craveonline

By Ben Fowlkes

There’s absolutely no way for a man to look cool when he’s carrying flowers. You see this all the time, no more so than on Valentine’s Day, the most saccharine of the made-up holidays.

Guy’s out on the street, a bundle of overpriced flowers wrapped up in sparkly paper, that hangdog expression on his face. Maybe he tries to tuck them into the crook of his arm like a football. Maybe he carries them upside down in a failed attempt at looking nonchalant. It doesn’t work. They’re flowers. That look of pity or disdain other men are giving him? He deserves it. What’s worse, he knows he deserves it. He’s a chump.

I don’t mean to beat up on those of our brethren who get bullied into celebrating Valentine’s Day. We’ve all been there, except perhaps for gay men, who must feel like they’re living the dream when February 14th rolls around. If there are any gay guys reading this, let me ask you: is Valentine’s Day a holiday of a different sort for you? Is it a time when you celebrate the fact that you don’t have to put up with women at all, or are you blissfully unaware of the sad fate you’ve escaped?

In the world of men, no one looks forward to Valentine’s Day. It’s stupid, and we all know it. It’s not just stupid because it was made up by candy and greeting card companies. All holidays are made up, after all. Valentine’s Day is stupid because it’s impossible to take seriously, and at the same time it’s impossible to ignore. At least, it used to be impossible to ignore. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Not if we band together.

Not too long ago I had the opportunity to spend a day and a half in the New York City lockup. Long story short, I had a disagreement on the street that got settled the old-fashioned way. One of the people I was locked up with was small-time rapper Sixty Second Assassin. If you haven’t heard of him, you aren’t alone, trust me.

In a fit of indignation that seemed typical for Sixty, he whipped all the men in the holding cells into a fury over how we were being treated. He implored everyone to resist the plea bargain they were offered. The thinking was that the judicial system relied on not having to try the majority of its cases. If everyone insisted on a trial, he claimed, the system would be overloaded. The idea met with great approval, though it was forgotten about fifteen minutes later when a freestyle rapping competition spontaneously broke out. Seriously.