Leaving' a Hundred to Make You Feel Slutted

Ryan from More Rants than Raves recently sent me GQ's latest guide to men's style, no doubt as a subtle reminder that I increasingly allow myself to look like a vagrant during any break from teaching. It answered such mysteries as whether brown shoes really are essential with a blue suit (so long as the brown is darker than the suit's blue), whether it's acceptable to forgo a belt with your suit (yes), and what the third button of a three button suit is for (decoration, or a hidden camera for the creepy demographic that finds long range crotch photography from the comfort of your own van too impersonal).

As much as I appreciated Ryan's gesture, both because I do care about the finer points of men's style and because someone needs to let me know I look like I warm myself at a barrel fire, I find these lists tend to miss the true quagmires that dandyism confronts us with: how do I wear an ascot without looking like a douchebag / Jeremy Piven at the Emmys (not being Jeremy Piven is a great start)? Must I wear my monocle at all times, and if so, how do I prevent my cheek and brow muscles from not seizing up (no--only wear your monocle when leveling additional contempt at your subject, as if unaided sight would fall short of fully appreciating their failure as a human being)? Why does my wife feel that every time a man walks by with an awesome mustache with upturned ends she must turn to me, make eye contact, and firmly say "No" as if chastising a miscreant dog (because she is a woman of refinement and class who made a mistake a decade ago and saddled herself with me, a man who aspires to lush mustachios but in reality can barely muster the thin, patchy mustache reminiscent of a convicted sex-offender).

What we must remember, however, is that style is also a matter of how we conduct ourselves in our daily lives, how we interact with our peers and the innumerable strangers whose lives intersect with our own for minutes or hours of the day. Or, in the case of Derek Jeter, the innumerable strangers whose genitals intersect with his own for minutes or hours (who knows? he's a professional athlete, after all) of the evening. Specifically, I refer to the recent revelation that Jeter has a penchant for gifting his sexual conquests with personalized Derek Jeter sports memorabilia when he kicks them out at the end of the night. No wonder this guy wears a pin striped uniform: he is all class. How better to remind a former fling of just how awesome you are than by signing something that they can then sell? There's a special kind of narcissism at work here that lesser men like myself can only admire. Indeed, I just stood up and did a slow, methodical clap by myself in a Starbucks. Sadly, no one else joined in.

And so, as you prepare for your holiday and New Years celebrations, save a few of the stocking stuffers that you were planning to give to your beloved and tuck them away with a Sharpie in a safe place. Then, a few nights from now, bust them own while the post-coital glow is still upon you both. What better way to say "You just had sex with someone awesome" than by rolling over and giving them a signed Unicorn calendar, Panda Express gift card, or Gold Toe sock three pack? No need to thank me, dear reader. This is my holiday gift to you.

Just pretend I signed it and kicked you out of my house immediately afterward.

Ewe Bris

The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Report last week warned that castrating lambs with your teeth may make you sick. I know. I'm as shocked by all this as you are.

I think it goes without saying that this convoluted and frankly surprising discovery needs to be parsed a bit. First of all, let's note that the operative word here is "may." Just because you use nothing more than a few incisors, an almost preternaturally strong jaw muscle, and a sturdy grip to forcibly remove the testicles of every sheep you can douse with ether and toss hoof-first into your van does not mean you will definitely get sick from a Campylobacter jejuni infection, symptoms of which include "diarrhea...abdominal cramps, fever, nausea and vomiting." On the other hand, the halitosis and the distinct impression that people are avoiding you, I would imagine, are pretty standard across the board, but you're castrating lambs with your teeth, so what the fuck do you care? Life's already a party.

I particularly appreciate how the article frames the situation as if it were some big mystery. The two workers who came down with C. jejuni insisted that they hadn't eaten the types of foods typically associated with the infection, it explains, nor had they shared food or drink. "Hm...what do we have in common?" they must have asked themselves. "My horoscope did say that...no, but you're a Scorpio and I'm a Capricorn." His coworker starts to raise his hand, then slowly lets it drop, brow furrowed in frustration. "No, no...we both know not to eat Shirley's egg salad sandwiches." The silence must have hung then between them, palpable and thick, as when Hannibal Lecter waits for young Clarice to put together the pieces for herself. "You don't think it had anything to do with using our teeth to castrate those lambs with diarrhea, do you? I mean, I flossed after and everything..."


You must forgive my weakness regarding the title. I realize just how inaccurate it is, both regarding the gender and religious denomination of the species in question (sheep traditionally trend toward Buddhism, I'm told), as well as the specific nature of the genital manipulation, so to speak. But come on. How am I supposed to resist that kind of word play?   

Old Man Fight Prompts Ambivalence, Giggles

As is not uncommon with a leisure class that has known no real suffering, I tend to derive significant pleasure from the misfortune of others. Not genuine misfortune of real people, mind you--I'm not a dick--but I will confess that such plights in the abstract, when distilled to the slithering miasma of their vile essence, do make me smile. As fellow connoisseurs of this debased form of pleasure (after all, dear reader, you continue to peruse my literary tripe despite its clear lack of a moral compass), you too are aware of that special mixture of the taboo, the unexpected, and the absurd that the best of these evince. Exempli gratia: What do you get when you put a baby in a blender? An erection.

I'll give you a moment to let that one sink in.

Particularly when one takes into consideration the nature of my previous post, one wonders whether your dear author has indeed "gone off the reservation," a figure of speech I'm not entirely comfortable using, both because I'm not entirely sure I'm using it correctly, and even if I am, my white guilt makes me feel like I should contribute to a Native American scholarship program or something each time it's deployed, like putting nickels in a swear jar. Clink. There's your five cents, kid.

My point (oh, I have one), is that my frame of reference may have been inevitably skewed over the course of many, many years immersed in this sort of inappropriate tom-foolery. I know what I find funny, but of late, the better angel on my shoulder seems to be absent. Sure, I'll still laugh, but should I also feel guilty for laughing? Case in point:

I'm leaning towards not, but it's so difficult to be sure. The life-long grudge element of this fight (the two were rivals in the Canadian Football League roughly half a century ago, a league devoted primarily to moose hunting and being polite, I'm told) warms the cockles of my cold, dead heart. I'm Irish, after all, and grudges are one thing we do very well; my father, for instance, never liked the British and held a personal grudge against Pope John Paul II for the better part of thirty years. Then there's the irony of the olive branch offering instigating violence, and most obviously, the fact that they both clearly have one foot in the grave already. No disrespect to either combatant, though--I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the first punch from Sir Olive Branch would have cleaned my clock (clink goes the nickel into the scholarship for watchmakers' children).

But, yeah, old men fighting on stage at public event, which then goes viral on the internet...I can see how maybe I should feel a twinge of guilt for giggling at their misfortune, at least in the abstract. But I'm tapping the glass of the instrument on my moral dashboard, and it's not responding. I think I bought a lemon.

As is so often the case in my life, I find myself torn and unable or unwilling to make a final decision. I turn to you, dear reader, to guide me from this maze. Should I find this funny or not? The suspense is killing me.