And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply…
Genesis 1:28
Evolution is a great thing. In a world without evolution only beautiful people would be able to reproduce and the Earth would be populated with the clones of Fabio (or as someone admitted – John Edwards) and Julia Roberts. Enter an unfortunate side-effect of the looks-based-reproduction, namely a gradual lowering of the worldwide average IQ. Here is where the evolution came up with an ingenious solution of supplying the below-average-looking fat males with small genitalia with a an amazing tool-set for seducing beautiful women of their dreams who otherwise wouldn’t even grant such males a second look.
My non-existent love life automatically makes me an expert perfectly qualified to write the following article. If you are a good-looking male, with a perfect body and an award-winning penis, this is how far you should read. I am pretty sure you are starting to get a headache from all the big words I’ve used so far. You’ve won in the genetic lottery and your existence assures that all of the mankind doesn’t look like me. Thanks for being there for us, go do a few crunches or something.
We can now continue without that one douche-bag who just left. Males of many species have different ways of attracting the most beautiful and unavailable females; from peacock’s tails to the giant deer antlers, the natural world is full of examples of males getting what they want when otherwise they wouldn’t have any chance. Just like our smaller brothers we have some things we can use to inject our ugly but smart DNA into the human gene pool. These do not require any special effort, like exercise or diet; you probably already have some or all of them as you read this.
1. A foreign accent. Contrary to popular belief, a foreign accent is not a handicap. In the love game it’s probably one of the best assets you can have. Accents drive women crazy and sometimes just after a few words she will do anything to hear more of your randomly swapped v’s and w’s or, even better, a whole word in your native tongue.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6QUFqiJx9k
Few words of warning on the accents: two similar accents cancel each other out. If you are both from Australia, all the talk about shrimps and barbies will not turn her on. On the contrary, the other person’s accent becomes annoying and embarrassing. Another note of caution: if your accent makes you sound like Larry The Cable Guy, you better have his kind of money to be able to seduce the woman of your dreams unless it’s Nancy Grace.
2. Learn to cook something from scratch. To impress a woman you don’t need to be a Wolfgang Puck, you just need to be able to cook something she’ll like preferably without using any recipes you got from watching Semi-Homemade Cooking show on the Food Network. Whether it’s a steak, a hamburger, fried chicken or borscht, it’s the process and your skill that will fascinate her, so Shake’n’Bake wouldn’t do the trick. Cooking may also include baking or cocktail making. Anything that only you know how to make will get you closer to the target. However, don’t go too wild unless you know who you are dealing with; she may not appreciate your Coq Au Vin but may be pleasantly surprised with Chicken and Dumplings.
3. Get a pet, and by a pet I mean a cat. Dog will not allow you to leave for those romantic long weekends and will interfere with you enjoying your morning together. Other pets may be scary, disgusting, annoying or smelly. On the other hand, virtually every woman loves a cat, and will come back to your house repeatedly just to scratch your cat behind the ear. Placing a cat photo such as this anywhere in your dating profile pretty much guarantees you a constant stream of “icebreakers”.
4. Poetry. That’s right, a poem will make your woman’s heart melt. You don’t need to be Walt Whitman, start with something simple and romantic like:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I am here naked.
Where the hell are you?
If you want to impress her even more, haiku is the way to go. I am at a disadvantage in this department since I can’t count syllables, but it doesn’t prevent me from faking it. Just make sure you always have three lines:
Writing haiku is hard,
but I try
for the hell of it.
5. Get some title or an achievement, for example you can become the Best Blogger ever or get a PhD in some obscure subject. Published works, books, photos in the local newspaper, sex tape, whatever it takes to pique her interest.
6. Impress her with your knowledge. Be careful not to bore her with a discussion on pros and cons of various Linux distributions, comic heroes and their superpowers, or some special maneuver you use to beat a game on X Box. Instead you can impress her by knowing the capital of New Hampshire, or pointing out the difference between a crocodile and an alligator.
To summarize, if you are short in all the wrong places, fat and ugly, not all is lost. Just use your accent, skills and pets to seduce the woman of your dreams and remember: it’s survival of the fittest, not necessarily better-looking.
I was going to write a reply to the discussion about the Jews and Christmas trees, but then I thought that there is no point in doing so: everyone who wants a tree in their house probably will have one, and all others will probably find a reason why they won’t. My only contribution is that you haven’t lived until you smelled a real pine tree inside your house. Just call it a winter tree, New Year’s Tree or a wreath and bring one into your living room.
During the first half of my life, we always had a tree for the New Year holiday. My Jewish Father, who spent a part of his childhood in the ghetto, made sure to find the biggest tree to fit through the door. Having a tree doesn’t make you any less Jewish, and, for certain, it doesn’t reduce the amount of antisemitism directed at you. Not the “someone looked at me funny” antisemitism, but a real, hardcore, state-sponsored harassment.
The tree of my childhood wasn’t associated with anything religious (definitely not for me), but it still had lights, presents and a five-point red star on top.
I’m John, the center baby in the 7th photo. Everyone in the photo is still living. Betty, the lady on the right, turned 90 this year.
I mentioned before that my sincere hope is to hear from real people who either recognize a person, a place or an episode shown in the picture and so far it had only happened once.
I just had to email John to find out more about the 65-year-old photo-shoot and he graciously answered my questions and even allowed to use his family photo for this post. I wanted to know how did the Life Magazine find the Irwin Family in a small Kansas town and if the Life Magazine article and photos are still cherished by the family members.
My grandmother, who is shown in the photo preparing the goose, wrote a local column covering Neosho Rapids news for the Emporia Gazette, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper ran by William Allen White.
The Gazette (and other midwest newspapers) received an inquiry from Life Magazine about any families which had servicemen returning home from WWII. The Irwin family was chosen because it had members from all branches of the service; Army, Navy and Air Force (which was a branch of the Army at that time). Additionally, a son-in-law, Clyde Roush, was MIA (he never returned).
The photo shoot took two or three days in late November or early December, 1945. The article appeared as a 5-page spread in the 12/24/45 issue of Life. Of course, millions of copies were circulated all over the world. My grandparents received tons of mail about the article and my grandmother kept pen pals as a result of the article well up until the 1960’s. My aunt Betty Roush even received scam letters from prisoners here in the US claiming to know the whereabouts of her MIA husband. For myself, the article was my only “fifteen minutes of fame” and I got it all when I was 3 months old.
James F Irwin died in 1982 and his wife, Garland Irwin, died in 1994. All the children and grandchildren in the article are still living with the exception of Jim Irwin (on left in the photo below), who died in a tractor accident in 1992. Garland’s brother, Fred Andrews (on right in the photo below) a Navy CPO, died in 1970. A son-in-law, Jeff Haney (second from left in photo below) died in 1988.
The home where the photo shoot took place was built in 1877 and is still occupied to this day, although not by the Irwin family. At the time of the shoot, the home had no indoor plumbing which was no doubt quite a shock to the photographer from New York. The family had “right of first refusal” to buy the home back when it changed hands about 2000, but declined.
Most all family members, including grandchildren who weren’t born yet, have a copy of this 12/24/45 Life Magazine. I have several dozen copies myself. Life sent most of the participants enlargements of the photos, including many out takes.
Here is a photo of the surviving Irwin siblings taken in Neosho Rapids on 6/14/2009:
Left to right: Scott, Carolyn, Jack, Jeanne, Myra Lee, Betty.
The 3 ladies on the right are in same order as in the photo below.
Interestingly enough, my grandmother said a large share of the fan letters she got concerned the hides hanging on the wash house wall. Note the irregularly broken rail track used for cracking walnuts. She even got letters about that. We used that piece of track for an anvil on our farm all the time I was a kid growing up.
I’d like to thank John for what turned out to be one of the most exciting and touching comments on this blog and for the glance at the Irwin Family history.
I’ve been posting old photos from the Life Magazine archives for some time now and I am still amazed at how the photographers were able to tell a story and connect with the readers while not using all the multimedia bells and whistles we can no longer live without. Quality photographs, interesting subjects, real people – that’s what made the Life Magazine relevant then and that’s what makes it interesting now, like a full-page window into the yesteryear.
For more Old Photos posts start your search here.
*John’s text was slightly edited to match the order of photographs.
Long time ago (and I mean long,long time) I was traveling in what was then a beautiful and welcoming Republic of Georgia, still a part of soon to be defunct Soviet Union. Georgia is known for its beauty, Caucasus mountains and warm beaches on the Black Sea, ancient cultural relics, great food and some of the best wine in the world, and as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. Stalin was born in the City of Gori which was a huge source of pride for the Georgian people. When Stalin was alive, his portraits, monuments and various other likenesses were literally everywhere. After Stalin’s Cult of Personality was condemned in 1956 most of this junk was removed and one of the few places that kept all of it’s pre-1956 glory was the City of Gori. From the huge portrait of Stalin at the entrance to the railway station to his monument and museum at his birthplace, complete with Stalin’s personal rail car, the city looked like the old days when it was the Birthplace of the “beloved” leader.
By the time I was born all of the history books and movies were edited not to dwell on Stalin’s persona and the horrors during his regime. In the movies he was shown as a wise man of a few words, issuing battle-winning military directives, and in the books there may have been a mention or two about the cult of personality. It wasn’t a secret but it wasn’t talked about either. As it turned out later,everything was much worse than it was presented in 1956. So when I found myself staring in amazement at something I have never seen in my lifetime, I didn’t really think twice about standing at the birthplace of evil, on the contrary, it was neat to take a step back in time.
A lot has changed since I stood next to the Stalin’s rail car in Gori. There is no Soviet Union, Georgia is not so welcoming anymore, and I don’t have curls. I found this old photo in my album and thought about my careless youth and fun memories I still have from that time.
A recent article on a forum based in the Russian city of Yaroslavl attracted my attention. It talks about a time capsule that was sealed in 1960 to be opened 50 years later during the 1,000th birthday of the city.
August 21,1960. Time Capsule Dedication Ceremony at the StadiumContinue reading →
Long time ago (and I mean long,long time) I was traveling in what was then a beautiful and welcoming Republic of Georgia, still a part of soon to be defunct Soviet Union. Georgia is known for its beauty, Caucasus mountains and warm beaches on the Black Sea, ancient cultural relics, great food and some of the best wine in the world, and as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. Stalin was born in the City of Gori which was a huge source of pride for the Georgian people. When Stalin was alive, his portraits, monuments and various other likenesses were literally everywhere. After Stalin’s Cult of Personality was condemned in 1956 most of this junk was removed and one of the few places that kept all of it’s pre-1956 glory was the City of Gori. From the huge portrait of Stalin at the entrance to the railway station to his monument and museum at his birthplace, complete with Stalin’s personal rail car, the city looked like the old days when it was the Birthplace of the “beloved” leader.
