Greatest Love Stories

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Professor Taboo

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Fair warning to all readers and my Followers who might get uncomfortable or nauseated when a man gets sappy, romantic, and emotional. I am about to bear my heart and soul as if this were my private journal. BEWARE you anti-romantics, you cold-hearted corpses and anti-passionates to uncontrollable love! I am getting this off my chest, out of my heart and head… and out there for the world to read. I don’t care one way or the other what comes of it because THIS is therapy for me!

My Ridiculous Obsession with Fiery Passion

Beginning in 2002 those were three principles (at the top) I began living by no matter what. I have tried to maintain the courage they require every day and every night. To mean it and live it in their purest and most honest form. They are sometimes intense, and they are frank (perhaps blunt? overwhelming?) emotions from a man and his lifestyle that can make some uncomfortable and others liberated. In some cases reborn and other cases scared shitless. Either way I live my life deeply, sucking out as much marrow as possible as Henry David Thoreau wrote. For me, it is the best way to live and only way to live fully. This is one of those times.

The last two or three weeks I have suffered once again the crushing abandonment of a remarkably special heart, mind, and soul. Unfortunately, she became overwhelmed by the purest, rawest, most honest, wide open, liberating energy she had ever experienced. Her words. After three years she freaked out, unable to reconcile me with her previous life and so slowly withdrew in utter fear.

Safe mediocrity is a powerful, hypnotizing, binding influence on some, especially if children are involved. However, there is a side to rare, atypical passion and love that is not shown, hidden from children, to their (lifetime?) detriment. It’s terribly sad. How else will they recognize atomic, re-energizing love, passion, and commitment if their own parents don’t live it and model it in pure raw honesty? I am baffled by this. Timidness puzzles me when it comes to life’s beautiful experiences. It is one of humanity’s most enduring connections. Why be so scared to let it happen and let it fill you!?

Alright, alright, you may be asking what am I really talking about? I’ll tell you. Some people and friends can’t fathom what I am describing here. They might be too afraid that a human connection can feel like a hypnotic drug. But that isn’t all of it. For me, when intense soul-mate/twin-flame chemistry is choked, drowned, repressed, or removed it feels like the most insurmountable betrayal and ripping-out of life’s marrow one can ever hope to experience. It’s a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. But I know freak-outs, for whatever reason, are always based in fear. Fear that is fabricated like the Great Wizard of Oz behind his green curtain. Ironically, everyone survives in the end and life goes on.

Because I have less and less fear, and more and more courage to travel this crazy, rocky love-road of a minefield and have done it a number of times, each time gaining more wisdom and more boldness, more confidence, I can keep being exactly, unabashedly who I am! It gets easier each time. When things take an unexpected leap off the cliff, it’s okay. I’ll be fine. Why? Lord Tennyson answers with profound perfection:

“‘Tis better to have loved [fully] and lost
than never to have loved [fully] at all.”
—Lord alfred tennyson

Truer words have never been uttered or written. As we’d sometimes repeat in the world of athletic competition, you can’t become a world-class footballer (soccer) while sitting on the bench or spectating in the stands. You must get in the game! You’ll win some and you will lose some, but you will improve every time. Maybe, just maybe you’ll become world-class if you are a Starter each game, every season, and not quit, and keep learning, keep improving. That’s the only way you become world-class—without fear or self-doubt.

When I first “fell in love” 1980 Halloween night, I was 17-yrs old and felt like the world was my oyster and I had found my precious pearl. Yes, seventeen years very young and so very inexperienced.

Wow, did I have a boat-load to learn!

There is a large difference between self-confidence bordering on audacious, and refined wisdom and eloquent technique gained through honest hard lessons and precision refinement, let me tell you. At seventeen—well hell, even 18 through 30 years of age—I was about as smooth, refined, and romantic as Pepé Le Pew the deluded eccentric skunk of Warner Brothers cartoon fame.

Now over 40-yrs later I have actually come a very, very long way to exquisite refinement in matters of amore, if I can say so myself and generally have all my Ladies, past and present, also chime in. With no doubt, in the Game of Amore, I am certainly not “on the bench!”

Those three above initial quotes at the very top are the only way one has a chance of finding their true, natural soul mate(s), in my opinion and experience. It is not reckless. It is not insanity. It is simply honest and raw. It is about accepting the fact that people YOU LOVE fully without fear will hurt you, intentionally and unintentionally. That’s life. That’s human nature. The real question is how will you learn from it, how to keep living, keep loving fully better, learning to fail better at times, and keep moving forward with courage, staying true to yourself without flinching… every single time. That’s how you live Tennyson’s words and those above quotes.

But enough about my abilities, understanding matters of the heart and libido, and vast experience gained. Let’s get to the Greatest Love Stories, shall we? Or at least those stories on cinematic celluloid.

Here are my Top Four Love Stories on film:

#4 — Silver Linings Playbook (2012):

#3 — Her (2013):

#2 — Out of Africa (1985), sorry, ignore the subtitles:

#1 — About Time (2013):

There are several other scenes I absolutely adore and crack-up about in this exceptional love movie and seizing the moment, seizing the present invitations for the fullest life led and sucking its marrow out completely. But I reluctantly and happily chose the single above scene. There’s at least 4-5 more great, profound scenes. But oh well.

What are your four all-time favorite, Greatest Love Stories… on film or in literature? Share them below.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

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Is Anyone Else Scared Sh*tless?

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Professor Taboo

I have done a horrible job of staying on top of my blog here and following the many blogs I enjoy following. For those of you here now who haven’t forgotten about me, THANK YOU! I appreciate so much your loyalty! I will jump over to your blogs no matter how hectic my summer schedule becomes or has surprisingly become despite what I thought would be a relaxing, blog-writing and commenting summer break. Grrrrrrr!

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As my family and I approach my Dad’s 24^th anniversary of passing away to suicide, today I want to reflect back on one of his most memorable, most classically funny moments he and my grandfather made for me and my family. This is one I have never forgotten.

My Grandpa Bonnet had a wonderful simple sense of humor. It was that humor you find in small country Texas towns from farmers, ranchers, and cowboys. As long as I had known my Grandpa Bonnet, nothing ever seemed to get under his skin or ruffle his feathers because he could always find some comical interpretation to life’s curve-balls. Everyone in my family loved it, my Dad especially. Granny Bonnet, not so much. Even if Granny Bonnet was in a tirade, Grandpa would find the humor in something. Many times it egged-on Granny making us begin to chuckle under our breath hoping she would not see or hear us. It was hilarious, especially when Granny finally left the room!

One holiday weekend myself, my sister, Mom, Dad, Granny Bonnet, and Grandpa Bonnet all climbed into Grandpa’s 1963 yellow Chevy Impala. I can’t remember now where we were going – it didn’t matter then – but it couldn’t have been too far because McDade was a tiny remote town in central Texas where they had lived for several years. McDade was famous because of the twin-knob hills in the distance where a famous wild-west shoot-out took place, not too unlike what happens today in our great “free” Lone-Star-for-a-reason state (wink).

My sister, Mom, and Granny were sitting in the back seat. Dad and I sat up front with Grandpa, who was driving. I wasn’t real sure why all the women sat in the back that day, but now that I’m older, wiser, and an eighth-generation Texan, I now have a very good idea. But on this day, and hindsight being 20/20, I would have been more than happy to be in the trunk!

Blind squirrel!

It was well after 12-noon, a pleasant summer evening, and we were on one of the many two-lane-only state highways in the middle of nowhere near McDade. Grandpa loved to talk and tell his simple stories. Granny also liked to talk, non-stop, but not in story-form. Her chatter was everything that was wrong or could go wrong, remarkably and often circling back to Grandpa. Granny Bonnet was the epitome of an incessant worry-wart. As I reached my teen-years, I began to see clearly why Grandpa Bonnet had such a fantastic sense of humor and thick skin.

The first sign our “family drive” was to be exciting was when we approached something centered in the middle of the highway and unflinching. My Grandfather and Dad noticed it. It was a squirrel sitting up on its hind-legs seemingly as brave (or stupid) as squirrels-in-the-road can be. In fact, I thought it was a fake stuffed-animal it was so perfectly still. Grandpa began talking to the rodent like a Squirrel-whisperer, “Move little guy. You better move!” Nothing. The idiot squirrel just sat there like a stone statue. My sister in the back seat sat up, amazed that it wouldn’t run off. She too begged it to run. We were only seconds away now…Grandpa kept a steady 55 mph, not slowing down one bit. We approached, Grandpa centered his yellow Impala straight at it, I thought so he could pin it to the radiator or hood!? My eyes widened and the gasps began. Still that damn stupid animal would not budge! The women began screaming at Grandpa in horror “STOP! STOP Grandpa!” as we drove over it, but Grandpa only chuckled more with each closing foot! “Murderer!” I heard my sister yell. I waited to hear the thumps underneath the floorboard trickling from front, right down our shoe-soles to the back.

Total silence.

Then EVERYONE, including Grandpa, jerked our heads and gaping mouths rearward to see the carnage…

And as if to say “I won!” that squirrel sat exactly where he stood, unmoved, unscathed! It was the most astonishing death-wish-gone-wrong I’d ever seen. It was impossible for anyone to express this miracle of life because Granny was screaming undecipherable words at Grandpa even my Mom had never heard! I stared at Grandpa and he just chuckled at every sentence Granny tried to complete. I looked over at my Dad and he was doing the same thing, but face forward to escape Granny’s verbal wrath. Swept up by the moment, I let burst my laughter too. Now Granny was getting furious with anyone in the front seat!

As we continued down the two-lane-only highway, without missing a beat or miles per hour, Grandpa just HAD to share his newly discovered squirrel-stew recipe. Talk about the live definition of inciting, Grandpa had decades of experience and the war-medals to prove it (wink)! It was all my Dad could do not to multiply the soft mumbled jokes coming from Grandpa. In the front seat, one joke would lead to another simple story. In the back seat, more high-pitched cackling with each non-response from Grandpa – he was in the middle of a story! Grandpa would face my Dad and I while talking, making sure we could hear him. The more Granny bitched at Grandpa, the more Grandpa would chuckle and grin at us to make louder his point.

Right about that moment I noticed things hitting and pinging the underside of the car. I sat way up to get a better view, “now what!?” Ahead was a slow drifting right-curve, not sharp, but nonetheless going in a direction that was clearly not straight. I looked up at Grandpa and he was waist-deep in his story, trying to keep at least an equal decibel level to Granny, Mom, and my sister in back, but looking uninterrupted at my Dad. I snapped back to the highway in front, that was less in front. I looked back at Grandpa trying to impolitely interrupt him politely! I snapped my head to Dad; did he see my face at all!?

Um, is anyone else scared shitless as I am right now!? Hello!

Our fast-moving Chevy Impala was now ever-so-slightly beginning to lean left as the highway ever-so-gradually moved to the right! It had become so loud between Granny’s verbal tirade at Grandpa and Grandpa’s grand story about squirrel barbecuing, that no one could hear the gravel hitting the tires and floorboard! I glanced back to Dad – perhaps to take one last look at him in life – and as Grandpa drew a breath and Granny was exhausted, just as calm and serious as an airline pilot preparing everyone for impact, my Dad said…

“Mr. Bonnet,” and my Dad pointed forward, “Is that the McDade water-tower up ahead?”

Grandpa looked, why yes it was…and in that instance the right-side tires fell off the shoulder and gravel began shooting out everywhere! He jerked the steering wheel right and corrected our direction from bumpy doom into cedar-fence posts, to the intended path of proper motor vehicles with just a few clumps of grass packed in the front bumper; the cows would never miss! Saved!

Grandpa began laughing uncontrollably! Shocked, I couldn’t decide if he was laughing so hard at my Dad’s question, or if he was laughing more at Granny’s renewed vocabulary at him. We must have heard thirty different versions of “You’re suppose to look at the road when you drive Felix, not get us splattered with the cows!” Needless to say, there was no silence all the way home. And I’ve never seen my Grandpa grin at me so much for so long a drive. Normal? I imagine so after some of the words and phrases I learned from Granny. Insane? Hell yeah! Between stoned-up squirrel, squirrel barbecuing, shifty highways, a furious non-stop cackling old Granny, and two adult men laughing in the face of vehicular off-roading disaster and the back-seat narrative that went with it? Yeah, totally insane, but totally rad!

Miss those new moments Dad, but I keep ones like this forever. Thank you.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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