What makes a man who he is? And in a broader sense, what makes who one is a Man? And in a narrower – and vastly more important sense – which of us is more a man than the other?
These are the questions that kept us up at night, until they were put to the test in a flash of Divine Insight. God, that winged she-wolf, came to us in Her Unholiest Form* and told us what we must do. We must strive to pit ourselves against each other.
To battle in all the arenas make a Man a Man.
To put our very souls at hazard.
And so of this otherworldly and blasphemous seed this tournament has gestated, growing ever firmer in the collective, rotten womb of our terrible ideas and life decisions until it divided and multiplied and differentiated and other natal development metaphors until it finally developed a terrible heartbeat and rancid intentions and an unstoppable will of its own. A will to put us to the test, and to crown one of us MAN OF THE YEAR and to find the others lacking and suitably humiliated in comparison.
And so we find ourselves, over the next seven (7) months, competing in the purest marginally martial competition imaginable. We will test ourselves, drinking deeply a crucible of superheated testosterone, running the gauntlet of manliness with several events, each generally falling in one of the following categories:
· Derring-Do
· Physical Composition
· Artistry
· Luck
· Romance
· Skill with (a) firearm(s)
· Wit
· Liquor-holding
· Critical manly skills
· Intellect
· Pretending one is still in college
Stay tuned here to meet your contestants, get the event descriptions and e-witness event results, obtain contestant commentary, and -- perhaps most importantly – place side-bets on the outcomes.
Comments are welcome for event suggestions, side-bets, and long streams of unreadable profanity. As far as the contestants are concerned, we will adopt the manliest of armor – noms des plumes – in order to protect our precious pseudonymity. While we all have jobs, (in some cases) girlfriends, and families, of varying collective quality, none of us are at this point comfortable with the idea of being Christmas Aped. Consequently, comments violating this policy will be met with the harshest of reprisals: We will post a craigslist ad giving your physical address and phone number, describing you as a 23 year old girl with a large stash looking for NSA action.
It is our sincere desire this be more entertaining than the Olympic Games. AND none of us have ever tortured or imprisoned anyone we disagree with. Yet.
And so,
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
And yes ... There Will Be Blood.
*A Bill Simmons Mailbag column. Truly, She works in mysterious ways – sometimes, even, through Her arch-nemesis. By manly decree, this shall Never Be Mentioned Again. Also, it is very difficult to find a heteronormative Blogger subdomain for this. Forgiveness, please.
