0:01 [music] Who are you? And where are you going? What do you want? Hello and welcome to Jiggers's Place. I'm your host, Kevin Beaml. And I'm a little bit in the dark, aren't I? Okay. Well, you know what? I'm not I'm not so good-looking that you're missing anything. Uh so it's it's Thursday afternoon or evening
0:38 if you're on the the East Coast and it's time to relax, have a cocktail in the smoo. And uh on this episode of [ __ ] Jiggers of Spice, I'm going to be talking about what it means to be a man. Now I think this is one of the central issues of of our day and I know I know young men who are wrangling with this issue. U one of them happens to be my nephew who I think has
1:13 uh very much figured out uh a a good answer uh to that to that question. Uh, and so, you know, uh, I got together with my, uh, cocktail creator, Chap GPT, to create a cocktail that is, you know, themed to this idea of what it means to be a man in contemporary America. And I don't know who's giving me this or that. I I have to say that my cocktail creator is hasn't been creative of late.
1:49 most of the drinks Chatch GPT comes up with seem to be uh variations on a Manhattan. So I said I don't want that specifically. And what Chap GPT came up with is a riff on the Bronx cocktail, which is not nearly as well known as the Manhattan, although it comes from New York City, one of the five burrows. And uh we're and and we're calling it the Bronx Gentleman. So this is a
2:24 ryebased cocktail. And so in honor of this uh very important subject, I am using my all-time favorite rye, Pendleton 1910 Canadian rye whiskey. Uh I I had this for the first time now quite a number of years ago. Uh, I I I think I got it at the Navy Exchange uh at on Naval Base San Diego. Fell in love with it. Still love it. Uh, now you can get it at uh uh Total Wines, which now has a fantastic store just down the
3:00 street from where I live here in the Pico Robertson area. If you go to Total Wine, I'll give him a free plug. If you go to Total Wines on Pico, um, between Bever and Beverly Drive, say hello to Roseanne Mcool, the wine manager. She's fantastic, unbeliev Unbelievably knowledgeable, and just a really, really lovely person. Okay, so we're we have rye whiskey. We've got some sweet vermouth, otherwise known as Italian vermouth. And we have some French vermouth. Uh otherwise known as dry vermouth. And we
3:37 have orange juice. This is freshsqueezed orange juice. I real I went to the store and the one thing I needed to get was an orange and forgot to get it. So I had to go go running out to get it a little while ago. And then some orange bters. And although you know I have good old Angostura orange bters and I have um let's see what what is the one I have here? Uh this is Bitterman's. Bittermans has like an orange cream bitters. Um I'm going to use this is my all-time favorite orange bitters. This is Stirrings blood orange bters. It's
4:14 fantastic. Um okay. So we got my shaker filled with ice. We're going to start out with an ounce and a half of rye rye whiskey. And here we go. Okay, got this going on. And okay, so we got the whiskey and then we've got I think it's uh yeah, half an ounce of the sweet vermouth.
4:51 Let's see. Here we go. It's after daylight savings time now. So, it's much darker in here than I'm used to. So, I I real I better put on some additional lights next episode, don't you think? Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to measure this out. I've got just a little bit of the dry vermouth in here. Calls for a quarter ounce. I'm just going to pour this in here. We got empty bottle. Okay. And uh yeah, true to form. We got a gardener outside making noise. Say, as
5:28 the French say, that's life. Got 3/4 of an ounce of freshsqueezed orange juice. Great stuff. I guess we could call this the California cocktail, too. And then a dash of orange bitters. There we go. This stuff smells so good. It's just wonderful. Wonderful. Okay, so if you are on my email list and you get the recipes, you'll see this recipe says that it should be shaken uh but not
6:05 violently for 10 to 12 seconds. Um, I'm going to shake it a little bit more than that just to give a little bit more opportunity for the flavors to melt and the ice to melt to bring out some of the flavors. But I I am going to do it not vigorously or not violently. I mean, I think it's violently, right? Yeah. Not violently. Okay. Vigorously, right? I think it's saying that it because of the topic. Okay. Oh boy. You can see if
6:40 you can see the the shaker. It's lovely lovely icy on the outside. Okay. And I've got my Nick and Nora glass because Nick Charles he he's definitely he's definitely a man. There's there's no question about it. And I can't get the cap off. Here we go. Okay. So, this out. It's got a lovely kind of golden color. Got an orange twist here. We're going to express it over the cocktail. I'm going to drop it
7:16 in because why not? And here we go. This is the gentleman Bronx. Lovely. Okay. See you over on the sofa.
8:01 Okay, here we go. I have my spherical pillow. I have my cocktail. I have my notes. So, yep. Let's move this down a little bit. So, [snorts] I uh so traditionally in in Judaism, uh a girl becomes an adult when she turns 12. She's known as a boss or a bot
8:39 mitzvah. And a boy becomes an adult. A boy becomes I guess a girl becomes a woman. A boy becomes a man in that in the sense of an adult. Uh when he turns 13, he's becomes a bar mitzvah. And [clears throat] in sort of everyday understanding, it means you know literally they're a man or a boy is a man and a girl is a woman. Um although what it really means is they're responsible for their own conduct w with respect to how God views it. So
9:16 prior to becoming a bar or bach mitzvah the parents of a child have moral responsibility for their conduct. After that age, the child does again with respect to God, not not necessarily with respect to civilian authorities. And on the occasion of my bar mitzvah in typically uh in my day, it was usually um boys, although some girls did have did
9:52 participate in the service um when they had their bach mitzvah. So uh you know a boy takes active part in the service Friday sometimes Friday night certainly in reform synagogues which is I was I became a bar mitzvah in a reformed synagogue. So boy took I took an active part in that e the Friday night service and then Saturday night I mean Saturday uh morning as well. And one of the things that happened in the evening, Friday night evening service was my mother read me a poem. And the
10:28 poem basically was what it mean about what it means to be a man. I'm not I'm I'm I'm going to read that poem at the end of this episode. It it became that night and for the 52 years uh that succeeded it so far at least my all-time favorite poem. There is no poem that I find more moving uh more incisive more inspirational
11:03 than if written by Ruddyard Kipling. Rudard Kipling was a British um a a Britisher uh a poet among other things. And so I'm um in uh uh in respect uh for my mother um but also because I think it is it it it so well summarizes what I'm going to be talking about this this afternoon evening. I'm going to read that at the end so you have something to look forward to. Uh so
11:40 there's lots of people out there today these days talking about what it means to be a man. Um there are these, you know, frankly quite disgusting, uh people who teach, you know, teach men how to how to pick up women and and seduce women. And um to my estimation, that's not teaching males how to be men. It's teaching males how to uh stay boys as they get ever older.
12:16 There are men uh who preach a message of dominating women and even um being very aggressive with women. And uh I don't I these men are off their rocker. That that's the best thing I that's the best way I can put it. They have no true concept of what it means to be a man. And and there are men who think that
12:52 if a male engages in what I think even today, but certainly in past times were considered manly pursuits, hunting and fishing, that that makes them a man. And while there's nothing wrong with hunting and fishing, at least not if um you know, you're going to eat what you hunt and and and catch. Um I don't think those inherently turn a boy into a man. Um and by the
13:28 way, if if they do, what about girls and women who hunt and fish? Does that turn them into men, too? I think not. So what makes a male a man is that he has taken on the responsibilities of behaving like a man or behaving as a man and those we used to talk about the
14:05 manly virtue shoes. And so a man who sets as his guiding or a male I should say who sets as his guiding principles the manly virtue manly virtues I should say and in the main lives by those virtues even though he doesn't do so all the time sometimes falls short. That's a male who qualifies to be called a man.
14:40 So, what I'm going to talk about are what I see as being uh the key manly virtues and why I believe these are the qualities that define manhood. So first of all and maybe most importantly a man is selfdisiplined. Now, the irony of this is we live in a
15:17 time that virtually idolizes freedom and seems to think that to be selfdisiplined is to deny oneself freedom. And I think this is a terribly mistaken perception of self-discipline. In reality, what people who have that belief are
15:52 calling freedom is nothing of the sort. It is in fact someone who is essentially a slave to his instincts. And the instincts of most of us is not to be men and women. It's really to be boys and girls. Right? So we don't live in a society where the necessities of life so engulf us
16:29 that what we would freely do is crafted or is constrained by feeding ourselves. finding shelter, protecting ourselves from, you know, wild animals, right? Especially here in America where we have an incredibly affluent society by any
17:06 measure. we we can work to uh sustain ourselves but still have quite a bit of leisure time. So when a man is when a a male is self-disiplined, he truly has freedom because his self-disipline permits him to do what he truly wants to
17:41 do. If not unimpeded, at least less impeded by his natural inclination. And that is that is true freedom. So whether we're talking about discipline in exercising, in how we eat, in how we interact with other people, in how we educate ourselves,
18:17 to do any of the things I've just mentioned and and myriads of other tasks well, we need to exercise self-discipline. That's how we're able to set goals that are truly worth achieving and then accomplish those goals. So I think the first virtue that boys need to learn
18:52 is self-discipline and that's best learned from their father and their mother. Okay. The fact of the matter is though, while there are boys who've been raised by their, you know, only by a mother who have turned out very, very well, typically a father who demonstrates self-discipline and raises his son to the same virtue will be more effective in raising a boy into manhood.
19:34 And this is where a program like the Boy Scouts used to be so effective was because it was a program for helping turn boys into men. now that it's become co-educational and far less dedicated to instilling virtuous behavior in boys. I think the unfortunately the Boy Scouts is far less effective today as an organization than it was certainly when I was a Boy Scout. And this is coming from an Eagle Scout,
20:10 right? um one doesn't become well once one becomes an Eagle Scout one is an Eagle Scout for life. So becoming self-disciplined is task number one for a male who wants to be a man. Next, a man takes responsibility for a myriad of in a myriad of situations
20:46 without excuses. First and foremost, he takes responsibility for his own behavior. So, if he makes a mistake, he takes the responsibility for having made a mistake and then he does his best to fix it. He doesn't push the blame onto others. And this is a very popular thing to do in our society today. Oh, it's not my fault. It's this other person's fault. It's this other group's fault. It's society's fault. No,
21:22 we might be able to make the case that society accepts that kind of behavior now in a way that it wouldn't have 10, 20, 40, 60 years ago. But to the extent that a man is doing a male is doing something wrong, if he if he's a man, he accepts responsibility for it. Okay? and and then like I said, he goes he goes about working to to fix the damage that he's done. But it's it's not just about
22:05 taking responsibility for ourselves, for you know a man for for himself individually. It's about bearing the responsibility for a wife, for children, for other members of his family, for his community, his his state, his country. Now, that doesn't mean that men should carry the burden alone or any individual man has to carry the burden alone. But it does mean that each man
22:41 does carry his share of the responsibility and he fulfills it to the best of his ability and when he falls short he doesn't blame others for that. He accepts his fallibility as a human being and he strives to do better next time. You can see why self-discipline precedes taking responsibility because taking responsibility requires a high level of self-disipline.
23:21 And here's the other thing. When one takes responsibility for one's own actions, that makes him powerful. He doesn't need to dominate. He doesn't need to attempt to gain power through violent means. By showing that he will accept the consequences of his conduct,
23:56 a man exudes power. Number next one. A man seeks to become emotionally strong, emotionally resilient. He he has an aspect of stoicism in him, but he doesn't so [snorts] repress his emotions that he becomes essentially an
24:32 automaton or a robot. Often times the situations in which we find ourselves don't afford us the the ability to emote to be afraid to scream, to pull our hair and nash our teeth. What they require is a calm assessment of the situation and
25:07 an emotionally controlled response. So, I was talking to uh a friend uh a couple of nights ago. Uh he he and his wife asked me to join them and and and some other folks for dinner and uh my friend was telling him about his uh Krav Maga teacher. He actually has two of them. One of them who's around my age,
25:42 he loves to like if somebody does something, he wants to challenge them, he wants to draw them into a fight knowing that he can clean their clock. And evidently my friend was telling me about a circumstance where uh I believe a driver cut off this this you know Krav Maga teacher of his and the the teacher
26:20 got out in front of this other car and pulled his car in such a way that both cars had to stop. and he got out and he just stood there. And the other driver, furious, got out of the car and approached the teacher and the teacher literally knocked him cold and then just left him there. I would argue that's not that's not the way a man behaves. Even if the person cut him off on
26:55 purpose, and believe me, it's aggravating. Don't get me wrong, it's aggravating. Very frustrating. But to provoke that kind of physical altercation is not what a man does. My friend's other Krav Maga teacher has never been in a fight in his life again around my age. And that's because he uses the skill, the skills he's learned to deescalate situations.
27:31 That's what a man does. It doesn't diminish a man's strength to seek deescalation and reconciliation. In fact, it takes a much stronger man to bring that about. And that's a true mark of manhood. Now, by the way, that doesn't mean that a man is stoic. He's not. A man should show tremendous love and caring for his wife,
28:08 his children, his family. He should be disturbed by suffering. It's just that he shouldn't turn a blind eye to it and he shouldn't well he shouldn't turn a blind he shouldn't let his emotional response to suffering
28:43 overwhelm him. He remains able to act even as he recognizes the pain that that that that others are suffering. Okay. So it's a balance between feeling and controlling one's one's emotions. Again you can see undergirling this as well is self-discipline.
29:19 Okay. A man believes in being a mentor because leaving behind a better world is the legacy of of every man. One doesn't have to be a great man. One doesn't have to be a George Washington or an Abraham Lincoln or a Booker T. Washington or a a Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
29:57 to seek to leave behind a better world. When I was a boy scout, we never left a campground that was not cleaner than when we got to the campground. So before we would pack up, get ready to leave, and then we would police the entire campground, pick up every bit of trash that was there, whether we had dropped it or not. And if there wasn't a garbage can at at the campground, we put it in a sack and
30:33 we packed it out. That was our small contribution to leaving the world a better place. So, I was at a party uh on on Saturday and there were uh quite a number of of younger people there and since I had been appointed bartender, they all got to meet me and uh a after serving up the drinks, uh we were standing out on the patio and I and and you know, kind of a group of us talking and there was a
31:10 young man kind of standing next to me. Um, and his wife was quite a vivaceious uh, young woman. And uh, I wasn't sure whether it was girlfriend or married. Turned out it was his wife. And I said, "Hey, you know, congratulations. You know, really what a what a you know, lovely young young woman you have for a wife." And and we started talking and he started telling me about himself. I think he was in uh probably late 20s, maybe very early 30s. So told me he he
31:45 never liked school even all through high school. And and so going to college was just nothing that was on his agenda. Fine. And you know, he ended up doing all kind of a various jobs. He he drove trucks for a while. He did uh essentially what amounted to manual labor for a while and then he had an opportunity to coach a children's sport. I I think it was soccer but I may be miser sport
32:20 doesn't matter. And what he found was coaching and mentoring young people was was what really what he really enjoyed like deep in his heart enjoy. And so he decided that he wanted to become a special education teacher. So now he's in college studying to get his education degree and his teaching credential. because he wants to spend the me rest of
32:55 his life helping and mentoring mentoring young people. He's a man. That's what a man does. And the fact of the matter is he will do okay financially, but he's not going to make millions of dollars. He may over time save up the equivalent of a million dollars acrruels in a pension or whatever and good for him. But this is a young man who has decided
33:30 he's going to take on the responsibilities of a man. And one of those primary responsibilities is mentoring especially other other boys or other males but women too. And [clears throat] women need to understand men as much as men need to understand themselves. And my prediction is he's going to be out of the park fantastic doing that.
34:13 Okay. A man is honorable. He seeks to sustain his honor. He doesn't seek honors. He seeks to be honorable. And he does that by making his word his bond. When he shakes your hand
34:50 as the sign of an agreement, that handshake is stronger than a 100page document written by lawyers, reviewed, multiple drafts, signed, notorized, his word is his bond. when he tells you something that purports to be a fact, it is a fact. Because if it's not a fact, he says,
35:27 "I'm not sure if this is true, but I heard or I believe I read or hopefully I'm remembering the source correctly." He never claims greater knowledge and certainty than he possesses at the moment. He doesn't seek to dominate other people. He seeks to create a world where
36:02 everybody rises together. He doesn't pit one group against another. He's not misogynistic or for that matter chauvinistic. He's certainly not bigoted. He believes that there are only two races of people, the decent and the indecent. In an age where
36:38 acting dishonorably seems to just be deriggor, he goes against the norm. He doesn't mind being the outsider because he knows that to be a man is to be honorable. We have so many 30-year-old, 40-year-old, 50-year-old,
37:15 60-year-old boys in our society today. And the way one can tell is because they say things that are clearly untrue. They seek to set us against each other. Rather than to create a community where all people are valued for what they can contribute
37:52 and how they behave. There's no such thing as a group to a man. There's only individuals and each individual rises and falls in accordance with how honorable an individual that person is. Finally, a man
38:28 seeks to fulfill his purpose and mission. That is the guiding principle in his actions. He seeks meaning in life. I I often hear that young men today are lazy. They're not well educated. They're wimpy. And for sure, there are young men who
39:05 who fit those descriptors. There are middle-aged men and old men who fit those as well, as there has always been. What helps a man not be those things is he understands what his purpose is. Okay. Part of my purpose is to be what's called in Hebrew and Eb Hashem, a servant of God. It's it's a something that I don't
39:43 always accomplish. My mission is to help other people live better lives. That's especially why I do this show, Jiggers's Place. So, I want to give you food for thought, things for your brain to chew on that will improve your life. My development of the three pillars of attainment is in pursuance of that mission. Now, I'm not saying that in order for a
40:18 male to be a man, he has to have the same purpose and mission as me. Not at all. There are many many purposes in life. There are many many missions in life. Many of them are honorable. Some of them are dishonorable. So a man seeks an honorable purpose and mission in life and that becomes his guiding light.
40:54 So these are the manly virtues and I I've got some little phrases to kind of uh summarize them. So going back through the various that I mentioned, strength and compassion aren't opposites, they're complimentary. A man's strength is measured by how he uses it. To protect, to provide, to build, to uplift. are discipline is not repression. It's self-respect
41:29 in action. In a culture of blame, responsibility is rebellious. Feel everything, but be ruled by nothing except your conscience and your desire to fulfill
42:04 your purpose and mission. The measure of a man is not what he achieves but what he passes on. You can make a tremendous amount of money in a lifetime. Money dissipates quickly. If you raise good children
42:40 who in turn raise good children, you've made yourself immortal and your legacy is a better world. Honor may not be fashionable, but it's foundational. And finally, a man without purpose and a mission drifts. A man with purpose and a mission directs the tide.
43:19 So, I'm going to wrap up this show, as I mentioned, by reading If by Ruggard Kipling. Uh, Kipling was a man of the Victorian age. He was born in 1865. Lived through the Edwardian period in England. He lived until 1936. He wrote some of the greatest novels of all time. uh, Captain's Courageous, uh, Lord Jim, so many other wonderful books.
43:54 But to my mind, this is the greatest thing he ever wrote and indeed the greatest poem ever wrote, ever written. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you. But make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about don't deal
44:30 in lies or being hated, don't give way to hating. and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise. If you can dream and not make dreams your master. If you can think and not make thoughts your aim. If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same. If you can bear to hear the truth you've
45:06 spoken, twisted by naves to make a trap for fools. Or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools. If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings
45:43 and never breathe a word about your loss. If you can force your heart and nerve and sine you to serve you serve your turn long after they are gone and soul hold and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them hold on if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch.
46:18 If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you. If all men count with you, but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distant run distance run. Yours is the earth and everything. Yours is the earth and everything that's in it. And which is more,
46:54 you'll be a man, my son. That was the poem that my mother read to me on my bar mitzvah. It's as relevant to me today as it was half a century ago. So, I thank you very much for joining me here in Jigger's place. We're back to standard time. It's going on six o'clock. It's already dark outside. It's fall. It's getting cooler. Even here in LA. It It is the most
47:30 wonderful time of the year. In a few weeks, it'll be Thanksgiving. And then a few weeks after that, it'll be Christmas and New Year. and we'll meet again several times before the new year comes. And I really appreciate you tuning in. Have a wonderful rest of the evening. Courage at all times, my friends.