Songs for the Manly Mega-Mix

I’ve always found the title “Jock Jams,” that (once) popular CD series, a bit misleading. After all, though it seemed to promise the sound of masculinity mastered in Dolby stereo, the real effect was something like “Arena Jams,” pathet­ic has-been top 40 radio songs that bored the soul.
No, Jock Jams is not the sound of masculinity, and neither are any of those boxed sets you see advertised with footage of Ozzy Osbourne or Nirvana on early morning television. Instead, the real sound of manhood — specifically, Amer­ican men ages 18-35, from middle class, subur­ban, college-educated homes — is something like the following playlist you can find on the iPods of most any righteous dude.
This is the party mix. These are the anthems of summer afternoons, bar­becues, ragers, Pats games, home­work, workouts, road trips, sexca­pades and most anything else men need music for.

“Layla” — Eric Clapton
Iconic might be an understatement when it comes to this classic. The opening guitar riff makes me hard. I mean figuratively. But seriously, Eric Clapton definitely imparted one of the most amazing love songs in history when he decided to record human love filtered through a guitar in 1970. And I know he didn’t write it, but still, listen to that guitar while my inner child gently weeps.

“99 Problems” — Jay-Z
“If you’re having girl problems I feel bad for you son/I’ve got 99 Problems but a bitch ain’t one” begins Jay-Z on this seminal track. When you realize that his “bitch” is Beyonce Knowles, you realize just how much that is not a problem. Though most men can’t relate to this song directly (when has a bitch not been a problem?) they can aspire to its attitude. Jay-Z gets hassled by cops, judges, critics, haters and other riff raff, but he keeps his cool. And rocks out hard.

It’s a great song to be playing when you get pulled over, or feel otherwise irritated by the narrow-mindedness of your peers. It also feels good to interject the opening lines into casual conversation.

“Tiny Dancer” — Elton John
I’ve never met a man who doesn’t know the lyrics to this song. If such a man exists, he need only hear the melody to produce an uncanny, unconscious vocal accompaniment using the words he should “scientifically” not know. Every man on earth apart from Elton John wishes they could hit the falsetto to croon the chorus. Forev­er failing to hit those high notes, men lovingly the butcher the song, convinced they are on key.
Incidentally, I have always wanted to start a punk group called “Seamstress for the Band.”

“TNT” — AC/DC
The perennial fight song, TNT always makes men feel indestructible. Which is why it’s always on in bars and at hockey games. The lyrics themselves detail one man’s self-assured warning to other men about himself. “Don’t you start no fight, because I am TNT, I’m dynamite” he admonishes. Men like this senti­ment; particularly as “pump-up” music, or for situations that require mental focusing and nerve steeling.

“Thriller” — Michael Jackson
I don’t want to generalize, but I think even the most dance-adverse men on earth are willing to “bust a move” when this song comes on. If you’re lucky, you have a friend from college who knows the whole dance and can execute it at a moment’s notice, even after a night of heavy drinking and debauching. And if you are that person, then you are the “man.” There are of course other songs that would make a list of a man’s man’s music. They would probably include a little Rolling Stones (“Satis­faction”), some Oasis and Bob Marley for the stoner in us all, and a signature John Williams piece like the theme from “Star Wars” or “Indi­ana Jones.” Jimi Hendrix, Prince and the Beast­ie Boys also might make the cut. Notably, the Beatles would NOT be on this list. Britney Spears is more masculine than the Beatles.

Zachary McCune thinks music makes a man a man. Which is why he sings in the shower, if you know what he means.

All the President's Men

It’s about this time of year, every four years, that I reassess my odds of becoming the next president of the United States. Me being me, the odds remain good. I am charismatic, handsome, noble and well-known for a superb organization­al sensibility. I am also well-liked by elderly peo­ple, which based on my research seems to be the single most important thing to becoming presi­dent.

My plan is simple, begin by writing a humorous column for a small, obscure newspaper. Then leveraging my fame and popularity as a writer, I would run for mayor of Newport, cam­paigning entirely in bars and homes for the elderly. Winning, I would become America’s most eligible elec­table, a carefree playboy who managed to kept things at City Hall running hunky dory while I pursued social endeavors at home and abroad. After a few years at the helm, I would become governor on a technicality known as the “too cool to be just a mayor” clause introduced by Claiborne Pell some years ago.

At this point, the American presidency would be selling myself short. I would have all sorts of invitations to step into the shadow government and operate as the “master deum” of the Illuminati organization that runs the world through economic manipulations. But I would take the visible helm nonetheless, doing my civic duty and making it look good.

Still, as the years wear on, I grow concerned that I have not spontaneously been elected.
To anything. Also concerning is the lack of an enraptured readership for this column that was the operative leverage for getting this do-hicky in proper motion.

I would be more concerned, but I am me. An Italio-Semitic gypsy fortune teller revealed my presidency of the future. “A noble epoch” she explained to me “inspired by a noble leader.”

After discussing my convictions of future grandeur with a few male friends, I realized that I was not the only future president in the room.

There were four in fact, four of us destined to be U.S. presidents, and a fifth friend who was expecting to be a secretary of the Inte­rior in at least two of our administra­tions.

Was this a case of male lunacy? A case study for how men live in a world that is not synonymous with reality? A world of fantasies and outrageous male arrogance?

I don’t think so. These are some good guys, very capable of administering justice, political equality, and qualities of exceptional leadership. Was it a coin­cidence that four future presidents would just be hanging out in my room?

Not at all. These are my friends, my “homies” and it’s fairly clear to me (and no doubt you, my committed readers) that “presidential” is a quality I fre­quently exude.

Nevertheless, I will need your help if I am ever to escape my middling occupation as a small town textual entertainer. I have so much untapped potential that would really only get a chance to come out if I got to be your president.

It doesn’t have to be this year, or next year, but sometimes soon when you get that feeling in your heart and the prescient smile on your face, write in “Zachary McCune” for American presi­dent.

Thank you.

Zachary McCune is such an efficient manager he rarely needs to wake up. His slogan for 2012 is “Zack does it better in bed.”

Good Sport

I don’t much like the words “health” or “fitness.” I believe they are feminist-buzz words for liberation through “eating right,” gym membership and spinning classes. They are as hollow and empty as the calo­ries from Special K and as thin as yoga mats. They have noth­ing to do with being in shape, nor coincidentally, with this column.

Like most men, I prefer to call things what they are. In the case of “health” and “fit­ness,” the word that should be used is “sports” or, for situa­tions of individual betterment of one’s body, “working out.”

The term “sport” immediately suggests both the gravity and level of commitment most men bring to any health or fitness opportunity. For men, everything is a game, and though we don’t like to admit it, everything is a compe­tition. Shopping, baby-sitting, raising children, PTA meet­ings, driving (this is a big one), walking, mailing things, taking showers and even sleeping are more than routinely made into competitions by ordinary run­of- the-mill men with 2.5 kids, a cocker spaniel and a house in the suburbs. Men are so “game”-oriented, that a whole slew of recreational sports needed to be invented to spice the otherwise listless activity of drinking alcohol. Creating a situation where drunken peo­ple would arm themselves with tiny darts and throw them through a mass of equally drunken bystanders was nobody’s “best idea.” But it was essential to make the practice of drinking worth doing. This is how men think of their health: It must be fun.

Being healthy is something that men can generally get behind. Not only will it make them more attractive to women, but it also will enable them to fight more effectively in cases of darts-gone-wrong, and to be heroic at a moment’s notice, which is a perpetual fantasy of the Ameri­can male.

Actually getting in shape is a little more challenging. Not only are men not as self­conscious as women (whose inner voices I always imagine to be screaming “Oh my God! Oh my God! Get in shape!”), but men also are bombarded with a culture of mediated health, a culture that so sur­rounds men with images of athleticism they actually may think they are in shape.

Now don’t get me wrong, watching a sports game in its entirety is no mean feat. Add to this the need to shout and heck­le throughout the game between shots of Jack Daniels and pints of Sam Adams, and you get yourself into quite a sweat.

This is not a workout, though it feels, tastes and hurts like one.

Here is the solution to get­ting in shape the easy way — “intramural sports.” Overcom­ing their latent alcoholism and employing their natural com­petitiveness, men invented “Intramural Leagues” to bring like-minded middle-aged men into competition with one another, in a system that would both satisfy the male need for “gaming” fitness, and not be overly strenuous. The result was a complete revolution.

While women take yoga classes at the Y, men could in sports of their personal predilection, get a smoking workout playing against driven opposition and then usually get drunk after the game at a bar back in town. Mentally, they look forward to next week’s competition as they may have done with high school rivalries and cross-town show downs. Physically, they get the blood pumpin’ and the calories burnin’.

It could be called “health” or “fitness,” but even the name “sports” makes it sound fast­paced, physically demanding and athletically satisfying.

Which is why men invented sports in the first place.

Zachary McCune loves to work out. Mostly through writ­ing.

Dirty Looks on the Down Low

Pornography perpetually remains at the intersection of ubiquitous and inappropriate, an art form discounted to “smut” and yet nonetheless as common as Halo among post­pubescent males. It is the maga­zine hiding under a bed, a list of Web sites in your browser’s recent history, and a DVD your older brother left behind when he went to college. It is also the topic not to be dis­cussed, a thing not tell your girlfriend/wife about, and something that when discovered, is worse than being caught singing in the shower with Sesame Street shampoo and conditioner.

So it must be hid­den well.

For most men, the hiding of pornogra­phy is a rare art, prac­ticed in the hallowed male tradition of con­cealing treasures, traps, secret documents, contraband or drugs away from prying eyes. It is a two-fold challenge: On the one hand, the pornographic materials must be hidden well enough to prevent accidental discovery and to resist a full­scale search. On the other hand, pornography must be kept close at hand (pun intend­ed), allowing for it to be re-hid­den at a moment’s notice.

When involved with porno­graphic materials, there is an ever-present threat of being walked in on. This is why men must train to be minutemen.

Ready at a moment’s notice, done in jiffy. A hiding spot, by extension, must be intimately accessible and yet very conceal­ing. It must be handy, and yet hard to find.

This is why most men just go ahead and use computers. They close easy and fast — often a simple keystroke, mouse click, or laptop slam and you’re free — and they can hide hundreds of files in their endless depths.

A good friend of mine always hid his pornography in his middle school essays folder, maintaining that almost no one would ever want to look through those files besides his own, sex-starved psyche.

The “almost” was his mother, who wanted to find a short story he’d written in eighth grade for a church bulletin on hope, and discovered “Inside Hope” instead.

But that example aside, porn does well on computers. Most people respect the privacy of another individual’s computer, and your modern man can flash through open windows like James Bond through a Soviet sub factory. After a while, it takes no effort at all: Open up the New York Times in one window, and go to town in another. If startled, switch to the New York Times and muse on the coming election. Once left alone, return back to your regularly scheduled program.

Most men are undone by the ridiculousness of the places they hide pornography. If you
are not religious, and suddenly decide to cut a “secret hole” in a large family Bible, then keep it by your bed; people may dis­cover your stash. If you decide to punch a hole in the wall, and stow your gear between two studs, people may discover your stash. If you come up with a voice-activated plasma televi­sion that when called upon drops from the ceiling, people may notice the trap door, the additional reinforcement nec­essary to hold the TV in the ceiling, or the union workmen taking mandatory coffee breaks outside your room.

In short, sometimes the sim­pler solution is more effective.

My roommate, for instance, just keeps his porn in a folder called “Porn” located under “My Computer” on his desktop, and as far as I know, no one has found it yet.

Except me.

Zachary McCune does not believe in pornography. Just in love, and the Tooth Fairy.

JUST WING IT

The ability to improvise may not be a genetic trait, but it is most certainly amongst man’s most treasured possessions. From pick-up basketball to cougar hunting, from poker to pornography, a man’s best move is often the one he’s just come up with, making improvisation the handiest thing since Saran Wrap, which I have no doubt was improvised by some American G.I. looking to keep his dinner warm during an air raid.

Improvisation, it would follow, is the adopted mother of invention, and the patron saint of men in need. Because when you need something, you never have it, and improvisation is often the only thing that separates the men from the AAA members.

Ignobly, improvisation is often attached to the idea of being unpre­pared, of failing to do something at “the proper time” and therefore “winging it” at the last moment. This is entirely true. But for anyone who has ever made something up at the last moment and got away with it, preparation seems like busywork. How much more badass is it to ace the final on an improvised essay on John Locke and the Enlightenment, rather than be tediously prepared and earn the same mark? Nine times out of 10, you fail the shit out of that final and earn “see me” comments on the impro­vised essay. But that 10th time, when the grader is either on drugs, hung-over, indifferent, or — gasp — possibly convinced by your improvised essay, you are the man.

Enter Angus MacGyver, the legendary televi­sion hero who made a career out of improvising ways to thwart terrorist cells and unpatriotic Americans. The man was so good at improvising, often with laughably outrageous items, that today “MacGyver” is popular slang for “jury-rigging” a solution to a problem out of unlikely parts and procedure. A “MacGyverism” by extension, is the noun for a MacGyver-ed, improvised solution.

This noble, fictional Scottish-American, and his famous improvisational antics only prove my point; improvisation is so cherished that great practitioners are considered borderline folk heroes.

And Angus MacGyver is not alone. Amongst the ranks of man’s best impromtuers are Han Solo, the Rat Protagonist from “Ratatouille,” Gan­dalf, Winston Churchill, Miles Davis and the entirety of American jazz, Neo, Jesus, Ash Ketchum, Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, and the cast of “60 Minutes.” What would music be like without improvisation? What would sports be like without improvisation? What would life be like without improvisation? The possibilities are too listless and mundane to even consider.

In high school, I once faked a report on Babylonian math from start to fin­ish. I knew nothingwhatsoever about the subject, but explained to my math teacher that I had prepared extensively for my presentation, exhausting the supplies of our school library and tax­ing even the manuscripts of top histori­ans in the field to complete my compre­hensive survey of the field. I worked under some basic rules to control my improv: don’t make up too much too fast, look down often at the papers I had brought with me — which were, inci­dentally, the lyrics to “Paint It Black” — and stumble from time to time, acting intentionally distracted so as to seem like I was nervous about presenting. It worked. The guy bought everything from the origins of math as a way to count sheep (which still seems vaguely legitimate) to the fact that the Babylonian num­ber 100 was a crescent moon with a crown over it, because it was “the king’s number.”

“Thank you,” said the teacher at the end of the presentation, “thank you for taking me back to my college days when we studied this stuff. I remember it all so clearly.”

I guess I wasn’t the only one making things up.

Zachary McCune just made up this column. How meta is that?

INSULT TO INJURY

Dueling: should it brought back? A recent besmirchment of my honor raised that exact question. Having suffered a grievous assault, I wondered how may I exact ample satisfaction from the riotous youth who besmirched me in the first place.

I had a few options:
1. I could hit the braggart, outright, unan­nounced, and initiate a combative riposte to the insult.
2. I could, more politely, ask to “take things outside” and fight the fool in a setting more conducive to street com­bat and vigilante justice.
3. I could be the “bigger man” and brush aside the affront, demonstrating “Christian values” and “maturity.”
4. I could remove one of my gloves, approach the vagrant, and “throw down,” dramatically discarding the handwear so as to make clear my intention to duel him.

This insult being a matter of trifling importance, I decided immediately upon the fourth option. For those of you not in the know, dueling is the ancient and most noble art of putting one’s life on the line for menial and often abstract matters of interpersonal strife. Stuff like rumors about your momma, allegations of cuckolding or state­ments that you “throw like a girl” are all grade A reasons to challenge somebody to a duel.

How do you do it? Once you suffered an insult that makes dueling frank necessity, you must find your target, take off a glove, throw it down in front of him, and explain the nature of your complaint. He will then have the option to apolo­gize outright, allowing you to determine how the character can “make it up” or he may accept your challenge and dictate the time, the place and the weapons you will use to settle the affair.

Dueling, incidentally, is illegal. Just so you know. Just so I don’t get a phone call at 8:34 a.m.
on a Sunday morning from the police explaining that two miscreants were found near King Park with broadswords, a bag of Cheetos, and my col­umn in the breast-pocket of one of them.

But back to carrying out a theoretical duel.

After you’ve challenged your target duelee, you must prepare to kick his ass in whatever the encounter may be. Seeing the whole illegality of dueling with physical weaponry (espe­cially in Rhode Island, where it is quite illegal to even make “an appointment to fight,” statue 11-12-6) perhaps swords and guns could be reduced to pixilated alternatives. The year not being 1708, where a little brushing up on one’s rapier might have been in order, you might consider getting your thumbs ready for Halo or its analog alternative, a “thumb war.”

In any case, once I decided to duel the individual responsible for insulting my honor recently I was quite relieved to find that he was “confused,” and was “sorry he had pissed me off.” This notably excused me from breaking the law, and also spared me from preparing exten­sively to duel someone, something I was quite sure would cut into my Guitar Hero practice time, daily from 5:30- 11 p.m.

So back to the question: Should dueling be brought back? No. Probably not. Not as long as it includes life-threatening weaponry and some hard line honor policies. But as for its use in set­tling matters of besmirchment, and for intimi­dating confused high school kids into quittin’ their hatin,’ I say dueling’s got its benefits.

And anyone that disagrees knows where to find me. Second Beach. Super Soakers. Friday. 4 o’clock.

The last time Zachary McCune was in a duel was at Six Flags. Something to do with dragons.

SLUMBER ZACK

Smart people let sleeping dogs lie.

Smart women let sleeping men lie.

Why? Because men take their sleep very seriously. It’s been scientifically proven. 100 percent of men would rather sleep than, well, just about anything. Sleep is what gets men through the day. It’s the proverbial carrot on the end of the string. Something to look forward to, something to keep your eyes on the prize, something to keep those spirits up during the grueling time of remaining awake and alert, something to go ahead and daydream about while you’re at work, at the gym, or even out on a date.

Society has cruelly labeled time not spent sleeping as “pro­ductive,” creating an unjust dichotomy where individuals with a proclivity toward slum­ber are deemed lazy, lethargic or “good-for-nothing,” a system that conflates sleeping with a lack of production. This is entirely false. I produce some of my best ideas while I am asleep, and many of my friends can per­form motor skills while “asleep.” They can talk, walk, drive, whittle, and even, on occasion, engage in acts of sexual persua­sions while physio­logically uncon­scious.

These are the sort of multitaskers you will see at the head of America’s most powerful busi­nesses and in the country’s most impor­tant political circles. These are the sort of men who run Amer­ica, and what America needs, in these dark days, is more men willing to sleep for their country. It is paradoxical that you never fully appreciate sleep when you have the chance.

There you are, flat back in your bed, letting yourself drift off toward the sweet environs of unconscious rumination. You can taste sleep’s sweet elixir, its honeyed tones and titilla­tions. Sweetly, slowly, sleep comes upon you promising rest, release and rejuvenation.

But the moment it takes you, you feel nothing save the hard moment you awaken again. It is humankind’s greatest tor­ment, an orgasm perpetually promised but never delivered.

Sweet sleep, you are always the one that gets away.

Women, I imagine that you too enjoy sleep. Because in my limited experience, I have been chastised by my mom on any occasion I woke her up, or in still rarer occasions physically assaulted and berated by women who found themselves wakened in a situational joint slumber with my person. Both occasions have suggested to me that women think sleep is pret­ty important, and should not be interrupted, particularly by me. I’ve also heard a lot about this mythically required “beau­ty sleep,” which though prom­ising great things has never noticeably changed any of the women who insisted on it.

Whatever the veracity of beauty sleep, or the logic of the disappointment of my onetime bedmates, the foundational idea is a good one: People are happier sleeping than when they are not sleeping. Sleep is the great equalizer. And maybe that’s what they mean by beau­ty sleep; when I am asleep I am beautiful, and I bet you are too.

Zachary McCune regrets 100 percent of the sleep he never gets.