by Tim Allen
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Jerky, from a cow, a buffalo, even a turkey, is nature's most perfect food. Beef jerky is a grown‑up's V‑8 juice. It makes you feel like a real cowboy. I reach for my jerky when I want something not sweet but substantial. Which reminds me of a story.
I once met a guy in a club in Texas who had shot a boar. Shooting it was illegal, but he said it had come after his dog. It was probably more like "Honey, let the dog out now, okay?"
Once it was good and dead, he brought the boar to the club, wrapped in towels. Why he'd want to use his wife's nice red towels to wrap a boar, I don't know, but from the look on his face when he slapped it down on the table, it was clear that if I didn't eat some, he'd think I was a puss, and he'd slap me. "You want a bite of it now? It's a fine taste."
"Uh-yeah. Sure."
And I ate it. It was possibly the finest taste I'd ever had in my life. I was rolling it around in my mouth when he looked me straight in the eye and said, "You don't think I'd bullshit an entertainer, do you?"
My first thought was that he was just waiting for me to fall to the ground and hold my stomach so that he could say, "I hate guys like you."
And now excuse me a second.
"Honey, let the dog out now."
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The Victoria's Secret catalog is one of the finest modern‑day examples of men's stuff. Why some people think it's women's stuff, I don't know.
Men are very different around women than they are around themselves. Imagine four guys-with their wives-looking at the Victoria's Secret catalog.
"That would look good on you, honey."
"That's a nice uh. . what do you call that thing?"
"A camisole."
"Yeah. Yeah. It's you, honey. How about if we order that?"
"How sweet! Give me your credit card."
Now: four guys by themselves:
"Wow. What I could do with her."
"Wish my wife looked like that."
"That bustier is tighter than my. . oh, oh, here come the girls. Honey, hi. Isn't this a great look?"
"Just give me your credit card and I won't say another thing." The Victoria's Secret catalog revolution happened quickly and quietly. It just took off. No Morality First groups complained about its being too sexy or pornographic like some other magazines. It goes through the U.S. mails without a hassle. Every guy knows the models' names by heart. This is one reason that men, no matter how much they hate shopping with their wives or girlfriends, are always willing to make an exception and stop by the Victoria's Secret store at the mall. Never seem to feel sleepy there.
You never know when Jill Goodacre will pop by.
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If men have tools, so do women.
Women as a rule have different priorities. Their tools come in a cosmetics box, which is just a fishing‑tackle box, only for women. Operating on the "real men don't ever look in a woman's purse" principle, I've never snuck at peek in a woman's cosmetic kit. I'm afraid of what I'd find. Shampoo, combs, and brushes are no big deal, but what's that scissor thing with a half moon of foam on it. I've seen one lying around, but I still can't figure out what it's for. Taking the eyeball out and dusting or something? Don't fiddle with women's stuff when they're not around, either.
"What happened to my eyeliner pencil? Did you touch it?"
"Ohhh. The phone rang, I couldn't find anything else to write with. It's just a pencil, I'll go replace it." Thirty‑eight bucks and a decent command of the French language later. .
Epilady is a woman's tool that has always confused me. The only thing louder than that machine is her screams as it rips the hair from her body. It was the most returned gift ever at Kmart. And they took it back, though they don't generally take personal hygiene products back-for good reason. But women had no idea how rough the Epilady was. And when they found out, and tried to give it to their husbands, there were no takers.
"No thanks. I'd rather not rip the hair off my face. I'm going to need it again tomorrow."
Note: Don't put women's underwear on your head and run around making faces. If you must experiment, try it when she's gone. You can look in the mirror longer, and you're much freer to express yourself. I recommend her bikini briefs, ears through the holes, and going nuts to the Tijuana Brass Whipped Cream on Top album. You know the green cover with that naked girl hidden by Reddi Wip? Oh, and for god's sake be sure to pull the shades. Wow. I was just making that stuff up. You didn't think that I. . I was just saying that. I don't do that. Unless you do that. Do you do that? If you do that, then I may have done that once-or twice. Unless you haven't. Then I was just kidding.
Women use stuff like concealer powder. Lamb placenta. Lamb placenta from Estee goddamn Lauder. I'm guessing it's lamb placenta from a lamb, but they know best.
"It's from Europe!"
"Yeah. I'll bet it's the rage in Bulgaria." Now there's an attractive bunch of women.
I can't buy my wife anything without gems in it anymore. Often she tells me to buy her stuff that I'd want to see.
"We've been married for years. Just use your instinct."
So I bought her a bench grinder. That pissed her off.
"Well, if you're not going to use it, I'll just store it in my shop." I wanted to smooth things over, so I got her a scissors sharpener from QVC: "It eliminates the worry of sharpening scissors at home!" When I heard that, I was half drunk with anticipation. My Visa card was so excited it dialed the 800 number itself. Now that I can sharpen all my scissors, I'll save all that time. I'd forgotten that I'd never sharpened a pair in my life! I've got the same bent‑up pair I had in high school. When I was little, my mom had some good scissors in a little velvet case, in the safe‑deposit box. She put them there after I tried to use them to trim my little brother's ear lobes. She caught me and screamed: "Don't touch the good scissors for god's sake. They're from Europe!"
Some people think a vibrator is the ultimate women's tool. Not me. I think women would rather have lipstick than a vibrator. Lipstick makes them look pretty. A vibrator just makes them look scary. I'm a little suspicious of those neck vibrators and body massagers I see in the gift catalogs. Why do they list them by inches: seven, nine, eleven. Isn't that just a little odd? Even so, I've never heard of a big run on vibrators. But a new shade of lipstick, with a $30 "free" makeup‑kit gift with purchases of $6,000 or more. This is what women want. A tip: Stay away from department stores during cosmetic specials. It would hurt less to be run over by a buffalo stampede.
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I once went to Sears to buy a workbench. I thought it was about time. Sears had a sale on. It came in a big, big box and there was some assembly required. There were instructions, but I didn't need those. Hey, I'm a guy; my balls will tell me how it all fits together. At that point in my life I didn't have many tools except those in a telephone drawer by the kitchen phone. Unfortunately, something was stuck in the drawer and I couldn't open it. Finally, I heard a snap, and the drawer opened. Inside was a picture of another family. Also, pens that didn't work, broken rubber bands, seven batteries. Four are good, three are not, and you will never figure out the combination.
Clearly I needed some tools, so it was back to Sears. I had to buy so many tools that I didn't want to make two trips. So I rented a Ryder truck. I backed that big diesel turbo up to the loading dock and hauled out half the tool‑department stock. Now I got your needle‑nosed, vice‑grippin' monkey's mother, three‑quarter drive and socket‑pulling, inside‑outside torque jig rip cross. . Yeah, I got myself some tools. Tools that fix tools. Most of them rubber‑coated for safety. And duct tape. No shop in America is complete without ninety feet of three‑inch‑wide U.S.‑made duct tape. The silver kind. My wife thinks it looks good across my mouth, too. Matches her jewelry. My motto: If you can't fix it, duct it!
My mom once gave me a gas grill, a Sunbeam 3200. Dual burners, rotisserie grill, pull‑down serving area, and in a handy garden cart. But it came unassembled. It looked like a car bomb.
I decide
d to build it right in the living room and give the whole family a chance to participate. Besides, the light was better indoors and I was flying on pure instinct. Who'd have thought there'd be any grease involved in the process? Every guy's been where I've been. You finish building it, it looks great, but there's a weird bag of important‑looking stuff left over.
"Honey? Why don't you try the grill out first? I'll be in the basement with my welding hat on."
She pushed it out onto the deck and lit it up. Suddenly the place looked like a nuclear test site. Whoosh!
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
"Honey, run toward my voice!
"Running just makes the flames hotter!"
"That means this thing that's left over is a fuel regulator! Not supposed to spray your hair like that. Guess I don't need to tell you, do I? Why don't ya come in and I'll put some salve on that for ya."
- -
The thing I like most about men's stuff, from tools to stereos, is that your presence affects your possessions. When they glitch, it's probably because you're in a hurry or a bad mood. I've got two TVs at my house that, if I'm in a real bad mood, don't turn on. I called Sony about it. The man says, "I wouldn't touch it if you're in that mood. Don't go near your stereo either."
I decided to also avoid the houseplants.
This is when you finally realize that guy stuff has gotten stupid. It should have been easy to tell the first time I had to read the VCR instruction book more than I got to watch videotapes. And another weird thing. In my video room it's always twelve o'clock.
When men's stuff starts affecting the time zones, you know it's time to spend more time with your family.
masculinism
Like most men, I'm confused by feminism. It also confuses many women, but that's someone else's book. For the longest time I wasn't sure what the word actually meant. At first I thought it was "the study of what men do wrong." That was because many of the loudest early voices in feminism seemed to be man haters. They didn't like us. They said we'd screwed up everything. They thought the planet would be better off without us. When they were feeling generous, they might say that men were only good for one thing, and that we weren't very good at that, either. I don't know why, but I took that personally.
Feminism has grown a lot since then. Most women don't think men should be exterminated. They'd be satisfied if we agreed to submit our brains to a good housecleaning-and if we'd hire an undocumented alien to do it, and remember to pay her social security taxes.
I've always wanted to understand feminism, so I tackled a regimen of intense research into the subject. Eventually, I earned a Ph.D. in Advanced Women's Studies, by correspondence course. All it took was one of my days off after the TV season wrapped, before I went on the road, wrote this book, and made a movie. I now realize that feminism describes an ideology with an ongoing agenda to support women's self‑image, to create equality in the workplace, and to provide more choice in all areas of life. In short, as former NOW Chairwoman Patricia Ireland has said, feminism's goal is to promote the recognition of this simple fact: Women are people, too.
Unfortunately, there is no related expression or ethos-no opposite of feminism-to bind men together. Hmmm. Some would say that men don't need that sort of thing because we already own everything. We run everything. We have the best jobs. We get to do whatever we want, whenever we want. We don't need a philosophy for being on top. Men are pigs. R‑R‑R. Well, bullshit. I think a lot of men don't enjoy, take advantage of, or even recognize their alleged superiority.
Nonetheless, I thought men should have a credo, so I checked around. I read all the great social philosophers. I hung out in leather bars. I looked in the dictionary for a term that might define us. The only word that came close was "philanthropist," which means "love or benevolence toward mankind, in general." Of course, that definition has been obsolete since women joined mankind about thirty years ago, with the advent of feminism. Still, the definition includes the idea that a philanthropist is someone who makes an "effort to promote the happiness or social elevation of mankind, by making donations." This can get pretty confusing. A philanthropist is a lover of man, but a feminist isn't a lover of women. That's a "philanderer," which conveniently comes right before philanthropy in the dictionary. A philanderer is someone who "makes love without serious intentions."
I don't know anything about that-or putting underwear on my head. A good friend was helping me search dictionaries for answers, and finally he said, "Clearly, you've discovered an epistemological void." I didn't even want to look up that word. I was afraid it might have something to do with men's bathrooms or something I should see my doctor about.
I've taken enough abuse without having to look stupid, too.
Finally, after lots of deep, hard thinking in the only place a man can get a little peace of mind, I realized I had no choice but to coin my own term so that men didn't feel left out.
I call it "masculinism."
Feminism celebrates female traits. Masculinism celebrates male traits. They collide to create the volatility of life. The Sturm and Drang. The exquisite passions. The troublesome tensions. The family fights about who takes out the garbage and who drives the garbage truck.
The differences are so much more vast that bookstores are stocked with volumes lamenting the sorry state of intersexual relations, because men and women just don't understand each another. Writer after writer has tried to explain this state of affairs, and the illicit affairs that result. Writer after writer churns out books knowing the female market for self‑help is seemingly bottomless.
I'm tired of waiting for the compleat man‑woman dictionary. I guess I'll have to do that myself.
To some, the distinctions between the sexes-their attitudes, sexual styles, communication skills, and personal hygiene habitsare unsolvable conundrums, destining men and women to be forever at odds.
Sounds about right.
Masculinism and feminism embody those differences. We hate them, we love them, we can't do much about them. So we might as well enjoy them.
After all, they're pretty darn entertaining.
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Men are pigs. We all know it. And the odd thing is that men don't seem to mind it when I say so. There's not much you can call a guy that gets him upset. At least not after we've endured the way men have been portrayed on TV sitcoms for over forty years. Television berates us and we take it. We're thought of as dumb slugs. Idiots. This is troubling since for a long time men also wrote, produced, and directed most television. Maybe we were feeling guilty.
But I don't think so. When I call men pigs, they go, "Yeah, we are!" We just don't speak up when the tube is putting us down. Instead, we use it as an excuse for even more odd behavior. So sue me.
Culture-okay, women-can demean men all they like, but just ask yourself who built the computer I'm writing this book on?
This question supports a prime masculinist theory: If women are always complaining about men, tell me who raised the men? Women made us what we are. If women want to take credit‑-and it's due-for all their hard work of staying at home and raising the kids (a job deserving high pay), they should also accept the responsibility for strongly influencing the boys who largely create and dominate culture.
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Women are lateral thinkers. They have communities. They share information and help one another. They listen. At least that's what I thought I heard someone say once.
Men don't listen, particularly to women. This shouldn't be a big surprise. A woman will talk and talk and talk about some problem until a man cuts her off and says, "Here's what I'd do." Men are always giving advice out of their own experience. Men think vertically. Some guy is always bigger, badder, better. His car is nicer, his job more lucrative, his women prettier. Men live to vanquish those challenges. They don't mind helping a woman overcome her problems, if only she'll listen. Men want women to get on with their lives, so that they can go back to watching Combat reruns.
Women don't want to hear ou
r advice. They don't want solutions to their crises. They just want an arm around their shoulders and a soft‑spoken "I understand. I feel the same way!" This is why women are better off being miserable in groups. Suffering doesn't seem to matter to women as long as they don't have to suffer alone.
If that's what women want, I'm not going to try to change them. After all, men are even bigger babies in the suffering department, especially when we're sick. However, I suspect women like that position of power. Besides, when they're in the next room, they can't hear our whimpers and moans too clearly.
"Tim? Did you say something?"
"Ohhhhhhh. Gaaack!"
"Just try and get some rest, dear."
If I could change one thing about women it would be to stop them from mumbling when they walk around corners. They should finish conversations while they're looking at you.
"Oh, by the way mumble, mumble…"
"Yeah, yeah, the most important thing is mumble, mumble."
My wife does this all the time, then she's gone. A week later she looks at me like I just killed a kitten and says, "I told you all about that." And I can't say she didn't, I just didn't hear it.
"I told you yesterday."
"Yeah, but I was outside!" Actually, I was in the car, with the windows closed, leaving the driveway. She was standing in the doorway, and her lips were moving. I thought she was saying, "You're a man's man. Hurry back. I've got a big surprise for you in the bedroom."
What she was really saying was, "And make sure you bring back some milk."
- -
Why do women do all the sewing, while men are the tailors? Why are women the cooks, but men the chefs? When women remove stains, it's from shirts, pants, and carpets. When men remove stains, it's from granite facades, the Statue of Liberty's skin, or-ahem‑-spray paint off a high school wall. When women clean, they use Pledge and wear yellow plastic gloves. When men clean they use sand and steam and wear yellow plastic protective suits and visors. Women clean sinks. Men clean nuclear reactors. A dollop of ketchup on a shirt does not make a man want to suit up to get it out.