Calling all Men

Men get the shaft when it comes to so many things in this world. Women are beautiful to look at, fun to be with, soft to touch and they usually smell very nice. A beautiful woman is the object of every man’s affections. They are beautiful when they are young and some grow old gracefully. Notice I say some, because most women fight aging with all they have. Botox, facelifts, breast augmentations (I am not against this I love breasts as much as the next guy), and the list goes on and on and they fight with everything they have. Mine, she is growing old gracefully and becoming more beautiful everyday. Then there is menopause which is a deadly disease and it almost killed me and it affects every woman on the face of this earth. She yelled almost daily, cried almost as often and made me want to commit suicide on more than one occasion. This is where the scales tilt in our favor.

It is this middle part of life where the tables turn and I want to shout to all of my brothers in arms that this is when we get to be the cool one. Our need to impress is gone, we can’t drink and party as much but the trade off is worth it. I want you to think of Dennis Hopper. He is the epitome of cool, there is not one person who will read this that would not buy an airplane ticket and fly out to California just to hang with Dennis Hopper. He is seventy-two! James Garner has been a favorite of my family for years. He is eighty years old and as cool as a cucumber. He’s freakin eighty and cool as shit. Al Pacino is sixty-eight and as cool as they come. These men have cultivated the one true time in a man’s life where he can shine. Middle age! Middle age doesn’t mean buying a corvette and pulling lots of ass. But for some reason men are sexy as hell during this time and all age groups are attracted to us. Middle age means we, men, finally have the knowledge necessary to be the best we can. This is a time where we find ourselves, our likes, our dislikes.

There is a middle-aged guy I know, he must be near 60, and he is definitely different. He is not the sharpest tool in the shed. He draws the ire of people with his actions and words. It’s not that he is not a nice guy he is just tuned into a different frequency, like he is in his own world. This guy is giving middle-aged men a bad wrap. Glen has one of those friendly faces he looks very kind. Glen is a little dorky but not so bad as to be off putting.But Glen is definitely not cool! He’s a wanker.

What is it that makes some men so cool; I mean women adore these men? What is it that makes Glen such a dork? I think I have it figured out. Women! Women are what make men either cool as ice or a huge dork. You see there are 3 stages of life for men when it comes to dealing with women. Firstly the pursuit stage, usually the teens and twenties, is spent chasing women and trying to get laid. Some men get trapped in this stage. Secondly, the settled stage when men are domesticated by, you guessed it, women. This domestication process takes longer for some than others but it changes the mans psyche. During this time women reshape almost everything about us men. Now don’t get me wrong this is the foundation of what being a cool man is built on. Thirdly, avoidance, deception, survival! (menopause) The woman is so unstable and highly volatile that the man has to cope in many different ways. Some men are broken at this point of development and the woman just breaks his will. Now it’s the not the woman’s fault, this is natural to her. It’s no different then water seeping into a crack in a rock and freezing thereby breaking the rock. It’s not the waters fault; it’s in its nature.

You see it is women that shape men. Like the Colorado River cut the Grand Canyon over millions of years, women shape us men. It is how we weather our time with these women that defines whether we are cool or Glen. This is where the men and the Glens are divided. After the man has had all of these experiences, each essential, with women he wakes up one day and says. Fuck it; He is doing what he wants to do! If she loves him then everything will be cool. Then he will be cool. The man decides he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks and he is going to do what he loves to do whether that is fishing, painting, or drinking. It is this sudden wake up call that turns this average man into a cool guy, a confident guy. The Glens of this world never have the time with women and never have this moment.I know Glens of many ages!

We have all met him, the cool sometimes even sexy middle-aged man. Washing his sailboat on a sunny Sunday, Fishing with his grandson during summer vacation, whatever this man is doing is exactly what he wants to be doing and there in nothing cooler than that!

I hope my muse is almost finished with me because it is about time for me to be cool!
Later