You listen to the group Honey Cone, described today as early feminists, and they are talking about a universal truth and in memorable pop terms. No hatred of men here, just the emotional recognition that if you don’t love her, she can’t really love you. Love between a man and a woman is a two-way street. (Unlike God’s love for us, which at the center is a one-way street.)

If you don’t understand this and are a man, you are in for trouble “Further on Up the Road” (Clapton and the Band, 1978).

I learned this from more than one source, which I talk about in the cast; but the main source was Honey Cone. Or rather, they told me it before I could hear it. And now I am telling you.

Oh, and I also learned this (crucial) life lesson from “Atom Age Vampire”. “Atom Age Vampire” is one of those brilliant artistic and sadistic Italian horror movies from the early 1960s that if you saw it once, you never forgot it. (If you see it now, you’ll never forget it!) Those movies are stocked with wisdom, communicated mostly in “Grand Guignol” situations of, shall we say, existential urgency. But the wisdom is there. “Atom Age Vampire” teaches us about the nature of real love, trustable love, and faithful love. Versus… well, you’ll see.

In short, we love because we are first loved, and then we love back.