by TC
These are the times that try men's souls.
— Thomas Paine, Philadelphia, 1776
You know, I fully intended to write something inspirational, one of those pick yourself up by your bootstrap pieces; a Knute Rockne win-one-for-the-Gipper speech that would have you postpone your own goshdarn wedding this afternoon — or whatever triviality was standing in your way — so you could go train your pathetic little butt off.
And if you had already worked out, you'd maybe feel inspired to apply yourself in another way, like banding together with some of your fellow T-men to go liberate some third world country from evil oppressors.
That's what I intended to write. But then something happened. Summer. Summer happened.
Heaven help us all.
With nary a warning, all of us awoke to a strange new world, a world populated by tan, lithesome creatures wearing tiny wispy skirts that, when viewed with the sun shining behind them in just the right way, let us sneak furtive peeks at their lacy camel-toed intimates; wearing cleavage-enhancing halter tops that not only hoisted their breasts up toward the heavens, but coaxed them together in a wonderful display of tit solidarity; and wearing cute little butt-twitching shorts that cause us to miss the curb, fall on our faces, and see our teeth scatter across the concrete in slow motion like something out of a John Woo movie.
And tube tops appeared, too. Tube tops! Was there ever a sexier term in the English language? And sexy sandals, red ones with 3 or 4-inch heels that conjured up this wonderful image of her lying on her back, frilly dress over her head and legs straight up with you holding onto those heels and pretending you're Peter Fonda driving your chopper across the rural backroads of your Simmons Beauty Rest.
T-men now have all that and more to contend with for these next few hellish months.
As such, don't expect too much work from the staff of Testosterone. Our minds are all messed up. We're in a Testosterone haze that's so powerful, so debilitating, it's a wonder we can even hit our mouths with a spoon.
Think I'm exaggerating? You should see some of the article ideas that have been submitted in the last 24 hours. John Berardi, instead of sending me another bodybuilding recipe column, just sent me a list of seafood recipes he had scrawled out with a crayon on some butcher paper. And even the recipes were half-assed.
Here are his instructions for making seafood bisque: "Uhh, throw some fish and crabs and stuff into a pot. Maybe cut up some vegetables and I guess there probably should be some flour, salt, and maybe some of that paprika stuff in it. Don't put any pastrami or anything in it because then it wouldn't be seafood anymore."
A brilliant man, now a slave to his turbo-charged sex drive, reduced to writing a series of rotten seafood recipes. Pathetic.
And Chad Waterbury? He just sits there slapping at the keyboard with his schlong. Here's his last "article":
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Oh yeah, that's good reading. Bodybuilding.com subsequently picked up both of the "articles," but that's beside the point. The boys are not currently masters of their domain.
Likewise, Tim Patterson, while totally shredded just last week, is in no such condition this week. All that sexual tension caused him to eat the local Krispy Kreme's entire inventory of deep-fried snack cakes, causing him to blow up like a Sumo, and all that's left of his vascularity is a single cholesterol-engorged vein in the temple of his head which throbs erratically when some hottie wearing a baby-tee walks by.
I can hardly blame them, though. I was walking the dog yesterday when some beautiful mammal in a bikini top bent waaayyy over to pet my dog. I stood motionless; transfixed by the sight of those veritable earmuffs of boob that bowed down in front of me. She asked me what kind of dog he was, and I started talking like a combination of Jerry Lewis and Porky Pig on crack.
I think I somehow conveyed to her that he was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, either that or a Barbary Coast Ape, I don't know. She gave me a quarter, said that she hoped our government would someday help people like me, and walked away. She took her cleavage with her, too.
Things are only going to get worse, too. I recently saw a commercial for new "Super Low" jeans that featured a bunch of women's bellybuttons singing "I'm comin' out, I want the world to know" with their little belly button lips "mouthing" the words.
Sweet Mother of God, an onslaught of bare, taut bellies! Wide expanses of beautiful, fertile, fleshy land separating the nations of Boobonia and Hoohahville.
Of course, the notion of singing navels is nothing new to me. I've imagined women's bellybuttons speaking to me for years, crying out like the scientist who got turned into a fly with a human head in the movie. Only, these bellybuttons don't cry out, in tiny, shrill voices, Helllpppp meeeeee, helllpppp meeeeeee.
Instead, they say, in a voice for some reason that sounds like that Fyvish Finkle guy in the TV show Boston Public, "You should feel this stomach! Like velvet! Go ahead, kiss it! She won't mind."
And now, thanks to fashion trends and summer, it's only going to get worse.
Even a guy who I thought was my friend is in on this conspiracy. Dr. Bruce Nadler, eminent New York, Mr. Big-City plastic surgeon, is putting silicone butt implants into women! It's true. He wants to J-Lo-fy the world and in doing so, turn what remains of our minds into Jell-O.
These implants are like big, rubbery contact lenses, inserted through an incision made in the crease of the buttocks and coaxed into a makeshift pocket under the glutes. Now, every girl can have a bubble butt and contribute to the mass suffering of males.
Can you imagine a world where every woman looked like this?
Nadler, that bastard.
I've got half a mind to lock myself in my office for the duration of the summer. So what if I emerged looking like the kid from Powder? I'd have control of my mind. It's not a bad idea, really. I'm not sure who said it, maybe the philosopher Pascal, and I don't remember the exact words, but the idea sure makes a lot of sense:
All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
Amen, brother, amen.
So I've got no choice; you've got no choice. If we hope to be able to accomplish anything this summer, anything at all, we've got to lock ourselves in the gym and train, morning, noon, and night. So what if it leads to overtraining?
At least we'll have our minds intact, and maybe we'll still be able to close on the Willoughby account; win the Peterson case; finish work on that new artificial heart; paint the house; serve as best man at our friend's June wedding and stand at the altar without having a raging hard-on straining at the seams of our rented tux; or work on whatever we had initially planned to accomplish this summer.
The alternative? To sit alongside a fountain in some shopping center, spitting out sunflower seeds while leering at the women who walk out of the Victoria's Secret store and asking each of them, "Hey, whatcha' got in the bag? Thongs? Lemme see 'em. C'mon, lemme see 'em...."
I for one think the choice is clear.
Now if I can just find an all-male gym, either that, or one where a bunch of female ex-patriot Russian shot-putters train.
(The first version of this article was posted on Testosterone in 2001.)
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