The Good, the Bad, and the Tacky: Strange Team Mascots and Sportswear

First, the good and the bad (you pick what it is in both cases):

Amid a sea of lions, tigers, bears, and other sports teams with charismatic mascots, there are a few with unique or charming ones,  Here's a selection of the more unusual ones:

South Dakota Tech HardRockers

University of Delaware Blue Hens

Webster University Golorks

Centenary College Gentlemen

St. Louis University Billikens

Fayetteville Fire Antz (pro hockey)

University of Akron Zips

Idaho Vandals

Montgomery Biscuits (baseball)

University of California at Santa Cruz Banana Slugs

Willow Creek (MI) Nimrods

And now the tacky:

 

Several academic institutions have licensed sportswear that include string bikinis.  While team logo swimwear are excessive, wearing one on game day or to the game itself is over the top!

 

Go to this site to see certain examples:

 

http://www.totallycollegiate.com/clothes/swim.html

How Do You Know If He Loves You So . . . .?

Guys are different.  But especially preteen guys.  Here's a little romantic story involving preteens.  No, nothing objectionable, just sweet.  Indulge me, you all.

Despite concentrated efforts, sometimes children do have free, unorganized time, and they fill it in pretty much the same way that their parents and grandparents and others filled: now and then with a game involving several other kids based on who's available.  And, things being the way they are, they have a fair amount of admixture in who gets to participate: both boys and girls, varieties of ages, ability levels, anything to get a full team out on the field.  And if there isn't enough available, they knock on doors and ask.

This is how I managed to make the summons, otherwise, I would have been content to watch She-Ra or Xena or other fine televised fare for kids.  The game in question was softball; and at 12 I was not celebrated for my batting or fielding skills.  Yup, it's "You can play right field, Angel!"  I knew my place.  Any typically I was the last one chosen.

And the teams were formed by having the honchos take turn choosing, first deciding who gets first choice by catching the bat and grasping it in turn, then measuring whose hand is higher on the bat.  (I'm sure there's a sports-related term for this method, it seems steeped in sports tradition.) 

The team leaders typically choose who they think the best players are, and as they alternately go through the kids available, the remaining ones are increasingly forcibly reminded of their diminished status. while the earlier-chosen ones get to preen.  [Note: when pre-teens preen, it isn't pretty.]  It's particularly shaming to be the last one chosen, and some last-chosen decamp and run for home due to the ignominy instead of sucking it up and playing.

That's a reality of playground-driven teams.  There's a Darwinian subtext there.  To be the last one chosen is utterly shameful.  And both before and after the game, there's the solitary post-selection Walk of Shame for you!  No less for girls than for boys!

Anyway, the designated team captains were midway through the choices, and I was waiting to being called last, and ready to blush with mortification when that happened.  To my surprise, however; I heard my name called, right smack in the middle of the choices.

I took that as a sign that the boy liked me.  Or even loved me.  And it dawned on me that he seemed to show more interest in talking to me beforehand. 

Guys like that deserve a kiss,  But maybe privately.  I know enough about guys to know that he would be hooted by the other boys for getting a PDA!

Ecdysiastaphobia and a Community College's Answer to It

The strip-tease show, while tacky, seems to unduly upset some people whether for moralistic or aesthetic reasons.  While I can understand the negative response to the term "gentlemen's clubs" in terms of its unwarranted assumption of quality in the attendees there, the typical entertainment that they have is of a low variety.  Still, the stripper is part of the scene.  This was not always  case: some ecydsiasts, to use the term coined first by Henry L. Mencken, were of first-rate talent, seductiveness, and entertainment quality: think of Gypsy Rose Lee, Blaze Starr, Linda Brigette, Lily St. Cyr, and others of the catwalk.

As a former mayor Martin Behrman of New Orleans once observed with regard to prostitution, "You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular."

Anyway, Dr. Chauncey L. Tiddle, President of Swampland Community College in Florida, realized that stripping was a high-paying, seemingly recession-proof job, and he envisioned* this as a possible major to be developed and first offered by his community college.  Certainly, it would earn Swampland CC considerable publicity; even if some of it would come in the form of tut-tut-tuts from the Gray Strumpet in NYC or Faux News.

Some of the envisioned classes could also serve as electives for bored housewives or mistresses-to-be:

Introduction to the Strip Tease

Elementary Poledancing

Selecting the Stripper Wardrobe

Elementary Bump and Grind Techniques

Effective Clothing Discard Techniques

Effective Customer Relations

Encouraging Costume Money Inserts

The Stripper's Gaze as a Performance Feature

It was further felt by Dr. Tiddle, that with the establishment of a coherent curriculum for Professional Ecdysiast Specialists, it would lend a boost of respectability to the profession!  Already the regional academic accreditation association is studying the proposed curriculum, and they are planning to send a visiting team to several strip joints in the Miami area to evaluate the possibilities for a Professional Ecdysiast Specialist major!.

 

The new major served an additional purpose: Persons suffering from ecdysiastaphobia could get over their fear by taking the introductory course, whether they were viewers or performers.

 

*Only college presidents, business CEOs, and national-level politicians can envision; the rest of us just have ideas or notions.  Sorry.  Visions are left to those possible users of hallucinogens.

Waxing Indignant Over Trivia

"Don't sweat the petty things; and don't pet the sweaty things" is equally apropos. 

Anyway, since few people are showing proclivities toward fondling perspiring objects, I thought I would comment on the other.

There are real things out there to worry about.  Some are obvious; and I can give you a detailed list of what I think should be worried about that may not completely fit in with any list that you generate.  And there are some things only in the distant future, like the next ice age or are improbable, like the Presidency of Tila Tequila!  Oh, I don't know:  we might someday elect poorly-tattooed attention-craving idiots, I guess.  Do Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann have tattoos?

We're realistically limited as to what we can do with real problems.  Hell, the President and other world leaders have only so much control over things, and events don't always go according to plan.  That's life.  That's the way it is.  Uhh-huh.

Well, here's where getting one's knickers in a knot over trivia comes in.  Let's look at the things that make some people hot and bothered lately: vuvuzelas, Twilight, Lady Gaga, Kate Gosselin, the Octomom, NBA player salaries, dumb things that pols or radio shock jocks say.  Is there a little overreaction here?  Seriously, other than the unpleasant sound of those horns, these are all tiny acne spots in the course of life.  It was the same with other things: how many people got incensed over Britney Spears?  Or other things.  I'll bet you can think of a song or two or a movie that generated controversy at one time, and now, retrospectively, seems inconsequential. 

A quick quiz? Whose breast did Justin Timberlake expose during that infamous 'wardrobe malfunction' at halftime in the Super Bowl?  Okay, now was it the left or right one?  Finally, which teams played in that Super Bowl?  I'll bet that you can answer the first one, and maybe the second one, but not the last one.  Do you see what I mean?

My theory is that people use these trivial things as a means of focusing their anxieties and attention on to something that is more manageable, rather than something really scary, like a pandemic.  In that way, we navigate haphazardly through life using maps that say that in some places "There be dragons here," and studiously avoid sailing in those uncharted waters.  But why should we go into the extreme South Atlantic, when we can loll on Ipanema or cruise Alaska's Inside Passage while drinking Margaritas?  Getting exercised over trivia takes out some of the worry of being. 

 

 

 

A Rose Could Smell as Sweet



Brigitte Bardot rose

It's interesting that rose cultivars are sometimes named after celebrities.  In addition to these depicted, there have also been roses named for Dolly Parton, Queen Elizabeth, Audrey Hepburn, Julia Child, LeeAnn Rimes, Rosie O'Donnell, John F. Kennedy, Christian Dior, Sylvie Vartan, and others.   Here's a pretty full list, if you're curious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rose_cultivars_named_after_people

A complete omission in rose nomenclature are roses named for Vice-Presidents and other politicians.  Can you deal with a Joe Biden or a Don Quayle rose?  And would it smell as sweet?  Somehow, any rose named after a politician might be dubious in this case.  Maybe, if there are cultivars of the Ginkgo tree, described as a living fossil that produces seeds that smell bad.  That species could be reserved for politicians.  Or even better, some of our current Members of Congress!

I couldn't pass up the metaphor.

 

Reba McEntire rose

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The Expectation of Privacy

The recent publication of topless pictures of Princess Kate have launched a lot of comments regarding her advisability for not wearing her bikini top, whether her privacy was invaded, and whether the pictures should have been published.

They were.  The photographer violated her privacy grossly, zeroing in on the couple by using a long distance lens.  And the magazines, by publishing them, were complicit.

Probably she was too comfortable that the setting was private, and that she was beyond lens range.  Not so, it turned out.  Still, there is the generally accepted expectation of privacy that seems to have been violated.  It's no different than if one of us elected to sunbathe nude in one's own yard behind an 8-foot high privacy fence.

So, we have a princess who made a bad call, a weasel of a photographer (my apologies to any weasels who might be offended), and some sleazy publications.  But what's else?

Well, the readers of the publication and the internet users do have a place in this sorry story, too.  If they feel that those pictures were obtained improperly, and that Princess Anne's privacy was violated, then they should not buy the magazine that published them ever or click on any internet links leading to the pictures.  And if there's less of an audience for this sort of stuff, the value of the pictures like this diminishes and the paparazzi will need to find some other disreputable pursuit.

And, a special comment for the Brits:  She's a Royal Princess.  She might be your Queen someday!  Do you really want people to look at your Queen semi-naked?

Tara Reid below seems to be spoofing the sense of privacy; or possibly ironically commenting on it being a forelorn hope.  But this sense of privacy is real and important. 

A Kitschy, Kitschy Coup!

The term kitsch in art refers to a judgment of a given work as being inferior, whether it involves it being poorly executed, has a dubious choice of subject matter, an unwarranted play on the emotions, or the like.  Or sheer excess.

Here is Paul Jamin's work entitled Brennus and His Share of the Spoils.  Clearly, this 19th century work provides the viewer primarily a convenient excuse for ogling the naked bodies of the captive women (among Brennus's spoils!), and to contemplate what uses the barbarian would have for them.  Academic art in that era was rife with nudes with flimsy excuses for being that way.  Perhaps it was in response to the official morality and repression of that time.  But much of academic art, while no longer in favor, did have a serious purpose in being allegorical or exploring classical themes.  As one put it, his purpose was to depict War or Beauty allegorically rather than a scene from a war or an example of something that is beautiful.

I'll have to admit being exceedingly uncomfortable about the theme of this because of the look of sheer terror in the women, to be bound, naked, and at the pleasure of the grinning barbarian while in a room of booty and headless bodies.  But I would have to admit that this might appeal to some.  Not appealing to the gentler angels of our nature, though.

Where would it be displayed?  In some serious art museum?  Actually, I think a more valid display would call for Louis Wain's cats or Coolidge's dogs.  Now those, possibly also considered kitsch by the High Art Priestesses, does have its appeal and would warrant an art museum placement.*

Brennus and His Share of the Spoils

 

The Jamin one less so.

 

Kitsch involves a highly subjective judgment  The Brennus one manages to be beyond kitschy for me: a tour de force to push the envelope of kitschiness!  As to where something might be displayed, perhaps in an Animal House-like frat house, and taken down when they have polite mixers with more prim sororities lest the girls be grossed!

 

 

 

*Many might vigorously argue in opposition to this., but the cats and dogs are cute and appealing.  Perhaps I'm not beyond kitsch, myself.  Here's one by Louis Wain; form your own opinion:

 

 

 

 

The d'Eau Method for Rational Gun Control

With the sad events that occurred in Aurora, Colorado or in New York in mind, people may easily overlook a very prominent cause of injuries and fatalities due to firearms:  them being in the hands of people with room-temp or even bra-size IQs!  Consider the fact that there's a huge number of handguns out there, and a number of truly stupid people as well.  The intersection of the two doesn't only occur in a Venn diagram; it can occur in real life.

Here's some examples: 

There are several people each year who try to demonstrate what a quick draw they have, despite the near absence of this having occurred in the real life 19th century West.  Some of these quick-draw artists fire prematurely, shooting themselves in the thigh or foot!

Then there's the guys who play games, like "Hey, Virgil!  I bet I can shoot an apple clean off your haid!"

And then there's the junior Einsteins who make celebratory shots in the air to welcome in the New Year, failing to remember that what goes up must come down, even over a city.  We don't need Isaac Newton for that information; Mitch Ryder would suffice!

Unfortunately, none of the states require an I.Q. test for the purchase of firearms. 

But there are other possibilities.  Requiring a mandatory waiting period before their purchase might at least keep those not already gun owners from shooting someone out of anger.  Likewise forbidding those connected of felonies for purchasing them might keep them out of the hands of unconnected former felons.

An additional requirement might reasonably help: mandatory firearms safety training.  Here's how:

It might be hypothesized that there are several scenarios that result in a person killing another peson or more than one:

1.  In  deliberate commission of a crime of murder,
2.  In commission of another crime such as robbery, in which murder occurs as a by-product,
3.  As an extreme ending of an altercation.
4.  As the result of an accident,
5.  As a result of normal people acting stupidly.
6.  As a result of stupid people being allowed to have guns.

Firearms safety training might at least cut down the number of deaths in the last two or three categories.  Some improvement is better than none at all.  But you can imagine the hue and cry from the N.R.A. if there was an I.Q. test to qualify for gun ownership!!!!

Or here's another means of reducing fatalities:  Encourage the use of Super Soakers instead of firearms to settle differences.  Have those television  and movie crime fighters carry Super Soakers in their never-ending fight to make society safe.  Some of our dumber fellow citizens might get the idea that a Super Soaker is the way to go.

And, sure enough, some doofus will try to rob a bank while using a Super Soaker.  In a way, that's appropriate.  Bank fees soak us for a lot as it is.

Attitudes Towards Left-Handedness; Can It Also Apply Elsewhere?

About 10% of the population is left-handed, including me.  Preference for a particular hand does not emerge in children before age two years.  The formal term for left-handed tendencies is sinistrality, which gives a clue as to how it was viewed at one time.

Four recent Presidents were or are left-handed: Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.  In 2008, Obama's opponent, John McCain, was also left-handed.

At one time, left-handed children were coerced, or at least attempts were made, to coerce them to become right-handed.  I'm glad that's not the case, although we live in a world that is more often engineered for right handers than for lefties.  However, left-handed baseball batters need to take one less step in order to get to first base because they swing into the direction in which they are to run; this might give them a slight edge in getting on base.

There may be some other presumptions of "normality" that go beyond what is warranted, as the cartoon below hints.

 

 

Normality is not equivalent to statistical modality.

Staging the First Blind Date

With the advent of internet-arranged dating, the problem of locating an appropriate place for that all-important blind date has become very acute. Very clearly, the setting and activity should be chosen with care. An injudicious choice may potentially put off who might be otherwise be Mr. or Ms. Right. We have to take both the Zeitgeist and local custom into account. For example, it doesn't take a rocket scientist or even an assistant professor of sociology to decide that meeting in a bar is probably not a wise choice!

Nor is scheduling a first date at a political rally, either -- unless both of you happen to be die-hard partisans. In that case, you probably deserve each other; just don't breed, okay? Nor is going to church. Now being religious is okay, and attending church is also; but many people are put off by fanaticism in whatever form. Always think of the Big Picture: too strong an initial impression can be counterproductive.

 

Likewise, you should not plan that first date for a 'Gentlemen's Club,' especially on Amateur Night! That might be a serious off-putter, except in New Jersey where it is de rigeur. Anyway, most of us do not deal very well with unexpected costume changes.

 

The usual choices are to have the first encounter in a public place, such as a small restaurant or a coffee shop. Starbuck's and Barnes and Noble are two common choices, but they're really for the timid.

 

One first date I had was with a guy who took me to a Star Trek convention! Imagine the eViL pOp TaRt amid the hordes of Trekkies, dressed in whatever outlandish costumes and wearing strange headgear and saying such bon mots as "Beam me up Scotty" and "May the Force be with you." [I know that came from Star Wars, but they didn't.] But I should not criticize: I've done cosplay myself in various anime guises. Anyway, my Trekkie b.f. turned out to be very dominant and was excessively directive for my then 17-year-old rebellious self. I was not open to correction regarding my church attendance, politics, or even swimwear without the requisite ring on the left hand. Women and girls are funny that way.

 

Another first date was to a car show. Now I'm not into cars that much, except for providing transportation. There were a lot of girls in bathing suits there, for some reason which escapes me. Also, since I was wearing a skirt, I was disinclined to crawl under and examine the automobiles' bottoms like so many of the audience tended to do. 

 

Bowling is a wise choice; unless you have a blind date with a deb (in your dreams, Sluggo!). But be sure not to order her a Bud. At least, spring for a Michelob or a Lowenbrau, as gay as those beers might be.

 

A mall as a setting for a first date is appropriate if you are going with a sk8r boi, but I'm no sk8r grrl, or even a sk8r gurl! As a matter of fact, my minimal standards for guys includes their wearing baseball caps in the manner that any self-respecting Cubs outfielder would wear it. But, malls are quite boring, unless you wish to make him deliberately uncomfortable by dragging him into Victoria's Secret. 

 

Can you imagine going on a first date to a party in an anatomy lab? Who dreams of those things? Is this how doctors' wives are selected? Actually, I had once been engaged to a med student pre-Katrina and nothing otherwise weird happened in that lab.  Surprisingly, I did not faint.

 

The best one I had was for feeding the ducks. It provides a focus; was non-threatening a setting, and it allowed the real people to come out without the veneer of social pretense.

The Lysistrata Option in Eliminating Nasty Politics

It saddens me that I must suggest that our election year politics has gotten so nasty and so irresponsible that the equivalent to the nuclear option must be deployed to stop it.  I'm referring to the Lysistrata Option!

The Lysistrata Option comes from Aristophanes' classical comedy, Lysistata, in which a large group of Greek women attempt to end the Perlopennesian War by witholding sex from the men, hopefully driving them to peace talks and then the marital bed.  Or just bed, to acknowledge present-day mores.

The play has been enjoyed for over 2300 years because of its outrageous raunchiness, and its proclivity for double entendres:

“Calonice: My dear Lysistrata, just what is this matter you've summoned us women to consider.What's up? Something big?

Lysistrata: Very big.

Calonice: (interested) Is it stout too?

Lysistrata: (smiling) Yes, indeed -- both big and stout.

Calonice: What? And the women still haven't come?

Lysistrata: It's not what you suppose; they'd come soon enough for that."

Some performances of Lysistrata even have the Greek chorus appear with leather phalluses!

Anyway, the Lysistrata Option has on occasion been used in individual circumstances; for example, to modulate the amount of football game-watching in the Fall, as a penalty for bad conduct ("If you persist in emitting flatuses, you'll sleep on the sofa!"), or even because the mood occurs.

Now I cannot say that the ladies are not without blame in this political pretty pass of present: some such as Ann Coulter and Nancy Pelosi relish their role in roiling things up!  And there are weak sisters as well, who pretend to be perfectly okay with this dispiriting disputation.

However, if enough of us, women and men of good sense and will, would deny sex to people who continue these corrosive political parallel monologues, then maybe things could be brought closer to amity.   

And who knows, maybe Clint Eastwood can then go back to talking to the trees instead of chairs!*

*He once appeared in a musical; and sang some song about talking to trees.  He never did another musical.

The Ultimate Postmodern Final Armageddon Concert

Let's face it now, we have a serious crisis in contemporary music.  The garage bands of the 1990's are long passé: no longer may flannel-wearing lads of medium talent rise as cream to the top of the musical mixture.  The era of the girl pop singer is long over; Avril Lavigne continues to be as tiresome as in 2003, Jessica Simpson has eased into meaningless to celebrity status and motherhood, and Britney Spears strides womanfully towards irrelevance, much as Cher and Madonna did at an earlier time.  Christina Aguliera merits only a technicolor yawn.  Rap is in the doldrums, and the fickle public has gotten over the Latin craze earlier than expected (thank God).  Of course, there's always the ubiquitous Boy Bands, continually arising out of the primordial ooze that is Florida; much like The Swamp Thing, but without a Florida girl's impressive décolletage to intrigue the guys!  Well, it's now 2012, and we have reached an impasse.

We have the astonishing entertainment of watching singing hopefuls on American Idol and B-list celebrities dancing with professionals on Dancing With the Stars.

Apparently, we have developed a desire for dreck!  Retrospectively, it was sure to come to pass. After all, look what has been going on in art for a long time.  Television was described back in the Precambrian Era as a "vast wasteland."  And the group called U2 ranges loose and sings periodically when the lead singer is not being a self-satisfied dick.  Speaking of which, look at any Super Bowl halftime show as a fortissimo celebration of bad musical and sartorial taste (Madonna, anyone?)!  Clearly, a taste exorcism is called for, even though we have seen no people with rotating heads yet.

My solution to this pretty pass is to fight fire with fire!  After all, if in this Postmodern Era of Contemporary Music everything sucketh, then we must celebrate this fact to the max!  The way to do so is to stage a three-hour concert to be televised simultaneously on all four major networks (note to NBC, CBS, and ABC: Fox is here to stay!).  Other programming should be off the air just "for maintenance." In that way, everyone would have to choose between watching this musical pig party on T.V., or engaging in a heroic act of televised self-denial.

This concert will consist of examples of the worst there is to offer in music.  Oh my Gawd! Just think: we could include such musical pests as Lady Gaga, Glamlily, Blink 182, the Insane Clown Posse, the Vengaboys, Yanni, Korn, Creed, assorted rhinestone cowboys, Sinead O'Connor, Sisqo of "The Thong Song," the Mambo guy, whoever did "Butterfly Kisses," Ricky Martin, Kid Rock, and Jennifer Lopez.  We can't omit Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears from an earlier time.  Surely someone can come forward and sing "MacArthur's Park" and remind us of that misplaced cake one more time.  Also included should be those masters and mistresses of bathos: Dan Hill, Janis Ian, Céline Dion, Barbra Streisand, Morris Albert, Bobby Goldsboro, Gilbert O'Sullivan, and others.  We need to be reminded of what "Muskrat Love" is about, hear Christina Aguliera inform us "What a Girl Wants," and have Sting speculate on "Every Move You Make." Brrr! They guy gives me the dribbling creeps!  May I also say "disco"? Obviously, Michael Jackson has his place in this Pantheon of Poop, even though he's no longer alive!

I heard that someone named Ernie Kovacs had people dressed as apes perform a work called "Solfeggio"; and one of the apes would repeatedly bonk another on the head with a xylophone mallet.  This might provide comic relief to this display of musical excess if this could be done to the one receiving the most votes from the audience as a "avatar of bad taste."

Finally, the program could end with Maureen McGovern singing "There Has to Be a Morning After."  Only after enduring such continuous pain will our listening population rise up and cast off the bonds of musical tripe!  The Bahai Men put it well in a song that shouldn't be included in this affair of misery: "Who Let the Dogs Out."

Lady Gaga

Boxers or Briefs?

Most guys seem unimaginative in their choice of underwear, as my occasional reconnaisance into the chest of drawers containing intimate drawers revealed.  While an occasional colored or even patterned boxers might be spied, these are not often revealed in that moment of truth after the loosening of the belt.  What a letdown to see your imminent lover in plain briefs or sterile white boxers!  In general guys, if you want to ramp up your love life, then dress like you mean it!  I mean, make an effort!!!

I will admit that some guys do wear colored briefs. While monocolor ones predominate, occasionally some guys purchase patterned ones.  How should one view a guy wearing Spiderman briefs?  Should you regard him as totally and irredeemably immature, as making an ironic statement, as having bought them because they were on sale, or simply as a Spiderman fan?  You should find your own answer on this one.  I would be inclined to regard him as whimsical, and give him a pass.  Other ladies might not see it that way, though.  Basically, wearing superhero underwear is risky unless you are a certified superhero.

Sorry, Fartman and The Whale don't count.  And don't wear a sexy girl's cosplay outfit as underwear.  Most of us are not kinky.

Sports team fan underwear is something that guys should maybe think again about; sometimes it may not further your cause.  Let's take a very hypothetical case.  Suppose a smooth, well-groomed, charming Texan goes to New Orleans, meets a lady there who is smitten by him, and they go to his or her place.  Indeed, they initiate some deeds of passion.  However, at a critical moment, his indelicate secret is revealed in its total shame: he is wearing Dallas Cowboys briefs or boxers!  Now that is a deal-breaker!   And only real douches, and New York Yankee fans, wear NY Yankee underwear.  But I'm repeating myself.  Even if you're a columnist for the New York Times, do not wear New York Yankees underwear!

Let's review the implications of particular patterns on men's underwear:
a.  Dollar signs -- He's a banker; or obsessed with money.
b.  Hearts -- His girlfriend bought them for him for Valentine's Day.
c.  Care Bears -- He's infantilely cuddlesome.
d.  Whales -- He's expansive and a blowhard.
e.  Plaid -- He's either Scottish; or is overly fond of single-malt Scotch.
f.  The BP emblem -- He might have a need for Depends.
g.  Ultrabrief, package-revealing -- He is a narcissist, and is overly impressed with himself.
h.  Holes -- He doesn't like to shop.
i.  Large mammals, like bears or moose -- He is very self-confident and conceited.
j.  Small mammals, like squirrels or rabbits -- He is inhibited and lacking in self-confidence.  Give him a coupon for pity sex with a sorority girl from the Northeast.

I have a pair of recommendations.  The wine-colored boxers illustrated below would make an esthetic showcasing of your package that would surprise and delight women of any age.

Or, alternatively, consider a men's string bikini.  The presence of the string ties on either side gives the wearer a pleasing sense of vulnerability; and it offers a coy invitation to pull some strings to get to know you better!

The Prophetess Cures a Woman of Excessive Fatigue

Our earnest heroine Madeline the Prophetess one morning after Mass was talking with Clotilde, a woman who was very evident in her fatigue.  Clotilde told Madeline and the other ladies that she didn't have any courage* any longer; she felt listless all the time.  The unfortunate said that she had consulted with doctors, but to no avail.  All they would do is run tests, prescribe pills, and tell her that she would soon feel better.

But she didn't.

Clotilde then wondered if she could try some alternative approach; such as a homeopath or a naturopath or a chiropracter, maybe.  Or even consult a traiteur** for folk healing.  Or maybe see a Voodoo consultant.

The Prophetess was rumored to be a traiteur; she was all sympathy.  She listened to Clotilde's litany of complaints carefully, and nodded when appropriate. 

Then she said, "You've been doing a lot of church work lately.  Maybe you need to slack off for a while.  Too much church work can tire a body out considerably.  And cut back on your coffee drinking, too.  Why don't you take a week at your cousin's fishing cabin for a change of scenery?  And I'll put on my hands, and we'll pray together."

Clotilde, being at wit's end, listened to her advice and decided to follow it.  She wondered after a while if this Prophetess girl saw the past as well as the future . . . . but Our Prophetess didn't let on.  She was, after all, a proper New Orleans lady, and really did not entertain such thoughts!

Actually, Madeline saw the young priest slip down Clotilde's back stairway early in the morning.  She thought that they were too zealous in church work and this was too demanding for Clotilde's fragile constitution.  Priests are notoriously deficient when it comes to understanding women!

Anyway, Clotilde quickly recovered from her fatigue and had renewed courage and life!  She found other interests, and was not obsessed with the religion so much and attributed her cure to St. Expedité.***


*Among those of French or Creole heritage in New Orleans, "courage" is roughly synonymous with pep or energy.  Probably from the French word élan.

**A Cajun folk healer.

***An apocryphal saint, very much preferred in New Orleans.  Worthy of a story sometime.