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PATRICK McFADDEN |
 Sweatin' for Dubya? |
MACHO AMOK! |
 Training to "bust it"? |
So much manly virtue,
so little common sense!
Special to TheColumnists.com
We may have a serious oversupply of manly virtue in this country.
My wife, Elizabeth, and I were having a drink the other evening with another couple on the rooftop deck of a hotel in Washington (named, aptly enough, the Hotel Washington) that has a spectacular view of D.C. We could see the top of the White House, and the little man in his heavy black SWAT outfit on the White House roof.
I have two questions.
One, given that this is Washington, and essentially a swamp (in more than the merely metaphorical sense) and it was about 90 degrees with 85 per cent humidity, does this man really have to wear all black while he stands on the roof looking around for something to kill? I think he was even wearing a black baseball cap.
Wouldn't white be better camouflage? In fact, why can't he wear shorts? He's on the roof, for Pete’s sake, it's not like someone's going to miss him or be intimidated by his deathly dark garb. It must be machismo. Five will get you 10 this guy gets dressed in the morning standing in front of a mirror, practicing looking tough.
Second, what do you really think this person's capabilities are? Remember the small plane that got within a few miles of the White House recently? What is The Man in Black on the roof going to do about that besides wave?
In one of the Tom Clancy novels, Clancy has a guy on the roof of the Capitol equipped with a Stinger missile. I wonder if that's at all accurate. Otherwise it seems pointless to have Chuck Norris sweating up on the roof wishing desperately he'd become a door-to-door salesman instead of a super-elite member of a top-secret squad of gung-ho angels of death. This leads me to believe that the President just wants him up there so he can brag to his college friends about how he’s protected by a bunch of bodyguards who dress like ninjas. You just know the President has an authentic souvenir black baseball cap. Probably sunglasses, too. “Actually worn on patrol,” he cackles to his buddies.
This phenomenon is not confined inside the Beltway. Not long ago, I was out shopping with Elizabeth in one of those women's stores that provides comfortable chairs and magazines for husbands and boyfriends to camp out while their significant others try on various garments. Quite thoughtful, actually.
I was amused by the selection
of magazines (all picked to cater to someone's idea of
men's taste), which included Men's Health.
I don't know if you've ever read Men's Health, but you should really check it out. It's brain candy for men who still pine for the good old days of adolescence. It's even funnier than Maxim, which is off the charts funny in my book.
One of the articles they had, and I swear I am not making this up, was "A Fit Man Can: 10 Ultimate Performance Tests." It concerned 10 things a Fit Man should be able to do. Ten yardsticks by which you should measure whether you are a Fit Man, or some slovenly pantywaist desk jockey tree sloth who has no hope with the ladies.
The list was a delight.
For starters, a Fit Man is supposed to be able to bench press 150 percent of his body weight. Well, I'm right out. I should have been trying on women's clothing while I was in the store.
This same Fit Man should be able to run 1.5 miles in 10 minutes (that's a 6:40 mile pace for those keeping score at home), sprint 300 yards in one minute, swim 700 yards in 12 minutes, leg press 225 percent of body weight, throw a basketball 75 feet from his knees, and accomplish other feats of strength which momentarily elude me, but they were similar.
A Fit Man should be able to carry a 400-pound llama on his shoulders for a 10-mile hike across broken terrain patrolled by snapping turtles and off-duty White House rooftop commandos, like that. (By the way, anyone who insists on wearing jet-black SWAT gear on a rooftop in a Washington Summer definitely reads Men's Health.) And there may have been something about jousting, I can’t remember.
In an attempt to explain why you have to do all this stuff, they've sprinkled in references to sports and other Manly activities.
Whatever I may think about his sundry testosterone barometers, this writer is hardwired into the self-image of men.
You should be able to do 40 pushups without stopping, so you can carry a kid out of a burning building. I thought the writer showed great restraint in not adding, "and into the waiting arms of the child’s supermodel mother who will promptly invite you back to her place where her twin sister is chilling champagne and putting the oysters on ice."
You should be able to bench press one and a half times your weight so you will have no problem "hanging drywall [or] holding your ground in the post" while playing basketball.
You should be able to dash 300 yards in a minute because "whether you're chasing down a purse snatcher or running the fast break, every once in a while a man just needs to bust it."
I'm completely serious, that's how this article is written. That's verbatim. "A man just needs to bust it." It's true. He does. That guy on the White House roof? Tremendous busting capabilities. Hangs great drywall, too.
I would kill for the chance to spend a Sunday afternoon with these writers while they were drinking beer and watching Stallone movies on TBS, can you imagine?
You should be able to throw a basketball 75 feet from your knees because that's the kind of upper body strength you need to “punch somebody in the kisser.” Yes. “Punch somebody in the kisser.”
Running the fast break, slinging basketballs into hapless low-flying birds, swimming 700 yards as if pursued by surprised and angry fish, chasing purse snatchers and punching mugs right in the kisser. Oh, and drywall.
Do all that, and you, too, could swagger menacingly on the White House roof. My wife and I will be sure to wave if we happen to look down from our gimlets this August.
© 2002 by Patrick McFadden. The illustrations are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
Patrick McFadden is a law
student in Washington, D.C. He is the son of our columnist Chuck
McFadden.
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