Its been mocked, and
perverted. Its been long overdue, and driven "
underground". Its even been
implemented, albeit in a silly kind of way.
Recent events heralded it in and it's finally here.
The Return of the Man.
There they were, representing one of the
last bastions of
manhood;
East Coast, hard-working, mostly blue collar, public service workin' American men. They'd be
condemned, mocked,
hated, and occasionally
full of self-pity in the last half century. Suddenly, they were on TV and it wasn't
The Man Show. They knew their job, and they and the women working with them did it with a typical lack of pretentiousness and drama. They were unstylishly coiffed, balding, hairy, overweight, sweaty, and mustached. They were
effete lawyers,
latte-swilling stockbrokers,
swarthy firefighters, and
stone-faced cops. They risked their lives and sometimes lost them. I watched them weep unashamedly into the camera, and was strangled by guilt and a desperate urge to be working alongside with them.
There's a smell in the air, and it's not
Drakkar. After all, many of us have remembered what it is we do best in society;
risk our lives for principal. Our days of wishy-washiness and passive aggression are dead and buried in an unmarked grave behind
Giuliani's mansion. Right next to
Male Guilt. We're channeling
Carey, not
Hugh. Our idol is the 50s man;
Truman, hold the
McCarthy.
We're not barbarians or throwbacks; we've learned
a lot of lessons the hard way in the last 50 years and we're not about to forget. What we seem in the faces of the
men on TV in the last two weeks harkens back a ways in history, to
the last time the nation faced a crisis of similar proportions. Some of us,
and not a small minority, thinks it's time to be a little less
Post and a good deal more
Neo.