Given my current physical condition, my actions are rather limited. That is to say I much prefer to sit on the couch or lie on the bed then go from house to house or party to party. (Also contributing might be the outrageous wind chill around these parts)
As this was the first weekend back at school, I chose to "go out" the first night and see how things went. Now, we have the first weekend back at school that prides itself on partying and we have the juniors returning from abroad who would not pass up the chance to make a fool of themselves on American soil (assuming they already did so in Spain, Denmark, or Argentina)
I was recieving words of caution from my mother all week. Walk slowly, look out for the ice, pay attention. But there was an extra sense of danger when you combine the winter elements with a surgically repaired knee with drunk, overzealous, stupid college kids.
I got a typically late start on the evening. (got out the shower at 11:12) and headed to my friends house who was having a belated birthday party. Now, I count on this friend (a girl by the way) to introduce me to the cool kids. I hang with her while she is hanging with the cool kids and then I hang with the cool kids. It was a recipe for success during the first semester. As I begin my sloth walk to her house I run into some old chums along the way.
Now most of the time these interactions are terrible. People give the fake I'm sorry and everyone is at a loss for words. However, this time my man Lightning (seriously that is his name. He is 6'7" real pale with blonde hair. Even looks like a bolt of lightning) was upset that happened and gave me a hug. That was a nice one.
Once I entered this party it was pure chaos. People standing everywhere and sitting everywhere. I decided to leave the crutches by the door and just head upstairs. I ended up chilln with my friend for a bit but the cool kids didn't show up till later. I decided to count my losses and head home. As I descended the stairs I realized I forgot my coat (pea-coat, brass buttons. Cooler than anything you got. Trust me) so as I asked someone to get it for me, a group of bro's were coming down the stairs.
The first one had a beer in his hand and about halfway down he took a tumble. And a good one. I started to laugh then looked to see if he was alright then laughed again. But, miraculously, the cup of beer was still there. One minute later, no lie, another bro did the same thing and he fell with a bang.
He spilled some of the beer on his hand but much to my surprise, he began licking it off his hand. This guy was acting like he just came out the desert of Egypt after the Pharaoh let his people go and was just given water. And you have to assume it was the cheap beer too. I just shook my head as he passed me. It was so funny and absurd that it was beyond laughing.
I finally made my way out of the party and headed home. As I walked up my stairs I noticed the house right next door was having a party. They have a small house but always manage to have a lot of folks over. As people were walking down the street someone opened their door and the music became audible. The crowd of say, 15 folks walking in the opposite direction heard the music and pulled a U Turn.
It was like bees flocking to honey. Anywhere college people hear loud music and see a crowd, they will go. Next thing I knew there were maybe 100 people in the street just outside my house and the party house. I was watching a sweet documentary on Elephants on Animal Planet at this point. I decided to take one last peek at the crowd and opened the front door.
By now, there were maybe 150 people (power of cell phones ladies and gentlemen. "What you doing?" "There might be a party at this house, come over") and two campus police cars.Its amazing how college parties work. If there is music and alcohol it doesn't matter if its a vampire hideout or a former crack house, kids will show up.
My door was open and I was looking outside. At this point a group of folks saw me and possibly thought I was having a party and this was me extending the invite.
I closed that door faster than Clint Eastwood draws his pistols.
Maybe next time.
But most likely not.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Change Has Come, Indeed
No, no, no. I'm not talking about that kind of change. Although it is fantastic that the coolest cat around is now Commander In Chief. I'm talking about something that I have been a part of since say 8th grade. Something you might be a part of. Or your brother, or some dude you know.
Chest Hair. You see, I'm an old school guy. I'm not good with technology, I prefer talking face to face as opposed to texting, and my drink of choice is whiskey or bourbon. (And a well made Sidecar is damn tasty)
I've been off the seen for quite sometime now due to various reasons. But after reading this article (see below) I had to jump back again. I now speak directly to my fellow brethren:
Put away the trimmers and razors
Be proud of what you got
Wear it with confidence
We are men
And our time has come (again)
I now give you the official return of the Hairy Chested Man
The following is an article written by Jessi Klein of "the daily beast"
Chest Hair
by Jessi Klein
Info
RSS
Jessi Klein is a writer and comedian who has frequently appeared on Comedy Central, CNN, VH1, and the Today show. She is currently writing a screenplay for Universal Studios, as well as occasionally drawing animals for her best friend’s letterpress card company. She also likes to think she has value as a human being aside from her numerous credits in the entertainment industry.
From Mad Men’s Jon Hamm to Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick, torso-fros are (finally) making a comeback. Plus: A gallery of the hottest fuzz.
Ever since Adam caught Eve checking out that snake, men have spent way too much time worrying about the appearance of their manhood. What’s more important, the size of the wave or the motion of the ocean? Well, I’m here to make a bunch of men more neurotic by telling you the answer is none of the above. As far as I’m concerned, the real signifier of masculinity lies in another area entirely: chest hair. And it’s making a comeback.
After many years of drought, during which the only reliable source of manly tuft seemed to be the Baldwin brothers, chest hair has returned with a vengeance as the sign of sex appeal and virility. Mad Men star Jon Hamm (aka Don Draper) is entertainment’s tall drink of testosterone du jour. As much as every woman I know is in love with him, I’ve never seen a male celebrity so many of my straight guy friends openly admit they want to kiss. His profile is beautifully handsome, gracefully arched and symmetrical like the art deco bars he haunts, but he also has a swarthy helping of chest hair, rarely flashed on the show but available for long gawks on the interweb (or…so I hear.)
In these troubled times of war and craptastic financial news, are we yearning once again for leading manly men with comfortingly warm pelts in which to hide our anxious faces?
Clive Owen, the brooding, British Sin City hunk (and my number one personal distraction) has unabashedly displayed his sexily untamed man fur. Aussie Hugh Jackman (the newly anointed Oscar host and People‘s latest “Sexiest Man Alive” pick) is only a hair or two behind his X-Men alter-ego Wolverine, and he is all the hotter for it.
Is this good news the silver lining to otherwise cloudy headlines? In these troubled times of war and craptastic financial news, are we yearning once again for leading manly men with comfortingly warm pelts in which to hide our anxious faces?
Click Image to View Gallery.
Columbia Pictures/Everett
Even the Tiger Beat crowd is sporting post-pubescent chest curls these days. Robert Pattison, the delicately anemic looking young star of Twilight, has unbuttoned just enough on the red carpet to reveal a healthy crop of pectoral fuzz. And Gossip Girl fave Ed Westwick, while barely of legal drinking age, has the dark downy appearance of someone who has spent all day frolicking with a black Pug.
Then there are the ubiquitous everyman hunks of the Judd Apatow empire, the thinking woman’s boyfriends: Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, and Seth Rogen. All three are endowed with chest hair that could best be described as “enough for a handful” (employing the phrase I’ve heard men use to evoke the ideal-sized breast.) And while they all play man-children with immature tendencies, their resolute hairiness is a reminder of their ultimately full-grown hearts.
For me, a hairy chest has always been my strong preference. As someone who must make regular visits to a very intimidating woman from the Eastern Bloc to keep my own hirsuteness in check, I like to be with a man who’s definitively hairier than myself. When I meet a guy for the first time, I have no problem with his eyes wandering south for a second to check out my rack—that’s when I steal a glance at the little slip of landscape peeking out from the collar of his shirt. Is it heavily forested, gently grassy, or just a desert-like stretch of flesh, with nary a hair in sight to provide shade?
The seventies and eighties were gloriously thatchy time to be alive: Burt Reynolds was almost indistinguishable from the bear rug on which he lolled in Cosmo. The front-pelts of Ted Danson and Tom Selleck practically sprouted through the TV screen. Albert Brooks in Modern Romance was as hairy as the drain in a Greek locker room. When the Daily Beast reached out to Steve Guttenberg, one of the kings of bearing man fur, he was aware of his legacy, exclaiming: “Chest hair? Lancaster, Connery, Guttenberg, need I say more???”
My own obsession with chest hair began with Harrison Ford. I was exactly thirteen when I saw him in Working Girl. I think puberty set in sometime around the end of the first act, right after he ripped off his shirt, revealing a perfect chest drizzled with a wonderfully even hair growth. He had his way with Melanie Griffith, and then ordered her Chinese food. Ever since then, I’ve been hooked on torso-fro.
By the nineties, a period of male-pattern chest baldness had entered pop culture. Much is made of women’s hemlines as indicators of economic mood, but the financial upswing that was the bulk of the Clinton years seemed, sadly, to create a taste for smoother, more boyish men. Geena Davis was gorgeous, but when a young Brad Pitt appeared next to her (and then on top of her) in Thelma and Louise, her looks were no match for his follicle-free form. I remember sitting in the audience, baffled: How is this guy prettier than she is? Music offered no relief, as hair-free boy bands like New Kids on the Block and ‘N Sync ascended the charts.
Along came Titanic, and Leonardo DiCaprio took the hairless baton from Pitt; and with these pinkinshly naked men causing mass swoons across the country (DiCaprio was getting so many numbers he had to form a “pussy posse” just to handle it all) a scary thing happened—men started waxing. And shaving. The metrosexual, along with his tell-tale five o clock trunk shadow, was born.
A quick note on the two kinds of hairless men. It’s one thing for guys to be genetically hairless. Women are a very forgiving group (Scott Peterson still gets love letters in prison.) That said, an extremely scientific email poll of my three best friends yielded a unanimous result on this issue: No one had any tolerance for male waxing, deeming it “too vain and feminine.” One friend said her crush on Daniel Craig was tempered by her belief that his smooth chest is the result of salon intervention.
As a chest hair lover, I pride myself on my hair-dar; that is, being able to surmise at a glance who’s packing wool and who’s not. Which is why Barack Obama’s infamous beach photo took me by complete surprise. I’d predicted a light but noticeable dusting; but even upon CSI level zooming, his skin appeared unsullied.
Ah, well. Nothing will put hair on your chest like being elected President of the United States."
Chest Hair. You see, I'm an old school guy. I'm not good with technology, I prefer talking face to face as opposed to texting, and my drink of choice is whiskey or bourbon. (And a well made Sidecar is damn tasty)
I've been off the seen for quite sometime now due to various reasons. But after reading this article (see below) I had to jump back again. I now speak directly to my fellow brethren:
Put away the trimmers and razors
Be proud of what you got
Wear it with confidence
We are men
And our time has come (again)
I now give you the official return of the Hairy Chested Man
The following is an article written by Jessi Klein of "the daily beast"
Chest Hair
by Jessi Klein
Info
RSS
Jessi Klein is a writer and comedian who has frequently appeared on Comedy Central, CNN, VH1, and the Today show. She is currently writing a screenplay for Universal Studios, as well as occasionally drawing animals for her best friend’s letterpress card company. She also likes to think she has value as a human being aside from her numerous credits in the entertainment industry.
From Mad Men’s Jon Hamm to Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick, torso-fros are (finally) making a comeback. Plus: A gallery of the hottest fuzz.
Ever since Adam caught Eve checking out that snake, men have spent way too much time worrying about the appearance of their manhood. What’s more important, the size of the wave or the motion of the ocean? Well, I’m here to make a bunch of men more neurotic by telling you the answer is none of the above. As far as I’m concerned, the real signifier of masculinity lies in another area entirely: chest hair. And it’s making a comeback.
After many years of drought, during which the only reliable source of manly tuft seemed to be the Baldwin brothers, chest hair has returned with a vengeance as the sign of sex appeal and virility. Mad Men star Jon Hamm (aka Don Draper) is entertainment’s tall drink of testosterone du jour. As much as every woman I know is in love with him, I’ve never seen a male celebrity so many of my straight guy friends openly admit they want to kiss. His profile is beautifully handsome, gracefully arched and symmetrical like the art deco bars he haunts, but he also has a swarthy helping of chest hair, rarely flashed on the show but available for long gawks on the interweb (or…so I hear.)
In these troubled times of war and craptastic financial news, are we yearning once again for leading manly men with comfortingly warm pelts in which to hide our anxious faces?
Clive Owen, the brooding, British Sin City hunk (and my number one personal distraction) has unabashedly displayed his sexily untamed man fur. Aussie Hugh Jackman (the newly anointed Oscar host and People‘s latest “Sexiest Man Alive” pick) is only a hair or two behind his X-Men alter-ego Wolverine, and he is all the hotter for it.
Is this good news the silver lining to otherwise cloudy headlines? In these troubled times of war and craptastic financial news, are we yearning once again for leading manly men with comfortingly warm pelts in which to hide our anxious faces?
Click Image to View Gallery.
Columbia Pictures/Everett
Even the Tiger Beat crowd is sporting post-pubescent chest curls these days. Robert Pattison, the delicately anemic looking young star of Twilight, has unbuttoned just enough on the red carpet to reveal a healthy crop of pectoral fuzz. And Gossip Girl fave Ed Westwick, while barely of legal drinking age, has the dark downy appearance of someone who has spent all day frolicking with a black Pug.
Then there are the ubiquitous everyman hunks of the Judd Apatow empire, the thinking woman’s boyfriends: Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, and Seth Rogen. All three are endowed with chest hair that could best be described as “enough for a handful” (employing the phrase I’ve heard men use to evoke the ideal-sized breast.) And while they all play man-children with immature tendencies, their resolute hairiness is a reminder of their ultimately full-grown hearts.
For me, a hairy chest has always been my strong preference. As someone who must make regular visits to a very intimidating woman from the Eastern Bloc to keep my own hirsuteness in check, I like to be with a man who’s definitively hairier than myself. When I meet a guy for the first time, I have no problem with his eyes wandering south for a second to check out my rack—that’s when I steal a glance at the little slip of landscape peeking out from the collar of his shirt. Is it heavily forested, gently grassy, or just a desert-like stretch of flesh, with nary a hair in sight to provide shade?
The seventies and eighties were gloriously thatchy time to be alive: Burt Reynolds was almost indistinguishable from the bear rug on which he lolled in Cosmo. The front-pelts of Ted Danson and Tom Selleck practically sprouted through the TV screen. Albert Brooks in Modern Romance was as hairy as the drain in a Greek locker room. When the Daily Beast reached out to Steve Guttenberg, one of the kings of bearing man fur, he was aware of his legacy, exclaiming: “Chest hair? Lancaster, Connery, Guttenberg, need I say more???”
My own obsession with chest hair began with Harrison Ford. I was exactly thirteen when I saw him in Working Girl. I think puberty set in sometime around the end of the first act, right after he ripped off his shirt, revealing a perfect chest drizzled with a wonderfully even hair growth. He had his way with Melanie Griffith, and then ordered her Chinese food. Ever since then, I’ve been hooked on torso-fro.
By the nineties, a period of male-pattern chest baldness had entered pop culture. Much is made of women’s hemlines as indicators of economic mood, but the financial upswing that was the bulk of the Clinton years seemed, sadly, to create a taste for smoother, more boyish men. Geena Davis was gorgeous, but when a young Brad Pitt appeared next to her (and then on top of her) in Thelma and Louise, her looks were no match for his follicle-free form. I remember sitting in the audience, baffled: How is this guy prettier than she is? Music offered no relief, as hair-free boy bands like New Kids on the Block and ‘N Sync ascended the charts.
Along came Titanic, and Leonardo DiCaprio took the hairless baton from Pitt; and with these pinkinshly naked men causing mass swoons across the country (DiCaprio was getting so many numbers he had to form a “pussy posse” just to handle it all) a scary thing happened—men started waxing. And shaving. The metrosexual, along with his tell-tale five o clock trunk shadow, was born.
A quick note on the two kinds of hairless men. It’s one thing for guys to be genetically hairless. Women are a very forgiving group (Scott Peterson still gets love letters in prison.) That said, an extremely scientific email poll of my three best friends yielded a unanimous result on this issue: No one had any tolerance for male waxing, deeming it “too vain and feminine.” One friend said her crush on Daniel Craig was tempered by her belief that his smooth chest is the result of salon intervention.
As a chest hair lover, I pride myself on my hair-dar; that is, being able to surmise at a glance who’s packing wool and who’s not. Which is why Barack Obama’s infamous beach photo took me by complete surprise. I’d predicted a light but noticeable dusting; but even upon CSI level zooming, his skin appeared unsullied.
Ah, well. Nothing will put hair on your chest like being elected President of the United States."
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