Teaches ‘Lost Boys’ How To Be ‘Men’
Tom Leykis, one of the newest entrants into the daytime radio
shock-jock arena, is in many ways the moral opposite of Dr. Laura,
the conservative talk-show host who promotes Old Testament values.
Like Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia, Leykis encourages
men to go after what they ‘really want:’ sex. With a new
documentary out, Blow Me Up Tom, and his radio show, The
Tom Leykis Show, ranked number one in Seattle and Los Angeles,
Leykis is well on his way to reaching the same sort of
uber-chauvanist icon status as Howard Stern.
David Walker of Portland, Oregon’s alt weekly Willamette
Week explores the growing phenomenon of ‘lost boys’ who pay
daily homage to Leykis’ words. ‘It’s not a movement in any
traditional sense of the word, but more like a new subculture of
Lost Boys, a steadily increasing number of men — most between age
25 and 40 — who, depending on your point of view, are either
postponing adulthood or are defying the conventions of what
adulthood is supposed to be.’
Walker points to the late ’60s and ’70s as the birth time of
lost
boys. A time when divorce rates doubled, as did the ranks of single
parents. ‘The image of a lasting relationship was shattered for a
generation of kids who had to listen to their mothers say ‘Daddy is
an asshole’ and their fathers counter with ‘Your mother is a
bitch.”
‘The feminist movement gave women the freedom to live lives without
men. Women don’t even need a man to father a child anymore,’ Walker
writes. ‘Could it be that the Lost Boys are just a consequence of
the brutal reality that many guys now feel obsolete?’ he
asks.
Leykis responds: ‘That only happens if a man lets it happen. I tell
guys, ‘Just don’t give them the cash, and then we’ll see how
obsolete we are.” — Sara V.
Buckwitz
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