Post-Valentine weirdness

St. Valentine's day has come and gone with little fanfare in the Toast household, other than a dozen roses, a card exchange, and the promise of a romantic dinner in a nice restaurant tomorrow night. (We're skipping the holiday crowds.) It could have been much worse.

Many men suffer through Valentine's Day with the firm opinion that the pseudo-holiday is nothing but a blatant attempt by the floral and greeting-card industries to extort money from desperate men on cards and flowers that have been jacked up in price by 125% for the occasion. If you want to see true panic in a man's eyes, go to your local drugstore at around 7 or 8 PM on Valentine's night and observe the number of pathetic wretches searching for some token display of affection among the dregs of the picked-over card selection. We're not talking something that will get them laid here -- only something to save them from being thrown out of the house on the front lawn when they get home.

The Los Angeles Times even ran an editorial calling for the holiday to be abolished, saying, "we find that true love is overwhelming, irrepressible and spontaneous. Romance shouldn't be confined to a particular day. Compulsory love is an oxymoron." Read the full story here.

Meanwhile, this Valentine's Day was the day chosen by country music legend Willie Nelson to release his new song called "Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)", an ode to gay cowboys everywhere. I am not making this up. Willie debuted his rendition of the 1981 tune, written by Texas-born musician/songwriter Ned Sublette, on the Howard Stern radio show. Written prior to the highly acclaimed "Brokeback Mountain", which started a massive gay cowboy fascination, it features lyrics like, "That's why they wear leather, and Levi's and belts buckled tight" and "There's many a cowboy who's more like a lady at night."

Sublette said he wrote it during the "Urban Cowboy" craze. The Dallas Morning News quoted Nelson as saying, "The song's been in the closet for 20 years. The timing's right for it to come out. I'm just opening the door." Willie contributed a song to the soundtrack of "Brokeback Mountain" -- his rendition of "He Was A Friend Of Mine."

And finally in the "Weird Valentine News" category, someone named Tom Birdsey has decided that since women reap most of the benefit of Valentine's day, what the world needs is a comparable holiday for men. As he puts it:

Now ladies, I'll let you in on a little secret; guys really don't enjoy this (Valentine's Day) that much. Sure seeing that smile on your face when we get it right is priceless, but that smile is the result of weeks of blood, sweat and consideration. Another secret; guys feel left out. That's right, there's no special holiday for the ladies to show their appreciation for the men in their life. Men as a whole are either too proud or too embarrassed to admit it. Which is why a new holiday has been created.

Birdsey has the perfect name for it, too: "Steak and A Blowjob Day", to be celebrated on March 14th.

What a great idea. And the best part of it is, if you're gay (cowboy or otherwise), you get to celebrate twice within the span of a month.