Meet The Blogger

The Thurber Brigade has been blogging for eight years now.  Blogging initially about relationships and the interaction between men and women, but expanding to politics, daily living and more. Well, it's about time to give a little insight into this clever (in his mind) writer. So below is a short pictorial history of the author.

My writing space, early days

As noted, I'm a writer and you can see the books on the right side of the page. I've written short stories and news articles as well as political pamphlets and okay, graffiti in bathrooms.

In the past, I was an academic advisor at The University of Texas.

Advising at UT

Orienting new students

Years ago, I was a grunt (infantry) in the 82nd Airborne.

Jungle training in Panama

A young paratrooper

 

Scotland, Australia, The UK, Europe, Panama, Mexico, Canada are the places I've visited overseas.

Jay at Loch Lomond

Jay at Sydney Harbour

Hiking in the mountains is one of my favorite pastimes.

Avalanche Lake, Glacier NP

Hurricane Ridge, Olympic NP

Boy, do I love sports, especially hockey.

Jay at The Joe

Meeting Lord Stanley

 

 

 

 

 

Besides watching and playing sports, I've also coached and reffed (I could mention a book I wrote about coaching, but never got it published).

In action

Jay the Coach

Just finished reffing, coaching in rec league

 

I'm pretty fond of going to beer festivals too.

At GABF with St. Arnold

Oregon Brewers Fest

Over the years, I've had numerous pets.

Jay's Posse (circa 2012)

The Copy (cat) Editor

Well, like most people, I have tons of pictures (click on these to see larger version), but this should give you a little more background behind the poison pen at The Thurber Brigade. Sorry, no childhood pictures. Gotta save those for Part II at some later date.

 Okay, just one.

Zorro!

Ahhh, James Thurber

Okay, I know this blog may appear vain and self-glorious. A bunch of pictures of Jay? Sheesh. Well, it may seem that way but it's really more of a touch of laziness and distractions too many to count. I wanted to have some sort of blog for January, but hey, I watched a little too much football, got too excited about politics and maybe celebrated a few holidays a little too much. I'll get back to my more snarky, funny and maybe a little insightful blogs real soon. Trust me.

Rejection

In the bottom drawer of one of my file cabinets sit hundreds of rejection letters.  These are from publishers, editors, agents, etc. for countless submissions of books, articles and stories.  Some of the letters are nice; some include reasons why; some, probably the majority, are soulless standardized form letters. All have the same impact: momentary depression, then resolve to try again.

Did I mention I was stubborn?

Of course, like most guys I’ve had twice that amount (or more) of rejections from women.  It ranges from the rejection by the girl of my dreams when I was 10 to my request to sit by her in the school lunchroom, to that night at The Continental Club when 10 different women turned down my request to dance (several were even dancing in place as if they were keen to hit the dance floor).

Oh, and let me bring up here how men are required to make First Contact—as I’ve blogged before. So although the rejection still stings, we guys get used to the soul wrenching experience. No, we're not immune to the pain of the psychological slap to the face, but we drive on regardless.

I bring rejection up because it is tied to the notorious “#metoo” phenomenon.  It's closely related to my blog about cat calling.  Some men are good at approaching females, some not so much.  Some smooth, some irresponsibly boorish.  Some can knock off a woman's socks with a line, some get their blocks knocked off for saying something crass.

So a natural outgrowth of this is that some men who know they are required to make the first move, take it too far.  Those who have a little prestige or power, may even begin to use that status to push the envelope.  Some of these even enter the realm of going waaaay too far (sexual assault).

Now understand that I’m not implying that because men must make First Contact it's okay to be a little aggressive as long as you don't go too far.  I am however implying that women have a hand in this.  No, not blame for it, but responsibility for initiating an almost Pavlovian-ingrained male trait.

Before all those angry feminists that harangue me start tweeting away, let me give an example of what I’m getting at here.  Let's say that I’m walking down the rough streets of some city openly counting a wad of money.  Within a block I get mugged.  Probably 9 out of 10 people will say “well, what did you expect?”  Oh, they may say the mugger is the guilty party, but they'll also strongly suggest that I precipitated the robbery.

So why can't women understand that they have a hand in creating the situation that precipitated the #metoo problem?  Just like I shouldn't be blamed for getting robbed, women shouldn't be blamed for some guy accosting them.  Just like I shouldn't be blamed for waving around a bunch of money, they shouldn’t be blamed for wearing provocative clothing or walking too close to a coworker. 

However, just like I must recognize that I may have set up the chance to be robbed, women should understand that by not taking a hand in starting a relationship they are guiding a male behavior pattern. 

Face it, men have always been aggressive when it comes to meeting females. It began when cave men would kill to claim a fertile woman to take back to the cave, transformed to a sailor home on leave from the war in the Pacific hitting on the girl serving sodas at the drug store and morphed into today's bar scene of some guy asking to dance.

 "Cathy" by  Cathy Guisewite

Along the way, humankind has changed and modernized, but for some reason, women taking a hand in First Contact never has. So they've championed for the right to vote and equal rights, but stayed mum on taking responsibility to get a relationship off the ground. 

So excuse me if I only give passing acknowledgment to those #metoo advocates.  No, guys shouldn't assault women or abuse them verbally, but until women make a change in behavior themselves, expect guys to make as many unwise approaches as smooth ones.  After all, I've learned to never take cash out of my wallet until absolutely needed.

Baby You Can Drive My Car, Part II

Probably about 99% of the people here in the US are good, decent people no matter their politics, religious views, etc.  However, put them behind the wheel of a car and that percentage drops rapidly.  Maybe only about 45%.  Oh sure, I admit I can get a little crazy behind the wheel too.  Not so much the raging nut who points a gun at a guy who passes him, but likely the guy who will slow down if the guy behind me turns on his high beams.  Oh, and I shout a lot at people who can't hear me. You know, the bad drivers.  Such as the guy who turns on his signal as he makes a turn instead of before.

Anyway, when I wrote my blog about women drivers back in 2014 it created a firestorm of anger from feminists (like people with road rage but without the guns—or cars).  Even though I pointed out how women always complain about men drivers, and even though I was real general and didn't say all women or many women, in fact it probably only related to about four.  These angry women went nuts.

 They harassed me on Twitter and Facebook, complained to HR at the place I used to work at and unfriended or blocked me on social media.

The truth about that blog though is that every mannerism I complained about could just as easily apply to men.  For example, I may see more "creepers" (you'll have to see the previous blog) who are male than female.  That is, all the mannerisms except one:

I honestly believe that females have no clue about how to react at a four-way stop.

When you come to a 4-way stop and you see that your opponent is a female, nine times out of ten you should drive on no matter that you got there after she did.  If you get there simultaneously, regardless that she is to the right, go ahead and drive on.  She will not go.

I have been walking past a 4-way stop and observed on numerous occasions three women pull up to the stop.  Invariably, it will be at least ten seconds before anyone dares to go.  That's an eternity to a male in that situation.

I have also been the last to get to an intersection with two other males and a female—who got there first—and all of the males drove on before she did.

In the previous blog I swore this failure to navigate a traffic situation boiled down to them not being able to make decisive decisions quickly.  That's still a possibility, but it could also be because of a few other stereotypical ideas we guys assign to females:

- Fear of breaking the rules

- Fear of offending someone

- Fear of making everyone angry

- Fear of doing the wrong thing

These aren't bad things.  It could mean that they are more agreeable, more loving, kinder, etc. and so they yield to others to display this quality.  

To males though, it means...well, I'll leave that to the millions of female bloggers to tell us what men think.  Just rest assured that The War Between Men and Women is acted out every day at those 4-way stops.   

Think I'll get a lawn chair and go sit at one to see it all play out—and to get more material for future blogs.

Ahhh, James Thurber

We at The Thurber Brigade wish to apologize for those offended by this blog.  We wish to, but we don't because, well, women just don't seem to understand 4-way stops.  James Thurber understood 4-way stops although with his bad eyesight we guess he didn't drive much.

The General(ist)

One of the funniest TV shows to air happened years ago: Seinfeld.  A "show about nothing."  In one particular hilarious episode, the gang wandered aimlessly around a mall parking lot looking for their car.  Jerry desperately needs "to go" and Kramer suggests he just go in the corner.  He comes up with some excuse why he believes it is okay, so Jerry shrugs and goes off to do his business.  Of course, he gets arrested.

The reason I bring this up, besides that it's a fun memory from the past, is that this happens in the show all the time.  The characters always just accept each other's statement as truth.  They believe the person knows what he/she talks about.  All forms of mayhem usually follow and we get to enjoy their antics to try to overcome the situation.

This is similar in blogging.  When we bloggers type out our posts, most people assume we're experts, or at least, know what we're talking about.  Oh, I'm sure in some cases this could be true especially if it is some specific and maybe technical subject (How to bake the perfect birthday cake, etc.), but for the most part the reality is that we are "Generalists.”  We speak in generalities or with a biased perspective.We know a little about a lot.

 

My classic example concerns the blog I wrote about women drivers.  Boy, did that piss off some radical feminists (ok, maybe a number of none extreme females too).  The reason why they became outraged was because when I said, "women were indecisive drivers" they equated it to mean ALL women were that way--even though I never said a quantity.  They didn't take it into account that maybe it could just be some, a few, or, what it really was, only the handful I have encountered at a 4-way stop.  I generalized.

I see this in other blogs all the time, especially women's blogs.  They rant about evil men and how we may have only evolved slightly in the past millennia--which may be true--but more than likely should be thought of as a general statement about some of the guys she knows.

We see this a LOT in politicians.  They are experts in talking generally.  This is so they can walk back what they said after it's shown they are complete assholes.

"The media mis-represented what I said" is the most common way for them to escape the firestorm they created by opening their mouths.

As you can guess, advertisers specialize in this.  With words like "natural" "organic" "environmentally-friendly" and other general words, they twist and turn the truth to their liking.  What?  You thought that apple you bought was organic?  Well, it is a fruit and grows on a tree, so yeah, it's organic.  It also is sprayed with insecticide, fed weird chemicals to help it grow and goes through other less than natural processes.  But it is organic.

Sometimes the government will step in and insist there be a little less generality to a statement.  For example, a drink can't call itself  "juice" unless it's 100% from the fruit.  In other words, orange juice is different than orange drink which might have all forms of other ingredients included. But even here they can be sneaky. For example, a cherry drink could say it has real juice in it, but that juice might not be the cherry you think it should have.  Most likely it's grape juice with cherry flavoring. The ad would be something like this: Blobo Cherry Drink-with real juice.

Ah, generality.

So just like you should look with skepticism at advertising, especially that by politicians, remember to be cautious about us bloggers too.  Most bloggers welcome, and encourage, comments.  So the next time a blogger tells you "a funny thing happened to me today," be sure and ask if it really happened today, did it really happen to him/her or a person near him/her and maybe whether he/she might be embellishing a bit?  Be friendly though.  We bloggers have very fragile egos (generally speaking).