The MAN List

Metrosexual - (n) - An urban-dwelling, straight man who possesses good taste and goes to unusual lengths (for a 'regular' man) to keep himself well-groomed.


Last Sunday I went to Hola! Tapas Bar to have dinner with a friend. Our conversation soon turned to how we had each spent our Labor Day Weekend.

"With gas prices near $3.25 a gallon, driving anywhere is out of the question," I explained to her. "So I've spent my entire holiday weekend ironing my new shower curtain and painting my bedroom a lovely shade of pastel sage."

"You're such a metrosexual," she accused.

"I hate that word!" I replied.

[Let the record show that I hate being called a metrosexual. The whole idea of the "metrosexual" is shallow and unoriginal (played out, if you will) and I have never liked being lumped in with such a group. I am a MAN, for crying out loud!]

"First of all," I continued, perhaps exposing some deep-rooted insecurity about this issue, "I am ugly. I spend exactly 15 seconds fixing my hair in the morning and I've never had a body part waxed (though my eyebrows are years overdue). Metros are good looking, stylish guys with square-toed shoes and boot-cut jeans."
I wasn't finished stating my case: "I make $40,500 a year and I drive a Honda. Metros make lots of money and drive BMWs!"

[Sure, I own an unusually high number of pink shirts, and I enjoy a manicure as much as the next guy (and a pedicure on payday), but--deep down--I am a Testosterone Factory who just happens to appreciate a double-Windsor tie knot.

I was stating a very convincing case to my friend, but she just nodded in disagreement.

My insides began to quake... I got sweaty... I began to doubt myself...

"Am I not a real man??"
"Am I a sissy??"
"Will I be the laughingstock with the guys down at the Elks Lodge this Tuesday??"

To help ease my worry, I enlisted the aid of 3 trusted confidants: Gabriel Hernandez, an ex-Marine, gun enthusiast, and a man who, as a youth, once beat up his sister every day for 82 straight days; Elizabeth Busbee, Mississippi-southern-belle and renowned "man expert"; and a slightly more famous Mississippian, Elvis Presley. In addition to being the King of Rock-n-Roll, Elvis was the epitome of Manhood: fame, chicks, hit records, Cadillacs, and shag carpet on the ceiling (drug overdoses, though careless and irresponsible and inherently very unmanly, can be overlooked if they were endured in a "manly-enough" fashion. In Elvis' case, his heart exploded while he was taking a crap, a manly task if there ever was one...).

So these friends and I drafted a list of persons, places and things that absolutely, unequivocally reek of masculinity. I must search my true heart. If I can honestly say that "Paul Gongora" also belongs on this list, then I am truly a man.

The jury is still deliberating:


sports
beer
trucks
guns
fast cars
chicks
fire
motorcycles
barbecue-ing
beards
cussing
Vietnam
barber shops
tattoos
flannel
betting
speeding

boozing away a broken heart
chest hair
weightlifting
big dogs
construction
Mickey Mantle's liver
fried food
flesh wounds
dirty jokes

sharks
jail time
Goodys headache powder
the World's Strongest Man competition
drinking milk from the carton

boxing
Dick Butkus
burning stuff
Hooters hot wings
Burt Reynolds' mustache
calluses
Wyoming
straight-edge razors
lumber
blood
chili
Clint Eastwood
home repair
yard work
cowboy boots
stitches
longshoremen
James Dean
bayonets
tractors
Stephenville, TX
tackle football
butchers
whipping your kid with a belt
OLN
bar fights
black coffee
tools
red meat

Tom Selleck
the Old West
cleats
refineries
dirt
Robert Plant
whiskey
Lava Soap (with pumice)
mercy-killing a dying pet
CB radios
bacon
Charles Oakley
steel

fishing
bullets
hardware stores
cattle drives
Chris Cornell's voice
owning land
groupies
scars
POWs
auto factories
bruises
peeing outdoors
knives
truckstops
mud tires
Ronnie Lott
tanks
Gatlinburg, Tennessee
James Bond
18-wheelers
Wrangler jeans
coal mines
keeping the A/C at 64 degrees
NASCAR
the blues
Sam Malone
Antarctica
hunting

Walker, Texas Ranger
barbed wire