TCM Man Stuff Roundtable: What is the Manliest Sport?

Every week, a few TCM folks toss their respective hats into the ring on a subject of manliness.  This week: what is the manliest sport around?

Adam Hipp

What embodies a manly sport? Strength, endurance, mental toughness, and hitting the shit out of each other. Most American men will instantly think of football as the best example of this, but they’re wrong. Don’t let the short-shorts fool you, it’s rugby. I’ve played football for nine years and rugby for four, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s rugby. In what other sport is it normal to be intentionally cleated because you’re breaking a rule (holding the ball on the ground)? Or how about lifting up your team mate while he fights in the air with an opponent for the ball (lineouts)?

In football, players run 7 second plays then get 30 second breaks. Rugby is 80 minutes of non-stop action, except for a short half-time. If someone wants to say soccer is more tiring than rugby, I’d ask them which they’d rather do, run a mile or do a full collegiate wrestling match? They take about the same amount of time, but you’ll be way more gassed from wrestling. Rugby is on a big field, requiring the running, with a lot more pushing and tackling.

For visual proof of the glorified manliness that is rugby, watch a few scrums or watch the all-blacks Haka. I don’t think I even need to get into the link between rugby and drinking beer.

The manliest sport would have to involve:

• Men challenging each other one-on-one, without teammates to take up your slack.
• A combination of strength, agility, and speed.
• Real danger.
• Mastery of one or more difficult skills.
• Defending the honor of a lady.

Thus, the manliest sport is jousting. It has the added benefit of training an animal to do something crazy. You think teaching your dog how to fetch your slippers is cool? How about training a 2,000 pound warhorse to charge full-speed toward a giant spear?

Unfortunately, the manliness of jousting has been severely compromised by its popularity at Renaissance festivals. While definitely cool when they aren’t mindnumbingly expensive, RenFairs live in a Bizarro-world of manliness.  If jousting had been the chosen sport of, say, Muhammad Ali, Johnny Unitas, or Chuck Norris, its status as the manliest of all sports would be unquestioned.

Jason McGlone

I’m going to admit to some cheating here, because I’ve already written about the manliest sport in the world.  It’s Calcio Fiorentino, and I have absolutely no doubts about this.  I only found out about the game a few months ago, and as a man, it’s pretty inspiring stuff.  Think Rugby meets Street Fighter minus hadouken.  Take all this and put some knuckle dragging, angry Italians (no, not that kind) in some court jester-type outfits, and you’re starting to get the idea.  The only thing it’s missing is a metal soundtrack.  Scratch that.

Honorable Mentions:

• Caber tossing
• Hurling
• Chess Boxing
• MMA (duh)
• Roller Derby (because most of those girls could kick your nancy ass)

Today Should Be a Holiday: It’s Arthur Guinness’s Birthday

Today should be a holiday because it’s the 284th birthday of Sir Arthur Guinness.  No need to elaborate so much–we all know that him as the most famous brewer ever ever ever.  He took a passion for beer as pretty much a penniless jerk and turned it into this.  Not that he had anything to do with it directly, but you get the picture.

At any rate, happy birthday, Sir Guinness, and  may your no-longer-livings treat you well.

Artist's interpretation of Arthur Guinness on his birthday.

Further Proof Our Readers are Disgusting

I haven’t really done this in a while, but I was going through the search terms used to find TCM last night.  The good news to report is that in general, we’re being found as a result of queries that make sense, given the nature of our website.  You know, stuff like “beard,” “hudy 14k” (review of that to come, btw), and “gannett ad production consolidation.”  Exciting stuff.

The more, shall I say, esoteric search terms that folks have used are where the fun comes in here.  For example, some poor soul–nay, 3 poor souls, managed to find us using the term “man with vagina.”  The mind reels.

Here are some more, exactly as they appear, in a handy little list!

• fashion police, crocs, jean shorts
• “the country’s going down the tubes”
• blowjob lessons
• cincinnati tits (again!)
• cock flopping out and cocks a floppin (two separate terms)
• fat man’s ass crack
• get off my land asshole
• narrow ass hole.com (come on, really?)
• you’re a nancy

So, if you feel the need, you can find us using any of these search terms.  Of course, if you type these things into Google, you’re going in the big internet pervert index.

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Front pg. thumb: http://www.flickr.com/photos/orphanjones/ / CC BY 2.0

Women and Fake Mustaches

I’ll keep this short.

Could someone please explain the whole “Chicks wearing fake mustaches” thing to me?

Please?

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Front pg. thumb: http://www.flickr.com/photos/simon_cousins/ / CC BY 2.0

Testing My Manliness: The Swing Set

The Finished Swing Set

Hey all. I’m new around here, and a big thanks to Jason et al. for creating this great website and letting me write for it. Some quick vitals about myself: I’m 33, married with 3 kids, and live in Burlington, KY, which is like the small Kentucky town I grew up in, only the cool stuff to do is 5 miles away instead of 25, which, as Frost would say, makes all the difference. I would tell you what I do for a living, but I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about me. If you want to know more about me or see other stuff I’ve written, you can check out my own website. /shameless plug

Over this past year, I’ve taken on a number of projects that test my manliness. Some have turned out better than others. I’ll be discussing them in a series I’m calling “Testing My Manliness” (TMM for short), starting with the most successful project to date: building a swing set for my kids.

If you have the room, the time, and the money, you should build a swing set for your kids. Why?

• It involves power tools. Keep the ER visits to a minimum, and you’ll be all set.
• You will bond with other men.
• You’ll get the satisfaction of seeing something raised from the ground by your own hands, like Pa Ingalls building his own house–except you won’t have to sleep outside or carve your own nails.
• Your wife and kids will be impressed.
• You’ll learn to build big stuff.

Most of the stuff that I “build” comes from IKEA. That’s not very manly. A key ring of Allen wrenches is manly. A single Allen wrench in a plastic baggie is not.

Swing sets raise the stakes, without requiring electrical or plumbing work or forcing you to sleep in the den while you remodel your bedroom. They come with clear plans written by people who know more than you. All of the necessary parts and tools are laid out in advance. If you can build a Lego Millennium Falcon, you can build a swing set.

A couple of pieces of advice based on my own experience.

Buy a kit that doesn’t come with its own pre-cut lumber. We went with the Jungle Fort from Detailed Play Systems, a mail-order company. It will be more work, and possibly more expensive in the end. Nonetheless, it’s worth it. For one thing, you’ll end up with a much higher quality swing set. It will also be much more satisfying to buy, cut, and drill all of your own lumber – believe me. Mail-order adds to the cool factor.  There’s just something about the UPS guy delivering a 75-pound box that clanks.

Cats will not help you. They have no thumbs and they care only for themselves.

Get one or two older men to help. If you have a father, a father-in-law, or grandfather who knows something about building stuff, ask them to help. They’ll be secretly delighted. Frankly, when it comes to building stuff, most of the time they know more than you do. Be careful, though. Ask one older guy to help, and you’ll get to learn from his collected wisdom. Ask two older guys to help, and you might spend all afternoon debating the proper method to drill a countersink.

Get your friends to help. I heard somewhere that women build friendships sitting face-to-face, and men build friendships working shoulder-to-shoulder. Corny, yeah, but I’ve found it to be true. Just be prepared with the right amounts of pizza and beer (after you finish, unless you think ten fingers are just too many), and be ready to return the favor when they need help.

Borrow tools. It’s better financially. Why spend hundreds of bucks on stuff you’ll use only once when you can get it for free? It’s better for the planet. If there’s a perfectly good miter saw sitting in someone’s garage, why buy a new one? And it’s better for you. Most guys, at least the ones I know, don’t like asking for help. Truth is, we all need help. No man is an island, etc. Asking to borrow a tool is an easy way of learning how to ask for stuff. That way, when you really need help, you’ll know how to do it. And you’ll already know who will be there for you.

Read the plans. They aren’t “instructions.” Instructions are for wimps. Instructions tell you what you already know or what you can easily figure out. These are plans, the same thing that architects, construction foremen, and mad scientists use. And, if you know the plans inside and out, then you’ll be able to tell the guys helping you what to do without being an idiot. That’s a great way to build your confidence and win their respect. When my swing set was all done, my dad confessed that, when I’d started, he didn’t think I could do it. When I was 16, I would have gotten mad and stormed out of the house. Now, I said, “Thanks,” and shook his hand. Pretty damn manly.

Learn from my mistakes. Here are some things I wish I’d known.

• Budget more time and money than you expect.
• Measure twice, cut once. Or you’ll be like me, standing on a shaking five-foot platform trying to drill a straight hole through a vertical post that would have been a piece of cake if I hadn’t overlooked it the first time.
• Don’t leave tools out where your 1-year-old can play with them. You know, unless you think hardened steel chisels and power saws are good kid toys.
• Set aside big chunks of time. I thought I’d worked an hour or two each night. Surprise: I spent a half hour getting set up, ten minutes working, then another half hour putting everything back. Take a couple of days off work, and set aside a full weekend or two (or three – see above).

Overall, it was a great success. Our new swing set looks like it could last 20 years, my kids love it, and my wife has a whole new respect for my building skillz. Which means she now expects me to finish the basement. Oy.

Testing My Manliness Score: A+

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Front pg. thumb:http://www.flickr.com/photos/44832160@N00/ / CC BY 2.0

Why Doesn’t Anyone Seem to Care About the F136?

[Ed. note: Adam Hipp is an Engineer and plays rugby.  Chances aren't all that bad that he's kicked your ass before.  This is his first piece for The Cincinnati Man.  Welcome, Adam!]

There’s a debate going on within Congress right now that could have a lasting effect on the development of Cincinnati for years to come. Do you have any idea what it is?

As far as I can tell, no one in the area has any clue. It’s the issue of federal funding for the JSF alternate engine, the F136. To make a long story short, Pratt & Whitney makes the engine for the new baller military fighter, the JSF.  However, the government decided years ago that a competing engine would be good for the program, so it also funds R&D into an alternate engine, which is being developed by a 60/40 partnership of GE and Rolls-Royce.

F35 in flight

There are about 800 highly skilled jobs up in Evendale, OH that will likely disappear should this funding be cut, and that’s exactly what the Senate and the President are trying to do to reduce defense spending. However, the House is still supporting the engine, and the two chambers of Congress are meeting to reconcile their defense funding budgets.

Even if the House wins over the Senate, the budget faces a veto threat from the Obama administration.

Not only would this cut affect current jobs at GE Aviation, it would pretty much suck for the company for years to come. The JSF engines are planned to be used in the vast majority of the American fighters in the coming years, which would give Pratt & Whitney a near-monopoly on the military jet engine market. This would make it very difficult for GE Aviation to grow, and thus would cause them to stop attracting top technical talent from around the country to the Cincinnati area.

I think it’s pretty obvious that attracting young professionals to a city is crucial to its future growth, and that seems to be a hot topic in Cincinnati, with all of the revitalization efforts and the streetcar debate. If one of the major employers of freshly minted young professionals stops hiring significantly for 30 years, it’s probably going to have an adverse impact on the city.

With all the hubbub I hear when there is a potential for job cuts, it seems odd that so few people know about this. There’s an article in the Enquirer from time to time, but I don’t see any blogs talking about it and I don’t hear anything in any news source about the program that’s in jeopardy. Both GE and Pratt & Whitney are lobbying Congress hard to support and cut the competing company’s engine, respectively. It’s time this received a little more attention.

For more information on both sides of the debate, visit F136.com and F135engine.com.

Full disclosure: I am a current employee at GE Aviation, and my job would likely be one of the 800 lost if the engine program is cut. However, considering the layoff benefits package and my personal goals, I could really go either way on my job status. This is NOT intended to be a plug for supporting the F136- just commentary about media focus within Cincinnati. GE has in no way compensated me for writing this post.