Bromance of the Day: Bert and Ernie

If you ask me, it's time to reconsider the rampant speculation that everyone's favorite cohabiting man-muppets, Bert and Ernie, are lovers. Two bros, living the bro dream far beyond what many of us would consider possible, and the best we can do is pigeonhole them as gay?

Methinks I detect some jealousy in these insinuations, because regardless of their respective sexualities, Bert and Ernie have achieved what all true bros desire for themselves: a carefree life of palling around with buddies, bros before hoes, and everything else for that matter. I mean, you don't call fraternity brothers gay just because they live with a bunch of other men and engage in all manner of drunken homoerotic horseplay, do you? Not to their faces you don't, bruh.

So instead of pushing these iconic bros into a ready-made sexual identity box, let us celebrate them as true keepers of the bro, flying ever so close to that luminous bro in the sky.

Brothership, do you read me?

A lot of people accuse me of being insufficiently bro. I do wear a lot of cardigans, but I can also smash a beer can against my forehead. According to queer pedagogy, teachers should complicate their identities to avoid seeming like a representative of a particular reified identity, so here you go. Star Trek is a pretty bro show--uniform clothing, male camraderie, green chicks who may be Orion slave girls or may just be about to puke from all that jungle juice (no difference really)--and I am a big Trek fan, so that's another thing I have going for me.

Anyway, brahs, I had a bit of a disturbing experience last night: I encountered the Bro Cube.

I was just sitting on an empty bus, reading Judith Butler, when all of a sudden I saw a SWARM of bros and their ladies approaching the side of the bus. Seriously, there had to be about seventy of them. I've seen 'First Contact", so I knew what the fuck was up. They got on the bus, attempting to hide their open cans of Busch Light. They made incisive observations like "WE'RE ON THE BUS!" And you know what? Before long, I started to feel the energy. I really just wanted to hang out with some good people, listen to some good music, and chill. The thousands of voices of the collective infiltrated my consciousness, a thousand comforting voices in unison shouting "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

And that was it.

We are Bro. Drop your cardigans and prepare to be assimilated. Your bong collections and blacklight posters will be added to our own. Resistance is not chill, braaah.

On Being a Pioneer

Bros, had you any doubt who ran this town? When people say, "You'll enjoy living in the 5 College area. It's a real intellectual, literary oasis," what they mean to say is it's a place for people to bro out, to get kissed by two girls at the same time at Charlie's Tavern, to be a high scoring erotic photo hunt expert at the bar, to toss empties into the well-manicured lawns on the rich side of Lincoln Avenue, to make fun of the shrieking women who wander home shrieking about being women, to stand like a refrigerator upstairs at the Pub, taking a drag of another cigarette. Bros, Amherst is a literary place like the rest of the 5 College area, but it's not quite the same. Amherst does it bro style, too.



After all, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, Amherst's great namesake, is most definitely a bro.

Unfortunately, he's got a bad rep for passing off blankets infected with smallpox to the Native American population. But no one ever said it was ethical to be a bro. In fact, most of history is defined by the actions of unethical bros. If you want to pretend like you don't know, there are other places to move to-- Amherst is merely the epicenter of all things bro.

If anyone asks you where you live, don't be ashamed. Tell them you live in a sick oasis of beer, bitches, and books.

This Is Just To Say, Bro

I have pounded
the cans of Coors Light™
that were in
the mini-fridge

and which
you were probably
saving
for your beer pong tournament.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so rocky mountain refreshing©

and so cold-tasting©.

Broceries

I was provided a rare insight into the bro mind last weekend when I happened to spot some coming back from Big Y with their grocery shopping. All I saw, unfortunately, was a giant box of energy drinks. Perhaps that's all there was to see. I've begun thinking about energy drinks the way I think about ties: they're accessories that can tell you a lot about a man. They're vivid signifiers about which one can make a snap judgment from across the room. The streamlined classic silver-chrome can of Red Bull, the inconspicuous NoS shot, Monster's green claw-inspired logo which falls somewhere between Christopher Lloyd and the USA Today Crossword on the SBN Scale of Super Intimidating Things. How and why do we choose our envoys to the world, the metaphors that we hope will carry some part of some meaning, idea or vague sense? Because they look cool, because they're not Tab Energy,() because they're what our bros drink, because they give us a buzz? When is an energy drink just an energy drink, and when is it that night we snuck into Eyes Wide Shut with our off-again crush and got totally buzzed on box wine? Is such shorthand even fair? Shouldn't we make our own cans if we want to be known as total semiotic champs? But then there's also what we like, which should count for something. And Tab Energy actually tastes pretty darn good.

Look for Part II sometime in the nearish future, where I analyze the meanings of various energy drinks.

Anatomy of a Bro, Part 1: Facial Hair

Certainly, not all bros have facial hair, but some do, and it seems that we can isolate several facial hairstyles which might give you a fairly good idea whether or not you are in the presence of a bro. Most bro facial hair falls into one of three categories (for the purpose of this study, we are excluding sideburns, as they vary greatly even amongst bros, and thus probably deserve their own future post):



1. The Un-ironic mustache:

Also known as the dad-stache, this facial hair formation is generally seen on older bros, as bros of the younger generation will generally be extremely conscious of the possibility that their bro-stache could be confused with the ironic hipster mustache.

2. The Chinstrap:

Also known as the Feder-Line, this facial hairstyle is favored by many bros due to its tendency to gently cradle and thus accentuate the sharpness of the bro's jawline. The chinstrap pictured here, when combined with the subject's inclined neck, pursed lips, and faraway stare, tells potential suitors, "I'm sensitive, but I can also be kind of a dick...and you like this."

3. The Broatee

Seen here on Darius Rucker, former lead singer of Hootie and the Brofish and certified bro, the broatee is perhaps the most common choice of facial hairstyle among bros, and is perhaps the most clear-cut facial hair indicator of brodom. For instance, a young man with a chinstrap beard may simply be an asshat, but a goatee nearly always means bro. Some cases in point:


This broatee, along with the surrounding carefully-trimmed stubble, knit cap and the subject's Irish brogue, makes this particular bro irresistible to the opposite sex.


This broatee, also known as the Voice of a Generation Broatee, is immeasurably enhanced by brocoder-enhanced vocals, aviator sunglasses, Jesus bling, and talent that it is difficult for mere mortals to comprehend. A true brototype.

Finally, speaking of broatees, if you find yourself looking for the perfect gift for that special bro in your life this Brother's Day, consider one of the most revolutionary products of our time, The Goatee Saver:

Mister, I'll make a man out of you.

Broetics employs careful juxtaposition of images, words, and ideas to evoke a feeling that maybe has already been evoked. By your mom. Broetics is currently debating whether it's more important to be disjunctive or hyperjunctive. Your mom told me last night that hyperjunctive sounds too honest (too talky), and disjunctive sounds insincere (but broetically inclined). Your mom thinks a bro ought to try everything in moderation (your mom really wants me to watch what I'm drinking, eating, doing, and hating, as if that can be done in moderation).



Maybe being disjunctive (Ashbery) or hyperjunctive (see link) have become tired, bad ideas, and it's keg stand time. Maybe it's vision quest time. Maybe it's time to go native, bros. Peyote, pipes, pimps, palanquins.

Bros of the Day

Horace and Maecenas: what's a little money between bros?



Gertrude Stein: ballad of a lady-bro.



Robert Creeley: Bro Mountain.

They're everywhere. More than one in every two people is a bro, and by that I don't mean that more than half of all people are bros, but that there's a little bro in all of us.

Rainy Day Bros No. 12 and 35

Let's get this party started. Let's RAGE.

I have always wanted to write a manifesto, but after a semester and a half of teaching College Writing I can only "Story My Experiences".

I had a mystical-rapturous-ecstatic bro experience walking home from the ABC tonight. I saw a large group coming toward me, so slowly they seemed to be standing still. Like apostles in a fresco. I couldn't tell if they were English or drunk. As they passed me I was overcome by the smell of violets, and I realized that I was too good to be the boom box under anyone's window. This is not story-truth; this is truth-truth, facts so hard you could lose a filling. Some happenings happen exactly when you need them to; you could call it synchronicity (Did you know that that Police song contains the line "We have to shout above the din of our Rice Crispies")? Or it's God, or a teenage boy, or unicorns, or turtles all the way down.

My aesthetic wants to be Excess as a small boy in church, squirming but still barely within the limits of good behavior, reading the Bible for the dirty parts but still chastened by stories of unimaginable sacrifices (the terminally ill kid with the empty easter egg) borne lightly. lt is important to make sense. His arguments must be wickedly, winkingly logical; you'll give him that third glass of orange soda.

He is point zero zero of my take on the BroMass/Broetics/Bro School aesthetic. One thing you must know is that we will ALWAYS get our orange soda. We begin this endeavor in the spring, time of rhododendrons and crocuses and other dank buds. The only thing this has to do with the Dylan song is that everybody must get stoned.

Welcome. Bienvenue. What's the good word, bro? Bienvenido.

When a PhD Lit student (Samantha) and an MFA student (M.) met during a Writing Program Orientation at the University of Massachusetts, they had no clue that one day they'd be collaborating to reveal the truest, purest poetry aesthetic out there-- the Bro School of Poetry. They did not invent it. It has been around since your father's father's binge drinking days. Frank Norris wrote about it in a fictional account of bros being bros in his book Vandover and the Brute. Plato's Symposium? Bros being bros. All the Phi Beta Kappa bros knew that a liberal arts well-rounded prestigiousness relied on being able to throw down and rally when needed. Frat houses have been erected (ha, erected) based on the intersection of architecture and L=A=N=G=U=A=GE poetry. The New York School, including the chicks, knew how to bro down.

These are facts.

There are no multiple truths. That was so post-modernism ago.