Storytelling

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Manspeak, Volume 7: Bromance

It’s not simply a fad. It’s much more complex than that. It’s not simply a gimmick to make more money in the theatres. It’s a clue that we as Americans have missing been out on something. The newfound popularity and acceptance of bromance is simply a realization that men were meant love each other, not just women.

America is good at teaching men masculinity: Rocky, Rambo, The Terminator, He-Man, GI Joe. It’s been ingrained in us our whole lives. We don’t have a problem accepting the fact that men are meant to be tough. Men are born to protect and defend. I think we do that pretty well. But while the bald eagle holds 13 arrows in one claw, he also holds 13 olive branches in the other.

Living overseas in Asia taught me a lot about American men. Though I was told that there were a lot of transvestites in Thailand, it wasn’t until my second summer over there that I was able to recognize them. I then came to the conclusion that the reason there are so many men living their lives as women there is because it is not culturally acceptable to be gay in Thailand, at all.

So when it’s not acceptable in a country at all to be gay (as compared to America where it’s not popular but there’s a growing level of acceptance), to take out the possibly of any men around being gay, it affects the cultural behavior of a nation. Men can be close without any possible thought of the other thinking he is sexually attracted to him. And even more relevant, there is not so much a possibly of awkwardness because of that. In the Philippine’s, it is common for men show their friendship publicly by holding hands.

But before there was Jackie Chan & Chris Tucker, before there was Owen Wilson & Ben Stiller, before there was Joey & Chandler, there was a time when men truly weren’t afraid to hug and be close. It simply symbolized their friendship but was nothing more.

My eyes were opened when I read Moby Dick in college. The 1851 novel was written in the American-Romanticism period, and while the theme of Christianity is more obvious than Season 5 of LOST, something else that really captured my attention and even became the topic of my final paper for that class was the bromantic relationship between the protagonist Ishmael (a 5’ 9” New England native) and his ship mate Queequeg (a 6’ 7” South Seas tribesman of mixed race).

The two men quickly become best friends and the narrator, Ishmael, is not reluctant to elaborate regarding his friendship. They simply slept in the same quarters and were close friends, but reading it with today’s mindset can make it easily be interpreted differently:

“How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cosy, loving pair.”  -Herman Melville (Moby Dick)

Something else that really opened by eyes to bromance was when I started paying close attention to Jesus and His disciples in the New Testament. They were not hesitant to show physical affection for each other. At the Last Supper, look at Peter’s physical closeness to Jesus during dinner.

“Then, leaning back on Jesus’ breast, Peter said to Him, “Lord, who is it?”  -John 13:25

Imagine 12 dudes eating dinner in today’s society and one leans back on the other’s chest to ask him a question. Completely not acceptable.

Even this week I ran across something odd in the Old Testament as I was finishing up Genesis. This is where Jacob is blessing his sons before he dies:

“He called his son Joseph and said to him, ‘Now if I have found favor in your sight, please put your hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me. Please do not bury me in Egypt.”  -Genesis 47:29

In their culture, a son could make a vow to his father by placing his hand under his father’s thigh, or as my Bible’s study notes explain, it was a gentler way of saying his “procreative organ”. Think of how not acceptable that is today.

We’ve obviously come a long way since Biblical times regarding same-sex friendship and closeness. But even the culture that was present 158 years ago in Moby Dick paints a completely different picture compared to what is acceptable in American same-sex friendship today. The title of Moby Dick itself serves a perfect example of how far we’ve come. Add to that the fact that the story involves the close friendship of shipmates. That’s a lot of joke material for a 15 year-old boy to work with.

In fact, in recent decades there have been critics of Moby Dick claim that the book has homosexual undertones. Key phrase: “in recent decades”. For its time, the behavior found in the novel was not seen at all as a curious thing. It was normal back then.

I say it’s no wonder that today’s culture loves bromance. Men were made for close friendship with other men but are taught to hide their feelings because it’s not masculine to show them. When I think about it, several of my top favorite movies of all time have a heavy dose of bromance: Rocky 3, Plains Trains and Automobiles, Zoolander, Pineapple Express, Band of Brothers. And Hollywood knows it’s a winning formula.

The truth is, compare the box office sales of pretty much any Judd Apatow and/or Seth Rogan movie (bromantic comedies) to any romantic comedy made since 2005. Bromance wins every time. Romance, on the other hand, can be an unpredictable thing.

The best 3 minutes of recorded bromance, courtesy of 1982:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0qVUn4797g

All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:

Blog- www.photojoeblog.com

Website- www.joehendricks.com

 

Originally posted in April 2009 on facebook as “The History of Bromance”, which helped inspire the Manspeak series.

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New News

I live by an invisible list of things I will never do. Here is one of those things: “Never become involved in a quick sale unless I am the one pursuing the salesman or the store, not the other way around.” The fact is, calling in the next 10 minutes isn’t what entitles a person to a double order or a bonus gift, as they advertise in the commercial.

Those things are included either way. It’s just that the marketing department knows statistics show that the overwhelming majority of people who call in to order the product, do so in that time frame. It helps the fence riders to do business or get off the pot.

And that is just part of the dirty art of the Quick Sale. There is a reason certain salespeople are so aggressive. It usually is because of the high mark-up of the item. Or they are paid on commission. Or because the item plays on the potential customer’s emotions or wishful thinking.

If the “cure” for male baldness is ever found, there won’t need to be a commercial to advertise for it. Word will get around. Until then, there will always be desperate souls who respond to the infomercial and buy spray paint for their heads.

There is a shortage in the world for new information. People are desperate for it. On Monday the local news channel kept showing advertisements for the 10 O’ Clock News saying, “Find out how Kanye West may have hurt others besides Taylor Swift in the Nashville area…” When it finally aired, the story was simply that some girls from Taylor Swift’s high school didn’t like seeing their hometown hero deprived of her full award speech.

Two words: That is totally lame and no one cares.

I am supposed to be a Twitter fan. It is a great networking tool for writers, yes. But constant, pointless status updates totally annoy me. The deeper issue is this- I want to learn something new. My brain is a sponge for new perspectives and hidden agendas. Twitter isn’t the best place for that. It just constipates my flow of thoughts like the equivalent of junk food.

When I was a kid I remember one day asking my dad if the news reporters would ever run out of news to report. He said there would always be weather and crime, even if nothing else was going on. And that is true.

But what the world does run out of is interesting news. When Kanye West is the highlight of both the local and national news, it says something to me about what news really is. Just like the fact that not every summer has a huge blockbuster movie, not every week has a world-changing news story. Sometimes the news is simply a social blunder. It may appear petty on the surface, but if it is worth of capturing the attention of the entire nation for a week, it obviously holds some serious value.

Regardless, I took the bait. Especially once I heard what the President called him.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqtTESz24gU

And from there, I add to the noise, helping to put Kanye West into the same dreadful category as Paris Hilton, Octomom, and Jon & Kate. The category of “you’re so annoying, why are you everywhere I go?” which in turn sells the most magazines and gains the most clicks on website links.

“That which has been is that which will be and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. -King Solomon (Ecclesiastes)

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Manspeak, Volume 6: Law

This is my company’s first week in our new office.  In the old office, the men’s restroom consisted of only a “one seater”.  Complete privacy, no worries about anyone using a urinal next to me only three feet away on the other side of an inch thick stall.  Those days are gone.  The men’s restroom of the new office is much nicer than the other one, but contains one stall plus two urinals.

 

Today I half-jokingly told my co-worker Mark that I am planning to make a sign to put up on the outside of the stall door whenever I am in there that would say, “Nick Shell is in here, in case you wanted to know.”  That way I could enjoy my peace without having to hear heckling comments or even just having to deal with the annoying question, “Who’s in there?”  Mark replied, “But if you make that sign then you will be interfering with Man Law.  Pestering the person in the bathroom stall is a requirement if it’s someone you know in there.”

 

It’s hard to imagine I could make it through 5 volumes of Manspeak without mentioning Man Law.  (Here’s a refresher course I found…)

http://manlawguide.wordpress.com/

 

Man Law of course was officially outted and recognized by those Miller Lite beer commercials in 2006.  Laws like “a man shall not walk a dog that is smaller than a football” and “there shall be a minimum waiting period of at least 6 months before a man is permitted to start dating his best friend’s ex”.  These laws are taken from the Book of Man Law, a book that no man has actually ever read or even seen before.  A man is just sort of born knowing it.

 

While a man is hard-wired with his own built-in instruction manual which helps him know his own kind; he is not programmed to understand a woman.  That’s where trial and error comes in.  But at least for himself and his own kind, he does have some direction.

 

At the heart of Man Law is an effort to ultimately prevent any reason for a man to ever have a Misunderstanding with another man.  Which prevents the unspeakable Hurt Feelings and the play-it-cool Apology.  A man doesn’t go around thinking about and talking about his relationships with his other guy friends.  Man Law takes care of that.  It’s set up to keep things simple in male friendships.

 

Man Law not only keeps his fellow male relationships healthy but also helps keep a man from unnecessarily embarrassing himself more than he already does on a weekly basis.  One of the many reasons I can’t stop obsessing over the movie I Love You, Man is because of how right-on it addresses the quirky rules of what it takes to be a socially acceptable man among his male peers. It does this by having a cast full of men who constantly break Man Law.  In fact, it is ironically Andy Samberg’s openly gay character, Robby Klaven, who helps his brother Peter to know what a confident straight man is supposed to act like.

 

One of the best examples of a serial offender of Man Law is Peter’s annoying self-obsessed co-worker Tevin Downey who has highlights in his hair and a fake tan, sends annoying e-mail forwards, and sneaks up behind Peter and tickles him whenever he gets the chance.  He’s the epitome of what used to be called a jerk, but in this decade has evolved into what is now called a Tool or a Douchebag. This kind of guy is not physically threatening, nor is he effeminate.  He is simply completely oblivious to the importance of Man Law.

 

Understandably, Man Law is sometimes misinterpreted as a chauvinistic list of what it takes to be macho.  Not the case.  What’s much worse than being less than manly is being compared to Dane Cook or Spencer Pratt, two “men” I constantly make references to, usually mentioning how men around the world long to punch them in the face.

 

To outsiders, Man Law may seem like a finicky, strenuous system in which a person can become overwhelmed by trying to keep up with all the rules.  It can be, for those born with out the instincts.  Because after all, it is an issue of social survival.  For the men who were unfortunately born with Man Law Deficiency, there is hope:  Watch The Office on Thursday nights.  Pay special attention to Andy Bernard and Michael Scott.  Do the exact opposite of whatever they do.

 

All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:

Blog- www.photojoeblog.com

Website- www.joehendricks.com

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The Invisible Touch, Yeah (The 2nd Installment)

It takes seeing bad acting to know what good acting is.  Bad acting isn’t simply defined by an actor who conveys no emotion (Ben Stein).  But there is a thin invisible line between a person who is a good actor (Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Paul Giamatti) and a person who simply plays the same character in every movie (Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Arnold Schwarzenegger).  Of course there are also the in-betweens (Adam Sandler, Ashton Kutcher, Robin Williams) that only seem to play the same character in all their comedies but in dramas actually become a different person.

 

But ultimately for an actor who has appeared in a string of successful/popular movies, the question of how good of an actor is, is irrelevant.  It doesn’t matter.  Because there is some unseen force that causes people to keep watching that actor’s movies.  It’s not simply professional acting skills that audiences follow, it’s that invaluable quality of “I like this person”.

Friendships don’t grow just because of common interests.  Now that I think about it, I’ve never made a conscience decision to be a person’s friend.  It just happens.  I never have to say anything like, “You’re cool.  Let’s officially become friends.”

 

It starts with a few joking insults through text messages, leads to several Sunday afternoon Mario Kart Wii tournaments, and before I know it I plan a whole Saturday around rowing down the Harpeth River in a canoe with him, trying to forget about the movie Deliverance as we paddle our way through the quiet waters.

 

The “I like this person” quality transcends to romance as well.  There is something extremely ironic about “Singles” events and groups.  For my first year living in Nashville I attended the Singles Sunday School class at my church (around 80 in attendance) plus I went to Kairos (another Singles event every Tuesday night with an average of 1200 people).  It seems with all those single-and-looking people in the same place with the same wishful thinking, it would be easy for people to match up.  But that’s not where I met my wife.  (A mutual friend unintentionally set us up.)

 

And when she and I started dating, I knew right away she was the one.  Aside from all the obvious reasons I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, it was those subconscious connections we had that caused both of us to know right away that the search was over.  The greatest occurrence of “I like this person” that I have ever known.

“We are all a little weird, and life is a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”  -Chinese fortune cookie

The Invisible Touch, Yeah

The 1st Installment
The 2nd Installment
The 3rd Installment

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The Invisible Touch, Yeah (The 1st Installment)

 

It’s magic and invisible. After months or even years of faithful patronage to a quaint restaurant or hours spent re-watching a favorite movie, the desire just suddenly goes away. Without realization. Without a good motive. All of the sudden it will just occur to me, “Hey, I haven’t watched Napoleon Dynamite in three years…” (Though I loved it so much when it came out that I saw it in the theatre five times and ultimately had the entire script memorized word for word by the third viewing. And for the people in the theatre with me seeing it for the first time, I passionately [and possibly angrily] shouted at them to stay in their seats once the credits started rolling so they wouldn’t miss the hidden “but I still love technology” wedding scene.)

A matter of connection. Personal spark. Invaluable attraction. Somehow that place or thing that once drew me in and gave me a sense of belonging, now never crosses my mind. And it’s typically a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”. I just lose interest.

Sometimes because it gets old. Sometimes because I didn’t feel good the last time I experienced it. Sometimes because I’ve just simply moved on with my life.

 

Exactly four years ago today I started posting my writings online. It all started with the now archaic Myspace. Since August 17, 2005 I have been “thinking out loud on paper”. From the introspective “who am I and what will I do with my life?” themed blogs of single life to social commentary seasoned “abstract thought somehow finds its way into making an actual point that applies to life” articles here on facebook.

And in those four years I have seen many readers come and go. Some who come back after a long absence. And whenever a handful disappears, a new group of readers arrives in their place. Eager to explore some more strategic randomness when it pops up every couple of days. And I know that some are simply entering the glass revolving door only to come back out in a few weeks, while others will stick around for a while.

I witness this concept of “unpredictable sudden loss of interest” from both perspectives. Not only do I become extremely faithful to venues of entertainment and leisure then suddenly stop, but I see readers step into my attic of thoughts for months at a time, then without reason, they disappear.

Journey was definitely right. We are streetlight people.

The Invisible Touch, Yeah

The 1st Installment
The 2nd Installment
The 3rd Installment