Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Boys to "Men"

Dan Sinker is a Chicago-based journalism professor, mobile web expert, and founder of the underground culture magazine Punk Planet. He's perhaps best known for his epic twitter parody of Rahm Emanuel's mayoral campaign. As @MayorEmanuel, Sinker created a profane bizarro campaign world that's subsequently become a book entitled The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel.

Earlier this week, in commemoration of  Ian MacKaye's 50th birthday, Sinker posted an excerpt from a long-ago interview with the Fugazi frontman and punk legend. If the ladies in our lives want a little bit of insight into how we think, there are much worse places to start:
"I was cleaning my room once and I was listening to Led Zeppelin. Robert Plant was going on and on about all of these seemingly adult kind of things and I realized he was eighteen when he did that record—I was probably twenty-nine years old at the time—and I just thought, “Oh my god, I’m twenty-nine years old and I never became an adult.” Here’s Robert Plant and he’s eighteen and he’s singing about having his own apartment and running around town. To me, he seemed so adult. I called my dad and I said, “Dad, I’m kinda freaking out over here. I’m twenty-nine years old and I’m starting to realize that I’m a man, but I never made that transition.” And he said, “Well, I’ll tell you two things. First off, I see you as a man, as an adult man. You’re not a kid. And the second thing is that I can’t see myself as a man.” He was sixty at the time and he hadn’t come to terms with it either. It was nice and terrible at the same time to realize that that transition is a difficult one."
Right now, a bunch of putative "adult" males are reading this and going, "yup".

42 comments:

Dave said...

i gave my students an "adult" vocabulary quiz today . . . it's full of financial terms like "sub-prime mortgage" and "collateral debt obligations."

but you're not a real man until you have hair on your feet.

Dave said...

i gave my students an "adult" vocabulary quiz today . . . it's full of financial terms like "sub-prime mortgage" and "collateral debt obligations."

but you're not a real man until you have hair on your feet.

Jerry said...

I heard you're not a real man until you split dark oak.

Jerry said...

That's from a very reliable source.

T.J. said...

Dave, thanks for letting us know. Twice.

Jerry said...

The new Mr. Doubles. Swint is going to be pissed.

T.J. said...

Turrible:

https://twitter.com/#!/realmanspeak

zman said...

This is not a Fugazi post.

Clarence said...

This is perhaps the only thing I have in common with Ian MacKaye (other than digging punk rock). What's the opposite of straight edge?

Sitting in the waiting room, ahhh . . .

Jerry said...

Is the bar that crowded at 10 AM?

Mark said...

Hair on your feet? Then I've been a man since 16. I'd say hair in your ears is a truer test.

After the recent birth of my kid, I realized I was an adult. Except I didn't feel like one at all. Then I thought about having a 10 year old stepdaughter living in my house. But I still didn't feel like a "real" adult. So I decided I probably never would truly feel like an adult. Ok, maybe never but it's gonna be a while. I'm okay with this.

Clarence said...

What's awesome about being a dude is that by the time you get old enough that you finally feel like a man, you are at the age when you can start acting like a kid again.

Mark said...

I'd probably feel more like an adult if I didn't still collect shoes & tattoos as well as play basketball 3-4 times a week but I'm not nearly ready to stop any of that so I guess I'll continue to be a child.

Dave said...

when i stand in my front yard, drinking a beer and watering a tree that i planted seven years ago, a tree which is now much taller than me, then i feel like a man.

did i tell you guys i got a new mountain bike? it's awesome. i rode over a big pile of logs in the woods! my wife almost shit herself when i told her how much i paid for it. telling her that made me feel like a man.

Dave said...

also, the almighty yojo answered this question in full long ago: http://gheorghe77.blogspot.com/2011/07/music-month-continues-sometimes-theres.html

Danimal said...

Mountain bicycling is cool.

Squeaky said...

So the idea of this site is cool. I could not find any video of TJ or Rob so it can't be totally cool. But they do have video of some famous NFLers from their high school days.

http://gloryyears.com/index.php

rob said...

i'm waiting for mr. kq to weigh in on this topic. since he's 50 and all, he's got more years of manly experience. hopefully he can shed some light on when we'll start to feel like men.

Mark said...

Based on your height, Rob. I'm guessing "never" is the answer for you.

Danimal said...

i felt like a man just this afternoon at lunch, the deli at the beach that i frequent, filled with all types including the young lassie beach-goers, with nary a thread, bare-foot, bikini tops, and tans, accompanied by their whisker-free and jobless beau's who can shred a wave and pack a bowl with the best of 'em. an old man. a dirty, begrudging, over-the-hill, man.

rob said...

on monday, a half-dozen high school lax players were dicking around on a field adjacent to the field on which i was coaching my team of 8 year-old soccer players. they lost control of a ball and it came whistling through my girls, fortunately not hitting any of them. instead of manning up and apologizing, the lads just stood there waiting for me to return the ball to them. i picked it up and threw it over their heads while telling them that they shouldn't play around others if they couldn't control the ball. the under-the-breath tail-between-legs muttering that followed made me feel like a man. pussies.

T.J. said...

Whatta man?
http://bit.ly/Ji14H5

Clarence said...

I've mentioned it before, but here's a truism worth remembering during these discussions.

"A guy doesn't have to do all kinds of macho stuff to prove he's a man. A real man just has to score heavy with the babes."

-- Sam Malone

T.J. said...

Penis.

T.J. said...

http://bit.ly/JHSX3v

zman said...

rob = grumpy old man in fly Lavers. I dig it.

rob said...

as is usually the case (though not as often today as in my younger days), my mouth was writing checks my body would've been unable to cash, z. the girls would've had my back, though.

zman said...

Screw up this much and you'll be flying cargo planes of rubber dogshit out of Hong Kong.

Clarence said...

I'm going to see not one but two different concerts tonight. And when I say "different," that's an understatement. Recap tomorrow AM.

rob said...

chamber trio, gwar

zman said...

Judy Collins, Judy Tenuta.

Clarence said...

Dick Clark has passed on to the bandstand in the sky.

Danimal said...

you beat me to it. he was def in my death pool.

good people he was, though i am so relieved i won't feel uncomfortable this new year's eve.

rob said...

lawrence welk tribute band, motorhead

Mr KQ said...

thanks for outing me rob.. I know nothing of being a man, although i recently installed a dishwasher. so i've got that going for me, which is nice.

Mark said...

Not sure where Z's 'Top Gun' quote came from but I really enjoyed it.

zman said...

It was based on the checks robs mouth writes but that cannot be cashed by his body.

Dave said...

so if you don't score heavy with the babes, then it's fine to get in a lot of fist-fights, right?

Danimal said...

Ummm...a House episode with a neti pot related illness....my wife asked, how the hell did you know what a neti pot was? Thanks GTB!

rob said...

dave, absolutely. that's the takeaway from this post.

Dave said...

you know your a man when you've used a neti-pot.

Dave said...

to urinate in when you're on a long car trip, and then you use it to flush out your sinuses.