The Next Action Hero (the decline of the lad’s mag)

Posted by Jacko | Filed under Jacko: Author

 I wrote this short story after discovering that Men’s Health had overtaken FHM, in terms of sales. Thinking of sending it off to Men’s Health, actually. Worth a shot.  They’ll probably conclude that I’m a little bit weird. Anyway, enjoy.

*

It’s Sunday, therefore, I’m hungover. I have to make it through the day for no other reason, other than to survive. It’s likely that I’ll spend the next twelve hours watching television, whilst taking breaks for biological purposes, one for pleasure, and one for discharging the toxic kebab that is currently brutalising my digestive tract. The toilet will become my living Hell, and I’m going to need a magazine for those boring, painful, bloody times…Actually, I’ll probably need a magazine for both biological “necessities.”

I walk into the newsagents. Jimmy the shop owner doesn’t acknowledge me. He knows I’m in a bad place. He witnessed the same performance last week, and the week before, and the…you get the picture.

I fill my basket with junk food: Sugars, fats, e-number things, pig, gristle, Haribo, everything I need to make my waking moments more bearable. Something to read…

I scan the shelves…

Footy magazine – Sky was invented for a reason.

Film magazine – I’m hungover! I want to see shit blown up. I don’t want to read about it, or read an in-depth analysis of foreign crap with subtitles and subplots. Films with “sub” in them mean they’ll be critically acclaimed and borrrrrring…Unless they have submarines in them, blowing shit up.

Gaming magazine – Flashing lights and spinning screens bring forth nausea and the kebab from last night. Reading about them may trigger the same responses.

Porno – I look round the store. No-one I know, and, more importantly no old grannies who’ll tell me I’m going to Hell, again. Romancing the bone does give one the respite from even the most crippling of hangovers, even if it is for five minutes, five beautiful minutes….Nah, too much dexterity required to turn the pages. Internet will bring women, and for free.

Lad’s Mag – Pictures of pretty ladies; a few funny stories and jokes; bit about sport; few film and game reviews; cool articles. A little bit of everything in a neat little package. Sold.

I pick up the magazine and go to see Jimmy. No embarrassment this time after the controversial Older-Bolder-Bitches purchase, last week.

 

“Hang on,” say I, as something catches my peepers. Men’s Health, I mouth, silently. What’s that? I feel the flab around my stomach and realise that I have never linked the two words together. I scan through the featured articles, displayed, as proud as Pride, on the front of a six-pack.

 “Fifteen Flat-Belly Powerfoods,” Is that a sentence?

“Seduce Any Woman-No Talking Required” Free Rohypnol could be useful.

“What works better: Sauna or Steam.” Why would I give a shit about that?

“Jimmy! What’s this all about?” I ask my local provider of magazines, cancer-inducing nutrition, mobile phone top-ups, £6 Bolivian vodka and scratchcards.

“New craze, mate. It’s overtaken FHM for popularity, now.”

“Shut up,” say I, as I flick through the pages of half-naked…MEN! “This is a sausage fest, pal. There ain’t a pair of jugs in sight.”

“There’s usually a bit of tit towards the end,” Jimmy informs me.

I flick through faster than I would the Littlewood’s catalogue when I’m desperately scanning for the lingerie section. Finally, I find flesh softer than the rest of the chiselled muscle that’s on show. I realise that I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. “This is rubbish. You can’t see owt as it’s all done shitely, you know, arty, like.” I read out the featured article’s title. “’Make Any Woman Orgasm In Five Minutes.’”

I look up, unaware of the audience. Strange, a middle-aged lady smiles coyly.

“Why would I give a shit about that?” I ask Jimmy as the woman storms out of the shop.

“Watch your language! Even you don’t spend enough on fags, booze and weird porn to warrant scaring away the other customers.”

I ignore him as I read a little more. “’Put an inch on your arms in six weeks.’” Six weeks of doing these…press-ups…sounds a lot of hard work, if you ask me.”

Jimmy sighs, “That’s why you look like you do, and that bloke in the mag looks like he does.”

“Yeah, but he spends all his time looking at himself in the mirror and sweating with other like-minded freaks. I’d prefer to watch action movies with heroes beating up bad-guys, bagging the birds and engaging in the blowing up of shit.”

“You ever thought that ’cos he looks like that, he isn’t watching it on his TV, he’s actually doing it.”

I once was blind but now I see.

“I can get biceps like these?” say I, as I hold up the magazine to show Jimmy a hunk brandishing an impressive set of guns.”

 “Why not?”

“I can get these girls?” I ask, with hope in my heart, as I point at Jimmy’s stock of top-shelf publications.

“I guess so, especially the ones in Swinging Weekly.”

 “With a mighty, manly physique, can I crush all my enemies with mighty, manly headlocks and then make love to their women, impressed with my manliness and my ability to make them orgasm within five minutes?”

“…erm…sure, why not?”

“How much for this knowledge? How much does it cost to learn the secrets of six-packs, biceps and the female reproductive system?”

“£4.”

“Shit the bed! Give us a copy of Razzle, instead.”

“Come on, now. You look terrible, you haven’t had a girlfriend in years and chances are high that you ain’t going to get another one.”

Jimmy’s right. I’ve been spiralling out of control since she left me. Booze, fags and fast food had taken its toll, and I had destroyed a body that once was…well, better than it is now.

“You’re right, Jimmy.  You’re bloody right. But I ain’t doing this for me,” I throw over four pound coins. “I’m doing this for the women…you know, so I can do ’em.”

*

Yes! A picture of Thora Hird, two blogs running.

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Read more | Comments (2) | November 20th, 2009

The Last Action Hero

Posted by Jacko | Filed under Chewing of Fat

I was chewing the fat today, at work, and it dawned on me that there are no heroes left in the world.  I am not talking about real life here; I am talking about the manly men from the moving pictures who every teenage boy aspired to be.  Mighty handguns, mighty hair-dos, and even mightier biceps took the world of the evil mastermind by storm.  Kicking ass whilst making them feel self-conscious with snappy, witty one-liners, and often nailing their girlfriends at the end, as the credits rolled. 

Up until the millennium, there had always been a great man to look up to.  A man who beat up the bad guys and then bagged the women.  A man who would confront danger no matter what the circumstances.  A man who was scared of nothing.  A man who didn’t feel any emotion except the manliest of all emotions: rage  (this was only exhibited once per film, and took place after shooting of a partner, family relative, or pet).

Think about it…

Pre-’50s:  Humphrey Boghart, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable,

The ’50s:  Charlton Heston, John Wayne, James Dean

The ’60s:  Kirk Douglas, Marlon Brando, Sean Connery, Steve McQueen

The ’70s:  Bruce Lee, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Roger Moore, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Chuck Norris

The ’80s:  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van-Damme, Carl Weathers, Sly Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Harrison Ford, Burt Reynolds, Danny Glover, Jackie Chan

The ’90s:  Mel Gibson, Wesley Snipes, Stephen Segal, Denzel Washington, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Jet Li, Bruce Cambell

Now that list is nowhere near extensive, and I’d be interested in the heroes you miss, if any, or any disagreements you have with my chosen few.  Christopher Lambert was omitted due to Knight Moves and Highlander 2, 3 and 4.

So, yeah, everything was pretty cool, pretty damn macho.  So what about today…

The noughties:  Erm… OK, you’ve got Clooney and Pitt, but these guys produced their manliest performances in the nineties (Fight Club: ‘99 and Dusk Til Dawn: ‘95), plus how many red-blooded males give a fuck about Benjamin’s fucking Button.  Who else then?

Who else?

Anyone?

I don’t think there is anyone left.  The Rock had a good go, but fell short, and look what they did to Bond…  At the end of Casino Royale, Bond is rehabilitating in a wheel chair, with an old person’s blanket over his knees keeping him warm.  I don’t want to watch that.  Bond doesn’t do that!  At the end of Moonraker (stay with me, I know it was shite), we had Roger Moore flying back from the moon, shagging a hottie called Holly Goodhead (seriously) and minister of Defence, Frederick Gray asks “What is Bond doing?” and Q replies, “I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir.” 

That is what I want a hero to do.  I don’t want a hero to remind me of Thora Hird.

 1979

 

 

2006

It isn’t just Bond.  It is everything on the bloody moving pictures.  We have had rootin’-tootin’ Westerns from the ’20s all the way through to the ’90s.  A Fistful of Dollars, Tombstone, The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Unforgiven are all brilliant!  Why can’t we have one for the noughties.  Why?  Where did Brokeback Mountain come from?  I’d like to have been a fly-on-the-wall when the story board was written.

“OK, how about a Western?”

“Yeah, I love cowboy films!  We gotta have one of them bar brawls.  You know, the ones with where people smash each other over the heads with whisky bottles, whilst chicks do the cancan.”

“That’s sort of been done before, though.”

“OK, well how about a big shoot out with a load of Native Americans.  We can get a big ring of wagons, it will be brilliant!”

“Too cliched.”

“So what’s your big idea, then?”

“I was thinking, we get two cowboys…”

“I like it.”

“They get on really well.”

“Well, yeah, there’s a lot of camaraderie with the ol’ cowboys.”

“That’s what I thought.  How about they have so much camaraderie, that instead of going out shooting Native Americans, bedding local prostitutes, and hitting other cowboys with whisky bottles, they end up bumming in a tent?”

“Sounds great; endings a bit weird though.”

“To be honest, the tent-bumming will pretty much be the entire film?”

“Go on then, let’s go for it.  At least it will be better than Highlander 2.”

Before you send a letter of complaint, here me out.  I have no problem with Brokeback Mountain.  I know there’s a lot more to it; I am just being a cock, and I am still finding ways of fooling my Dad into watching it (not sure if that was a justification, or not?).  My problem is with the films that haven’t been made. 

Why can’t we have some of the heroes back?  Why do they have to have emotions?  Why do they have to be realistic? If I wanted realism, I’d go to the supermarket and wait behind pensioners who leave their shopping trolleys in the middle of the aisles and discuss rubbish.  That is realism.  That is my life.  I queue in traffic.  I spent nearly £300 on fucking taps last year for my kitchen and bathroom.  I don’t want to spend £6 to go to the cinema and watch some other twat buy taps, do I?  For 90-120 minutes, I want to live my life through a hero.  I don’t want to feel his pain, or his weakness.  There is enough of that in everyday life. 

I want justified violence

I want easy buxom beauties

I want car chases

I want rocket launchers

I want one-liners

I WANT OUR ACTION HEROES BACK!!

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Read more | Comments (9) | March 5th, 2009