House of Eratosthenes

Robert Brooks had a simple explanation for the success of his Hooters chain, known as much for the tight T-shirts of its waitresses as for its chicken wings.

“Good food, cold beer and pretty girls never go out of style,” he told Fortune magazine in 2003.

Brooks, chairman of the restaurant chain, was found dead at his home Sunday at 69. Coroner Robert Edge said an autopsy found Brooks died of natural causes, but he would not be more specific.
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In 1984, he and a group of Atlanta investors bought expansion and franchise rights for the Hooters chain. He eventually bought majority control and became chairman.

Where would we be without Hooters? Probably nowhere good. It’s easy, nowadays, to forget what kind of a devastating assault manhood was under in the late eighties and early nineties. It started, near as I can figure, with failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982. There was a heavy propagandizing machinery put in place by the freshly-mobilized feminists, who groped for something to complain about in a society in which there were precious few grievances remaining to draw their enmity. In search of such grievances, the grasping, flailing protesters-in-search-of-a-cause, ended up warping society. This is easily demonstrated when you review the chronicling that can be examined most easily by lazy bloggers like me, which is the world of cinema. Hollywood noticed how women were banding together and mobilizing, and started taking advantage of it by pumping out Womyns’-Movie-after-Womyns’-Movie. The Big Chill (1983), Flashdance (1983), Terms of Endearment (1983), Footloose (1984), Romancing The Stone (1984), Out of Africa (1985), Moonstruck (1987) , Working Girl (1988), Steel Magnolias (1989)…and then the Dark Time began. James Bond went on a six-year hiatus.

Getting rid of Agent 007 wasn’t nearly as bad, as articulating the reason for doing so. We were told — instructed that we were supposed to believe — “everybody” was tired of the martini-swilling skirt-chasing gadget-toting secret agent. Well, empirical facts by their mere existence decimate that notion; Bond was resurrected in late 1995 and has been going strong ever since. So the real reason was something else. Movie marketing for women, like any other marketing for women, was robust, vibrant and profitable because it was easy. Women, as individuals, were quick to jump on whatever cultural knick-knacks had come to earn adoration from women, as groups. A movie producer was naturally inclined to make a woman’s movie. Just get a big-name star or two, a kicky, naturally-addictive soundtrack, some dance moves, and so long as there’s a scene where someone cries, the job is done. It was the path of least resistance. And with the movies made, from Los Angeles to New York and every mile in between, women would announce to their families “we’re out of, uh, … parsley. Yeah, we need parsley. I’m going to get some more, be back in three hours.” And the ticket sales, by the tens of millions of dollars, would roll right on in.

Men were afraid of patronizing markets built for their pleasure; women were afraid of not patronizing markets built for theirs. The gap between the sexes grew and grew.

Isn’t it interesting…a class of people will mobilize as a group, and get all kinds of power as a group, but people within that class lose their power as individuals. One woman would have thought a certain thing, nobody anywhere would have given a rat’s ass about it. But women were unstoppable. A quarter-century-old multi-million dollar franchise about a superspy, was put down before his time, so that our culture could become woman-friendly, all because women had become conditioned like never before to think with the herd mentality. The chick flicks weren’t even any good, most of ’em. Women wanted to see them because a bunch of other women wanted to see them.

So with that history of our nation and our culture, about the time Hooter’s was in it’s childhood — where would we be without Brooks’ restaurant chain? It’s such a silly product offering, you know. Waitresses in skimpy costumes. And yet, I have to doubt life would be the same without it, because we would not have healed the division. Oh, the non-Hooter’s events would still have taken place. We’d still have Bill Clinton, he and his wife would still have made asses out of themselves, and we’d still get thoroughly sick and tired of the blue-state mentality and we’d still elect Republicans for half-a-dozen years straight to make sure we can carry guns if we want and get school vouchers if we want and work for whoever we want on whatever terms we want.

But, I daresay, for simply being a straight, red-blooded, passionate man who likes to look at young ladies in bikinis, you’d still have to apologize. In 2006, just as you had to in, say, 1986. And, of course, you could never, ever feel guilty enough to please the intelligentsia.

It is a sad state of affairs when a man can ripple the political pond simply by doing what a man likes to do — chew on a hot wing, gulp a cold beer, leer at a good-looking young lady in short-shorts and smile. But that’s the reality of the situation.

It’s a nightmare, but one from which we awaken whenever we do things the way we, as individuals, naturally do them. I say, go to Hooter’s no more often than you would without this misguided, lately-arriving 1980’s feminist revolution — but no less often either. Just dwell on what’s positive. Ignore the hostility, and partake in the fun. We’ve come a long way, baby. Men and women, in 2006, actually kind of like each other now; in the past, they did not. We got here, because men lost their fear of being themselves, and stopped apologizing for liking manly things.

This is nothing new. Throughout history, a man who withdraws, pretends not to like things he does in fact like, and goes out of his way to avoid condemnation, is abhorrent, repulsive and frustrating to a woman — if he’s visible in her eyes at all. A man who just likes what he likes, and isn’t afraid to say so, to the same woman, is cute-n-cuddly, Godlike, or somewhere in between. And that’s my whole point. Men and women have had a deepening rift between them, an artificial rift torn by modern feminism. Not “We Want The Right To Vote” feminism or “Quit Slapping Us In The Ass” feminism, but the eighties-brand of “Uh, Let’s Find Something To Bitch About” feminism. The rift could never have been healed, until someone had the balls to come up with a product, and make that product appealing to men…so that men could enjoy it, and show off the working-class fearlessness and apathy toward snotty elite glitterati condemnation, that has made the country great.

So load up the van, and let’s go.

But first, a moment of silence for Robert Brooks. In his own way, he has made an entirely positive contribution to American culture, the likes of which we seldom see from anybody. Let the healing begin. Godspeed, sir.

Update: It would be a shame to let this distinguished American begin his journey onward without doing something a little more noteworthy to honor his passing. So I thought what I might do, is track down the origin of the picture you see below. It has gotten a lot of attention all across the “innernets,” here as well as elsewhere. Great picture. Says all that needs to be said, without a single word.

I had it pegged before. It is an incident in either 2002 or 2003, somewhere in eastern Washington state, I think Spokane. The Hooter’s girl with the cup in her hand, has been sent out by her manager to bring ice-water to the protesters, with the weather being a little bit on the balmy side. Hooter’s girl has a name, the other Hooter’s girl has a name, and you better believe the protester has a name. If I had any one of those three, I could “Google” it and find the story I found before, which I foolishly neglected to bookmark.

It is not a setup. It is a real news story, from a real-live protest, involving real-live holier-than-thou, sycophantic, self-righteous and butt-fugly protesters.

Anyway. Didn’t find the original story. I did find this page, which seems to be a good find. I have learned my lesson, and am saving this for posterity…and the sidebar.

And for now, that will have to be my tribute to Mr. Brooks.

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R.I.P.Thursday, July 20th, 2006

R.I.P.
Thursday, July 20th, 2006