Guyism » Holidays

2011 Guyism Holiday Gift Guide – Megan’s Favorites

Megan Collins — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:50:36 +0000

My picks for great guys’ gifts will be coming, but in the meantime, here’s what to get for me – I mean, your lady love.

Hard truth time, guys: You are not going to separate us ladies from our sweats (just like we’re never going to convince you to throw out your faded old frat t-shirts). But you can get us to trade up into less scrub-tastic around-the-house wear. These sweatpants from brand 291 are the closest loungewear gets to sexy. Bonus: they don’t have the word “Juicy” or “PINK” stamped on the butt.

2. Mulberry “Alexa” Bag – $1,450

In it for the long haul but not quite ready to propose? Make a statement by getting your lady a nice bag (in a big box). I mean, a really, really nice bag. This one from Mulberry will do.

3. Three Sisters Hand Stamped Necklace – $70
I’ve set an early New Year’s resolution to start wearing more jewelry (which should be way easier to keep than last year’s totally unrealistic goal to “Volunteer more.” Sorry kids’ afterschool art program near my apartment, you’ve been replaced!) This dainty gold necklace is just the thing to start me on my way. Extra points if you know my birthstone and add it as a charm (hint: I’m a July baby).

Need more help with your shopping? We’ve got you covered! Click here for more ideas.

Top five holiday party don’ts

C. Benjamin — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:54:35 +0000

As the song goes, it’s the most wonderful time of the year… except for party attire. I don’t know that there is a time of year where people dress worse for parties than Christmas. For some reason, people lose their sartorial minds and dress in some of the worst items of clothing in the history of clothes for holiday parties. We decided to compile a list of the most douche-tastic items that a guy can wear to a holiday party or, quite frankly, anywhere.

Santa Outfits

Few things are more ubiquitous with holiday parties than Santa hats. If there are hats laying around or passed out by the host, certainly indulge. However, wearing a full Santa suit to anything other than a community service project with children is like branding “I’m a dick” on your forehead. There’s nothing wrong with putting a little effort into your outfit, but demanding to be the life of the party with your outfit is just unacceptable.

Christmas Theme Ties

May God have mercy on the sole of whoever created these wretched things. Seriously, Christmas themed ties are the most atrocious accessories on the planet just behind fashion Rosary necklaces. I know you may have thought a tie that tells the entire story of how the Grinch stole Christmas was creative, but from a distance it looks like you vomited holiday cheer all over your shirt. Please do us all a favor and burn any festive ties you own.

Ugly Ironic Christmas Sweaters

Let’s be clear: we are not talking about Fair Isle sweaters. Fair Isle sweaters are awesome and should be worn to holiday parties. We are talking about those hideous knit sweaters with the festive applique that are purposefully worn because of how awful they look. I guess there’s something in egg nog that makes every guy want to tap into his inner-hipster and wear the most ironic sweater he can find. Well guess what, the jokes on you because it’s not really funny or cool to anyone.

All Red and/or Green Everything

This is such a bad idea on so many levels I don’t know that this really needs to be broken down… but it shall be. Red and green are both obnoxious colors by themselves (see: Valentines Day and St. Patrick’s Day), but together they are a perfect storm of terrible. Unless you are an unskilled worker employed by an obese bearded man that only works one night a year, just stay away from outfits that are heavy on red or green.

Mistletoe

Without a doubt, mistletoe is the worst thing to “wear” to a holiday party. Guys that come with mistletoe dangling over their head or crotch are essentially saying, “I have ruffies in my pocket right now and I dare you to not watch your drink.” Just say “No” to the ‘toe.

GQ x Park & Bond Pop-Up Launch Event

Gabe Alonso — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:25:58 +0000

Last night, Guyism was invited to celebrate the opening of the GQ x Park & Bond Pop-Up Store here in New York City. It was certainly a sight to behold with some of NYC’s prettiest men and women browsing some amazing product (I spotted Lance Bass, Nate Berkus, and Chace Crawford – OMG guys *gag*). The store was styled and detailed immaculately, creating what can truly only be described as a flawless man-shopping experience. The shop featured items from “GQ Selects” and some of their “Best Stuff of the Year,” not to mention a nicely curated selection from Park & Bond – new and vintage watches (nab that Rollie you’ve been always wanted), grooming products, deisgner clothing, and items under $50 (read: a great selection of neckwear and accessories from The Tie Bar). If you’re going to be in the New York area now through the 18th of December, definitely stop by and check it out. The details are below:

Dates: December 8-18 (closed December 12 & 13).

Address: 414 W. 14th Street, Between 9th Ave. and Washington St.

Hours: Sunday-Wednesday, 11:00am-6:00pm; Thursday 11:00am-8:00pm; Friday-Saturday, 11:00am-10:00pm.

For more info on the store and tons more pictures from last night soiree, head over to Park & Bond’s “The Intersection” (which, by the way, was a ridiculously good drink made from ginger beer and vodka and some other kinds deliciousness that I drank too much of). Below are some pictures I was able to snap on my iPhone of the tables and some of the incredible product for sale. The GQ Eye also has a ton more pictures snapped by the one and only, Justin Chung, later today.

The 7 worst things about the holiday season

Jenni Maier — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:00:42 +0000

Since we crank out so many stories each week some really good ones get lost in the cracks. And since so many new people visit Guyism every day (thank you), we thought we’d start taking some time on the weekends to share some classics that many of our newer readers may have missed.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The holiday season is absolutely wonderful in theory — the spiked drinks, the purposefully placed mistletoe, the memory of work bonuses that no longer exist. But in real life it’s a disaster of a month wrapped in an overpriced bow because in order to get to all the good stuff (gifts) you have to endure a lot of family time, a lot of mediocre vegetable dips, and a lot of unnecessary Eggnog hangovers.

Now before you go off accusing me of being the Grinch, check out this list.

7 Bad Gifts
Receiving bad gifts is the cruelest joke that the universe can play on you. Not only do you now own a tie with golf carts all over it and/or your grandfather’s “vintage” handkerchief, but you also have to look up at the gift giver, smile extra big, and pretend really hard that a Pokemon-inspired Chia pet is exactly what you wanted. Instead of enjoying the rest of your gifts, you’re forced to compliment your great aunt on her Werthers-candy-inspired perfume until she coughs up the gift receipt. End this problem by sending an e-mail (or letter by carrier pigeon to your elderly relatives) explicitly stating that you will only accept cash this year, preferably unmarked bills in a suitcase.

6 Political Correctness
Being politically correct gets increasingly harder each year since every single person you know seems to celebrate a different holiday. Scientists have proven that there have been at least 23 other holidays added to the December mix since 2005. Now you have to end every conversation debating between stereotyping a person and guessing the holiday (Happy Chanukah, Mrs. Goldberg) or listing every single holiday and hoping the person’s not an atheist. Stop worrying about upsetting people and instead go all out and offend everyone by ending each conversation with “and a horrible holidays to you, sir.”

5 Too Many Movies
December’s always extra stressful because 100 good movies are all released at the same time. You’re suddenly forced to choose between Santa Clause 4: Tim Allen Marries a Reindeer and Oscar, a tragic epic about an Academy Award that will inevitably win all the awards. The Hollywood blockbuster guarantees you’ll have tons of funny quotes to pull out at boring holiday parties while the indie tearjerker guarantees you’ll look sophisticated and mature. Don’t stress. Instead get high and go see the latest kids movie — there’s nothing like a Jim Carrey animated flick on shrooms.

4 Christmas Music
Every single store, radio station, and parking garage blasts Christmas music endlessly despite the mathematical fact that there aren’t enough songs to go one whole day without repeating. You wake up to Baby Jesus, you eat your lunch to Santa Claus Coming, and you fall asleep to Silent Night. Avoid wrapping jingle bells around your neck and hanging yourself by walking around with an old school boom box on your shoulder blasting the most offensive, disgusting music you can find. Bonus points if you can find a song that references Rudolph being a baby daddy.

3 Office Events
Between sober-mandatory parties and obligatory secret Santa programs, the holiday season at the office can be downright brutal. While it’s a great break from work, it’s also a great opportunity for you to get out of control at the spiked punch bowl. One second you’re complimenting your co-worker on her spreadsheet quality, the next second you’re throwing up on your boss as you tell him exactly when you figured out he wore a toupee. Stop this disaster from happening by claiming food poisoning from whatever (insert co-worker you hate most) brought in for the party.

2 Salvation Army Bell Ringers
There is nothing more annoying than those volunteers who never let up on the goddamn bell ringing. They seem to multiply every year and it’s no longer surprising to wake up and find them sitting on the side of my tub, ringing away. It’s not that people don’t want to give to charity, it’s more like people don’t want to give to a charity that makes getting close to their money bucket so hard on the ears. Solve this dilemma by purchasing an air horn, setting up a money bucket next to them, and blowing the horn each time they ring the bell — let them get a taste of their own medicine.

1 New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve is by far the most overrated holiday ever invented. Between cashing in your life insurance to afford dinner and being forced to kiss a fast acting she-male at midnight, the night is usually a letdown. That’s not even to mention the fact that you have to spend the last ten seconds of the year watching Ryan Seacrest on television. Skip New Year’s Eve drama this year by asking a rich friend to cover dinner (’tis the season of giving) and lurking behind the hottest girl at the party (’tis the season of stalking) so she’ll be forced to kiss you when the ball drops.

The 10 worst movies to get for your girlfriend this holiday

Chris Spags — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:59:47 +0000

It’s the holiday season and, if you’re an atypical man, you might be already trying to think of movies that you’ll want to get your girlfriend or wife or mistress for the holidays. In an effort to help, here’s 10 you should avoid at all costs if you want your girl to not think you’re a complete sociopath.

Lolita
1962
Premise: Man moves into a woman’s house solely to bone a woman’s daughter.

Now I know what you’re thinking…a film in which a man completely disregards the overtures of an older woman for the luring appeal of her 14 year-old daughter; why would my significant other not go for that? Well here’s the thing, when you’re a woman, you’re basically like a beat up old Dodge Rambler just waiting for your owner to get sick of all your blown gaskets and leaky fluids. That’s just science. But when you’re a beat up Dodge Rambler being replaced by a Dodge Rambler that’s just 20 years younger, looks fairly similar, and doesn’t have a loose tailpipe, you’re just being a dick.

Probable kicks to groin: 4

The Accused
1988
Premise: Jodie Foster gets raped. Hard. The rapists eventually get jailed though, so that’s cool.

Here’s how you’d try to sell the movie The Accused to your girlfriend if she hadn’t heard of it.

“So what’s this movie about, honey?”
“Well Jodie Foster is kind of a slut. But she’s not a bad person.”
“Um. Ok.”
“Anyway, she gets raped really hard on a pinball machine…”
“Why do you want me to watch this????”
“LET ME FINISH. IT’S A REAL FEEL GOOD MOVIE BECAUSE THE RAPISTS GET CONVICTED IN THE END.”
“I hate you.”
“Fine. But can we still get the pinball machine?”

Probable kicks to groin: 3 and a girly punch

Swordfish
2001
Premise: Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry are hackers or some crap.

Any time the primary selling point for a movie is, “Baby, have you ever wondered what Halle Berry’s tits look like?” you’re probably not going to find yourself in the best place with your lovely lady. On the plus side though, Hugh Jackman is pretty sexy. I mean like, plus side for your chick. Not you. I guess sometimes we all want a powerful man with adamantium in his body to hold us. Nothing wrong with that. It’s not gay if he’s a mutant.

Probably kicks to groin: 1…she totally wants to check out Halle Berry too

High School Musical 2
2007
Premise: Gay kids sing about high school in an all gay school for gays.

If you give this gift to a woman, you couldn’t give her any more signs of what a complete pedophile you are unless you started dressing like Gary Glitter, complete with a laptop full of “special research on children’s issues”. And yes, Vanessa Hudgens is 18 and sure she looks delicious and probably has rainbows and a cure from cancer in her cooch, that doesn’t make it okay. Publicly.

Possible kicks to groin: 3…4 if you go “NIIIIICE” during one of the cheerleader scenes

Caligula
1979
Premise: Roman Emperor does a whole lot of crazy crap.

I’ll leave a description of one scene from the film to a Caligula fan page:

While giving Caligula a tour of his Palace, Tiberius has Macro tie
a drunk Sentry’s cock off while the Sentry is forced to drink a large
amount of wine. A little later on, Tiberius splits the Sentrys gut
open with a sword. As well, Caligula gets a tour of the “Villa of the
Monsters”, which is Tiberius’ pleasure grotto, filled with all kinds
of deformed sexual wonders. Tiberius refers to them as living
statues who “do!”. This includes an orgy, a woman who puts a
snake in her snatch, someone f’ing a bull, the pussy paddler,
a whip handle inserted in someones ass, and the best of Tiberius’
Stallions doing what he does best. “More Conviction!”

Sure, a snake in a very delicate female area might seem shocking, but when you consider that something similar was a deleted scene in Beaches, it’s not so bad.

Probably kicks to groin: 2…though I imagine there will be more dumping as a result of this than actual violence

Happiness
1998
Premise: Various fed up plots come together to make one cohesive fed up plot.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Happiness quite a bit. Very funny movie in the kind of dark way that not many people can do. But at the same time, not many women that I’ve ever encountered take to that so well. In fact, quite the opposite. Most usually recoil as though I asked them to participate in a foursome with me, their mother, and a wiffle ball bat. Not to mention that there’s a copious amount of little boy diddling in the film. So that’s fun for everyone.

This may not apply though if your girlfriend is a big Philip Seymour Hoffman fan. If she is, then absolutely get this movie so she can watch him masturbate vigorously while breathing heavily into the phone with a woman he’s prank calling. It’ll be the first time Philip Seymour Hoffman has gotten anyone laid…probably including himself.

Probable kicks to groin: Probably 3, one for each individual perverse storyline.

Molly
1999
Premise: Elisabeth Shue is an unbearably sexy retard.

This movie girls may actually like quite a bit. The only problem is if you watch it with your lady. You see, Elisabeth Shue is quite attractive (or, at least, was during this film). She’s also profoundly autistic in the movie but plays more of a retard than an autistic. It’s kind of a touching movie overall. Except for the parts where Molly runs around naked because, well, she’s autistic and apparently that’s what they do.

I can’t accurately explain to you how difficult it is to explain a raging erection while watching a movie about a functional retard. Unless you’ve seen Christopher Burke’s stunning turn in Nailin’ Palin.

Probable kicks to groin: 0 until the nude scene…then, oh, eleven billion.

Hounddog
2007
Premise: Dakota Fanning gets raped but finds solace in blues music.

Ignore the fact that the movie kind of sucked. Hard. There’s no situation in which you can tell your significant other about wanting to see a Dakota Fanning movie (excluding Man on Fire, which is so awesome and manly that you can almost cry at the end when Denzel’s character comes full circle) and not have her be completely disgusted. Through in another healthy dose of rape and, ta da, you’ve got a movie that, if you own it, says, “Hello world! I propose more child rape for our entertainment needs!” Which makes you no better than Ronald McDonald.

Probable kicks to groin: 1 and a whole lot of head shaking

American Psycho
2000
Premise: Christian Bale is crazy and kills people. He also has nice business cards.

There’s no doubting that this is a fine movie. One of my favorites, in fact. But if you really care for your significant other, you won’t want to risk them thinking that they’re about one month away from you throwing a chainsaw at them while they run downstairs. In spite of how impressive a feat that is.

Conversely, if you want to break up with your girlfriend but don’t want to pull the trigger yourself, nothing will expedite that process more quickly than casually laying down a plastic tarp and putting on a smock while you and your girlfriend watch the film. Humming Sussudio would be an added bonus.

Possible kicks to groin: 1 so long as you don’t make any sudden movements

The Last House on the Left
1972
Premise: Girls get tortured, peed on, sexually assaulted, and disemboweled by violent criminals. For a loooooong time.

There’s really no way to do this film justice, so I leave it to the wordsmiths over at Wikipedia to explain a significant portion of the film:

In the woods, the girls are untied and subjected to several tortures, including forced urination, exhibitionism, and molestation at the hands of Krug’s girlfriend, Sadie. At the police station, the bumbling police officers realize their mistake in disregarding the car near the Collingwood’s home and quickly set out. Their car breaks down en route, however, and the cops unsuccessfully try to hitch a ride with a group of hippies and a chicken farmer.

After Phyllis and Mari are forced to have sex, Sadie molests Mari. Phyllis whispers to Mari she will make a break for it to distract the kidnappers and thus, offer Mari an opportunity to escape. Phyllis takes off, chased by Sadie and Weasel, while Junior stays behind to guard Mari, who makes a desperate attempt to convince the troubled addict that he doesn’t need to listen to his abusive father because Dr. Collingwood, her father, can help him instead. She also gives him her peace symbol necklace as a symbol of her trust. Meanwhile, Phyllis is eventually cornered at a cemetery, where Weasel stabs her in the back. The defeated Phyllis attempts to crawl away, but the gang inevitably catches up with her and repeatedly stab and disembowel her.

Mari eventually convinces Junior to let her go, though their timing is too late, as they are immediately halted by Krug. He presents Phyllis’ severed hand and proceeds to carve his name into Mari’s chest before sexually violating her. Following this act, Mari, sick from shock and blood loss, rises and slowly staggers over to the nearby lake. Krug shoots Mari in the head and she drifts away. Krug, Junior, Sadie and Weasel wash up and change out of their bloody clothes.

Actually, maybe you should make your girlfriend watch this. Tell her it’s a feel good romantic comedy starring a young Bette Middler. Then just sit back and videotape her reaction. If she doesn’t leave you after that, you’ll know you’ve found the one. Probably the one you won’t want to sleep next to after a fight, but the one nonetheless.

Probably kicks to the groin: 5 real testes breakers

—

If you liked this, you might like The 6 Creepiest Guys Living in a Sitcom Household or The 9 Most Eerily Cultlike Kids’ Shows. Any horrific experiences with a girlfriend and a movie? Leave it in the comments.

Today is National "Men Make Dinner" Day

Chris Spags — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:50:07 +0000

Oh boy oh boy we’re turning our patriarchal society on its head because today is National “Men Make Dinner” Day.

Ok, now since you’ve continued reading, we assume that you are a man who NEVER cooks. And that you fit the profile of the ‘men’ who have inspired this once-a-year occasion.
The ideal participant in ‘National Men Make Dinner Day’ is the man who:
helps with household chores
has a sense of humour and is a great all-around guy
loves his wife/girlfriend, kids and pets
…BUT NEVER LEARNED HOW TO COOK, and is somewhat afraid of the idea.

Officially celebrated on the FIRST THURSDAY OF EVERY NOVEMBER, ‘National Men Make Dinner Day’ is for you!!

One guaranteed meal cooked by the man of the house one day of the year!

Today also happens to be my lovely girlfriend’s birthday, so apparently this day should henceforth be christened “Give Chris a Lot of Crap to Do” Day. Though, in fairness, I wouldn’t subject her to putting anything I produce into her mouth. Anything that doesn’t rhyme with “toad of rum”, that is.

Anyway this day seems like a great idea until you think about the fact that any man dumb enough to take part is probably an awful cook. I’d say odds are pretty likely that his day can quickly become “Throw A Steaming Hot Pot of Burned Chicken Cacciatore at Your Horrified Wife Then Take Her to the Hospital and Pretend She Just Slipped in the Kitchen While the Doctor Looks on with Disbelieving Eyes” Day.