Be A Man. Drink Real Beer.

Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Schlitz.

What do these beers (and many others not listed) have in common?

Well aside from very expensive add campaigns, these mass produced beers share a trait that many are unaware of.

Cheap ingredients.

Water, lots of it.

Low alcohol content.

Lack of taste.


Now, if you happen to be a man that counts one of these as your go to beer I really can't find too much fault with you if you haven't experienced anything else. You probably think that these are great beers, they are smooth, they taste good to you!

Even the reason these beers became the way they are really isn't your fault and addresses all of the four traits listed about.

WWII.

Yes, Nazi's are to blame for the way our most popular beers have been degraded over the years.

You see, during the war, brewers didn't have as much access to expensive ingredients as they did in the past. That meant that they had to find substitutes for hops and barley, using less expensive crops like corn and rice.

In addition to these ingredients being cheaper, they are far less flavorful and diverse.
Also, with lower alcohol content came greater water content. This causes you to have to drink more beer which means you get that bloated feeling and pee more.

Unfortunate for us all, the end of the war did not signal the end of cheaply made inferior beers.
By then, the large breweries had a taste for cheaper product and larger profit margins and we had a taste for their watered down "beer". Using these new profits, these corporate giants began to buy up all the smaller breweries that still used the expensive and tasty ingredients, thus creating less and less choice and diversity in your local beer aisle.

Huge marketing campaigns convinced our fathers and their fathers that the beer was manly, tasted great, and had a cool factor.

Oh look! Beautiful people having a great time. I think I'll buy some corn water!

Shouldn't it have been a clue that we weren't drinking quality beer when the advertisement for Bud Light became "The difference is drinkability"?

What the hell is drinkability? What Budweiser was doing was insulting you directly to your face. Most lifelong drinkers of the big brews develop a taste for the bland, so when they venture out and try a craft beer they find it's taste too strong. It's almost like having to acquire a taste for beer all over again. So what Budweiser was essentially saying was "The difference is that our beer is relatively flavorless and easy to drink, like water".

So when you sit down at the steakhouse to enjoy a big juicy sirloin and you ask for a Bud Light, not only are you missing out on beers that are much more flavorful and complimentary of the taste of your steak, you're essentially asking for cheap, watered down alcoholic corn water.

When you are sitting at the bar looking for female companionship or trying to chat with an attractive woman and you are holding a can or bottle of Miller, you are conveying that you are like every other mass market influenced, weak taste, mainstream beer drinker.

Take a girl to a local microbrewery or bar that serves interesting craft beers like double oatmeal stouts. You're not only doing yourself a favor by experiencing the wonderful wide world of beer complexity of taste, but you are adding a layer of interest and intrigue as well as class on top of your own persona.


                               

So do yourself a favor. Venture out. Explore. Push the bounds of your beer tastes and expand them past the corn and rice water that you've come to think of as a "good beer".

Don't be that guy that saddles up the bar, one that has plenty of good and interesting choices in bottle and on tap, and answer the bartenders question of "what can I get for ya" with a twangy "Bud Light!".

Be a man. Drink real beer.

Feminism Will Cost You Your Closest Friends.

Today I find myself shocked and at a loss for words.

A friend of almost 20 years has cut off contact with me and blocked me via Facebook.

Sorry, page not found.

What nuclear fallout could have caused such a thing? Surely there must have been some sort of massive argument! Your humble writer must have certainly slept with the man's woman or stolen money or his car or condemned him in some unforgivable way.. .right? .... I mean... RIGHT??!?!?!

No, friends. Sadly this tale has no such easy and neat bow to tie upon a package of woe and distress. Instead, this long and storied friendship finds it's pieces shattered upon that most unholy and biased of comradery breakers: feminism.

A little history: My long time friend, one which I had grown through my formative years with, seen go through relationships, abortions, marriages, and worked my very first jobs with, this same man had moved to the city of "weird": Austin.

During this time he had seen ups and downs, had children, been divorced, found new career opportunities. Through all of this we had stayed in touch. Though we attended different colleges, though he fathered children out of wedlock with a woman I knew was wrong for him, though he had bounced around quite a bit in his life, we had stayed in touch. That is, until now.

The precursor to the discussion that would untie our friendship was one about supposed "rape culture" in America. He posted the White House PSA on  rape and how it is everyone's responsibility to stop it.

I addressed the PSA, calling it useless as men and women know that rape is wrong and that a PSA is going to do little if anything to stop rape (which is on the downtrend). What would be more useful, I contended, was teaching men and women how to avoid situations where they put themselves at a higher risk for rape. I likened an owner of a sports car leaving it unlocked in a crime ridden neighborhood and that car being stolen.

Should that happen? NO! Should the person that stole the car be punished? Yes! Could the owner of the car have lessened the chances of their car being stolen? OF COURSE!!

I was met with rage and straw men arguments from not only female defenders of the PSA but my very own friend! "Women are not cars!" they volleyed with logical fallacy at my castle of logic. "Being approached by men when it's unwanted in a bar is rape culture" they illogically opined. "I'm sad to see that you are so backwards thinking" my friend lamented.

I even offered up an article by the largest organization and defender of rape victims that America does not have a "rape culture" and that to use that term is not helpful and that men are raped just as much as women, but that narrative is buried. The response? Denial or silence.

I let it go after laying the truth before the court. Sometimes one must simply speak the truth and walk away, for not all will have ears to hear or eyes to see, instead blinding themselves with a more comfortable reality they can wrap around themselves like an old and familiar blanket.

I gave it time. I gave it space.
My friend posted an article about the recent murders by Elliot Rodgers and how it was misogynistic etc etc and how male privileged society was mostly to blame for the killings.

Despite Rodgers distaste for other men and the pedestal upon which he placed women.
Despite the fact that Rodgers killed more men than women.
Despite the reasons he himself gave and background of abuse and neglect by his step-mother and father that he painted in his manifesto.

I supplied a link for my friend to watch. A video by Stefan Molyneaux that broke down Rodger's manifesto bit by bit with excellent analysis and conclusions drawn about why Rodgers turned out the way he did.

Yes, it's a long video. But I believe, contrasted with blurbs and 300 word articles about the incident, if one truly cares about what happened and the reasons behind it, then it's a short amount of time to dedicate to understanding the murderer behind the massacre.

My friend responded with (paraphrased) "That's too long for me to devote my time to. Can you summarize?".

I responded that I could not and that such a subject requires time and analysis to understand what could have driven a person to commit such acts.

The response was a frustrated (again paraphrased) "I'm not interested in why someone thinks he might have done it. It's simple. This sort of thing cannot be condoned by society."

I responded with "Yes, society condones murder (sarcasm). Why even post this if you aren't interested in discussion or the truth?"

The result? Blocked on Facebook and no response via cell phone.

The telltale signs:

Beyond my friend's recent pro-feminism FB posts and responses he had also been hanging out with several unattractive, obese, short haired feminists.. even *dating* one of them.

Why is any of that significant? Because the majority of vocal feminists fit into the above categories. I'm not making that up. Google feminist bloggers or writers and the majority will fill one (if not more) of those characteristics.

What's to be learned from this?

Well, what did my friend gain? He is a fairly attractive, successful, and in shape man. He has now alienated a friend of almost two decades that would have sacrificed time and money to help him in times of need (and has) for a set of women that do not value men in their lives, that speak with hate against men in their words, and feel that the world is stacked against them even as they ignore the nature of humanity and do nothing to better themselves.

Beware friends. Do not let this happen to you. Acknowledge that men and women are inherently different and that it is a GOOD thing. Be open to debate with tried and true friends and above all, don't ask questions you are not genuinely ready to hear answers to.

Humor: It Isn't Up To You.

Let me offend you or delight you with a few pictures before we begin:

OMG POOR FELLOW!

Why are you laughing at that man?!

You shouldn't laugh at aliens!

The above pictures are just a few examples of things being funny at other peoples expense. That's part of what makes humor funny. Why? Nobody really knows. But if you try to think of an example of something that is funny 9/10 it's going to be something that happened to another person that wasn't good.

Try it. Take a few seconds and think about funny things that have happened to your friends or some of your most humorous stories. I'm willing to bet a donkey on the fact that possibly all of them have to do with something going wrong. That's the essence
of humor. Laughing at the bad things in life.

So why do we constantly see people in the public eye making jokes getting crucified for attempting to be funny? A few years ago CBS radio fired multiple DJ's for making jokes they deemed "inappropriate". It seems like a day can't go by without a public figure having to apologize for making a joke that offended someone. Satellite Radio Jockeys Opie and Anthony even have an apology clock that they keep to see how much times elapses between celebrity apologies.

So what's wrong with being offended by a joke? What's the issue to be taken with not wanting to hear jokes about fat people, violence, or even murder? Well let's start with a great little clip from now deceased comedian Parice Oneal on the subject.

Being offended and dealing with it in a way that doesn't affect the person that offended you is one thing. However, saying you are offended is also saying that you think the offender shouldn't be able to say what they said. In essence you are trying to limit another person's speech because you can't deal with the emotions of being offended by them. Which is worse? Someone saying offensive things or another person limiting speech?


So before you decide to declare that a joke or a statement has "offended you" perhaps take a moment to think about what you are really saying. You have the right to be offended certainly, but that doesn't mean you have the right to force someone else not to offend you.

The beauty of humor is that it allows us to deal with the bad things in life with the phenomenon of laughter. That's why terrible things that happen to us one day are hilarious stories when we retell them later. To laugh is human, especially at offensive things.

People have tried to corner the market on being offended, corner the market on language and corner the market on opinion. Should I lose my job 'cause I offended somebody? No, of course not. Your life should never be affected by public opinion.

-Patrice O'Neal

Is Multi-Level Marketing Turning You Into an Ass?

Jewelry, makeup, shakes, life insurance, energy drinks, health supplements, air purifiers, even legal counsel.

You can sell all of these products, services, and more to your friends and family.

But should you?

For those of you that don't know, multi-level marketing works like this:

A company has a product or service. They recruit individuals to sell these for them on a commission basis. You are not really an employee. You "work for yourself".

Generally you are sold on the benefits of the product or service by someone else. You buy some or sign up for the service. Then you are encouraged to start selling and offering the service yourself using such phrases as:

Become financially independent!

Work from home!

Leave your day job!

Etc. Every person you convince to buy the product or service increases your commission, you reach new levels and gain a greater percentage of each sale. If you sign up people under yourself to sell the same products then you get a cut of their sales as well.. and anyone they sign up, and anyone those people sign up.. and on it goes.

So, is there anything wrong with this? What's so bad about selling stuff to people?

The answer is nothing. There is nothing wrong with offering products you believe in to your friends and family and even strangers.

So what's the problem?

Well the problem is that the companies that encourage this strategy can be cult-like, high pressure, and require ever increasing sales and member sign ups to keep someone profitable and making money.

If you've ever run into someone selling things like Advocare, Primerica, Amway, Prepaid Legal or countless others then you make know exactly what I'm talking about.

A person you used to enjoy talking to is suddenly excited and energetic about this new "business opportunity" they want to talk to you about. You trust them so you agree to listen. Now they are talking about a protein shake, or makeup, or candles, whatever it is they are selling. Maybe you're interested. Maybe they offer you some free samples. Maybe you buy some of whatever it is.

If you sign up to sell it yourself now you're being invited to group meetings where people talk about how great the product is. You're now on conference calls with the biggest seller in the area so he can tell you about how much money you can make and how many people are helped by this product. You're pressured to make a list of all your friends and family and sit down with each and every one of them, often with the person that signed you up there to "help" and offer the same opportunity. That's now all you and your friend or family member that got you involved talk about. You might be hanging out more and more exclusively with other people that are doing what you're doing. You're attending more and more meetings, seminars, retreats, conference calls and your life is increasingly becoming focused on this "business opportunity".

If you don't sign up or buy then often times your friend or family member may admonish you for the opportunity you're missing. They may keep finding ways to bring it up in the future, hoping you'll reconsider. They may even sneakily invite you to "free dinners" or events that are actually group sales pitches by the "RVP" and his team designed to pile on even more pressure into getting you to sign up. Now, still not convinced, you begin to avoid this person because you know all they are going to talk about is this product or service. It's now their life. They speak of almost nothing else.

Sound familiar? It's happened to yours truly far too often.

When I was younger I even got suckered into going to a Primerica class and almost went all the way through with it. All of the above applied. I finally opened my eyes when we sat down with a young man that was in debt and needed help. That's what we were supposed to be about right? Helping people! It was myself and my "mentor". After hearing the man's story (and having put my integrity on the line by getting the guy to agree to a meeting) my mentors answer to the guy was "You need to make more money! By that I mean, you need to do what we are doing!".

I was stunned. More than that I was angry. That obviously wasn't the answer. I felt embarrassed. After that I stopped responding to my "mentor's" phone calls and texts. A month or so later I saw him and a group of acolytes coming out of the movie theater as I was walking in.

"Hey! What are you doing man? Where you been?" he asked as he walked over to me.

"Just about to see a movie with some friends" I replied.

"Oh, you should have told me man. We just got done watching movies. The RVP took us out and paid for us all!"

"I can afford my own movie ticket. See you later man. Have a nice night". I walked away.

In the words of President Obama, let me be clear. I'm not saying that someone cannot be successful at any of these endeavors. What I AM saying to those people (that may be YOU) is that you must be careful in how you let any sort of business infiltrate your life and affect your relationships. Taking advantage of the trust of your friends and family is the number 1 strategy of any MLM company. While there's nothing wrong with offering a product or service you believe in to a friend or family member, there IS something wrong if that's all you talk about going forward, if you try to guilt them into buying or signing up, and if a business or product changes your personality to the point that people no longer recognize you and avoid talking to you because they know eventually you're going to steer the conversation back to their company, product or service.

Is this you? Does every conversation or most of them you have with your friends and family center around you bringing up your MLM opportunity?

Are the majority of your Facebook or Twitter posts tied to mentioning it somehow?

Look up, take notice. You're alienating your friends and family. You may be that annoying person people are talking about not inviting out or messaging because they know you'll just try to bring up your pitch again.

Even more dangerous: Are you prepared to have a loved friend or family member sign up and fail? Often people sign up, high on the hype, only to realize they aren't the kind of person that thrives at person to person sales and marketing. Maybe they only buy a little product themselves, make a few sales to others and quit. Fine. But maybe they do like many  and buy enough product to bump themselves up to the next commission "tier" or discount level and then find they can't maintain sales to recoup their expenditures. Now they have debt they have to eat.

They have personal responsibility for their decisions of course, but so do you.

Again, there are plenty of people who sell or offer these things in an appropriate way, make money, and knno when no means no and also know who to offer to and who not to.

But then there are plenty that don't. Is that you?

And this is one of the major questions of our lives: how we keep boundaries, what permission we have to cross boundaries, and how we do so.

A. B. Yehoshua

Your Smartphone is Not Your Smart-Friend: Don't Be A Disrespected Man

"Hey man! Let's hang out later tonight. We'll get all the fellas together and do something fun. It's been a while."

"Okay. Sounds good! I'll call some of the guys".

What you've just read is a typical beginning to a "guys get to hang together" evening, weekend, or trip.

In a world of instant electronic communication and declining masculinity these occurrences are becoming more and more rare. Why then, do we turn something that could look like this:

(Okay, subtract cigs. Add cigars.)

Into something that looks like this?

(Yes. Texting too much makes you dress like a total ass.)

I can't speak for every man on the planet, but I am friends with the guys I am friends with because I enjoy their company. When it comes down to spending time together, especially time we've set aside for that specific purpose, I am looking to absorb and engage in as much personal interaction as possible in that given span of time. 

Think back. When have your most enjoyable, memorable moments happened? Where do most of your crazy stories begin and end? FROM HANGING OUT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

Enter cell phone.

No longer is it just you and your buds. It's now you, your buds, and their wife, gf, or girl they are trying to turn into their gf... or even other buds. Every few minutes they are glancing down at that tiny screen and then tapping back a reply to whatever urgent message that just couldn't wait.

You may be thinking that a few texts (would you like to define few) during social interaction is fine and I'm blowing things out of proportion. Well sir or madam, I'm here on my big stinky horse to tell you that you are dead wrong.

Imagine, if you will, that instead of texts, the person or people you are trying to hang out with are receiving multiple very quick phone calls during your time with them. You keep talking at their behest if it's you that are the one carrying the conversation at the moment, but they stare at you as if they are listening all the while holding the phone to their ear while listening and responding to that conversation.

Would you find that rude? Would you become aggravated?

The answer, oh lovers of truth, is that OF COURSE you would. Nobody with any sort of self worth would put up with that sort of behavior. So why do we let our friends?

More importantly, why do we do it to our friends?

Do we not value the time we have with our friends enough to simply turn our phones on silent or off? Can we just not take the thought of not being in constant contact with our wives or gfs for a few hours that we can't tell them "Hey, I'm with the guys. I'll talk to you later." ?

WOULD THAT CAUSE THE WORLD TO EXPLODE?

Part of being a man is respecting others but also commanding respect for yourself. That means respect your friends and their time, but also demand that others respect yours.

DISCLAIMER: If you are the type of man that must literally ask your significant other for "permission" to hang out with your friends then this entire post is not for you. If the words "I'm not allowed" have ever come out of your mouth (or been typed by your fingers) then please stop reading my blog right now because you probably aren't supposed to be reading it anyway and are in danger of being beaten up by the masculine woman in your life.

If you are the type of man that has self respect and respect for others then you should see that reflected in how you treat those around you and how you are treated. Tell your wife or gf that you are going to be enjoying some time with friends and that you'll talk to them later. If they begin to text you (and no, there is no such thing as an important text. That's what phone calls are for.) then simply ignore the text or reply with something like "Hanging with the guys, remember? I'll ttyl."

A question that is raised when discussing situations like this with some of the guys is "Why do our/their wives, gfs decide that "guy time" is an appropriate time to start texting us/them?" There are a few reasons that are most likely for this, but a recent conversation with an unofficial professor and student of male interactions had the following to say about why guys may let this texting absurdity happen or why their women may initiate it:

"My observation is they have insecurities from past relationships and whatever positive feeling they have they want to make sure they preserve it even when a new variable is added."

That "variable" being them hanging out with a friend or friends.

"They text and call everyday. It gives them a positive feeling. A new variable is added where the bf is hanging with a friend. The GF is challenged and wants to text and call to see that the bf will still give attention even with his attention diverted."

Interesting no? Obviously the above isn't the case all the time... but it certainly is some of the time.

Allowing someone to demand your attention in this way shows they don't respect you, your time, or your friends or their time. Also, by giving in you lower your own value in their eyes. They can demand your attention whenever they want it and they know you will deliver. 

How much more interesting and valuable will you be to a woman if you demonstrate that you demand she respect you and your time and your friends? If she's smart she'll pick up on the fact that you will demand that your time with her also be as interruption free as possible. It's really a win/win.

So, what can we, the men that do not perpetuate this texting social breakdown, do about it? It's simple really. In the same way I've suggested that those who are breaking social code and constantly getting texts demand that those who are sending them respect their time and wishes, do the same with those allowing their phones to command their attention.

"Hey man, I'm here to hang out with you, not you, your wife, and your phone. If this isn't a good time, we can do this some other night."

Does that seem rude? Because it's not. Would you put up with a girl you are on a date with constantly texting on her phone? If you are a weak, disrespected male you might.

Make a pact with your buddies. Emergency phone calls only. Anyone caught texting buys the next round, pays for dinner, movie tickets, gets his phone tossed into a toilet. Anything to break the cycle of personal, meaningful interaction being broken by a small hand held computer.

In the words of a buddy of mine, JDogg, "If you're going to commit to hanging out with someone or a group, hang out with them. Don't just "be there".

That highlights my final point. Don't miss the next adventure, crazy story, embarrassing thing your best friend just did because you were staring down at words on a screen that said something like "Yeah. I'm watching Blacklist and the dog just pooped outside. lolz!!"

Be a man. Demand your time be respected and watch not only your value in your own eyes skyrocket, but those around you gain a new appreciation for you as a male that places worth in himself.

The Running Craze: Are You Running Too Much?

It seems like everybody is doing it. Your friends, your neighbors, your mom. Every morning or afternoon, 5K's, marathons, run clubs. It's everywhere. It's a "run away" hit! Har har, but seriously, what the hell is with everyone running? Is it healthy?

A quick glimpse at Facebook is all it takes for most people to find at least one person who is into running among their friends but chances are there are more. All across the country, themed runs have popped up like Starbucks. Runs where they throw colored dust all over you, zombie runs, obstacle course runs complete with flames and barbed wire, underwear runs, nude runs, even a run where you stop along the way to sample wine!











Yeah, that's right. People running AND drinking. What could go wrong?

Joking aside, I've never really seen the attraction to running long distances. As someone who played soccer for a good part of my life and also had a Tae Kwon Do instructor that thought young children should run miles as part of their training, I've pretty much had my fill.

I consider myself to be in pretty good shape. I do a mixture of in-home fitness programs like P90X (1-3), Insanity, and a few other things that I throw in randomly throughout the day. I may be walking from part of the house to the other and decide to do a few pull ups. I may be standing in the kitchen mixing together a meal and decide to do some calf raises.

                                                                       I never run.

The goal of most runners I know is to stay or get "in shape". From my own anecdotal evidence I'm not convinced that the extent that many people run is the best way to do that. I'll give you a few examples.

I once played some flag football with some college buddies of which a few were and still are into running a few miles almost daily. While they certainly proved to be in better shape than the average American, there were several times when they requested breaks to catch their breath, would be gassed out with their hands on their knees after a play etc. Meanwhile I'm running back to the line of scrimmage, ready for the next play.

Another was some sort of "K" run I randomly fell into with some friends that are in a run club in Miami.

Again, I never run.

These two girls run all the time. I stayed with them the entire time because I wasn't running in it to prove anything and enjoy their company, but I could have left them behind. Their pace was pretty solid but towards the middle of the pack in that particular run. I don't think I could have finished first, but If I had wanted to I definitely could have been further up when it came to the finish line.

So you may be saying "Yeah yeah yeah. We get it. But this is all circumstantial. Of course running is good for you!".

Well let's talk about science.

All scientists look like this, right?

My own cardio training is based on intervals, not maintained levels of exertion. Studies have shown that interval training is far superior in benefits compared to sustained cardio exertion levels when exercising.

In addition, new studies are revealing that sustained running can actually have a negative impact on longevity. That's right, if you run too much you may be shortening your life, which is the exact opposite of most people's motivation for running in the first place.

How can this be?! Well I'm sure you've heard about or read of instances where pretty much every year a runner drops stone cold dead in the middle of or shortly after a race. Many have no history of heart disease or other risk indicators. What then is to blame?

The culprit, it turns out, is stress.

Any time you exert your body you are placing stress on your muscles, ligaments, and organs. In essence, you damage them. The good thing about this is that when done properly and moderately your body heals itself stronger than before you damaged it. That's how muscle is built and hearts are strengthened. However, like most other things in life, there is a point of diminishing returns.

The latest studies indicate that 2-3 hours of running per week is optimal. After that, the stress placed on the body seems to outweigh the benefits reaped from the increased time and miles placed on the body.

Think about it this way: If you run every day or even every other day what time does your body have to heal from the damage you are doing to it from running? You are literally damaging your body every single day and never giving it time to mend itself properly. This is a concept that many weightlifters have known for years. The body takes approximately 36 hours to heal muscle fibers that have been torn during exercise. Work out the same muscle group before that time has elapsed and you run the risk of "over-training". Your results plateau and you are basically wasting your time.

I know I know. I'm raining on the parade.

So I know this isn't the best news for you long distance, sold out, slap some pancake batter on me and call it a "Breakfast Run" athletes but it seems to be the reality. This doesn't mean you should stop running entirely, or even to stop participating in the fun, crazy ass "Moose Antler" run that you love so much.

It just means that maybe we should all take a step back from this run craze, change up and vary our exercise regime, and find some other fitness oriented activities that we love. After all, even the gazelle and the lion, animals I've seen running advocated offer up as examples of animals that run all the time, really don't run that often, and when they do, it's in short, terror filled spurts.

So keep running, but let your runs be brief and filled with terror.