About Men Radio

It is not every day that the entire About Men Radio posse gets together.

In fact, it took a bit of carbon-dating to determine that the last time Silvio, Rich,  Pedro, John and I were all in the same room together was 1985!

It is almost hard to believe that it has been that long and that so much time has gone by in what feels like an instant.

To celebrate the occasion, we got together and memorialized our thoughts about our enduring friendship and its origins in a free-wheeling but sincere conversation presented to you here in this podcast.

The talk was revealing in how much Silvio can remember from yesteryear, how tenderly we feel about each other (please read that carefully as I did NOT say we felt each other tenderly) and what these connections mean to us as middle-aged men looking down the long barrel of families, careers and other pressures.

What the conversation underscores is the importance of having and maintaining these kinds of connections into male adulthood.

What are your friendships like and what do you do to nurture them? Tell us your story in our comments section on our website, on our Facebook page or write us at [email protected]

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Let’s be honest: What man – or woman for that matter – does not have a Hollywood heartthrob for whom he or she does not secretly carry a torch?

Call them what you will: Models. Hunks. Starlets. Celebrities.

My late fiancée had a name for the actors she got hot and bothered about: She said they were on her “pussycat list.”

I have no idea where the term originated. I never thought to ask.

But I know that the likes of Brendan Fraser, Johnny Depp and Gary Sinise were on her list.

Well, men are no different.

At the About Men Radio crew, we have our own pussycat list of actresses who make us weak in the knees and our hearts go pitter-patter.

With the Oscars coming up, with its parade of celebrities in their stunning finest walking the red carpet, we thought it would be revealing for the About Men Radio crew to discuss which actresses were on our top 10 list.

The rules were supposed to be simple: We had to come up with 10 names of actresses who were still living but NOT reveal their identities to each other ahead of the recording of the show.

This was meant to ensure some element of surprise.

Of course, AMR posse member John O’Connell emailed me his list ahead of the show.

Sigh.

No matter.

I did not peek at his list but you should give the show a peek. After you’ve listened, tell us: Who is on YOUR pussycat list? Write us at [email protected]

 

I confess.

Seeing the new issue of The New Yorker, crumpled up and stuffed into my mailbox each week, never fails to give me a legitimate thrill. I look forward to shutting out the cacophony of my New York City commute by diving into the venerable magazine’s essays, fiction, satire, and cartoons.

I grew up loving magazines. Like many, comic books were the gateway and I moved on to Mad, National Lampoon, Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek, Playboy and many others. Including an occasional perusal of Cosmopolitan.

Yes. Cosmo. 

I’d wager most men reading this have flipped through a copy at least once in their lives. Nowadays it seems as ubiquitous as Reader’s Digest once was. It’s unavoidable in most waiting rooms and bathroom reading racks.

The magazine’s cover regularly features heavily airbrushed female celebrities awkwardly posing in stylish outfits, displaying copious amounts of cleavage, with overwrought headlines enticing readers to check out the articles about “Orgasm Virgins” or how to “Look Leaner Naked: The 14-day Workout”.

Last year several large U.S. retailers began selling the magazine behind U-shaped blinders specifically designed to cover the headlines on the cover. The décolletage is fine. The tips on how to have better sex? Not so much.

On this episode of the show, Christopher and I dig into the hypocrisy of censoring magazines like Cosmopolitan, and its many look-a-likes, while magazines aimed at men, like Maxim and Men’s Health get a pass at the very same retailers using blinders.

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The start of the mega-hit Let’s Talk About Sex begins with at least one of the band members expressing concern about the controversial topic of their song. Keep in mind, this was way back in 1991 and mentioning bumping uglies in a pop song was still very much frowned upon.

Their concern was not surprising and probably part of a conversation that actually took place. They decided to throw caution to the wind and did indeed talk about it for the next 4 minutes and 34 seconds.

Taking our cue from the ladies of the pioneering female rap act Salt-N-Pepa, Mele and El Kaiser decided it was time for us to stop dancing around it and get on with the discussion of bacon making.

We each share the touching stories of how our dads explained the birds and bees to us and Chris relates the heartwarming tale of how he approached ” the Talk” with his boys. It’s a tale worthy of the Lifetime network and I’m so inspired, I just can’t wait to talk to my own kids about the joys of dancing the horizontal tango.

[Editors Note: Practically everything in the previous paragraph is false. Take a listen to the show to hear what really happens.]

Whether you’re sealing the deal, rocking the Casbah, or buttering the biscuits, it’s a normal and healthy part of life. We here at About Men Radio approach the subject of boinking  the same way we tackle all other topics: with maturity and taste.

[Editors Note: Um, yeah. Read previous note.]

Let’s talk about slammin’ ham, baby! Yee haw!!!!!!!

Read more blog posts at www.aboutmenradio.com and at http://aboutmenradio.net

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The debate is on and we need your input!

All of the members of the About Men Radio posse have now seen the latest installment in the “Star Wars” franchise, “The Force Awakens,” but there are shades of disagreement about how TFA ranks compared to the previous six installments.

As you will hear in in this episode of the podcast, Pedro and I rank TFA as No. 1 among the seven episodes.

I’ve now seen it four times and I am more in love with it with each viewing.

Rich and Silvio, while deeply impressed with the new movie, rank it as No. 3 in the pecking order of all things “Star Wars” and John merely thought it was good but not mind-blowing.

How do you rank TFA?

For hardcore fans who were around in the 70s and 80s, “The Empire Strikes Back” holds a special place in the No. 1 slot.

But recently having viewed “Empire” (as well as the rest of the preceding movies), I just don’t think they hold up as well TFA.

What do you think? Share your thoughts and reasoning on our Facebook page or write us at [email protected].

We’ll publish a roundup of opinions. Who knows? Maybe you will change some minds — but no Jedi mind tricks allowed!

 

They aren’t just movies.

As Chris and I discuss on this episode of About Men Radio, the original Star Wars trilogy continues to be an important part of our lives and a cultural touchstone for the entire AMR posse.

While Chris has gone “all in” and is already set to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens multiple times over its opening weekend, my plan is to tread cautiously. 

The crushing disappointment of the prequels forced me to reconsider how much I would continue to emotionally invest in the Star Wars universe now that it appeared George Lucas was no longer in tune with his creation. Georgie-boy broke my heart.

J.J. Abrams did an amazing job with the Star Trek reboot so I hope he can make lightning strike twice. I miss Luke Skywalker. I miss Leia, Han and Chewie. I especially miss the Millennium Falcon.

I want nothing more than to be that 13-year-old kid watching Star Wars (minus the “New Hope”) for the first time, totally swept away by the epic adventure.

Please, J.J. Help me fall in love again.

I am invisible.

You cannot see me.

You cannot smell me.

And, apart from my growling stomach, you cannot hear me.

I am dressed in camouflage, covered in scent-killing spray, perched about 17 feet off the ground in a tree stand near the Delaware State Forest in the Poconos woods of Pennsylvania.

It’s late October and my guide to all things deer hunting is Mike Kuhns, sports editor for the Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pa., and a lifelong sportsman.

I am an urban urchin who grew up in New York City. My outdoors experiences were limited to visits to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, a few overnight campouts with the Boy Scouts and one memorable camping trip 30 years ago with my About Men Radio crewmates.

I am a mere Padawan to Mike, a Master Jedi of the outdoors.

On this day, Mike is hunting deer with a compound bow. Me? I am armed with a smartphone and a recorder.

This time of year is the beginning of the “chase” season. It’s the prequel to the full-on, raging-hormone-fueled rut in which male deer will range for miles seeking a one-night stand.

Before we set out, Mike inventories various noise-making devices, including a bundle of sticks in a bag that he rubs between his palms. The noise, which mimics the sound of two bucks banging antlers for territory, is designed to arouse their curiosity and draw them closer.

As Mike outfits me in a camo jacket, he explains that he washes his hunting gear in special fragrant-free detergent. He sprays us, including the bottom of our boots, with a scent-killing spray.

“The key to deer hunting is beating their nose,” he says.

The sounds of our feet kicking through fallen leaves and the sight of our breath, illuminated by our headlamps, are the only things disturbing the predawn stillness of the forest.

We stop and Mike takes out a long cord called a drag rope. At its end are thick strands that he dips into a small bottle of pungent deer estrus.

I drag the rope behind me to mask our scent and leave an inviting, c’mere-big-boy smell for bucks. The aroma of doe pheromone faintly clings to my clothes.

I learn a lot about deer habits from Mike. It’s all very “Wildlife: CSI.”

He points to telltale signs of deer activity that I walked right past: a clearing where bucks scraped away leaves and dirt and urinated to mark their territory or where one rubbed his antlers against a tree, stripping away some of the bark.

We’re in our perches by 6:22 a.m., a solid hour before sunrise. Although we are above the sight and scent lines of the deer, “it doesn’t mean you can sing and dance up there,” Mike says.

So I try to remain as still as possible. Hunting is not for the fidgety.

I hear the thrum of traffic from nearby Route 402. I also swear that several times I hear the heavy movement of leaves, as if something was approaching, but nothing ever appears in my line of sight.

Mike tells me later that with the way sound travels in the stillness of the woods, a deer or bear a distance away could have been passing through and it would have sounded like it was over my shoulder.

After about three hours of sighting nothing but chipmunks and squirrels, we head back.

But Mike is brimming with enthusiasm about the morning’s outing.

Hunting is not always about the kill, he says.

The older you get, the closer your mortality appears to be gaining on you in your rear-view mirror.

Once you cross the threshold of 50, you’ve lived enough of life to have experienced some losses personally, seen others who have suffered them or just simply are more aware that no one gets out of here alive.

I recall as a kid my dad watching old movies, and when certain actors and actresses would appear on screen, he would run through a check list aloud:

“Oh, he’s dead.” “Yeah, she’s dead.” “Oh, wow, he’s gone, too.”

(As an aside, for those concerned about the actor Abe Vigoda, who has been prematurely declared dead, there’s a website dedicated to keeping tabs on his breathing: http://www.abevigoda.com/)

Hollywood stars aside, I’ve mulled over the question of how long I want to live in a previous blog post.

And in a recent conversation, my mom lamented aging as being a pointless process of biding your time. There again, my folks live in a retirement community that they not-so-euphemistically call “God’s Waiting Room.”

In this latest podcast of About Men Radio, Pedro and I explore the question of death, dying, facing our mortality and what, as grown-ups, we should do about preparing for it in terms of wills, medical directives and other cheery stuff like that.

Don’t shuffle off this mortal coil without giving it a listen.

No doubt you’ve all read Chris’s tale about how, despite his general distaste for Halloween haunted houses, he girded his loins and joined posse members Rich and Father John at  the Haunted Scarehouse in Wharton, N.J.

Whaddaya mean you haven’t read it?!?!?! Stop wasting time and check it out here. I’ll wait.

As luck would have it, our intrepid lead blogger had an audio recorder with him during his jaunt through the fright house.

Listening to Mad Mister Mele’s girlish screams and incredibly foul language had me wishing I was there.

Sadly, I, um, had to wash my hair that night. And I felt a tickle in my throat and couldn’t risk exacerbating it. Plus, I hadn’t dusted off my CD’s in awhile and was concerned about allergens…..

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This is how these things usually breakdown: Chris gets a crazy idea. I say “sure, what the fuck, I’ve lived too long anyway” then Rich, John and Silvio decide if they want in too.

It’s been our M.O. for 40 years and, as evidenced in this latest episode of our fine podcast, things won’t be changing any time soon.

We all firmly believe that if it ain’t broke, why fix it? You see, for us the destination or the activity is always secondary to the fun we have getting there.

In true AMR fashion, Chris suggested we check out Rail Explorers which lets you pedal through the beautiful Adirondacks on old train tracks. I immediately agreed to go along and Rich and Father John joined us there.

We roasted each other mercilessly and had a great time doing it. If we had missed the rail bike appointment, so what. More fodder for stone-busting.

Take a listen to our Adirondack adventure and be sure to read Chris’s post about the trip. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry.

(That last part is a lie. You’ll probably just roll your eyes.)

Read more blog posts at www.aboutmenradio.com and at http://aboutmenradio.net

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Have a question or a comment? Write us at [email protected]