Welcome new Manly Man!

The world's newest Manly Man was born at 12:52 AM 3/18/2009, and both he and his Beautiful Southern Mom™ are perfectly healthy.

Sorry for the short post, but I'm going to hold my new son. It's an amazing thing.

Things I think about

Okay, people, it's time for the final countdown. We're a week away from day my Beautiful Southern Wife™ is supposed to deliver our very first manly man, and it's getting pretty exciting. It seemed like this day would never come, but after only 14 trimesters of pregnancy the day is finally just about here. Every time the phone rings I'm sure I'm going to hear the words my wife is supposed to say when she goes into labor- "THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!"

Yes, I stole that from the movie "Juno". It's funny, sue me.

As you can tell, I spend a great deal of time thinking about this. In fact, I probably spend about 45% of my day thinking about the labor, birth, and life of my new son. The other 55% of my thoughts are divided between my wife, daughter, dogs, and motorcycles. In order to spare anyone's feelings I won't tell you the specific percentages between those.

To provide some insight into what makes me such an expert on being manly, here's a list of things I thought about today:


1. I need to change oil in the car. Maybe Wednesday.

2. I should have my family over for dinner soon. Maybe Wednesday.

3. Nice weather really brings the motorcycle riders out.

4. I need a new audiobook to listen to on my commutes to and from work.

5. I can't wait to put our new scent on the website and tell the world about it. It rocks.


So there are a few of the not-so-complicated thoughts of a not-so-complicated man. If you stay tuned you'll see the new scent launch (or drop, as the kids say these days) a few days after the launch of my new son. It comes from a suggestion that one of my customers gave me, and it's perfect for Manly Man Candle Company.

Sad update on the mustache

A couple of weeks ago I posted that a few of my friends and I were going to grow some kick butt facial hair, as I'm sure you remember. You remember, don't you?

How did it go, you ask? Ummmm..... Not too well. I started out by growing a fairly sexy beard, just so I could avoid the painful initial stages of mustache lip. Then, one morning when my beard was thick and manly, I broke out the trimmer and took off everything that didn't look particularly Tom Sellecky. Clippings filled the sink. Gradually my face appeared.

Then I learned that trimming a beard into a mustache is harder than it looks. I took too many whiskers off the 'stache, which left it a bit too... well..... Hitler-ish. I knew something had gone wrong, but I went to work with it anyway, which was probably a mistake because my boss saluted me like I was in the SS as soon as I walked in the door.

Yep, it was a long day at work.

Anyhoo, I've been growing the beard out again just so I can take another stab at it. This time I'm going for less crazy dictator and more sexy detective- Pictures may be forthcoming if it turns out well.

Thinking about changing my name

My Name is Grassman. Brent Grassman. Shaken, not stirred.

See, that just doesn't work. My first name, Brent, has served me adequately for 37 years now, but I'm not going to say it's been without some problems. I've been called Brett, Rhett, Gent, and twice people actually thought my name was Prince. No, I'm not kidding. Prince.

I've always wanted a name that's a bit more common. Like Ben, John, or Steve. A simple name that people wouldn't make me repeat. Now that I'm the owner of a major global company I'm thinking about changing my name to better suit my new stature. I have three criteria for my future name- It must ooze manliness, it must be easy to remember, and it must be somewhat short- I don't have time for long signatures.

So with that in mind, here are a few possibilities:

1. Jake Stone

2. Hank Scorpio (see above picture)

3. Rock Steel

4. Man Lee McCandle (the "Mc" is silent)

5. Al Uminum

6. Russ Tedbearing


I have many, many ideas, but I can't seem to pick one that fits me perfectly yet. Suggestions are appreciated.

More manly engineering

Love your old motorcycle, but disappointed that you can't ride it on the water? Problem solved. I can't find a video of it actually moving, but if it works as good as it looks then there shouldn't be any issues, right?

MAGNUM P.I. MUSTACHES

It is ON LIKE DONKEY KONG.

I work with men. Quite a few of them, actually, and when we're together the testosterone level can get out of hand quickly. A few days ago it reached a new, astonishing level, and a few of us decided that the only thing we could do to raise it to an even higher level would be to grow the thickest, bushiest, Magnum P.I. mustaches we could.

Is there anything manlier? I think not.

So now a few of us are in the growth stage of the best freaking mustaches the world has ever known. Ron Burgandy style. Geraldo Rivera style. A few of the guys have referred to them as "porn star mustaches", but since I've never seen a porn movie or even looked at a "nudie magazine" before I'll have to take their word for it.

It's interesting how facial hair works. Me, being a manly man, can grow facial hair pretty much at will. I had to start shaving at age six. A few of my coworkers are having a bit more trouble getting the old cookie duster to grow quickly, but I'm sure they'll sprout into amazing displays of bad decision making with a couple of weeks.

I might put a picture of us up, if properly motivated. Have you been over to the candle company lately?

Simple formula to increase manliness

One basic formula for increasing manliness is to take an ordinary item and make it, well, extraordinary. This works for almost everything. Regular trucks become monster trucks. Fire crackers and sparklers become the crazy explosives anybody can buy for the 4th of July nowadays. Old fashioned tube televisions become 150" plasma screen movie screens that rival IMAX theaters.

It's simple and effective. There are, however, some things that just can't be made truly manly. A unicycle may very well be one of them, as seen above. Other items that can't use this formula include fanny packs, Croc shoes, and of course the Mazda Miata. The only way to make these items manly is to fill them with Manly Man Candles, a practice I fully endorse.

Shingling with dad

When your dad calls, you should answer. When he needs help on his roof, take it from me, you should let it go to voicemail.

That, in a nutshell, is where I've been for a week.

My parents decided that they needed to put a new roof on their house, and they knew just who to call. A professional. So they did. Then they called me.

I have a lot of experience with roofs. I sleep under one almost every night, and I helped to roof a giant barn only twenty years ago, so you can see that I've got the skillz to pay the billz.

The first step was to rip the old shingles off of the house. This was surprisingly difficult, because they had been nailed down. It would have been MUCH EASIER if they hadn't been. Remember this if you have to do any roofing.

Here's another bit of information about shingles- They're HEAVY. Sure, they're not bad if you only lift up one of them, but if you put them in a bundle and wrap plastic around them, like the idiots who manufacture them do, that bundle will weigh 75 pounds. That weighs exactly the same as 75 one pound Manly Man Candles! Strange but true. Oh, and you're going to need a LOT of these 75 pound bundles. Almost 100. These will NOT fit in the back of your pickup. If you try, it will explode.

So, anyway, my dad and I, with DAMN LITTLE HELP FROM MY BROTHERS (I say that to get the comments on the blog going), finished the entire roof in about a week. I learned a lot, I loved, I laughed, I cried, and I heard my dad say "Betty goot!" (that's "very good", in English) many, many times. I highly recommend doing your own roofing work.

I will, however, hold my breath the first time it rains. This new roof looks holier than the pope to me.

Manly Pets

So as you already know, Rambo, the company frog, has moved on to warmer climates. And don't worry about his afterlife, because as Walt Disney says, all frogs go to heaven.

Frog heaven is always 88 degrees, humid, full of crickets, and man, you should see the girl frogs. HOT!!!!!!

Events like this always make people take stock of where they are in life. Am I happy? Are my goals being met? What will I have for lunch? Where did I leave my iPod? Questions like this have been streaming across my synapses for the past week or two. The latest question is a big one- Should Rambo be replaced, or should we just cherish the memory?

Now I have to admit the pets we have are... embarrassing. A mini-pinscher and a mini-schnauzer currently run around the house and cause trouble. Sadly, any dog whose name starts with "mini" is NOT going to be a manly dog. That's just an unwritten rule. You never hear about "mini-pit bulls" or "mini-German Shepherds". There's no "mini-cobra" or "mini-shark".

And now I have to tell you that I also have two female Guinea Pigs. I swear the pets that fill this house have more estrogen in them than a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader tryout session.

It's time to get a manly pet. I don't know what yet, but it will be MANLY. Stay tuned.