What Next? “Better Homes & Bazookas”?

Nestled in the barber chair a few weeks ago, I looked around as a few more inches of my suspiciously gray-streaked hair wafted floorward. Across from me was the magazine rack, and I chuckled when I noticed a glossy new magazine, “Garden & Gun.” Nestled oddly among the Redbooks, the Sports Illustrateds, and the Popular Mechanics, G&G outdid its neighbors in literal eye-catching. As odd as its resting place was in this old-fashioned barber shop was its title. Gardening, meet guns; Guns, meet gardening. For years now I’ve been using my old golf clubs as gardening tools, but this idea intrigued me. Perhaps I could scare a few more tomatoes out of our garden with a Colt .45 at my hip.

The Garden & Gun cover showcased a beautiful young couple, richly dressed in the country clothes of the wealthy. The dark haired young woman expertly held what I believed was a shotgun. Assisted by her young man while drawing a bead on something at about two o’clock high, her eyes were sincere, her mouth set; ready. Whatever fortunate bird was under her gaze that day could not have known her finger was – mercifully – not on the trigger. I sensed she was a compassionate conservative, but had no doubt she could stand up to that weapon’s kick and guide its payload home.

In any event, at the time I thought G&G was another National Lampoon satire and planned to check it more closely on my way out, but being of a certain age, I paid for my razor cut and promptly forgot. About a week later I found a copy in my doctor’s waiting room and had a look-see. First thing, it’s for real; no National Lampoon after all, though I’d guess the lampooners kicked themselves when they spied it on Cambridge newsstands. Here was a parody’s parody. What was Garden & Gun publisher Rebecca Darwin thinking? She’s a former New Yorker magazine publisher, for God’s sake. What happened?

Apparently a savvy idea happened. G&G reports good sales to those among us who desire “an adventure-bound, art-loving, skeet-shooting lifestyle.” There you go, art-loving and skeet shooting side by side. Finally. It must be the Messianic Age. G&G reflects “the modern lives of affluent Southerners and those who aspire to the sporting life of the South.” It’s first 12 editions since its 2007 debut bear that out. G&G has the feel of Southern Living on steroids, with its editorial guns at aimed at bagging the elusive southern male. The Feb./March edition fishes for the macho with feature stories about turkey hunting and falconers, yet the traditional Southern Living feel is still there in articles about cuisine a la crawfish, hickory shad, and Cajun . It’s worth a look.

But, after all its glossy pretension, what can be said about turkey “hunting”? Is it really “hunting” when you stalk an animal that stands about three foot tall, can’t fly away, and has no incisors? Do you really need to arm yourself with Marine Corps fervor to bag a fatso bird that you could just walk up to and smack over the head with a frying pan? Tell me true, if you heard that a pack of wild turkeys was roaming your neighborhood would you send the children to the basement or start preparing cranberry sauce? And the “hunters” of this unlikely prey, armed literally “for bear,” they hide in heavily camouflaged bunkers, call out to their prey in turkey-speak, urging them closer. Once close enough to touch with the gun barrel, they blast ’em. They don’t even offer them a wrestling match. Now that might be “sporting,” but shooting an earthbound, slow-witted creature from a hunter’s blind just doesn’t reinforce the image of an art-loving, sophisticated, skeet-shooting southerner that G&G seeks to portray. And that’s really what G&G seems to be about – dressing up the south to hide its essential contradictions, glorifying the aristocratic provenance so many southerners yearn for, a past that when looked at closely simply does not often bear – or turkey – up well.

I do think, though, that the juxtaposition of guns and gardening is a new direction to exploit. It draws you in like an accident that you should not look at, but cannot avoid. So, I’m working on a few ideas for a few new blogs, or an online “webzine.” If you have any ideas to add to mine below, please do so in the comments section and I’ll cut you in on any profits.

Prepare to pop petunia pliferers

Why not, I say:

— Martha Stewart’s Wrestling & Wassail
— Cats, Rifles & Soups
— Travel & Seizure
— Derriere Tattoos of the Rich & Famous
— New York Review of Books & Throwing Knives
— Paris Match & Flamethrower
— Golf & Grenades
— Art & Solid Waste Scene

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