Welcoming Spring, Touring the Man Show

Acupuncture: the back of my leg's
 impression of being a porcupine.

It's Saturday. . .officially. I finally woke up in the morning without my body greeting me with as much severe inflammation, cramping, and pain. Yesterday's session of treatments were a bit diminished in intensity than last time, that is, I felt less inclined to pass out when my leg muscles were being shifted, stretched, and kneaded. Desperation to expedite the healing process has made me more open to testing alternative forms of medicine. I have to make it a point not to favour the stricken leg anymore, and avoid limping so much. Sure, it's painful; but the extra use of the cane and limping was causing other problems. Deep breathing, and counting out my pace is helping. I had enough tolerance for the discomfort to tidy up inside a bit, and to use a little time to set up my deck furniture and clear the dust and debris that the six-month winter blew in and deposited on my balcony. I wanted to have it clean enough to enjoy some fresh air and a different vista for the evening; to hopefully watch last of this snow all melt away. I sit out here now, enjoying some whisky as I write this account. My peace is being ruined though by some dummies stunting with their vehicles (big half-ton trucks) south of here. I'll get to mentioning more about those kinds of morons in a minute.


There was desperation to do anything outside of the home today, so desperate in fact that I actually made an effort to circulate socially and I took a peek around the venue that was closest to me: The 2013 MAN SHOW. I don't honestly know why I opted to tour this event. It's enough to know that I am a man, with mind/body format compatibility, and I don't really need to do much in terms of shopping around, or finding other ways to waste money and time, to validate that fact. I'm not so insecure with myself that I need to latch onto and depend on some sort of power and status symbols to delude myself to thinking that those things will somehow magically make me more manly. When there is a expo in town with the advertising in big bold letters saying MAN SHOW, I automatically presume that there will be nothing much there for actual personal betterment for me as a man. What my preconception of a Man Show is, in my mind, is an expo of marketing stuff(s) that:

1. is just a tacky looking piece of shit that's built bigger than it needs to be, and just wastes space. 
2. is made to go faster, or have more power output than most people reasonably know how to control.
3. are mechanical and electrical things that exceed certain thresholds of making an obnoxious amount of noise, and using a wasteful amount of fuel/energy to power.
4. is a ridiculous attempt of automation of something to make it "time saving", but in reality is a lot less time/energy efficient or precise than managing the same work with more conventional or manual tools and methods.
5. are leisure crafts and vehicles that you pay thousands of dollars for, to use only a few days of the year.
6. are more technically enhanced ways of isolating yourself and vegetating.
7. if it's a food product, has the right combinations of deep fried/char-broiled protein, grease/trans-fats, salt/spice, which along with beer, induces the maximum capacity for raucous bouts of belching and farting.

Well look here. . . it's a perfect example of a
Skinny-whitetrash-mobile, or a.k.a. "the dumb-fuck truck"
 because that's mostly who you'll find driving them.
This truck pretty much represents the first five
 points I mentioned earlier**. I could also simply call it
"the over-compensator", but then I'd be using concepts these
poor rednecks wouldn't understand, or know how to spell.
Nothing screams out insecurity of one's manhood more than
when I see the types of  jerks who drive these stupid things
around, but yet don't have a job that justifies (or can pay for)
such a massive fuel-wasting piece of steel.

 

However, during this past while of lingering around home for so long, stricken with pain, and seeing how irritable and grouchy I was getting, it was undeniable that there evidently was something missing from around here that could have gave me better comfort in my place. Anyway, I was left to wonder if there were actually any other material things that this event would have had on display that could have brought me contentment. I got curious about it. So, I went just to explore it anyway, and perhaps discover what those things might be.


As I suspected, the event was largely a waste of my time, I only threw my name in a couple of cash prize draws; everything else that was up for grabs in a raffle was too grossly impractical for a condo dweller. There, of course, was a multitude of things stuffed with an over-powered engine, extreme sports gear, golfing supplies, and the ubiquitous presence of things that comprise the ideal "man cave"*. There was also, however, stuff that I wouldn't define as manly at all. Some of the pictures illustrate the point better than my words could. Like this photo of the pink golf cart . . . at THE MAN SHOW?!!!. . . I must have missed some circulated memo about how there's nothing that makes a greater statement that you're a studly pillar of pure testosterone than cruising around in a pink golf cart. I was looking around for the circus clown who owned this thing. Other stuff that was there, that one wouldn't exactly think of as manly, were spa treatment compounds, like Dead Sea Salt hand exfoliant. I also found all kinds of other crazy instances of strange juxtapositions. Here you are, surrounded by these super turbo-charged, jacked up, drive-through-the-swamp-and-muskeg, mega-4x4 half ton trucks, meant to do hard-ass labour, and withstand the worse physical punishment and conditions that can be thrown at a vehicle. . . and what are they selling for them right next to them as accessories, at the MAN SHOW? . . . air freshener scents!

That alone is a sure hint that the buyers don't really want these trucks for doing the actual dirty heavy work for which they were designed. If you have a super-charged half-ton truck, yet don't use it for real work, have all the chrome always polished up, smelling like an ocean breeze or pina colada, and looking like you are going to take friggin' Cinderella to the ball, it's pretty blunt and apparent that you are using it as a status symbol for a delusional sense of power. The only practical reason to have an air freshener handy for the kind of stupid loser bastards who I see driving these kinds of trucks are to hide the smell of booze and weed after they get pulled over.

Another unique thing there was a personal hovercraft. It has to be fully inflated when you want to have some real fun with it, the action happens underneath a skirt, there is a powerful thrust involved; how could a phallic symbol like this not be at the MAN SHOW? Points #2 through #5 covered by this thing. I must confess though that I'd like to try one of these things out at least once to see how it handles.

*- A stupid piece and insulting bit of terminology - since my dwelling's lone human occupant is a male, it by default makes it a "man cave", and I endeavour to be at least a little more sophisticated and worldly than an average troglodyte.

**- The other indicator of how much a vehicle is ridiculously and impractically designed, and made strictly for the senses, is the amount of female models hired to hang around the thing in a showcase.