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November 2002
What's Your Lifestyle?
The immortal Blue Oyster Cult was clearly on to something when they
penned the lyric "nature points up the folly of man." Well,
they were talking about Godzilla, but they might as well been talking
about human nature, or better still, the nature of men.
But maybe Samuel Butler hit the mark better when he said, "The
style as the man himself is as near the truth as we get."
Then again, perhaps my mom said it the best when I was a young guy
looking for my own direction…
"If everyone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you jump too?"
Let's face it, men are an easily influenced people. They like to live
what they see and act on what others are doing. In other words, men
fall into the trap of living as their peers do as opposed to living
as they are.
So the question that begs to be asked is, what's your lifestyle? Are
you bending to society, blending with the scenery or blazing your own
trail? Are you eyeing the girl or are you talking to the girl? Are you
jealous about your friend's success or building your own ladder for
the climb to the top? Are you a do it tomorrow guy or a let's make it
happen now guy? Are you riding the brake or is the pedal to the floor?
If you're new to RAZOR, let me summarize what we're about. We're about
style and class. We're about the strength of success and laughing in
the eyes of failure. We're about nothing being off limits, nothing unattainable.
We're about the exploration of the buffet that is the wide, wide world.
We're about fashion as an appendage, an integral part of the complete
portrait. We're about the entire landscape as it pertains to men, and
that's the operative word… men, not boys trapped in the bodies
of men. We're about individuality as a weapon.
We're not about following trends. We're not about ludicrous pick up lines
and inane sex tips. We're not about the hottest places to go for Spring
Break and reporting on them as if we've discovered the lost island of
Atlantis. We're not about boxer briefs to the nipples and jeans down around
our Johnson as a reflection of our IQ. We're not about our entire universe
revolving around a round table discussion over which girl in the bar has
the best boob job.
If you picked this magazine up off the newsstand, you likely took it
from the "Men's Lifestyle" section. When we started RAZOR
two years ago, we were told that this genre of magazine, magazines that
catered to 18-45 year old men was overcrowded. We didn't see it. What
we saw were a ton of titles that catered to the 18-45 year old man whose
thought process reflected that of a 12 year old going through puberty.
And on the other side of the spectrum, we saw titles going through a
sort of schizophrenic mid life crisis, publishing pictures of near naked
young actresses next to articles about prostate cancer; the equivalent
of a guy with a hair weave who drives a Ferrari in an effort to pick
up girls half his age.
Where was the magazine for the ambitious, driven 18-45 year old guy?
Where was the magazine that embodied the style and presence of a Sinatra
with the originality and edginess of a James Dean? Where was the magazine
that defined men at the start of the new millennium? Where was the magazine
that pushed against the folly of man?
Spencer Herbert said, "The ultimate result of shielding men from
the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools."
Or foolish magazines
Enjoy the Issue,
Richard Botto,
Editor in Chief / CEO of RAZOR Magazine - The Definitive Men's Lifestyle Magazine
www.razormagazine.com
