Bachelor Lit: The Hard Boiled Detective Novel

Sure, it's important to read the biggies: Tolstoy, Faulkner, Joyce, or Grisham so you can appear smart at cocktail parties. However, you won't get more bang for your hard boiled buck than you do from a good detective novel. For this type of manly entertainment, there is no one better than Dashiell Hammett. Good ol' Dash was the master of the detective novel but, like "The Boston Globe" says, he was "also one hell of a writer." His masterpieces, The Maltese Falcon, Red Harvest, and The Thin Man still stand up to this day as brilliant expressions of masculinity. So, read on...

but, The Maltese Falcon also made a pretty great film as well:

No Day is so Bad it Can't be Fixed with a Nap

You know what bachelors don't do enough of? Nap. Napping is glorious and should be guilt free. Society dictates that we should always be on the go. Why? Trust me, you're not that important. So, break the day up with a nap. Here's how: the Boston Globe has a nice graphic to help you out.

This Bachelor Life endorses...

Pabst Blue Ribbon! What? It has a blue ribbon, it must be good.

Can we take a moment...

and thank Zeus for Kraft Dinner.

The Bachelor Abroad

The skillful bachelor can navigate any locale whether or not he knows the language. However, there is one phrase every young man must know to survive while traveling, "What do you want to drink?"

Memorize these:

French: Que voulez-vous boire?

German: Was möchten Sie trinken?

Spanish: ¿Qué usted quiere beber?

Portuguese: Que você quer beber?

Italian: Che cosa volete bere?

Dutch: Wat wilt u drinken?

Greek: Τι θέλετε να πιείτε?

Happy Traveling!

The Sporting Life - Guys Night In

I've always held that a key aspect of the Bachelor life was never forgetting your male friends. So, I'm going to implore all of you gents out there to return to the simple pleasures of watching sports on TV with some beer and your best friends. It's exactly what you need to recharge because you needn't worry about seeming witty or charming. You can just ball bust with the best of them. The hotly anticipated Lakers-Celtics NBA finals is still going and so is Euro 2008 so you have no excuse. Stock the fridge.

How to Tie a Bow Tie

The Bow tie is not just another type of pasta. Make no mistake, every man must know how to tie a bow tie. I know I know, it's excessively hard and the diagrams are impossible to follow but with a little persistence even a chimp could learn how to tie one. Here's how:

If this diagram doesn't work (and trust me, it won't), you're lucky enough to live in the era of YouTube. There are dozens of helpful videos for bow tie tying. Here's just one:

The Hat is Back

There was no more refined age than when men wore hats. Then on January 20th 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated sans chapeau and men's fashion was changed forever. JFK aside, when you wear a hat you feel at least 10% more dashing and a new breed of stylish gentlemen are bringing the hat back, baby. So, the first step is to familiarize yourself with all the different types of hats out there. Wikipedia is always a first good place to look. After you've picked a style, all you have to do is bask in all your haberdasher glory. Pip pip!

What's it All About?

Gentlemen and enlightened ladies,

The first film entered into the bachelor film hall of fame is "Alfie" from 1966 starring Michael Caine. Caine, a bachelor legend in real life as well, plays the title character, a cynical cockney who drifts from bird to bird having adult adventures and breaking the fourth wall. Unlike other gender reversed Cinderella films, Alfie does not use his significant ability with the ladies for status mobility or other perks. He is content to stay where he is, as a working class limo driver, as long as he has plenty of women to love and leave. The Swingin' 60's of London are on full display and it becomes apparent that for all its alleged liberation and debauchery, it was still very much a man's world. "Alfie" also shows the dark side of living entirely for one's self. When Alfie is forced to come face to face with the consequences of his callousness, it is truly heartbreaking, and the audience that has lived vicariously through Alfie for nearly the entire film realizes, along with Alfie, that all the suits and all the birds don't mean a thing if you ain't got peace of mind. A must watch for any aspiring bachelor.

Bonus points for the music by the legendary Burt Bacharach.

A Gentleman's Feast

Jonathan Swift once said, “Bachelor's fare: Bread, cheese, and kisses.” I'm sure if the great Irish author had been alive during the electronic age he would have added one more thing; microwaveable dinners. Besides pizza and beer, there is no bigger staple in the bachelor's diet than a good microwaveable dinner. Certainly, you're going to want to learn how to cook. You'll need that skill for hosting elegant dinner parties and impressing women with your culinary expertise. However, cooking an elaborate meal for one is a tremendous waste of time. Time that could be better spent learning archery, how to tie knots, and how to make a really good Gimlet. Trust me, the microwave is your friend. For instance, here is a picture of my real life freezer:

The Eternal Allure of the Crazy Girl

We've all dated her. We've all woken up in the middle of the night to the sounds of our girlfriend simultaneously sobbing and baking. Who among us hasn't spent days in the doghouse over something you did to her in her DREAM? Who hasn't had a drink thrown in their face over what any rational human being would consider to be an innocuous comment? Sure, we've all been there. However, we bachleors are truly the ones at fault here. We keep going back to the crazy girl well again and again when scores of perfectly lovely sane women are out there. What is the eternal appeal of dating unstable women?

Details magazine tried to answer that question last month.

Myself, I think a lot of men have a subconscious desire to make their lives difficult. What Freud would call the "Death Wish." Couple that with every man's desire to be needed and to take care of their romantic partner and the average man has no chance against the crazy girl. I think this comic encapsulates the phenomenon well:

In Praise of Plagiarism...

More words to live by from W. Somerset Maugham:

"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."

Delivering a good line can be just as effective as coming up with one yourself.

Note: Not good advice for academic essays.

Some essentials...

Bachelorhood is a declaration of independence. As a result, there are certain things every bachelor, nay every man, must know how to do themselves and it extends beyond programming the VCR. Toward that end, Esquire magazine put together a good little list of 75 things every man should know how to do here.

Commit them to memory, oldboys. The world is quickly becoming populated by pasty, flabby bloggers. Trust me, I know better than anyone.

Wednesday Wit

Brilliant English poet Alexander Pope wrote,
"Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join"

To Mr. Pope I would reply in the form of a limerick:

There was once a poet named Pope,
To kiss a girl he could but hope.
He sat in his Grotto,
To cry and get blotto,
It was the only way to cope.

Aww snap, that's a burn... a seventeenth century burn.

Bachelor of Bachelors

Greetings,

This Bachelor would like to extend to you a most hearty welcome. Most will agree that being a bachelor in the city has its perks and its downsides. Some of you out there may think that this blog is going to be devoted to curing you of your bachelor propensities with tips for pairing you up with the mythical "Mrs. Right." Well, that's simply not the case. Bachelorhood is not a disease in need of a cure. In fact, it is a cure in and of itself. It is This Bachelor's firm belief that no man can be a proper contributor to society unless he has had a prolonged period of unabashed and unrepentent bachelordom. It is what used to be called sowing your wild oats. Certainly, there are certain benefits to being in a steady relationship but most of them are counteracted by the mere fact that your Thursday night is not dominated by "Grey's Anatomy." Lapsing bachelor Hugh Hefner once said, "The notion of the single man began in the 1950's. The idea of the bachelor as a separate life was new and obscure." Well, I say it is time for a bachelor's renaissance of sorts. This blog will provide you chaps, so beaten down by the anti-bach agenda, with the tools necessary to be an elegant man about town. Expect features on food, drink, culture, politics, women, fashion and the good life in general...

This site's manifesto comes down to one question. American humorist and wet blanket said of us, "A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever. " I ask, why should we?