The Clowns Are Already Here
Joel B. Levine MD
A friend once said, “Do not worry, there are no mirrors in Heaven”. It was a wise remark now that aging is no longer an abstraction. We change bi-directionally, from the obvious outside -in to the more variable inside –out. In case you have not noticed, much time and dollars are spent on one.
Men age differently from women but not nearly as gracefully. If you had to respect Trump for anything it was spectacular hair management. If there is a Comb Over Hall of Fame, he is a shoo in. I would give a lot to see the Donald before his morning transformation. The hair on the sides of his head must reach his toes. Men have a very high bar for ‘ridiculous” and he was the Babe Ruth of blow-dry.
Men are notoriously bad at body math. Watch a man buying a pair of pants and you will likely see Houdini getting a 38–40 into a 34–36. Usually this trick is done in the sanctity of the fitting room. If you suck all the air in, stand in a certain way, it could pass, a bit raffish, a bit punk but all good. Or watch a man on a scale. Not the digital ones, as they are judge and jury, but the flat scale that you manipulate like a sobriety test. It ought to be reported as 190, more or not less.
I won’t even mention bathing suits, much less Speedos. There are few things that should never be done and just the word, much less the image, brings a cold sweat. Suffice to say, selling a speedo, should come with a license. But there is no voice like the one that whispers, “You still have it”
All of which leads me to Governor Cuomo. Every man has an inner vault where he locks away his “secret man”. This is the one he knows he really is, the one that keeps him forever vital and, yes, “attractive to women”. And when a man becomes rich or powerful, the creature within thinks it is a remake of “Alien”. Cuomo is 63 years old, likely no longer the master of his prostate, and the son of an admired man. Yet the beast still roams. There is some small truth to his claim of his Bronx Tale style but not the hard truth, to coin a phase.
A man lies to himself most of his life about his sexuality. The lie gets in the way of a lot of things but it is felt a “sweet lie “carried along from the first “Playboy” (Cuomo aka Hugh Hefner). It is unique to the species that, at a time of being a grandfather, the inner voice of the younger sexual man can speak so loudly. Even a gorilla knows when the chest beating days are over.
In Cuomo’s case, or so it seems, he could not separate the wolf from the bull. Maurice Chevalier was seductive in his 80’s because he put his aggression way and brought out his charm. If you were not drawn to Cuomo’s flame, he would blow you out.
As Harvey and Cuomo, the boy betrayed the man. Harvey in an opening bathrobe is just one step below Cuomo at a cocktail party. It isn’t that women are not capable of being seduced or being seducer. It is that the men here could not tune in to the fact that no one was buying.
Every man knows when a woman is just not interested and contends with those memories for a very long time. But men have a great capacity to imagine it is just a matter of time, of insistence, until your compelling attractiveness is properly recognized. There is a wonderful song, sung by the incomparable Johnny Hartman, a Richard Rogers song, “You are too beautiful” and “I am a fool for beauty”.
Men are fools, most benign, some not. Most journalists are too young to know that. Twenty somethings hooking up with twenty somethings do not have a clue. Getting old is woman’s work. They do it so much better, so much more honestly. Maybe testosterone needs a stake through it. It is sure is hard to kill.
Cuomo could not keep the distance between pathos and pathetic. He believed his own press. His press always saw Hyde but it was so profitable to give us Jekyll.
