What's a Mangina?

IN DEFENSE OF JAMES BOND

Guest blog by Kevin Kunundrum

I'm tired of dreadlocked Millennial Manginas making videos to meet Social Justice Warrior women under the guise of declaring how terrible men are. And I love when they speak for all men and apologize on our behalf. Do they think by condemning men en masse, they’ll appear all sensitive and sanctified to Feminists?

I see through you, Manginas! Babbling whiningly at length about men's oppression, blah-blah-blah, and chanting the new catch-phrase: 'Toxic Masculinity' 

O, to be an evil Man, the wellspring of all that is bad, the oppressor of all that is good.

I try to ignore them, but now they're Bond bashing!

Behold the usual Bond-bashing boilerplate. "James Bond is a misogynist Neanderthal alcoholic murderer who flees from his own feelings and uses women as disposable playthings for his own amusement, etcetera..." Sure, James Bond's an easy target, from a superficial point of view. So let us for a moment, examine James Bond in depth, the real Double-O-Seven... 

James Bond was conceived in a World War, with bombs raining down on Britain. According to Ian Fleming, he had a traumatic childhood. Orphaned at eleven, he went to live with his aunt in the small English village of Pett Bottom. If you don't find that hilarious, you'll be among the first to go in the coming Apocalypse. Learn to laugh, dear friends...  

So Bond is an only-child-orphan-introvert, which means he can become one of three things: a serial killer, a poet, or a secret agent. And he chooses secret agent. And what does this mean? He decides to live his life for the greater good, the greater good being England. And this used to be part and parcel of coming of age, the notion that you go into the service to give something back. That's why they call it the service!

This is how Britain withstood the Nazis when the firebombs set London ablaze. When the blackest of evils was right across the Channel, the people gave their all, out of sacrifice and selfless obligation. But James Bond takes it a step further. He doesn't just sign up for a stint, two years and out. He's in it for the long haul. And it's not as some desk-bound bureaucrat, home by 5 for G&Ts... No, Mr. Bond does the heavy lifting. He ventures where no one wants to go, where the shit is always headed for the fan.

And he doesn't just save a few people or even England, but more times than not, the world!

How 'bout you, dreadlocked Mangina? How many times have you saved anything?

When 400,000 men are stranded at Dunkirk, you don't whine. You get in your boat, whatever it is, and you sail out. And you fight the freaking Nazis for six long years and you see things and do things that scar you forever. But it's for England, the world, and the children unborn. Talk about sacrifice! And you silently endure because those that don't know will never know, and those that do, know it all too well. We can't tailor-make our life to be rid of rough edges. The rough edges are there precisely so that we can become our best or our worst. It's not easy to heed the call. It's when we find what we're made of. And some of us, sadly, come up short.

And what does James Bond do? His courage and mettle are constantly tested. His loyalty, his steadfastness, his ingenuity, his humanity. He's given the worst tasks where he must do things most never imagine. And because of this, his life is measured not in decades or years but in days. Sometimes, hours and minutes. Imagine if you knew that you could be dead tomorrow. You might enjoy that drink tonight. You might savor that woman. But you know there's no future in it because you have no future. That's a given. You've accepted it. 

And what do these women see when James Bond appears? A man with the confidence that stems from confronting humanity's darkness. Someone who faces death and defeat and who somehow surmounts it. And as things crash around them with death racing forward, James Bond calmly, collectedly figures it out and saves the day. Who wouldn't find this attractive?

He's someone who will always have your back. Who will never give up. But unlike Mr. Mangina who uses exalted rhetoric as a ploy to get laid, James Bond says very little.  And when he has a brief respite he enjoys it fully because he knows more than most the measure of life. As Bond says to 'M' in Casino Royale, 'So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman'... But he's more than just a blunt instrument. He's a 'sin-eater' who takes in the darkness for the benefit of all.

Courage, fortitude, loyalty, authenticity. These are Bond's currency. And he is nothing if not authentic. He's always himself, never anyone else, and you can depend on this. It's one of the rarest things in a world in which you can depend on practically nothing.

The White Maggot Story

Googled "sexy white maggot"

I know everyone who tells a story like this makes themselves out to be the perfectly rational one in the scenario. But I think anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant, especially as a manager, has stories like this one. Bear in mind, a manager's job is to remain calm.

We had a party of 18 come in and buy a bunch of birthday desserts at the end of their meal. We didn't normally sing to birthday people, but someone thought it'd be funny to make Gerardo put on a little sombrero and sing happy birthday. Gerardo had only been there for a week and was a shy guy, so I thought it'd be funny; after all, the group had a huge bill. I couldn't let him go it alone, so I put on a lucha libre mask, and Gerardo put on a little sombrero, and we sang happy birthday to the table whilst delivering four giant desserts.

Back in the kitchen, a server told me a guest was being very rude to her saying she wanted me to sing happy birthday. I sent out a free dessert and asked the server to kindly tell her that we don't normally sing and the masked man has left the building, but her birthday dessert was on us.

We got a little rush in business just then and I forgot about it, but a bit later the same server said someone wanted to speak with me. So I dropped everything and went out to the table.

"Hi ladies, my name's Sky; how's everything going?" I said in my nicest voice possible.
"Well, the service was great, the food was good, but you're a fucking ass hole."
One lady was eating the dessert I'd sent out. Their meals were in to-go bags. They'd already settled their tab. She just wanted to curse me out.
"What happened, what's going on?" I ignored the insult to figure out why she would be so rude.
"You didn't sing to my friend!"
"Oh," I smiled, "that's not normally something we do, we were just playing a joke on the new guy. I'm sorry we didn't sing. I can sing for you right now if you'd like."
"I don't want anything from you!"
"Maybe I can look at your tab and take something off."
"I don't want anything for free!"
"I did send out a free dessert for your friend's birthday."
"We had to wait forever for it."
"Ma'am, I'd really like to fix the problem, but I don't know how I can do that. You don't like the free dessert, you won't let me reopen your tab, and you don't want me to sing."
That's when the birthday girl put down her spoon and said "You're the fucking manager, you ain't got no fucking skills."
Too which I said, "well you're obviously a classy lady that doesn't have the time for the likes of me, so I'll say thank you and I'm sorry your experience wasn't what you wanted. Happy birthday," and I walked away. I really thought that was my only option: remain calm and polite and walk away.

I posted up at the host stand because people who go nuts on the manager usually like screaming at the hosts, and I hate that. What do you seek to gain by yelling at an 18-year-old girl who has nothing to do with you?

First the ladies went to the bar and said something about how I think I can treat them any kind of way because of who's president. The bartender just nodded in that scared way service people nod when people have gone psycho.

Then someone was at the front door, so I opened it for them. They walked in and when I looked over my shoulder the ladies were RIGHT BEHIND ME. So I smiled, held the door, and said "have a great night."

The first lady walked through without a word, but the second started hollering at me. "I ain't walking through no door held by you. Fuck you peasant mother fucker. Fucking white maggot. I'll beat your white ass."

"Ma'am, please just go. Your night gets better the second you leave. Have a great night."
"Fuck you maggot. Get out of my way."

So I asked her friend to hold the door and got out of the way. But that wasn't enough.

"Fucking maggot. Get outta here."
"Ma'am, that's not how this works. You're the one who has to leave, and I'm the one who has to stay. I live here. Please just have a great night."

She had her back to her friend and the front door and kept screaming "white maggot." And I kept saying "Have a great night." The whole restaurant was staring. Later, many of them would console me, including three black dudes who apologized on behalf of black people, a first in my life. I've apologized for racist white ass holes many times in my life, but I'd never been on the receiving end of that weird apology.

Then the lady crossed the line, and I almost lost it. She said, "you support Donald Trump and think that gives you all the power!"

"Lady, if you don't leave I'm calling the police. I might be a white maggot, but I'm no fucking Trump supporter. Now GET OUT!"

---

The lady called corporate the next day saying she had other problems in life and that I egged her on. I told corporate I would have taken care of their meal and sung to them even after they called me a fucking ass hole, but when you start off calling someone a fucking ass hole, there's not a lot of places that conversation can go.

She wanted to abuse someone, and there I was. But she would have had a much better night if she had just a tiniest collection of manners at her disposal.

My Cupcake Story

I woke up feeling like Napoleon in the rain.
Confused and defeated.
Everything around me was broken.
I was angry at myself and everyone else in the world, and I thought I had lost my journal, which represents a lot of work.

Everything was messed up, and I felt like my whole life was a mess.

I looked in the fridge to see if anything was rotting. There I found a cupcake that I bought at Rick and Anne's yesterday. It was the most beautiful cupcake I had ever seen. My friend Liz Howe makes extremely delicious cupcakes. This one was S'Mores-flavored and was the most beautiful cupcake I have ever seen in my life. I didn't eat it yesterday because I don't like eating cupcakes in public, where people can see me deriving pleasure. It occurred to me that I never liked cupcakes until I met Elizabeth Howe. And I took a picture of the cupcake's brother yesterday, when Sara was going to eat it. I remembered that I felt like I couldn't wait to eat the cupcake yesterday. Deriving pleasure where no one could see me. I had really looked forward to it. And there it was. The most beautiful cupcake in the world.

And then I noticed the marshmallow.
And it occurred to me that I still don't know what the hell a marshmallow is. It must be made of dead animals, thought I. Nothing as Pax-Americana as a marshmallow could come from anything but a dead animal.

I thought, fuck it. I'm going vegan.
And I threw the cupcake in the garbage.

I looked at my fish, and Desdemona is sick.
Fuck it, I said,
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...............................................I'm going Vegan