Tommy Bahama & the Malignant Prostate Conundrum

I plan on ageing like boxed wine.

Ageing is a process that many people fear, and rightly so, as this is technically a process of dying.  For example, it is common knowledge that as one grows older, it becomes easier to injure one’s self, as it is also typically becomes more difficult to recover.  That having been said, I am not afraid of growing old.

The physical advantages of a young body aside, youth has never been something I’ve been game on.  When I was a kid, I hated other kids.  Now I fucking hate kids.  This persisted even when I was in my early twenties.  I was distrustful of other youngsters, particularly arrogant, lazy college kids.  I also still for the most part distrust arrogant, lazy college kids.  Even more, actually.  But then again, they seem to be getting more annoying.

 So, perhaps I’m a bit biased.  But if I wasn’t biased, would you be reading this right now?

 Let’s instead look at the facts.  Of course, I’m only speaking from a male perspective.  You can charge me with torches and pitchforks all you want, but the fact is, as women age, their ability to reproduce declines drastically, particularly after they reach the age of thirty.  On the other hand, as long as a dude can blow loads, he can still get broads pregnant.  Male fertility, even without recent pharmaceutical innovations, will always possess a longevity that female fertility will not. 

Even as we trudge further deeper into an era of sterile fecundity, where our seed becomes waste, it is important to note that within our recreational organs lie dormant truths coded in hormones.  Again, if you want to dispute this, please consult a website other than “The Lost Cause Lounge.”  We are not interested in proving such scientific points.  Sure, it’s a double standard.  But it’s just how it is:  women wither, men grow rugged.

 Aging for men contains many advantages, even when you are thinking with your dick.  Crow’s feet and widow’s peaks have been moistening crotches for thousands of years.  It’s just the way things have always been.  This largely stems from the fact that middle aged men command a certain amount of authority, which is why mustaches fit their faces so well even if some younger men can pull the look off.  Simply put, mustaches represent old school power.

Old school power in action.

The mustache is a symbol for paternal strength.  But this kind of “power” is not what I’m looking forward to.  It’s neither ebiophile fantasies nor a desire to be dominant that makes me look forward to the decades ahead.

Believe it or not, I’m not thinking with my dick as I write this. 

Let me break it down for you.

 If the mustache represents the dominant side of manliness, the Hawaiian shirt fits the laid back vibe of someone who has outgrown the Bullshit of the world.  This is one reason why Hawaiian shirts in general fit older men so much better than they do Spring Chickens.  Another important reason is that they are so festive and flamboyant that they typically require leathery skin or gray hair for contrast.  Having a male pattern baldness helps, too.

It used to be that Hawaiian shirts, pulled off well, acted as megaphones for the rods of young studs. They kind of advertised a bold personality and thus high quality sperm.  Even then, this was more true for guys in their thirties than their twenties.  Tom Selleck’s role in Magnum PI is the perfect example of the not quite middle aged man who killed it in floral patterns.  His image from that show subliminally exudes, Hey Ladies, I’ve got Diamond Sperm.  I think it was the abnormally hairy chest that did this, but I don’t know.  The important part is, they named a condom after him.  A condom for abnormally large dongs.   

Admit it: if you had a vagina, you'd be squatting on your Sybian right now.

Eventually the haters had their way and the mustache and Hawaiian shirt tumbled down from power, like so many bricks from the Berlin Wall.  In the spirit of most aesthetic changes, it just sort of happened, but I still call conspiracy. 

While the moustache has resurfaced in recent years for young studs, the Hawaiian shirt has been dry-cleaned and retired to the realm of the middle aged and elderly, which brings us back to the fact that aging introduces a carefree grace to men.

In this era, it seems that if a young man wears a Hawaiian shirt it’s either for yucks or it’s because he’s a fedora-wearing-ponytailed-dork.  You know the type, that guy who subconsciously attempts pulling resemblance to Hunter S Thompson but he’s really just advertising that he watches a lot of Japanimation porn.  It’s like seeing a little boy with a plastic badge.  He’s not a police officer, he’s still playing cops n’ robbers.  Nobody can ever take this shirt seriously when it’s a mere whippersnapper flying the flag.  In both cases, the boy in question is either just playing or they are delusional in how the world sees them.

There comes a time in most guys’ lives where they can don those bright parrots and flowers and coconuts and hula girls with grace.   I think it happens at different times for different dudes.  It’s when they hit that state of mind where they know they don’t need to prove anything.  They’ve done hunting, they’ve done gathering.  Now it’s time to casually peruse the world.  This is a far cry from the Magnum Ideal of seed sower supreme.  And this is huge.  This is why I frequently envy these guys.

They’ve done the dance, they’ve been around the block.  They’ve earned the colors.  Just like before you join the Hell’s Angels you have to go through a beat down, to truly be a fully patched member of the Tommy Bahama Crew, you need to go through life’s beat down.  

Like a boss.

Of course, this comes with a price:  higher risk for numerous cancers, heart disease, liver spots, brittle bones, fragile joints.  And with this fragility comes a heightened vulnerability that criminals will  run behind you when no one’s looking and beat you, rob you, even sodomize you.  This list goes on.  It’s literally the beginning of death.

This sense of mortality is a double edged blade.  If one can accept it in in all its various forms, the daily proximity of a definite end to all that is you washes away the trivial bullshit anxieties and obligations of earlier life.  It cleans the spirit, trims the fat.  I’m not saying all guys get there, nor that it is necessarily a set Utopian destination.  Like a lot of things, I would imagine it’s a process on a thousand continuum in so many different ways.

In any case, when I get there, whenever it is, I’ll be flying the floral print, but until then I’ll be garbed in drab.

Mr. Mudknuckle, on the other hand, fucking kills it in floral prints.