In an effort to determine how masculine I appear to others — and what role perception plays in that determination — I spent the better part of this afternoon in my front yard, lifting weights in a sleeveless tartan flannel and steel-toed work boots, sipping gin gimlets and listening to a mix tape heavy with Depeche Mode and Erasure.
The idea was to contrive a social text consisting of a series of conventional signifiers such that I’d be setting up an interesting experiment for weighing the cultural trappings of “masculinity” against their (ostensible) opposites.
Alas, turns out drinking a pitcher of lime-drenched Bombay Sapphire in the sun after a round of intense circuit training isn’t a particularly well-considered plan — so unfortunately, all I really have to show for the whole experiment is a nasty burn on my upper arms and thighs, and the eight crumpled singles I found stuffed into the waistband of my bike shorts when I finally came to.
Developing…
Huh. I’ve never lifted weights in a kilt. I’ll have to give it a go.
BTW, my sgian dubh goes to eleven.
LOL.
Gin gimlets and Depeche Mode…dude, I’m about to call for your man card.
8 dollars?!!! 8 freaking dollars?!!!! And all singles?!!!
There’s your answer…
now if you had say… 12 dollars, and at least one was a fiver… well now THAT’S manly…
“I spent the better part of this afternoon in my front yard, lifting weights in a sleeveless tartan flannel and steel-toed work boots…”
And you sold a whole mess of Bounty Paper Towels…
Because people were grossed out by Brawny, GMG?
“Mutiny on the Brawny.”
Had to say it first.
If you skip the bike shorts you’ll have more chafing but you’ll make more cash.
The sad thing is, whoever slipped Jeff those bills also stole his sporran.
*burns Depech Mode and Erasure CDs *
Youda made ten easy , if the pasties didn’t keep falling off …..
If there is one thing we scots can’t stomach, it’s a sporran thief … and the french.
Bike shorts? Erasure? Gin Gimlets? Oh, the humanity. Lucky for you to get away with only losing a bit of your memory.
If that’s masculine, I gotta say…
You guys are kinda fruity around there.
Me likes ! Can we come visit ?
I like Depeche Mode. I think they’re important.
I thought all the Citizen Journalist posts included video…
I just noticed the Greatest Hits column has an Uncategorized section. Doesn’t that mean that your uncategorized posts are now categorized? How very Schroedinger’s cat…
happyfeet – Important in what kind of way? Important like the car crash on the evening news, or like a group that changed music going forward?
Sorry, Jeff, all I had were ones.
Important I guess in being impactful by leveraging a fairly circumscribed amount of raw talent. They were authentic, their music was in synchronicity with all the other signifiers a band uses to define themselves (contrast with matchbox 20). I don’t know what they did for music exactly, but like Madonna, they made a lot of people think that if them why not us, and that’s something that your Prince or U2 or Tori Amos can’t really accomplish.
How do you suppose hip-hop got so big so fast?
How do you suppose hip-hop got so big so fast?
Is this a rhetorical question?
I’m cereal.
Oh, and since I seem to be working very hard at turning my husband into a metrosexual, what with the chocolates and lotion bars and all, I feel obligated to mention that I just opened up a bottle of Strawberry Riesling from Iron Mountain Winery in Flatiron Crossing for our after-dinner chill-out. It’s the vintner’s version of a pink cocktail with fruit on a toothpick and an umbrella.
Breakfast of hypermasculine champions, Happyfeet.
Alice – Why don’t you just chop off his nuts with a rusty machete. The pain will go away more quickly, and the end result will be the same. LOL
I should probably have two bowls.
” after-dinner chill-out. ”
Yikes ! Sounds kinda gay… ahem …. less than hyper-masculine ….
Sounds like he needs to turn in his man-card ;-)
AAAAAAAAA! Alice, NO! Come back from the Dark Side.
I remember when my wife and I used to drink white zin. That was bad enough, but strawberry riesling?? Why don’t you just melt some cherry lifesavers in a pan and pour in some lighter fluid?
Alice – At least let him sleep with his nuts. You can take them back in the morning, before y’all head out for your daily routines.
“If you skip the bike shorts you’ll have more chafing but you’ll make more cash.”
Yeah, but think of where they’ll be tucking the bills…
Not to mention the one schmuck who’s been soaking his Susan B. Anthony’s in the ice cubes melting on the bar…
We would prefer that you wear a jock strap, and nothing else.
– Singles?…What kind of cheap floozies populate your neck of the woods?…
– when you get to where you can spend the entire sun filled day swigging rum from a quart jug between 20 rep sets, and still be lucid enough to end the day by chopping a few cords of wood without axing one of your feet, you’ll be ready to shop your local Harley boutique for your biker kit, grab a few water tatoos, and a set of Elvis shades, and apply for your Hyper Man-card.
– That automatically gets you a life time membership in Billy Jacks Manly Man Club, A parking spot with your name on it at the Raiders Collisium, coupons for discount Steroids, a 1 year free subscription to Man-Length Magazine, 10 dollars off at Golds Gym, and a gift certificate from Pecs-R-Us. So get butt cracking.
Hey, I happen to think Black Celebration is a damn fine album. Okay, maybe it wasn’t super manly, but it still holds up well after more than twenty years.
Funny stuff, for certain. Good times.
…
…
Oh, Nevermind.
Jeff had singles left. Wouldn’t a real man have
left them in the stripper’s gartersspent them all?Of course, Mrs. D. would have spent them all.
Is this a trick question?
I think this proves Jeff is not human.
Alas, turns out drinking a pitcher of lime-drenched Bombay Sapphire
That’s a Gimlet! Are you really an old British Upper Class Lady?
I’m all confused by this masculine stuff lately. Am I less masculine if I tell Jeff calling his plaid shirt “tartan” doesn’t sound very masculine? It may make me sound like some kind of sissy, but I think he may as well be calling it a blouse.
A Scotsman clad in kilt left the bar one evening fair,
And you could tell by how he walked, That he’d drunk more than his share.
He fumbled ’round until he could no longer Keep his feet,
And he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street.
Chorus:
Ring-ting-tiddle diddle i-dee-yoo,
Ring-tie diddle-de i-oh,
He stumbled off onto the grass to sleep beside the street.
At this time two Young and Lovely Girls just happened by,
And one says to the other, with a Twinkle in her eye,
“See yon sleeping Scotsman, so strong and handsome built,
“I wonder if it’s true what they don’t wear beneath their kilt”
Chorus:
Ring-ting-tiddle diddle i-dee-yoo,
Ring-tie diddle-de i-oh,
“I wonder if it’s true what they don’t wear beneath their kilt”
They crept up on that sleeping Scotsman quiet as could be.
They lifted up his kilt about an inch so they could see:
And there, behold for them to view, beneath his Scottish skirt,
‘Twas nothing more than God had grace’d him with, upon his birth!
Chorus:
Ring-ting-tiddle diddle i-dee-yoo,
Ring-tie diddle-de i-oh,
‘Twas nothing more than God had grace’d him with, upon his birth!
They marveled for a moment, and one said “We must be gone —
“Let’s leave a present for our Friend, before we move along.”
As a gift they left a Blue Silk Ribbon, tied into a bow,
Around the Bonnie Star the Scot’s kilt did lift and show.
Chorus:
Ring-ting tiddle diddle i-dee-yoo,
Ring-tie diddle-de i-oh,
Around the Bonnie Star the Scot’s kilt did lift and show.
The Scotsman woke to Nature’s Call, and stumbled t’wards the trees
Behind a bush he lifts his Kilt, and gawks at what he sees.
And in a Startled Voice, he says, to what’s before his eyes,
“Ach, Lad, I dunno where ya bin, but I see you won First Prize!”
Big Dan: and my cubicle neighbors are now wondering whta the hll I am laughing about.
Big Dan:
I actually heard that song on a Conn. radio station performed by a folk band several years ago and thought, at the time, it was one of the happiest, funniest songs I had ever heard. It’s been years! Ya got any info on where you got it from?
Geezer: your cubical neighbors are plotting against you. :-)
Heck, back when Kim Peterson was still on WGST Atlanta — doing mornings for a few years — he used to play that Scotsman song every Friday at the start of his show.
Maybe if you started off with black leather jeans, you might have got more…
Faggots.
Faggots. Elegant in its simplicity. Thank you, Breck Girl.
> I actually heard that song on a Conn. radio station
> performed by a folk band several years ago and
> thought, at the time, it was one of the happiest,
> funniest songs I had ever heard. It’s been years!
> Ya got any info on where you got it from?
I got it from my brain. Literally. As in, I had to sing it to myself in order to remember and type the lyrics.
I heard it likely from Dr. Demento, either a tape or CD. I played and replayed it to commit it to a carefully cordoned section of my brain.
The singer is Bryan Bowers, full discography is here:
http://dmdb.org/lyrics/scotsman.html
I love that song. [sniff]. So beautiful…