Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Men Whom Men Hate.

I stunned a friend of mine once, when I told her that she was not a woman’s woman. Meaning despite the love and lust she inspired in men, women simply couldn’t stand her. You know these women. You might even be one of them. Women whom other women think betray their sex, set a bad example, not just a trollop or a slut, but also Ann Coulter. Women who are sometimes given a raw deal for simply being too damn fearless. Or selfish. Is that you? Well fret not thy despised personage for there are men for whom other men go sick at the mention of their names. Men who let the side down. Men we’d gladly mow down with a moving vehicle or crush with a stationary one. Men who betray their brothers, piss on their fathers and make us wonder why God didn’t make Adam a lesbian. Men whom men hate.

1. Hostus Pompousassholinuss
If worthless, unemployable men spend their days watching TV, then worthless unemployable women spend their days in the audience of TV shows. Talk shows in particular. Talk shows hosted by men to be specific. This is the lair of Hostus Pompousassholinuss, the male talk show host. The TV talking ass that reassures women that yes, all men are jerks...except me. Morning TV is littered with them: Maury Povich, Geraldo, Montell (whose name sounds like a bad hair product from Dixie Peach)—men who trap deadbeat dads, bad breeders, child abusers, gay-sex-having house husbands and their ilk. Maury and Co. constantly parade the absolute worst examples of manliness within airspace to show soccer moms that yes, men are dogs, liars, killers, thieves, and freeloaders and they will leave you pregnant. All men of course, except them. So caring are these guys, so concerned, so loving that when they start to love other women instead of their wives, guess who forgives them first?

2. The Reality TV Troglodyte
Reality TV has had no shortage of despicable men, but even in that treacly bunch there once stood an asshole plus ultra, a man of such louché loutishness that one wondered why God himself didn’t come down to kick him in the nuts. That man would be Rocco Dispirito, the Chef of the deservedly flopped The Restaurant. While Anthony Bourdain and Marco Pierre White were classic bad boys who justified their behavior with legendary food, Dispirito was just a pretty-boy prick that thought the loudest man in the room was the one that got results. A whiner and a brat with an entitlement complex a mile wide, his gift for faking talent was matched only by his initial success at pulling it off. Men like him are not self-styled geniuses, but self-styled marketers, who can swing from hostile to ho in a (filmed) New York minute. But what really gets under our skin is another talent that men whom men hate seem to have in abundance. The gift to make beautiful women want them. For reasons unknown to the rest of us, some women mistake assholiness for attitude, belligerence for brashness, and tired pick up lines for poetry. Because when this man moves in for the kill, he can make a woman feel like she’s the only one in the room. Not a hard trick for a man who thinks everybody else is only scenery anyway.

3. Dr. Let Me Tell You What’s Wrong With You
Ah, Dr. Phil. Amazing what TV can do. A graduate of the tough love school of therapy, Phil is of the belief that nothing beats a good cussing to pull up one’s bootstraps. With men he frequently begins at the ending, writing them off before the first commercial break and cussing the [insert abused term here] woman to get some backbone. In Dr. Phil’s world men are simply irredeemable, so the woman if she has sense would just move on. Dr LMTYWWWU’s feel it’s their god given mission to always tell you what to do. By insisting that he knows you more than you know yourself, Phil gets to reduce your entire life to a sound bite, and just in time too. He needs all that extra airtime to hawk his next diet book.

4. The Creative Type
Let me tread carefully since I consider myself to be possessing of some talent. But here is the real trick of the Creative Type. He has no talent whatsoever. He shouts bad poetry because well, that’s how he reclaims his blackness y’all, or he swings it around jazz because, well swing is the only jazz word he knows even though he’s rapping to hard-bop or a diluted hip-hop. Or he paints big abstracts and the sells them for bigger prices or worst of all, serenades women off-key. You know this guy. Sometimes he’s not even attractive but there he is with booty he doesn’t deserve. Your only hope with this one is the fact the eventually everybody realizes they can do better.

5. The Dad Who Won’t Die
Some have it that young men admire old farts like Jack Nicholson for their seemingly unquenchable libido, even in their twilight years. Some people have it wrong. We despise these pot bellied cradle robbers. Give or take a few years and they would be statutory rapists. We can’t stand them because even with their colostomy bags in tow they will still make moves on their future daughters in law. In the past all men had an unwritten agreement with the generation that came after: marriage, parenthood, college bills, retirement, impotence, shuffleboard, adult diapers and death. But thanks to Viagra, Jurassic jerks have been showing up on the dance floor, stinking of aqua Velva and gunning for what should have been you future bedmate. But there’s a fine line between a screaming orgasm and a massive coronary once you’re past 60, and if there’s any luck lines get crossed.

6. The Reporter
Remember that unwritten rule between boys, that if an adult caught you in a fight neither should reveal who started it no matter what? Many a best friend came out of that scenario, but no such luck happens if one of you is a dipstick that tattles. As for that little piece of wretched effluvia? He grew up, didn’t you know, and now sits in the cubicle beside you. He feels he simply must share everything with the boss, especially if it’s about you. This creature works best with an audience so he waits until a board meeting to give you tips on how to come to work on time, or how to stick to the lunch break, or how to download at home instead of on company time. And while I’m all for going postal on a sucker, homicide might not be your wisest move for career advancement, unless your ambition is to get knee pads for prison life. Reporters, massive talkers that they are, tend not to be blessed with wit, so one good comeback (Man, you spend an awful lot of time watching me, Carson, I mean I’m gay friendly but is that appropriate behavior for the office?) will silence him for good.

7. Mr. Sensitive
The most despicable of the bunch. He’s the mullet haired, cattle prodded weenie that butchered Otis Redding, and told women that he’s their Soul Provider. He's that shitty twerp from Creed, a band that even Jesus hated with an ego so huge it literally screamed small penis. Or he’s that writer of The Notebook and ....okay I really don’t know any other book Nicholas Sparks wrote, but it’s the kind of book where a woman’s bosom is always heaving. Or worse, he’s that idiot in the snow looking like a wet rat whelping You’re Beautiful for so long that you’d slash your face just to get the slime bag to move on. Who are these men? How did they get one X-chromosome too many? Mr. Sensitive knows that sentimentality is merely a term for sentiment that some people (like me) don’t like. And people like me, don’t buy records at Walmart. But their fans do.

8. Mr. Real Man
Such an exact opposite of Mr. sensitive that we'd guess he's merely the former's Mr. Hyde. Mr. Real Man is so convinced of his real manliness that his big ambition is to do absolutely nothing but wallow in his masculine glow, flattening his butt out on a lazy boy. Mr. Real Man doesn't cook because well, he's straight. In fact we get it Mr. Uber Hetero. Don't read? We get it, you're straight. Never pluck monobrow? We get it, you're straight. Not into fashion—you only care that it's comfortable? We get it, you're straight. Don't know if another man is good looking or not? We get it, you're straight. Don't plan on going to an art gallery ever? We get it, you're straight. Don't care about dance unless it's in your lap? We get it, you're straight. Don't listen to anything but rap? Yup straight as an arrow, buddy. Look at the term bitch as one of endearment? We get it, Mr. I only dig tha chicks. Women who still want to sleep with you? That we don't get.


9, 10 and beyond. Dishonorable Mentions:

Clay Aitken (although some men love him dearly indeed). The bad breath guy who STILL has a girl friend. Super Christians who should just come out of the closet already. Men who don't know the difference between having some pride and having no shame. Maxwell. Tom Cruise. Robin Williams in everything after Mrs. Doubtfire (except Good Will Hunting). Men in touch with their feelings. Men who have to work at being real men. Men who want credit for what they're supposed to do. Kobe Bryant. All living male country singers not named Nelson, Ely, Hancock, Earle, Haggard, Lovett or Yoakam. Mike Tyson. 50 Cent. Barney.