#guydom

[mewvore]

If I were transmasc my ideal would be young danny devito, honestly and genuinely

Idolizing the random balding professor in a tweed jacket a size too big instead of someone like ryan gosling is what it's all about

[moncuries]

star wars is the last gate of annoying cis guydom but i do it in a hot transsexual way

[neurodivergantizzetwitch]

kirby is peak lil guydom, cuz like, what're you gonna do to kirby? hes just a lil guy!

[mywifeleftme]

154: Young Jessie // Shufflin' & Jivin'

Shufflin' & Jivin' Young Jessie 1987, Ace

Deadspin/Defector writer David Roth coined a phrase for the idle pastime of recalling also-ran baseball players: Let’s Remember Some Guys. If you’ve ever sat around with friends who share a fandom and found the conversation pleasantly degenerating into taking turns naming Guys (e.g. “Oh man, Skeet Ulrich!”) and reacting (“Oh shit, I remember him!”), you’ve had the pleasure of Remembering a Guy. (I’ve uh homaged this bit a few times in this series already.)

Roth draws a distinction here between Guys and Dudes. A Dude is someone who had a respectable degree of success at the highest levels of their practice (made an all-star team; did an album the average stepdad has worn out multiple copies of), whereas a Guy is someone who was more of a workaday stiff who has become lodged in your mind for personal, arbitrary, or outright mysterious reasons.

To whit:

Soccer player Megan Rapinoe is unequivocally a Dude. Former Arsenal player Ray Parlour is a Guy.

The Pokemon Pidgeotto is a Guy. Bulbasaur is clearly a Dude.

Ex-porn star Carter Cruise is a Dude. Scarlit Scandal is currently a Guy with Dude potential.

Guy. The wrestler Duke “The Dumpster” Droese is a Guy. AEW’s Britt Baker is a Dude.

Basketball player Detlef Schrempf is a Dude. Christian Wood is a Guy and it’s no one’s fault but his.

Dude.

The talking doorknockers from Labyrinth are Guys. Ludo is an absolute Dude.

Border collies are a Dude breed of dog. Drevers are Guys.

I trust these carefully chosen exemplars have helped you calibrate your Remembering devices. So, based on what you know about the rules of Guy Remembering, would you say Young Jessie was a Guy or a Dude based on the stats below?

Active between 1953 and 2020, but best known for a short run of rock ��n’ roll singles in the first decade of his career, some of them featuring guitarist Mickey Baker (among sidemen a definite Dude, otherwise technically a Guy?) and saxophonist Sam “The Man” Taylor (same)

Briefly a member of The Flairs (Guys) and The Coasters (Dudes)

Writer of the song “Mary Lou,” later covered by Bob Seger (Dude), Steve Miller (Dude), Frank Zappa (Dude), and The Oblivians (Dudes, within their specific niche)

Performed and recorded sporadically (mostly jazz) over the ensuing decades

Pencils down. What do you say?

Yeah, Young Jessie is obviously a Guy, but he’s a great example of the worthiness of humble Guydom, and the joys of Remembering Guys. There was a huge glut of talent working during rock ‘n’ roll’s first decade, and despite the public’s insatiable appetite for the new sound there wasn’t enough limelight, enough studio time, enough capital for most singers to get even a single whack at the pinata. To his credit, Young Jessie had enough onstage electricity, and enough craft in his pen, to cut thirteen singles between 1954 and 1963, including some work with the legendary songwriting duo Lieber & Stoller (Dudes).

The concept of an independent (or alternative) class of recording artists didn’t really exist in Jessie’s prime—studio time meant somebody somewhere was willing to risk money on you in the hopes you might have the decency to reward them with a hit. There simply wasn’t as much willingness to invest in a longshot at stardom back then, and you needed, luck, fortitude, and ideally something special vocally to stand out.

Relatively few of Jessie’s peers had the juice to fill out a retrospective compilation, let alone one with the spring of Shufflin’ & Jivin’, which collects most of his work for the Modern Records label (’54 to ’57), plus a few previously unreleased tracks and a token entry from his time with vocal quartet The Flairs (the latter with Ike Turner [Dude] sitting in on guitar). These are pretty hot recordings in general, not far off the jump blues-derived sounds of Big Joe Thornton and Chubby Checker (both Dudes), and Jessie makes a good host. He’s believable when he asks a woman if she’d like seven or eight kids, and he has the strut needed to sell a hustler’s anthem like “Hit, Git & Split.” But he never managed to land a real hit, and he was ultimately the type of unflashy pro that had a more limited ceiling in his stardom-driven era.

But, for anyone who is a true fan of early rock ‘n’ roll and can’t get enough of this sound, this compilation (like Young Jessie himself) is an excellent find, and if you say his name among the right crowd, you’re sure to get an appreciative, “Hey, I remember that guy!” We should all be so lucky to leave such a fond legacy.

154/365

[dogwhizzer]

*marvin voice* when you beat the just some guy allegations

[missmonkeymode]

Joe rpg the only oc i make for rpg games

[gainerbf]

Not really a question just wanted to express how jealous of I am of you actually having such a perfect before and after; anything I got will be from Huge to Ginormous. Happy Eating, welcome to big guydom :)

Hey we love huge to ginormous around here. Thank you for the welcome, we need more cookies 😁

[authorityissues]

men whose violent undercurrents are deeply baked into personalities of sniveling self pity and all-around bland nice guydom are truly my least favorite type of person. i can think of nothing more vile lmao. even if they don’t have the balls to physically act on their anger it will fester into their persistent weepily aggressive narcissism plus they be the type to toe the line of what is and isn’t physically appropriate when they don’t get what they want 🙄 i could write essays on this subset of person lmao

[gnallornothing]

Jersey Boys

Just yesterday I had an appointment with a new doctor in New York City who, when I told him that I live in New Jersey, felt compelled to volunteer that he had been to the new Springsteen show on Broadway the night before. It struck me as similar to my telling a new Jewish acquaintance that I really like knishes.

But, while the doctor was right that a Jersey Guy is supposed to love All Things Bruce, a lot of misapprehensions exist as to what makes a Jersey Guy a Jersey Guy. A recent op-ed in the Times suggests that the source of First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner’s snivelling arrogance and overcompensation (or, in Jersey parlance, trying too hard) was growing up in Jersey and realizing that, while you may be from near the City, you are not “of it.” Let’s face it, though, the only thing about Jared that makes him look like a Jersey Guy is having a father who did time on a federal bribery conviction, but let’s give credit where credit is due.

What really irks me is that those who are not from Jersey think they can discern what goes on in the mind of a real Jersey guy. So I have decided to devise a test that is my totally biased way of figuring out who actually qualifies for Jersey Guydom. (And although being a Jersey Girl is a whole other discussion, you will have to wait for a separate piece that will address that distinction). Also, for the sake of full disclosure, I will admit that I was not born in Jersey, but I submit that having spent almost all of the last 64 years as a resident of the Garden State, I am eminently qualified.

So what makes a true Jersey Guy? Give yourself a point for each of the following propositions that describes you. You are a true Jersey Guy if:

While you profess your love for the Boss, you do not fawn over him for political purposes and pretend that he hasn’t rejected your overtures for support, like a certain rotund, about-to-be ex-governor (see Trying Too Hard, above).

You live and die with the Giants, who mix in occasional Glory Years with intermittent years of Job-like misery. (If you are a Jets fan, you are probably here as a political refugee from Queens and enjoyed getting whacked by Sister Mary’s ruler a little too much, but give yourself 1/2 point anyway). You do not root for the “Iggles” (see question 6 or, heaven forbid, the Cowboys (like that same  rotund, about-to-be ex-governor).

You can identity all of the landmarks on The Sopranos and their true locations. (Give yourself a bonus point if you have been to the actual Bada Bing).

You know where to find the best Italian hot dogs (hint: Newark) and you always order a “double” or a “combo,” but never a single. Take a bonus point if you know where to find “rippers,” or deep-fried hot dogs.

You threaten to punch anyone in the bar who claims that Frank Sinatra wasn’t the world’s greatest singer.

You identify the near-meat substance that is fried and placed on an egg sandwich (preferably on a hard roll) as “Taylor Ham” and not “pork roll,” which would indicate you are either from South Jersey or Philadelphia, a distinction without a difference.

You rent a place “down the Shore,” but not at the beach, and not below Long Beach Island (see question 6).

When asked by your brother-in-law for help in fixing any kind of problem, you say, “I know a guy.”

You have never pumped your own gas.

When asked where you got your accent, you reply, “what accent?”

Okay, some of this is pretty subjective, but it’s my test, not yours. So based on your score, you can measure your Jersey Guyness as follows:

0-3. You are really a Midwesterner, which is anyone living west of Somerville.

4-6. There may be hope, but you spend too much time listening to Billy Joel.

7-9. Now you’re talking. You have probably taken your kids to see the Great Falls in Paterson and visited the Statue of Liberty, which, as we all know, is actually in New Jersey.

10+ You are as much a Jersey Guy as George Washington, who, as you know if you are up on your Revolutionary War history, spent his winters in Morristown.

[ahoynickstevens]

Do whatever it is you need to do to collect yourself, or be prepared for total podgasm, because...THE INACTIVES IS BACK! I'll give you a minute. Yes, your pals Matt Ufford & Nick Stevens are back after a necessary hiatus...mostly due to Nick's whole "new job / new home / new kid" thing to bring you the latest in their misadventures as dads, football fans and midlife guydom. This episode kinda gives you a little bit of everything you'd be looking for, and then some, as Nick is actually caring for his seven week old son while recording the first part of the podcast. Oh, you'll notice. Young Sawyer didn't wait long to make his INACTIVES debut, and his participation dictates the early content as we catch up and commiserate on the early days of having a second child. Eventually, Sawyer's mom comes home, and Matt & Nick resume their renewed dialogue, comeplete with discuss thoughts on Matt's newfound (and probably temporary) happiness...NFL training camp 2017...the surprisingly excelent LA Rams "All Or Nothing" on Amazon...movies we've seen rently...and more. All in all a vintage episode, with the authentic dad-life wall of sound. We'll be back for another season of fantasy predictions, NFL fanalysis, dad woes, travelogues, food puns and more. Hoping to maintain as close to a weekly schedule as possible. Forgive us and our scheduling/parental issues in advance, would you? Because as Dr. Dré so poignantly said in THE DEFIANT ONES, "Man, fuck stress." 5-star reviews welcome, as always. Subscribe, tell your friends and holler (@mattufford and @ahoynickstevens) whenever.

[newstfionline]

Lost boys: Young men postponing adulthood

By Donna Nebenzahl, Postmedia News June 20, 2011 MONTREAL--Usually the young man seeks help at the urging of his family.

"I feel sad," he says. "I feel worried. I don't feel motivated."

"Jeff" has managed to get through junior college, but he just can't figure out what to do next.

"My parents have been fed up with me for two years," he tells clinical psychologist Perry Adler. "It's like I'm caught in a thick fog. I was always told as a child I had a lot of potential . . .

"Nowadays I usually wake up at noon. I spend most of my days on the Internet and my nights hanging with friends," Jeff says. "I see some of them moving on and I feel like a loser. I want to do something with my life but I don't know what. I try to do stuff, but I lose the energy--I can't get things started."

Young men like Jeff (a composite character based on case studies) present themselves disturbingly often to Adler, associate director at the Teenage Health Unit of the Herzl Family Practice Centre at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital.

"Once we've ruled out a clinical diagnosis, one explanation is that we're dealing with someone who is struggling with not feeling passionate about anything. For him to commit to something feels like a waste of time."

There are so many factors to this malaise that affects young men between the ages of 18 and 25, some even up to their early 30s, Adler says.

"A major component is a sense of pessimism and helplessness about the future, a lack of ability to rise up the challenge."

While the majority of young men are getting through school, finding work and eventually raising families, there is evidence of rising numbers who are dropping out of school, not looking for work, endlessly playing video games, even living at home in their parents' basements.

Parents often see troubling signs of what's to come when their sons are still in high school.

"We very often have seen parents coming in talking about teens who are languishing, spending much of their time on the Internet, not fulfilling academic responsibilities, not fulfilling their potential," Adler says.

It's an epidemic, says American family doctor and psychologist Leonard Sax, author of the books Why Gender Matters and, most recently, Boys Adrift.

"I'm a medical doctor. I know what epidemic means. You're seeing this problem with a frequency significantly greater than would have been expected."

While this change has developed alongside the successes girls now show at university and in the workforce, girls can't be blamed for it. Schools, he says, with their focus on rules and early learning, started the ball rolling years ago.

"I've spoken with many boys in Grades 1 to 3 across the U.S. and they've told me that school is a stupid waste of time," Sax says. When I ask them why, they say, 'I got in trouble for throwing snowballs,' or 'because I wouldn't sit still,' or 'on account of I drew a picture of soldiers stabbing each other.'"

In other words, schools are not boy-friendly places. It starts in kindergarten, where children are expected to sit and learn, which was the norm only in the first grade just a few decades ago. Problem is, reading drills are really boring for a boy, who is hardwired, some psychologists believe, for rough-and-tumble play at that age. He's distracted, underperforms, gets scolded, hates school.

Finland, the country that ranks at or near the top in all international school rankings, is distinctive in this way, Sax points out: Children in Finland don't begin formal schooling until age seven, compared with age five in North America. That later start allows boys' brains to be ready for learning. Canada ranks third in reading, fifth in math and science.

So these North American boys, further alienated from their school experience because of its emphasis on rote rather than experiential learning, become disengaged: "For many boys, not caring about anything has become the mark of true guydom," Sax writes.

By the time they reach the end of high school, the sex divide has become a chasm, especially in Quebec, where the dropout rate is the highest in the country at 11.7 per cent for boys, exacerbated by the percentage among francophone males--a whopping 19 per cent in 2006.

And while more young people are educated than ever before, the sex balance in higher education continues to tilt.

In their 2007 Business and Labour Market Analysis for Statistics Canada asking why most university students are women, researchers Marc Frenette and Klarka Zeman examined the ramifications of the startling slide in the number of males in higher education.

According to the 1971 census, they report, 68 per cent of 25- to 29-year-old university graduates were male. Ten years later, 54 per cent were male and by 1991, the number was down to 51 per cent. By 2001, only 42 per cent of university graduates were male.

Across North America and Western Europe, Sax says, "we find young women working hard, anxious to get good marks--and their brothers are goofballs, more anxious about video games than getting an A."

He compares the sentiment in Sam Cooke's 1950s hit, Wonderful World--in which the boy hoped he could get the girl by being an A student ("Don't know much about history . . . ")--with the image portrayed by rappers today. "You can't imagine Eminem writing a song like that. You've gone from a young man wanting to be a scholar to wanting to be a criminal."

In the past, marriage and family were markers of adulthood, writes Michael Kimmel in his book Guyland, but in a world where young women put off children for careers, where job security is a thing of the past and their parents' values hold little allure, young men can postpone adulthood almost indefinitely.

They're even looking for work less. Labour market statistics from 2009 indicate that the employment rate for youth between the ages of 15 and 24 dropped by five percentage points from 59.5 per cent to 54.6 per cent. Youth unemployment would have been even higher, figures show, if the youth participation rate had not fallen sharply, from 67.7 per cent to 63.2 per cent. This decrease was attributed in part to young people having given up the search for work.

Even though most men, like women, are getting through school without dropping out, there's no question boys are distracted, says Concordia University sociologist Anthony Synnott, author of Re-thinking Men: Heroes, Villains and Victims.

"Young men get addicted--to video games, to drugs and alcohol," he says. And gambling; research shows that the largest cohort of online poker players are males between the age of 14 and 22.

Men between the age of 18 and 34 are the biggest users of online video games, writes Kay Hymowitz in Manning Up. She cites a Neilsen Media study of video-game use in the last quarter of 2006 that showed 48.2 per cent of American males in that age range had used a video console on average two hours and 43 minutes per day.

Look at their movie heroes, she writes, especially the likes of Adam Sandler, "one of the inventors and the yogic master of the new genre of male arrested development."

Movies that young men watch--the Jackass movies are an example--almost idealize stupidity, Adler says. "They're almost saying it's cool to be rude and oafish, to be destructive, not very productive."

These boys are facing a world that's so competitive, Adler says, and they're wondering: "'What's going to be there for me, struggling without job security, a call centre job at $10 an hour? What's the point when I can smoke some pot and go online, just chill out and that's it . . . '"

For the last two generations, says Adler, who also sees young men in private practice, we've been training our children to believe "that the world is their oyster and they deserve special recognition and privileges. Except it gets harder and harder to distinguish themselves as wonderful, which is quite upsetting and de-motivating."

These young men have an overinflated sense of their abilities at the same time that the "guy code" is telling them not to care about marks at school, Kimmel writes.

In the world he describes as "guyland," young men must also avoid the appearance of being a nerd or gay, and disdain young women to the point where hookups take the place of real intimacy. The moral, heroic male has been transformed, he says, into "being a passive bystander, going along with what seems to be the crowd's consensus."

Davide D'Alessandro, a clinical psychologist who works in private practice in Montreal, believes that as a society we've been operating in ways that might well contribute to young men's malaise and "failure to launch," as the saying goes.

First, there's the type of praise helicopter or hovering parents--with the best of intentions, D'Alessandro says--give their children. Of the two types--achievement praise, in which you tell the kid that he's the best, no matter what, and effort praise, where you congratulate the child on how hard he's trying--helicopter parenting tends to favour achievement praise, he says.

"The problem is as soon as the child meets a task he struggles with, he won't persevere."

There's solid research that shows "the effort-praised kids tend to stick with it, to keep trying. These kids steeped in a culture of achievement praise tend to give up a bit too easily when the going gets tough."

The second is a cultural bias based on the "entity theory of ability," which means a predetermined competence in an area.

"Most of us are steeped in a culture which says we're born with this competence; in North America we have a love affair with talent," he says.

The truth, however, looks more like "incremental theory," which states we can improve how well we do a task given a concerted effort. "It's known as 'deliberate practice.'" he says. "We love hearing stories of Mozart and Rafael, but we forget they practised!"

The media will extol the talents of a hockey player or rock singer, only looking at the end of the equation, he says. So a young person starting a new job, for instance, is much more likely to give up if it's difficult, choosing to do nothing until he finds something he's good at--"instead of saying, 'Hey, the research says that if I practise, I will develop competencies.'"

"Avoiding exposing oneself to opportunities to practise, say, demanding new job tasks, deprives oneself of the opportunity to experience competence feedback, to increase self-esteem."

Facing this new reality is daunting for young men, especially when the signposts are no longer there and the messages are contradictory. Manning up isn't about joining a clique and avoiding the real world, Kimmel says.

"Being a real man means doing the right thing, standing up to immorality and injustice when you see it, and expressing compassion, not contempt, for those who are less fortunate."

One way of treating young men, after looking at the strengths they've exhibited in the past, Adler says, is to encourage them to become behaviourally active.

"This means they take on small challenges to begin with. Happiness comes from a sense that you're making progress toward goals.

"You can't think your way out of a paper bag. You've got to act your way out."