The idea of being a man might be more than a little outdated. The rugged, stoic character of the wild west or the Spartan gladiator preparing for battle are of little importance and nothing more than caricatures of a time past and a wistful desire for a time when a person’s worth was determined by what they did. Let’s be honest, doing things has been circumvented and replaced by buying things.
In this age of modern humanity, of post-industrialized re-industrialization, of rampant catastrophic change, of rapacious machinations of the man, of dystopian whitopia emigration and cheeseburgers, these ideas are pointless, a little silly and at the root of most of our problems.
And let’s be honest, they just make you seem like less of a man because you don’t get it. Luckily for you, Uncle Knux is here to help you out.
Men Only Eat Meat
I know you’ve seen it. There a dime a dozen. Ads for some fast food joint or Turf and Surf spot or whatever playing on this idea. They start with some surly dude, most likely with his sleeves slightly rolled up because he is definitely wearing flannel. He jumps out of his oversized, cartoonish truck and waddles into wherever he happens to be buying his dinner that particular day. We know he has no idea how to cook for himself and orders the Quadruple Bacon Wrapped Pounder of Beef with Pulled Pork on the side hold the French fries.
He more or less drops it on the table and then with all of his strength lifts the thing to his mouth while the juices drip down his arms and takes his big, fat manly bight of burger/meat/steak.
And then bold letters are smacked across the screen that are some variation of “Manly Meat.”
Before all you carnivores get up in arms, yes, you can be a man and eat like that, but you might want to start thinking about the consequences or at least, maybe, thinking about only eating that way once in a great while. There are obvious exceptions but pretty much all of us are over weight. Our societal evolution has given rise to an overabundance that is literally killing us. So while we are sold this idea that meat will make us big and strong, mostly it is just making us big, fat and soft.
I gots me a big truck
Let me sketch out two trucks for you.
Truck #1 is bare bones stock. It has somewhere in the vicinity of 157,432 miles on it and they show. They’ve been hard miles. There is the dent just behind the passenger door where two weeks after being purchased, the clay road it was traversing was slippery from a recent rain and it slid into a juniper tree. The tailgate shows the wear of being opened and shut thousands of times and all around the bed you can see the scuff marks of items being loaded/unloaded over the top.
There’s also the distinct dent in the rear bumper where the tongue of a trailer was clearly missed and someone backed up just a little too far. It is definitely a used vehicle because it has been used hard.
Truck #2 is puurrdy. It’s got some oversized wheels with low profile tires that for some reason have big knobs. The rims are clearly after market and the bead locks are a bonus. It’s lifted, a lot. The person who owns this truck clearly cares deeply about it and its appearance. If it has gone more than a week without a wash, that would be a surprise. Not that it gets too dirty, the mods made to it don’t make it that great to drive off road and let’s be honest, it doesn’t see dirt very often.
You could argue that it is much like a peacock. A beautiful display of feathers to impress, but for the most part it serves no real purpose. It is horrible on dirt, hard to pull a trailer, you can’t lift shit over its sides and it would be a travesty if it got scratched or dog forbid, dented…
Pop quiz, which one do you think is the faux manly truck?
Women are Weak, I’m Strong
Only weak men are scared of strong women. There is nothing more indicative of faux manliness than taking
That link above details it a bit more, but it is one of my favorite things to ride with strong women. Especially in places where there are large packs of roving men who can’t really ride bikes. Their inability isn’t important, it’s their reaction to a woman who can ride a bike that is telling. One of these days I’ll get it on video.
The Wall of Death has been a thing within the Alliance for some time. It took me years to finally get down it and ever since then it has been a pretty consistent stop on our countless loops around Gooseberry Mesa. KB’s skills got to a point a few years ago that I knew she could do it. A few weeks ago she dropped in.
Immediately after, LW drops in and then we run into Heather who rides it the same day. Huge props to the ladies.
It also made me proud of the Alliance. As the pictures filtered out through the interwebs, there were multiple male Alliance members who hadn’t ridden it yet, that gave props. So props to them.
Beards
You might be like, Moose, you usually have a beard, what are you saying?
Well, beards in and of themselves are not faux manly, it’s more beard culture that is. If I have facial hear it’s for one of two reasons. 1. I don’t care and would rather not shave. This is the most common reason I have a beard. B. There is some competition going on that I have either instigated or been sucked into.
The fact that Beard Culture is a thing and a thing you can easily find on the internet is disturbing. I mean, what the hell is beard oil anyway? Oil made from beards to fortify your beard? Not sure, don’t care. If you want to grow a beard, or like me just are lazy, grow a beard. Aint nothing wrong with that. Just don’t think it makes you manly to have facial hear, it’s just genetics. And most importantly don’t do anything this guy recommends.
He is right, when you have a legit beard “people” compliment it. And by people, he means other men. Full stop. You will never have a lady be all giddy about your beard, but the dude at the liquor store, most likely.
The End
I could keep going, but I hope these four tips can help you not be a douchebag fake man. Most importantly, I hope you realized that being
P. L. and R.
Editor’s note: Opening photo for visual pleasure only, not actually related to this post.