Rather than watch the Olympics, and all that noble, serious sporting uplift, I’ve been reading a book about a carny, corny, shameless 1940s-50s American wrestler: Gorgeous George: The Outrageous Bad-Boy Wrestler Who Created American Pop Culture, by John Capouya. My American chum Chris Supermarky recommended it to me, thinking it would… Read More »‘Get Your Filthy Hands Off Me!’ Gorgeous George’s Glamorous Legacy
It’s always tricky as a writer talking to a researcher for a TV or film documentary. On the one hand you want your ideas to be taken seriously and the historical record to be as accurate as possible. And of course we all like attention. Especially from a visual medium… Read More »Winsome, Losesome, Mansome
The mythology, the dogtag dogma, the cult of masculinity and most of all the haircut, set US Marines apart. Mark Simpson on a memoir of the First Gulf War. (Independent on Sunday 23/03/2003) It may seem odd that the United States Marine Corps, the elite fourth branch of the US… Read More »The Few, The Proud: A Jarhead memoir of the First Gulf War
Just over half of British and American men are currently in or have had a ‘bromance’ in the past according to a survey, not by Dr Kinsey, but by Badoo (‘the world’s largest social network for meeting new people’). The Badoo press release – issued on Valentine’s Day last week… Read More »The New Bromanticism: Male Friendship Gets a Makeover
Are men the new women? I’ve always avoided using that line until now. As the (hetero)sexual division of labour and loving and looking continues to fall apart, men are the new everything. Just as women are. But in the last few months we’ve been told men now take longer getting… Read More »Let Me Hear Your Body Talk