Who Da Man?

By Edward Keenan March 18, 2008 2 Comments

So what qualifies me to write about what makes a man? It’s a fair question, and one I’m not completely sure how to answer. I have no relevant academic credentials[1], which might go either way as a qualification. In Advertisements for Myself, Norman Mailer, who was more concerned than most with existential questions of heavyweight manhood, framed the question of the ethical appeal in manly arguments regarding Hemingway’s fiction:

Let any of you decide for yourself how silly would be A Farewell To Arms or better, Death in the Afternoon, if it had been written by a man who was five-four, had acne, wore glasses, spoke in a shrill voice or was a physical coward. That, of course, is an impossible hyposthesis.[2]

And here’s me at five-eight, putting off replacing my glasses, annoyed by a pimple under the stubble on my neck… maybe this line of comparison will prove unhelpful. Still, while I’ve never stabbed my wife, I have scored a few Mailer points, if that happens to be how you’re keeping score.

Here’s a list of facts about your correspondent to keep in mind, sorted conveniently for your consideration:

THINGS ABOUT EDWARD KEENAN THAT MAY BE CONSIDERED, BY SOME PEOPLE, MANLY:

Born with traditional male primary sex characteristics
Developed traditional male secondary sex characteristics at the roughly appropriate age
Was a Boy Scout, and is good at camping stuff like starting fires and pitching tents

Played organized ice hockey until he was 21
Was once named the Most Valuable Player of his baseball team
Has run for and won elected office
Has a barely noticeable scar on his forehead
Never bothered with braces
Has a faded blue tattoo of the gonzo crest on his shoulder
Dropped out of university to get a job
Was once arrested in an elaborate takedown on the Don Valley Parkway involving three police cruisers surrounding a cab

Has fronted a rock band
Has never, to his knowledge, had his voice described by anyone as shrill
Has had his nose broken twice, once by a close friend
Moved in to share an apartment with his friend months after that friend broke his nose
Has organized protest marches
Has debated politics on public stages
Has been in bar fights
Has been willing, historically, to consume more alcohol than almost anyone else in the room
Once ran a business (a restaurant)
Has fired people
Has worked in physical labour jobs and factories
Was employed as a cook for several years (how’s that manly? See Bourdain, Anthony)
Knows how to tie a credible Windsor knot
A four-in-hand too
Is someone’s husband
Is someone’s father
Is a breadwinner
Has a great uncle who once won a fight to the death with an angry mother bear
Thinks for some reason that manliness is actually a topic worth thinking about, unlike the vast majority of people

THINGS ABOUT EDWARD KEENAN THAT MAY BE CONSIDERED, BY SOME PEOPLE, UNMANLY:

Unable to grow a convincing beard
Despite this fact, shaves seldom enough that people always assume he is trying to grow a beard
As types go, he is not particularly strong, and is decidedly un-silent
Got kicked off the high school hockey team for missing a practice to be in the school fashion show
Was named “Most Sportsmanlike Player” on his hockey team two years in a row
Elected office he held was on high school student council
Has increasingly little hair on the top of his head
Fainted midway through tattooing process (apparently because smoking and allowing yourself to be repeatedly cut with needles at the same time is not good for the oxygen-to-the-brain situation)
Dropped out of university
Once called himself a feminist on national television
Was production editor of a women’s issues magazine in university
Has no criminal record to show for his brushes with the law
Signature fighting move is continuing to shout insults while having his ass comprehensively kicked
Cannot hold his booze (and has stopped trying)
Has been described as “yappy”
Has held the job title “executive assistant”
Knows how to cook, and enjoys it (how’s that unmanly? See Unger, Felix)
Doesn’t win all that much bread, really
Has never once even tried to fight a bear
Is currently writing about himself in the third person

There I am, reduced to a not particularly helpful and radically misleading set of facts. Make of it what you will. Tomorrow: Enough about me, let’s talk about my bear-fighting uncle!

NEXT POSTS:
I Come by it Honestly: Teenager fights bear. Wins.
Guys vs. Men: It ain’t (just) a battle of the sexes

PREVIOUS POST:
Is This What You’ve Become? It all began in an east-end pigsty

________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Unless you count an introductory gender studies class at Ryerson, in which my signal achievement was having the professor illustrate a study point by saying “I’m guessing you generally pass as a gay male.” I took it as equal parts compliment and insult, given where he was coming from and who I wanted to sleep with. [back]

[2] Of which Mordecai Richler wrote a great takedown, in his book Hunting Tigers Under Glass, regarding one of Mailer’s heroic characters elsewhere in Advetisements: “Sergius O’Shaughnessy … sounded ominously like the fantasy of someone who was five-four, had acne, spoke in a shrill voice, etc. etc. etc.”[back]

photo credit: xcatherinax

Posted in Act Like A Man

The Man

You the man! Fun post
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2008/03/30/blood-on-the-ice/ The Walrus Blogs Â» Blood on the Ice Â» Act Like A Man

[...] Who da man? A brief and possibly irrelevant list of possible qualifications [...]

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