The Manlendar

It's a woman's world. You need look no further than American Idol's ratings dominance, or Hillary Clinton's political prominance, or Oprah effing Winfrey's virtual queenship, or the mere existence of Jake Gyllenhall's career to reinforce what many of us have known for a long, long time: females are currently running the world. They're making the tastes, they're running the media, they're self-helping every androgynous half-wit into effit lousiness.

So, my brother and I have made a Man Calendar. A Manlendar. Or something like that.

Though very much still a work in progress, it attempts to chart the calendar year through Man Touchstones. It also alerts us as to upcoming Female Holidays Of Lameness. With your help (and suggestions), I think we can make the definitive perennial calendar for the forward-looking male.

January:
January 1 - New Year's Day. Sports arguably the greatest slate of college football matchups all season, and ushers in the new year with (likely) an epic hangover. Mantastic.

Mid-January (dates change year-to-year) - New season of The L Word begins. If you don't know about The L Word, then all I can tell you is that L stands for Lesbians, and you should probably get Showtime. Manlicious.

February:
February mostly belongs to Women. For example...

February 14 - Valentine's Day. Decidedly lame and girlish, so mark it as anti-man. However, if you can manage a $14 chocolate and a well-delivered compliment, you'll probably get lucky. So, try and pull out a draw here.

Mid-February (dates change) - Mardi Gras. Manriffic.

Mid February - Four words: Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue comes out around this time and is a great thing of mantradition. That was like nineteen words, but men aren't good at math.

March:
March is "Women's History Month," which I can only assume looks something like "4000 years of cooking, then Clara Barton." Their powers are strong during this month.

All Month - March Madness. March Madness is glorious. Possibly the greatest sporting event of the calendar year. Manrad.

March 17 - St. Patrick's Day. This is a holiday dedicated to Saint Patrick of Northern Irelandic Sainthood of the....I've got nothing. It's a big party, and it usually coincides with March Madness. Mansome.

March 24 - Steve McQueen's birthday. Worth mentioning.

Late March - Typically ushers in baseball's spring training. Baseball is lame and irrelevant and I'm pretty sure it was invented by Eleanor Roosevelt, so stay away from it.

April: April is National Poetry Month and the official beginning of spring. I'd like to say that this is lame, but I write songs and read poetry and like warm weather and, well, I can bench four-hundred pounds. Got that, nimrod?

April 1 - April Fool's Day. Play your cards right and some girl might set you up with her friend as a cruel, cruel practical joke.

First Weekend of April - The Masters. Throw in some Ole Miss Phi Mu's and a vat of chicken wings, and this is roughly what Man Heaven looks like.

April 8 - New season of Entourage picks up, right as the L Word is winding down. Jeremy Piven, folks. Piven.

April 8 - Easter Sunday. Even church can be mandacious when pretty girls and sundresses are involved.

April 9 - Hugh Hefner's birthday. Worth mentioning.

Late April - NFL Draft. Bro says, "It's like an Easter and Christmas man smoothie. With a protein boost." There ya go.

May:
Not a lot going on in May as far as I can tell. Most bands announce their summer tour dates in May, which is decidedly awesome.

May 28 - Memorial Day. Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer, which is manvelous.

June:
Early June - NBA playoffs finish up, which means three full months of baseball until real sports start back up again. This is a sad mantime.

June 14 - Flag Day. I don't know what this is, but I'm pretty sure Joan of Arc invented it, and that chick was wacked. Let's move on.

Mid June - U.S. Open of golfings. Golf is a game largely watched by ninnies but dominated by meat-eating manlebrities married to models/maids. Golf is rad.

Late June - NBA Draft. Like the NFL Draft, but not quite as mantasty.

July:
July 1 - Canada Day. Beware.

July 4 - Independence Day. This is a time for barbarous excesses and sunburned gluttony. This holiday is right in the manzone. Relish it.

July 22 - British Open. Like the U.S. Open, only British, so maybe a little less rad.

August:
As previously stated, there's just not a lot to note in the summer because of baseball's prevalence and TV's stagnance. Aside from general summertime goodness, which can be manfull of manstuffed manmeats, it's tough to pinpoint manlidays.

August 6 - PGA Championship. See other golf majors.

August 10 - My birthday. You heard it here first, folks.

August 21 - Wilt Chamberlain's birthday is included for 10,000 reasons.

Late August - Marks the start of the college football/fantasy football season. The first week of the season is the last weekend in August, and late August also marks the time when most fantasy football leagues do their draftings. This is a championship mantime.

September:
I've noticed that lots of new albums come out in the fall, more so than any other season. I don't know why this is, but it's worth noting for the purposes of the Manlendar.

First Weekend of September - Labor Day. Not only a day of leisure, but the bridge from the manglory of the summer to the impending radness of the fall and football season. Labor Day is a rich time indeed.

Early September - NFL season begins. This marks probably the most coveted season of all manseasons.

October:
October usually ushers in the new seasons of TV shows. Most TV shows are lame, but this is noteworthy for the ones that aren't (The Office, Arrested Development when it was on, Two-A-Days, The Office, etc.). Sweeps = Manlove.

All of October - October marks the first chilly weather of the season. This means bonfires, which means mantimes of righteousness.

October 31 - Halloween. Halloween is one of three times a year when it is both socially acceptable and somewhat expected for a girl to act/dress in an un-Puritan fashion (the other two are New Year's Eve and their respective birthdays). For this reason, Halloween is manbulous.

November:
First Tuesday of November Every Fourth Year - Election Day. According to my sources, this written into the Constitution by Susan B. Anthony, and I therefore consider it a SheDay. Most things of political nature are SheDays.

Late November - Thanksgiving. This is a day devoted to gluttony, self-abuse, and football. Aside from the morning-time parades, this might be the manliest day of all.

December:
Early December - For all intents and purposes, basketball season begins. This is a sport-rich time of year, as the NFL playoffs are beginning as well. Be on the manwatch.

Late December - All Religious Holidays. Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Solstice, Festivus, whatever. They all rock in very obvious ways. Delight in them with manly fervor.

December 31 - New Year's Eve. A night of indulgence and forgetfulness. Forced PDA. And you wake up the next morning, flip on the TV in time for kick off, and do it all over again.

(Disclaimer: I'm not the misogynist depicted here. I respect women and their contributions to our society. I come from a family of strong women and have had the pleasure of knowing many others in my life. This post is for the purposes of amusement and discussion. If you're taking offense to it, I understand--you're probably a woman and therefore have no sense of humor.)

Happy ManYear,
Me