The extinction of the American male
This is a result of a grouping of conversations beginning on Facebook from a good friend of mine, which expanded to include my mother... From there, it went over onto my own profile, then a couple of other friends, but the major conversation took place right on my page.
I knew when I responded to Derek on the first one that there would be an exchange to be featured right here on the blog.
Yes, I know that this will make like 4 posts in 2-3 days, but damned if I have it in me to care. I stalled on presenting a "question of the day," so I will go right in on something else born of a Facebook conversation.
It boiled down to what became a status update from me, which read
Moms came with an attempt at distancing or refuting it, pointing out that my brother and I, and those that came up around us are not in that situation, though we were (mostly) raised without my sorry-ass pops.
I quickly reminded her that we, being raised in the 80's, played by a different set of rules. I neglected to remind that we also had a grandfather who more than took up the slack as well, it mattered not to the conversation, but his birthday was this week, so I needed to mention him, God rest his soul.
This hipster shit, though, is something more disheartening. Imagine me, who has lived a life on loose clothings and with a specific set of preferences, and it seems that these days I am under attack.
How, you ask?
2 months ago to the day, The Katie and I went shopping and actually went INTO a Levis store and I was unable to secure a pair of jeans that were not of the "skinny" variety. I understand that there is the 501 classic fit, but the fact is that in terms of jeans fit, they're skinny by today's fat American standards. The issue I had was that the other walls ONLY had the varieties that SPECIFIED that they were "skinny," which left me with NO options for 559, 569 or Silvertabs. I left the store supremely disappointed, especially when I consider that not too long ago, I copped no fewer than 5 pairs in this same store.
It gets worse...
2 weeks ago, JC Penney had a sale on Levis in their store, and this would be compounded with the coupon I had found on the internets, so I swung by on a lunch break, to find that ALL they had were skinny jeans, and like 2 pairs of 569s in size 32... I was no longer just disappointed, I was violently angered with the Levis and JC Penney corporations.
Going through a shopping mall is no better, "urban" stores are now filled with off-brand (this recession, people) skinny jeans and shirts made to be tight so young boys can show off their freshly pierced nipples...
Adorning these shirts and the pockets of the skinny jeans with rhinestones and other blingy bullshit only ups the ruse. I am quite sure that somewhere Liberace is rolling over in his grave for having been ridiculed for looking like this on purpose.
I would be inclined to feel sorry for these young boys, but to do so would be to ignore the problem, which is their fathers -- more specifically the lack thereof.
Hang it up, gentlemen. Unless you do yourselves the service of hanging around long enough to PROPERLY raise your sons, you will remain powerless as you stand by and watch as your boys and others raised without fathers have the bass systemically tuned out of their voices and see them further emasculated in a world full of Supra sneakers, skinny jeans, wallet chains, nerd glasses and mohawks.
You will have no one to blame but yourselves, either. You knew that the chick you laid down with was batshit insane before you ever got naked (or naked enough to insert yourself into her) with her. No, though, you thought with your dick in spite of it. You know what you did next? You took a laissez faire attitude when it came time to decide how it would be that the continuation of your bloodline would be raised.
What happened next, sir, became a tragedy... Sometime soon before or near after reaching adulthood, your son showed up one day with a mohawk with all kinds of hieroglyphic shit carved up in the side of it, the skinniest jeans (extra points in his mind if the material stretches) he could find and God knows he looks as feminine as his mother could have hoped for in all her disappointment that he was not a girl child.
And you let that happen, you should be ashamed of yourself. Look at it like this... It is bad enough that you let her name your son after the rapper she wishes she'd fucked instead of you. It is even worse that you sat silently as she put your son in pink and purple when Cam'Ron had stupid motherfuckers thinking it was cool and that he ever actually really mattered. Now your son has been raised to his mid to late teens with the "men ain't shit" feeling that his mother filled his head with, and has been fully feminized by having ONLY been around bitter women of the same ilk. Imagine how damning that is to a growing boy.
I'll be 31 on my next birthday, and I know for fact that my dad -- while being mostly ineffective as a parent on the whole -- or my granddad would have cracked my fucking head if I came home wearing some shit that looked like it was made for a girl, and I appreciate them for it.
There will be those who argue for leaving shit to be what it is, applying the "well you dudes sagging your jeans; I ask what is it you look to gain by providing easy access to your ass?" question, which totally misses the point, as the "sagging my jeans to show my drawz" sect is another that draws my ire. I speak specifically to the ones in the tight -- sometimes stretch -- jeans tucked into some brightly colored sneakers that more often than not look like fucking space boots. The ones who wear the louvered glasses or feminine buggy sunglasses (even at night) and a shirt so tight it makes it hard for those around him to breathe.
Brother said it best when he paraphrased Dave Chappelle, saying "I ain't saying you're a fag... But you are wearing a fag's uniform."
Further argument for such a thing is tight jean hipster emo rapper supreme Kid Cudi, who apparently was just fine with some guy jumping on stage and kissing him.
The fuck?!!?
Again, I am no homophobe...
Wait, yes I am, oh fucking well. Do what you do, but do that shit over there, please.
My issue, here is that everything has become so "gender neutral" -- to use a term I saw some sickeningly liberal people use on TV last night -- which I will take as a 2010 word describing the androgyny employed in the 80's that saw the last time dudes dressed in tight shit and dolled their heads up like women. Yeah, it looked kinda ghey then too, but the difference was that it WAS ghey, as a right many things in the 80's wound up being just that.
My general approach to anything is to "live and let die," just moving about life doing what I do until there is something standing between me and doing what I do. Now I am in that position. It seems almost as if everyone is expected to conform to or embrace this beta male standard. Everyone now seems to want to follow the standard of being lesser than.
Being a man about anything is all of a sudden less desirable now? We're all supposed to dress in the tightest clothes we can find, discuss everything with what should be the most guarded emotion -- crying not necessary but definitely encouraged -- and become the polar opposite of what is necessary to continue the fucking population?
Fuck that, not me or anyone on my team...
[Phlip note - 5 links, that]
Men will be men, we will be around to properly raise our children and work at stemming the tide of this bullshit.
If, through all of this, they, happen to BE that then we will know at least that it is in earnest and not a grab for attention. Yes, that is a concession that some people are legitimately, um... "like that," but far too many -- usually female, but now increasingly more men -- are doing that shit for attention or as a result of what they see and hear growing up.
... all as a result of a deadly cocktail consisting of Bad/Absent/Irresponsible parenting.
And to think, all of this because I wanted a couple fucking pairs of jeans that didn't show off my ball-print?!!?
I knew when I responded to Derek on the first one that there would be an exchange to be featured right here on the blog.
Yes, I know that this will make like 4 posts in 2-3 days, but damned if I have it in me to care. I stalled on presenting a "question of the day," so I will go right in on something else born of a Facebook conversation.
It boiled down to what became a status update from me, which read
"Skinny jeans and all that come with them are the undoing of the American male... No more bass in the boys' voices,has been tuned out by way of being raised without fathers, and skinny jeans. Emasculation has created a zesty future, the human race is FUCKED! If I catch any of my nephews with skinny jeans or a mohawk, ...I am killing them and their parents on the spot."
And I MEANT that shit.Moms came with an attempt at distancing or refuting it, pointing out that my brother and I, and those that came up around us are not in that situation, though we were (mostly) raised without my sorry-ass pops.
I quickly reminded her that we, being raised in the 80's, played by a different set of rules. I neglected to remind that we also had a grandfather who more than took up the slack as well, it mattered not to the conversation, but his birthday was this week, so I needed to mention him, God rest his soul.
This hipster shit, though, is something more disheartening. Imagine me, who has lived a life on loose clothings and with a specific set of preferences, and it seems that these days I am under attack.
How, you ask?
2 months ago to the day, The Katie and I went shopping and actually went INTO a Levis store and I was unable to secure a pair of jeans that were not of the "skinny" variety. I understand that there is the 501 classic fit, but the fact is that in terms of jeans fit, they're skinny by today's fat American standards. The issue I had was that the other walls ONLY had the varieties that SPECIFIED that they were "skinny," which left me with NO options for 559, 569 or Silvertabs. I left the store supremely disappointed, especially when I consider that not too long ago, I copped no fewer than 5 pairs in this same store.
It gets worse...
2 weeks ago, JC Penney had a sale on Levis in their store, and this would be compounded with the coupon I had found on the internets, so I swung by on a lunch break, to find that ALL they had were skinny jeans, and like 2 pairs of 569s in size 32... I was no longer just disappointed, I was violently angered with the Levis and JC Penney corporations.
Going through a shopping mall is no better, "urban" stores are now filled with off-brand (this recession, people) skinny jeans and shirts made to be tight so young boys can show off their freshly pierced nipples...
Adorning these shirts and the pockets of the skinny jeans with rhinestones and other blingy bullshit only ups the ruse. I am quite sure that somewhere Liberace is rolling over in his grave for having been ridiculed for looking like this on purpose.
I would be inclined to feel sorry for these young boys, but to do so would be to ignore the problem, which is their fathers -- more specifically the lack thereof.
Hang it up, gentlemen. Unless you do yourselves the service of hanging around long enough to PROPERLY raise your sons, you will remain powerless as you stand by and watch as your boys and others raised without fathers have the bass systemically tuned out of their voices and see them further emasculated in a world full of Supra sneakers, skinny jeans, wallet chains, nerd glasses and mohawks.
You will have no one to blame but yourselves, either. You knew that the chick you laid down with was batshit insane before you ever got naked (or naked enough to insert yourself into her) with her. No, though, you thought with your dick in spite of it. You know what you did next? You took a laissez faire attitude when it came time to decide how it would be that the continuation of your bloodline would be raised.
What happened next, sir, became a tragedy... Sometime soon before or near after reaching adulthood, your son showed up one day with a mohawk with all kinds of hieroglyphic shit carved up in the side of it, the skinniest jeans (extra points in his mind if the material stretches) he could find and God knows he looks as feminine as his mother could have hoped for in all her disappointment that he was not a girl child.
And you let that happen, you should be ashamed of yourself. Look at it like this... It is bad enough that you let her name your son after the rapper she wishes she'd fucked instead of you. It is even worse that you sat silently as she put your son in pink and purple when Cam'Ron had stupid motherfuckers thinking it was cool and that he ever actually really mattered. Now your son has been raised to his mid to late teens with the "men ain't shit" feeling that his mother filled his head with, and has been fully feminized by having ONLY been around bitter women of the same ilk. Imagine how damning that is to a growing boy.
I'll be 31 on my next birthday, and I know for fact that my dad -- while being mostly ineffective as a parent on the whole -- or my granddad would have cracked my fucking head if I came home wearing some shit that looked like it was made for a girl, and I appreciate them for it.
There will be those who argue for leaving shit to be what it is, applying the "well you dudes sagging your jeans; I ask what is it you look to gain by providing easy access to your ass?" question, which totally misses the point, as the "sagging my jeans to show my drawz" sect is another that draws my ire. I speak specifically to the ones in the tight -- sometimes stretch -- jeans tucked into some brightly colored sneakers that more often than not look like fucking space boots. The ones who wear the louvered glasses or feminine buggy sunglasses (even at night) and a shirt so tight it makes it hard for those around him to breathe.
Brother said it best when he paraphrased Dave Chappelle, saying "I ain't saying you're a fag... But you are wearing a fag's uniform."
Further argument for such a thing is tight jean hipster emo rapper supreme Kid Cudi, who apparently was just fine with some guy jumping on stage and kissing him.
The fuck?!!?
Again, I am no homophobe...
Wait, yes I am, oh fucking well. Do what you do, but do that shit over there, please.
My issue, here is that everything has become so "gender neutral" -- to use a term I saw some sickeningly liberal people use on TV last night -- which I will take as a 2010 word describing the androgyny employed in the 80's that saw the last time dudes dressed in tight shit and dolled their heads up like women. Yeah, it looked kinda ghey then too, but the difference was that it WAS ghey, as a right many things in the 80's wound up being just that.
My general approach to anything is to "live and let die," just moving about life doing what I do until there is something standing between me and doing what I do. Now I am in that position. It seems almost as if everyone is expected to conform to or embrace this beta male standard. Everyone now seems to want to follow the standard of being lesser than.
Being a man about anything is all of a sudden less desirable now? We're all supposed to dress in the tightest clothes we can find, discuss everything with what should be the most guarded emotion -- crying not necessary but definitely encouraged -- and become the polar opposite of what is necessary to continue the fucking population?
Fuck that, not me or anyone on my team...
[Phlip note - 5 links, that]
Men will be men, we will be around to properly raise our children and work at stemming the tide of this bullshit.
If, through all of this, they, happen to BE that then we will know at least that it is in earnest and not a grab for attention. Yes, that is a concession that some people are legitimately, um... "like that," but far too many -- usually female, but now increasingly more men -- are doing that shit for attention or as a result of what they see and hear growing up.
... all as a result of a deadly cocktail consisting of Bad/Absent/Irresponsible parenting.
And to think, all of this because I wanted a couple fucking pairs of jeans that didn't show off my ball-print?!!?
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