The man cave is widely known as the space where men can retreat, either alone or with friends, to watch a football game, smoke cigars and play cards, or trash talk around the pool table. Although the space by its very name sounds like a place where spouses and children aren’t welcome, that doesn’t have…
Please take five minutes and watch this presentation by psychologist Philip Zimbardo on “The Demise of Guys”, and tell me what you think. “Boys’ brains are being digitally rewired in a totally new way for change, novelty, excitement and constant arousal. That means they’re totally out of sync in traditional classes, which are analog, static,…
[Or, Make Everyday Fathers Day] Fathers Day is another maddening consumer holiday – a Hallmark-and-sporting-goods-store buying frenzy that sucks in families and spits out cheesy greeting cards, BBQ grills, monogrammed golf balls, and yes, soap-on-a-rope. It’s a compulsory holiday, one during which a great number of people are convinced that if they sign a card…
“Some men just need to be slapped” says Brut. “Yup. And if the idiots that wrote and signed off on that asinine BS were named, I’d be the first one in line to slap the shit out of them” says I. Brut’s latest campaign proves yet again that marketing to men involves sinking to the…
Evidently, to be a man, you must drive a pickup truck (or motorcycle), eat at BBQ joints, go fishing, do your own home improvement, watch a lot of pro sports and auto racing, subscribe to sports and men’s magazines, and eat a lot of “salty snacks”. At least according to Sperling’s Best Places, Weber Shandwick,…
With summer upon us, I’m hoping that you’ve all either got some of your garden planted, purchased a CSA share, or are getting to know your local farmers at the farmers market! For this week’s Two-fer Tuesday picks, we’ve got a great essay on whether or not it’s OK to keep secrets from your spouse, and then…
The role of the dad in families is rapidly changing. I know, state the obvious, eh? More fathers are opting to be the stay at home caregiver, there’s an increased interest for dads to be a bigger participant in their children’s lives, and more men are questioning their priorities. And that’s a good thing. Because if…
I recently stumbled across a web page from “Radical Conservative” (an anonymous blogger who apparently lives to bash people who don’t believe as he (she?) does) called Retrosexual Code. The Code is full of so many tired stereotypes that I can’t help but feel sorry for the person who wrote it. I’m going to help…
[This is a revised version of a post originally published on Jan. 11, 2009, one that I felt was worth revisiting.] This weekend, I buried my grandfather. He was a giant among men, and will be sorely missed. He lost his wife of 65 years to cancer over two years ago, and he still lived…
One of my favorite t-shirt designs has a picture of a TV with a hypnotized-looking person staring at it, and the caption, “Why do you think they call it programming?” So it probably goes without saying that I don’t watch (or even own a) TV. I just can’t bring myself to expose my family to…
I like to stay up on what men are talking about as it relates to masculinity, manhood, and personal development, and one of my new favorite subscriptions in the ‘man stuff’ folder in my RSS reader is The Masculine Heart.
