Beware The Patience of an Angry Bull And Other Brutal Truths

 May 4, 2025

   When I first started out on my history quest, my main motive was to simply find the Truth, with a capital T. However, one of the first things I discovered is that the truth is not facts lined up. Yes, you can have all the dates right and still miss what really happened. That was a rude awakening. In addition to that eye-opener, I also discovered that rather than one truth, there are often multiple truths and many of those truths are contradictions. For example, can someone lie and tell the truth? Well, consider this: "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth." Picasso said that, and talk about a contradictory truth!

   And, it must be said there are gentle truths, like this quote from a painting genius who I see as equal to Picasso.

   And then there are brutal truths, almost too rough for us humans to fathom.

Biting The Hand That Feeds You—On Steroids

   A Kingman kid I grew up with became a rodeo bull rider. I seem to remember he broke a bone, or two, but he won a couple buckles and a couple bucks, and when he retired he saved a couple bulls from slaughter and kept them on his property as quasi-pets. One day as he was finishing feeding them and walking to the gate, one of them charged him from behind and gored him to death.

   Yes, there is no doubt a truth in there, but one almost too rough for human consideration.

"Beware the anger of a patient bull."

—Old Vaquero Saying

"You think that's funny, cabrone?"

—Old Mexican Bull Retort

  Leave it to The New Yorker and Bruce Handy to interview the 87-year-old film director, Claude LeLouche on how he created an International "Make-Out" movie smash hit with his 1966 "A Man And A Woman." LeLouch is in New York for the screening of the restored version of the film and he says three things that thrilled me: the first is he had done six previous "clumsy" movies and on this one he concentrated on the eyes because it's the "only part of the body that doesn't lie," and two, he is thankful they didn't have the budget because he shot the ending of the heroine getting on a train and leaving for Paris, then he had to drive his car and the equipment to the Paris train station and set up to get the last shot of her arriving and getting off the train. But he ambushed the actress by bringing along the actor who she broke up with earlier in the movie. Would she get off the train and slap him in the face? Would she walk by him and not even look at him? I won't spoil the ending but she didn't do either of those reactions, but what she did do is a good part of why the movie was an international hit. I saw it at the Loft Theatre in Tucson in about 1967 or 68. Totally packed and totally dug it.

   The final thing he said that thrilled me is he is making a new movie. He has a vague plot arc in mind, but he claims he is going to shoot ten minutes of film and edit and work on the sound, then do another ten minutes, and so on, all the while looking for alternative paths until he finishes or he is tired of the process. Isn't that flippin' genius?!

   He ends by saying, "It's a film about luck."

 Mike Lacey's Luck Runs Out

"Nothing is more healing than the realization and expression of your gifts. That's what I do, I help people find their gifts."

—Boyd Varty, "The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life"