The Answer Man

Men today have been turned into Namby-Pamby weaklings.  They're so pathetic that they don't even know how ridiculously weak they are.  Well-groomed, physically fit, light beer swilling, arugula munching, nincompoops.  Men are the superior of the sexes.  We hunt and forage for food, spit, kill, and grunt.  The ANSWER MAN looks on at the role of Men in today's society with disgust.  That's why he's here to answer all your manly questions.

Dear Answer Man:

I love to sit on my couch on Sunday afternoons and drink beer and eat chips and dip.  Some Sundays, I sleep in and don't even shower or shave, I just sit in my robe on the couch and watch football.  My wife tells me every week that football looks kind of gay.  How do you suggest I respond to her baseless accusation?  Football is the manliest sport in existence, isn't it?

No Football Loser in Oakland

Dear N.F.L.:

Damn right it is.  Everyone knows there isn't anything more manly than one man wearing clean, white tight pants crouching down and putting his outstretched hands under the buttocks of another man wearing clean, white tight pants.  The relationship between the Center - the cornerstone of every offensive line - and the Quarterback - also known as the Field General - is one of the most sacrosanct in all of sports.

Those taps that football players are constantly making on each others butts are merely part of the bonding experience required to build a winning team.  Something that only Real Men could possibly understand.  And if these masculine men must engage in this activity in the rain, snow or mud, all the better.

Tell your wife to go back to cleaning the house and leave you alone during your manly, weekly football viewing activity.  If God didn't intend for men to sit on the couch all afternoon, getting drunk and ingesting large amounts of sodium, while watching men in tight pants, he wouldn't have invented HDTV.  By the way, size DOES matter.  Bigger screens are better.

The Answer Man

D.A.M.:  

I was driving to work last week and my Prius had a flat tire.  The Auto Club doesn't have an app for the iPhone and it took me 10 minutes to find their number, and get a driver to come out and change my tire.  I was twenty minutes late for work.  When do you think AAA will finally get a decent iPhone app?

Tireless in Tiburon

Dear T.I.T.:

It's going to take a few minutes to reply to your question, Tireless.  I will first have to remove my hairy fist from my shatterted computer screen.  There.  That's better.  I'll apply some direct pressure and the bleeding should stop in a few minutes.

When did every man in this country lose the ability to change a flat tire?  Have we really gone this soft?  Believe it or not, there are some tasks which can not be accomplished with an iPhone app.

Put the phone down.  Walk to the back of your car and open the trunk/hatch.  Remove the spare from the back.  Remove the jack and raise the side of the car nearest the defective tire.  Raise the car, replace the tire and return the old tire to the hatch.  It's not that difficult.  Our fathers and their fathers accomplished this simple task for decades - without the benefit of an iPhone.  Be...a...Man.  Change your own tire.  And dump the Prius.  A man should never drive a vehicle that gets more miles per gallon than his age.  Ever.

The Answer Man

D.A.M.:

What's your favorite Barbara Streisand album?  One of my roommates says "People" and another says "Guilty."  I prefer "The Way We Were."  What do you think?

Bay Area Barbara Streisand fan

Dear B.A.B.S.:

How big a fan are you if you can't even spell her name properly?  It's "Barbra," not "Barbara."  What in the hell kind of man are you?  You can't call yourself a true Streisand fan if you can't even spell her name correctly.  Now on to your question.

Some people might think that being a Streisand fan is unmanly.  Not this guy.  She's an anal retentive, bossy,  temperamental, perfectionist who has slept with half of her co-stars.  You can't get any more manly than that.  Although Jon Peters - what was she thinking there?  Talk about a pretty boy.  He was a hair dresser for crying out loud!  I'd love to take him out back behind the salon and show him a thing or two.  A perm?  Really?  What kind of man would sleep with their hair dresser?  Now James Brolin - there's a manly man.  Good choice, Barbra.  We'll chalk up the Peters' fling as a youthful indiscretion.  Because that's the sort of excuse a man would give. 

Actually, this is an excellent question.  Regular manly readers of this column know that I am partial to Streisand's early work.  Her first and second albums, cleverly titled The First Barbra Streisand Album and The Second Barbra Streisand Album, capture her young, raw passion and emotion.  While the albums you mentioned have their merits - I still tear up every time I hear The Way We Were because it makes me think of Robert Redford and then I'm reminded of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Butch and Sundance.  Now those were two manly men.  Inseparable traveling partners who were so committed to each other, that they died together.

By the way, B.A.B.S., those two roomies of yours - they're both broads, right?

The Answer Man

Gentlemen, thanks for all the fine questions.  Keep 'em coming.  Looks like I'll have to punch your Man Cards for another week.  Until next time, get out there and Be A Man.