Tucker Carlson Can Lick My Untanned Balls
I will start this week’s TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less by preemptively apologizing for the blunt vulgarity of this week’s title. I know it is certainly licentious, but believe it or not, I only incorporate profanity as an aesthetic or rhetorical choice, and in this particular case, I am afraid it was simply a linguistic necessity. After all, how else am I supposed to encapture my response to the most highly viewed personality on television promoting an entirely baseless theory that men can boost their testosterone levels by subjecting their testicles to red light therapy? Exactly- there are just no other words to epitomize my sentiment to testicle tanning other than to say, “Tucker Carlson can lick my untanned balls.”
I should also take this opportunity to apologize for my column just two weeks ago suggesting that the term “toxic masculinity” is itself toxic and unwarranted. After further reflection in light of Carlson’s recent absurdism, I have to acknowledge that toxic masculinity is indeed alive and well and that it apparently constitutes much of FOX News’s nighttime viewership. How else can one possibly explain the Tucker Carlson Originals special “The End of Men”, in which he introduces “bromeotherapy” (sadly, his word choice, not mine), a reaction to the loss of masculinity in males largely living in their parents’ basements? Because while this certainly constitutes a type of bewildering stupidity that would make even Neanderthal males shake their heads in befuddlement (including Kid Rock who was at a complete loss of words when interviewed by Carlson shortly after the airing of the segment in question), there is little doubt just how toxic these notions are for American culture going forward.
Now I have zero belief that Tucker Carlson actually ascribes to any of the preposterous bullshit he hurls at his viewers like an enraged monkey after ingesting a duffle bag full of cocaine, but the repercussions are real and tangible nonetheless because his audience is, well, a bunch of agro-monkeys who have sniffed a duffle bag full of cocaine. You and I, as sane human beings with the mental capacity to read actual words, can sit back and laugh at this nonsense, but his viewers lap it up like your dog stumbling upon a pile of vomit. And if you don’t believe me on that, all you have to do is take a quick, furtive glance at his ratings numbers and recognize that there are clearly more morons out there watching him than you would ever think feasible- and I’m not just talking about Florida. He creates this nonsense and pushes the envelope of credulity further and further for one reason and one reason only: because people, mostly uneducated, disenfranchised white men, keep on watching it. And that’s where this shit gets really, really dangerous.
Preying upon a gravely uninformed and easily manipulated populace of white males who are unnerved that the privilege they have become accustomed and feel entitled to is eroding, Tucker Carlson and his ilk have made a living stoking that fear in order to garner their support for an economic agenda that ironically is the real source of their own undoing but benefits the propaganda peddlers like Carlson. I wrote about this to rave reviews in a piece called “The Red Herring that Fuels White Rage”. The right has weaponized culture wars involving issues such as critical race theory, gender issues, and the loss of masculinity to radicalize angry white men and build a clone army that will do their bidding. Our tendency is to laugh at the absurdity of this as we wonder who would be stupid enough to believe gibberish like Qanon conspiracy theories and suggestions of testicular tanning. But if the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol taught us anything it should be that there is a striking number of dim-witted white men who are prone to this type of gross manipulation. And even more disturbingly, these are the same people that own the vast majority of the 393 million firearms in this country.
Yes, Tucker Carlson is playing a dangerous game here, convincing already frustrated white men that now their masculinity and manhood are somehow in doubt. All we need right now is someone coming along fueling the flames of falsely-perceived oppression for a bunch of AK-47 wielding agro monkeys intent on reestablishing their innate male dominance. But he’s not concerned about that, now is he? That’s because he gets to sit back in his ivory tower of entitlement, insulated in his world of white privilege surrounded by like-minded douche bags dressed in tailored suits and smoking fine cigars far from the ravaging destruction they wreak and then benefit from.
So yeah, fuck Tucker Carlson. That momma’s boy is nothing but a big, giant mouth-foaming pussy. And to prove it, I have a challenge for that scrawny, little windbag: Go soak your balls, assuming you still have them, in whatever b.s. bromeotherapy nonsense you want. Take as long as you like and recover all the presumptive manhood you can muster. Then get yourself on that private plane you know you own and get yourself to Colorado. You name the time and place, and my poetry-writing, musical-watching soon to be 51 year-old self will kick your pathetic ass back into the primordial ooze pool you came from. Better yet, I have a good friend of mine, Jerry, who is 71 years old and gay. He’d like a crack at you as well. I have little doubt that he too would beat you like a Congo drum in the midst of Nigerian dance festival. And then we would all see once and for all that you are indeed nothing more than the worst type of snake-oil salesman peddling fear and hatred to the feebleminded.
But of course he won’t take me up on it because his balls got stuck in the door of his tanning booth.
Steven Craig is the author of the best-selling novel WAITING FOR TODAY, as well as numerous published poems, short stories, and dramatic works. Read his blog TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less every THURSDAY at www.waitingfortoday.com
