As my great, great, grandfather, Myles Standish Summer used to say, “Turkeys are really dumb. They even walk up to you and they say, gobble gobble gobble”…and so we do.” If I were the Big Turkey, I’d tell my guys…look …enough with the gobble gobble. Shut up. And while you’re at it, go get yourself a trick or treat costume with big eyes and a funny little tail. And learn to take funny hops like the Easter Bunny.”
But that doesn’t happen. Those guys never learn. They’re like the deer around here. I could never figure out why Bambi doesn’t take the little bambinos aside and tell them, “You know those big, noisy machines with the two bright eyes that come roaring around at night? Don’t stand in the middle of the road and look at them. Get out of the way.”
It was on Thanksgiving night a number of years ago, that I started the Men Are Saints campaign on WNBC radio. I called it the M.A.S. appeal. Men are saints. The idea came from remembering a Thanksgiving watching what happened when my Lady Wonder Wench, and our daughter Kris, and my Sister in law Brenda were scurrying around preparing dinner, while the guys were…otherwise occupied.
Here’s the point:
Men are seldom given credit for our sensitivity, our intelligence and our selfless behavior. For example, here in the Northeast, Thanksgiving is usually celebrated on a cold day. So where do we men traditionally encourage our women to spend the day? Right. In the warmest room in the house. The kitchen. While we, on the other hand, in a manly display of selfless courage, throw ourselves in front of the tv screen to protect our loved ones from the terrible effects of the cathode rays that squirt out of the picture tube.
I think those harmful rays must be the reason for the pain so many of us get during commercials for erectile dysfunction medications, which if not used under a doctor’s HMO plan, can cause us to get permanently stuck in the upright condition, therefore making it necessary for us to walk bent over at all social functions till the following March.
And how much credit do we men get for that traditional self sacrifice? Right. None. And think about this: How often have you seen a relatively innocent Louie-Louie Generation man at a raunchy bar go over to a woman he has never even met, and invite her to the safety and comfort of his very own apartment to get her out of that dangerous environment? And what reward do we get? Right again. None. But we soldier on s we always have, even in the face of this shameful lack of appreciation. That’s the basis for the M.A.S. appeal.
As you can imagine, the M.A.S. appeal is frequently not well received by certain people with more evolved levels of social sensitivity, and mostly higher voices, although Big Louie, his own bad self, the chief mustard cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation has tried to explain that it’s testosterone that causes the bad reputation that many guys enjoy, and we’re therefore not responsible for our sometimes strange thought processes, and the things that we frequently can’t help doing.
Louie says a guy’s brain swims in this sea of testosterone, which absorbs some of the shocks of a guys life to which we are all exposed…like hitting a button on a radio and getting an unexpected blast of Yanni’s music, or getting hit in the head by a baseball, or being exposed to high levels of excess verbal communication. Testosterone, you will remember, is a preservative. And a preservative stops stuff from maturing. I seem to have a lot of testosterone, which protects me from many of the harmful effects of maturing…which is probably why the Men Are Saints campaign seemed like such a good idea to me in the first place.
Dick’s Details Quiz. (All answers are in the current podcast.)
1 – Why is Big Louie so pleased that so many people are Sleepless In Seattle?
2 – What would any man worth his saintly halo be glad to do for 78% of women?
3 – What does sleeping with a bat do for your overnight social life?
Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.
I had a lot of fun with the Men Are Saints campaign…the MAS appeal. And I think there is a certain amount of truth to what Big Louie says about the impact of testosterone on those of us who are not women. I really do sometimes lose control of parts of me…like my left eyebrow which always flips up when my Lady Wonder Wench walks into a room wearing one of those little outfits she says is, “A little more comfortable.” And occasionally, under those circumstances, my fingers absolutely refuse to behave themselves, no matter where I try not to put them.
There’s a story about a young guy who managed to behave himself a little better than that, in the Night Connections personal audio CD. It’s called, The Young Guy Scores. The story proves that there is hope for us testosterone soaked wretches. I think he did just fine, don’t you? Of course…so did she. If you like the story you can just keep the podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy you can download it from the icon on the home page.
Funny thing about Thanksgiving. It’s not a religious feast. It was one of the best ideas that ever came out of the government. But it’s a celebration and a reminder of something that’s really the best part of what it means to be a person. Everybody likes Thanksgiving. But I must admit that I liked it a lot more before the government told us about salmonella poisoning. They say you can get if from badly cooked turkeys. I think what happens is that tiny little turkey dwelling salmon get into your blood and swim up stream to your brain to spawn, which causes you to completely lose control of your higher reasoning functions, which is what makes you rush out to the mall to go shopping.
So be careful. Cook your turkey in an oven turned up to stun for at least two quarters of the football game. Then give a piece to the dog and watch closely for signs of any fishy symptoms…like he goes chasing after a lot of little salmon that only he can see.
And while we are all giving each other the bird this Thanksgiving my fellow members of the Louie-Louie Generation…let’s all remember what Captain Kangaroo always taught. He said, “Thanks is the magic word.” And by the way, you might remember to say thanks to the Captain. He was only a Captain on tv. In real life he was a sergeant. Sergeant Robert Keeshan…of the United States Marines. And he was one of those sergeants who rate a salute. Because Sgt. Keeshan was awarded the Navy Cross for heroism exhibited in the initial landing at Iwo Jima in World War 2.
So I am going to take a moment to lift a drumstick to Sgt. Keeshan, and all the other men and women who have protected us through the years…and are protecting us right now. And I’m not going to forget the cops and firefighters and medivac pilots and crews who fly in all kinds of ghastly weather…and …how about all those security guys, like the one who took the bullet at the museum…there are lots of folks who are putting off their turkey right now, to keep things quiet enough to hear us slurp and chomp.
To every one of you, on behalf of Big Louie, his own bad self, and all my fellow members of the Louie-Louie generation…Thanks.