Doral Frost Was Right and I Was...

Spend five or ten awkward minutes in the Men's Magazine section at your local Barnes & Stables, and most likely you will discover that either the publishing industry or the consumer market has decided that American Masculinity in the early 21st Century concerns itself mainly with: boobs, ab-workout programs, near-naked chicks, motorcycles and hotrods, high-end material goods, and extreme sports. On the rarest occasion, some fearless feature writer will slip in a piece about literature.

But it is not often that spirituality weaves its way into Men's Magazines. Yes, I suppose one could make the argument that there is a subtle spirituality to all of this - a spiritualism or faith in masculinity itself. But the fact that we have to turn to an argument that draws on the wholly symbolic, figurative, or metaphorical demonstrates the overtness by which faith-based issues are left out of Men's Magazines.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I stumbled upon the following passage in the most recent edition of Men's Journal-Adventure Life:

So who is responsible for the evolution of Mark Wahlberg? Let's start with Jesus. Wahlberg has gone to church every Sunday for years, and he has a tattoo of a rosary and cross around his neck and chest. "I listen to the sermons on the radio on Sunday, and they all seem to be speaking direclty to me," he says. While filming the upcoming Shooter in rural British Columbia, he still sought out a place of worship. "Sometimes I'd be like, 'Mark, do you know even what kind of church they have?'" says director Antoine Fuqua. "He didn't care." Wahlberg's eyes lit up when I asked him if David O. Russell's Buddhist leanings had influenced him on the Huckabees set. "Not only did it not rub off on me," he said with glee, "but David Russell is now officially rolling with Jesus."

Admittedly, I almost missed this paragraph, as it was buried near the end of a rather engaging piece on America's Favorite 1990's Rapper-Turned-Movie Star (with apologies to Ice Cube). When I realized what I was reading, I stopped, and read the paragraph again. This is a remarkable section, I thought. And here's why:

1. Mark Wahlberg, arguably a solid archetype of a guy's guy, is openly and cooly talking about his spirituality and general commitment to Christianity.

2. The feature writer was so impressed by such religious dedication that he marked it first in terms of what transformed a troubled-youth with self-destructive behavioral patterns into a "Hollywood Power Player."

3. Neither Wahlberg nor the writer dwell on the point (or any other point for that matter) so as to make the piece solely about religion, thereby suggesting that masculinity, identity, and personality are multi-faceted indeed.

4. Doral Frost was right.

Of course the first three points speak for themselves, but the fourth requires explanation.

King Doral Frost, you must know if you have not heard, is an old friend of mine. Like many old friends in very good stories, he posses an identifiably unique characteristic: a certain penchant for the ridiculous, as demonstrated by such acts as training for a marathon in LUGZ boots, burning his college notes and textbooks a priori graduation, and baking a cake for a prospective mate with the hope that she holds a special (if not strange) place in her heart for the romanticism of Napoleon Dynamite. Naturally, I encourage these things in his life so as to feed my archive of interesting-cocktail-party-stories.

But perhaps above all else, Doral yearns to believe in the general goodness of men worldwide. A practicing Christian himself, the King looks for the slightest shred of evidence that may suggest that some public figure believes in the saving power of Jesus Christ. Consequently, many nights at the bar are filled with Doral's insistence that he heard from a friend whose cousin lives in LA and works at a night club where Sean William Scott sometimes comes in for a drink that Johnny Knoxville might be a Christian.

I will be the first to admit skepticism for these stories, and often deride their telling publicly, using phrases like, "That's the stupidest fucking story I have ever heard," or "Do you know what the mathematical probability of that story being even remotely true is?"

And to his credit, Doral usually either laughs and says, "Well, you're probably right, but here's to hoping that it is true," or he offers yet another even more ridiculous story about the reliability of the evidence of the first story based on a just-as-if-not-more impractical set of circumstances.

All of this becomes important when you add to the mix the fact that Doral's greatest celebrity hero is Marky-Mark Wahlberg. And while I cannot remember specifically the dates and times of the insistences, I am positive that King Doral has encouraged all of us to believe that Mr. Good Vibrations became Mr. Good News of Jesus on numerous occasions.

To which I am almost surely positive that I responded, "So you are telling me that Marky Mark, underwear model for Calvin Klein, porn-star in Boogie Nights, and all-around bad-ass and sex-God who carries himself in a way that seems to suggest that he doesn't give a shit about anybody but Wahlberg and his boys, is a Christian? That's the stupidest fucking story I have ever heard."

In writing and in speaking, there are many sentences I aim to avoid; one is "Doral Frost was right, and I was wrong."

But I'll be damned: Doral Frost was right, and I was wrong.

Here's to you, Doral.

And another one for your optimism.

Don't stop believin'...