Be a Man!

So, I settled in for the evening to expand my cultural palette by watching some bone-snapping, pupil-dilating, testosterone-boiling professional hockey. Of course, it wasn't on any of the sports channels - instead, it was on OLN (that's the Outdoor Life Network for you 'slickers). Even worse, it wasn't even on OLN like it was supposed to be, but I'll get back to that in a sec.

The OLN is a unique color in the television spectrum. It plays host to the Tour de France, the Boston Marathon and Survivor: Crab Nebula. It also boasts a roster of multiple animal hunting, tracking, and killing shows. This is not a network for vegans. You won't find Moby's Watercress Cook-Off or commercials for Mahatma Gandhi burgers (the "Gand-wich" is a real mover at patchouli-scented festivals). Pick a random time of the day, turn on OLN and you'll inevitably see some once-breathing animal hanging upside down ready for gutting, stuffing, and/or mounting. It's a chest hair network. Watch an hour or so of it and feel your canine teeth stretch and throb like vampiric stalactites. Watch two hours of it, and get ready to eat your meat raw. Watch three hours or more of it and your penis grows five inches. For this reason, I recommend women watch no more than two hours' worth of OLN.

Getting back to the more civilized programming of professional hockey, OLN provides National Hockey League (NHL) coverage every Monday and Tuesday evening. Me? I'm a hockey fan - I've been one all my life. I remember the Broad Street Bullies that were the Philadelphia Flyers of the mid-1970's, I've watched Wayne Gretzky from his first NHL game until his last, I've seen scoring go up down and now back up again. I witnessed the majesty of a Stanley Cup parade. I played it in summer, taping bricks to both sides of my stick blades and stickhandling a tennis ball across a root-laced lawn, I played it on video, banged the hell out of the garage door with the orange Mylec ball, played it in the basement, got the snot beat out of me by the larger Catholic school kids while still beating them on the scoreboard. If a big kid wanted to punch me, I would duck, but if that bigger kid's even BIGGER brother tried to cross-check me during a game, I'd put my stick between his legs and knock his ass hard onto the cement. I was a skinny, scythe-wielding bringer of street hockey death and my Air-Flo stick had more notches on it than a totem pole violently hacked by Crispin Glover.

I sit down with my sandwich and iced tea and wouldn't you know it? OLN is running a Ted Nugent reality show - something called "Wanted: Ted or Alive". Now, I can get down with "Cat Scratch Fever," "Double Live Gonzo," and "Wango Tango" and other prom-theme anthems of Mr. Nugent's rock and roll days, but I had hockey on my mind. Then, a strange thing happened. I started watching it. And watching it. Then I realized it was a freaking marathon - and I was enjoying it! Hell, I was hooked. Now, good old Ted swings from a different branch on the tree of life. He's from Detroit and has never smoked, never drank, never did drugs - he just rocked and rolled. For that, he was dubbed "The Motor City Madman" with such mood-setting lyrics as "...pretend that your face is a Maserati..."

Well, good old Ted had he had these five people skinning deer, killing and eating chickens, getting plastered with paint balls, being human scarecrows. One guy allowed himself to be shaved bald, another idiot kept dropping his pants and playing the token bad-ass, one girl quit, another girl kept crying - but bless her, she kept at it, and another gal was a Xena warrior with a heart of champion gold. I'm not that big a fan of Ted's music, and his politics are polarizing, but the man sure as hell is entertaining and could probably arm a militia big enough to take down Eastern Canada - or at least Nova Scotia. He's a force of nature...would have made a hell of a hockey player.

On this show, there was so much blood, so much violence, so much sacrificing - hell, I might as well HAVE been watching a hockey game. I must have viewed at least three hours of it.

I'd better stop here. My teeth are sharpening, I crave raw meat, and if I write any more, well, the ladies? - they'll come a-knockin'.