10 tips for men
Women don’t seem to need much advice, but men, hapless as we are, need as much as we can get. Thus:
If someone who is not embracing you can smell your deodorant, body wash, or cologne, you have overdone it. (You do, however, get points for daily bathing.)
Pajamas are nightwear, not daywear.
You may imagine that going unshaven makes you look rugged, masculine, Brad-Pittish. It’s likelier that you look like someone coming off a three-day bender.
If you’re OK with knowing that that tattoo is going to get faded and saggy as you age—not to mention the waning of an enthusiasm for a person or topic that you will have outgrown—go ahead. But first get a copy editor to go over the spelling of your choice. Genius does not begin with a j.
George Washington’s rule still holds: “When in Company, put not your Hands to any Part of the Body, not usually Discovered.”
Take off your hat when entering a church, library, concert hall, restaurant, or private home. If you usually wear a cap instead of a hat, take that off, too, and give some consideration to buying a hat.
Your chewing should not be audible to people at the next table.
What my daughter tells me merits your attention: “You are not as funny as you think you are.”
Prowess is demonstrated by performance, not palaver.
Comments
Might want to edit that post to substitute a different tattoo example. See http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3489.
Posted by: Dick Margulis | October 11, 2011 8:47 AM
YES, John! You are as funny as you think you are!!!
I love your posts, always... they're (= you're) great! :)
Posted by: Virginia Merchán | October 11, 2011 8:57 AM
Hmm........ "Prowess is demonstrated by performance, not palaver."
Restated perhaps-----"Actions speak louder than words."?
Drat, ain't performance anxiety a pain....... in the ego? And I'm not talkin' stage fright here, unless we're specifically dealing w/ say the Broadway plays "Hair", or "Equis', where full-frontal nakedness is de rigueur. Well enough bawdy/ body talk for now.
Always loved that vintage Norman Rockwell painting of the goofy-looking merchant seaman w/ the rather prominent Adam's apple and most ruddy complexion, getting a tattoo 'applied' to his left bicep area---- the last of a litany of former girlfriends' names, w/ seven(?) still very much legible, but each crossed out w/ a simple line. It was used for a 1944 Saturday Evening Post cover, and titled "The Tattooist".
This Rockwell piece just underlines how we humans are constantly changing our minds like the shifting winds. That somehow we are under the illusion that a tattoo can bring us some tangible sense of something permanent into our oft dreary lives.
Clearly not that simple, folks.
Of course today, particularly amongst the more daring and experimental of our younger generation, having tattoos has become the rule, rather than the odd exception. And yet the phenomenon of tattooers' remorse (or more precisely, the tattooed individual's remorse) appears to be on the upswing, particularly w/ many tattooed former gang-bangers. The rising cottage industry of tattoo removal seems to be growing almost apace w/ folks choosing to decorate their largest body organ,( in area, that is. HA!).......... their skin.
Now that "five-o'clock shadow"........... and beyond, works for just a few, the exception, as you kinda pointed out dear professor, being the likes of the Brad Pitts, George Clooneys and Hugh Jackmans .......... those adonis-like, pretty boys of the Hollywood set.
For the majority of others (us mere mortals) trying to pull off the unkempt, unshaven facade; our 'look' could perhaps be best described more as Hobo-Chic, or Gabby Hayes Redux. HA! Generally does not leave a great impression w/ the fairer sex.......... positive or otherwise. (Heaven knows, I've tried. HA!)
The pajama exclusively-for-nightwear bit, has a few glaring high-profile exceptions I would say.-----One being that octogenarian, living advertisement for a little blue triangular magic ED pill, dating (?) women who could well be the age of his youngest grandkids-------Hugh Hefner. Is this guy really that Energizer Bunny in disguise?
Lounging in his silk 'PJs' in the middle of the afternoon, along w/ a little 'nookie' when the spirit moves him, appears to work for Mr. Hef. Just sayin'.
ALEX
P.S.: -----Folks, I'm officially signed on to the new online subscription as of last night, so if any of you blogophyles out there thought I was just going to wimpishly drift off into the marmalade-hued Southern California sunset............. well, sorry to disappoint you, but you can't get rid of this $&^#@* windbaggy Canuck THAT easily.
I may have deep Scottish roots, but my innate 'thrift' thankfully seems to come and go. In this case, monies well spent.
IMHO, John McIntyre, the stalwart blogmeister that he is, deserves all our continued loyal support. Enough said.
Posted by: ALEX MCCRAE | October 11, 2011 11:38 AM
In the matter of cologne, I've always relied on the ultimate authority, the Playboy Advisor, who said they should know you're there, but they shouldn't know you're coming.
Posted by: Michael Penn Moore | October 11, 2011 12:01 PM
I did read a woman's comment about a guy the other day about him belonging to the people who think 'why take a shower when there's aftershave?'
Posted by: Laurent | October 11, 2011 1:32 PM
Michael Penn Moore,
Yikes!
That naughty Playboy Advisor sure knew how to play the old double entendre card.........."but they should know you're coming", indeed. (Oh behave!)
Of course my polymorphous perverse mind immediately conjured up that renowned man of (all-lower-case) letters, namely e. e. cummings. (Undoubtedly a favorite of our sweet Laura Lee.)
Well, to be truthful, I likely was more imagining the word "coming" in the context of say Henry Miller's novels---- Sexus, Plexus, or Nexus, or novella, The Delta of Venus, by his lustful cohort-in-penned-erotica, Anais Nin.
Okay, Mr. McIntyre, I'm off to the loo to wash my foul mouth out w/ soap; preferably the non-perfumed variety. Wouldn't want to excite, or incite, the ladies, would we? HA!
ALEX
Posted by: ALEX MCCRAE | October 11, 2011 2:11 PM
Are there actually dialects of English in which the set of hats does not include caps, or are you just being cheeky?
As for your humour, I don't watch your "Joke of the Week" videos, but I might if I didn't have to suffer through an advertisement before getting to the joke. Cost/benefit ratios inferred from this information may be relied upon.
Posted by: Adrian Morgan | October 14, 2011 5:29 AM