Tag: male bonding

The Dispossessed – Part 1

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People like me are relics of a bygone era.  What we believed in and how we lived don’t exist in the present day.  We are a shadow presence in a new world made up of people who believe in and exist in a different reality from what we had.

Now we can be angry about that but that does not change the facts on the ground.  The new world has taken hold and will have to play out over the next generation before any meaningful reaction to the status quo takes hold.  The only question is what we will do.  Some folks have just given up and withdrawn into their memories and mark time until their time is up.  Other people rage against the reality on the ground and make a bunch of noise.  Well, those are both understandable reactions.  The present situation is depressing and pathetic.

What I’ve been puzzling about for the last ten years or so is how to exist in this regime but still do the things I like and live the way I want.  And that is not a simple exercise.  I can’t claim to have cracked the code and found the golden way that bypasses the toxic problems that surround us, especially folks like myself who live basically in the belly of the blue state beast.  Now granted it’s not quite as bad as California where the insanity is reaching 1984-like repression but it’s bad enough.

As best I can guess the correct path is to form a network of people like myself and do everything humanly possible to avoid the crazies both in my internal and external lives.  Other than some family who qualify as the Left I avoid any personal relationships with the insane.  Some people enjoy baiting these people and arguing about their crazy ideas.  I get exactly zero pleasure from such activities.  My idea of fun is talking and interacting with non-crazy people.

As far as the outside world, that’s a lot more difficult.  Professionally and publicly, I am surrounded by some of the craziest leftists you could hope to imagine.  This is extremely trying.  Some of these people are looking to push their world view on anyone whom they bump into.  My general rule is silence.  I don’t agree or disagree with their statements.  I maintain an impassive expression and wait for them to finish their tirade.  If they make a point of asking my opinion, I just say I have nothing to say.  So, there are plenty of crazies that become agitated by that tactic but for the most part they eventually wander away sullenly.  So that sort of works for me.

But this isn’t a robust strategy.  What it lacks is a “congregating” methodology.  We are always just a small fringe at the edges of society and we never form a larger society.  Sure, on line we have friends and acquaintances but these are distant groups and they lack the opportunities for local activities that make life interesting.  That’s the part of this situation I haven’t managed to “fix.”  I used to kid about starting the “he-man woman hater’s club” and open a chapter in every town in America.  And I think that is the answer.  And the club definitely needs a women’s auxiliary to make us sandwiches that we can bring with us to the clubhouse where they’re not allowed to go.

And I kid about this but this is what we need.  Clubs for men are exactly what is missing from life for those of us who have no use for the feminist world that has taken over from the world we knew.

06JUN2023 – Coffee Walk Reunion

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From the farthest reaches of the known universe, a hardy crew of hard-bitten desperados descended upon a tavern to relive old glories and trade lies about their exploits.  Well anyway I had to travel for an hour or so.  So, I sojourned out beyond Dunwich to consult, confer and otherwise hobnob with my fellow wizards.  Old times were remembered.  Fallen comrades and enemies were recalled and mockery for the masters of the universe that we had suffered under flowed freely.  So many funny stories.

And we compared notes on the worst of the changes that had slowly turned our former corporate home from a great place to work to a bureaucratic hellhole.  And all agreed that the problem could be described with three letters … DEI.  The most recent outrages were some of the worst.  DEI has become embedded in the goals of every manager.  But how can you advance DEI when there’s no budget to hire new people.  Surprise, surprise.  You have to eliminate white men.  And the way to do that in the zero-sum game of corporate competition is to give them bad reviews.  No matter how valuable they may be or how carefully they work to accomplish their goals it is absolutely critical to advance minorities and women.  So, the white men must be demoted.  And if you’re a normal man and that’s what you’re told to do it’s going to stick in your craw.  Eventually if you can, you walk away.

And that’s not an easy thing.  These jobs pay very, very well.  The perks include stock options, five figure bonuses and retirement plans that any peon would give his right arm to have.  But at a certain point stomaching the things you have to say and do can become too much.

Opinions were espoused about the 2024 race.  I was sort of a downer with my, “We can’t vote ourselves out of this” schtick.  But I was happy to listen to everybody’s opinion on the Trump versus DeSantis question.  And everyone laughed at Biden’s last few fails like tripping over the sandbag and wandering off stage whenever his handlers lost track of him.  And gallons of beer (no Transheuser Busch ordered at that table) were imbibed and mass quantities of meat were wolfed down.

So, we commiserated and compared notes on families and summer plans and vowed to drag the wives into a larger gathering involving grilled meat of a ribeye variety that we have agreed is optimal.  Whether all can attend this upcoming event is of course problematic.  Wives are troublesome, fretful creatures who rarely acquiesce in the expansive plans that men imagine.  Their problem is that they lack the big broad flexible outlook on life.  They want to nail down time and place and attendees and food budgets and other troublesome details that just complicate their husbands’ days.  Why can’t a woman be more like a man?  Wait, scratch that.  Maybe I’m really glad that they’re completely different from men.  Look at all the trouble Matt Walsh has had just getting “experts” to define “WhatIsAWoman?”  Let them be as different as they want as long as they stay just as they are.

So, a very good day.  Reconnecting with the guys is critical.  Camaraderie is of the essence of a normal male life.  We have to spend so much time providing for our families and interacting with the wife and kids that it’s essential now and then to escape from those twittering voices and flighty emotions and hang out with coarse, vulgar, boorish, insensitive, cruel, funny, inventive, enthusiastic and masculine peers.

Well, I’m home now.  The fun is over.  Back to chores and routine.  No more pastrami Reubens.  Just healthy food and diet.   Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

What’s on My Mind Today

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Yesterday was a sort of hectic day.  I had to clear the snow from the driveways so I could get out and head off on an errand.  That kind of interrupted the usual time I like to take in the morning for the site and for reading up on stuff.  Today is sort of back to normal but when I looked around there wasn’t too much to review.

There were the usual atrocities by the Dems and the usual useless hand waving by the GOPe.  Blah, blah, blah.  There was that nice piece of news about DeSantis going after the Social Media sites that discriminate against conservatives.  It’s encouraging to see that a few red state governors have some desire to help us.  Excellent.  May twenty more do just as much.  Then we’d have something to talk about.

And since the news didn’t take much time, I started thinking about what is meaningful for me to do with my time and with my website.  One of my fans said I should do more with the photography side of things.  He likes the macro stuff I do and thinks I should put it up on YouTube as a slide show montage thing.  That sounds kind of interesting.  I’m also thinking about publishing some art books with the landscape and macro stuff.  I also have been neglecting my fiction writing during the inauguration excitement but now that things are slowing down, I really must get some discipline and put in the hours to move those projects along.  I’ll put up links to these other things here on the site.

On the local front I’ve had some friends show interest in putting together the first local chapter of the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club.  High on the agenda for the club was hammering out the rules for the poker game.  There were some who wanted to allow for a high stakes option.  I was completely opposed for a couple of reasons.  One is that I want to allow for the widest possible socio-economic inclusivity (there is that word sneaking in!).  Even the least of my brothers must be able to enjoy the benefits of manly camaraderie.  The other is that I’m a truly awful poker player and I don’t want to be beaten by Camera Girl if I lose the milk money.  The next question on the agenda is whether sandwiches will be premade or assembled as needed.  My opinion was that each man must build his own sandwich and that only a few sandwich building breaks should be allotted.  Otherwise, the game would become too fragmented.  Of course, chips and drinks can be snagged at the end of every hand.  And finally, the type of poker was debated strenuously.  Some of the younger guys said it should be strictly Texas Hold’em.  Having been raised on draw and stud poker I resisted this idea.  But I went as far as to agree that some limits be made on the side bets for high spade and other distractions.

All of this was very gratifying and sound.  But what brought us all up to a halt was setting the date for the first game.  After all we’re still in the “lockdown.”  If we assemble at someone’s house, we’ll have to shut our lights as we near the driveway and camouflage the parked cars for fear that the neighborhood Karens will rat us out to the storm troopers.  I mean, I like a good ham swiss and mustard as much as the next guy but getting tased and thrown in the local COVID tank with the other sinners is a bit much.  We tabled the item with the understanding that it would be in April or May.

But just talking to the “boys” about some old-fashioned male bonding was inspirational.  It’s good to be making plans again and living in the future and not just dwelling on the nightmares of the recent past.  If you think about it, other than this COVID crap the government really doesn’t have much of a stranglehold on what adults do with their lives.  Lying to the authorities and our bosses at work will become second nature the way it does in any totalitarian state but we can still be ourselves with our friends and family.  And one day we’ll pull the whole thing down around their ears and march them off to the gulag as payback.

So today is a good day to plan and get things done.

He-Man Woman Hater’s Club – Part 1

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I found talking about my mad dream to found a continent-spanning, benevolent, fraternal association of American men so much fun, I’ve decided to start formulating various facets in a series of posts. It truly is an intoxicating pleasure to imagine the world returning to normal. A world where an American husband and father truly is the king of his castle.

One of the time-honored rituals of male bonding is the weekly poker game. This was extremely prevalent in the old days and was a great source of stress relief. Now granted it was also an opportunity for all sorts of destructive behavior ranging from alcoholism to adultery but I’m restricting myself to a more domesticated version where the game takes place at the homes of the participants and doesn’t involve hookers and straight razor fights. I prefer the game to rotate around the membership’s homes. That way it takes the burden off any particular wife to provide the necessary foodstuffs. However, the burdens have been lessened thanks to the introduction of online gambling and poker games that could be found when visiting sites like best-casino.net and others. Online gambling allows people to enjoy poker nights in the comfort of their own homes while still having a quiet night in.

It is important to make sure the membership is in relative agreement on which poker games are considered legitimate. Lately Texas hold’em has gathered a very large following but I don’t think restricting the play to one game is necessary. But to each his own. Also there have to be very specific rules on acceptable stakes. Personally, I think it’s better to keep things on the low side. Otherwise you run the risk of scaring off the guys on a limited budget. Besides losing a lot of money to friends is embarrassing and liable to cause hard feelings.

Now, most important, how to integrate the food into the game. Some purists believe that food shouldn’t be allowed during the play and reserved to a break in between sessions. For myself, I think a good pastrami sandwich and some premium chips enhances the game and in fact provides a good opportunity to look for your opponents’ poker tells. But agreement going in is a good idea.

But the most important aspect of poker night is the chance for men to get together and discuss all the important matters of the day without having to hear the annoying, high-pitched yammering of women. And one of those important aspects of life to discuss is the annoying things that wives do. Complaining about and making fun of wives is a time-honored male occupation that has, sadly, fallen out of style. Reviving this tradition is an add-on benefit of the weekly poker game.

And since this is the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club we’re talking about, think of a poker game as a good way to sound out prospective members on their orthodoxy on all the various club tenets. A poker game is a very relaxing environment and a good way to get to know people. It would make sense to allow the prospective member to take the lead on conversation and hang back to see if he’s HMWHC material. Also a poker game may be a good way to raise funds for a project or an outing. Each member can throw in a ten spot per game and accumulate that for a bigger purpose.

So that’s my first topic. Feel free to provide feedback and any stories about your own poker games.