I'm Climbing Up Those Walls Again

I just returned from the gym, where my hair, in its post-sleep-pre-shower state is all over the place. It's getting long again, which for me means it begins to grow out of the front of my head.

You'd think that red-headed solidarity would have kick in by now, but I'm afraid that I haven't managed to make very many redhead friends. Genetic preservation hasn't even led me to dating redheaded girls. For some reason I always seem to end up with brunettes, and I can never tell if it is by preference or just chance (or some sort of innate self-selection I'm unaware of).

I digress. Growing up as a redhead was not an easy task, as we are a minority that receives no special attention when we are singled out and picked on. However, I believe it pays off in the end. I'll defer to a few things I found on the net:

Everything2.com has an entry by a redheaded man.

Attractiveness

The male often bumps his red head on a glass ceiling of attractiveness. Very few of us achieve the standard of what would be called 'handsome'. Too often, 'cute' is our highest peak.

A by-product of this effect may be the slim number of red-headed male celebrities blending into the red carpet at movie premiers and gala luncheons. Name as many still living as you can; a hand and a half should suffice. Oh, hooray, they let us have David Caruso.

That's really only a half-complaint. It certainly livened up my research.

Simply put, redheaded men are not sex symbols. We have no Rita Hayworth, no Nicole Kidman, not even an Angie Everhart.

Archie did well with the ladies, but then, he's fictional.


The Wearable Palette

We daily wear a color that just doesn't go with everything. You won't catch most redheads in colors like to those with which they are naturally equipped.

Men especially tend to avoid that whole side of the spectrum; my own wardrobe is an exercise in blues, greens, and gray. If you see one of our number wearing yellow, approach with caution. He may have lost his wits.


Benefits to the Life

For many, they come few and far between. During our youth, we are subjected to outlandish name-calling, and the near continuous and undesirable attention of countless octogenarians absolutely fascinated by our hair. Later, we tend towards freckles, and we always look slightly worse under fluorescent lights than most.

But--those of us who are a bit hirsute don't show it as much as brunettes. Limited tolerance to exposure to the elements often keeps our skin smooth and hydrated, and at least when the men among us grow red beards, they match. Lots of two-tone men out there, for some bizarre reason.

And of course, whatever the sex or sexual orientation, some people are just really, really into red hair.

Addendum: 10-15-02
A new study indicates that redheads may need more anesthesia than the rest of you lot to be safely knocked out. Why? Because we're *that* @#$!ing hard. Yeah.

I must agree, society doesn't seem left very many redheaded men reach that "world's sexiest men" category. I blame the stereotyping of the media and Hollywood, who never bothers to make us the heroes. According to Ron Rosenbaum, this started quite some time ago:

But redheaded men …. You know, of course, that in the medieval Passion Plays and in Shakespeare’s time, both Judas and Shylock were played with red wigs, the scarlet color betokening their Luciferian nature. It hasn’t gotten much better since then. We’re either bad or crazy like Van Gogh. I don’t think Eric Stoltz evens things up. Redheaded women may get called fiery and passionate; redheaded men, just bad-tempered.

However, once I got out of my awkward youth, I learned that there are a large number of women who harbor a special attraction to redheaded men. Wikipedia describes these people as redophiles, although I just think of them as color blind.

In nature, male species often try very, very hard to catch the female's attention, often through running instinctive movement scripts or through a brightly colored display. While I don't know what the secret human mating dance is, I'm certainly awkward enough to attract attention through movement, and I think the red hair, combined with 6' 3'' of pure Matt, gives me an edge. Now only if I could maintain that edge once I open my mouth...

Jokes aside, I'm now quite happy I landed in this minority, and have no intention of ever moving out of it. Maybe I should start up a red-headed league at Oxford. We could then plan to take over the world. Maybe we already have? We strike at dawn.

Real men don't read
I've grown a beard before and I grunt while thumping my chest.

You see, I'm a real man. I get up every day at the brink of 4:30 and do nothing but flex in the buff for three hours. I don't work out during that time; I just flex.

At 7:30 I head over to the where the school bus stops just down the road, and take some little twerps lunch-money so I can buy my breakfast. Of course my first meal of the day
is bacon fried in fatback. I've got no time for that sissy-hippy yogurt stuff. If there is no bacon around, then I go out back and kill a deer with my bare hands and have

scrambled eggs and venison. After breakfast I read over my schedule, which I branded on my inner thigh the night before, because you can't trust paper.

I then go to the gym and grunt as loud as possible while lifting as little weight as possible. You see, there is an inverse grunt-weight lifting ratio: you grunt when you lift little, because your massive biceps are at the brink of combustion, and you silently stare at your competition while you left heavy weights, because you're just that damn hardcore.

After working out, I go to the pool, but not to swim. Only commies swim. No, I just stand on the high-diving board and flex for all the lifeguards to see, because I know they want tickets to the gun show.

After the gym I eat my lunch of 4 raw eggs mixed with Miller light, just to get going what I personally call a "health buzz."

Normal feeble men would go to work at that point. As a real man, I know only submissives go to work. I have no concern with any worldly possessions other than my quadriceps. Oh, and my power tools. And Mr. Peterson.

Like any real man I walk around with a toothpick in my mouth and squint, because you can't look serious with an idle toothpick in your mouth without a solar-defying squint.

Like a real man, I only respond to women in the form of pick up lines like "Hey baby, do you have a sewing kit, because I'm ripped!"

Yeah baby, I'm a real man, and I'm coming to your town to sleep with your daughter.

And it's going to be a long, long summer.

Alkaline Trio's latest album "Crimson" has failed to dislodge them from the number one slot of my favorite bands. My friend Scott was the first to introduce me to the band.

We were discussing misleading lyrics, and I noted that "Digital Bath" by the Deftones was actually a song about throwing an electrical appliance into a bath while someone was taking it. Scott cited a related song: "Radio" by Alkaline Trio, which tackles the same subject of *ahem* bathroom electrocution.

At first, Trio doesn't sound like a very uplifting band. Like many punk acts, they often (mostly with their earlier material) skim the emo border. However, there is a discernibly dark twist to their songs. Physical pain is often used as a proxy for emotional pain.

From "This Could Be Love" the first track of Good Mourning

"You took me hostage and made your demands... I couldn't meet them so you cut off my fingers... one by one."

Yet unlike death metal acts that revel in blood and gore, Alkaline Trio gives it a sort of classy twist. How do they deal with all this pain? Painkillers and alcohol often seem to be the answer, a recurring theme in their 2001 release, From Here to Infirmary

However, things are not always so dire with the band. While Matt Skiba is technically the frontman, each album has seen bass player Dan Andrianno sing more and more songs. If Alkaline Trio is all about heartbreak, then a gross simplification of the two could go as follows: Matt is focused on the dark, demented side of heartbreak, and Dan is focused on the sweet side of heartbreak.

While Matt's songs come closer to some sort of post-neo-goth-punk grandeur, Dan's are closer to the popular punk we hear on the radio. However, unlike the annoying musings of Blink 182, Dan's lyrics are pretty intelligent and interesting, usually only alluding to the problems. Plus, if I had to start a band, I'd like to start it with Dan's voice, as it fits the profile of heartbreak punk perfectly. A few examples of songs I identify with:




"I Was a Prayer" from Crimson

"Mercy Me" from Crimson - (Dan only sings part of the chorus)




"100 Stories" from Good Mourning




"I'm Dying Tomorrow" from From Here to Infirmary




"You've Got So Far To Go" from Maybe I'll Catch Fire


All of these songs have deceptive meanings or lyrics in some way. For example, 100 Stories might refer to the kind of story you can read, but the chorus reveals otherwise. The emphatically sung "Let's do it right!" in "You've Got So Far To Go" isn't the end of the line, and the meaning changes rapidly. Also note the often used examples of physical abuse as a metaphor.

Anyway, I suppose I'm writing a lot about this because when I'm in a generally good mood, I identify more with Dan than I do Matt, hence the title of this huge post.

Well, no longer discounting Kyle's vote, there was an even split between pro and anti-bearders, so we had to defer to the vice president to break the tie. I control every job in the executive branch, so it was my call, and I went for the shave with goatee. However, it doesn't feel like it used to, and I might go clean shaven soon. Thanks for getting out there and voting.

On a completely unrelated note, I found this great article in the New York Times that explains why Coldplay has become intolerable. If you need to get access, use username: "kargos" password: "demographer". Here is an excerpt:

"There's nothing wrong with self-pity. As a spur to songwriting, it's right up there with lust, anger and greed, and probably better than the remaining deadly sins. There's nothing wrong, either, with striving for musical grandeur, using every bit of skill and studio illusion to create a sound large enough to get lost in. Male sensitivity, a quality that's under siege in a pop culture full of unrepentant bullying and machismo, shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, no matter how risible it can be in practice. And building a sound on the lessons of past bands is virtually unavoidable.

But put them all together and they add up to Coldplay, the most insufferable band of the decade.

Clearly, Coldplay is beloved: by moony high school girls and their solace-seeking parents, by hip-hop producers who sample its rich instrumental sounds and by emo rockers who admire Chris Martin's heart-on-sleeve lyrics. The band emanates good intentions, from Mr. Martin's political statements to lyrics insisting on its own benevolence. Coldplay is admired by everyone - everyone except me.

Coldplay's countless fans seem to take comfort when Mr. Martin sings lines like, "Is there anybody out there who / Is lost and hurt and lonely too," while a strummed acoustic guitar telegraphs his aching sincerity. Me, I hear a passive-aggressive blowhard, immoderately proud as he flaunts humility."

While I enjoyed Coldplay's first album, I didn't even bother picking up the second, and the third just sounds even more pathetic. Anyone who is married to Gwyneth Paltrow should not be whining into a microphone.