| Wednesday, May 30, 2007 |
| THE MODERN REAL MAN |
 In the past, it was easy to be a Real Man. All you had to do was abuse women, steal land from Indians, and find some place to dump the toxic waste.
But not anymore.
Society is much more complex today. We live with different threats and terrors. Robots are challenging us for spots on GM assembly lines. Women are demanding things like equality and respect/ And instead of merely having to protect themselves against gunslingers and poker cheats, men today face a far more sinister crowd of predators: IRS agents, uninsured motorists, meter maids, carcinogenic food additives and electronic banking machines.
So what, then, makes someone a Real Man today? What sets him apart from the average Joe who cant' find his car in the shopping mall parking lot? Or the joker who takes girl out on her dream date -- only to have the computer reject his credit card at the end of the meal?
How does he prove himself, now that things like barroom brawling, waging war, and baby-seal killing are frowned upon by polite society?
The answer is simple.
A Real Man today is someone who can triumph over the challenges of modern society.
Real Men, for example, do not cower and shake in the face of double-digit inflation.
Real Men do not worry about diminishing ozone layer.
Real Mean are not intimated by microwave radiation; they're not afraid to fly DC-10s, drive Corvairs or invest in the city of St. Louis municipal bonds.
In short, strength and bravery are still the hallmark of today's Real Man; but he's just found modern ways to show it.
Real Men carry cash. Never the American Express card.
Real Men don't buy flight insurance.
Real Men don't smoke low-tar cigarettes.
Real Men don't take guff from French maitre d's.
Real Men don't cry during the "Mary Tyler Moore Show".
Going further, today's Real Man is still interested in the Spartan, simple life. He still believes in "roughing it"; he doesn't own a shower massage, remote-control TV, or an electric blanket.
Real Men don't floss.
Real Men don't use ZIP codes.
Real Men don't have telephones in the shape of snoopy.
Real Men don't drive Volvos because they're supposedly safer; they don't have special jogging shoes or telephone answering machines. (Real Men, after all are secure enough to know that if it's important,people will call back).
Real Men don't itemize their tax deductions.
Real Men still pass in the no-passing lane.
A Real Man would never use a designated hitter. But this is only the tip of the modern Real Man's psyche.
Today's Real Man is intelligent and astute; he's nobody's fool.
Real Men know that things don't really go better with Coke; he's not really in good hands with Allstate; and weekends were -- in fact -- not made for Michelob.
Real Men understand that using Jimmy Connors tennis racquet will not improve a weak backhand; they realize that designer jeans, Paco Rabane and Ruinite on ice will not help seduce any women whose IQ is higher than the average number of a UHF television station.
Basically, today's Real Man is unaffected by fads or fashion.
Real Men don't disco.
Real Men don't eat brunch.
Real Men don't meditate, roll, practice Tai Chi, or use hair thickeners.
Real Men don't advertise in the Personals section of the Village Voice o=for female companionship.
Real Men don't play games with wine in restaurants; they don't sniff the cork and say things like: "Its a small, unpretentious, fruitty red, with ambitious overtones of Bordeaux" about a four-dollar bottle of Ripple.
Real Men don't need water beds, lava lights, musk oil, mirrors on the ceiling X-rated videocassettes, or Ravel's Bolero.
Real Men don't want Bo Derek.
Real Men don't use black condoms.
Real Men stop reading - and writing - letters to Penthouse when they're sixteen.
Real Men are secure enough to admit they buy Playboy for women.
Politically, Real Men today are, well, realistic.
They don't trust the French.
They don't rely on NATO.
They don't contribute to PBS.
They don't believe in bilingual education.
They don't belong to the National Riffle Association.
And Real Men don't believe in the United Nations.
("After 35 years," say Real Men, "all they've prove capable of doing is producing marginally attractive Christmas card".)
Unlike his predecessors, today's Real Man actually can feel things like sorrow, pity, love, warmth, and sincerity; but he'd never be so vulnerable as to admit them.
All told, today's Real Man is probably closest to Spencer Tracy or Gary Cooper in spirit; he realizes that while birds, flowers, poetry and Small children do not add to the quality of life in the same manner as a Super Bowl and six-pack of Bud, he's learned to appreciate them anyway.
But perhaps there's one phrase that sums up his very existence, a simple declaration that he finds symbolic of everything in today's word that's phony, affected, limp, or without merit;
Real Men don't eat quiche.
Admittedly, this may seem - if you'll forgive the pun- a bit hard to swallow at first.
But think about it.
Could John Wayne ever have taken Normandy, Iwo Jima, Korea, the Gulf of Tonkin and the entire Wild West on a diet of quiche and salad?
(Source: Abstracted from the book"Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, A Guidebook to All That Is Truly Masculine" by: Bruce Feirstein) |
| posted by infraternam meam @ 8:56 PM |
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| About Me |
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Name: infraternam meam
Home: Chicago, United States
About Me: I am now at the prime of my life
and have been married for the past 25 years.
Sickly at times, but wants to see the elixir vita,
so that I will be able to see my grandchildren from my two boys.
See my complete profile
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