The Human Pirate
I am related to Blackbeard. By marriage. My dad's sister's marriage. She married a great-grandson of the mysterious Mr. Teach. They go by Thach. Not sure what that makes him to me, but I've always found it cool to be related to a legend. And also feel a kinship with Mr. Teach of Pirate's Cove, and wonder if he will change his name.
I am not related to Bluebeard, although my Dad's mom had blue hair, and were she to have grown a beard , I supposed she would have dyed that too. Frankly I'm glad she didn't. I've seen bearded women, and am not a great fan. Electrolysis has its uses, and removing beards from the fairer sex is one of its best. Right up there with the Katarina Witt rule. I liked her. She would skate to avant-garde music, giving visual clues to aural mysteries. There is a lot to be said for the confluence of the leglift, the videocamera, and slomo. Her beard got her into trouble. Hence the rule.
Charlie Chaplin once played a bluebeard. It would be his last film, and one that didn't endear him to governments. Unlike so many today, he was not a brave defender of the rich and powerful. He was not afraid to afflict the comfortable. In The Great Dictator, he afflicted Hitler and the Nazis. In Monsieur Verdoux, his last film, the one in which he played a bluebeard...he afflicted our own government, and the people in power.
Verdoux, a lovable old bank clerk, would befriend the newly-widowed wealthy. They would get happily married, and then he would kill them and take their money. No one counts money faster than a bank teller, and Chaplin turned this skill into pure comedy. You'd think the camera had been sped up, but it was just Charlie working his magic. This and other things he does makes him a rather sympathetic figure, and you start to like the guy. Even knowing what he has done, and will do. I think Chuck is trying to soften our skulls to the notions he is about to convey.
He is eventually caught, and the gentle old lover and killer is trotted off to be fried, or shake-n-baked (not to be confused with shock-n-awed or shekinah-ed), as happens within some systems of justice.
Out comes the egg. Plop.
"Do you have any last words, Monsieur Verdoux?", the judge asks, at which point the kindly old octogenarian killer (KOOK) launches into his diatribe about the hypocricy borne, perhaps, out of our general inability to do math, or do the math, if you will.
"Kill a few people and you're a monster, kill millions and you're a hero--numbers sanctify.", Monsieur Verdoux tells the court, along with a few other choice morsels.
Numbers sanctify. Numbers. Numb and number. And who can be number than us?
Numbers. Those who cause others to be numb. (See MSM)
Comfortable number. Unafflictedly comfortable number.
When we numb awaken. And pluck the sleep from the eyes of the people.
Maybe we can unleash a hundred thousand Verdoux on Iraq!
Think of the heroism!
