A Modern Day Morality Play...

This is a little bit different kind of posting for your friend and mine, The Chuckmeister.  Ummm, that would be me.  

It is different only because it deals in what they call a "morality play."  You know, what your English teacher used to call "a lesson in good and evil." This is not about politics or wine or cars or the other effluvia I concern myself with. No, my friends, it's even more esoteric.  So, gird your loins, my friends, and read on...

We all hate "users."  You know, the kind of folks who make it their stock-in-trade to use other people to gain an advantage over others so they can get their way in life.  There have been major-league users down through the years.  And I'm sure the two users I'm going to feature today aren't very high on the list of the biggest, or the baddest, or even the most famous.  But they do offer up something for you and me to contemplate as regards how we treat each other in this bumpy trip down the Highway of Life. Ready? Here goes...

We've all heard of Sean Penn.  He's the gifted, nasty, mean-spirited, hot-headed, communist-loving method actor who's so revered in Hollyweird.  And, I would add, so disliked almost everywhere else.

Since he roared onto the Silver Screen with "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" several decades ago, he's been held in high regard for his moody dark talent by his left-wing brethern and sisteren inside the "bubble."  And he's the guy who makes it his business to sidle up next to and become fast friends with commie dictators like Venezuela's just deceased boss man, Hugo Chavez.

Oh, and he's the guy who likes to pretend he's also a qualified reporter by interviewing "El Chapo," one Senor Guzman, the most infamous drug cartel leader in the world. And the report of that meeting he filed with the New York Times was so rambling and poorly written it was universally panned by nearly everyone.  

One would think that a guy who's made $Millions pretending to be someone else would revere the capitalistic system that's given him such magnificent opportunities.  But no. He hates capitalism!  He loves socialism, even communism, perhaps even Marxism! Why?  Let's explore the possible reasons, my friends.

Sean's daddy was a guy named Leo Penn.  Penn the Senior was a WW2 veteran who settled in Hollyweird after the war. He became a B-list actor. But his politics got in the way when it was discovered that he leaned a bit more than an acceptable level to the Left.  And in that tony neighborhood, more than an acceptable level of Leftitude is pretty damn far left!  He was accused of being a full-blown communist and blacklisted. He thus couldn't work as an actor, and he was pissed! So he began directing.  Then he was shunned from doing even that due to infamous Senator Joe McCarthy's witch hunting policies, his young son Sean was forever affected by this realization and the trauma it visited upon him and his family.  

No doubt his father's political leanings influenced young Sean, even as the younger Penn began to gain fame in his own right.  He began to rack up awards for his acting, and amass the trappings of immense wealth thereby.  Even though most of his fellow actors decided to live in Hollyweird, Sean remained in Berkeley, the epicenter of left-wing political leanings here in America.  It is said that if you wanted to give the Earth a liberal enema you would stick the little rubber thingy into downtown Berkeley.  I know it has been said, because I've said it.  

Anyway, Penn built a mansion there, and stocked it with fast, expensive cars and rare artwork and an impressive gun collection.  Yes, my friends, he wrapped himself in the trappings of excess while eschewing the system that permitted that sort of lifestyle. Strange.

Enter Charlize Theron.  South African actress and beauty Charlize blazed on to the scene a couple of decades ago with "The Italian Job," Theron proved to be an immense talent.  She won an Academy Award a bit later for her performance in "Monster," in which she portrayed a lesbian mass murderer. Talk about playing against type!  She has enjoyed the opportunity to star in pretty much any movie she chooses, and has enjoyed huge success thereby.

Theron has jumped in and out of various relationships over the years.  But a couple of years back she became entangled with the newly-separated Sean Penn.  And even though Theron had made a lot of money - and fame - with a gun in her hand in the movies, in real life she was a vocal critic of guns in the hands of ordinary people.  Like you and me, for instance.  

Remember her most recent role in "Mad Max: Fury Road?" She spent much of the role with a pistol in her hand and used it to blow away a whole raft of Bad Guys throughout the movie.

But it turns out she hates guns.  It seems Ms. Theron's father shot her mother to death 23 years ago back in Benoni, South Africa, when young Charlize was only 15, so she's had a real hatred for guns ever since.  So she let Mr. Penn know that if he wanted her to continue to swing a leg over him, he would just have to have his entire collection of 65 guns melted down and turned into a sculpture!

Penn reluctantly chose to do exactly that (that Charlize thing between the bed sheets must be prettttttttty special!). Theron contacted artist Jeff Koons and made arrangements for him to turn Penn's guns into a work of art and sell it to raise money for Haitian relief.  Koons did so and his handy work was sold at auction to - guess who? - CNN's Anderson Cooper for $1.4 Million! These talking-head, left-wing, limp-wristed, limo-riding, pansy network-types make some pretty sweet money, right?

Now, I'm guessing that the $1.4 Million that went to "Haitian relief" was pretty quickly turned into private jet rental and dinner tabs for the Clintons, since they were pretty much in charge of fixing up that broken country.  And from what we've learned much of that money wound up in their pockets and the pockets of their friends.  But that's just me...  

Anyway, back to my little morality play...

So Sean's guns go away, the Haitians are supposed to get some relief, but no doubt don't, and Theron is happy as the proverbial clam over 65 guns being turned into molten goo, right?  But, was she happy enough to stay with Penn? Noooooooooooo! She dumped Penn like a bad case of chlamydia. So now we have Penn, with a forced smile on his face through clenched teeth, attempting to convince us all that, even though his guns are gone and so is is erstwhile girlfriend, he still believes, he says, that guns are bad and you and me shouldn't have them.  

I believe him.  Don't you?  

The moral of the story?  So if "getting your gun" is your major consideration, make sure the focus of your amorous attention doesn't get yours first...