Author Archives: andymac012@gmail.com

They’re Going to Think You’re Gay

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One day toward the end of my senior year at OSU, I sat in my shared living room with my two roommates as they played XBox while I wrote a paper on my laptop, with iTunes simultaneously shuffling through my music library. At one point the shuffle landed on Adele’s “Someone Like You,” and naturally, I turned that shit up. Almost immediately, one of my roommates stopped what he was doing and contorted his face in what appeared to be a combination of a sneer and what happens when you catch a whiff of a really bad fart. After his look of disgusted inquiry didn’t have the desired effect on me, he decided to try his words.

“What if somebody walked in here right now?”

I understood what he was implying, but when people ask me dumb questions, I like to give dumb answers.

“But there are already people in here,” I added just enough sarcasm to make it count.

“If someone walks in here right now and hears you blasting Adele,” he continued, “they might think you’re gay or something.”

To which I replied, “And?”

My hope was that he would realize his point wasn’t having the desired effect and begin to grasp just how stupid his premise and argument were, but no such luck.

“What do you mean, ‘and’?!”

“So,” I started slowly. “You think that I shouldn’t listen to music I like solely because of what other people will think about me?”

Even after I spelled it out for him so blatantly, we failed to come to any sort of a logical compromise, as both of us seemed baffled by the fact that the other one wasn’t getting the point. I don’t know if my roommate was legitimately concerned with my publicly perceived sexuality or if he thought any trace of effeminacy on my part would place his masculinity in question, but in the end, I just felt kind of bad for him. Regardless of motive, he truly believed in his heart of hearts that another person’s potentially misguided opinion of my sexual orientation would be enough to deter me from doing something I enjoyed.

For any of my gentlemen readers, I implore you, nay I beg you, to hold on a little more loosely to your pride and stop pretending that you don’t have feelings, because you’re not only lying to yourself but you’re making the rest of us look bad. The next time somebody says to you, “people are gonna think you’re gay,” please do me a favor by looking them square in the eyes, adopting your most condescending look of sympathy and replying, “Who cares?”

Reduction to Absurdity

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Reduction to absurdity is a basic rhetorical argument and if you read the news or follow any form of political punditry, you’re probably familiar with it: “If we let a man marry another man, what’s to stop a man from marrying a dog, or a lamp shade?”  The irrationality of the assertion is by design, and it’s been a favorite talking point from hard line conservatives, associating same-sex marriage with a concept so ridiculous that it allows them to seem like altruistic defenders of traditional values while still being assholes. While I believe that proponents of this view are wasting everybody’s time on an issue of basic human rights, I don’t think they should abandon the matter altogether. They merely need to retrain their focus on a group deserving of vilification, because there is a much more severe threat to the national social structure. I’m talking, of course, about sex with robots.

Go ahead and laugh, but it’s going to happen, and for no other reason than the inherent laziness of my species: impressing women, and the ceaseless dick-measuring that that entails, are man’s only sources of motivation (for life, in general). Men are shameless, perverted, and impulsive animals, which is why there is no doubt in my mind that one of us will be (or already has been) the first to philander a robot .  To us, women are the world’s most complex puzzle, like a giant labyrinth that reshuffles itself every twenty minutes, giving you just enough time to gain your bearings before turning the world on its head. There’s a steep learning curve in talking to girls, and it’s a skill that requires a fair share of vulnerability and rejection:  two things to which my gender doesn’t take kindly.  Therefore, I can earnestly identify with the desire to avoid such humiliating social circumstances by finding other means of gratification.

I’m not saying girls are an impossible undertaking, or even improbable, as a large part of the male population overcomes such odds on a daily basis. However, the difficulties are sufficient enough to dissuade the more apathetic of our kind from making the effort, and nothing caters to that instinctual disinterest more than technology. One of modern society’s greatest ironies is the fact that there is a small percentage of our population working tirelessly to ensure that the rest of us never have to tire from working. Not that it’s hard to deter people from exercising their will power, but the mental back flips we can accomplish to justify laziness can be quite remarkable, especially when sex is on the brain. There have been dozens of times (mostly in college) in which I was attempting to get laid, and decided to throw in the towel and jerk off from sheer lack of motivation. I can only imagine the activities I would be tempted to abandon if I had the convenience of an anatomically correct model of Emma Watson waiting in my closet: a man could easily justify that as nothing more than an expensive sex toy.

Even so, the dispassionate masses are not the only ones under suspicion here. You may be asking yourself what type of person would be lonely enough to realistically invest in a sex robot. Well, nothing says complete lack of social skills like the ability to create robots. Let’s face it, ever since the movie Weird Science, nerds have been itching to score themselves some artificially intelligent ass, and anyone who has played video games in the past five years can testify to that. As the game graphics have improved, female characters have gotten hotter and hotter, as they’re given increasingly larger breasts complimented by inversely proportioned waistlines. It’s unrealistic to believe that women with boobs that big can perform the level of physical activity necessary to be that thin. Their backs just wouldn’t support it. I remember playing a level in God of War on PS3 in which I had to make love to a goddess while two of her female servants watched, and those servants would (depending on my performance) become incrementally more aroused before eventually hitting the floor to start their own party. Mind you, this whole scene had absolutely nothing to do with the arch of the plot. It was there solely for the sake of animated porn.

This fundamental, and even glorified weakness of our nerd community is evidence that men are susceptible on every level of the social ladder, from the best and brightest all the way down to our inert legions of armchair champions. If we’re not careful, mankind may be headed for a (not so) far off dystopian future in which the men have been willingly confined to underground burrows, each of us with a robotic sex surrogate that the ruling class of women uses to harvest our seed and keep us collectively pacified by our own emotional simplicity. To avoid this future of passive captivity, I desperately urge my species to stay vigilant, follow your heart and make sure your larger head stays in control, otherwise we’re doomed to be imprisoned by our own immoral inclinations. However. If you think I’m overreacting by taking a simple issue and drawing a string of hypothetical social circumstances before reducing it to a single absurd scenario, I completely understand. After all, that’s kind of the point.

For the last few hours…

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…I have been plagued by a burning curiosity, lost in contemplation over one of the greatest pop culture mysteries of our time. Yet, as it goes with most of life’s great philosophical journeys, the answer becomes more elusive with every step. The subject of my intense meditation is the possible motivations behind the humble career choice of one of America’s greatest fictional adventurers:

What inspired Mario to be a plumber?

Were Mario’s extraordinary abilities merely a product of circumstance? Did Princess Peach’s initial kidnapping activate some secret reserve of untapped potential previously unbeknownst to the pudgy Italian protagonist, or was the blue-collar career choice made in full awareness of his uncommon capabilities?

It’s difficult to imagine that a man with such universal talents would subject himself  to a path of such limited ambition. Granted, Mario has never shown any signs of engaging in any form of abstract thought, a fact made evident by his ten word vocabulary and preference to express his emotions with inarticulate hoots and grunts. However, this uncaped crusader’s athleticism is off the charts, being an accomplished stock car racer while excelling in tennis, golf, baseball, and soccer. Not only has he competed in the summer and winter Olympics, but was an eligible participant in every single event. The sheer stamina required for that level of physical duress could earn him millions in endorsements. As a consequence, I think it’s safe to rule out a financial motive for Mario’s everyman occupation.

Next, there’s the possibility that the plumber gig was intended as a cover to protect those closest to him: every superhero needs a secret identity right?   Wrong. Mario is one of the video game world’s biggest narcissists, never passing up an opportunity to plaster his name (in bold letters) all over any organization or event with which he gets involved. Accordingly, it would be understandable if he lacked concern for his own safety, but nor does he have consideration for the safety of his family, exemplified by the frequent abductions of his girlfriend and idiot brother. Though to be fair to Mario, you’d think a princess would have more capable security than a bunch of talking mushrooms.

Consequently, if we must rule out the application of a secret identity, then we find ourselves in the realms of speculation, and would not be remiss for postulating that Mario’s employment in the plumbing industry was pursued as a means of honoring his lineage. My very limited research uncovered little to no reference in regard to the familial origins of the Mario brothers. You can find out a great deal about a man’s motives by studying the deeds of his forefathers, but the only history we have on Mario is the fact of a very general Italian heritage. For all we know, the Mario family tree could be ripe with plumbers, which would also explain why Luigi took up a similar mantle despite being remarkably less competent.

Beyond that, I can only see one other logical option:  he enjoys it. It could be that within the hurricane of celebrity and adventure that is Mario’s existence, plumbing is the method by which he unwinds, finding the monotony of manual labor to be therapeutic. Although, if the answer is that simple, it would mean the last three hours of my life and the resulting blog post were a complete waste of time. Debatable, but I choose to keep dreaming.

Nobody Cares

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My love of sports has waned considerably since childhood, most likely because I never really cared to begin with, but was born into an athletically minded family and was too insecure to fight the grain. Despite my general indifference to televised athletics, the NFL has kept me securely tethered to the world of professional sports, mainly due to my obsession with fantasy football. My love of fantasy football reaches to such an extent that I wouldn’t be surprised if it became a major point of contention in all of my future relationships. I start studying during training camp, immersing myself in player news and stat lines, and memorizing depth charts even before the season begins. However, even considering the unhealthy extremes of my football nerdery, there are few things I find more irritating than having a discussion with someone about their fantasy football team.

Actually, “discussion” may be a mild term, because although these conceited individuals usually frame the subject within a conversational structure, they obviously have little to no interest in anything you have to say. These are the same kinds of self-glorifying jock straps that can’t wait to tell you about the new spinning rims on their car, or how they totally hooked up with that hot cougar at the bar last night. I get it guys. You’re excited and you want to share that excitement with the world, but you need to deflate that cancerous lump of pride swelling in your chest, because you will not find a single person who cares. Ever. If you corner a polite stranger, they may toss you a halfhearted nod of approval, but no one could willingly match your level of enthusiasm over something so fucking stupid.

“Yeah, bro. I’ve got Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson this year. I’ve got a good chance to win my league.”

That does nothing for me. At all. I’m one step closer to death, with nothing to show for it but the useless information that just came spilling out of your face hole. I would rather have hit myself in the head with a tack hammer, and killed those brain cells straight away, than waste them on your self-indulgent filth.

Now, as the perpetrators of these types of lopsided discourses are, in my experience, predominantly male, I want to stress that there is no topic in the English language that will make a girl lose interest in you faster than the details of your fantasy football team. You could discuss the dimensions of your ex-girlfriend’s ass and get a more passionate response, albeit an unfavorably passionate response, but even then there’s a chance to inspire jealous aggression.  If you start talking about fantasy football with a girl you’re trying to sleep with, you may as well break out the moisturizer and pick an image to jerk off to, because you just buried yourself. Be that as it may, I’m not so narrow-minded as to assume that there are no girls who will find the subject interesting, as I’m sure there are guys out there dying to talk about the Kardashians; but those individuals are few and far between.

 

Best F@#%in’ Friends Forever

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Have you ever blacked out at a party and woken up next to your best friend to find them wearing your clothes and you donning only a pair of boxers?  Did you also realize shortly thereafter that there was a small pile of puke on the floor and a significant amount of urine in your book bag?  If you haven’t already guessed by the sheer specificity of these circumstances, this has happened to me.  For most people, this would raise a very revealing line of questioning, and would probably constitute a serious reevaluation of the friendship in question.  For me, this was merely the first of a laundry list of compromising situations which cemented my undying love and loyalty to Melinda Ann Tucker, who is, without rival, my best friend in the world.

I met Lindy during our freshman year at Ohio State.  We didn’t take to each other immediately, but that was because I still lacked the self-confidence for social outreach, and she was fighting to overcome a slight personal fear of….well, me.  Apparently, I had a tendency to be a bit intimidating when I still had yet to get over “all of my wrestling bullshit,” as a friend of ours so eloquently put it.  Nevertheless, we overcame our subtle differences and bonded over a mutual lack of ambition, spending countless days playing Mario Kart and Wii Bowling, and countless nights drinking to our physical limitations.  We used to have a motto during that first year of college that went “It’s not a good night unless Lindy pukes.”   We had many good nights.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a best friend of the opposite sex, but I highly recommend it.  If for nothing more than to have someone to bounce ideas off of, especially when it comes to relationships. Navigating the female psyche is exponentially easier when you have consistent access to first hand source material. It’s like living in a foreign country with a personal translator who has not only mastered the language, but is an expert on culture and customs as well.  Not to mention, that despite our considerable amount of common interests, I never have to worry about her sleeping with my girlfriend….and even if she did, I doubt that anger would even register within the mushroom cloud of thoughts and emotions I would be likely to feel.

It wasn’t just our love of partying and daily flights from responsibility that served as the mortar for our friendship, but an unspoken bond developed between us; and I don’t mean ‘unspoken bond’ in the cliched sense of the phrase.  I mean that we established such a deep understanding of one another’s thought processes that we could literally communicate without speaking.  Hell, there have been plenty of times where she figures out what I’m thinking before I do.

Now, and for the rest of my life (or at least until she gets married) I have someone who will have my back regardless of whether I’m right or wrong. Although, if I do happen to be wrong,  she’ll pull me aside and privately inform me how out of line I am.  In Lindy Tucker, I have a friend who I can always count on, and although she may express (justified) concern for my mental health, will never (openly) judge me for whatever perversions my mind may conjure.

When the inevitable day comes, and Lindy does walk down the aisle, if I’m not directly across the altar, you can be damn sure that I’ll be right behind her. I don’t even care if I have to wear a dress. If that’s what it takes, I’ll be there.