There's a magazine called Golf Punk, I saw it on a newsstand, as I hovered between trains. It's marketed, presumably, at that sliver of society which enjoys an archly alternative lifestyle and, well, golf. Alice Cooper and Jesper Parnevik, essentially. Seems unlikely they'd actually purchase the magazine as they must appear in it every month, or so you might think. It turns out that Golf Punk distinguishes itself from other, more earnest, golfing publications not through a distinct anti-establishment editorial policy, but by including a section on "Bunker Babes" (scantily clad) interviews with female golfing celebrities, or "Swinging Sirens" (scantily clad) and a regular clinic with the "Golf Nurse" (not wearing much). Golf Punk then, is not simply a golf magazine with a new angle, it is instead a dreadful chimera; part hobbies periodical and part Lads' Mag. I've never understood this sort of thing. It's not that I'm prudish, it's just that for me golf and pornography make for an uneasy mix. It's the same with fast cars and motorbikes. Do you want to fuck the girl or the Kawasaki? Cindy, 22, from Eastbourne, or Colin Montgomerie?
I could get precious about the subversion of the meaning of "Punk", but as "Punk" at least in part was about this kind of subversion I'd be arguing against myself. Doesn't mean I have to like it.
Printed media will dwindle, I hope, to a sensible level. Golf Punk will disappear. I read a novel recently, for the first time in weeks, and enjoyed the experience, but generally any piece of prose I read, under 3000 words long, and over 50, I will read on a PC. The more abstruse ends of printed publication are losing their legitimacy in the face of the internet, I think. I hope. Golf Punk will disappear.
1 comment:
I thought Golf Punk was a clothing label. They have a magazine too? Are they affiliated? How globalisedly civilised if so.
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