Andrew's L8 H8/LV of the Week 3/2/11

H8 1: People Who Think Spoiling Children is Cute
           I am not a parent. There are those who feel that if one is not a parent, one is therefore unfit to comment on the raising of children. This is of course completely insane and is simply an excuse to not listen to the opinions of others. No one feels you can't have an opinion on sports unless you're an athlete, or an opinion on politics unless you're an elected politician, or an opinion on the behavior of another race unless you are a member of that race. At the same time, I won't babble on about my opinions too much as I don't want to look like a fool when I change them all upon knocking my wife up. That disclaimer aside, let's approach the modern travesty of being proud of spoiling one's own child from a purely linguistic point of view. According to whatever dictionary Google just pulled up when I typed, "definition of spoil" to spoil is to, "botch, make a mess of, destroy or ruin." There is a reason we call spoiled children spoiled, and that's because they are unfit for society, just as spoiled fruit is unfit to consume, or spoiled meat will make you sick. Parents, quit saying with pride and glee, "Yeah, my kid is so spoiled!" as if you're just such a great parent that you can't resist your cute little wretch of a child. When my refrigerator breaks down and my food spoils, my refrigerator doesn't beam with pride and say, "Aw look how spoiled your food is!" When I don't tend to my imaginary vegetable garden and the vegetables rot into the ground I don't give a tour and say, "I can't resist spoiling it!"
               Raise your kid however you want (not really) but at least use a little sense in your language - spoiling is not, and has never been, a positive thing. Make up a new set of words to describe what you're doing, such as, "Aw, I'm just attempting to make everyone's future interactions with my child as difficult as possible due to my kid's misguided view of his or her own self-importance!" or, "I'm ruining this kid forever!" Also to teenage/college/past-college-but-haven't-realized-it-yet females, guys really, really, don't find the, "Spoiled Brat!" "Spoiled Little Princess!" stuff cute or attractive in the least, but thank you for warning me in advance about how high maintenance you're going to be.

H8 2: Snakes
          I truly hate snakes. I feel it is the duty of every human being to hate snakes. First of all, just being a mammal you should naturally feel a deep, uncomfortable, "otherness" about reptiles, and their cold-blooded, scaly, slithery selves. Secondly, just watching how a snake moves, and the shape of it's body and lack of arms or legs should strike a knell of creepiness in the most primal centers of your brain. There is a reason why snakes are thought of as representations of evil in many cultures (and religions) throughout the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of snakes, I just hate them. Even Professor Henry Jones Jr. hates snakes, and I could never profess to be a bolder man than he. I've held a boa constrictor around my neck when I was a mere child, back during the mystical years of youth (also known as Panama City Beach Spring Break) I danced around the campfire of a girl who wore naught on the beach but sunglasses, a bikini, and a giant snake  named Big Sexy on long ago half-forgotten nights, I've run across a rattlesnake in the woods and, along with my friends, shot it, beheaded it, milked out it's venom, skinned it, gutted it, cleaned it, cut it into pieces, cooked it over an open fire, and eaten it off the skewers (now that, Gwenyth Paltrow, is Country Strong). I've lost a snake in the cushions of a couch (and never found it) and helped my roommates get a rat snake out from under a bunk bed and throw it through the doorway. This isn't a list of the things I fear (or it would be much longer than this) but instead a list of the things I hate. Have you felt a snake? Seen it move? Seen those big heads? Those evil eyes? That forked tongue? Have you pulled a whole squirrel out of the stomach of a snake, or watched them distend their jaws to swallow something huge? Have you watched a snake strike? Snakes are the creepiest thing on the planet, and I hate them with a passion.

H8 3: Haircuts
                I am a stylishly disheveled young white boy who gets his hair cut twice a year. Basically, I cut it very short in early summer, and then trim it in early fall, and let it grow the rest of the time. This leads not only to a distinct lack of style, but, due to my revoltingly slow-growing hair, an easy avoidance of those hell holes known as...well, I was going to say "barber shops" but I haven't had my hair cut in one of those since I was about seven. Hair cutting establishments? Stylist groves? Havens for those who couldn't go to real college? Part of this complaint dovetails with my earlier criticism of talking dental hygienists - when getting a haircut I'm in a trapped environment with someone who can make whatever lame small talk they feel like making, and I'm expected to respond. The last time I got my hair cut at a, "professional" establishment was in March of 2010, and my stylist constantly asked me questions about myself, asked me if I was planning on coming back and using her again, asked me my plans for the upcoming week, and plenty of other things I had no interest in disclosing. Fortunately for her, I'm a magnanimous guy who sees the positive side of every life experience, so I humored her idiotic attempts at social connection and answered her fantastically trite questions with equal measures of grace and humility. However, in this contest of straw-throwing she came armed with a pitchfork and dug away heartily until she finally hit upon the not-so-proverbial, "last straw." She had the nerve to ask me what size razor she should use. Seriously? Cosmetology is the easiest degree one can possibly earn at a vocational college (I know this based on the people I've seen earn it). I don't know much about cutting hair, or the techniques or tricks but I feel that if I spent 14 months cutting wigs off of Styrofoam heads I would at least have some sort of concept of how to do my own job. Besides, I'm a guy. I'm paying you $20 for 8 minutes of work, I'm not asking you to feather my hair, or dye it, or style it, or anything like that, but to simply cut it. If I take my car to a mechanic and he (or, let's be modern here, she) asks me which tools he she use to fix it, I'm going to another mechanic. If my gardener (whose name is Mr. Hypothetical) knocks on my door and asks, "Should I use a mower or a weed-eater here?" I'm going to kick him in the nuts, knee him in the face, grab him by the ear and spin him around three times, and then throw him down my front porch steps (assuming I'm having a bad day). There's a reason I haven't been back to get my hair cut since, and that reason is because I H8 IT!

LV: Old Men In Hats
            Old men are fantastic. Sometimes I just look at them and think, "Wow, these people used to be humans too." It's amazing to look at a picture of a baby, then that baby as an adult, and then finally as an old person. Some features will remain the same, but it's almost difficult to believe all three photos belong to same species, much less the same person. I was watching, "The Last Station" the other day, which stars the amazingly hot Helen Mirren and the very old Christopher Plummer. I don't think Christopher Plummer should be executed or anything, but it's shocking to look at his wrinkled visage (eyes still a'twinkling) and realize that he's the handsome devil in what is possibly the greatest movie of all time, "The Sound of Music." Yesterday an old man tottering through a parking lot stopped me to compliment my legs (these gams are equal opportunity attractors) and tell me that he couldn't wait until it got a little warmer and he could put on his own shorts. He then pulled up his jeans to show me his legs (not sure why). We chatted for a few seconds and went on our merry ways (this is a random anecdote that has nothing to do with hats, in case you're wondering).
             I still see lots of old men who wear hats. By hats I mean, of course, not baseball caps but the type of hat officially known as the, "old man hat." This is understandable because hats were an integral part of the culture for all stylish men before the cultural revolution of the late 1960s (trust me, I've seen Mad Men). How great is it though that, here we are 50 years later and these men have still refused to change their style. That's amazing to me - either they haven't noticed that everyone else quit wearing hats, or they've noticed and think that's an unacceptable development so they're going to keep the trend alive. Think of all the fashion trends that have come and gone in my lifetime alone (I was born in 1984) and pick out one that lasted 15 years, much less 60 years, borne along entirely by one generation. The longest lasting fad I can think of is baggy low-riding pants on black guys, which has been around for 20 years now. For this analogy to work suddenly this fad would have to die, with the current generation continuing to sag their pants until they were 80, while all the generations yet to come wearing their pants normally. Old guys don't give a damn, and for that, I LV 'em.