Let’s talk about my feelings for a while, shall we? I write this last self-consciously because I’ve got a book based on “Peep Show” making the rounds of publishers and so far we’ve gotten a lot of “Berger’s story is well-rendered . . . but I’m more interested in a book that delves into the world of ideas about the “Natural History of Lust” (the working title) than about Berger’s personal history.” I find this a bit distressing, both because I think I wrote a proposal that (and that “Peep Show” is an essay that) both deals with my specific, to use a really really tired term, issues, regarding being the horny porn-viewing male child of a second-wave feminist, who later became obsessed with and eventually had an affair with a stripper (er, that’s me, not my mom, there), but also about more global issues of maleness and feminism and objectification and porn and love and sexuality and relationships. The way I get to the larger ideas is through the specific, and my own specifics are, of course, what I know best. This here being a blog, I suppose I’m expected/allowed to write about me, but now I’m hesitant to even do that. But I’ll try anyway, for you, gentle readers.
So the other day I reading the New Yorker in that special place where I usually read the NYer, you know (see, it’s the personal details like that that allow me to address the universal – everyone poops!), and I came a cross one of those superspecial advertising inserts that are glossier and on thicker paper than normal and are usually four or more pages long. This one was for CIT, a vague, financial company whose mission statement reads thusly:
“We will be the leading global finance company, driving economic growth and creating opportunities for businesses and people around the world. Building on a century of experience, we provide innovative financial solutions and services—bringing knowledge, expertise and creativity to every client relationship. As we grow, our clients, communities and stakeholders will prosper with us.”
I reckon that means they supposedly do something, have done something for a “century of experience” that involves turning lots of money into even more money. The spread featured a business maverick named Kenny Dichter who’s one of the founders of a company called Marquis Jet. As best as I can tell, Marquis Jet is a time-share program for Leer Jet type planes. It’s a way for people who are just very rich but not quite ridiculously, disgustingly rich to use as much jet fuel as they can—er, to fly around in a “private” jet.
Everything about the ad is rife with everything I despise about business and the masculinity that goes with it, about men and the things they desire. This ad is geared toward businessMEN who want to be propelled through space in their own rocket ship, or maybe toward a few business women who happen to have extra high levels of testosterone.
Actually, and this is a wicked big digression, but I’d love to hear from m-to-f transsexuals about reductions in testosterone and its effect. I’ve spoken with people who’ve gone from female to male about the rush, the power of that particular man-chemical, but I haven’t heard much about what I would imagine the calming influence is of the lack of it. I’ve often thought that it would be interesting to, if it were medically possible, drastically reduce my testosterone level for a month. I suppose I could try jerking off and/or having sex four or more times a day, but then I think I’d just sleep a lot. I suppose the thought that’s bouncing vaguely around in this is that the behavior that I think of as the-evil-that-men-do is really closely associated with testosterone, with dominating, winning, flying around in your own jet, pumping your fists and going “YEEAHHHH!!!!”
The behavior I watch now that I’m back behind the bar, owning a bar, the way men act toward women, toward other men, with such intense aggression, and toward me, either puffing themselves up to speak to me, the OWNER, or humble themselves before me, the OWNER, or want to challenge me, the OWNER, it all seems to have to do with aggression, which I associate with testosterone. Perhaps a biologist could chime in here, or even write a post?
In our first month of being open, my proudest moment at the Rendezvous was our “Cabaret de Voo” night, the night we booked six local acts to play or read. Some of these kids in our town, high school drop-outs many of them, the rest without much or any college, are fantastic musicians, and I’ve been able to give them one of their first venues besides the sidewalk in front of the village cafe, their first payment for their work (we passed the hat, made them $7/each!). The show was a great success, the place was packed, the kids were incredible. But a couple of people noted that we didn’t sell much (these kids are broker than broke, with rotten teeth to prove they’re not faking it) that night, that maybe we should try to book older people for that show. This just killed me, it’s just once a month, these kids are artists we can cultivate (and I’m going to begin booking them with bigger acts from the area and beyond), and everyone was so happy at the show. I’m just not a businessman when it comes down to such things – I care as much, okay more, too much, about creating a great space for an underserved population than I do about making money. I just don’t want to be the Man, I don’t care about winning. Or, I don’t care about winning the money game more than helping some people win the art game, than creating an incredible community space. Luckily – I guess – I have partners and employees who are more focused on that bottom line of the spreadsheet.
But back to CIT and Marquis Jet. Here are some Manly quotes from Kenny, that “maverick” of business:
“You want to be strong in peace time so that if you need to go to war, you’re ready for it. If you sweat in peace time, you don’t bleed as much when it’s time to go to battle. And I think we really work hard on keeping our troops and people that work here at high alert any point in time to handle something.”
“No never means no. It means “no, not now.” If you ever took the “no” mentality as a sales guy, you would never get an order. So “no” – that’s when you start selling. If you’re a sales person, if you took no for an answer, you’d never sell anything. And if it’s always yes, you’re just an order taker. There are a lot of people that think they’re sales people that are not. They’re selling a hot product, and they’re taking orders. The real sales guys start selling when the person across the table says “no.””
“One of the sports I played in childhood was basketball. Although I look like a linebacker today, I was a point guard, and my job was always to measure the success of the team by one stat – did we win or did we lose? I think I play that position at work — you surround yourself with guys that are actually better than you and smarter than you but keep the team together. In basketball you try to keep them on the court and keep winning. In business, you just got to keep everybody happy.”
“In America, it’s a culture where people work 12 hours a day. Entrepreneurs, people in the finance business, people that have reached the tops of all their businesses, whether it’s entertainment, sports?it’s a validation of hard work. If you’ve earned it, you can fly the best, and that’s really how we’ve positioned the brand.”
There’s also a series of video interviews “hosted by notable business strategist and journalist Andrew Shapiro” with Mr. Dichter (who doesn’t come across quite as hackneyed on camera as he does in print) that I could go on about for another few thousand words, but I’ll spare us. Suffice to say it reeks of dotcom era layers upon layers of bullshit, of a company selling bottled air promoting themselves through a client who sells airplane timeshares.
Perparing for war, winning by being a leader of men, being the top of the heap and getting your just desserts, and learning that “no” really doesn’t mean “no” at all – to a one, axiomatic elements of being a successful American male in business, in the bedroom, on the playing field/battlefield that is the life of the business warrior. Yeah, sure, somebody has to do it, to WIN, but what’s so much more gravely needed are men to stand up and say that these “ideals” of success, of manliness are, in large part, just plain ugly and just plain wrong, that they are misguided ideals. That what’s defined what it means to be a man for as long as we seem to remember is just not acceptable. Is this just too obvious? It feels kind of obvious right about now.
