Brooklyn

Men Who Read Margaret Atwood.

February 4, 2019 — Leave a comment

One understands that in the era of what “men” will look back upon as the Henpecking Dark Ages after they inevitably reclaim their power upon finally making The Handmaiden’s Tale a reality that, in the now, it’s very important to come across as “feministic.” For self-preservation purposes more than a genuine belief in the merits of women beyond their mouths when they’re not talking. Of course, what greater emblem, literary or otherwise, of said adjective is there than Margaret Atwood? She, the grand creator of dystopian realities generally involving more pronounced instances of female subjugation, has become quite “accessible” all of the sudden to the average “bloke,” particularly the kind bearing a blanco skin tone.

He wants everyone around him to know that he “gets it.” He gets it so much that he wants to make sure you see he gets it by carrying around a large hardcover book with him throughout town so that everyone everywhere can comprehend just how “with it” he is. Though if he was actually with it, he might consider buying a fucking “man” bag so as not to be forced to carry such a cumbersome tome. But then, that would defeat the entire purpose of reading Margaret Atwood, wouldn’t it? If it was concealed within a glorified purse. How would anyone know what a “man” just minding his own business with no intent of reading for mere show was reading if he couldn’t demonstrate it with a handsome and large edition?

“We should all be feminists,” sure. But we should not all read Margaret Atwood to fucking prove it.

 

 

 

 

Men Who Engage in the Ten-Year Challenge.

January 21, 2019 — Leave a comment

As though “men” needed to pretend in some way–once more–that their looks have any bearing on their ability to “snag” a broad, their strange participation in the “ten-year challenge” that has taken all social media avenues by storm seems but only one more reason to prove to women that we should all surrender to going lez or asexual. For there is nothing sadder than seeing just how much more pronounced guts and receding hairlines have gotten over the years. And yet, women are supposed to somehow be endlessly impressed that a “man” has remained so “intact.” So “well-preserved.” Even though no matter how fucking ugly he was then and now, his odds of getting just about anyone he wants will not be affected as the ratio of heterosexual men to women only continues to tip in favor of the former.

Still, the “man” participating in the ten-year challenge ultimately just wants to seem relatable and timelessly “fun-loving.” As prone to “tomfoolery” then as he is now (kind of  like Brett Kavanaugh). And he’s got the same “timeless” flannel shirt likely from American Eagle or Abercrombie to prove it. Or, depending on his “niche,” maybe Gap or Old Navy. He’s not really sure what he’s trying to convey with this side by side glance at fast existentialism, but he knows everyone else is doing it–and he’ll be damned if he can’t still get laid tonight based on 2019’s photo.

Men Who Wear Black Turtlenecks.

January 6, 2019 — Leave a comment

As Shania Twain probably should have contributed to a lyric for “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” “Okay, so you have a black turtleneck and think you’re Kerouac or some shit.” For yes, it is only in this one respect–if you are actually a beatnik living in the 60s of Paris, San Francisco or New York–that it would be even remotely “acceptable” to wear a turtleneck, let alone a black one. While some would argue that it’s a perfectly timeless fashionable winter statement, there is something very deliberate in a “man’s” choice to don this particular absence of color in turtleneck form.

More often than not, he is a “writer.” Or rather an “aspirant.” A motherfucking poseur, if you will. And because of his own latent insecurities about a talent that is not latent so much as nonexistent, he makes up for it in the aesthetics of what he believes a Writer with a capital “w” would wear. Your Dostoyevskys and your Tolstoys and your Chekhovs. Granted, all of the aforementioned had the viable excuse of living in the frigid airs of Russia that might have justified them wearing a goddamn turtleneck beneath their furs. What excuse does the slack-jawed white “man” sitting in front of a Mac as he “thoughtfully” takes years to never complete his opus have?

This is precisely why a girl, if she knows what’s good for her (especially in terms of ever hoping to encounter a “man” who isn’t more selfish and stingy than usual), ought to run in the other direction if she ever sees a “male” in her vicinity in this specific style choice (particularly if there’s only a mild chill in the air). For is a black turtleneck ever just a black turtleneck on a “man”? Absolutely fucking not. Like all of us, a “man’s” fashion choices are calculated, even if they reside somewhere in the “subconscious.” Which is where all of “men’s” darkest desires come to roost in the conscious world. On a side note, did you know col roulé in French means pretentious twat with vocal intonations like farts as he explains Turgenev’s brilliance to you?

Men Who Are Driven Solely By a Desire to Usurp Their Father in “Success.”

December 14, 2018 — Leave a comment

While the hands of time might persist in rendering us all genderless by 2030, there will always remain that one sect of “male”–that rare breed still born into money–that can’t help but be driven by an innate desire to usurp his father’s “success” (the Bush family generally comes to mind). This, in white “male” speak, pertains to 1) having more money and 2) procuring a more synthetic wife, paired with a younger mistress. As for poor sons born to middle class fathers, well, no one talks about them, unless it’s a story like A Bronx Tale.

The issue with this little plot to overthrow Daddy as the unshakeable patriarch is that no son can ever truly outshine the father that bore him into wealth in the first place. There is nothing impressive about a rich “boy” who becomes richer just because he slummed it a few years by not automatically becoming a CEO or senator. It goes against the very fabric of the falsity of the American dream, which still touts capitalism as a fair means to rise to the top by your own bootstraps. Thus, it is as Bob Dylan phrased it in “Temporary Like Achilles”: “I’m helpless, like a rich man’s child.”

That helplessness stems from the fact that a son can never outshine son cher papa on the integrity of merit. Even if he renounces access to the bank account and changes his last name, he will always know the cushion is there, just waiting to catch him if and when he should encounter a snag in the plan to Oedipally topple Father. And no, one doesn’t feel sorry for this pathetic and inane drive to outperform Dad’s success, particularly when the inheritance finally rolls in and the new patriarch by default–not by honor–can rename the family yacht anything cheeky directed at his father that he wants. The rich son wins by outliving his father, and by that alone. Just look at the Amises.

Men Who Assume That Their Material Success Is Enough to Impress.

October 29, 2018 — 1 Comment

Though we keep telling ourselves that gender roles are an illusion (and soon enough so will reality be altogether thanks to, among other things, persistent hologram concerts from the likes of Roy Orbison and Amy Winehouse), it would seem that many “men” still rely on the tried and true Jay Gatsby go-to of making a shit ton of money in order to both impress therefore “procure” a woman. Tragically, what he can’t seem to procure is a clue regarding how to be sociable in a way that doesn’t scream “eccentric millionaire” (although one hopes, at the very least, not at quite the same decibel as Howard Hughes). So he goes about his usual manner of being a bumbling idiot that somehow managed to make him vast sums of money not in the face of but precisely because he is socially inept and generally daft.

The girl, of course, is partially at fault for falling into the cliche trap of wanting to be, to use a gross, parody of something Frank Sinatra would say, wined and dined, allowing herself to fall prey to the inevitable sandpaper hangout session. Because, what can she say, that statistic about women making seventy-five cents for every dollar a “man” makes still rings true, and thusly, she could use a paid for meal every now and again. Yet for all his best attempts to treat the dinner like a job interview and go on about his various qualifications for the role of potential fuck and maybe–if she’s lucky–boyfriend, she is, as usual, of the Shania bent, not impressed much. And in truth, sort of just trying to get through the dinner without vomiting her food too prematurely (that’s for later, in the privacy of her own bathroom). So it must be said that just because a “man” has a wallet more burgeoning and thrilling than his so-called panisse does not mean it is enough to 1) keep a woman’s interest or 2) even reel her in in the first place. Because there’s something to be said for the non-faux pretension of poverty dick. Crusty though it may be.

 

 

Men Who Balk At the Bourgeois Lifestyle.

September 26, 2018 — 1 Comment

Because stereotypes make everything easier and generally hold some grain of longstanding truth (e.g. Italian Americans working in construction or plumbing), it is safe to say that the reason “men” hold such general contempt for women is a result of their many luxury “needs” (though some “males” would like to deny their unwitting complicity in the success of the beauty and fashion industries). The things, in short, that make them so very susceptible to desiring and coveting the bourgeois lifestyle. Certainly, it’s not as on blast as it was in the 50s, when Lucy was asking for all manner of increase in her allowance from Ricky, or in the 80s, when Bret Easton Ellis was inspired to write about someone as frivolous as Evelyn in American Psycho. But the residual materialistic airhead trope is hard to shake even with the firm presence of the twenty-first century as well (see: Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, Kylie Jenner specifically and, for some reason, Tiffany Trump).

The resentment “men” have toward women of this nature (which is to say, most of them), stems from the reflection it gives back of his own inadequacy as a functioning member of a capitalist society (the only society still recognized by mainstream media). Because, yes, for the most part, “a scrub is a guy who thinks he’s fly” but also has no fucking money to at least back up a shitty, irascible personality in addition to being bad in bed. So it is that they balk at the bourgeoisie so as to make themselves feel slightly less deficient about being unable to ever be a part of it. Because you know goddamn well if you could be, you would be. That you would not be so quick to balk at an endless reserve of cash if you could actually access it without more than the effort it takes you to get out of your pathetic excuse for a bed.

Balking also aids in convincing the girl whose vagina they’ve briefly managed to enter that she’s the one who’s in the wrong–insane, in short–for wanting access to such vacuous things as a memory foam mattress or a Nespresso maker. Convince her that it’s the more proverbial “man” who has infected her brain with these false and inane aspirations that set us all back to the June Cleaver era. But like, again, if these things were handed to a “man” instead of him actually having to work for them, where would his balking be then? Probably slightly muffled by the taste of homemade bread from a stand mixer.

Men Who Have Google Alerts On Their Name.

September 21, 2018 — Leave a comment

While we are all aware that the “democratization” of fame has been a blessing for some (e.g. Tao Lin), for most of the rest of us, it has come with the curse of being able to instantly pinpoint the ego of the type of “man” who would be unable to resist turning on a Google alert for whenever his name comes up in an article from a semi on the radar website (blogs, of course, obviously don’t count).

The desire to know he’s being talked about is more of a source of ejaculation potential than analog banging ever could be (because how can a “man’s” ego possibly be fortified by his fucking skills these days?). “I didn’t see that article come up in my Google notifications,” he’ll admit unabashedly when someone mentions they saw something about him on the internet recently. It’s the kind of exchange that tends only to occur in New York, where everyone keeps track of everyone for the sake of knowing where their place is on the insignificant totem pole called “talentless microcosm.”

The “man” who needs to be notified of being “eloquently discussed” by some middling “publication” (non-ink laden with typos and grammatical errors, as it were) is clearly clinging to whatever bread crumbs of relevancy he can in order to stave off the unshakeable thought that he is just as irrelevant and meaningless as he knows himself to be deep down. But with the “frequency” of Google alerts, he can help perpetuate the fallacy of self-importance that his Asian girlfriend can only do so much to support as one person. It is the foremost tool of modern “fame” that has been perhaps one of the greatest contributors to the deterioration in quality of art. Because if you’re only in it to see how many times your name crops up in some crevice of the internet, how can you possibly create something enduring? What’s more, high-level fame (the Madonna tier) does not require one to be notified of their “many” achievements if there are enough to lose track of.

 

Men Who Agree to Partake of Embarrassing Engagement Photos.

August 30, 2018 — Leave a comment

One understands that, more than ever in this day and age, whenever a “man” miraculously consents to be pinned down via the binding ties of marriage, he’s probably especially prone to castration and other “light” methods of the gradual chopping off of his entire remaining wang. Even so, it is still difficult to fathom his ability to surrender all control over his dignity by consenting to partake of shameful photos that are really just intended to make the “unattached” women in his fiancée’s life feel bad about themselves.

Sure, maybe a standard-issue couple photo featuring the two against some tritely idyllic backdrop could pass for the “man” at least having some say in the matter. But when it reaches the level of intricacy that only a female could be responsible for (e.g. posing as an infinity circle on the floor together dressed in flesh-colored bodysuits for some reason or, worse yet, in the shape of a heart in red bodysuits), you have to wonder if there’s something particularly brilliant she must be doing to his nub behind closed doors to get him to relinquish all forms of self-respect in public. But alas, no probably not–for “men” get aroused by nothing more in this life, it would seem, than the type of basique who posts shit about tiles while in Lisbon. It is for love of this type of melba that he will let all sense of former honor for the self fly out the window of his bachelor pad and into the carefully decorated (but still somehow banal) mortgage payment-heavy home he must now share with his new wife. And it is a transition, a death of the soul (if a “man” can ever be deemed so generously as even having one to begin with), that the clearly non-discerning “male” feels (or perhaps doesn’t feel at all) inclined to immortalize in humiliating photo form. Because behind the words “I do” also, apparently, lingers the fine print, “I do…agree to spend an exorbitant sum of money to make my fiancée feel like she can at least pretend there’s anything straight about me even though she’s wielding me like a Barbie doll for her own sadistic dress up purposes and scenario creation pleasure.”

Men Who Make Specific Demands in Bed Right Out the Gate.

August 28, 2018 — 1 Comment

Even though it’s a commonly held belief that women are nothing but mere receptacles for the pleasure release of “men,” it does not mean that they should be subjected to the shameless and free-flowing “requests” (a euphemism for demands) of the “male,” and all the strange predilections his psyche can muster. Of which there are many, especially when taking into account the fact that “men” so often suppress their true fancies from an early age, made to feel by both their overbearing mothers and society itself that even something as vanilla as wanting a finger up the ass now and again is pure taboo.

With such forms of stifled yearning ingrained within the “average” “man,” can it be any wonder, then, that the second he loses inhibitions (the way one only can when his clothes are off and his alcohol intake met) long enough, he suddenly feels all too comfortable to make such very specific demands as, “Can you hold my balls while we fuck?” Uh, yeah, sure. Whatever works, you fucking weirdo. The fact that a “man” is so relaxed in expressing his strange brand of needs for orgasming so readily at the outset is not only telling of how often women are viewed as merely a means to an end, but also of how he’s clearly been champing at the bit to see how one woman reacts over another to whatever his bizarre whim is.

While it’s all perfectly on the level to engage in the quid pro quo acrobatic antics it can sometimes take to get off, it’s generally more appealing when these barking insistences are made to someone that a “man” is actually in a relationship with. Then again, thanks to the alive and well Madonna/whore complex, it is too frequently the case that a “man” feels he could never entreat a girl that he would be with monogamously to do such “freaky” things as the butter churner position (which, by the way, is a position best loved by the “male” who particularly enjoys manifesting the female as a human trash can).

Men Who “Play” Air Guitar.

August 8, 2018 — Leave a comment

Like many “concepts” favoring the championing of the non-real and intangible, air guitar seems to find enthusiasm among those who aren’t really capable of doing anything that actually creates something. Other than a breeze if you happen to be walking by their hands whilst they’re “playing” whatever little song they imagine in their head (what else could it be other than something from the Pete Wentz classification of “rock”?). For some reason, this practice seems to be most especially relished by “men” (though let us not forget Nanami “Seven Seas” Nagura claiming the title of Air Guitar World Champion in 2014). Maybe it has something to do with the symbolic fact that they don’t actually want to hold or touch anything–least of all a woman–lest it means they remain saddled with it (gasp! potentially for the rest of their lives).

What’s more, how can someone actually stand there, so shamelessly in front of a public, making masturbatory movements with their hands and call it anything other than comfortableness with delusion? Which, yes, “men” are far more comfortable with than women, made evident by their ability to act as though everything is fine without displaying any signs of going off the rails as a female would (e.g. the classic go-to of head-shaving)–other than, say, playing air guitar and acting like it’s completely normal to stand on a stage and be judged in such categories as “mimesmanship.” To that point, “men” are quite good at miming, exhibiting the capability to go through motions with such conviction as to almost make you believe there’s any sense of emotion behind that sweaty and unkempt chaff they call their body. But there’s not. And no amount of air guitar “playing” can make it otherwise. So please keep the practice where it belongs: in the privacy of the room in your parents’ house they were kind enough to give back to you or in the decade of the 1980s.