Las Vegas Weekly

June 24, 2010 · 11:19 AM

Man up, Vegas

By Scott Dickensheets

Who's to blame for Vegas' lack of manliness? Scott Dickensheets.

Las Vegas is the nation's 41st manliest city, according to a new survey, and this dismal showing raises an obvious question: Who can we blame for this?

Me, for one, I guess. While I have many, many, MANY manly attributes—I'm gruff, emotionally distant, routinely say "I'd hit that" when Megan Fox appears onscreen, and never use scented grooming products—I drag down the grading curve in a few key areas. I don't own tools. Sometimes I don't complain when my wife turns the channel from sports to reruns of Reba. I have stopped to ask for directions while driving. I have worn my wife's socks when I could find a clean pair of my own. Las Vegas fell 13 spots from last year's ranking, and I clearly account for at least half of that drop.

But let's examine my—perhaps our—culpability further. According to the survey, commissioned by Combos, the snack company, cities were evaluated on several manliness indicators: the number of sports teams and NASCAR events; subscriptions to manly magazines (Sports Illustrated, Car & Driver, Maxim, Boating); pickup and motorcycle registrations; home improvement projects; fishing; chicken-wing restaurants; manly occupations (construction workers, police officers); and, of course, salty-snack consumption.

At the same time—and this is where Vegas lost some serious ground—cities were penalized for a high incidence of coffee shops, sushi restaurants and "modern male" apparel stores.

I eat sushi.

I also eat chicken wings, but not nearly as many as I should.

I don't read Maxim because there's nothing in it to read.

I have a motorcycle, but it isn't registered.

Well. Obviously, the problem is bigger than just me, but I've got to up my game; simply grunting at my wife when she wants to talk about her feeeeelings isn't going to suffice anymore. One spot above us, Rochester, New York, is snickering: We're manlier than Las freakin' Vegas! Fine. I'll buy a pickup. I'll subscribe to Playboy. I'll eat salty snacks until my sodium level kills me. But I will not have my—our—manliness snickered at by Rochester, or Toledo (No. 26), or Cincinnati (No. 20), or friggin' Harrisburg, wherever THAT is (No. 14), or, especially, Charlotte, North Carolina (No. 1), which is nicknamed "The Queen City."

I will console myself, however, by snickering at the soft, pale men of Portland, Oregon, last on the list at No. 50. Fifty! Ha! Wimps!

Share This