Where's the Field and Stream?

Why are there always chic magazines at the doctor's office? Where are the Car and Driver, Field and Stream or Maxim magazines. And if you do find one it is dog-eared and missing the cover. Baby drool is often found on them too. It's not enough for there to be almost all chic mags, the few guy mags are abused too. How many times have you wanted to find the shooting specs on the new new Sig Saur 45 caliber handgun only to find out that some rug rat had torn that page of Guns & Ammo to shreds. This isn't the only instance of what subversive male bashing. There are others, like on television. When was the last time that you saw a woman made fun of in a commercial? Maybe 1934? A perfect example of a television ad: We see this chic talking on the phone (subject for another rant) telling her chick bud about how she has been eating apple pie and all sort of good things while the man in the background are looking for these things is the fridge. She's talking about yogurt but of course the guy doesn't know about this. So we are supposed to laugh at his apparent stupidity. Even in that pseudo-entertainment of the situation comedy, the male is always the butt of the jokes. I mean, that this goes back a long way in history. Cleopatra made fun of Mark Antony. We men just need a little respect...and more magazines.

After all, we can write our names in the snow!

New Product

Needless to say, I promote the Snowshark Preservation Society. The addition of this product will allow you to increase the probability dramatically for viewing this incredible cryptozoological creature. Your information is greatly need in our ongoing research. Other new projects include tracking the sightings via Google Earth.Visit the Snowshark Preservation Society today by clicking the link at the right.

Jack's Cosmic Dogs

It's B-a-c-k-

It's back. After quite a few years of being is disrepair the Snowshark Preservation Society is back online. I had to do some revamping but all the old but necessary information is there. As some of you know the Society exists for the preservation of the crytozoological creatures. While many of know about the SPS and it's goals, you may not know how it began. here is that story.

I had taken a job in the northeast, upstate New York to be exact, and as a southerner was enduring my first winter there. I had never seen so much snow. one day I said to one of my co-workers, "Man, in all this snow you better be on the look-out for snowsharks!" He, of course, didn't know what they were. i had heard of them back in the days of my youth from a rock-n-roll deejay. I did embellish the snowshark story a bit on how they would literally consume anything in their path. A few days later he said that his grandmother thought she had seen and was sure that it had eaten her tomcat. I began to get reports of sightings from others. After work one day while having a few Gennies with my buds the Snowshark Preservation Society was birthed. We talked of organizational structure and publicity and marketing and all those business things. Of course we had to have a logo. And, yes, the logo was designed on a napkin. That is how the SPS began.

See the Snowshark Preservation Society at http://geocities.com/jack_young_us/

The Last Refuge of Man

I believe that the last refuge for men is disappearing. I mean, how many barbershops have you seen lately? They are part of my memories for sure. I still remember when my dad would take me to the barber. It was actually below street level in a small southern town. It was as bright as day in there as with mirrors on two walls behind gleaming black leather upholstered white and chrome barber chairs. And then there was the barber in a starched white shirt with a tie knotted perfectly. His hair cut was immaculate and he had a brush sticking out of the back pocket of his dark trousers. He would put a padded board across the chair arms for me to sit on. His hands turned my head into the proper position for the electric clippers to do their job. In a few minutes he was finished with a sprinkling of talc and a quick brushdown. He gave me a lolip9p and I waited while Dad got his hair cut. I looked at the pictures in the hunting and fishing magazines.Businessmen would come in for haircuts and shaves. Some of them while waiting would get their shoes shined by the old black man who had a shoeshine chair in one corner of the shop. He would sometimes sing a little song and play a little tune with the shine rage on his customers shoes. As I grew older I noticed the odors of hot lather and Wildroot Cream Oil. Yes, there was a time for Butch Wax which was about the time I noticed the scantily clad women on the Lucky Tiger hair tonic bottle.

Barber shops gave way to styling salons and shops that cut both men and women's hair. Men started getting razor cuts and perms. And most of the haircutting was done by women. Now more bottles of Lucky Tiger. No more Hunting and fishing magazines. What was a guy to do?

Not so long ago in a strip mall I found a place with a that rare symbol. Right outside the store front there it was gently turning in the morning that red, white and blue sign which I sought: a barber pole.

So I just had to go in. I needed a haircut since I didn't go to those other places unless I had to. The shop had three chairs and the wall behind them was covered with mirrors. I could smell the hot lather and I believe I saw a bottle of Lucky Tiger on the shelf. I took a seat and awaited my turn. While waiting I checked out the latest issues of Sports Afield and Road and Track. There was some Allman Brothers playing on the music system You know: "...I was born in the back of a Greyhound bus goin' down highway 41..." There was a lot of talking going on around me. Guys were discussing hunting and fishing and that surgically enhanced girl on Bay Watch. Some fella asks me, "Do you ever think that Dale Jr. will get his act together?"

By the time I got into the chair there was hardly any one was left. I got the full treatment: shave shampoo, haircut AND a scalp massage. Boy did I feel good! I paid the barber and when in came a young woman in jeans and a western shirt. She doffed the cowboy had plopped herself down in the chair and said, "A little off the sides, Hank!"

I haven't been back. you see, don't need to.