So as of tonight I will be in radio silence until some time Tuesday as I am traveling back to the province ‘o my birth for a stag weekend with some good friends. This whole wedding process is equal parts profound, idiosyncratic, joyous, and troubling for someone who has developed an almost subconscious tendency to ask the question, “How could I use this as the basis for a blog posting?”
I must say, though, that I am beaming with love and pride over the work in which my Best Man has engaged in putting this weekend together. We are demolishing what seems to be the trend in bachelor parties by eschewing civilization and heading out for two days and three nights with a handful of hearty souls to a friend’s family cabin on Denman Island for some good neo-traditional fraternal time spent in the woods. Of course there will be the consumption of booze and perhaps one or two other items, but the whole weekend is really steeped in a revived and vital focus on lineage, ritual, and brotherhood. There will be walks in the woods, the reading of books, many great conversations long into the day and through the night, poker, crib, Risk (I’ll meet you in Kamchuka, sucka!), cigars, shared cooking responsibilities, mother nature, and a sweat lodge constructed from scratch!
This ain’t yer preppy college friend’s stag weekend.
What I’m most looking forward to is the shared time with a group of truly wonderful, thoughtful, and, dare I say, open and vulnerable men. When I say that this wedding process has been troubling, I am mostly referring to the kinds of male stereotypes that are prevalent in the wedding-industrial-complex (it was later on in Eisenhower’s speech). As male skewed and patriarchal a society and world as we live in, it strikes me that there are so few truly inspirational and useful male archetypes in play for we young males. When discussing wedding details, the usual refrain in my direction is, “So, you gonna watch the hockey gamne while she makes the invitations?”
Har, har, har…
Actually, no, I’ve spent as much time as anyone putting this wedding together — sweating over hand made invitations, calling photographers, arranging rentals, contacting jewelers — because, unpopular as it might be to say, I care about this event and take as much ownership and feel as much responsibility around it as my future wife does. Strong men also cry, and I want that day six weeks from now — what will be one of the most profound experiences of my this-kick-at-the-can life — to be a beautiful and memorable experience. And that, I believe, is part of what being a healthy and robust example of man is and ought to be. We get pummeled with oafish and dullard images from a variety of angles like so many Peter Griffins and Homer Simpsons, and no where is that sad visage of manhood more prevalent than in this act of marriage (accept for maybe child rearing, and I’m not there just yet).
That my stag party will be yet another opportunity flip those social norms of mediocrity the Jungian bird makes me both burst with appreciation and admiration for the friends and loved ones I have in my life and ever more determined to stage my wedding, adulthood, and child rearing as a revolutionary battleground against the onslaught of vapid boyishness that passes for real grit these says. Into that breach once more dear friends…
In closing, allow me to leave you with wise words from someone who has epitomized manhood to myself and many of my friends for years. Take care and have a great weekend…
(the John Cusack bonus ain’t bad, either).
jon ross 
Michael Drew 
Burt Likko 
Will Truman 
Teacher 
Mary 
Borat: “I do a picture, only small, of the Tishnik Masacre. Where many Uzbeks…crushed!”
Kindly Gray Hippie: “How did you feel when you drew this?”
Borat: “Very proud!”.
KGH: “I’m just listening with sadness…a little sadness for your people…?”
Borat: “Yes…no, it is not sad. It is us who do the kill!”
When in doubt,
{ 4 comments }
“This ain’t yer preppie college friend’s stag weekend.”
As a preppy college friend, I find this highly offensive.
Please accept my sincere apologies and such.
Enjoy yourself, Scott. I’d implore you not to go too crazy, but you’re Canadian, so no worries.
Scott,
I had a similar bachelor party before my wedding. 16 guys at a friend’s farm, more firearms than you could count, cases of ammunition, three trap throwers… it made for a very enjoyable day full of good-natured ribbing abut our shooting abilities and the married guys giving me unsolicited advice about what to expect. Then we had an enormous cookout where I think we ate an entire pig and finished off the better part of an entire wheelbarrow full of beer. My favorite part the next day was when all the guys left except for my actual groomsmen and we hiked off into the woods for some squirrel hunting (yes, that’s what we do in KY) and some conversation about the direction our lives were all headed in. It was a wonderful afternoon.
I took the notion of ‘groomsmen’ very seriously. I chose the guys I would want watching my back in a fight or helping me build a treehouse for my kids or carrying my coffin into the church. I hose guys that would never let me down and have given me far more than I could ever give them. I think that is why, like you, I put a lot of work into the wedding. My wife and I looked at it as outr one chance to celebrate not just our mariage, but all the people who had gotten us to that point. We kept coming up with little ways to show our thanks or include a couple more people. As I told all the guests at our rehearsal dinner, our wedding was as much for them as it was for us.
I get a sense that you will enjoy this time with your friends as much as I did. The most important thing to remember is to keep that feeling alive after you tie the knot. My wife and I recognized early on that we needed our friends as much as each other and we try to make a lot of time for both. It’s been one of the strengths of our marriage.
Have fun.
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