DAMAGED MEN DON’T ASK FOR BAND-AIDS?

Damaged men are all around, but you’d never know it.

Why? Not because they tell you, because they don’t.

In a show and tell world, they do the show part better than the tell part.

See a man with a broken arm: That had to hurt.

Man: It did, but it’s okay now.

Damaged men keep things in perspective.

Man: I broke my finger and it healed crooked, which makes it perfect for playing guitar. It’s like Les Paul having his broken arm set so he could still play guitar.

Some guys just want to know how much they can take.

Man: I postponed hip replacement surgery for a decade in case I got it too early, wore it out, and had to have it redone later.

Some guys are tough and they want you to know all about it.

Man: This is the scar I got from a chop saw. Never cross your arms in front of a chop saw.

 

But, physical damage isn’t the part of damaged men I’m talking about.

Let’s look under the hood.

 

Under The Damaged Man Hood 

The interior landscape of damaged men looks like a pinball machine going full tilt when it releases the trapped balls and you’re doing double and triple time on the flippers.

You never know where they’re coming from.

They could have been a Momma’s boy and been teased about it because their mom was more manly than them.

They could have been a Daddy’s boy who never measured up to their dad’s expectations, and he let him know all about it. Every time.

Man: My parents told me I was the trial kid, that they put more time and energy into my younger brother because they knew what didn’t work with me.

All I did was graduate first in my class with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.  

My unemployed brother dropped out of high school, lives at home, and he’s still the favorite.

 

When I heard that, I wanted to tell every second born I met. It’s a good story and it’s true. (Hey Quentin)

Every man doesn’t doubt their worth, but it might seem like it based on their life choices.

They didn’t try in school because they didn’t like the teachers.

They didn’t do sports because the coaches didn’t like them.

No college because it’s a waste of time and money.

No trade school because it’s a scam for free labor.

They don’t date because they don’t want to be judged based on a woman.

Maybe they monetize shit-talk, write a hate-blog, or throw rocks at glass houses.

Or maybe, just maybe, they mount a campaign for President of the United States, and show their best side to America.

Americans love voting for the best candidate.

Or the one with the most signs, commercials, airtime; the most bombastic, dramatic, and unrelenting message that never ends and never changes.

 

Land Of The Free, Home Of The Brave

These were the Big Three, the last standing at the end of WWII.

On the left is Churchill, the British leader who refused to surrender to the bombs and rocket attacks from Germany.

On the right is Stalin, the Soviet leader, who refused to surrender to the German armies invading his country.

In the middle is Harry S. Truman, an after thought of a Vice President who was thrust into the spotlight after FDR’s untimely death.

Truman was such an after thought he didn’t know about the nuclear bomb program, and if he did, it wasn’t much.

 

America’s secret development of the atomic bomb began in 1939 with then-President Franklin Roosevelt’s support.

The project was so secret that FDR did not even inform his fourth-term vice president, Truman, that it existed.

(In fact, when Truman’s 1943 senatorial investigations into war-production expenditures led him to ask questions about a suspicious plant in Minneapolis, which was secretly connected with the Manhattan Project, Truman received a stern phone call from FDR’s secretary of war, Harry Stimson, warning him not to inquire further.)

 

England became an American Army base, USSR was a bloody killing field one way, then the other.

Staling was angry that D-Day was postponed for so long in favor of invading North Africa, then Italy, before France; Churchill and Truman are happy to know America has The Bomb of all bombs.

They are all damaged men who sent millions of soldiers into harm’s way.

Somehow they crafted a peace that has avoided nuclear war. Thanks for that, fellas.

 

The Threat Today

Todays’ damaged men are not yesterday’s damaged men.

Blame social media if you must since that’s where the biggest damage is being done.

At least that’s where all the noise is.

That’s where every bad-boy with a grudge against the world cuts loose and discovers they have company.

They show other men it’s okay to cry.

 

Just make it look better than this.

 

Or this.

 

Isn’t there a class men could take for a better public crying platform?

Guys who move from crying to screaming too fast sound mental, but maybe that’s what their audience wants.

Maybe bi-polar is a goal?

The whole man-cry-for-effect sounds exhausting. How many times can you do that?

The correct answer, I believe, is to cry how ever many times it takes to seem believable.

I can’t imagine how anyone could drum up pretend emotions on cue for four years, or how anyone could listen.

But I can imagine how damaged men attract other damaged men.

They band together with a bond they share: We’re not damaged, you are.

You’re the problem, not the guy with the felonies, sex assaults, the insurrection, the complaining, the special truth; not the guy with the failure to launch kids hanging around; not the guy with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Four star Marine Corps General Kelly is the problem:

 

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” Kelly told the Times.

“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly also said to the outlet.

 

General Kelly looked sad, but not fake-cry for the camera sad.

Use this as a reminder to be sure and vote.

I’m counting on this election to shed some light where it needs to be.