Observations of a Culture in Decline Patrick Mackenzie, OP Contributor A couple of weeks ago, I decided I was too tired to cook after a long Wednesday at school. I stopped at my local pizzeria to have a beer and order a take-out pizza. After ordering, I leafed through a stack of several day-old news- papers. I stopped at The Metro, one of the ubiquitous tabloid-like free dailies that litter the Lower Mainland. On the front page, a thuggish looking guy with a waxed chest is posing in front of some kind of exercise devise-possibly a bench press, but I'm not sure-petting a Laso Opso sitting on his lap. The headline read: “The New Male.” Always intrigued by issues related to the social construction of gender, I decided to give the article a read. Remember the metrosexual, that is, the heterosexual adoption of a gay male aesthetic? Well, apparently that is so 2002. Now there's a new heterosexual male hybrid called the “softcho.” They're still macho, but soft. Get it? According to the article, softchos are guys who work as bouncers at nightclubs on Granville Street, lift weights, take steroids, play rugby, like to fight, but use moisturizer and shave their armpits. Apparently, they're really in touch with their feminine side. Excuse me while I stick my fingers down my throat and vomit! Oh my stars—I haven't had such a visceral response to cultural phenomenon in ages. The softcho? I beg your pardon but give me a macho, doofus, meathead any day, or least come up with a better moniker. Oh I know: “I'm a pathetic loser who's afraid my girlfriend's gonna dump me because I suspect somewhere deep inside I really am just a middle-of-the-road asshole.” Here's my theory: perhaps, suspecting that big dumb guys, especially bouncers, have always been kind of unpop- ular, these paid thugs, gatekeepers to the oh-so-boring het- ero Vancouver nightlife, adopt a more feminine—and I mean feminine as opposed to gay—aesthetic. I'm just theo- rizing here, but I think these guys want it both ways: they want to be accepted as cool, fashionable, and being in touch with their feminine side yet they take jobs where the prerequisite is a predilection for mean spiritedness and exclusion. It is as if by waxing their chest hair, using mois- turizer and bathing in cologne, that superficial show of fashion sensibility will cancel out their deep desires for vio- lence and control. The rationale seems to be that because they're wearing hand cream, it's okay to punch some feck- less guy's lights out. The hand cream will soften the blow; hell, it might even make it disappear. This, of course, is the height of absurdity. It's laugh- able. It's sad. Say what you will about macho men: they're sexist, they're egotistical, they wear their pants too tight around the crotch. However, they know who they are. Furthermore, the macho man is archetypal. Do you think Odysseus was concerned about body hair when he kicked the asses of the suitors macking on his old lady Penelope? Do you think that Dirty Harry Callahan was worrying if his moisturizer would hold up as he blew holes into punks the size of dinner plates with his .44 Magnum? The “softcho,” on the other hand, is an insincere expression formed out of, among other things, a shallow culture that primarily values appearances. I think we live in an age where a gap has opened up in North American cul- ture whereby exceptionally self-involved and uninteresting people can get a lot of attention. Everyone agrees that ours is a culture obsessed with celebrity; perhaps sensing that they are missing out on the action, big dumb guys are tying to carve out an identity that is simultaneously derivative and obnoxious. Their attempt to reinvent themselves using the template of a metrosexual, minus the homosexual overtones, displays their unoriginality and overt homophobia. But do we expect the bouncers for the worst nightclubs in the city to be intelligent? The only people who could possibly take these goons seriously are themselves. Their obvious hijacking of the metrosexual aesthetic and labeling it “feminine” only makes them bigger clowns than they already are. Science Mad Hatters: Continued from Pg 7 prosperity through environmental policy, attracting major Hollywood productions and diplomatic dignitaries from around the world. It is easy to see that the Sudanese peo- ple, or at least those who remain, will be living a life of Eden-esque ease in a few short years, once the nutrient rich soil begins to teem with life. The Kawasaki Korporation doesn’t nec- essarily promote the mass genocide of all people’s, though we understand the lack of internal controls in the nations cited. Which is why, with an abundance of moral indiscretion in the First world nations, I believe Canada can once again become a world leader in positive environmental poli- cies by singling out the major polluters for mass execution. There are countless Petro-Can execu- tives who would do better on their promis- es of cleaner burning fuels by simply push- ing up daisies rather than gushing up oil. Every year, Tim Horton’s produces enough garbage to build a ladder to Heaven—eight times over. As such, the Toronto Maple Leafs should be buried in the Clayoquot Sound area, where clear-cutting has left vast strips of loose soil and barren hillside. And Bob Cole should be included in that grave, too. Everywhere I turn these days, someone isn’t doing their part for the environment and it just makes me wish I had a gun. But what can I do? I’m only one man. It’s time Canada got out of the new age and went back to the old days. It’s time to legislate the mass murder of environmental enemies. If not in life, than in death they too can do their part. This is for the good of the environment... punk!