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Wondering what makes a modern man?’ I can’t say I was but Thursday I stumbled across a link to The 2009 Great Male Survey that AskMen.com conducted with about 50,000 of its readers I’m not sure how definitive or valid the survey is but it asked a wide range of questions and had responses not only from from Americans but also the U.K., Canada and Australia.
So, here’s just a few of its many insights into the state of manhood today:
- 81 percent of American males believe a couple should live together before marriage. But we’re still evidently prudes. 86 percent of Canadian men, 90 percent of the Aussies and 92 percent of Brits supporting living together before marriage.
- 63 percent of American men said they’ve never paid for sex and “never would.” Only just more than half of Australian men said that.
- 46 percent of American men “don’t give a damn what people think of my car” while 23 percent want people to be impressed by their car.
- 77 percent of Americans say moral standards in business are in decline but of those 15 percent say “it’s made business more efficient.”
- 84 percent of the Americans say most accusations of sexual harassment in the workplace aren’t justified.
- If they could get away with it, only 26 percent of American men would punch their boss in the face — but 48 percent would punch a co-worker in the face.
- 67 percent of all men are actively environmentally friendly — “where it’s convenient or painless for me to do so.”
- North Korea was ranked as the biggest threat to the U.S. by 37 percent of all men. Interestingly, the second biggest threat (23 percent) was the United States itself. That comes awfully close to correlating with the 78 percent figure for those who are proud to be an American.
- 87 percent of men don’t use Twitter.
- The highest ranking for best summer movie? “None,” 39 percent.
- Indicating either the split in men’s attitudes or the validity of the survey, when asked how they would remember Sarah Palin, 39 percent said as “the woman who ruined John McCain” while 35 percent said “a hot babe.”
- But when it gets right down to brass tacks, 57 percent said “being ” good father and/or husband who takes care of his family” is what “makes a man a manly man in 2009.” At a distant second, 17 percent said it was “having manly skills, like the ability to fix things.”
So there you have it. Proof once again that manliness is in the eye of the beholder — and that the modern male is as well-balanced, schizophrenic, chauvinistic and chivalrous as ever.
…complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.
H.L. Mencken
Which do you prefer? (Quick answers–we’ll do more detail at some later date)
Reading something frivolous? Or something serious?
Frivolously serious.
Paperbacks? Or hardcovers?
Home: Hardcovers. Away: Paperbacks
Fiction? Or Nonfiction?
Used to be nonfiction but now has moved toward fiction.
Poetry? Or Prose?
Prose always
Biographies? Or Autobiographies?
Biographies
History? Or Historical Fiction?
History
Series? Or Stand-alones?
Stand-alones
Classics? Or best-sellers?
Best-sellers
Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose?
Straight-forward and basic.
Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness?
Plots
Long books? Or Short?
Medium
Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated?
Non-illustrated
Borrowed? Or Owned?
Owned
New? Or Used?
New
Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable.
Augustine Birrell, “The Office of Literature,” Obiter Dicta
So the opening tune on a CD makes clear it’s a guitar band that knows how to use power chords. You grab the CD box to see who’s playing what and something jumps out at you — electric banjo. What? A pop rock band with an electric banjo? Well, that’s just part of the eclectic nature of The Univited, a now-defunct California band. If you’ve never heard the band or it’s eponymous national release, that’s your tough luck. The album is on my list of Desert Island discs.
 Released on July 21, 1998, The Uninvited isn’t the band’s first or only album. In fact, the band has released seven — but this is the only release on a national label. And to that extent, it’s almost kind of a greatest hits recording. That’s because the majority of the songs come from prior independent releases, Pop This (1992), Too High (1995), and, mostly, Artificial Hip, released in 1996.
The band, formed in the late ’80s by brothers John and Steve Taylor, signed a deal with Atlantic Records on the strength of Artificial Hip — and about 500 gigs in support of it. Atlantic wanted a few of the tunes recut so there are some differences in arrangement, length and even tempo between the originals and those on The Uninvited. While the CD didn’t produce any Top 40 hits, “What God Said” and “Too High For The Supermarket” achieved some attention on alternative radio and other songs popped up on various TV shows.
“Too High” is the song that led me to the band. I was driving in Omaha one day when it came on the radio. It’s about a guy who needs supplies for a tuna fish sandwich but, before hitting the grocery store store, decides to “roll a joint Bob Marley style/and smoke it ’till it makes me smile.” The title tells the results and the song is emblematic of the levity the band can bring to its music. Yet there’s still no doubt you’re listening to a tight guitar band that can rock when it wants to.
That listen also demonstrates the benefits of the original Napster. I wasn’t sure who even performed the song so I looked there. I downloaded a number of Uninvited tunes. Today, I am the proud owner every CD in their catalog except one — and I bought each CD because I was able to hear the band through Napster. While I am partial to the earlier independent label CDs simply because they were the band’s own effort, the self-titled CD released by Atlantic has a permanent place on my MP3 players.
You can’t easily describe or categorize what the band does. The closest I can come is alternative power pop, aking to the solo work of Ben Folds — but with an electric banjo and heavy guitar work thrown in. In fact, yhis band restored my faith in both independent rock bands and that music can and was meant to be fun. The same sardonic humor of “Too High” is in any number of songs yet most still carry some underlying, more serious meaning. “Mega Multi-Media Hero” is actually a rather biting commentary on modern media. And although “What God Said” gives the impression of a farce because God said “nothing special” during the conversation, the reason is that he’s telling us “”nothing that we shouldn’t already know,” such as “start with the basics: just be nice/and see if that makes things all right.”
The more serious songs look at and give insight to relationships and life. Thus, “Velcro Heart” is about a person who uses lovers and friends like a drug du jour. “Is That Me?” and “Down in Flames” look at the risk of letting life slip away and taking efforts to make sure it doesn’t happen. “Bottle of Thunder,” “Box of Nails” (called Peter Christ” on Artificial Hip) and “That’s What You Get” look at relationships in turmoil or past the point of destruction. What may be my favorite, “Rose Street,” is a beautiful tune about a homeless guy who plays guitar (“God himself would be happy as hell/If he could play maybe half as well”) on the street to get enough money for his next heroin fix.
Put simply, the band writes songs about life. The Uninvited collects tunes that cover most of life’s spectrum, be it good, bad, ugly, joyous or silly. Throw in great instrumental and vocal performances and you unquestionably have a Desert Island Disc.
This half-empty beer is kinda like my life
Old and tasteless, pisses off the wife
“Down in Flames,” The Uninvited
We continue to be outnumbered — and it’s not getting better. Rather, the gap between the number of television sets in American households and the number of people in those households continues to grow.
At least that’s what the latest Nielsen Television Audience sruvey says. The average American home has 2.86 TV sets, about 18% higher than in 2000 (2.43 sets) and 43% higher than in 1990 (2.0 sets). In comparison, the average U.S. home has only 2.53 people. But that’s nothing new. Televisions have outnumbered people per household since at least 2005. And while the number of televisions per household continues to increase, the number of people per household has stayed roughly the same.
A few other interesting and occasionally frightening facts from the survey:
- Only 72% of TV households have VCRs, the lowest number in more than a decade. VCR saturation peaked in 2005 when 90% percent of TV households had them
- In contrast, 24% percent of TV households have DVRs, compared to 19% percent a year ago, while 88% of households have a DVD player.
- Interestingly, 65 percent of households with TVs have no one under the age of 18 living in them.
- In 2008, the average home received 130.1 channels.
- Households tuned tuned into television a stunning 58 hours and 27 minutes per week, a 40 minute increase from the previous year, and equal to more than 8 hours per day.
- The average person spent 33 hours and 13 minutes watching TV each week, an increase of about an hour from the year before.
- More than $42 billion (with a “b”) was invested in television advertising in 2008. Business and finance accounted for 29% of that, followed by drugs and toiletries (17%) and leisure (14%).
Me, I’m in the Frank Zappa camp:
I am gross and perverted
I’m obsessed ‘n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little has changed
I’m the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can’t look away
I make you think I’m delicious
With the stuff that I say
I’m the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I’m the slime oozin’ out
From your TV set
How do you put on a meaningful drama or documentary that is adult, incisive, probing when every fifteen minutes the proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper?
Rod Serling, Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval
About two years ago, I came across a British newspaper article on a book by a former BBC researcher exploring the breadth and often intriguing nature of about foreign words and phrases. I wrote about some of the words I enjoyed. The book wasn’t available in the U.S. then but I recently came across the predecessor to it, The Meaning of Tingo: And Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World by Adam Jacot de Boinod.
Reading it over the weekend, once again certain words and phrases intrigued and entertained me. Some have questioned the accuracy of de Boinod’s work. Still, the book is a read in which certain words and phrases speak to you for whatever reason. Thus, I thought I’d follow up the old post with a few of my favorites from this work, which range from the highly specific to ones you figure you could well have used at some point.
scheissenbedauern (German) — the disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one had hoped (literally, “shit regret”).
o ka la nokonoko (Hawaiian) — a day spent in nervous anticipation of a coughing fit.
neulo taas niin saat oluen (Finnish) — knit again, so that you will get a beer.
scrostarsi (Italian) — to remove oneself as if one were a scab (leaving because your presence isn’t desired).
přesezený (Czech) — being stiff from sitting in the same position too long.
umudrovat se (Czech) — to philosophize oneself into the madhouse.
bakwe (Kapampangan, Philippines) — to smoke a cigarette with the lit end in one’s mouth.
sgriob (Scottish Gaelic) — the itchiness the overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whiskey.
nakhur (Persian) — a camel that will not give milk until her nostrils are tickled.
safin (Persian) — a horse standing on three legs and touching the groud with the tip of its fourth hoof.
backpfeifengesicht (German) — a face that cries out for a fist in it.
And who among us hasn’t encountered a backpfeifengesicht but, untiil now, lacked the word for it?
tingo (Pascuense, Easter Island) — to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at a time, by borrowing them.
Adam Jacot de Boinod, The Meaning of Tingo
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