Learning Day: ACTION FOR MEN!

Once, long ago, there was a comedy website that only wanted three simple things: to make people laugh, to teach them a few things, and to throw an all-wolf dance party. It succeeded in two of those goals, before getting piledriven into the dirt by corporate scavengers. Some of its archives have been deleted, some of them have been corrupted, and some just suck. You decide which one this is. It’s…

Stag Mags were men’s magazines in a time when ‘puberty’ was a nickname for the draft and women could only vote if they balanced on a man's shoulders so they technically had a penis between their legs. Stags were also called "sweat mags," and had titles like MALE, REAL MEN, and KEN FOR MEN -- because sexuality, like time, is a circle, and if you go too far straight you find yourself right back at gay again.

The covers were full of desperate men absolutely destroying nature, women, each other, and themselves with equal frenzy. Their titles were made of simple words spelled out in hard-edged fonts with gigantic consonants you could peel off the page and use to bludgeon a communist to death.

Their stories were all grand tales of intrigue, murder, eroticism, and the kind of intense sexual repression that leads a man to hookfight on a log. The titles alone are some of the best sentences ever constructed. It’s like they’re threatening you and asking for help at the same time. If a serial killer taught an ape only the sign language for his favorite search terms and then threw it out of a plane, it would sign GENTLE SLAUGHTER OF THE VIRGIN BRIDE on the way down.

ACTION FOR MEN was one of the best, by which I mean most belligerent and least explicable. This isn’t a fun photoshop gag, these are all real and if you doubt me you’re free to type ‘action for men’ into your browser and sort through some results for yourself.

The cover illustration has something to do with one of the story titles, right? This must be Jet-Stream Joy Girl -- an insurmountable slurry of English normally found in the ad copy of Japanese vibrators. And while the promise of Vespa-riding harlots bombing around the baggage claim is great, I’m more focused on-

“Avenging Angel” of Africa's White-Girl Massacre is open to two completely different interpretations:

1. Somebody is avenging a massacre of white-girls that took place in Africa. This is almost certainly it, since ACTION FOR MEN never met a minority they didn’t think would look better on the end of a speargun.
2. Somebody is avenging the massacre that white-girls have enacted upon Africa. It’s a longshot, but it’s not impossible.

Look again at that cover: I know it’s not depicting “Avenging Angel” of Africa’s White-Girl Massacre, but that illustration sets a clear precedent of marauding lunatic white girls on hilarious murder sprees. I choose to believe some Go-Go dancers tore the shit out of the Nouakchott airport and the gendarmerie took up a pool to get Hell-Diver O'Shea on the case.

Man, you know it’s a great title when HELL-DIVER O’SHEA is a tiny print afterthought.

Everything in this magazine is naked and in trouble. This is the annual Nude Distress issue of ACTION FOR MEN. Look at those headlines: from "The Nude Captives of Guerilla Island" to "The Cycle Nymphs Who Stalk America,” every single story is about titties at gunpoint. Jesus, even inanimate objects don’t make it out of this issue with their orifices intact.

Look at this thrilling tableau! Strafing planes, firing artillery, cleavage, khakis! It has everything a 1950s man needed to achieve erection! Get that lady out of Terror Camp, AWOL Seaman Hank Prescott! She meant to sign up for Bible Camp and there was a terrible misfiling in-

Wait.

This worries me. This disturbs me.

Oh, it’s not “Dr. Cream” that messes with me. I’ve seen all of his movies and he’s a dedicated specialist. He only diagnoses dongitis and every prescription is the same, but he does solid work and incredible things with a speculum. It’s the clear and vulgar promise made by Dr. Cream juxtaposed with the coy naughtiness of The Nighttime Girls of London. If that title said The Gaping Girls of London, or even The Butt Beauties of Birmingham, I would be like “yes, somebody page Dr. Cream. It’s a Code Blue Balls.” But The Nighttime Girls of London is so childish I worry there’s been some kind of miscommunication and Dr. Cream just showed up to a 4th grade sleepover club under every kind of arrest.

Which story is this cover image from?

"The Torpedoed Sailor Who Took Over Japan's Camp-Girl Compound"?

I’ve done some messed-up camping -- you guys ever done Jacksonville Rules Camping? Oubliette Camping? Reverse Camping? Reverse camping is some shit! You bring as much wildlife as you can into your house, lock the doors and-

Well, that’s for another time. I’m saying I have done some highly illegal camping but I never got three of my best bros to haul a girl in a cage through an African village and called it camping.

"The Love Nest That Shocked Memphis"?

I don’t think it’s politically correct to call a group of women a "nest" anymore, and anyway, I have been to the very worst parts of Memphis for Yellow Jack Camping. That village is way nicer than Memphis.

"Hatchet Man from Moscow"?

I don't see a single ax-wielding Russian anywhere -- and trust me, I looked! I'm always down for a hatchet-murdering Soviet. Though I guess technically they could be anyone until the hatchet comes out.

I don’t know which story this image represents, but I do know one thing:

This is a guy who’s done some Jacksonville Rules Camping!

This time the title has a little arrow pointing to the exposed breasts in danger to let you know which story explains those breasts and how they wound up in that danger. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but this one only seems to be worth three: "Jonah-themed gangbang.”

Let’s not overlook-

What happened to the publishing industry after World War II? Did we leave some English on the front when we pulled out? Was “Combat Zanies” what we used to call PTSD? What could those words possibly mean? I'm trying to picture some kind of elite military squadron of clowns, but my brain keeps rejecting it. I try and try and the whole concept just keeps slipping right out of my mind. They say for every idea you reject, somebody else accepts it. So Jesus Christ, I am so sorry that I just sent a psychic shotgun blast of militarized clown to some poor bastard who now looks like this:

Wh-

What does ...

I don't even know where to start. Are they on a Go-Go Barge? That was a thing? Go-go parties delivered by water freight? That fucking rules! Why did we stop doing that? Did they pass tighter Go-Go restrictions during the Malaise era? And are those Go-Go Barge pirates? Those are Go-Go Barge pirates! Fuck yes! Scalawags who lived to pilfer hot Go-Go from lucrative party barges foolhardy enough to sail their waters!

And their conveyance of choice was ... jet-sleds?

Did we used to have jet-sleds?

My god I was born in the wrong era. We’re starting this again. I am recruiting Go-Go Barge pirates. Spearguns will be supplied but you bring your own jet-sled.

Which of those story titles could possibly apply to this work of pure art? Every other sentence on that cover is something a homeless man would scream at a rich woman who accidentally stepped on his invisible dog.

"I'LL SAIL MY SHIP TO HELL!"

"NIGHT SCHOOL TEASE!"

"7,000-MAN WALL-OF-FLESH COLD-STEEL DEATH CHARGE!"

-are certainly the last words some lost real estate agent heard in a Memphis alley.

Listen, it is very clear these magazines were a problem. They had no respect for anything but the white American man, and even then, no they didn’t. They were the purest distillation of wild and delusional toxic masculinity, but don’t lie to yourselves. You know our modern pornography is missing something, and you know it’s lynx attacks.