I’ll miss Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. He was one of the good ones.
Yeah, he’s over the top and crazy, waving his baby in front of a hungry croc and doing back flips off of their heads. But you got to admit that he’s living the dream. He didn’t go to college and came from almost nothing, but he built an empire and began self educating, which is more than most people ever do. Besides, he rocks the almost-mullet better than even MacGuyer.
Turn on the TV and won’t see many real men left. CNN will show you a bunch of whiny politicians, none of whom will man up and be about something regardless of the polls. Then you’ve got Tom Cruise sliding around in his socks with Ellen while fucking what’s-her-face to make a baby for a marketing scheme to help sell Mission Impossible 3. Donald Trump, one of the most high powered men in history, still ends up having verbal slap fights with Rosie O’ Donnell for exercising her freedom of speech. Or how about our oil-happy President who can’t use a polysyllable without falling over? Real inspiring.
The younger generations grew up on video games and don’t know how to change a tire. They hang out in bars and lie to girls in order to get laid. They’re afraid of commitment. They don’t know who they are. They gather around the water cooler at brag about how fast their computers are. The new men are sue happy. The new men are afraid of cops. The new men are afraid to fight. The new men aren’t about anything except for snowmobiling on the weekends and reliving the glory days playing T-Ball while listening to Bruce Springstein.
That’s why I’ll miss Steve Irwin. He died the way he lived and that’s inspiring. And now he’s gone and we, the boys of the world, are left with one less beacon of what masculinity should be.