Foolish Behavior

So Roman Polansky fled the country because his wife had been murdered by Charles Manson's crew and he thought that 42 days was too much jail time for the rape he committed. After all, she was 13 years old, and that was a long time ago. Besides, he's a big-time director, and we should just let him go after all this time.

Boo-hoo - face the music - loser. You should have received more than 42 days in jail.

Ran into a guy today who explained that he is facing jail time because he returned from work, found his wife in bed with a good friend of his, and beat the guy with a baseball bat, breaking both of the fellow's legs. I asked him if he was sorry he did it, and he said, "Yeah, the guy was a golf partner of mine."

And David Letterman? Come on, now. He's another guy I really admired. His quick wit was always something I admired. He didn't deserve to be shaken-down, but it's hard to be a victim of a shake-down if you are up front, right?

Whatever. Just more bad behavior, I guess.

Yet perhaps the whole man-woman dynamic should be revisited. Maybe it is impossible to make it all the way through acting like decent human beings to one another.

Then again...

You never hear about the marriages that stretch from year-to-year in something that resembles happiness. The idea that people get along okay doesn't exactly conjure up enough emotions to sell newspapers.

I was standing with a friend of mine when we heard the co-worker tell the story of breaking his former friend's legs.

"I get along with my wife," my buddy said.

"Me too," I echoed.

"Oh yeah, what's she doing right now?" the guy who swung the bat asked.

We all laughed.

My buddy picked up the cell phone. "I'm calling her," he said. "If she answers on the 5th ring and is all out of breath, I'm heading home."

We laughed again.

It's not really funny.