Here is a picture of my grandson when he was in Iraq. I would like to add him to your list of men who will be needed more and more. 
Posted on 03/13/2009 2:49:49 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Do you remember The Matrix? It was big a couple of years ago. I think I quoted it in this very space — something about red pills, blue pills, and how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. It was part of the lingo for a while. But the dogs bark and the pop-culture caravan moves on. Anyway, a while back an interview in the Guardian with the film’s composer happened to catch my eye. Usually, when an interview with a guy who’s big on the electronic “dance music” scene catches my eye, my eye promptly glazes over, but not on this occasion. Rob Dougan, an Aussie who lives in a cool loft on the south bank of the Thames in London, had been asked post-Matrix to remix some Sinatra tracks for today’s market — add some hip-hoppish electronica here and there. Unfortunately, he liked the records pretty much as they were. He took a crack at “That’s Life” and was told his remix was not “modern” enough. So it was back to the old drawing board. And then Mr. Dougan observed:
In Sinatra’s time it was really cool to be 50, to be a man. You put on a hat and a suit and you keep on going until you die. Now you get 50-year-old guys in sleeveless T-shirts, going to the gym and desperately trying to fix their hair, and you think: “Whatever happened to real men?” Well, maybe they had hormone treatments. Victor Davis Hanson recently concluded that “the generic American male accent” was dying out and had been replaced with something affectedly “metrosexual” with “a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago . . . a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female.” As for the old-school males, wrote Professor Hanson, “I watched the movie Twelve O’Clock High the other day, and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger sounded liked they were from another planet.” Diana West has written a whole book on this theme: The Death of the Grown-Up. But it rings more plaintive coming from Rob Dougan, a cutting-edge type with his own pop-cult cred on the line. I suspect he may be thinking of Sinatra circa 40 more than 50, but in a way that makes his point: If you look at almost any movie from what we might call the old days, the guys appear older than they are. Almost all the leading men — Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, William Powell — seem designed for eternal middle age: You put on a hat and suit and you keep going until you die.
Now we have youth culture: what’s young, what’s hip, what’s hot, what’s now. The folks who commissioned those Sinatra remixes won’t care if they sound squaresville two years from now, just as all the hep cats ABC demanded as “special guests” for Frank’s 80th-birthday salute in 1995 are now Trivial Pursuit answers. (Salt N Pepa? Hootie and the Blowfish?) Who cares if your hot young act cools off? Something even younger and hotter will be along in a moment.
But what if it’s not? I write a lot about the demographic decline of the Western world, and readers often respond, “So what? Tokyo’s pretty crowded. It’d be kinda nice to have 20 percent fewer people.” Maybe. But the 20 percent who aren’t around won’t be the coots and codgers; the missing folks will be the children who were never born, and the few who were but decided they didn’t want to spend their lives in a joint so tilted toward the geriatric. The eternal adolescence of contemporary pop culture is merely the most obvious example of how society’s self-image is invested in its youth. In star movie roles, everybody’s young. Not necessarily ridiculously young, like Dr. Christmas Jones, the nuclear physicist played by Denise Richards a couple of Bond films back. But young nevertheless. Because young people go to the movies and they don’t want to look at old people.
Make that mocha lattes with double foam and cinnamon sprinkles and just a whisper of nutmeg.
Tom Selleck?
I’m sure you know as do my wife, daughter-in-law, and I that we are related to very special people. They don’t have to be doing that job, but they believe in a greater purpose then some twit from ACORN. GOD bless your warrior husband and you for being his rock solid wife.
I remember back in the eighties getting in a very heated discussion with a fellow college student about their claim that Duran Duran were bigger than the Beatles....
I think all of your picture selections are appropriate to the topic but one. You can put a hat on Robert Redford and it still doesn’t make him a man. A hat on Robert Redford just makes him look like the faggoty metrosexual limp wrist he really truly is.....with a hat.
Here is a picture of my grandson when he was in Iraq. I would like to add him to your list of men who will be needed more and more.
The boys are looked up to who can display the most irresponsible social behavior, disrespect for established protocol and outright disdain for elder seniority or authority.
This “NEW” society has been nurtured by the Liberal doctrine for sure.
We need modern day knights, with a God to serve, a woman to love and a work to do.
Check out the book "Raising a Modern Day Knight".
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I hear this in the voices that call in to radio talk shows trying to ‘get’ the host on some ridiculous lefty talking point. High and whiney.
Mel Gibson.
(Should have resized that down a tad, that pic is 4000 x 4000 pixels.)
I still have to stop and watch this movie whenever it comes on TV.
Starting with Marlon Brando and later Jack Nicholson, male acting has become neurotic and whiny. Old-school man’s-man acting of the William Holden type is very rare these days; Jon Hamm in Mad Men is one of the rare performances from a male actor these days that I can imagine seeing in a movie in the forties or fifties.
So Say We All.
Something that should be a classic is Diana Krall’s Live In Paris album, in particular the song, “Maybe You’ll Be There”. However, just about every song on the album is already a vocal standard.
Your point is well taken. I’ve been a musician my entire life. My personal music collection is enormous, and yet I’m totally amazed at how music just does not interest me anymore. I find myself listening to the oddest things these days, such as Sexy Sadie (Beatles), Let Him Run Wild (Beach Boys), No Matter What (Badfinger)...Everything else seems like I’ve heard it before a million times.
If you had said 20 years rather than 10, I would have brought up Jellyfish - Spilt Milk and The Grays - Ro Sham Bo. These are albums that should be classics. If you’re not familiar with the Jellyfish album, do yourself a favor and go buy it. If you like it, give the Grays a chance. I liked Jellyfish better at first, but I’ve listened to the Grays a lot more.
If you would like a rare modern musical treat watch The Sprout And The Bean by Joanna Newsome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYl0uLrXP7U and also the cover version of the same song by The Moscow Coup Attempt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZugYsF2yFac.
You too, FRiend!
It’s a Sinatra Bomb :p it’s meant to be that size
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