RE: Quentin's new movie "Django Unchained"

"When you try big things, you take big risks, and if you're trying to do something that is maybe above you and you can't quite pull off, then whereas before we only saw your gifts, now we see your failings.  I've always been pushing that envelope.  I want to risk hitting my head on the ceiling of my talent.  I want to really test it out and say:  OK, you're not that good.  You just reached the level here.  I don't ever want to fail, but I want to risk failure every time out of the gate."

--Quentin Tarantino, NY Times 12-23-12

I was having one of those agonizing nights of insomnia that come from where I don’t have a clue, that I finally fell into fitful asleep about 5 am and dreamed one of my vivid, Cinematic Dreams.  I’m talking a dream complete with fully developed storyline (albeit a bizarre one), actors with dialogue, even titles and credits that roll at the end.

(I had the first one at about age 5 or 6, and I only remember the title, “The Figger”.  The distinguishing feature was in fact the credit roll.  I don’t remember whether I directed, but I was definitely the lead actor.  A couple years later I would write and direct my first play, staged on my front porch with my friends Dot, Linda and Bridget as actors. The title was “Mary’s Party” and we charged neighbors 10 cents admission.  I also wrote my first book that year, written on lined paper and bound with staples, illustrated with my own crayon drawings.  The teacher made me read it in front of my third-grade class, an event I remember because it was my first inkling of the stage fright that was to haunt me for years.  I was also a poet then, and one of my first featured the lines “sometimes I hear that train outside/and I think I want to jump on it and ride/but I know that it’s here I’ll always abide”.  I was 9 years old, and already thinking of ways to get out of Tupelo, Mississippi... but I digress.)

So in this morning’s dream, I’m an adult in a girl scout troop which has a wounded baby elephant on its hands.  This elephant had been decapitated in a car crash, while riding in the back-seat of a convertible Fiat (we see a flashback of this, during the film).  Now it is forlornly standing along a wall outside the scout meeting house, its head re-attached and bound with bloody bandages, surrounded by a crowd of people, including a guy who resembles a photographer I used to work, with, who is pointing a shotgun at it, ostensibly to put it out of its misery.  Horrified, I run into the scene, grab the gun and threaten to shoot anyone who tries to kill the elephant.

I get on a cell phone, which inexplicably has a long, long cord which I walk around the yard with, stretching the cord to its limit, trying to find a veterinarian who will give me a better prognosis for the elephant.  Meanwhile the elephant’s owner shows up.  She’s a tall, pretty woman who tells me that she can’t afford the medical treatment this elephant will need, because she is fighting an immune system disorder herself, and agrees that it should be killed.  Her huge eyes convey a real sadness and pity for the creature.

I give a moving speech to the crowd, pointing the gun at each of them, screaming things like, “Should I just kill any one of you, because we can’t afford to treat you?!”, with great passion. I still have the phone to my ear. Finally the scratchy voice of a vet comes on the phone, he sounds like he’s driving in traffic, I can barely hear him.  I recognize him as one of those guys in that Animal Planet series, Animal Cops.  We see cutaways of him driving as he asks me a series of questions; one of which is, “Can the elephant hold its head up?”

I look over and see that the elephant is in fact attempting to change its own bandages, all by itself.  I tell this to the vet and he says, “that’s a good sign.  I think he’s going to make it.”

Then I see someone walking toward the elephant, with a syringe.  The photographer puts his hand on my shoulder and says, in a tone that I don’t understand, “It’s all been decided, J.C.”  I wonder what the syringe contains – antibiotics or a kill shot.

Before I can find out, my cat jumps on my ass, waking me up. Head groggy  and achy from the sleeping pill that didn’t work - and neck kinked to high hell, I realized, I was probably just waiting for a call from Greg.

Men, Plural
--a seriously scandalous serial essay
by J.C. Summerford
Copyright January, 2012

(Note: for bkg info, click the word NOW)
The headlines scream rape, child abuse, imprisonment, kidnapping, slavery, and at the least – inequality and emotional battering of women.  I’m talking about the Mormon practice of plural marriage, or polygamy.   Mitt Romney and the “modern” Mormon church can protest all day long that polygamy is “ancient history”, an antiquated practice long outlawed by their super-secretive clergy, but the practice remains one of the main tenets of Mormonism, set down in its original scriptures by the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, way back in 1830.  (Does that fit anyone’s definition of “ancient”?) 
NOW

Some nay-sayers claim that Smith created the whole church just so that he could boink as many women as he wanted in the name of – well – in the name of himself, since he was the Self-Appointed One.  (Nevermind that just prior to finding the “golden tablets” of Moroni in a wooded area near his house, he had been arrested for trying to pass himself off as a “seer” by reading people’s “future” using a pile of stones he found in the same woods.)
NOW

But for whatever reason, more than thirty women, aged 16 to 56, decided that he actually was some sort of deity, and they would settle for taking turns with him - we’re assuming this lined up as one for each day of the month - and being slaves to his every rule and whim.  (Well, to some that may seem preferable to the prevailing Christian principle of marrying one man, and bearing full responsibility of training and nagging him; plus it might be somewhat of a deterrent to the wandering eye.  Although we think it plausible that with his libido, Smith could have proportionally serviced hundreds of mistresses to boot.) 
NOW

The reason for plural wives?  Well according to what Mr. Smith made up, only through polygamy can Mormon men achieve their ultimate goal – becoming kings of the after life.  When a polygamist dies, Smith decided, God will bestow upon him his own Planet to rule.  (In fact, we suspect that Planet Joseph is even now circling some distant star, where Smith endlessly fucks an unimaginable horde of alien women of all sizes, shapes, colors, tentacles and atomic structures - in an eternal intergalactic orgy so extreme it puts to shame Captain Kirk’s lustiest day dreams. Come to think of it, maybe this is the rationale for Newt Gingrich's moon colony - he is a closet Mormon.)
NOW

So, you think, that Joseph Smith must have been a looker!  Or at least in possession of a HUGE schlong, in fact it must have been a LENGENDARY package, surpassing even that which we imagine when we gaze at Shaquille O’Neill, right?  (Well, maybe that’s just me.)  
NOW

Check out this photo, which is claimed to be the only one ever taken of Smith:

I say – this guy was pretty hot.  Look at those languid, puppy-dog eyes; those pouty lips!  But would I agree to share him with 29 other ladies?  Would I agree to become his child-farm, house-slave, and second class citizen, just to tear off a hunk of that rad meat?  Well, no.  Because actually, polygamist wives are far less than sex slaves.  They are essentially pitiful man-pets, told what to do and when and how to do it; praised when they’re “good” and “sweet”; scolded and punished when they’re “bad”.
NOW

But what if the tables were turned?  What if a woman could marry lots of men, and use them however she pleased?   During the next few episodes of this web series, you will enter the topsy-turvy world of “Men, Plural” – where one lucky female marries a series of men, and perhaps a woman or two.  Why?  Because like Mormon men, this woman aspires to utopia on earth – and of course, eventually, her own planet. 

Watch this space!  More "Men, Plural" soon!

To comment on this series, and to suggest storylines, plot points or characters (highly encouraged) - visit me on facebook

For more information:
Jon Krakauer:  Under the Banner of Heaven