An Open Letter to Simon Reynolds on Malcolm McLaren and the Art of Living Like a Hobo

Simon Reynolds and Stephen Alexander 

 

I.

 

Thank you for your remarks on a recent post entitled 'Destroy Success' (7 Nov 2025), in which you were either highlighting (without judgement) the paradoxical aspect of Malcolm McLaren's life and multifaceted career as an artist - the successful failure; the professional amateur; the bourgeois anarchist, the inside outsider, etc. - or you were making some kind of moral appraisal [1] and suggesting (without actually using the terms) that he was a fraud and a hypocrite.

 

I'd like to think you were doing the former and that any antipathy towards McLaren that you feel is nonethless born of love and an ongoing obsession with this fascinating figure: "Even now, despite all the reprehensible things he did and the suspicion that he helped misdirect a generation [...] I can't quite amputate McLaren from my consciousness." [2] 

 

I couldn't help wondering if perhaps you also begrudge the fact that, in his final years, Malcolm was paid large sums of money to give talks all over the world to people in business as well as the arts, travelling first class and staying in the best hotels, etc. But then, why would that be the case when you also give lectures and interviews on an international stage in your capacity as a hard-working pop-historian and pedagogue ...? 

 

 

II. 

 

Your main gripe seems to be that enjoying the rewards of such a lifestyle is further evidence of Mclaren's hypocrisy: "I mean, it's not exactly 'living like a hobo' ..." [3]

 

But, here again, I would disagree: for living like a hobo doesn't mean begging in the streets like a bum [4], anymore than being a punk means adopting a certain look or thinking one has to be angry and miserable all the time in order to be militant, like the po-faced political ascetics who would preserve the purity of the punk revolution. 

 

Whilst the etymology of the term hobo is uncertain, I like to imagine it could be an abbreviation of homeless bohemian, a description that could well be applied to McLaren who "cultivated the mannerisms and appearance of a bohemian outsider" [5] and whose life involved constant travel and a deliberate rejection of conventional work and societal norms; partly out of a desire for freedom and sometimes just for the fun of it. 

 

Malcolm may not have illegally hopped freight trains, but he rarely paid for his own travel - or even his own cigarettes! - and, just like a hobo, he was an extremely resourceful individual, flitting between London, Paris, and New York just as he had once flitted from art college to art college, living on his wits and other people's generosity. 

 

Above all, McLaren stayed true to the number one rule of the Hobo Code [6]: Decide your own life; don't let another person run or rule you. 

 

And one recalls, of course, that Duck Rock (1983) may have thanked many people for their collaboration on the project, but it was solely dedicated to Harry K. McClintock; better known by his hobo name, Haywire Mac, whose Hallelujah! I'm a Bum (1981) Malcolm insisted was crucial to an understanding of duck rock or hobo-punk as he conceived it and an album he made me buy in Collet's bookshop [7].  

 

 

III. 

 

In sum: living like a hobo is primarily about adopting a certain attitude and recognising the creative potential within failure - if I may return to this word. In a piece for The Guardian written two years before he died, McLaren wrote:

 

"I've always embraced failure as a noble pursuit. It allows you to be anti whatever anyone wants you to be, and to break all the rules. It was one of my tutors [...] when I was an art student, that really brought it home to me. He said that only by being willing to fail can you become fearless. He compared the role of an artist to that of being an alchemist or magician. And he thought the real magic was found in flamboyant, provocative failure rather than benign success. So that's what I've been striving for ever since." [8] 

 

McLaren's, therefore, is a very special understanding of failure; an artistic and philosophical understanding of the term. 

 

One is almost tempted to bring Samuel Beckett in at this point; for Beckett (as I'm sure you know) uses the symbolic figure of the tramp to explore various existential themes and informs us that what we learn from failure is not how to succeed in the future, but, at most, how to fail better [9]. Success, says Beckett, is not even an option; we are destined to fail - such is the tragic character of Dasein.

 

The fact that Beckett - like McLaren - affirms this and finds in it a source of darkly comic satisfaction, is something admirable I think. Nietzsche would call it a pessimism of strength [10] and he made it a central teaching of his Dionysian philosophy; a philosophy that, like McLaren's vision of punk, finds creative potential in destruction and flamboyant failure. 

 

McLaren had his successes - but he didn't chase or desire success. Indeed, if anything - and again to quote your own words Simon, if I may - he was thwarted by success [11]. His dream was always to go down in flames or sink beneath the waves [12].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring here to the claim made by Reynolds that Paul Gorman's excellent biography of McLaren failed to give a "moral appraisal of its subject". It was an allegation swiftly refuted by Gorman, who rightly pointed out that the primarly task of a biographer is to write a critically objective study, not pass judgement. 

     See: Simon Reynolds, 'Serious Mayhem', a review of Paul Gorman's The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2021), in The London Review of Books, Vol. 44, No. 5 (10 March 2022), and see Paul Gorman's letter in response in the following issue (44. 6), dated 24 March 2022. Both can be read by clicking here.             

 

[2] Simon Reynolds, 'Serious Mayhem', as cited and linked to above.   

 

[3] Simon Reynolds, comment on the TTA post 'Destroy Success' posted on 10 Nov 2025 at 16:56. Click here. 

 

[4] In the revised and expanded fourth edition of his The American Language (Alfred A. Knopf, 1937), H. L. Mencken argued that although commonly lumped together, tramps, hobos, and bums are actually distinct fron another. Both tramps and hobos like to travel around and lead an itinerant lifestyle, but the former try to avoid work preferring just to dream (and drink), whereas the latter, whilst enjoying some prolonged periods of unemployment, essentially want to work, albeit in a series of jobs with no desire to establish a long term career. As for the bum, according to Mencken, he neither wanders nor works.  Obviously, such a fixed and rigid classification is highly questionable.     

      

[5] Simon Reynolds, 'Serious Mayhem', as cited and linked to in note 1 above.  

 

[6] A set of ethical guidelines known as the Hobo Code was created by a hobo union during its 1889 National Hobo Convention, in St. Louis, Missouri.  It consists of more than a dozen rules intended to govern the conduct of hobos nationwide and help dispel negative stereotypes associated with their lifestyle. These rules essentially boil down to: 1. Respect the law. 2. Help fellow hobos. 3. Protect Children. 3. Preserve the natural environment.

      The National Hobo Convention continues to be an annual event - held in Iowa since 1900 - where the Hobo Code is still recognised. Readers wishing to know more are encouraged to visit the Open Culture web page on the subject: click here.  

 

[7] Collet's was a bookshop (that also stocked selected records and tapes) founded by Eva Collet Reckitt in 1934. It was famous for selling radical and revolutionary publications, particularly those from Russia and Eastern Europe, and acted as a hub for left-leaning intellectuals. 

 

[8] Malcolm McLaren, 'This much I know', The Guardian (16 Nov 2008): click here. 

[9] See my post on Beckett's short prose work 'Worstward Ho!' (1983) and the idea of failure (11 Jun 2013): click here.   

 

[10] This phrase - Pessimismus der Stärke - can be found, for example, in Nietzsche's 1886 preface to The Birth of Tragedy (1871), where he describes it as a "predilection for what is hard, terrible, evil, problematic in existence", arising from strength and well-being rather than decadence or enfeebled instincts. 

      See 'Attempt at a Self-Criticism', in The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Shaun Whiteside, ed. Michael Tanner (Penguin Books, 1993), p. 3.    

 

[11] Simon Reynolds, 'Serious Mayhem', as cited and linked to in note 1 above.  

 

[12] It is interesting to note that, etymologically, the term flamboyant that Malcolm used in relation to the kind of failure he aspired to, comes from the French and means 'flaming' or 'wavy'. 

  

 

D. H. Lawrence and Rudolph Valentino: the Priest of Love Versus the Latin Lover

Messrs. Lawrence (1885-1930) and Valentino (1895-1926) 

 

Oh Mister Rudolph Valentino / I know I've got the Valentino blues  

And when you come up on the screen / Oh! You're so romantic, I go frantic at the views [1]

 

 

I. 

 

Like many men at the time [2], D. H. Lawrence was not a fan of cinema's greatest male sex symbol of the silent era, Rudolph Valentino, the so-called Latin Lover [3]:

 

"We think ... a handsome man must look like Rudolf Valentino. ... But ... there is a greater essential beauty in Charlie Chaplin's odd face than there ever was in Valentino's ... which only pleases because it satisfies some ready-made notion of handsomeness." [4]

 

 

II.  

 

As the above quote makes clear, Lawrence dislikes Valentino because he thinks the latter reinforces a stereotypical ideal of beauty. 

 

But he also accuses actors cast in the same mold as Valentino of counterfeit emotion and of stimulating such in their audience. In a poem written about his experience at the cinema, for example, Lawrence jeers at the black-and-white feelings and fake ecstasies pretended by those who moan with pleasure when watching close-up kisses on a screen [5].

 

One suspects that, just as he thinks Valentino's sex appeal to be essentialy false, Lawrence might also have cast doubt on the actor's masculinity if given the chance to do so and may even have agreed with the attack upon him by the Chicago Tribune in the so-called 'Pink Powder Puffs' controversy ....

 

 

III.   

 

There had long been those who had called Valentino's manliness and, by unspoken implication, his heterosexuality into question. 

 

Some all-American boys - fair of face and blue of eye - felt threatened by his dark good looks and strange foreign manner; particularly as these things clearly excited the all-American girl. Anti-Italian racism was not uncommon at this time and if wops could also be seen as effeminate as well as criminal and foolish, then that was all the more reason to despise them. 

 

Thus, Valentino's critics repeatedly pointed to his pomaded hair, his dandyish dress sense, and the misogyny that seemed to underlie his treatement of women. 

 

This abuse came to a peak - whilst paradoxically hitting a new low - when an editorial in the Chicago Tribune concerning the installation of a facial powder dispenser in a gentleman's washroom at one of the city's leading hotels, decried the feminization of American men and pinned the blame for this on Valentino and his movies. 

 

The article, published on 18 July 1926, so infuriated Valentino that he challenged the anonymous writer to a fight [6]. As this challenge was not taken up, Valentino sought advice from others, including the writer H. L. Mencken, on how else to respond to such an infamous libel [7].    

 

Unfortunately, however, Valentino didn't get the chance to take matters any further; for he was to die in hospital following surgery the following month, aged just 31.  

 

 

IV.

 

Since his premature death in August 1926 [8], rumours have continued to circulate regarding Valentino's sexuality; was he secretly homosexual; was he bi-curious; or - as the evidence suggests and his recent biographers [9] conclude - was he in fact a genuine lover of the ladies, with no desire to suck cock ...?  

 

Who knows? 

 

And these days, who cares? Thankfully, a man can now present another man with an art deco dildo without everyone rushing to judgement, or speculating as to what such a gift reveals about that person's orientation or sexual preferences.  

 

Even Lawrence, who may not have been a fan of Valentino's - and often addressed questions around gender and sexuality in a way that many might now find problematic to say the least - conceded that the most girlish looking men often have "the finest maleness, once it is put to the test" [10]. 

 

 

Don't you ever stop being dandy  

showing me you're handsome [11]

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lyrics from 'Rodolph Valentino Blues', by Jack Frost (published by Jack Mills Inc., 1922). For a recent version of the song uploaded to YouTube by valentinolover70, click here. 

      Note that the spelling of Valentino's first name is not an error; in February, 1922 Life magazine reported that he would henceforth prefer to be known as Rodolph rather than Rudolph. This semi-Italianised styling of the name seems not to have caught on, however.   

 

[2] As the author of the WordPress blog Rudolph Valentino-Connections writes, Valentino was a target of innuendo, racism, and ridicule almost from the start of his career. In the July 1922 issue of Photoplay, for example, which featured Valentino on the cover, the cartoonist and illustrator Dick Dorgan wrote a piece entitled 'Song of Hate' which asserted that all men hate the actor for his foreign features, including his slicked hair and glistening white teeth. 

      Click here to access the post, which also includes the 'Pink Powder Puffs' editorial in the Chicago Tribune (18 July 1926) which we shall discuss shortly and which declares: 'Better a rule by masculine women than by effeminate men.'     

 

[3] Valentino was born in southern Italy, but arrived in New York in December 1913, aged 18. Although eligible - and despite becoming a Hollywood icon thanks to his exceptional good looks, personal charm, and unique talent - he never completed an application for US citizenship. 

       Undoubtedly the role that defined not only Valentino's career but his image and legacy, was that of Ahmed Ben Hassan in The Sheik (dir. George Melford, 1921) - much to his own irritation.  

 

[4] D. H. Lawrence, 'Sex Appeal', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 145-146. 

      What Valentino thought of Lawrence's looks is not, as far as I know, on record. But, interestingly, Clark Gable - the actor promoted as Valentino's successor after the latter's untimely death in 1926 - named Lawrence as his favourite author. See the article 'Will Gable Take the Place of Valentino', by Gladys Hall, in Movie Classic (November 1931), which can be read on the Clark Gable archive site dearmrgable.com: click here.   

 

[5] See the poem 'When I went to the film' in D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, Vol. I., ed. Christopher Pollnitz (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 385.  

 

[6] Although Valentino didn't get to fight the writer of the Pink Powder Puffs editorial, he did box sports writer Frank ONeill from the New York Evening Journal, who volunteered to fight in place of his colleague from the Chicago Tribune. Valentino - who had been trained by world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey - won the fight. Afterwards, Dempsey described Valentino as the most virile and masculine of all the actors he had worked with.

 

[7] Mencken, who found Valentino very likeable, advised the latter to simply let the whole thing fizzle out. After Valentino's death - just a month later - Mencken published a sympathetic piece in the Baltimore Sun, in which he claimed that it was not the Chicago episode that really upset Valentino, but the grotesque futility of his life as a famous film star. See H. L. Mencken, 'Valentino', in A Mencken Chrestomathy, (Vintage Books, 1982), pp. 281-284.   

      

[8] Valentino died on 23 August 1926 from infections following surgery for perforated gastric ulcers. A post discussing the extraordinary circumstances surrounding his death and his posthumous life can be read by clicking here.

 

[9] See, for example, Emily W. Leider's biography Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino (Faber & Faber, 2003).    

 

[10] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 126. 

 

[11] Lyrics from 'Prince Charming' by Adam and the Ants, a single release from the studio album Prince Charming (CBS, 1981), which reached number 1 in the UK charts. The video for the song, directed Mike Mansfield, famously ends with Adam singing the chorus refrain - ridicule is nothing to be scared of - in the guise of several iconic male figures, including Valentino as Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. Click here to play on YouTube.  

 

 

Flappers

The playful flapper here we see, 

the fairest of the fair.

One of the reasons that I still very much love the flappers is because they continue to piss off puritans of all stripes who, as the critic H. L. Mencken put it so wonderfully, are those persons forever gripped by the terrible fear that someone, somewhere may be happier or having more fun than they are.

Unfortunately, this seems to include followers of D. H. Lawrence, one of whom wrote in response to a question I asked about the latter’s antipathy to the young women of the Jazz Age, that flappers were almost as bad as bunny girls. When pressed to explain this rather surprising comparison, this former editor of the D. H. Lawrence Society Newsletter sent the following text:

"Flappers are ridiculous and degrading. Lawrence hated them as he (rightly) hated the vulgar songs of Bessie Smith. Who wouldn’t look on flappers as anything but women exploiting their sexuality and being exploited? Essentially, it’s the absurd falsity of them that is so objectionable. They have been industrialised; mass produced – it’s repulsive! And all that phony joie de vivre is equally nauseating; I don’t for a second believe in their kind of good time. I won’t even mention their physical appearance – the boyishness that Lawrence commented on and so despised."

Where does one begin with this astonishing attempt to channel the spirit of Lawrence at its most malevolently misogynistic?

Well, firstly, it’s true that Lawrence on one occasion became so incensed with Frieda repeatedly playing a recording by the great American blues singer Bessie Smith, that he smashed the gramophone record over her head in an act often portrayed by commentators as violent domestic comedy, but which might better be construed as humourless domestic violence.

I also have to admit that the writer of the above pretty much manages to summarise the main reasons for Lawrence’s antipathy towards the flappers: their independence, their hedonism, their promiscuity, their artificiality and their superficiality (in dress, manner, and behaviour).

I think the really crucial point, however, is the one he leaves to last and wishes not to mention - but nevertheless can’t help mentioning: what Lawrence most dislikes about the flappers is their physical appearance. And by this we refer not so much to the short skirts they liked to wear (though doubtless Lawrence objected to these too), but to the actual bodies of the flappers, in shape, in size, and in their somewhat androgynous character.

In brief, the flappers, with their bobbed hair, flattened chests, narrow hips, and pert little bottoms, weren’t womanly enough for Lawrence, who, as is evident from his choice of wife, his descriptions of Constance Chatterley, and his paintings, clearly had a penchant for plump, curvaceous, fleshy females.

His attempt to body shame the flappers - something that, shockingly, is still being carried on by some of his followers even today - is rooted therefore not only in his puritanism and problematic gender politics, but also in his own sexual preference for BBW.

Ultimately, the slim and sophisticated figure of the flapper left him limp - and Lawrence resented them for it.