‘Too-Ism’ Rules Can Help Men Have It All

Writer Bob Shacochis offers up his rules for men who want to have their cake and eat it too — what he calls simply “Too-ism:”

“Rule One: Hook up with the right gal, a steadily marvelous partner who understands that having your loud, whiffy self around all the time is a cruel and unreasonable burden. If you’re a guy’s guy, you don’t have this skill. If you’re a guy’s guy, in all likelihood you cohabit with a bimbo, a trophy, or a slave girl, having never developed an appreciation for non-clingy babes with brains.

“Rule Two: Whatever it is you’re doing out there on the prowl beyond your assigned borders, leave it where you found it and never fall in love with another woman, another life, another you.

“Rule Three: Have it in your heart to always go home. If fidelity to a lifestyle or a woman or an instinct for completeness has a bottom line, there it is — the irresistibility of going home, back to the pillowed embrace of domesticity, until the restlessness takes hold again.” (From April Men’s Journal)

* Facts of life: Nearly 44,000 U.S. women had their breast implants removed in 1998. Soon thereafter, 80 percent had implants reinserted. (From February/March Ms.)

* Naked soccer players, part II: Late last year, members of the Australian national women’s soccer team took it all off for a fund-raising calendar. The calendar went into a second printing within weeks and the thousands of dollars in royalties started rolling in.

The fund-raising effort didn’t sit well with the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, though. The committee dressed down the team, but not for the full frontal nudity. The Olympic Committee was upset that the calendar used the word “Olympic” on the front, thereby breaking some important licensing regulations.

The committee was silent — at least publicly — on the issue of nudity and Olympic athletes. (From February/March Ms.)

* Dear everybody, I’m dead: Now folks can send e-mail from sort of a chat room in the sky after they’ve died.

Here’s how it works: For a small fee, you can post your last thoughts to anyone you want on FinalThoughts.com. After you’re gone, the site e-mails those letters to the folks on your list explaining everything from who gets the dog to directions for scattering the ashes.

Business has been brisk, says FinalThoughts.com founder Todd Krim.

Competition for death industry business is heating up in cyberspace. Other sites include Plan4ever.com, which matches customers with everything from florists to morticians; casketsonline.com, which offers next-day delivery of a casket; and HeavenlyDoor.com, which hosts funeral-home sites and online obituaries. (From April Wired)

* Quote of the week: “Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have — and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.” — James A. Belasco and Ralph C. Stayer, authors of “Flight of the Buffalo.” (From March Fast Company)