Monday, April 20, 2009

My Man Cave

As I mentioned before, I really enjoyed I Love You, Man. I'm not going to get into all the greatness about it, but I highly recommend going to check it out. What I do want to talk about is the concept of the man cave.

I'm sure the idea goes back to cave man days when dudes had literal caves they would just hang out in and shoot pool or whatever. Tim Allen had some pretty cool man rooms on Home Improvement including the Man's Basement and Garage. But, what really got me thinking about my future man cave was I Love You, Man, specifically the commercial where Jason Segel introduces Paul Rudd to the Temple of Doom or some such. Em must have seen me looking longingly at the TV and said "You can have a man cave when we get a house."

Now, I'm still not sure if I believe her. I don't necessarily want a basement or garage to hole up in and avoid my family. Really, I just want a cool place to put my stuff. In the movie, Segel is a single dude who has a garage behind his house that you can see part of here.

What I love about Segel's man cave is his jam station. Ever since I started playing bass back in high school I've wanted a space like this where I could play any instrument I had, at least guitar, bass and a drum kit, hopefully some weird stuff like a lap steel, banjo or whatever else I can get my hands on. Oh, plus, I'd have to have some mics and some means of recording in case I came up with something that didn't suck (unlikely, but possible).

Of course, I'd also want a section for my trades, comics and books too. Maybe the classier books can stay in the house, but I don't think literate folks will be too impressed with my book about Tales from the Crypt (though they should). Of course, regular shelves would work for trades and I'm hoping that someone will invent an awesome way to store single issues. If not, I'll hopefully be able to bring all my comics back to New York from Ohio (I miss them a lot, mostly what I don't have in trade as well). I've actually got a good comic book storage idea in mind, anyone want to invest? Seriously, it's a really good idea.

So, I'll have instruments, books and comics, what else? Oh, of course, my toys. Thanks to my parents, I still have all the action figures I've ever had. I'd like to display them all over the room, maybe even with dioramas! That's super nerdy, but what the heck? I'll have plenty of time to do awesome stuff in my man cave.

I'd also love to have some kind of bar set up. This could be in the man cave or the house, I don't really care which, but I've always liked the look of a well stocked bar and maybe even a tap or two. Hey, a guy can dream can't he? Why not shoot the moon, Batman has a robot dinosaur after all.

Round things out with a TV or three, a record player, a bunch of video game systems (from Nintendo up to Xbox 720 or whatever) and a nice stereo and I think I'd be pretty well set. Oh and a dart board. I love darts. Damn, I better start working, this man cave isn't going to furnish itself.

So, do you have a man cave? If so, what's in it, if not, what do you want in it?

7 comments:

  1. I store all my comics in bookcases, they work just fine. Way better than long boxes, which just take up too much floorspace.

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=36114206&l=5a02b15d6a&id=38406420

    ReplyDelete
  2. How do you keep them from getting bent?

    I went to a comic shop one time that had filing cabinets like in a doctor's office that were longer than they were deep (so it was like rolling a long box towards you, but sideways). That seemed to work alright.

    I also like Drawer Boxes, but they're shorter than regular long boxes and kind of expensive.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I already have stockpiles of posters stocked up for my man cave—as plastering numerous comic book and adult swim posters on my walls now seems a little immature...it somehow seems like it would not be at all if they were all relegated to a nice finished basement or some sort of garage-esque mini house in my backyard...when I get a backyard.

    Either way, not that it needs conformation, but the man cave is an amazing and solid premise. Mine, I think, would need to be attached to a backyard as I love BBQing and have thrown many a BBQ-infused "sausage party" (man-centric get-together) in my day, the likes of which the North Suburbs of Chicago are still reeling from!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good call on the BBQ and the posters. The walls around my desk at work are pretty well covered, but I wouldn't put anything I really like here. Oh man, this reminded me of my Kid Cave. I'll have to post pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dude our whole house is man/kid cave, and I think no matter where we are it will always be that way. When I was in high school I was really obsessed with Trading Spaces and design crap and when my mom moved, I did the whole 'designer-y' thing to my new bedroom and made it all sleek and cool, and I hated it. So I'm sure when we have a house it'll be a bit nicer looking than our apartment, but will still be covered in movie posters and toys and action figures and stacks of comics and craft stuff.

    Except for my Dias de los Muertos kitchen. It will be bangin...

    ReplyDelete
  6. That is true Sam, your place is rad, but you are a girl and therefore it can not be a man cave. Mostly because of all the glitter. Sorry, I didn't make the rules, I just abide.

    ReplyDelete
  7. There IS a sick amount of glitter at our place. But Sam's right, our apartment is pretty much all the man cave I think I can handle. Though I'd like to come over and play music at your place and eat BBQ at Jim's. Maybe we could add a dart board with a CO2-powered dart gun?

    ReplyDelete