A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!
Whether wrangling gators, playing golf, or organizing themselves into a hedgehog of pikes, men just love being together, being men together. Like male bottlenose dolphins, they seek each other out. Men together, whitewater rafting. Men together, playing beach volleyball. Men together, tear-gassing protesters. Men together drilling for oil. Men together shooting people in Bible-study groups. Men together itching to finger any control panel going. Men together, like bees to honey, wherever there’s money. Men together, having to watch other men together play a lot of ball games all the time. Men together being buff and ripped. Men together metal-detecting. Men together felling trees. Environmental cowboys together, fly-tipping or incinerating trash meant for recycling. Men together at DuPont and Tefal, still dumping forever chemicals into rivers. They’ll dump them forever! Men together writing about Minoan craftsmen, as if there were no Minoan craftswomen. Minoan men together. Montanan men together. South Dakotan men together. North Dakotan men together. Yorkshiremen together. Irishmen together. Eastern European men together. Israeli men together. Saudi men together. Sudanese men together. Spanish men together. Frenchmen together. Chinese men together. Tongan men together. Salvadoran men together, holding U.S. deportees captive in a mega-jail. Men together drinking, men together smoking, men together schmoozing, men together name-calling, name-dropping, sucking up, fawning, groveling. Men together networking, men together inviting each other over for dinner and cute girls, men together showing off their elbow candy, elbowing each other out, slapping each other’s butts in the shower. Men together so consistently sexually harassing people at work that everyone now trudges home, windbag-worn, after a day of forced flirting. Men together warring in the War Room, creating situations in the Situation Room, barroom brawling in barrooms. Men together still seeing war as a way to resolve disputes. Men together disbanding nuclear treaties. Men together invading sovereign countries. Men together raining bombs down on civilians. Men together sharing Al Qaeda training manuals. Men together plotting the 9/11 attacks, funding the 9/11 attacks, and eventually carrying out the 9/11 attacks. Men together using hard rock, heavy metal, the “Macarena,” Barry Manilow, Sesame Street tunes, stress positions, hooding, psychic driving, waterboarding, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, heat deprivation, hunger, thirst, and The Howard Stern Show as torture methods. Men together beheading people. Men together pulverizing people. Men together feuding, men together jousting, men together having conniptions. Men together just loving a tussle. Men together—from Tom Sawyer to Kim Jong Un—making everything a bust-up, a dustup, a boxing match, a challenge of masculinity, and a chance for men to shine. Men together, rolling up their shirtsleeves to step outside for fisticuffs. Men together conducting synchronized sissy-boy slapfights. Men together decking, slugging, socking, and walloping each other. Men together, in defense of their honor, dueling with swords or pistols, and frowning on the practice of deloping, when reluctant opponents deliberately misfire. Men together getting sore about stuff. Men together failing to forgive. Men together sending millions to die in the First World War, nobody knows why. Men together exulting in a world governed by force. Men together awash in self-pity, when it should be remorse. Men together in ecstasies of self-congratulation, claiming to have taken part in the French Resistance. Men together in the Spanish Inquisition. Spanish men together, still supporting Franco! Men together, getting tearful about their heroes. Men together being mean to losers. Men together, jostling for supremacy, never losing sight of who’s number one. Men together, indifferent to the exact nature of the triumph, so long as triumph it is. Men together, racing each other to the moon. Men together, feeling compelled to beat the land-speed record. Men together, in support of their team, stampeding like lemmings onto airplanes to attend the World Cup, never mind global warming. Men together running marathons in destination cities, never mind global warming. Men together in pie-eating contests. Men together, unnerved by quiet chess games, insisting on holding tense, acrimonious grandmasters tournaments. Men together in Leeds, Moscow, or Warsaw, determining who’s the greatest at tickling the ivories. Men together flocking to the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, competing in “Rib,” “Shoulder,” “Whole Hog,” or “Patio Porkers.” Men together massing at the International Championship Chili Cookoffs in Terlingua, Texas, and chili World Cups and chili Super Bowls, where they can argue ad infinitum about beans or no beans, traditional red or homestyle, and if they want cheese on it. Men together missing chili con carne so much, when they can’t get any! Men together showing off their immovable, inedible, milk-fed pumpkins at county fairs. Men together organizing pole dancing contests, or air guitar championships. Men together trying to glug more beer than anyone else, or have more sex than anyone else. World Champion Sex Addict. Englishmen together risking life and limb to race a great big Double Gloucester cheese down a hill. Men together getting off on the best ballerina legs, best mashed potatoes, best kite, best razor, best camera lens, best machine gun, best religion, or best rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Fishermen together, racing across the Bering Sea in search of the biggest king crab catch. Circus men together, competing for the world record in pulling heavy vehicles with their nipples. Men together, crowning the Northern Lights Photographer of the Year. How does it help the northern lights? The northern lights don’t need any help. Men together, creators of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, finding what’s left of the natural world hilarious. Men together, making animals compete for them: dogs, bears, rams, roosters, crickets. Men together making horses race for them, bulls and bomb-detection dolphins die for them. Laika. Men together sending hundreds of horses to their deaths in the brief, hapless Charge of the Light Brigade. Another twenty-five died making the movie. Men together never relaxing the one-upmanship for a moment! Men together not wanting to relax, because then they might have to get real. Men together, united in their search for the unreal—using psychedelics if necessary. Men together bullying, boasting, bragging, buddying up, being belligerent, being bureaucratic, having a blast at banquets and booze-ups, bearing briefcases, breaking promises, and brokering big-shot business deals. Men together arguing about land, property, acreage, bales, bushels, barrels, poundage. Men together going all patrilineal on us. Men together just being together, babyishly grabbing at things, chomping on cigars, doing lines, showing off, insulting and being insulted, dispensing advice on the eighteenth hole at Winged Foot, laughing at animals, clubbing, cavorting, and making a lot of noise: griping, sniping, snorting, snoring, spitting, belching, yelping, yeehawing, guffawing, whistling, sounding off, and holding the floor. Where’s the calm, where’s the bliss? Where in hell are the women? Men together enjoying positions of unwarranted authority. Men together getting ahead of themselves. Men together getting overpromoted. Men together being linchpins within organizations. Men together being unreachable. Men together being unimpeachable. Male bosses together, firing women more readily than they fire men. Men together being made the heads of things, from junior hockey leagues and dime stores to whole beleaguered nations. Men together running the show!
