By Mike Marino What the hell is it about camping that puts to much macho in the males concept of machismo?
Under careful study, and years of camping and backpacking. I have come to the conclusion that it is one of the triggers that sets off the desire of the male of the species to return to an era of mountainmen, mountain women, all raggedy, rough and rustic.
The trend ...has been growing since the 1950's when the workforce was forced into a world of cubicles..cubism not of an artistic nature. Cubes smaller than most jail cells. The conformity of white shirts, suits, wing tip shoes, and golf. Carts replaced exercise on the links, and the backyard bbq replaced the roaring campfire in the forest. Humankind had finally been domesticated and like livestock, ambled about aimlessly, identity lost, a stranger in it's own backyard. The good American walked in a straight line, colored inside the lines, and kept thier politics to themselves. They were in effect, tamed and trained, or more realistically..had their balls cut off by society. The metrosexual evolutionary emasculation of the species continues and today..a new low has been reached...The Manicured Man!
It's time to camp up the amps...breakout and return of the world of real manly man Manhood! Mountain Manhood! Plaid and proud manhood...Cock sure manhood!
Today's male shows this desire in many ways. The backyard barbeque..strictly a male domain. The briquets aromatically hypnotizing him into thinking that he is the one who recently discovered "fire" as he holds his tongs like a scepter ruling over his backyard empire and his "tribe" looks on with worhipful gaze. Then there is the metro-male, gently manicured with a bit of a mince in his gait shuns the basic grill..no! For him it's the deluxe gas job, silver and shiny. A real penis extender if there ever was one. A Cadillac in stature and size that is more at home on the Bravo Channel than on the Outdoor Sportsman! Metro-man is not Paul Bunyan..he is Emeril!
The briquet man and grill man are the old man and the sea...tempest tossed, salty and nauti as hell. The silver grill male is a landlubber by comparison who doesn't want to break a nail.
The briquet man is also the purist, trying to get back in harmony and in synch with the earth. He is the campfire man in disguise who revels when he sits around a campfire in the woods at night, and the smoke envelopes him and permeates his red plaid shirt. The marking of the campfires territory and the right of passage of the night in the woods. He pisses proudly in the great outdoors and proclaims loudly.."I don't need no stinkin' urinal!" He also forgoes the comfort of sissy silk, preferring the hard lumpy ground, the cold wet dew in the morning, the coyote howl in the distance..it all combines to camp up the amps and show him the way through the portal to escape the world of the 21st Century office cubicles, suits and ties, cable tv, social networks, cellphones, computers, debit cards and Walmart!
There are many ways to camp up the amps to bring the "mountaineer" to the surface in todays somewhat soft male longing to escape his role, inside he knows, he is not just manly man..he is Mad Max and maxed out on civilization.
There is camping, and then there is backpacking. Two different disciplines altogether. Backpacking requires a hiking stick and a good pair of shoes and layered clothing. Camping today for most requires a cooler and a blow up mattress! Then there is the matter of the tent. In backpacking the use of a small, two man tent is pre-requisite if a tent is used at all. A two man tent used to sound rugged, now, thanks to Bill Clinton it sounds like code for a "don't ask, don"t tell tent" and you can't call it a pup tent as it sounds worse! Why it's not called a two woman tent is beyond me. Guys do enjoy that sort of thing you know, and pay good money just to watch!
The backpacker, or foot camper enjoys seclusion in the forest, the KOA and Jellystone Park camper enjoys others around them, crows on a pile of roadkill who bring every shred of civilization with them, stringing up garish tiki lites as though they were outlaws at a mass hanging in the town square, and proudly showing off the Airstream as some sort of giant highway traveling suppository going straight up the asphalt ass!
The conversation around the RV and the Airstream wagon train usually follows a well trodden path of technical tales of everything from the vehicles toilet pump system, to the mobile satellite dish, GPS system and sound system. Nothing about starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Hell! Campfire? Christ just turn on the stove inside...ah..nothing like trying to get away from it all, but instead, bring it all with you on your "natural" quest for solitude and simplicity! Tao has gone tech!
Then there is the backyard barnyard mechanic with a 20 year old beat up pick up truck with a camper cap on the back used when going to his favorite fishing hole. It's not luxury digs, but who needs it...it is more on the lines of a V-8 foxhole on wheels. It has canned goods, a fishing pole, a twelve pack of red, white and blue, a beat up map no longer used as he knows the direction and where he is going and where he belongs. He is the last of the rugged individuals..the Robert Mitchum of the outdoors, while the mechanized camper who stays on the beaten path is Liberace, with sequins replacing the dancing sparks of the camfire as they rise in the air at night creating their own light show.
The unmanly man shops for outdoor wear by mail-order or at the mall. The manly man shops at the army navy surplus and Goodwill stores. The unmanly man camps at a RV campground with flush toilets, the manly man digs his own pit and fills the holy chalice. Shower? Forgettaboutit...the campfire smoke is all the body wash you need in the woods. The cool morning air is your alarm clock and the stoking of the fire to bring it to a roaring blaze is your bugle call to the world.
So reclaim your balls...be a manly man once again. Throw your nail clippers away, and chew those fingernails like you used to do..when you were free, liberated. Cancel the Bravo Channel and tune in Red Green, throw away the silk sheets and buy tons of duct tape instead. (Now there's a fun product for both sexes!) Get plaid, get proud, yell at the top of your lungs like you got a pair, "I am manly man..and dammit...I got my balls back!"