Excuse me while I kiss this guy

In my entire life, I’ve never met anyone who actually knew what the heck Aretha Franklin was singing about in the chorus of her song “Respect.”

 

Which is actually kind of impressive, when you consider the fact that “Respect” is one of those tunes everyone kinda knows, at least in passing. Over the decades, it’s become one of those ditties – like Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock,” or the ever-painful “Gilligan’s Island” theme – that’s absorbed into the minds of first-world youths by some kind of mysterious osmosis, spreading with the alarming speed of a mutant virus. Babies born while the song is playing display a jaw-dropping acceleration of their linguistic skills, as they turn to their doctors or midwives and say, “Aw, change it already, I’m sick of this one.”

 

Most everyone, including fictional genius babies, know the words up to a certain point. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T / Find out what it means to me / R-E-S-P-E-C-T …” and then everyone just kinda shrugs their shoulders and mumbles something about greasy peas. For years I thought Franklin was singing, “Take down TCP,” but I never had any idea what a TCP was, or why it needed taking down. I just assumed she was singing about acid. Have you really listened to music from that era? They were all singing about acid.

 

It’s a famously confusing line, but the fact is that misheard lyrics are all over the place. Singers, especially in rock music, will oftentimes slur their words in order to squeeze a little extra juice out of the melody. Usually that’s all well and good, and in some cases preferable, since rock lyrics frequently range from embarrassing to oh-my-goodness-who-ties-your-shoes.

 

But when a song gets stuck in your head, and you’ve been singing it to yourself all morning, it’s helpful to know what the words are; otherwise your mind just keeps repeating the part it knows, like a skipping record, and before long you start to wonder what the straight jacket will feel like pulled taught across your chest. Catchy songs are the main culprits here, because not only are they designed to lodge deep inside one’s brain like an itchy splinter, but the vocalists of these bubble-gum tunes never seem to want to enunciate anything. Modern-day singers in particular sound as though some producer in the recording studio just woke them up out of a dreamy slumber. “All right, Gaga, snap out of it! You’ve gotta sing the second verse! That’s the one where you croon about having sex with the entire Venezuelan lacrosse team. Go!”

 

Thanks to the Internet, unknown lyrics are a less frustrating phenomenon. A few keystrokes, and you can finally figure out what Bono is babbling about in the chorus of U2’s “Mysterious Ways.” (Spoiler alert: It’s “She moves in mysterious ways,” not “Shamu the mysterious whale.”)

 

All too often, though, we’ll get the lyrics wrong without ever realizing it – at least until we’re called out in embarrassing fashion by someone with a better ear for slurriness. Case in point: My mother was a fan of country singer Kenny Rogers when I was a child, and she’d play his greatest hits collection on the old lumbering stereo unit in the living room while she did light housework. The song “Ruby” caught my ear one afternoon. Looking at the lyrics online just now, I see that the tune, rather oddly, is about a man pleading for Ruby to stay with him despite his having been paralyzed from the waste down in the Vietnam War. (Always a fun, jaunty subject for a country song.) As my six-year-old self was listening to it, I heard Kenny-boy mumble one final, barely audible line before the music faded into silence. The real line goes, “Oh Ruby / God sakes, turn around.”

 

Singing it out loud one afternoon, I belted what I thought the line was: “Oh Ruby / I’ve got six children.”

 

Like that would help his case any.

 

In all the times I had hummed that tune to myself, it never once occurred to me that I might be getting it wrong. On this occasion, though, my mother fell to the floor, laughing so hard I thought she might rupture important internal organs, and I thought, “Hmm, maybe it’s time to read the ol’ lyric sheet.”

 

To spare myself any further embarrassment, I finally looked up the long-misunderstood lyric to the Aretha Franklin song, which places me alongside roughly three other people who know what the hell she’s singing. Turns out I was only one letter off; the line reads, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T / Take down TCB.” The acronym “TCB,” says the all-powerful Internet, was once a popular abbreviation of the phrase “taking care of business.” Like a pre-email, pre-Facebook version of OMG, only incrementally less lame.

 

So that’s one mystery solved. Still unresolved is why TCB needs taking down, where it would be taken down from, or how one would go about taking it down in the first place. It’s a lyric that may not make any actual sense, but I think we can forgive Ms. Franklin this one time. We’ll just chalk it up to all that acid.

 

Manscape portraits

Ever had somebody share with you a piece of information that they should have kept to themselves? Of course you have. We all have. The phrase “too much information” was invented because of folks who don’t realize that sometimes you have to play your cards close to the chest. 

 

So when a former co-worker of mine started talking about his “manscaping,” I was suitably horrified.

 

“Manscaping” is one of those words that’s crept into the common vernacular the past few years, and it means what you might guess: The shaving, trimming, and overall care and maintenance of a man’s body hair. Explaining it may be superfluous on my part, because the word, and the concept, have spread faster than swine flu, and caused roughly as many instances of retching – mostly among men, like myself, who’d rather not think in detail about other dudes’ body hair. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, naturally; if the thought of a freshly shorn man-chest gets you through the cold winter, then more power to you, and I wish you a Christmas stocking filled to the brim with Edge Pro Gel. But it’s not my thing.

 

Writing about it, though, and sharing my misery: That is my thing.

 

As revolted as I was by the details of his grooming habits, in truth I really liked the guy. Not to sound too much like a 19th Century English chimney sweep, but he was a swell chap. And while it was mostly amusing that his mouth had no filter, it would sometimes result in unwanted revelations – so one fine day, when the thought of hairy pectoral muscles had never even begun to cross my mind, the guy let slip that, in accordance with his girlfriend’s wishes, he made it his habit to remove all of his body hair. Like a professional wrestler, or a mole rat. Like a shiny golden seal.

 

Gross.

 

Not everyone feels the way I do, obviously, or his girlfriend wouldn’t have made the request in the first place. (Ten to one odds she had a Slip ’N Slide growing up.) But when it comes to things like that, extremes on both ends of the spectrum tend to freak me out. Take abnormally hairy actor Robin Williams, for example, who for decades has slowly been morphing into a hyperactive, wisecracking werewolf. The man could be wearing a full three-piece suit with an ascot and a pair of dishwashing gloves, and it’d still look as though his clothes were covering a layer of the hay they use to make scarecrows. If human overpopulation ever threatens species indigenous to the Brazilian rainforest, biologists can establish a reserve on Williams’ forearms, the skin of which hasn’t seen the light of day since the golden age of radio.

 

The difference, though, is that Robin Williams is a product of nature. Hairless Man makes a conscious effort to become Hairless Man. He clips and snips and trims and shaves, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how long it takes him. I’d have asked, but then he would have told me.

 

I mean, we all groom. Unless we live in a dystopian future overrun by robots, we pretty much have to; society expects it of us. Depending on how far you want to stretch the definition of manscaping, all dudes do it to a certain degree – myself more than others, in fact. Long ago, nature decided that my head would never be adorned with the type of curly Richard Simmons ‘fro that blots out the light of a full moon and harbors warblers and double-crested cormorants. When it reached the point that my hair looked like patches of straw glued to a dinosaur egg, I started shaving it, and once you go down that road, you can’t stop. So I blaze through razor blades in an effort to keep my head in full baby-butt mode, gleefully avoiding shampoo, which for me has gone the way of blankies and Winnie the Pooh pajamas.

 

Every guy’s routine is different. Maybe you grease your mustache and curl the ends in a style reminiscent of alcoholic Civil War generals. Maybe you tweeze your eyebrows because otherwise they’d stay wet a full eight hours after a routine shower. That’s all fine. It’s borderline necessary. Otherwise we’d look like garbage-picking coyotes.

 

Removing hair below the neck, though – that starts getting silly after a while. It’s really only justifiable in extreme cases, like when your upper arms and shoulders start looking like Cosby sweaters. In those rare situations, fine, manscaping is acceptable, as long as you never tell another human being, ever. 

 

Chests, meanwhile, should never be shaved except in the cases of Olympic swimmers and grime-encrusted mountain yetis. If neither hydrodynamics nor hygiene play a role, then there’s no reason left for this bizarre activity. At least none that wouldn’t be cause for uncomfortable squirming in the sauna.

 

I feel like this manscaping thing is a recent development. There’s nothing in the history books about Winston Churchill shaving his chest, or Louis XIV trimming his knuckle hair, or whatever men are doing nowadays. That’s because guys used to roll with whatever nature gave them. 

 

Someone needs to tell Hairless Man that it’s perfectly acceptable to keep it old school. It just won’t be me. I don’t want give the impression of being okay with those conversations, ‘cause honestly, who knows what he’d try to tell me next.

 

Hot or not

Kate Chase would have a tough time of things nowadays. 

 

Of course she’s been dead for over 100 years, so she’s got nothing to worry about. Kate was the daughter of Salmon Chase, who, despite his name, was not a fish. Ol’ Sal was a U.S. Senator from Ohio, Treasury Secretary under Lincoln, and the sixth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, which is an impressive resumé for a dude that no one seemed to like very much. Historians grudgingly acknowledge that he did some good things, but he was kind of a schmuck, and I guess I would be too if I had a name like Salmon.

 

Kate, though – Kate had it all. She was the belle of the ball, and I mean that quite literally, since she grew up in the era of both belles and balls. As her father climbed through the ranks, Kate held the town of Washington transfixed, throwing elaborate parties for the political elite, and impressing her fawning guests with her two strongest attributes: Her uncanny intelligence, and her looks.

 

See, Kate Chase was kinda hot.

 

For the 1860’s.

 

Okay, now why did I just qualify that statement? I mean it as no disrespect to Ms. Chase, although if I was going to disrespect someone, it might as well be a person who died before the age of electric light bulbs. (What’s she gonna do, haunt me?) But I noticed something recently as I was reading about the Chase family, and looking at pictures of the uber-popular Kate: As attractive as she was – and she was undoubtedly a very pretty woman – she’d have a hard time getting a magazine cover in this age of obsession over superficial beauty. That’s partly because the field is more crowded nowadays, but there’s something else at play here.

 

I’m going to posit an audacious, and possibly frivolous, theory: On average, each generation gets more attractive than the last.

 

A potentially dangerous assertion, I know, but bear with me on this one.

 

First of all, I’m talking strictly about averages; this isn’t an across-the-board rule. So if you’re older than I am (I’ve been 25 for about seven years now), fear not: You’re probably gorgeous. And I mean that in the most pandering way possible.

 

Secondly, there may – may – be a quasi-scientific basis behind this claim. It’s tough to pin something like looks down to an objective science, because physical attractiveness is largely a matter of subjective opinion. There’s some consensus at the extremes; Brad Pitt, for example, is generally considered a good-looking man, while “Boardwalk Empire” star Steve Buscemi looks like a mutant bug that got his thumb caught in a car door. In between those extremes is a massive gray area, where most of us reside, in which a person’s beauty is purely subjective, dictated by personal tastes. On most days, I’ve got a pretty low opinion of my own looks – bird-beaked, bald and gangly, I look like an awkward Muppet – but you may disagree with me, and if you do, call me up. I’m available for dinner on short notice.

Where my pseudo-scientific theory comes into play is in the realm of natural selection. Evolution is something I spend a great deal of time thinking about, and not just because I have no cable. It’s fascinating stuff. And what it tells us is that species tend to mate based on the fitness of genes; in human terms, this means that “fit” people have an easier time finding partners with whom to dance the horizontal tango. Less-than-stunning people spawn plenty of offspring themselves, as evidenced by “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” but top-tier lookers have their pick of the human litter, if I may be permitted a touch of crassness. Dating is how our species evolves. If Jon Hamm and Scarlett Johansson ever had a child, its beauty would destroy retinas. People would have to look at it through those contraptions they use to watch solar eclipses.

 

When this phenomenon persists for thousands of years, standards of beauty naturally change. Consider George Washington. President Numero Uno was, according to biographer Ron Chernow, quite the ladies man. There are no known instances of him ever cheating on his wife, but he was quite fond of dancing with young women at parties and society shindigs – and they returned that fondness, even before he became a Revolutionary War hero. Washington, in the late 1700s, was considered quite the handsome chap.

 

Now take out a dollar bill and look at him closely.

 

Not a swamp creature, by any means. He’s got cool, penetrating eyes and a strong jawline (turn-ons include walks on the beach and killing British people). But would he turn heads at a party? Maybe with that powdered hair, and the Farrah Fawcett-style wingtips he’s got goin’ on there. But stand him next to George Clooney and I doubt he’d get much attention, at least without firing a musket.

 

I’ve used the word “science” a couple of times now to describe this phenomenon, but it should be noted that I’m using the term loosely; real science is subject to the rigors of testing and experiment, whereas this particular theory has been mined from the recesses of a bodily orifice that’s better left unnamed. Still, I remain convinced. And this is great news, because if it’s true that successive generations get incrementally better-looking, then by the time I’m elderly, all the young folks will be downright ravishing, and I can be one of those creepy old men that make people uncomfortable. It’s nice to have something to look forward to.

 

I just feel bad for Kate Chase – a woman that lovely, and most of the men in her life looked like Steve Buscemi.

 

Three cheers for beer

Say what you want about beer – it kills brain cells, causes hangovers, destroys lives – but there are few industries that allow you to put a drawing of Santa Claus’ bare butt on the label.

Lest you think this a flight of fancy, be assured that I’m talking about a real label on a real beer, appropriately named Santa’s Butt Winter Porter. It’s an English concoction from the Ridgeway microbrewery in Oxfordshire, which is now on my official list of Top Ten Places to Visit Before I’m Committed to an Insane Asylum. (Also on the list: Paris, and that amusement park where they filmed part of “Zombieland.”)

From what I see in the beer aisles of various supermarkets and convenience stores, those butt-loving Brits are hardly the only brewmasters who name and label their beers with tongues firmly in cheek. In fact, they’re not the only ones to use the word “butt.” The Big Horn brewery, with locations smattered throughout the northwest, showed impressive boldness when they invented Buttface Amber Ale, the only beer I’ve come across that incorporates an actual insult I used when I was 9. Aside from ticking my inner adolescent, who still inwardly titters when he hears words like “booger” (and “titter”), this Buttface product has also allowed me to say “butt” six times in three paragraphs, which I believe is a personal record. Make that seven: butt.

Perhaps surprisingly, I am not currently drinking these products. Actually, I hardly drink at all, outside of holidays and Wednesdays. But when I do, it’s usually some microbrew with bench-pressing minotaurs or toga-clad Greek gods on the bottles, which are often saddled with ridiculous monikers, like Polygamy Porter or Spleen Cleaver. Both real, by the way.

The silly imagery and testosterone-drenched titles of these crazy creations are only possible because, contained within their glass or tin confines, is a liquid that makes one’s brain feel like a hall of mirrors in a mid-level amusement park. You just don’t see that kind of wacky (or immature) freedom in other industries. You don’t buy Spleen Cleaver running shoes, or book a seat on Buttface Airlines.

Earlier this year, while on vacation, a friend of mine decided that the best way for me to experience local culture in her little North Carolina town was to try as many ales, porters, and lagers as I could find. I’m pretty sure she wanted me dead. There are more craft brews in the western mountains than there are people to drink them, and while I didn’t find any that had the word “butt” in the title, there were plenty that somehow managed to incorporate ninjas, or 17th Century French kings. At one brewpub in particular, my “friend” ordered me what’s called a “flight,” which is basically a sampler of a half-dozen beers from the restaurant’s barrels. It’s the kind of thing you drink when you’re tired of remembering your own phone number, or you feel like obliterating cherished childhood memories. With a veritable cornucopia of different beers to taste, the goofy names were assaulting me almost as violently as the crippling alcohol buzz – names like Sir Ryan the Pounder, Freak Double IPA, and Uncle Rick’s Pilsner. I have no idea who Uncle Rick is. All I know is that Uncle Rick knocked me flat on my butt.

That’s 10 “butt” references. I think I win some kind of prize or something.

Some of these beers, for all their silliness, are pretty tasty, which is actually a little surprising. The label for Polygamy Porter, for instance, features a small army of fleshy, naked fun-seekers with arms conveniently placed over controversial body parts, illustrated in the style of an oil painting from one of the lustier Renaissance masters. Usually you have to pay gobs of money for a hotel’s pay-per-view service to gain access to that kind of content, and so the jiggle-riffic motif doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the quality of the product. But lo and behold, the beer smacks of hops and spices and goodness – the kind of drink that pulls off that rare double-trick of satisfying taste buds whilst growing the hair on one’s chest. Heck, since the waxed and buffed lovers on the box seem to lack hair anywhere south of their necks, maybe they should start drinking Polygamy Porter.

The nice thing about these beers – aside from the nude women and the butts with faces drawn on them – is that they’re oftentimes a better alternative to the stodgy, boringly-named beers that dominate at keg parties and in Super Bowl ads. Budweiser, for instance, tastes like the distilled armpit sweat from an unwashed rugby player. And just what the hell is a Budweiser, anyway? A German outhouse? Please. Pour me a Sir Ryan the Pounder any day of the week. 

These tiny little microbrews may limit their own marketing potential with these strange and incongruous titles, but sometimes quality is found at the fringes. Do a little hunting, and you’ll find that perfect beer waiting for you, and chances are good it’s saddled with some kind of oil painting of sword-wielding gladiators kicking the butts of two-headed lions. 

And that, my friends, is one dozen butts. Does that constitute some kind of world record? 

Quick, someone call Guinness.

No, the other Guinness.