Category: Being a man

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One of those nights…

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It’s hot. 

Not brutally HELL hot, but warm enough that sleep is hard to come by.

Like most guys I’ve already tried using our built-in sleeping aid. Multiple times! There’s only so many times you can get your rocks off and not fall asleep before you say fuck it!

That’s where I am now. The fuckit phase. My body is happily relaxed, I’m sitting here at my desk naked as the day I was born, albeit a bit hairier. The other half is tossing and turning, and snoring so loud it’s rattling the walls. This may be one of those nights where I sleep here in the office / guest room.  I have a tall glass of water but am contemplating something stronger. 

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The Sandman is freakin late! I have a good mind to punch him square in the face when he does finally come.

It’s supposedly not a good idea to work on computers or iPads if you’re trying to fall asleep. but I don’t want to lay in bed looking at the ceiling wondering if I should abuse and frustrate myself again. Besides, I’m running low on personal lubricant! After all there’s only so many orgies you can host before your lube supply shows the strain.

So here I am blogging.

Recently I’ve been asking myself why I blog at all. The answer seems to be that this fulfills a need to express myself and I think of the blog as more like a diary of sorts. It’s obviously not like the locked up super secret private journal that many people keep. No, this is out there and public, and would probably prevent me from seeking political office.

Maybe that too is a good thing, I’m not sure I could sell my soul the way our politicians have to just to get elected. I don’t lie very well.

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Don’t get me wrong… I can lie better than any politician you care to name. It’s just that I choose to live telling as few lies as is possible. “Yes that dress has a slimming effect on you.” (Subconsciously, I’m thinking, “in the same way black slims down the size of an 18 wheeler.”)

Lying about my principals, or core beliefs is something that I’d rather not do. My preference is to simply keep my mouth shut and in extreme cases; at a party for example, I’ll have another drink. The trouble is, if I were running for office I’d be drunk off my ass most of the time.  Maybe that would work. Our politicians seem to be drunk or high more often than not. I’d hate to believe that they were naturally as stupid and dishonest as they appear to be. Realistically, they probably are, but that’s another discussion.

Porn?

Kiss, kiss, kiss, lick, lick, lick, suck, suck, suck, fuck, fuck, fuck, ropey globs of cum, artificially happy & satisfied, expressions. The dudes in gay films are happy because they just made 3k! Hell, I’d be smiling too! I don’t know what the pay scale is for the cast in a straight movie. I suppose the women are paid pretty well, but the dudes aren’t.  Thus the saying, “gay for pay.”

However, while I usually don’t make it through the first scene of a porn flick before I fall asleep. Most porn is predictable. Well, at least the first 5 minutes of the first scenes, that’s usually all I see before I’m off in dreamland. Tonight it’s unlikely that will work

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I’m amped about jobs, and money, and trying to chart a future (and failing) which is adding to my angst. That’s how I can be physically very relaxed and mentally my brain is in overdrive.  

Funny, my writing this seems to have quieted my mind. 

Gentle reader you should probably book mark this one, if my writing it put me to sleep, You reading it should work pretty much like the best sleeping pill you can buy.

Donations gratefully accepted!

Good night!

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OH! For God’s SAKE! Water Pistols?

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The Boy Scouts of America has banned water pistols. It’s been on their books for a while but resurfaces each summer because the BSA reminds folks of the rules in preparation for the season’s activities.

BUT REALLY? I’m caught by the memories of my family and my friends and their families playing with squirt guns.

Across America during the summer folks are playing with super soakers, and hose nozzles and generally having a good time POINTING things at each other.

The Boy Scouts have also banned Nerf Guns, Lazer Tag, Paintball, Airsoft etc, too. (You can shoot at a non-living, non humanform target.) I guess that I can kind of, see banning projectiles.

Lazer Tag is a bit of a stretch. (Stealth, and learning when to dive for cover may be far more relevant to us all in the near future.)

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Lazer Tag is about moving, maintaining cover, and shooting accurately… Ok, maybe that is a bit warlike.

Water pistols???? I can’t help but remember summer outings with scouts where the scoutmaster tried to get us with a bucket of water and we buzzed around him like angry hornets fast and with accuracy that had HIM drenched while we were mostly dry.

No-one gets into a water pistol fight when it’s 100° F thinking tactics or anything other than “Got YA!” with a lot of running around and laughter. 

Water pistols are about the most benign, inexpensive, fun you can have as a child. Who doesn’t have fond memories of loading up a water pistol with Icy water from the ice chest at a family outing?

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I pity anyone who doesn’t remember catching an adult male in the crossfire and thinking, “We’re done for…” only to have that adult whip out a bigger badder squirt gun and chase all the kids, joining in the mayhem. Eventually everyone comes back soaked, laughing, and having made a memory that will put a smile on their face for the rest of their lives.

Some boys in my generation wouldn’t have had the opportunity to build those memories without Scouts. Those boys would never have had a chance to see adult males playing. Moreover, those boys, as they became young men wouldn’t have learned that restraint and letting the little kids “win” is also part of being a man. 

All boys need that kind of experience. It doesn’t matter that they might not get it from their fathers, what matters is that they get it from somewhere.  Scouting should be about those lessons, not legitimizing silly policies in the name of political correctness.

I fondly remember many lessons being taught to me on long warm summer days in the South. 

It seems like we’re stripping away what it is to be children. 

Even worse, it seems like we’re forgetting the simple beauty and joy of Adult Males showing children that it’s ok to play, be silly, and even “lose” a game.

I can tell you as an uncle, it’s really tough to “lose” a game without the children catching on.

You want to build their confidence with the “win”,  but make them work hard for their success. You never want them to feel that you threw the game.

That was a lesson I learned one particular summer in Tennessee just outside of Cookeville. I was watching my father play a game with my little brother. They were whooping and hollering in a pasture, playing some hybrid game of tag.

fireflies aka lightning bugs

I was sitting on a rock smiling as they tussled. I couldn’t join in because I had a big ass bandage on my foot.

Lightning bugs were blinking in the tall grass when Dad came out of the pasture carrying my nearly exhausted brother. Dad had been “caught” 10 times and that was the end of the game. 

As Dad came toward me he stopped. “Son, put your arm around my neck,” he said, helping me get on my feet. “Just keep your weight off your foot as best you can, lean on me, yeah that’s the ticket.” Dad carried his 5 year old and acted like a crutch for his 15 year old, bringing us both in to dinner. 

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OK I’ve got something to say about “American Sniper”

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I’ve read the book, I’ve seen the movie, and Michael Moore needs to shut the fuck up.

When he waddles his Jabba the Hut ass out into a battle field humping 90LBS of equipment and takes on a bunch of fuckers trying to KILL HIM, then maybe I’ll take what he has to say about war, guns, and soldiers a little more seriously.

Until then will someone please tell him to shut his pie hole? I think he’s said quite enough.

Here’s my take for what its worth on Chris Kyle and American Sniper.

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It’s a story of a man struggling to choose between something he does very well, his duty to his fellow soldiers, regardless of the branch of the military they were in, his country, and the love of his life & family.

You can’t read the book without noticing that past a little bit of swagger, and a smidgeon of embellishment, this guy was a real human being.

As to the embellishment… who hasn’t heard “War Stories” from a favorite uncle or grandparent? Chris Kyle didn’t get the opportunity to be that uncle, or grandparent, his life was cut tragically short in part because of his career after the Seal Team.

He was killed trying to reach out & help other vets truly come home.

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As a man, he was stressed about the same things that all of us were stressed about. Am I doing the right thing? Did I make a difference? I could have done that better.

Chris Kyle, from his own words was someone that I’d probably have liked. I don’t know that we’d have been friends. I can say he sure was someone that I’d have respected and might have enjoyed joking and teasing with. I’d have gone to any shooting range with him and no doubt learned a lot.

Chris Kyle was not a racist xenophobe. He called people that were trying to kill him and his team-mates, “Savages” with good cause. “Savages” put explosives in the hands of their children and are surprised when their children are killed. Civilized people get their children out of harms way.

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As far as Chris Kyle was concerned the “Savages” he was killing were evil of the most despicable kind. I suspect that, in part was why he was able to do four tours of duty without being killed. That belief that the evil was around him probably kept him sharp.

But the story is about so much more.

Again Mr. Kyle puts it best. “One day I’m in a war, then next I’m home.”

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How the hell do you deal with that transition? I mean flying from the West coast to the Southeast can strip my gears, One minute I’m in a super liberal Kumbaya place and the next I’m home in a land of Sunday go to meeting “Rednecks”.

I can’t imagine having bullets flying at me one day and my child on my lap the next.

In the book Mr. Kyle talks about his relationship with his wife. Its beyond obvious that he loved her very deeply and loved his children as much or more. She was the love of his life. The book also gives you Taya Kyle’s perspective, which is sometimes a little different than his.

The story ultimately is about him, his loves, and foibles played out against the harsh reality of war. In the end, he makes his family his primary duty and it’s not a simple decision or easy for him to do. The Seals were his family just as much as his wife and children.

How do you choose between one half of your family and the other?

The nuances don’t come through as clearly in the movie as they do in the book. This is not the fault of the movie script so much as it is a matter of the time the movie had to tell the story.

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The bottom line is this, the progressive leftists want to see only the harshness. They want to view this man only as a wind up soldier forgetting that he was fighting for them too.

They don’t want to be reminded that he was a human being and that he had depth and character and a moral compass that pointed north.

Acknowledging those facts means that they would have to abandon their preconceived notions and might actually like the movie, the book or God forbid, BOTH.

Read the book, see the movie then make up your own mind.

See past the battles for buildings and ground. See instead this man’s journey, I think you’ll appreciate this guy as a hero, but more importantly you’ll appreciate him as a man.

You should also know, I cried at the end of the book and again at the end of the movie.

My best friend looked the other way while I wiped away tears at the end of the movie.

I guess that’s why we’re still friends after a lot more years than either of us admit to.