“Imagine if Brad Pitt had also written a No. 1 single for someone like Amy Winehouse, was considered among the finest songwriters of his generation, had been a Rhodes scholar, a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger, a boxer, a professional helicopter pilot – and was as politically outspoken as Sean Penn. That’s what a motherfuckin’ badass Kris Kristofferson was in 1979.”
—Ethan Hawke
Posted in masculinity, quotes
“Steve McQueen … is the gold standard for movie tough guys – stoic, street-smart, unfussy, supercompetent and absolutely, positively not to be fucked with; the consummate man of action. He’s the guy every guy secretly wants to be – unassuming but deadly, and always in charge. McQueen’s grace isn’t the deliberate, predmeditated grace of a ballet dancer, but of a footballer spotting an opening and slipping through it for a goal.”
Winslow Homer, Incoming Tide, Scarboro Maine, 1883, watercolor on paper.
To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea—“cruising,” it is called.
Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
“I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can’t afford it,” some men say. What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of “security.” And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine, and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need—really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in, and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all in the material sense, and we know it.
But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
—Sterling Hayden, Wanderer
Posted in art, masculinity, quotes, work
Sathnam Sanghera explains why men are in an a nearly impossible position when it comes to seducing women:
Men need to be hugely successful, but pretend that they are not. And this is only one aspect of the almost impossible balance that needs to be struck. Men need to convey sexual desire without sexualising the person in front of them, need to be authoritative, opening doors, paying bills, deciding where to go and so on (recent research found that 60 per cent of women would consider it a bad first date if they paid), yet treat women as absolute equals. They need to flatter without seeming overly impressed, they need to care about their appearance (but not too much), and when it comes to chatting up, they need to take the initiative, and absorb any humiliation that comes their way, without seeming at all arrogant or pushy.
Got all that?
Posted in articles, gender, masculinity, sex
Per the advice of both Tim Ferris and Michael Leddy, I recently purchased and installed an Incredible Head Power Showerhead. (Yeah, I know, an unfortunate name.) I found it at Wal-Mart for under $5. I got the model with the soap-up valve for navy showers and have begun, whenever possible, taking navy showers.
What, you ask, is a navy shower? Well, as Wikipedia explains, a navy shower is when you (1) turn on the water, (2) immediately wet the body, (3) turn off the water, (4) soap up and scrub, (5) turn the water back on and rinse off the soap.” The opposite of a navy shower is a Hollywood shower. Growing up, I remember my dad taking navy showers all the time. I imagine he picked up the habit in the military. I, however, have been a Hollywood shower man for as long as I can remember. Until recently, that is.
Now, navy showers aren’t for everyone, and technically you don’t even need an Incredible Head Power Showerhead to take them – though it makes things easier. Yet if a one-time staunch Hollywood shower man like myself can change his habits, you can too. It’s the red-blooded American thing to do and it’s good for the planet because it helps conserve water.
Posted in endorsements, masculinity
The New York Observer reports that “A growing number of style-conscious men are becoming more comfortable with the idea of showing some leg during the hot summer months.” God help us.
(Via A Continuous Lean.)
It’s warm enough out now where I live that guys are starting to trade pants for shorts. It would behoove most guys, however, to remember that shorts are, as Bernard Roetzel puts it in A Gentleman’s Guide to Grooming and Style, “a very dubious proposition stylistically,” and thus must be worn with the greatest of care. If you’re a guy wondering when shorts are appropriate attire, the following image — made using AutoMotivator and Picnik — should, I hope, help clarify things for you.
The chap in the picture, by the way, is Ernest Hemingway.
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“Y’know, I grew up in a different generation. I grew up after World War II, and boys did different things in those days. You went camping. You went hunting. You boxed. And the image of a writer, to someone starting off in those days, was not some schmuck who went to graduate school. It was Jack London, Nelson Algren, Ernest Hemingway. Especially coming from Chicago – a writer was a knock-around guy. Someone who got a job as a reporter or drove a cab. I think the reason there are a lot of novels about How Mean My Mother Was to Me and all that shit is because writer may have learned something called ‘technique,’ but they’ve neglected to have a life. What the fuck are they gonna write about?”
—David Mamet, GQ, April 2008
Posted in masculinity, quotes, writing
I was introduced to Prince once in a bar, and he asked me what I did. I told him I wrote books. He asked what they were about, and I said they were about the dark side. “Why the dark side?” he asked.
“Because it’s more interesting,” I told him.
“But the light side can be interesting, too,” he admonished.
—Neil Strauss, The Style Diaries: The Pickup Artist’s Companion
Posted in masculinity, Prince, quotes
Just when you thought it was safe to start liking football players again after the whole Michael Vick debacle, the Seattle Times comes out with a special four-part story about the University of Washington’s football program under Rick Neuheisel (now head football coach at UCLA) and company. The first part is a searing indictment of player Jerramy Stevens (yes, that’s how he spells his first name), former Seattle Seahawk and current of Tampa Bay Buccaneer. He’s described by the editors of Jezebel as the kind of guy who has no problems “drugging a virgin sorority girl and anally-raping her in the alley next to a frat house.”
The next time somone says to you that college football programs aren’t as corrupt as people think, that star athletes aren’t ridiculously overindulged, that things like the orgy scene in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut never happen in real life, that Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons didn’t seem realistic, feel free to mention this special four-part story.
Posted in articles, masculinity
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