Powerful and aggressive men are in a permanent state of criminality. Some people just have the power version of pro-survival DNA. Weak bodies have good DNA when they are cunning. Strong bodies have good DNA in the state of nature.

The man is in a permanent state of criminality. Not just men—the person is. Humans are geared for fighting—to survive and display domination and win the mate. Nowadays, this is criminal. But the wiring is still there, and so the tendency still urges us. Whom am I thinking about?

Yes, the most antisocial and anti-life character in the whole of 20th century cinema—Lon Chaney Jr.!

He always looks so tired. In every film. I thought that maybe George Waggner brow-beat Chaney Jr. into that lame, disgusting, boring, tired, ridiculous character. His low-energy self-pitying is so extreme and constant, like Eeyore, just pushing his listless corpse around hoping that death might whisk him away into the clean peace of oblivion. I thought that he played that character by request, and that it then stuck with him until he died.

You see how unreasonable I am. It took 40 years—until five minutes ago—for me to realize what really happened. Chaney Jr. was a downer guy. He liked being out of it—where “it” means the world. In sleep. Comfortable and numb. He was on downers and sleeping pills all the time. He was a big unhappy lunkhead and was tired of the effortful shit that is life. Had nothing to do with the self-pitying essential to cursed Larry Talbot. The shit-vibe was Chaney Jr. all along.

Big angry guys are all wound up and have no place to deplete their violent energies. Doing so will get them arrested. I know guys like this—built by DNA to fight and win. Not in this tribe. The solution? Downers. Big guys always like downers. It keeps them out of jail.