5 More Guys Who Are NOT Guy’s Guys
What happened to people? 2015 has been a year marked by really bad behavior, and it’s been a challenge for Guy’s Guys all over the world to stay the course without lowering the bar.
If we look beyond obvious deplorable acts like terrorism, there still is an underlying ugliness in how our society continues devolving. It’s rare when we hear someone authentically take responsibility for their mistakes or say they’re sorry. And our win-at-all-costs mentality has decreased our standards for acceptable behavior.
So what’s a Guy’s Guy to do? Good question. I’ve decided to stuff your stocking with my updated list of Anti-Guy’s Guys— individuals who are not creating an environment where men and women can be at their best and everyone wins. The purpose of my list is not so much to condemn these public figures, but to generate awareness for how we can make more circumspect decisions and raise our collective consciousness in 2016. Here goes…
1. Donald Trump – He is the leader of what many consider a clown car of Republican candidates for President. On the positive side, The Donald has brought some important issues to the forefront including our broken borders and immigration system, costly mismanaged wars in the Middle East, and the growth of terrorist acts that threaten our country internally and externally. The good news stops there. Like him or not, there are problems with his candidacy. His tone is harsh, his words can be vulgar and at times hateful, and his isolationist rhetoric, lies, and fear mongering has deepened the chasm between races, religions and sexes in our country.
Many fail to understand is that Trump’s core base has a ceiling, and even if he wins the Republican nomination (it’s not a sure thing), he will never become president. Let me repeat that. Never. Become. President. Instead of heeding the words in his best-selling The Art of the Deal book, after making salient sales points to generate interest Trump has failed to shut up long enough to close the damn deal. He keeps talking and that’s a killer for sales people. It’s all about his ego. Sir, you are not a Guy’s Guy.
2. Odell Beckham Jr. – It’s sad when one of the great young talents in the NFL experiences a meltdown during a game that threatens to derail what could be a Hall of Fame career. At a time where head injuries and concussions are on top of the NFL’s problems, what does ODB do? He repeatedly uses his helmet as a weapon to spear an opposing player who has his back turned. Compounding the thoughtless penalties he incurred for spearing, OBJ put his ultra-valuable wide receiver’s hands at risk by slapping at the same opposing player’s helmet and facemask, which could have easily resulted in a broken finger or hand. After the game, our hero failed to own up to his ridiculous actions or show the slightest remorse. But what tops the list of his anti-Guy’s Guy behavior was his jeopardizing his team’s chance to win the game through his selfish actions. And, to compound that error he’s also been suspended for the Giant’s upcoming contest—their most important game of the season. Nice going, amigo.
3. Eujin Jaela Kim, NYC school Principal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn – Yes, ladies can be anti-Guy’s Guys also. It’s about making the world a place where men and women can be at their best so everyone wins. And she didn’t. A guy’s Guy or Gal believes in inclusion, not exclusion. So when a principal takes it on herself to deny any references to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, your Guy’s Guy cries foul. A principal has many tasks and it’s a tough job. Principals are stewards of our schools, but they are not empowered to negate federal holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Say what you want about the Pledge of Allegiance. I recited it for years and here I am, a proud American. Yes, it mentions, “one nation, under God”, but if you don’t want to say it, you don’t have to. No one is listening anyway. What the pledge does though is align us all as being Americans. Is this a bad thing?
Back to Christmas and Thanksgiving. Instead of eliminating them, it’s far better to expand the season by recognizing Chanukah, Kwanza and other end of year holidays. America is not a country where we exclude holidays or whitewash our culture. That’s called communism. As principal of a public school, you do not have the authority to decide which federal holidays are acknowledged. Please write that on the blackboard one hundred times.
4. Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals – This guy makes Donald Trump look like Mother Theresa. This swarmy 32-year old investment tycoon recently bought the rights to the AIDS drug Daraprim, and through the kindness of his heart raised its price from $13.50 to $750 per tablet, a whopping 5,085% increase. What a guy! His rationale was predictably about our free market, and he stuck to his guns when the pressure was turned up for him to ease the pricing for a drug that helps those afflicted with a deadly disease. Nice dice, folks. His product, his pricing. Fast-forward a few short weeks ahead when our hedge fund hero ironically gets busted for fraud. We see him on the news being led off to the pokey dressed in his trendy hoodie, but again without remorse. No sir, his only response was that they were out to get him. Maybe so, but he may have broken some laws. For now, let’s see how he acclimates himself to a possible extended stay in the slammer.
5. Steve Harvey – I thought about this one and did my best to give Steve a pass, but nope, he failed. As emcee of this year’s Miss Universe pageant, your number one job task is to announce the winner of the contest.By now we all know what happened. Steve-O unfortunately read of the name of Miss Colombia as the winner. After she was crowned, Steve skulked back up to the stage and informed the worldwide audience that Miss Colombia was in fact, first runner up. Miss Philippines, who by now was standing off to the side wondering why she came in second, was announced as the actual winner and waved back to the main stage to receive her crown, which was perched atop Miss Colombia’s trusses. Talk about an uncomfortable moment. As the crown switched heads, Steve sucked it up and accepted blame for the error before the show abruptly ended. Wasn’t Steve being a Guy’s Guy by taking the hit on global television for his boo-boo? At first I thought so too, but not so fast, amigos. What else could he do? I am sure that the producer told him to get his butt back on stage and make the change before time ran out on the broadcast. With the results card clearly stating the correct placing and winner, Stevie had no real chance of avoiding his taking the hit. The clincher was a report that Steve had missed rehearsals for—wait for it—naming of the winner without the use of the teleprompter. Maybe I am being too harsh because Harvey did take his lumps in front of a worldwide audience. Still, missing rehearsal is unprofessional and reading the wrong name is pretty lame, so in this instance he was not a Guy’s Guy.
2015 was a banner year for bad behavior so excuse me for excluding the likes of ungracious winner Floyd Mayweather, Greg Hardy, Tom Brady (c’mon, how did the air get out of those footballs?), the NRA, hypocritical politicians from both parties and a gridlocked Congress, Vlad Putin, the Kardashians (just being themselves), and of course the misguided, cowardly terrorists who believe that murdering innocent people is a religious act that makes the world a better place. Really.
But it’s not all bad news, amigos. This week’s GUY’S GUY of the Week is a fellow named Bairan Gomez, who you may have recently read about. His fiancée has been on dialysis so gave one of his kidneys to her. That’s a real man, and of course a true Guy’s Guy.
Happy holidays and see ya’ll next year!
Image via Shkreli’s Instagram.
