"Man, I've been dealing with the same shit in this town for fifteen years!" he mouthfuls at his lady acquaintance. The Singer is so unsung. So unrecognized. So overlooked. His scruffy beard twitches above the righteous indignation his jaw is taking the full brunt of. His aviators are steamed from his rage. His v-neck white tee is nearly rent asunder. Top to bottom, like the curtain in the temple. As if torn by God himself.
Most at odds with the utter injustice of the hack singer's sentence of life in a shadow is the troubadour de purgatory's necklace. More specifically, his pendant. His turquoise bear-tooth set in the finest of Thai silvers, worn by gladiators in ancient arenas for courage and strength, and worn with equal pride by the shamans and medicine men of the olden Americas for wisdom and guidance during the hunt and/or spiritual quest. Or whatever.
This One Is Black. Deeper. Darker. Dangerouser.
In my sudden new-found obsession with this totemic piece of man-soul, I began a deep, involved, quixotic journey to find some record, some reckoning of these amulets of the sac in the world. About ten seconds' worth of Googling later (search terms: man necklace) I found a site that held forth only the most purely electrified tokens of sheer testosterone known to man, beast, and spirit. The Black Tooth above was but one of these.
Also on display for my examination was the "ring of barbed wire" pendant, which, while looking quite menacing, also promised to feel quite comfortable against my straining, tanned pec skin. According to the site, this is "just as well, as things could get rather messy otherwise." Ah, yes. Sex. This necklace WILL get you laid. You wanna know why? Because it "looks very masculine and tough under the light."
The "fossilized shark tooth" pendant, "is a piece of history being millions of years old. Mexican Silver... displaying it in all its glory." Wow. It is so comforting to know that there are people out there looking out for me, doing the archeological research that my schedule of working out, watching MMA, mixing creatine shakes, and shopping for designer jeans, long, square-toe Italian shoes, and breezy dress shirts with embroidered tribal designs on the shoulder restricts me from doing. I mean, if I weren't all shackled by these earthly pursuits of tanning, searching for the perfect flat-billed cap, and checking out my girlfriend's amazing new rack, I would have time to go on that African scuba trip or Balinese walkabout or whatever to find the ancient shark tooth on my own.
Woah, woah, woah. I just got lost in some sort of primal man fantasy. Who am I kidding? I don't have the courage, the wisdom, or the hormonal wherewithal to don a pukka-shell choker, wear a bedazzled bandanna across my forehead, or bear the pain shared by real god-men through the centuries of having Chinese-tribal-Native-Celtic scribery needle-punched into my skin! But I will try. I will learn to take that pain and be a man. I will earn the right to wear jewelry as mannish, honorable, and glorious as this:
And I will stand with Achilles in the bow of his black-sailed corsair as he calls to me and my fellow Myrmidons, "We are lions! The future is there! Take it! It's yours! AND YOU KNOW THIS, SON!!!"
Peace, broheim.
