Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man

live and breathe.

In the men's zone.

more power

If it's got an engine, men love it. If it goes fast, men will figure out a way to make it go faster. Men love anything that makes noise, spins, moves, or smokes. If it's big, make it bigger. If it's loud, make it louder. Men's stuff is always audible. Fishing rods whir. Boltaction guns 'chuck.' Cameras click. New stereo equipment sighs. From a toaster to a Stealth bomber, we're always trying to add more power.

Speedintensityvolumepower. Speedintensityvolumepower. The mantra of the modern man.

Men's zones are filled with men's stuff. The whole world is filled with men's stuff. I don't know why men have so much stuff. Maybe it's because we never listened to our mothers when we were kids. We should have cleaned up our rooms when she told us to.

No wonder the world is one big mess.

Many sociologists, mostly women-okay, only Dr. Joyce Brothers-have postulated that there are specific reasons why men have so much stuff. I haven't spoken to her personally, so I don't know what these reasons are. However, I believe men's fascination with tools, cars, stereos, computers, and collecting beer bottles from around the planet stems from the creation urge. Men can't have babies, so it's our way of feeling important and useful. This, more than an inherent fascination with socket wrenches, is what makes us want to crawl under the car and restrut the suspension, or change the oil every three thousand miles, and not mind when big globs of filthy petroleum product land smack on our foreheads. This urge to control something is what draws us to a shoeshine kit full of black, brown, and cordovan polish; and brushes and rags caked with spittle.

Having mentioned shoes, here's a question that's always nagged me: What is it with women and shoes, anyway? Women don't seem to realize that they can actually polish shoes in the home. They get a scuff and the shoes are as good as garbage. It's time to go shopping for another pair. If we could redirect the money spent on overpriced women's footwear, we could halve the national debt. Women have fifteen pairs of shoes in the closet, and that's just in black. There are slant?back heels, half heels, spikes, pumps, espadrilles, and shoes that don't even look like shoes.

Don't tell me that being able to have babies eradicates all of women's compulsions.

For instance, the purse thing. Women have sixty purses, and I've still got the same wallet I made in camp.

There's not a man I know who would purposely look in a woman's purse. Purse snatchers learn this early. Grab the purse, dump the lipstick, earrings, cosmetics, tampons, datebook, car keys, combs and brushes, diet energy bars, sleeping bag, pup tent, Miata. Get the money. I've never looked in a woman's purse. Never opened one. A real man doesn't go into a purse. It's a no?man's?land. You can lose yourself in that thing. My wife once discovered $300 in her purse that she'd misplaced. How do you do that? I can understand misplacing the money, but in your own purse? But she looked in her purse and there it was, right next to the antique dresser.

My wife and I went to Florence, Italy, recently. She said she wanted to see Michelangelo's David and other classic works of art. She didn't tell me she'd discovered that Florence is where the purse was invented. We went shopping ten minutes after we'd checked into our hotel. They've got two streets of shops that just sell brown purses. My wife's eyes left their sockets! And then she was gone. I followed her into a store and there she was, 'trying on a purse!'

'Just buy them all,' I said. 'We've got stuff to do. Great art to see.'

'The David's waited this long,' she said. 'I don't think he's getting off his pedestal and going anywhere for the next couple of days. Besides, these purses are on sale and they're Italian. Now how 'bout this clutch? Too clunky?'

What could I say? My wife is just as confused when I try to explain why I need another tool I'm never going to use.

Meanwhile, she's modeling purses and I'm fighting off narcolepsy. I can't shop with women. I just get tired. I walk into the women's wear department of any store and my energy just goes to hell. I'm suddenly seven and in the backseat of the family station wagon, being lulled to sleep by the hum of the road. There's something about fluorescent lights in malls that makes me very weak. It's like they're made of kryptonite. (However, fluorescent lights in electronics stores make me feel suddenly energetic.) Women know this. That's why, instead of letting you go off and do your own shopping, they make you sit in those little student punishment seats by the dressing rooms. Then they waltz out in some god?awful frou?frou and say, 'What do you think?'

You muster the stock answer. 'Nice. Very nice.' And then you follow with the appropriate shared 'nod and smile' to the exhausted husband in the other chair.

Then she disappears and returns with a cocktail purse that matches the outfit. It's about the size of a maraschino cherry and it costs $3,000. At that price it should match any outfit. It just carries itself. Oh-and you can't fit anything in it.

'It's supposed to be decorative, honey.'

Oh, the things you want to say, but don't.

- -

I love cars. Cars are my life. My wife is a bright corporate lady who could care less about cars. When we could finally afford to buy her any car she wanted, I asked her to reveal to me her heart's desire. Anything, anything, anything. .'

'Red,' she said.

Boys fantasize about cars because cars mean only one thing: extending boundaries way past home. They represent adventure. You can drive across country. You can get out of town. Cars are freedom. Guys want power. Freedom is power. (Like most kids, I also fantasized about being a superhero. I liked Spiderman. And what did I want to use my new superpowers for? To get a car. That's me. Lofty goals.)

Women have a much more subtle approach to cars and the freedom they represent. Mainly, how to get in and out gracefully. How to dress so the guys with the cars will give them rides. The social niceties. They assume they'll be in cars, but they already know it's to their advantage not to own a car because of the equity problem, depreciation, and, with the exception of race driver Shirley 'Cha Cha' Muldowney, they probably can't fix it, nor do they want to. Women are right to think that it's easier just to get someone to be the mechanic and chauffeur them around. This, next to having children and garbage removal, is the reason most women want husbands.

I like cars so much I'd hang around parking lots if I didn't think someone would call the police. I once went to a store to get wheel covers for my car, because someone had stolen them, and I could have spent the day there. When I drove in, a guy just getting out of his car at the same time said, 'Nice wheels.' In guy talk, that meant he thought I was a nice guy.

'What you got under the hood?' (He wants to know more about me.)

'Supercharged hemi.' (I'm a forward thinker, a risk taker.)

'Where do you redline?' (Depends on what he is referring to.)

'Seven thousand rpm. Tops out around 140 mph.' (I'm way too fast for you, buddy. But thanks for asking.)

One thing I'll always like about living in Los Angeles is that everybody has a car. Everyone has to have a car. Otherwise you've got to train for the marathon just to get some milk at the grocery store. Some of the homegrown custom?car designs are a little tough to understand, though. Who came up with the idea of taking those teeny, tiny, mini pickup trucks with the little motors, and fitting them with huge tires and sound systems so loud I think we're having an earthquake aftershock every time a cruiser drives up my street?

Then there's the L.A. obsession with sports utility vehicles. Where I grew up, near the Rocky Mountains, we didn't have fourwheel drive. Just chains. Now everyone's got a Range Rover to announce their ability to rough it in style. It's now acceptable, even trendy, to answer the question 'Do you do much offroading?' with 'Nope. But I can