MASSASSI PUBLISHING PRESENTS
THE LEGENDARY ARTICLE

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On Men, By Men (Or How Not to Be a Pussy)
By Max Salnikov

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I had a revelation. And contrary to the basic principles of journalism, I will not disclose all my cards in the first sentence. So if you’re still reading, you better believe that this will be the best ****ing article you’ll ever read.

This is an article about men.

For men.

Which women will marvel at and throw themselves at us like starving lionesses of the wild. Or, in the very least, throw themselves at those of us who may subscribe that such nonsense is possible (in no way of proving or disproving the theory).

Men don’t write about men. Men don’t give a **** about other men. Men are lions.

Or, at least, from whoever of us wish to be lions, a number of us are intelligent enough to admit that we’re not. Perhaps we’re wolves. Or hyenas. Rabbits, dogs, penguins. There are almost as many types of men as there are women (equal rights be damned!).

But one thing for all of us is true: we do not read articles about other men (unless those other men are gay, in which case the society tells us that’s OK).

And before all the gay men who were so interested in my On Men, By Men article call me prejudiced, I’ll tell you that you, dear reader, are the society (and I’ll also call you gay and remind you that so is the society, but that’s just my quirk of character, nothing personal).

Lions will remain lions. Wolves will remain wolves. Hyenas will not change. Penguins will still be ****ing penguins.

But neither one of them has to be a pussy. I mean, have you ever heard of a pussy penguin? It’s absurd.

So because all real men like practicality, here’s a guide on how not to be a pussy (for the morons, this is the revelation I mentioned in the first sentence of my awesome article):

• Don’t just talk the talk, write the write or think the think. Real men walk the ****ing walk. Pussies don’t.

• ****ing prioritize. For those who never worked in a Helpdesk Environment (so popular amongst the kids these days), P0 means “critical.”

P0. The critical priority is you. Sorry to say, but your life is the only one you have. There is no afterlife (unless you hate gays). Real men are realistic and illusions are for pussies – you have to construct your life around what makes you happy, so you damn better decide what it is before it’s too late.

P1. The first priority is anybody in your life who you can call family. Other people come and go, and the Sicilian mafia got Marlon Brando to play in their movie for a reason. Opinions of those people who mean nothing in your life come and go, they are all irrelevant. Your family always remains your blood, predecessors and ancestors of the genetic code hardwired into your DNA.

P2. If you can call a friend your family, then the second priority is for all of those you can’t. Your friends are the ones who will get you a taxi when you’re throwing up pink fluid onto the curb. With them, you can learn how to improve your life, making your friends vital to your most critical priority. They’re the ones who can share their lunch with you. They’re the ones who will lend you money when the loan shark threatens to cut your fingers off. They’re the people you chose through chance or intent to be important in your life – and to forget that would be folly.

P3. The third priority is work. P3 is the default priority, for all those interested in Helpdesk antics. That’s the case that the nice ladies and gentlemen you will interact with during the course of your life always put on Pending. As in Pending, to be continued. Those nice ladies and gentlemen usually end up living mediocre lives. If you enjoy mediocre, that’s right up your alley. If you don’t, then check out these fancy ass bullet points below.

• Put all effort into making money from doing what you enjoy. If you don’t, not only will you forever remain mediocre, you will also forever remain stupid (and, most likely, deeply unsatisfied).
• No matter what it is you do, put the necessary amount of energy into it to be better than what is expected of you. If you are not doing what makes you happy and you see exceeding expectations as draining, then at least meet the expectations and leave the rest of your energy for making a way to make money from what you enjoy. When you start doing what you enjoy doing, don’t do it the best you can. Do it better. And if you don’t enjoy anything, sorry, but you’re ****ed.

P4. Priority four is for regular server maintenance. Important, but some people simply can’t give a ****. You don’t need to look dandy, but make sure to check that you don’t look like you’ve fought King Kong in Vietnam once in every 16 hours.

And it’s as simple and complex as that. Simple in the sense that it’s not rocket science, and complex in the sense that at times, men might find themselves backed up against the wall. At times, men can think of themselves as pussies. For these men, I can recommend printing out my awesome article and skipping to the last five words every time they re-read it: only pussies give up.

I wrote it for a bet that I can write a better article about men than a Cosmopolitan (/insert name of some other magazine with a female target audience) columnist. The bet was with a woman, so it is only my respect for her kind that prevents me from gloating in victory.

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

I think one of the glaring problems with your piece is that you take too long to get to the point or points. The comedic build-up, or whatever one might call it, is like, half the article. I mean, I see the point of the whole introduction segment in that it's suppose to be humorous in itself, I guess, but there is nothing to really push me to really read on and invest my time because the writing becomes too uncomfortably forced from the first step.

Also the whole "pussies" thing. I get that you are trying to illustrate some sort of humorous dichotomy between pussy and not-pussy, but the way you handled the idea makes the whole picture rather foul. It comes off as offensive, and not in a politically correct way; you are just so aggressive with the whole "pussy" material that, despite it being for jokes, it makes you seem almost belligerent.

Belligerent is a wonderful word. I'm in constant conflict with myself.

Thanks for the honest feedback!

You are such a pussy.

I'll have to read the whole thing later, but right off the bat I think you should change the title. To me, "how not to be a pussy" reads as though the not is negating the how, so seems like you are advocating being a pussy but describing how not to do it. The not should negate the 'to be' verb: "how to not be a pussy" would be a description of how to not assume the role of a pussy.

Or maybe it's just me.

eh, i liked it. reminded me of something out of "the art of manliness" fairly easy to get through, however your animal analogies started to feel a little jumbled and forced. the "pussies" thing didnt bother me, reminded me of several of my friends who regularly use the phrase "don't be a pussy"
overall i would have to say it is definitely better than any articles on men i have read in a female oriented magazine... granted i have not read many... i swear.

I lol'd at the part about *******s never changing a task from pending. durp hurp i dont want to deal with this so i will never set it as a priority! classy.

So skip to the last five words?

it: only pussies give up.

Hmm. Enlightening.

Written in the style of Charlie Sheen?

I've got to say, given the pussy-avoidance theme, "on men, by men" could not be any more homoerotic.

And you're a dick.

Let's be friends.

Thanks for reading!



Only Charlie Sheen I've experienced in my life was the cooking video posted here some time ago. I then read a bit about him, and it seems his life is at least as ****ed up as mine (except I'm neither rich nor famous).



That's pussy avoidance at play there, my good man.

You pointed this out before I could! Damn you! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!

*cue movie credits*

(And if you don't know which movie, then you have epic failed koob's advice.)

Not well-organized. Bullet points, then priority levels, then bullet points, then priority levels? That really needs some cleaning up.

I don't get it but then I'm perfectly willing to accept the possibility that it was over my head.

YEAH! High five!

Know this guys, attraction isn't a choice.

Your article was pretty good, I sorta agree with Echoman, a few chuckle moments. I think your mostly accurate and look forward to a revision.

Adolescent drivel.

Really hard to read. Extremely juvenile, gave up multiple times, skipped to various sections, continued to give up. At least I can find out in a Cosmo article if they ever really figured out that secret thing I've never told her that I want her to do to me.

I was waiting for a punchline or awesome conclusion...

Or maybe I'm just not getting it.

What, you mean to do the deed in a tub full of pepto bismol while she clips your nails? No. No, they haven't figured it out.

(Rat Race rocks!)

((Geb only wishes I would use alliteration like that in NeS...))

Also, was writing in cliches part of the bet?

Edit: Also also, it has somehow just occurred to me that most Cosmo articles about men are in the vein of "what women need to know about men." It's possible you missed the point of the bet entirely.

On Men, by a Juvenile (Or how not to write an article)

I had an ejaculation! And contrary to the basic principles of journalism, I will tell you all about it. But not before I've revelled at length in the perception of being a unique snowflake and used a lot of swearwords. Because I'm still learning to be a man and this seems like a very manly thing to do. My binary world view will be demeaning to women and men alike. I don't think anyone has ever been quite so bold. And if you don't agree, you're a pussy.

11 posts in and you're already my hero.

Okay. Made it through. Couple things stood out to me.



First, seems that point two describes friends as being necessary for when you are a "pussy". Puking pink fluid? Why, was I drinking some fruity adult beverage? Or maybe it was a manly gutshot and I'm now vomiting foamy pink blood. If that's the case then I should at least have the cojones to make it to my V8 powered muscle machine to enact my revenge or die trying.

Second, what five words, "Only pussies give up"?

0110101101101111011011000111100101100001001000000110010001101111011001010111001100100000011011100110111101110100001000000110110001101001011010110110010100100000011011010111100100100000011000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001001000000111011101101111011100100110110001100100001000000111011001101001011001010111011100101100001000000111001101101111001000000110100100100000011101110110100101101100011011000010000001101001011011010111000001110010011001010111001101110011001000000110100001101001011011010010000001100010011110010010000001110100011100100111100101101001011011100110011100100000011101000110111100100000011011000110111101101111011010110010000001110011011011010110000101110010011101000010000001100010011110010010000001110101011100110110100101101110011001110010000001100001001000000110010001100101011000110110111101100100011001010111001000100000011101000110100001100001011101000010000001101001001000000110011101101111011011110110011101101100011001010110010000100000011101000110111100100000011101110111001001101001011101000110010100100000011101000110100001101001011100110010000001101001011011100010000001100010011010010110111001100001011100100111100100100000001010000110100001101001001011000010000001101011011011110110110001111001011000010010110000100000011010000110111101110111001000000111100101101111011101010010000001100100011011110110100101101110011001110010110000100000011011010110000101110100011001010011111100101001

^ BINARY SOLO!!!

AAAAH THE DISUCSSSIONZ

Next time you're drunk - write an NeS post!!!!

Edit: now my post makes no sense, because Koob edited his post, where before he revealed that he was not sober when he wrote this article. OH! THE SCANDAL!

Fair warning, Al: you're not going to make many friends on the Discussion Board if you try to get them to write for NeS. Or maybe you will, and you'll wildly succeed in getting new writers, and I'll scratch my head and wonder where I went wrong.

True, but hasn't Koobie written for NeS before?

Anywho, warning duly noted.

I don't think so, but Koobie did use to post on your old roleplaying forum.

Thanks, but I'm not really interested in writing for NeS. I kind of said / promised I'll write the article (hence the bet), but if I really really write stuff, I prefer to spend the time writing original fiction -- and then edit it to oblivion to bring it to publishing quality.

Last "real" articles that I've written (as in, actually got paid for), were 7 articles about Search Engine Optimization. :|

$10.00 / 500 word article, made me a $70.00. The entertainment factor (for myself, at least) of reading replies to On Men, By Men (Or How Not to be a Pussy) was, however, priceless.

So thanks to all of you who spent the time to reply.



Exactly.

gay thread.

Good thing you choose them wisely.

010001000110111101101001011011100010011100100000011010100111010101110011011101000010000001100110011010010110111001100101001011000010000001001001001001110110110100100000011100110110100101110000011100000110100101101110011001110010000001101111011011100010000001101101011110010010000001101101011011110111001001101110011010010110111001100111001000000110001101101111011001100110011001100101011001010010000001100001011011100110010000100000011011000110111101101111011010110110100101101110011001110010000001100110011011110111001001110111011000010111001001100100001000000111010001101111001000000111000001101100011000010111100101101001011011100110011100100000011100000110100101101110011001110010000001110000011011110110111001100111001000000110100101101110001000000111010001101000011001010010000001110000011000010111001001101011001000000111010001101111011001000110000101111001001011100010000001001000011000010111011001100101001000000110000100100000011001110110111101101111011001000010000001101111011011100110010100101110001000000011101100101001

But that's four words.

I'm starting to think I'm not the biggest drunk on this message board anymore.