first time
And this time I know it’s for real
I’ve fallen in love yeah
God knows God knows I’ve fallen in love

I Want To Break Free- Queen

Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t try “No Doz”
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows

Subterranean Homesick Blues- Bob Dylan

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)- Green Day

Look at us we’re beautiful,
All the people push and pull but,
Let’s just go out and ride,
Talk about the things we’ve tried
Look at us we’re beautiful,
All the people push and pull but,
They’ll never get inside,
We got too much to hide

Beautiful- Moby

Babe, baby, baby, I’m Gonna Leave You.
I said baby, you know I’m gonna leave you.
I’ll leave you when the summertime,
Leave you when the summer comes a-rollin’
Leave you when the summer comes along.

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You- Led Zeppelin

I never will forget those nights
I wonder if it was a dream
Remember how you made me crazy?
Remember how I made you scream
Now I don’t understand what happened to our love

Boys of Summer- Don Henley

Out on the road today, I saw a DEADHEAD sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice Inside my head said, “Don’t look back. You can never look back.”
I thought I knew what love was
What did I know?
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go but-

Boys of Summer- Don Henley

Won’t you please talk to me
If you’d just talk to me
Unblock this misery
If you’d only talk to me
Don’t you ever change your mind
Now your future’s so defined
And you act so deaf so blind
Come on, come talk to me
Come talk to me, come talk to me

Come Talk To Me- Peter Gabriel

‘Deep Throat’ Reportedly Comes Forward

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I am old enough to be very interested in learning if this is true or not.

NEW YORK – A former FBI official says he was the source called “Deep Throat” who leaked secrets about President Nixon’s Watergate coverup to The Washington Post, Vanity Fair reported Tuesday.

W. Mark Felt, 91, who was second-in-command at the FBI in the early 1970s, kept the secret even from his family until 2002, when he confided to a friend that he had been Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s source, the magazine said.

“I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat,” he told lawyer John D. O’Connor, the author of the Vanity Fair article, the magazine said in a press release.

Felt was initially adamant about remaining silent on the subject, thinking disclosures about his past somehow dishonorable.

“I don’t think (being Deep Throat) was anything to be proud of,” Felt indicated to his son, Mark Jr., at one point, according to the article. “You (should) not leak information to anyone.”

Felt is a retiree living in Santa Rosa, Calif., with his daughter, Joan, the magazine said. He could not immediately be reached for comment by The Associated Press.

The Washington Post had no immediate comment.

Felt is one of a number of people who have been named over the years as the source whose disclosures helped bring down the Nixon presidency. Others include Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson, deputy White House counsel Fred Fielding, and even ABC newswoman Diane Sawyer, who then worked in the White House press office.

In 1999, Felt denied he was the man.

“I would have done better,” Felt told The Hartford Courant. “I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn’t exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?”

If I am not mistaken I thought that Woodward and Bernstein said that they would reveal his/her identity upon their death.

Everywhere I go There They Are

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I can’t remember if I mentioned this in a prior post, but I have noticed something odd. I find myself bumping into the same bloggers all around the blogosphere.

In some respects that sounds like a no-brainer. People have common interests, they look at my blogroll and find new blogs to read, I look at theirs and find new blogs to read and we all end up moving in a circle.

But what throws me is that I encounter people in places that I would never expect to see them. I stumble onto blogs from the various corners of cyberspace and suddenly there they are.

It is a little spooky.