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Ever since I was a little girl, I've loved a man with a beard. To me, they meant strength, power, MANLINESS. Someone who could protect me. Unfortunately, you guys have turned it into a fashion statement. The beard has turned into the padded bra of masculinity. Sure it looks sexy, but whatcha got under there? There's a whole generation running around looking like lumberjacks, and most of you can't change a f**king tire."
"Look, I get it. I really do. I understand the motivation behind your beardedness. In fact, I even pity you. Thousands of years of evolution priming you guys to kill stuff, and chase stuff, and f**k stuff....and now what? You're stuck at a desk all day. No battles to fight. No wars to wage. So you assert your masculinity the only way you know how. You brew beer. You grow some hair on your face." (
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32 comments:
Guys can't fix anything. Girls can't cook. A huge swath of the population is entirely helpless and would go extinct without their lessors. It takes a village to make you worthless.
Manliness? Surely there is app for that.
I cut down trees. WITH MY BEARD! Take that, pussyboys!
Grooming products - feh - a bit of delousing once in a while is all it takes.
if I saw a bearded man it was safe to assume certain things about him. Like, he probably owned a hammer. Or washed his hair with a bar of Irish Spring. His beard was probably scented with motor oil and probably had remnants of last night's chili in it.
Dumbplumber (my ever lovin' husband) has a beard. I wouldn't recognize him without it :-) He owns not only several hammers, but also tractors, a backhoe, automotive tools and lots of power tools. No left over chili or motor oil in the beard. The Dumbplumber does have good personal hygiene since he deals with a lot of gross substances in his work and wants to stay healthy. He washes his beard, and other parts, with whatever shampoo or soap happens to be in the shower. Usually Pantene or Ivory soap or maybe one of those little soaps from a hotel. Whatever. Hands are cleaned with Soft Scrub with bleach and a stiff brush followed by an application of Bag Balm. That's what all the concrete guys do to keep their hands from falling off. Grooming the beard consists of using the electric dog grooming kit once a week or so.
Not a fashion plate or hipster, my guy, In the dictionary where it says
"Get 'er done"....it has his picture.
When the Zombie apocalypse arrives, I'm pretty sure we'll cope.
:-)
Speak for yourself
I assert my masculinity by howling at the moon with the Old Dawgz!
I assert my masculinity by telling women what lingerie looks best on them and will get them laid.
You are either a man or you are not. What you do doesn't make you a man. It is how you act.
If you do what you say you're going to do and do what you feel like doing then enough said. Any douche who wears (or yells!) "masculinity" like a merit badge is a poseur.
What Bags said.
The author's description as "an ex-drug addict, ex-felon, ex-slutbag" should probably excite at least one of the commenters.
I thought that rant was so over the top silly that it was hilarious.
Probably three quarters of the comments on the beard blog were serious, all offense and outrage. There were even a couple of women pointing out how misogynist it was to imply that you wanted a guy to protect you, hunt for you, and f*ck you. (Because real women don't want those things *at* *all*.)
As for how helpless young people seem to be... I'm pretty helpless. I constantly feel like I don't know how to do normal things and at almost 50 I still call my folks for practical advice. I feel like I didn't do enough to make sure my kids knew how to do practical things, like change a tire. My "moved away" kid calls me sometimes but what she says is, "Wow, my friends don't know how to do *anything* and I'm always surprised at how much you taught me to do and how many life skills I have!" (Yes, she really says "life skills".)
So all of that makes me feel really good, on the one hand, and sort of appalled on the other because it really should not be a *big* *deal* to be able to plant a tomato or make pancakes from scratch.
No wonder my pancakes never sprouted. Now you tell me.
Dear manliness police,
I've done a lot of home/computer/appliance repair over the last several years. Mostly by watching youtube videos.
Do real men watch youtube?
sincerely,
almost 40 in SoCal
In this secular age, red hair is not considered a blessing. In former times red hair was considered a sign of divine favor and women considered it good luck to offer their virginity to red haired men. Those days haved passed, and red hair no longer gives you a leg up. The exception to this is a red beard. A red beard gives you a Viking warrior look. No other evidence of manliness is needed if you have a red beard.......Although my red hair has followed me into old age, sadly my beard turned gray while still in my forties. I shaved it off for a while because I didn't want to look old and wise. But I've let it grow back. I think a beard isn't a true indicator of manliness so much as laziness. Men who don't like to shave every day grow beards.
Paddy, I do it all the time. I watched them before roofing my own house, remodeling my bathroom, fixing my motorcycle and an endless list of other manly things including satisfying a woman, which it turns out involves tools I already had lying around the house. Who knew?
Yeah but sadly any schmuck can post a YouTube video (and often will) just to get notoriety, so the quality varies from usually wrong to 99% bs. A third are quality. e-How or answers.ask.com are probably a tad more reliable but if you hate reading as much as some of the crowd here does then them's the breaks.
Yes, by all means read a book about how to do something with your hands rather than watch someone do it while explaining it. Pure genius.
Ritmo, who ties your shoes for you? If you read a book on how to do it, and it involved using avocados and baby oil, how would you know if that worked or not before you got all messy?
Answer: You wouldn't, and you would be on here telling us in great detail how that's the way to do it, because you read it somewhere. This explains a lot of your opinions to those of us who don't depend on the word of others for everything we know.
bagoh, I think you're firmly in manliness territory, so I feel better.
I started doing computer repair that way, and when appliances broke, I tried it out. You're right about tools. I don't have a substantial set, but again and again it would be enough.
Plus, there are websites that carry the most obscure parts.
Saves a crazy amount of money.
The trouble with reading ehow or such is that sometimes the descriptions are confusing. The reason why I need instruction is because I'm not in the guild of people who know what they're talking about.
Youtube often has quality issues, but you can pick up very quickly the good and bad. Sometimes there are even professionals who post videos.
Much easier than to get caught in reading a list.
I have a Norelco or Philips or something or other.
Twice a day and it leaves me extremely handsome.
It cost me $35 at WalMart but you can get one through Lem's portal.
Of that I am nearly certain.
Tools? I have buildings full of them. All sorts. Gouges and chisels by the hundreds, saws by the dozens, twenty or thirty hammers, tool boxes full of wrenchs, more vise grips than I can find, power tools of all sorts, up to and including a CNC that will handle full sheets of plywood, trucks to haul stuff, jacks to lift buildings, power nailers, crowbars that stand taller and weigh more than hipsters, barking spuds, cant hooks, wedges, chains, come-alongs, ropes, tools to maintain those tools, grease and oil guns, loppers, pole saws, chainsaws piled up like cordwood, files to sharpen them, and so on and so on, and I think of them all as a burden to whomever has to clean up my estate. That's just how I roll.
I visited a friend's shop last week - I am a piker compared to him. He has a freakin' fork lift in his home shop. Shut up!
Youtube has great videos on home repairs. For every job, there are various videos by multiple professionals to compare, and you see the job transpire and finish.
Also, some of the worst advice is on internet. Some people need to tell you their opinion on how to do stuff they have never actually done, and often it's exactly wrong and sometimes dangerous. Inexperienced people can suck that stuff right up and hurt themselves or others. Never accept the first source alone, even if you like what they have to say.
That said, remember: "If you like your doctor..."
Bag, it's ok. The letters won't kill you. Images are fine but it's funny how you distrust literacy more than you do videography. I think instructional videos are fine and just tend to put more stock in an HGTV show than in some guy who thought it would be cool to record himself saying "I tells ya you'se supposed to does it like dat!"
Now, the guy making a video of himself dissolving gold in aqua regia, extracting it back again from solution, and melting it in a crucible? That stuff's as instructional as it is cool.
Getting off on the simple fact that someone can demonstrate it in DIY format doesn't mean it's the best advice, however - no matter how close you live to Hollywood and how much you trust a moving picture over a few words (and diagrams).
Youtube is my go to place for knitting videos. You can read all day on how to do a Long Tail cast on or German Twisted cast on and still not get the technique down...or....you can watch someone doing the actions and giving a a blow by blow description of what they are doing. Watching and being able to stop the video is invaluable. No comparisons.
Watching and doing are the best ways to get a mechanical skill down pat in the quickest manner.
Manliness is not in the beard, the muscles, the clothes you wear or the number power tools you own and use. IMHO it is in the way you treat other people and the respect with which they hold you as well as your own confidence in your self worth.
I'm sorry that my laziness and inclination to shave has somehow broadcast an incorrect signal of manliness to you, whiny little lady. But I'm not inclined to shave and prove my pajama-boy bona fides just so that you don't get the wrong idea about my... well, hell, I'm not sure what exactly is the point of this exercise?
I will note that the beard has gotten me at least one point on that obnoxious "check your privilege" questionnaire. Apparently wearing a full beard is a signal for women that they're free to come up and demand to finger your facial hair. I'm not even kidding, this has happened to me in public places.
Dad had so many tools they filled a two-car garage, cabinets full, a basement full, a shed full, then using said tools we built another larger shed. full.
But that is automotive, household tools, and gardening tools.
When I painted their den Dad dragged out his house paint related tools and filled the room.
"Where do you want to start, Chip?"
"I want to start by clearing these gdammned tools from the room. ALL of them."
"Aren't ya gonna nee..."
"NO! I meant to say they are in my way. I'm klutz. I'll step in the paint."
He never did quite understand me.
Every male in my family is a tool-head, a motor-head. When Dad died I could not take the tools for lack of storage. I asked, who will take them. Nobody. Every male involved was already set.
Cherry picker. That's a thing that lifts an engine block. Pneumatic pump, a BIG one. Cabinets full of tools. Tool cabinets and regular recycled household cabinets. All full.
Now in my apartment sparsely tooled up, I am still the heaviest tooled guy around. People borrow my tools. Dad would be so proud.
But the thing that killed me about Toni, brilliant as she is, self-reliant as she is, she still insisted on being dummkopf retard-o, straight up brain dead whenever it came to anything mechanical. She simply refused to apply her innate logic to anything metal. Anything involving screws.
Her vacuum cleaner went kaput. Without knowing anything we opened it up together. "What are you looking for specifically?"
"I don't know. In an ideal malfunctioning world, I'd see a loose wire hovering above a spot, say a tiny post, an obvious place of connection." And sure enough, there was a loose dangling wire the exact length needed to match a connection with nothing on it. Connected them, BLAM, vacuum starts right up.
Another incident I adjusted her headlights by parking the car in front of a wall at night and seeing how badly off the alignment is. I showed her where the screws are that adjust the headlights and since then she regarded me mechanical genius. Far from it, but some things you do get by osmosis.
She has a whole set of odd expectations about male/female roles. She did expect a lot, and her emotions are linked to her expectations so she is continuously upset by people not meeting them.
So did my mum.
Mum got her specialty license plates that said something amusing and when they came in the mail she suggested one of us put them on. I was there with my two brothers and all three ignored the hint.
She was ready to go right that minute and she wanted them on NOW but she didn't mention that part. We all put it off for later. It was not important at all.
She came huffing back inside, grabbed the package, and shaking with raw anger, incensed, "Goddamnit I have three boys and not a one will put on my license plates. I'll put the goddamn things on myself!! Which caused us to crack up laughing which caused her to become even more mad. Man, when she hints at something, POW, you better do it right now, and that is still funny to me.
Paddy's point about parts is a good one. If your dryer or something stops working, just type in the model number, and trouble shooting, repairs, and advice will usually pop up. If you determine which part is bad, just type in the number from the side of it and up will pop a source to order it. Amazingly convenient.
I have repaired appliances older than me with this method. Hey, maybe if I google my own model number... I need to get a mirror. Where do they stamp that on ya? It must be somewhere I can't see. A little help here?
Is there a you tube video on how to butcher a hog? I suspect not. That's the problem. You can spend more time trying to find out how to do something than actually doing it. The red beard solution is to raid a coastal village and enslave a hog butcher. Problem solved with an economy of labor......There are sme things like, say, butchering a hog or replacing a window sash that are within the realm of possible without ever being remotely conceivable. Coastal raiding is problematic for window repairs. I would use the Internet not for know how but for who to.
Yeah my Dad could fix anything and never was less than clean shaven. Me, I was too bored to learn how to fix things. Always was meaning too. My Brother the same way. Always meaning to follow in Dad's footsteps and be a fixer-upper. But too lazy.
So we hire guys to fix things for us.
Its like when we went Salmon fishing in a small boat. We'd both forget how to bait the hooks. You have to do it a certain way, or the Salmon don't get hooked - and you need to fool them. They're courageous - battling up the river/stream to spawn and die - but too naive and trusting.
Anyhoo, we'd always forget how to do it, and Dad would get mad and say "How many times to I have to tell you kids how to do it?"
But we weren't stupid. We just weren't Dad.
William, I passed your comment on to a notably handy woman I know, thinking she'd find it funny. Instead, she found a helpful youtube video on hog-butchering in thirty seconds flat, and then went on to talk about how DIY butchery is apparently A Thing in her neck of the woods, quite popular among the backwoods hipsters of her stretch of Appalachia.
(Of course, this is the same friend who has taken up deerskin tanning and beaver trapping as hobbies in the past couple years, so I should have expected this result.)
William, I passed your comment on to a notably handy woman I know, thinking she'd find it funny. Instead, she found a helpful youtube video on hog-butchering in thirty seconds flat,
Your friend might also still have copies of the Foxfire books. I know I do.
Hog dressing, log cabin making, .....and other affairs of plain living
:-)
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