Extra special guest contributions by droogie6655321, Bill in Portland Maine, The Termite and Jeff Lieber.
What-the-what? That's right, SheKos is missing an S, and is plus a Y chromosome!
The fine ladies of SheKos have invited yours truly, droogie6655321, along with fellow male snarksters Bill in Portland Maine, The Termite and Jeff Lieber. And we're going to trick out with our pricks out this April Fool's Day!
This week it's all links, no patties! All rockets, no sockets! (I promised to deliver the dick jokes... apparently Angry and Ear and the rest can't get enough!)
So here we go. Get your tips ready, do not touch the diarists unless we touch you first, tip your waitresses, try the veal and inhale the manly musk of HeKos!
This Week in Manly History
By droogie6655321, paragon of masculinity and patron saint of chest hair
- 1857: Herman Melville publishes "The Confidence Man," a man’s guide to becoming more assertive and confident.
- 1891: The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago. It wasn’t 3 days before a male staffer made a joke about an intern having a "chewing gum walk" that was "very Wrigley."
- 1924: Hitler is sentenced to five years in jail for his part in the Beer Hall Putsch, leading Curley Howard to later quip, "That’s when you putsch-yer beer down and wait for the pretzels! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!"
- 1939: Generalissimo Fransisco Franco (still alive at the time) called an end to the Spanish Civil War. The Rebels, despite their defeat, would not cry, as the only reason for a Spanish man to cry is over the love of a good woman.
- 1970: President Nixon uncoolly forces Surgeon General’s Warnings to be placed on cigarette packets, and calls a halt to all tobacco advertisements on television and radio — despite the fact that teenagers still smoke, and they seem pretty on the ball.
- 1976: Apple Computer is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, perhaps the most powerful men named Steve in the world to this day. Later, a mentally disabled shrimp boat captain grows rich off the profits of his Apple stock, which he believed were actually invested in the fruit futures market.
- 2001: Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, leading comedian David Cross to quip, "If the terrorists hated our freedoms, the Netherlands would be fucking dust."
- 2010: Miami Medical debuts on CBS. Fridays, 10/9 Central.
Prominent Male Births, This Week in History:
- Otto von Bismarck, who once called the North German Confederation "a real schnitzel-fest" (died 1898)
- Sergei Rachmaninoff, manliest man on the piano until Liberace (died 1943)
- Lon Chaney Sr., the man of a thousand faces (died 1930)
- Jimmy "The Harder they Come" Cliff
- Sammy "Mosquito" Alito, US Supreme Court (not yet dead)
- M-E-T-H-O-D Man! Yes I am, yes I am, the Method Man,
and
- Rachel Maddow, who is decidedly NOT a man, but we needed a token woman
Now let's get to the writing! This diary arrived at my man-cave in a magnificent leather-bound journal, and came with a set of Omaha Steaks. Mmm, good! Thanks, Bill. Now here's the Man from Maine!
A Broad Apology
by Bill in Portland Maine
To my mom: I'm sorry I downed an entire bottle of baby aspirin in the middle of the night when I was five and pissed the shit out of you. They tasted like candy. The bottle of Milk of Magnesia you made me drink did not. On the upside, I haven't had a headache in forty years.
To Mrs. Martin, my second-grade teacher: I'm sorry that when you called on me to give an answer to a math problem, I had just secretly shoved a bunch of candy in my mouth and, when I tried to answer your question, knowing that I had a mouthful of Sugar Babies, licorice and Razzles, I gagged and hurled a giant glob of multi-colored goo all over the floor. Really sorry 'bout that.
To my sister: I'm sorry I took your special bath beads — the ones you got for Christmas that looked like big marbles — and popped them one-by-one by lifting one of your bed's legs and dropping it on them. Your room smelled for weeks like a grandma convention in Boca. Bad Billy.
To Mrs. Geoque, my fourth-grade teacher: I'm sorry I dropped that bucket of gray paint on your light-green classroom carpet. If they ever add a human face to personify the definition of 'horrified' in the dictionary, it will be yours at the moment of impact.
To Katrina May, a sixth-grade classmate: Sorry. I remember we were at a middle-school dance, and they started playing Wings' "Listen to What the Man Said." It starts out fast and we were fast-dancing which was fine. But after a few minutes it got really slow all of a sudden and that meant we had to slow dance. And you had cooties, in my judgment, so I had no choice but to flee the room, leaving you bewildered. If it's any consolation, I ended up gay, so we were tragically doomed from the start.
To mom again: For the hundreds and hundreds of flowers in your gardens I stomped on over the years while playing in the yard: sorry. Oh, and also for thinking it was funny to cut off the cat's whiskers. And for kicking a hole in my bedroom door after you put mercurochrome on my scraped knee and it stung like a sonofabitch and I threw a tantrum.
To the lady giving our class a tour of the German parliament chamber when I was in seventh grade and living overseas: that was me who farted while you were in mid-sentence, not the kid next to me whom everyone stared at thinking it was him. It was me. Es tut mir Leid.
For the complete 500-page list of BiPM she-a culpas, send a self-addressed, stamped shoebox and $150 to cover the cost of photocopies.
How about that slice of man-snark? You can smell the difference! Next, direct from Hollywood, California, here's the Hebrew Hammer, Jeff Lieber, cranking his rooter at you -- yes, you!
Scientific Breakthrough Might One Day End Female Inadequacy
by JeffLieber
In a study commissioned by the Jeffrey Lieber Fund For Lower Standards in Comedic Writing, scientists have just made a monumental breakthrough which might lead to WoMEN being considered useful for something beyond childbearing.
Researchers announced Tuesday that skin samples, taken from the base of the penis, have suddenly revealed heretofore undiscovered traces of HUMAN BRAIN CELLS, which control certain higher functions, such as the ability to parallel park, a disinterest in knowing whether or not "these pants make my butt look big", and a talent for being able to ejaculate without triggering an actual human emotion.
Upon getting a copy of the study, the Republic Party vowed to make "FeMALE Penis-Brain Cell Reassignment" the only mandate when they step up their effort to pretend to want to repeal health-care reform.
Reached at his home/brothel in Los Angeles, Mr. Lieber, who commissioned the study, was quoted as saying, "Get me a beer, woMAN" before slapping his old ball-and-chain across her bare money-maker.
Next up, we've got a man so deep, he's almost unfathomable. A man so quick, he can romance you twice before he's even paid for your dinner. A man so sharp, your eyes bleed if you look at him sideways. The one, the only, The Termite!
Wow, I Really Wasn't Expecting This
by The Termite
Well blow me down.
What a remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime honor to be asked to join this elite team of men who have been tasked on this day with honoring womankind with our prose. You really have caught me completely by surprise.
I mean that quite literally, I assure you. Until I was approached by SheKos to write this, I didn't even know SheKos existed. So I guess it's just a matter of time before LefthandedTrisexualWoWKos is up and running and tending to the needs of the left-handed trisexual World of Warcraft enthusiasts among us. Snark!
When I consider the company I'm in, it makes my breast swell. Humility aside (where it shall remain for the remainder of this diary), the selection committee has outdone itself. There's Bill (the gay one), Droogie (the very rarely gay one) and Jeff (the one with the thing; you know the one; don't make me describe it). Truly sensitive and poetically flawed men, all. I have no doubt that each of us will, in his own ill-conceived way, break new ground in this community's understanding of what it means to be a woman.
There are so many people I must thank for this honor. I should probably start with Neil "1,000,000 Tons of Thrust" Armstrong. While all you twee hippies were helping your old ladies braid their pit-hair, Armstrong and his outsized man-pair were thundering around the heavens on the tip of a Saturn V rocket, so, you know, suck on that. Thanks for the inspiration, Neil.
Then there's Ernest Hemingway, who so effortlessly extolled the feminine grace embodied in bullfighting, elephant guns, and suicide. It was ol' Ernie who taught me that opening up and sharing one's feelings was usually pretty fucking futile in the final analysis, and that prolonged scotch benders were useful avoidance mechanisms for same. I am eternally grateful for his wisdom.
And I can't forget Mr. Lucas, who taught sexual anatomy in 9th grade and always had a stack of Penthouse magazines in his office to ensure that the young lads in his charge came to appreciate the orchid-like diversity of human female genitalia. I think we can all agree how special teachers are. Some more than others.
They tell me that I have almost reached my allotted word count, but I will not be played off before mentioning Lemmy from Motorhead.
Oh, and finally, thank you ladies. Thank you all. So many special men in my life have brought me closer to women. Now that I'm here, basking in the radiant glow of your approval, I find it all vaguely compromising to my manhood.
But that's cool. It's an honor from which I will certainly recover, someday, given time.
Finally, the hit-maker and the money-taker. The real reason you're all here. The Okie who loves to pokie. God's gift to women, whether they're interested in reading me or not, me myself and I, droogie6655321!
To Serve Myn
by droogie6655321
Rod Serling: There is a fifth dimension known only to men. It is the dimension as vast as the gap between man and womankind. It is the middle ground between skirts and pants, between the left leg and the right leg, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears, and the summit of his penile insecurities. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop: The Testosterone Zone!
Rod Serling: Submitted for your approval, a young writer, name of Droogie. While he doesn’t know it yet, he’s about to enter a realm that exists only in the fevered imaginations of the world’s most emotionally stunted creatures. That rare breed of insecure, self-victimizing, machismo-obsessed male caricatures, the American conservative. Such a journey may seem unlikely to you and I, but it’s altogether commonplace... in the Testosterone Zone.
Droogie: Hey, family. I’m back!
(Droogie tosses away his coat and briefcase, opening his arms to his family, young Droogie Jr. and Mrs. Droogie)
Mrs. Droogie: Sorry, babe, not right now. Droogie Jr. had a terrible day at daycare and he’s really hungry right now. I need you to make some mac and cheese and get him fed. I have to go back to school soon for a parent/teacher conference.
Droogie Jr.: (crying) Hungry! Daddy—hungry!
Droogie: Ah, that’s no problem hon. Hey, c’mere son! How about a hug for your dad?
Droogie Jr.: (still crying) Daddy hungry NOW. Mac and Cheese! Hungry!
Droogie: No hug, huh? Well, that’s OK. I guess I’ll get cooking.
(turns to kitchen, steps on a small, plastic ankylosaurus)
Droogie: Ah, Jesus H. Christ giving Buddha a blowjob that hurts! Owww... Ah...
Droogie Jr.: Blowjob! Blowjob! Mac and Cheese now Daddy!
Mrs. Droogie: Great work, Dad. Now he’ll never stop saying that. Oh, and did you get my text about bringing home milk? We need it for dinner.
Droogie: Uh... Sorry, I was talking to my editor most of the afternoon and turned my phone off. I must have missed it.
Mrs. Droogie: Mmm-hmm. Well that means I have to wait here and be late for my meeting while you go get it. So hurry.
Droogie: Ah... right. Geez. Sorry.
Droogie Jr.: Blowjob!
(Droogie goes back to the garage and gets into his car, noticing that he can’t find his keys)
Droogie: Ah, c’mon. This is not what I need right now! They’re all in there waiting on me.
(Droogie checks his pockets, his coat pockets, the glove box, and the console in the middle. He throws out handfuls of old junk from a console that hasn’t been cleaned in years. He’s surprised to discover a keepsake he thought he’d lost. A small, stuffed dinosaur.)
Droogie: Wow, look at this... It’s the first toy junior ever had... My wife handed this to me in a little bag, with a pregnancy test that read "positive." I can’t believe it. I thought I’d lost it. (laughs) Man, did I get chewed out the day she asked where this thing was.
Eerie Voice: And you just stood there and took it, didn’t you?
Droogie: What? Who said that? (Droogie looks around the garage, frantically)
Eerie Voice: I did. It’s me, the Ghost of Chuck Norris.
Greek Chorus: Chuck! Chuck! Has come! To show this girly-man the way!
Droogie: Chuck Norris? But you’re not dead.
Chuck Norris: I represent your sense of masculinity, and I’m here to take you on a journey that few ever get to go on. In the end, if you can find it within yourself, you can rediscover your manliness. That is, unless I’m too late.
Droogie: I mean, I saw a Total Gym commercial on TV the other day, and I’m fairly sure it was a new one...
Chuck Norris: Now, prepare yourself. It’s time to take a trip to a strange and wonderful realm, back when men were men, women were women, and gay people had not yet been invented by the liberal media.
Droogie: OK, but I need to be back soon. I have to cook dinner and take care of my son while my wife gets back to work.
Chuck Norris: Oh, man. I got here just in time.
(Chuck Norris roundhouse-kicks Droogie in the face, sending him hurtling back through a swirling vortex of different types of clocks, before landing on a street corner that is rendered in nostalgic sepia tones)
Droogie: Hell, man. What did you just do to me?
Chuck Norris: We are now back in the Golden Age of Manhood, the Fifties. Men wore three-piece suits in the privacy of their own home and Brylcreemed their chest hairs, while the frails never let themselves be seen without pearls, thigh-high nylons and a graceful up-do that would make Mrs. Kennedy herself look like Amy Winehouse.
Droogie: Did you have to kick me in the jaw?
Chuck Norris: No. Take a look around you. What do you see?
Droogie: I see... what looks like my house. Except I’m sitting on the front porch in a lawn chair and my wife is mowing the lawn. I’m always the one who does that. And why is she wearing high heels and a dress?
Chuck Norris: Because she knows she has to look her best whenever you’re around. Like I said, this is a different time and place than the swishified Hollywood-inspired dystopia that you’re used to.
Droogie: The heels don’t seem practical, but I sure do seem comfy.
Chuck Norris: Listen to what your alternate self has to say.
Alternate Droogie: (cheerfully) Honey? We’re bone dry over here from all the dust you’re kicking up with that mower. Supposing you cut that motor and bring junior and me some more lemonade?
Alternate Mrs. Droogie: (turning off the mower and smiling) Sure thing, dear! (she brushes pieces of leaves and grass from her hair) I’ll be right back.
Alternate Droogie: Much obliged, dollface. See that, son? We men of the house work hard, and we need our lemonade.
Alternate Droogie Jr.: That’s right, Dad! Say Dad, suppose we were to play some catch? Or build a soapbox derby car? Maybe whistle as we walk down by the fishin’ hole?
Alternate Droogie: Not now, son. It’s almost dinnertime and we still have to watch your mother set the table and cook us a roast. But please tell me what you learned at school today.
Alternate Droogie Jr.: Mr. Patrick, the anatomy teacher, was telling us about how women’s brains don’t get as much blood flow because of the meditations, and...
Alternate Droogie: That’s "menstruation," son.
Alternate Droogie Jr.: Oh yeah. Well anyway, it means they need to stay away from things like teaching, going into politics or voting.
Alternate Droogie: That’s right, son. I’m so glad to be blessed with a sharp, masculine firstborn like yourself.
Alternate Droogie Jr.: Sure thing, dad. Say, earlier today I was feeling a little bit sad about something...
Alternate Droogie: Well don’t, son. You’re a man, and men don’t have feelings. Those are for the dames. That’s why they’re better at things like, well, whatever they’re good at. But not man stuff.
Droogie: I’ve got to tell you, Chuck, this is pretty weird. I mean, everything seems great. I’m saying some awful stuff to my son there, but I can’t argue with results. This world seems pretty happy. Look at how clean and friendly this whole scene looks.
Chuck Norris: That’s right. And you’ve only just seen part of what I have to show you. It’s time to see the opposite side of the coin in the Hellscape of Women’s Lib.
Droogie: When is that? Later on, in the Sixties?
Chuck Norris: Exactly. You see, a paradise such as this couldn’t last forever. It was eventually overturned by evil forces who sought to upset the balance and remove the world’s males from their predestined place of supremacy.
Droogie: If you say so, Chuck. Does this mean you’re going to –
(Droogie gets kicked again, and hurtles again through the time vortex, this time landing in a dark, trashy alleyway, portrayed in grainy, Sixties-style color)
Droogie: Ow... Again, this is not necessary.
Chuck Norris: No, but this vision is. Behold.
Droogie: What is this? This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!
Alternate Droogie: (speaking haltingly, eyes downcast) Gee, dear, are you sure I have to take a third job? I’m not even sure how I’ll have time. As it is, I’ve only got 30 minutes in between jobs, and I’m working weekends.
Alternate Mrs. Droogie: (while burning a bra and not shaving her legs) Shut up, stupid! I’ve got to get enough money to send little Droogette to an East Coast Ivy League college so she can learn about how your penis is evil.
Droogie: OK, that’s really weird.
Chuck Norris: Keep listening.
Alternate Droogette (a female version of Droogie Jr., who is braless, short-haired and listening to The Buzzcocks): You’d better pony up, Dad. If you don’t, Weekend Dad says he’ll kick your phallocentric ass.
Droogie: OK, so why are we divorced now? Women’s lib did that?
Chuck Norris: Without a strong male influence in the home, a home cannot stay unified. Of course you got divorced. But that’s not all.
Mrs. Droogie: By the way, this came in the mail for you. (hands Droogie a letter)
Droogie: What is this? (reading aloud) "It has come to the attention of the Bureau of Femproduction that the women in your household do not yet outnumber the myn in your household by the Momgress mandated 3-to-1 ratio. You have been assigned an appointment with the Sperm Removal Hose in three (3) days. Failure to report will result in forcible seizure of sperm assets." Wait, what? What’s a Momgress? And what are myn?
Droogette: Man, the propaganda films were right. All that testosterone really does clog up your brains. Momgress declared that all males be called "myn" from here on out because they didn’t want the word "women" associated with males.
Droogie: This is all just a little bit too perfect, don’t you think, Chuck?
Chuck Norris: What do you mean?
Droogie: I mean, Jesus, everyone you’ve showed me is just a two-dimensional stereotype. People are more complicated than this. I mean sure, like Fifties Me, sometimes I’d like my wife to get me a lemonade after I’ve had a hard day, but I also do things for her in return. And like Sixties Me, sometimes I find myself having to work a little bit harder to support the family, but when I do, they all appreciate me for it.
(Droogie’s alternate family begins to sputter and move around awkwardly)
Droogie: What? What’s going on here?
(Alternate Mrs. Droogie’s head pops off, revealing a robot body underneath)
Droogie: They’re all robots! And you – who are you, really?
Chuck Norris: Stop it. We have one more vision to see. Hold still while I kick you.
Droogie: Not this time!
(Droogie catches Chuck’s foot in mid-kick, then spins him around to remove his mask)
Droogie: You... You’re Hitler!
Hitler: Ja! And now iz time to teach you lesson!
Droogie: No. This is insanity! I just want to go home...
(Droogie clutches Droogie Jr.’s toy, the small stuffed dinosaur.)
Droogie: There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home...
(Droogie dissolves away, reappearing inside his car, still clutching the little dinosaur)
Droogie: I’m home! All right! OK, I’ve got to fix some things...
(Droogie storms back into his kichen)
Droogie: OK, hon, we don’t have time for me to get to the store, but I will give you a ride to your conference and get me and Droogie Jr. some food on the way back home. That is, if Hitler or Chuck Norris doesn’t kick me in the face again.
Mrs. Droogie: Uh... Yeah, that works. Except for the part about Hitler.
Droogie: Hang on, though. After all that, we’ll both need a little you-and-me time. I’ll get you some wine, you get me some whiskey, and then (Droogie leans in to whisper)
Droogie Jr.: (having listened in) Blowjob!
Droogie: Erm, that’s right, son. Blowjob.
Rod Serling: What does it mean to be a man, or a woman? Everyone has his or her own take. Some people deal in stereotypes and exaggerations — or in maudlin yearnings for a bygone time that may not have been at all like what they imagine.
The reality behind the distortions is imperfect, that is true, as neither gender can always get what they want. But if men and women merely try sometimes, they just might find, they’ll get what they need.
Still, for those who oversimplify and wish for what cannot be, consider this. You may find yourself traveling with a one-way ticket in your pocket, with the final stop listed as "The Testosterone Zone."
We now return you to your regularly scheduled femblogging. I think I speak for all of my fellow contributors when I say, "You dames are all right." Now turn around when you leave so I can watch you walk away. That's the stuff, schweet-heart.
See you next April Fool's Day, eh?