No it is just that they are not even able to say the word hetero without getting upset, so have to say hetro instead.
(phew, I think I wriggled out of that typor, without anyone noticing)
snigger
Maybe you’re wearing the wrong kind of “frabric” today.
Dear Straight Eye,
Please help me with dating advice.
As a masculine gay guy who’s into other masculine gay guys, I make sure I dress the part for them when I’m trawling for a one-night hook-ups[sup]1[/sup] at the bars[sup]2[/sup]. Which is more more straight looking… my BDUs[sup]3[/sup] or construction clothes[sup]4[/sup]?
Oh, and where do you straight guys get those faded blue-grey t-shirts? Do they come that way, do you let them age, or, ugh, do you actually have to do work in them to get them that way?
Can you help me? Pretty please? Umm, I mean, I’d appreciate your help, dude.
-Rough and Ready.
[sup]1[/sup]The plural is used here because of serial hook-ups in one evening or because of simultaneous multiple partners.
[sup]2[/sup]Note that I’m talking about the ultra-masculine leather bars where a butch dress code actually excludes those who dare to wear cologne (plain Mennen speed stick is just barely tolerable).
[sup]3[/sup]For those not used to the slang of straight camp, that’s Battle Dress Uniform, otherwise known as camouflage uniform.
[sup]4[/sup]Black torn T-shirt over long sleeve white and dirty thermal shirt with torn jeans and dirty tan work boots.
I think a “retrosexual” is someone who gets turned on by Betty Page.
Dear Rough:
I’ve got me a lot of them blue-gray T-shirts. Don’t ask me how I got them – I don’t know. They were white when I bought them.
When a great sculpture sits out in the weather for many years, it gets all covered in gunk. But they don’t call it gunk. They call it a “patina.” So I guess that’s what my white T-shirts are like. They got some that patina. Got all patinaed up.
So you go to bars where they don’t let you wear cologne?
And they don’t like you to wear deodorant?
And you’re sure this is a gay bar?
I think every straight guy in the world should now run and tell his girlfriend about this. “So, you want a group of gay men to give me a makeover like on TV, huh? Okay, let’s look at this one bar. See? I’m already made over.”
Now, as far as giving you dating tips, all I can tell you about is what happened to me. My experience is that if you strike up a conversation in a bar with a guy in camoflage and suggest that you go someplace else, you might wind up sitting in a hunter’s tree stand covered in deer urine.
You might ask how the deer gets up there. Well, it don’t. Hunters buy and sell genuine deer urine. They spread it around to attract deer. Sometimes they douse themselves with it. It’s actually a scientific and time-tested strategy that utilizes the superior olfactory responsiveness of deer species, and my reaction to this is “You just fucking poured WHAT on me!?”
The site I linked to above is a genuine purveyor of quality deer piss. As their ad says:
My feeling is, if you’re ever looking at a container of piss and you say “It doesn’t get any better than this,” your life has taken a wrong turn somewhere.
I note that you can buy deer piss by the pint, or by the ounce.
Somehow, that thirst I had a minute ago just vanished.
For those too squemish to follow the link, I’ll note some sample prices here: Whitetail Buck Urine: 1 Ounce $3.95. Whitetail Buck Urine: Pint $19.95. In-Heat Whitetail Doe Urine: Pint $29.95. (The In-Heat Whitetail Doe Urine evidentally is the el-primo stuff.)
I hate to hijack my own thread, but there’s a cautionary tale here. I once had a friend in New Jersey who wanted me to go into the deer piss business with him. He said we would start out small, no big deal, just enough to make a profit and have enough left over for our own use. After all, there is a real market for it. Here is one guy who has such a jones for deer piss that he’s gone on the internet to plead for it: “Initially would like to buy buck urine, but am planning on buying buck in rut urine, as well as doe in heat urine. For now, would like to buy in 1/2 gallon or 1 gallon amounts …” Is it just me, or does “buck in rut urine” and “doe in heat urine” sound like this guy is at a square dance?
I also have a fantasy about those malicious people at the post office who seems to think that “fragile” means “stomp here.” Maybe a gallon of deer piss mailed in a none-too-tight container would teach them some manners.
Anyway, me and my friend started out selling “100% Pure and Uncut” deer urine, just like in the ad above. But you know how it goes. He started taking more and more of it for himself. To replace it, he started cutting it with muskrat piss. He swore the customers would never know the difference. first he started cutting it just 10 percent. Then 15, then 30. And he got a lot less particular about what he cut it with. Then, one terrible night, this group from the Bronx busted into our place armed with Tec-9s and threatend to whack us – said the deer urine they bought was half grizzly-bear piss and they had a reeeeeeal bad experience using it.
They said they wanted piss right then, right there. And you know what? I gave it to them. More than I realized I had in me.
I am now officially out of the deer urine business.
Well, just some sales on the side. To friends.
Tell you what – if you ever go to that bar where they don’t want you to smell like cologne, I’ve got something here that …
Hey, where’d he go?
Either that, or you’re in a Coors Light commercial.
I missed all the chances for beer=piss jokes. If I could edit my post it would read:
I bow to your comedic genius. Please keep it up. This is damn funny stuff.
Satisfying, you’re the new National Review superstar! Hooray!
Dear Straight Eye,
My hobby is refinishing antique furniture. That may sound less than masculine but I stay away from that frilly Queen Anne style or Louis-the-whatever stuff. I prefer instead honest, mid-1800s American farm furniture.
But I can’t avoid the shame attached to the word “antiques.” I tell friends what I do and they reply with genuine interest but an unspoken “whaddaya, gay?” is strongly implied. They probably think I spend my weekends sashaying through antique shops with my Bichon Frise, or some other “rat dog.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. I simply love working with my hands, and bringing out the natural, God-given depth and grain from a big hunk of wood. There ain’t nothin’ more satisfying than that.
But I still can’t shake the “antique guy” label. Help!
The interesting thing is that National Review got their link from GeekPress which got their link from linkfilter, which got their link from a poster named mtness who does not appear in our board’s database of registered members.
Odd.
Thanks, Prof Unditas. I’ll keep posting as long as people will keep asking me questions.
Cool! Thanks for posting that.
But what’s with the comment that they wonder it took this long? I posted my first post July 17 – which I think was even before the show started!
Dear Isuzufan:
It does seem unfair that you’re working on good, solid 'Merican farm furniture and taking a bum rap for it. But maybe it’s the fault of certain words that could be construed as subtle hints. Words like “antique” and “restore.” You gotta ditch those words. Instead, say “carpentry.” Or “upholstery.” Use active verbs like “rip” and “shred.” “Tear that sucker down and rebuild it, ground up.” Mention “circular saw” a lot. And never, ever, under any circumstances, should you utter the words “pinking shears.”
If all that don’t work, buy a T-shirt that says “Carpenters Get Wood.”
And if that still doesn’t work, consider cutting off one of your fingers. Not an important finger.
With a missing finger, they’ll never confuse you with a designer from “Trading Spaces.” I mean, what are they going to lose a finger on – an especially vicious piece of rattan?
You got a tough choice – a finger, or your reputation.
Chose wisely.
Or maybe you could just go for a really mean-looking scar. “Yep, I knew my buddy hadn’t been taking real good care of the electric brake on that ol’ Makita, so’s my fault for trying to cut a beam with it.” This sort of talk wil lay all doubts to rest.
I’ve checked with the official Straight Guy manual and found that the only antiques we are allowed to buy and restore are cars. Or trucks. Motorcycles too. The rule of thumb is, Straight Guy antiques must be gas operated.
In fact, antique cars are a Straight Guy status symbol because they show that you know mechanics and you have money. So any car is even better if it’s an antique. Isn’t that great! It means that absolutely any crapmobile you drove to your first job or in college will one day be a collectible. All you got to do is put it away in storage. When you open the doors to the storage shed in thirty years, bingo, you got an antique, collectible car. Unless it was a Ford Maverick. In that case, you open the doors in thirty years, what you got is some seat cushions, an engine block and a bunch of rust chips the size of Kellog’s corn flakes.
In college, my “real” car died suddenly. A friend of mine – a deviously clever, secretly sadistic friend – gave me for free this old Ford Maverick he had been tinkering with. It drove. For a while.
Then it did more than die. “Dying” implies merely the loss of the animating spirit. No, this car didn’t just die. It croaked, rotted and decomposed. In the space of one night. While I was on a date.
I had met this really neat chick and told her I’d pick her up that night. I had forgotten that I would be driving the Maverick. That was a liability enough in itself. So then we were heading down to Palm Tree Lounge when the car decided to have its out-of-body experience. You know how Christopher Lee looks when you throw him out in the sunlight in all them Dracula movies? That’s what this car did, all around us. The poor chick was picking rust flakes out of her Big Hair for days. The way I look at it, if you’re not on a least one woman’s Worst Date Ever list, you’re not really trying.
But enough about me. Isuzufan, I have to give you credit for doing something that most other Straight Guys can only fantasize about: picking your own furniture.
Am I right, guys? When you’re single, somehow you just don’t need much furniture. The only rule is there has to be enough seating around the TV, and if you got plenty of floor space, no problem. Here is a pretty typical furnished guy room. Got everything you need. Note the speakers where you can hear them. I’m assuming the VCR is just out of the picture.
Then you hook up, and what happens? You find out that women are addicted to furniture. That they have a fetish for it. And it gets in the way of you buying that coffee-can muffler for your car. Next thing you know, you’re in a store looking at tables. What is it with women and tables? Alexander the Great conquered the known world, and he never had more than one table. (I just made that up, but play along, hmm?) But women! They want end tables! They want coffee tables! And woe be unto you should you ever put your coffee on the coffee table. They want occasional tables. That – that one drives me absolutely batshit. “It’s an occasional table? When does it become a lamp?”
And sofas! My God, I never knew that sofas came with – features. If figure that when God made women, he took the love of cars that they should have had and misplaced it into a love of davenports. You want to see unbridled lust in a woman’s eyes, just take her into the Ethan Allen showroom.
Before I took up with women, I thought there were only two types of sofas in the entire world: The Guy Sofa, and the Chick Sofa.
A Guy Sofa is big enough for you to flop down on after a hard day.
A Chick Sofa has ribbons.
A Guy Sofa does the job of having you sit on it.
A Chick Sofa looks nice. You’re not supposed to sit on it.
A Guy Sofa might have a built-in cooler.
A Chick Sofa is off-limits to anything that comes out of a cooler.
A Guy Sofa is at home in a rec room.
A Chick Sofa is at home in your grandma’s house.
For comparison purposes, here is a Chick Sofa.
Here is a Guy Sofa.
The first thing that strikes you is that the Guy Sofa is practical, functional, and goes well with anything a guy might have in his house.
The Chick Sofa is – well, I hope you weren’t using that space for anything, 'cause you ain’t going to be using it any more.
And here is another Chick Sofa. Any woman who would want to put this sofa in my house – well, she just better have some real big pillows to go with it, ya know what I mean.
One last picture. This reminds me of a sofa I used to have.
In a house I used to have.
Hey Andy – what kind of pansy-ass has a book in his living room? Shouldn’t that reading material be a ragged stack of old Maxims and Car and Drivers?
When I saw that typical guy’s room, and there was a book sitting on top of the cooler, I knew right away what it meant: the guy must have a girlfriend.
But that’s okay. I point you to Straight Guy Rule Numer One:
Everything’s jake if it gets you chicks.
I can handle this one. Any hound dog, such as a coon hound, or a basset hound, rides in the cab, as do hunting dogs (unless you have more than one, in which case you already have a portable kennel for them). If you have a dog with protective capabilities, such as a German shepherd, he should ride in the bed, preferably on top of your tool chest. It’s perfectly fine to use some Liquid Nails to glue a couple of mismatched carpet samples on top of the tool box for his comfort.
Not necessarily. It might be a comic book.
In fact, you know those big coffee table books full of pictures? Even they can be all right sitting on top of a straight guy’s coffee tabl-- er, I mean, on top of a straight guy’s front-of-the-sofa beer cooler – if they’re the right kind of coffee table book. For example, books full of pictures of fighter jets (armed with full ordnance loads, of course) are perfectly acceptable Guy Material. So, of course, are books full of pictures of antique cars, or naked women.
Books full of pictures of naked men, of course, are completely gaysville and should be avoided at all costs. I got one of those sent to me by amazon.com by mistake. (I’d actually ordered a 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules supplement. Perhaps the guy in the packing dept. at Amazon was trying to give me the subtle message that he thought of D&D as “gay.”) I returned the book as soon as I could, but a female house guest saw it before I did and I swear she still believes I’m gay.
If that happens again, let me know and I’ll give you my address to send it to. 
I say you can have the best of both worlds. Put the guard dog in the bed of the truck with your mother-in-law.