Category Archives: Men

Being a Man

Posted on by
2

“Have you wondered about what it means to be free in the face of your responsibilities as a man?  Have you chafed under the assumption that men are supposed to know everything?  Have you felt the pressures of meeting the expectations of females in your world?”  If so, the seventies called.  They want their hair back.

(Anyone else think he looks like he's giving her a great deal on a low mileage sedan?

Anyone else think he looks like he’s giving her a great deal on a low mileage sedan?

I am led to believe that the man of dubious grooming is one J. Kilgore.  Who, you might ask, is J. Kilgore?  Damned if I know, I reply, but I found two of his books on a table of free stuff.  The opening quote is from the back cover of Being a Man in a Woman’s World.

I’m waiting for the For Dummies version…or is that an oxymoron?

I’m waiting for the For Dummies version…or is that an oxymoron?

Given that I loathe most organized sports, am ambivalent towards automobiles, rely on my wife to kill spiders, and (most importantly) majored in English, it can be safely assumed that I need all the help “Being a Man” that I can get.

So do you even have go to the barber, or is that hair injection molded?

So do you even have go to the barber, or is that hair injection molded?

And, let me reiterate, the book was free.  I feel this is important to note.  That done, and so long as Kilgore’s tent revival hair isn’t contagious, I’m willing to give this a go.

Employing my usual “open the book at random and take things wildly out of context” strategy, I immediately turned to page twenty-seven where six bolded words asked, “What Kind of Man Are You?“  Intrigued, and a little intimidated, I read on: ”If you find yourself uneasy, shy, and reserved, probably you will develop a ‘cowboy’ stance in life.  You may engage in heroic feats and enjoy your ‘silent strength.’  However, your loneliness in relationships will remain.  Very often your ‘bashfulness’ can be a manipulative way of getting attention from women.  You may have mastered, knowingly or unwittingly, the art of using your silent strength to turn on the admiration of women.  The maternal juices of many women flow strongly towards the shy and introverted man.”

Ignoring the obvious problems with that paragraph – namely, everything – I find Mr. Kilgore leaves me with one particularly burning question.  Specifically, what the hell is a “cowboy stance”?  I imagine it involves my feet extending out beyond my shoulders and my right hand hovering over my shooting iron, either because I’m getting ready to draw on Black Bart or because I’m saddle sore and in dire need of Preparation H.  As for the rest of it, I’m not certain I can recall the last time I’ve managed to manipulate someone with the raw power of my timidity – though I suppose it is possible that I simply didn’t understand the power of my silent strength at the time.  Ladies, let me take this opportunity to apologize…provided you promise not to hit me.  On a similar note, and from my fetal position here on the floor, I hope you won’t take offense when I ask that you kindly keep your maternal juices to yourself.  They don’t sound particularly hygienic, and this is my last clean shirt.

Did the Jedi Council break into focus groups or what?

Did the Jedi Council break into focus groups or what?

Not ten pages after the brilliant expose on what sort of man I am – i.e., highly defective – I encountered another bold subheading entitled “True Maturity.”  Since I’ve spent the last ten minutes, in adolescent fashion, questioning Kilgore’s gel/hair ratio, I figured the least I could do was give him an opportunity to give me a literary kick in the teeth.  Thus, I resumed reading.  ”The greatest gift an adult woman has given to me as an adult man is the rediscovery of my ‘inner child.’ My wife is the ‘eternal child’ – ever fascinated with little accomplishments and always thrilled by the smallest of gifts.”  Uh…huh.  I’m not entirely certain what would happen were I to write the two previous sentences in regards to my own wife and publish them.  At the very least, I suspect it would preclude any need on my part to write a sequel.  Unless, of course, I didn’t object to it being published posthumously.

invisible kitteh

Deciding I shall always lack “True Maturity,” I continue leafing forward.  From page thirty-five, I make it to page thirty-one where I am presented with what promises to be the greatest chapter ever written.  Describing it with mere words will not suffice, as no one would ever believe me.  A picture must be employed.

BOY ARE THEY...oh…sorry, dear.

BOY ARE THEY…oh…sorry, dear.

I…I don’t even know where to begin.  Fate, working through J. Kilgore and his hair, has conspired to provide me with the ultimate comedic set-up.  But now that it’s here, I don’t know where to go with it.  Opportunity, far from merely knocking, has barged in, drunk all the wine, and passed out on my sofa, but the only thing I can think to do is wait for it to sober up and leave.

Enough.  Forty-one pages in is where we shall end our voyage of self-discovery.  This is purely for my own protection.  I’m starting to get this strange urge to watch NASCAR while crushing beer cans on my forehead.  If I don’t go read some Jane Austen stat, I’m going to end up in Lambeau Field when it’s forty below wearing nothing but green and yellow paint and a giant piece of Styrofoam cheese on my head.  In short, I’m not sure I’m ready to “Be A Man.”

Is...that the Fonz?

Is…that the Fonz?

The Invisible Man

Posted on by
Reply

Has anyone ever written about the slimming powers of camouflage?

No?

That’s good.  It has none.

The other Wal-Mart shoppers never see him coming.

The other Wal-Mart shoppers never see him coming.

It does, or so I’m told, have the ability to drastically reduce the chance one will be gored, trampled, or otherwise molested by a wide assortment of woodland creatures.  This is a definite plus for the weekend warrior crowd who are forever attempting to prove the superiority of the species while cowering in a tree stand.  But to speak of it – it being camouflage – as a fashion statement…  What it states, boldly, is that the beer-gutted wearer has pretty much given up all pretense of attracting a suitable mate.

In short, while the deer may lose the battle, they just might win the war.

While we’re discussing the future, or want of it, for our species, I’ve recently become aware of a locale where the above points on style need to be made – namely the local boat, gun, and RV show.  Making said points via Jumbo-tron, in addition to being ironically appropriate, would probably net the best ROI, but it isn’t my first choice.  Personally, I’d like to print the opening three lines of this piece and nail them to the front door of the convention center, but I’m not sure if either basic literacy or the ability to appreciate an allusion to Martin Luther can be expected in my target audience.  Based on my experiences, I’m thinking not.

If you think this is a history book…you might be a redneck.

If you think this is a history book…you might be a redneck.

Here the question arises as to what precisely I was doing in said environs, given that my first response upon encountering a squirrel, rabbit, or small dog is not, “I could shoot that and eat it,” accompanied by the sound of something ricocheting off a spittoon.  Well…correction – the dog sometimes sends the ol’ train of consciousness down those particular rails, but that’s usually because the dog is crapping in my azaleas and deserves to die.  No, my presence at the venue was tied up in the doings of some event organizer who had negotiated the temporary import of a couple dozen exotic animals.  Yes, you read that right.  Endangered species.  Readily available firearms.  Wisconsinites of dubious sobriety.  And last but not least, beer served right there at the event – serendipity or stupidity?  Only time and the local news would tell.

Yet before inebriation attempted to blend itself with a spontaneous exercise of second amendment rights, I had high hopes of using the fauna as a diversion for my daughter, who is approaching two and self-identifies as a guinea pig.  I saw the proceedings as an opportunity to either let her gape at strange and exotic creatures, hopefully prior to taxidermy, or as a chance to reunite her with her own kind – provided I could discretely pitch her into a pen without her mother noticing.

Hey – anyone else that has had any two-year-old in their care for any length of time has thought exactly the same thing.

Yet to return, after much meandering, to the subject of camouflage and what it will and will not do for its wearer: I’m convinced that if the RVs had been replaced with some sort of indoor forest, all the attendees still would have looked ridiculous – just fractionally less so.  Though camouflage was the unofficial dress code of the day, given the complete dearth of greenery, I found myself questioning if anyone actually understood how the fabric worked.  Or was the go-to assumption that it magically makes you invisible?  One oversized, camo-clad guy, manning some sort of hunting booth on a crowded exhibition floor, was blissfully sitting in a camouflage chair eating popcorn from a large tub.  He was shoving so much in his mouth at once that he had to hold the tub under his chin to catch what wouldn’t fit as it fell back into the tub.  It was hard not to stare – partially because he put off measureable units of gravity, but I’ll try to keep the fat jokes to a minimum…though such is difficult since the fat jokes practically write themselves.

My wife, whose knowledge of hunting starts and ends with Jane Austen novels where men with British accents and uncomfortably tight pants potter around for a couple hours before tea, expressed bemusement that it was a boat, gun, and RV show, as if the third was some sort of non-sequitur.  Despite all evidence to the contrary, she was laboring under the assumption that our woodlands were being depopulated by sinewy men with facial hair best described as “robust” and not those who could have served as stunt doubles for Rover in The Prisoner.

The Great White Hunter

The Great White Hunter

Needless to say, she knows better now.

Simple Hair Necessities

Posted on by
Reply

Let us begin with a simple proof. If an item is dead, it cannot (or at the very least should not) be characterized as either healthy or vibrant. Hair is dead. Ergo, hair cannot (or at the very least should not) be described as either healthy or vibrant. Indeed, if at any point in your life the substance growing out of the top of your head takes on properties that necessitate describing it as either healthy or vibrant, I would suggest you have a problem and recommend that you consider killing it – probably with fire and preferably before it gets too belligerent.

This is what healthy, vibrant hair looks like. As you can see, Itt is not something to aspire to unless one is creepy and/or kooky.

This is what healthy, vibrant hair looks like. As you can see, Itt is not something to aspire to unless one is creepy and/or kooky.

Likewise, if you’re thinking you can skirt these guidelines by purchasing some sort of organic toupee , I would like to point out the following: If your toupee is alive, it means you’ve probably purchased a Chia pet by mistake or, alternately, have become a habitat for some furry, scalp-dwelling, woodland mammal. In event of the former, I recommend Weed-B-Gone. In case of the latter, a high-powered rifle and your friend’s best William Tell impression.

…Whoops.

…Whoops.

But to return at length to our original argument, there is nothing that Pantene Pro V can do which a good coat of shellac could not duplicate. The ubiquitous shampoo and conditioner ads wherein they promise a Lazarus-style regeneration and/or Schwarzenegger-esque body for your skeletal insulation overlook the fact that the stuff streaming out of our skulls was never alive to begin with. To summarize, zero times any fruit-scented number is still zero. And short of using a bottle of Herbal Essences to make a pact with the dark gods, one should expect their hair to be approximately as dead and flat when they get out of the shower as it was going in.

Speaking of the shower, I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss shampoo commercials and their flagrant disrespect for the space time continuum. Nearly all shampoos are marketed the same. Two seconds into the ad, show the product. Six seconds into the ad, show naked woman applying the product. Remaining twenty seconds of the ad, switch to slow motion while the aforementioned naked woman tosses her hair about like Shrek’s Prince Charming.

Hair with body like a sumo wrestler.

Hair with body like a sumo wrestler.

Ladies, if time is slowing down while you’re in the shower, it doesn’t mean you’ve picked a good conditioner – it means you’re approaching the speed of light. As a kindness to the rest of us, please don’t abuse general relativity while in the shower – you use up all the hot water.

Now, if any are struggling with the concept that their hair is essentially beyond help, there is always the option to get rid of it. (And for those who are unwillingly going down that road, might I gently encourage you to take the plunge as opposed to embarking on a desperate attempt to save it? I trust I need not remind you that there has not yet been a comb-over created that doesn’t make the combee look utterly ridiculous.) Besides, many a celebrity is approaching sphere-bald with great effect. Men, look to Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington, or Jack Nicholson. Yes, I understand no one wants to look like Jack Nicholson, but… Alright, you know what, forget about it.  Just forget I said Jack Nicholson, okay? Bad example.

Laaaadies?

Laaaadies?

Women, I know I have a harder sell here, but every eighteen to twenty-four-year-old male will tell you Sigourney Weaver looked mighty fine in the first Alien movie. I’m just sayin’.

Ultimately, we should all have a more utilitarian approach to our hair. Is your head too cold? Then I recommend you produce a little more. Is your head too hot? Maybe go for a little less. Is your name Jack Nicholson? Maybe you should see if you can look like someone else. Granted, I doubt Jack could pull off Bruce Willis. Maybe he should try for Sigourney Weaver. It’d be a good move for him.