Have you ever been out and about when you came across a person who you knew was just a total badass? I'm not talking about a run-of-the-mill badass like the guy who can do seven chin-ups in a row without grunting like a girl or who can run up a wall and do a back flip and land like he's a ninja. Those guys are everywhere.
Nope, I'm talking about a guy who can lift a fire truck to save a kitten too scared to come out from underneath it or a guy who can catch bullets in his teeth while riding a wheelie on his Harley. And not just any Harley, the kind of Harley where the oil spills onto the road behind it and causes Toyotas and any hybrid vehicles to wreck in its wake.
I'm talking about a man's man, basically. Not even a man's man, a Man's man's man. There's got to be some sort of graduated scale for this type of manliness and I'm guessing it will be up to me to create one because no one else is brave or bored enough to do it.
So here is how I like to measure a man.
Wait, I take that back. I don't really like to measure men and as soon as I typed that I knew that was the wrong thing to type. Of course I could always go back and erase that and you would never know it happened, but I am manly enough to leave it there and punch all the naysayers and laughing happy funmakers squarely in the neck with an untrained but probably very painful karate chop. KEEYARF!
My word program is telling me that funmakers is not a word but KEEYARF is. What the hell?
So here is the scale of levels of manliness. And keep in mind that it is possible to span several different levels of manliness but if you cross to a lower level you are stuck there even if you have traits for higher levels.
Level 1 – Guys who wax any part of their body for anything other than a joke or payment of a bet they lost. Engaging in any plastic surgery that is not a form of reconstruction after a grisly accident with industrial machinery (special preference given to augers, tractors or thrashing machines) or a wild animal that can only be found in a zoo. Anyone who has plastic surgery as a result of an attack by a house pet loses man points, and an attack by a kitten will actually result in being forced to play for the women's team at the next family gathering.
Guys who have ever spent more than $15 on a haircut and/or who have an actual hairstyle. Any man who has been to a day spa on purpose. Any guy with a subscription in their name to People, In Touch or Oprah's magazine (reading them while on the crapper is perfectly acceptable as long as there is also a fully dog eared copy of Playboy, FHM or Maxim within easy reach). Any guy who takes a bath when there is a shower available within a 15-mile radius.
EXAMPLES of a level 1 male include the guy from "What Not To Wear," male cosmetologists, dudes who drink Cosmopolitans at keg parties, guys who have stylists that dress them at any point in their life, French Canadians who don’t play professional hockey and Rosie O'Donnell.
Level 2 -- Guys who can't name more than 5 athletes in any one sport. Guys who would rather play video games of a sport than actually going out and playing it. Guys who smoke weed instead of drinking beer. Guys who iron their shorts and t-shirts without a girl telling them to, guys who wear ties that cost more than $29, guys who either don't own hiking boots or only own hiking boots, guys who only eat raw vegetables, guys who don't have at least 7 random receipts in their wallets and guys who can't walk a mile in anyone's shoes, much less their own.
EXAMPLES of a level 2 male include hippies, the guy who brings the guitar camping so he can sing folk songs while eating s'mores, the first guy in line to buy the new version of HALO for XBOX, sightseeing helicopter pilots who didn’t see combat in a war of some sort, Dunkin Donuts managers, The Prince of Wales, Lance Bass and the 85% of the French, including the womenfolk. 14.5% of the French are Level 1’s and .5% are actually level 4’s thanks to the French foreign legion, the guy who invented champagne and a couple of kickboxers they have over there.
Level 3 – These are guys who are middle of the line manly. A man who can fix a garbage disposal without breaking a knuckle or the disposal. A guy who not only knows what a nickel defense is in football but can explain it to a girl so she understands what it is and why it doesn't really have anything to do with US legal tender. Guys who only shave because they have to for their job or they are trying to get girls. Guys who get hurt but still keep doing whatever it is that hurt them. Guys who can chop wood and can start a campfire on the first try. Guys who have the ability to cuss freely when they are with their friends but don't when there are women around. Guys who still wear flannel because it works and not because it's fashionable.
EXAMPLES of Level 3 males include Tim Taylor from Home Improvement, your dad, guys who run the cash register in lumberyards, truck drivers, ACE certified mechanics, the guys in a bowling league and carpet/flooring installers.
As a special note, guys that are 3.5's on the scale are all the really useful blue collar folks who do stuff most Level 3’s aren’t smart enough to do, including plumbers, locksmiths, handymen with their names engraved on their belts, Ned Flanders, HVAC technicians, loggers and bouncers in Irish pubs.
Level 4 – These are men's men. Guys that were Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, etc. in the military. Anyone with a legal confirmed kill of a human, a big five game animal with a knife or a bow and arrow, or anything but a fish with a spear. Any guy who isn't a real doctor but still knows how to perform a tracheotomy with a butter knife and will do it without hesitation whether you like it or not. A man who not only has the tools to rebuild an engine but can actually do it without a copy of Chilton's Auto Repair manual or formal training. Jewel and art thieves who don't stoop to the "smash and grab" technique. Guys who write things like the Declaration of Independence. A guy who eats his steak straight off the cow.
Level 4 men usually smell of Old Spice, sweat and either animal blood or motor oil.
EXAMPLES of a Level 4 male include your high school football coach, Bear Grylls, the dude from Survivorman, guys who own junkyards, real cowboys who actually drive cattle and rope horses on the open range, James Bond (the Sean Connery version, not the Pierce Brosnan version), tow truck drivers, your grandfather and MacGuyver if he would get an $8 haircut every once in a while.
Super Level Alpha – This level is reserved for the baddest of the bad. Anyone who has lost an eye in a street fight and just sewed it shut himself and threw on an eye patch instead of going all Sammy Davis Jr. with it. This guy actually changes his own oil and then doesn't wash his hands before eating corn on the cob and 7 pounds of uncooked chicken wings. He doesn't wear a shirt or shoes to Circle K but still gets service. These guys can eat quiche in front of biker gangs and still have people offer to buy him a drink.
EXAMPLES of Super Level Alpha males include guys who wear steel-toed boots to the grocery store, John Rambo (especially in First Blood), Mike Singletary, professional assassins who write poetry in their spare time and any character that Clint Eastwood ever played.
B!
Friday, November 21, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Some Thoughts On The Election
I spent about 5 hours last night watching the election coverage on CBS, mostly because I was interested in who our next president is going to be but also because I think Katie Couric is TOTALLY do-able even though she’s like 55 years old.
Yeah, I said it. Don’t lie, you want to do her too. It might take a few cocktails, but you know you’d do it. Ladies, I’m talking to you too.
Anyway, I have to preface everything I am about to say with this: I did not vote yesterday. I am registered in Flagstaff but live in Mesa right now and I don’t have the money to drive all the way up there to place a vote I didn’t want to make anyway. There was only one thing on the ballot that I cared enough about to vote (I was hoping to see Proposition 102 get shot down, which called for marriage to be defined as between “One Man and One Woman” by the law—unfortunately it didn’t get shot down, so now only straight people are going to be allowed to fuck up the sanctity of marriage).
Even if I had been in Flagstaff, I’m not sure I would have voted for president anyway. The guy I really wanted never made it out of the primaries, and because I am a registered Republican and the guy I wanted was a Democrat, I couldn’t have helped him out of the primaries anyway.
I don’t really like the way the voting system is set up anyway, but I won’t get into that very much, because I have some other things I would like to talk about regarding the new president of the United States and what I saw on the coverage last night.
The first thing that I noticed, and probably the most telling about the difference between the parties and what they stand for, is the choice of venue chosen for the election parties of each party. The Democrats were stationed in a park in Chicago (Grant Park), which was the site of the famed Democratic national convention in 1968. The Republicans, on the other hand, were stationed at The Biltmore in downtown Phoenix.
For those who don’t know Phoenix, The Arizona Biltmore is a hotel in central Phoenix and it is pretty much the symbol for old money in the Valley. Right now their specials for room rates start at $259 per night for the worst room in the place, to give you some kind of idea of the type of hotel we’re looking at. And as an FYI, the Barry Goldwater suite, where the McCain’s were staying, STARTS at $1,000 per night in the off season, and while I’m sure they got it comped to them, I think that speaks volumes.
So, what I noticed about the election parties was that the Republicans held their party in a very elite, inaccessible place known for it’s “old money” smell while the Democrats held their party in a free park in Chicago. This may not seem like much of an issue to some people, but to me it speaks VOLUMES about what the Republican party has grown to stand for since I registered as one in the 1990’s.
Another thing I noticed was the lack of class many of the Republican backers showed during McCain’s speech when he conceded victory to Obama. At the mention of Obama’s name, a spattering of “boos” erupted from his supporters on more than one occasion. While I thought McCain did a good job of putting an end to that, the fact that he even had to just made his supporters look that much worse in my eyes. There were probably 2-3000 people around when he made that speech, and I would guess at least 100-200 of them booed Obama’s name. I do have to give McCain credit, though, because his speech was classy and I have no doubts he will continue to serve his country to the best of his abilities.
Conversely, at Obama’s victory speech (and I’ve got to interject what a cool dude this guy is, he seems like the kind of guy who could get you to buy into an abstinence program from him while he was in the other room humping your sister) when McCain’s name was mentioned, there were actually cheers from the audience. There were probably 70,000 people there and I heard no “boos” at the mention of McCain’s name. Not to say there weren’t any, but if they did boo, they were not close enough to be heard.
I don’t want this to come across as Republican-bashing, because I’m sure if things would have turned out the other way there would have been some boos from the crowd in Chicago, or possibly even a riot, but those were all low- to middle-class people there (except for Oprah, who not only could have bought a new house for everyone there if she wanted to, but she actually had little flecks of gold in her tears if you look closely at the video. Kind of like Goldschlager, only not as fun to drink before singing karaoke) so that type of thing might be expected. I don’t expect that type of behavior from people who are “in the money” so to speak.
The bottom line is that something big happened last night, whether you like it or not. I got the same kind of feeling I got when the twin towers came down in New York—not necessarily as bad of a feeling, just the feeling that the world was about to change. Only time will tell if that’s good or bad for us as a country. 9/11 seemed like it was good for us in the short run, spiking our patriotism to heights I’d never seen it, but not even 6 months later all of the American flags that people had gone out to buy for their car windows were littering the freeways across Arizona.
Hopefully this doesn’t turn out the same way. Hopefully we can be the great country we are supposed to be.
B!
Yeah, I said it. Don’t lie, you want to do her too. It might take a few cocktails, but you know you’d do it. Ladies, I’m talking to you too.
Anyway, I have to preface everything I am about to say with this: I did not vote yesterday. I am registered in Flagstaff but live in Mesa right now and I don’t have the money to drive all the way up there to place a vote I didn’t want to make anyway. There was only one thing on the ballot that I cared enough about to vote (I was hoping to see Proposition 102 get shot down, which called for marriage to be defined as between “One Man and One Woman” by the law—unfortunately it didn’t get shot down, so now only straight people are going to be allowed to fuck up the sanctity of marriage).
Even if I had been in Flagstaff, I’m not sure I would have voted for president anyway. The guy I really wanted never made it out of the primaries, and because I am a registered Republican and the guy I wanted was a Democrat, I couldn’t have helped him out of the primaries anyway.
I don’t really like the way the voting system is set up anyway, but I won’t get into that very much, because I have some other things I would like to talk about regarding the new president of the United States and what I saw on the coverage last night.
The first thing that I noticed, and probably the most telling about the difference between the parties and what they stand for, is the choice of venue chosen for the election parties of each party. The Democrats were stationed in a park in Chicago (Grant Park), which was the site of the famed Democratic national convention in 1968. The Republicans, on the other hand, were stationed at The Biltmore in downtown Phoenix.
For those who don’t know Phoenix, The Arizona Biltmore is a hotel in central Phoenix and it is pretty much the symbol for old money in the Valley. Right now their specials for room rates start at $259 per night for the worst room in the place, to give you some kind of idea of the type of hotel we’re looking at. And as an FYI, the Barry Goldwater suite, where the McCain’s were staying, STARTS at $1,000 per night in the off season, and while I’m sure they got it comped to them, I think that speaks volumes.
So, what I noticed about the election parties was that the Republicans held their party in a very elite, inaccessible place known for it’s “old money” smell while the Democrats held their party in a free park in Chicago. This may not seem like much of an issue to some people, but to me it speaks VOLUMES about what the Republican party has grown to stand for since I registered as one in the 1990’s.
Another thing I noticed was the lack of class many of the Republican backers showed during McCain’s speech when he conceded victory to Obama. At the mention of Obama’s name, a spattering of “boos” erupted from his supporters on more than one occasion. While I thought McCain did a good job of putting an end to that, the fact that he even had to just made his supporters look that much worse in my eyes. There were probably 2-3000 people around when he made that speech, and I would guess at least 100-200 of them booed Obama’s name. I do have to give McCain credit, though, because his speech was classy and I have no doubts he will continue to serve his country to the best of his abilities.
Conversely, at Obama’s victory speech (and I’ve got to interject what a cool dude this guy is, he seems like the kind of guy who could get you to buy into an abstinence program from him while he was in the other room humping your sister) when McCain’s name was mentioned, there were actually cheers from the audience. There were probably 70,000 people there and I heard no “boos” at the mention of McCain’s name. Not to say there weren’t any, but if they did boo, they were not close enough to be heard.
I don’t want this to come across as Republican-bashing, because I’m sure if things would have turned out the other way there would have been some boos from the crowd in Chicago, or possibly even a riot, but those were all low- to middle-class people there (except for Oprah, who not only could have bought a new house for everyone there if she wanted to, but she actually had little flecks of gold in her tears if you look closely at the video. Kind of like Goldschlager, only not as fun to drink before singing karaoke) so that type of thing might be expected. I don’t expect that type of behavior from people who are “in the money” so to speak.
The bottom line is that something big happened last night, whether you like it or not. I got the same kind of feeling I got when the twin towers came down in New York—not necessarily as bad of a feeling, just the feeling that the world was about to change. Only time will tell if that’s good or bad for us as a country. 9/11 seemed like it was good for us in the short run, spiking our patriotism to heights I’d never seen it, but not even 6 months later all of the American flags that people had gone out to buy for their car windows were littering the freeways across Arizona.
Hopefully this doesn’t turn out the same way. Hopefully we can be the great country we are supposed to be.
B!
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