beta warriors

Today is the day I turn in my dissertation manuscript, and for some reason, instead of finishing the last paragraph I have to write I am here. But it is for an important cause! It is to alert all young ladies out there to beware the beta warrior - stay clear of his path.

Who is the beta warrior? Well, basically its a fancy name for a guy in a band, sometimes also known as a musician. How did he come to be known as such? I will explain.

See, back in the day, that is, before the Agricultural Revolution, there were these hunter-gatherer types. Hunters, who were mostly men, spent their time travelling around in nomadic packs, killing animals and admiring/envying each other's skills in weaponry. The guys who were the best hunters were the alpha males, the top dogs, you know - the ones who got carte blanche to do whatever their typically violent little hearts desired. Eventually they became the elite groups of warriors who all went out and tried to kill each other instead of animals, leaving a path of death and destruction in their wake, and acquiring all the booty they could get their hands on. They became the ideal of masculinity, what all others aspired to or at least worked to support in their own way.

In modern times, these elite packs of alpha warriors still exist, but our 'civilizing' and 'humane' tendencies have rendered us less inclined to be big fans of their skills in killing and destroying. That is why we have major league sports teams - they are a sort of distilled version of the masculine ideal, which all guys can still aspire to without any of the unsavory consequences of actually hurting anyone.

But what about those guys that just don't measure up - the betas? There have always been betas and there always will, as long as guys insist on viewing themselves in such competitive and stratified terms. How do they go about achieving their androcentric dream of roving in packs and engaging in sublimated forms of violence while reaping all of the benefits that accrue to the alphas?

Enter here the modern rock and roll band. Whatever picked-on dork it was who first came up with the idea to strap on a guitar and plug it into something electrical in the company of some of his buddies was apparently a lot more of a genius than anyone might have thought. He single-handedly paved the way for every idiot who was insecure with their masculine identity to go out there and overcompensate like nobody's business.

Now you too can acquire a van and some weapons/instruments, go tooling around the world, battling each other for glory, leaving a path of drunken debauchery in your wake and acquiring some hot groupie booty along the way -- all in the name of making yourself feel better about your inadequacies as a second-rate male. Honestly it is so easy, they should just market it as a package deal and make people pay for the experience - though I guess that would take all the mystery and sense of false accomplishment out of it. Hmm...

Anyway, I better get back to work, but all I can say is - take it from someone who has been trampled over a few times on their warpath: watch out for these beta warriors. Like all men, they have something to prove to each other, but as if that isn't bad enough, they also have something to prove to themselves. Unfortunately, this is often a losing battle and the winners, well...lets not even go there. Keith Richards, anyone??

Ahh, to burn out or to fade away - I guess that really is the question.