THE
P A A RT R T 1 O F F A 3-ISSUE SERIES
OUR GUIDE TO KICKING AS A SS S S AT WORK. ORK.
YOU KNOW...
PAGE 7 PAGE 73 3
HE’S THE KING, ING, MAN. BY TOM JUNOD PAGE 106
A
WE LOVE:
A L I S O N B R I E P AG A GE 1 1 4
2 1 PA G E S O F SPRING FASHION BEGINS ON P AG A G E E 49
R E U I R E S Q N T V. S O L L Y. I S R E A Y O U R E C K C H O C A L . L S N G N S T I L I S V I ! T I V R I T E P A E 3 7 P A G
Divide and conquer. Windows 8 gives you the professional-grade PC power you need with the full-on entertainment you want. It’s business in the front and party in the back. Work easy. Play hard. Windows 8.
ASUS VivoTab
Some apps acquired separately.
VOL. 159 MAY 2013
NO. 5
10 6 THE D ICAPRIO CODE
Leonardo DiCaprio has gotten to a point in his life where he needs to worry about only three things: his next movie, his next beautiful woman, and his next way to save the world. By Tom Junod 11 4 ALISON BRIE IS A WOMAN WE LOVE
And she lov es a lot of things. Like her secondgrade teacher, and the number 38, and . . . Interviewed by Cal Fussman 11 8 ESQUIRE FICTION
An e xcl usi ve a nd j awdropping excerpt from Benjamin Percy’s beastly new thriller, Red Moon . 12 4 THE ESQUIRE GUIDE TO BETTER MUSIC
Our annual collection of songs every man should listen to, with your lovely host, Nina Agdal. Plus: Where to discover new music, why to bother, and what’s wrong with how you lis ten now. By Andy Langer 13 3 ESQUIRE STYLE
M U S I C 2 0 1 3
Musicians across the juk ebo x, f rom Gar y Cl ark Jr. to Hunter Hayes, show you the imp ort anc e of var iet y—in you r wa rdr obe and your music. 14 4 WHAT I’VE LEARNED: VALERIE JARRETT
“My grandmother would say, ‘Valerie, put your self in the path of lightning.’ ” Interviewed by Cal Fussman 14 6 SIX YEARS LATER
Half a decade after the savage murder of his wife and two daughters, William Petit has had to redefine what it means to live his life. A look at how a man copes with—and be gin s to rec ove r fr om— a nightmare that will never die.
For a video preview of this issue, scan here using Netpage.
By Ryan D’Agostino
{ continued on page 8 } ON THE COVER: LEONARDO DICAPRIO PHOTOGRAPHED EXCLUSIVELY FOR ESQUIRE IREBY BYMAX MAXVADUKUL..SUIT,, SHIRT, HIR , AND TIE BY DOLCE & GABBANA.. PRODUCED BY ARIELLE VINY FOR OR NORTH NORTH SI SIX. X. STYLIST STYLIST ASSISTANT, ASSISTANT, ARI ARIANNE NNE TUNNEY TUNNEY FOR FOR TRACEY RACEY MATTINGLY MATTINGL .. GROOMING O NG BY BY NATALIA N AT L IA FOR F OR THE WALL GROUP. PROP STYLING ING BY NICK NICK FAIELLA. FAIELLA.
5
AVAILABLE AT CONVERSE.COM/JACKPURCELL
THE CONVERSE JACK PURCELL SNEAKER
VOL. 159 MAY 201 3
NO. 5
46 SEX
Do animals cheat? And other questions keeping you u p at n igh t. PAGE 114
49 STYLE
Summer shoes, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig on buying his first watch, and socks that will change your life. 60 A THOUSAND WORDS
The Internet has become a place of tremendous hate and rage. But it’ll clean itself up. By Stephen Marche
66 ESQUIRE ON YOUR TV
Have we mentioned that the new Esquire Network launches April 22? Do you wonder what’s on it, or if you might en joy ing wat chi ng? A co m j prehensive guide to the greatest cable channel that’s ever been named after us. And a recipe! 73 ESQUIRE, WORKING
Moguls from Duff Goldman to Joel Osteen teach you how to run a b usiness, own the room, and never have a bad day. And we t ell you wha t t o wear on the job. 94 ATTENTION POLITICIANS: FIGHT MORE
Confirmation hearings are supposed to be partissan. But they work only if tthe president fights back. And w ith o ne gl ari ng exception, President Obama has shown how it’s done. By Charles P. Pierce
98 ESQUIRE OUT OF DOORS
{ continued from page 5 }
21
26
37
ESQ&A
11
Questlove on riding SEPTA, teaching at NYU, and getting Bill Withers to sing again.
MAN AT HIS BEST: CULTURE
MAHB: INSTRUCTION
The exhausting vitriol of Marc Maron, and how to write a best seller.
Why you should be drinking aperitifs, everything you’ve ever wanted to know about caring for you r fee t (an d the n some), and a stereo that costs more than a personal watercraft.
BEFORE WE BEGIN
Letter from the Editor 12 Upper Peninsula trivia! 18 Esquire gets its own pickle 18
8
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
28 FUNNY JOKE FROM A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN By Laura Haddock
A ce lebr ati on o f w hat we do when we go outside, from camping to cooking to hanging off a really big roc k. 16 2 THIS WAY OUT
Things This Magazine Can Do That Television Can’t By Ross McCammon
No late fees ever. No penalty rate ever. And we don’t mean just-one-time ever.
Simplicity
®
citi simplicity
®
Unlike other credit cards, the Citi Simplicity Card is the only card with no late fees, no penalty rate and no annual fee — ever. There, that’s three fewer things to worry about.
To apply, go to citi.com/simplicity Or visit your local branch.
Introductory rate of 0% for 18 months from date of account opening on purchases and for 18 months on balance transfers from date of first transfer. After the introductory period ends, the standard purchase APR will be applied to unpaid promotional balances and new purchases. The standard variable APR for purchases and cash advances is 12.99%, 17.99% or 21.99% based on your creditworthiness. Minimum interest charge - $0.50. Fee for foreign purchases - 3% of the U.S. dollar amount of each purchase made outside the U.S. Cash advance fee - 5% of cash amount. $10 minimum. Balance transfer fee - 3% of balance transfer amount. $5 minimum. The information about the costs described here is accurate as of 01/01/2013. This information may have changed after that date. To find out what may have changed, call us at 1-800-492-2127. © 2013 Citigroup Inc. Citibank, N.A. Member FDIC. Citi, Citi with Arc Design and Citi Simplicity are registered service marks of Citigroup Inc.
BEFORE WE
BEGIN
M AY 2 0 1 3
Essential information for this issue and your month
THE
62 “NOT EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN BY THE AMISH.”
E G A P
PAG E
PAG E
1
E G A P
PAG E
1 4
“DADDY, I AM NOT A MINISTER.”
“THE NUMBER PAGE THIRTY-EIGHT. IT’S SO ROUND. IT’S A VOLUPTUOUS NUMBER. EIGHTYEIGHT HAS GONE TOO FAR.”
PAGE
5
REVIEW
” . E E F S I E L H Y T M T D A E H G T N E L A P H O C E E P V D A L H O S T K E C V ’ I O “ S
“I O NOT AT ALL KE GOLF, THAT CKNG THE WRONG CLUB WON’T YOU FALLING TO YOUR DEATH.”
PAGE
“SIMPLY 6 PUT, IT’S BECAUSE WOMEN DON’T GET HARD-ONS.” E G A P
PAGE
“SHE’ OFFICIALLY OVERTAKEN THE
N OUR PE ONAL HIERARCHY OF BRITISH IMPORT .”
PAGE
9 E G A P
PAGE
E G A P
PAGE
2
14
“YOUR MACKLERE B TLE WILL SOUND BETTER THAN EVER.”
“AND THEN A LAST, SPE KING IN RUSSIAN, HE P O NOUNCES DICAP IO A PAGE
6
ZHIK NASTOYASHI MU
A RE L MA .” PAG E
“THAT’S THE WAY PETIT HAS LIVED SINCE THE MORNING OF JULY 23, 2007, THE FIRST DAY IN MORE THAN TWENTY-TWO YEARS THAT HE HAD NEITHER A FAMILY NOR A HOME, BOTH OF WHIC H WERE SAVAGELY TAKEN FROM HIM THE NIGHT BEFORE .”
11
BEFORE WE BEGIN
Arnold Gingrich (1903–1976) FOUNDING EDITOR
David Granger EDITOR IN CHIEF
Peter Grifin
A N O T E F R O M D AV I D G R A N G E R
The Celebrity Green Zone Five years ago, I greeted George Clooney outside the Hearst Tower. His car pulled up on Eighth Avenue at exactly the time he had said he’d be there, and I went out to walk him in. The sidewalk is, what, twelve feet wide? His car double-parked maybe six to eight feet from the sidewalk. Then there’s a little vestibule before you hit the doors. So there were maybe ten yards, the length of a first down, from inside the car to inside the building. Clooney moves quickly. In the few seconds he was exposed to the outside world, people went apeshit. An average midmorning on a block in Manhattan collapsed into a few seconds of chaos. People spun toward him. They shouted his name. All pedestrian movement came to a halt. Cars slammed on their brakes. He’s used to it. But it unsettled me. It seemed dangerous then and it’s more intense now. It’s gotten worse in the years since then—at least in part because fame has become so democratized and just about every chef, makeup artist, hand model, and auto mechanic has his own cable show or YouTube channel. The most famous—the movie stars, the royals—are ever more desperately beset. If a photographer can make five figures for a compromising photo of a former star of Jersey Shore, he can make
12
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
multiples of that for pregnant Kate. Our biggest stars—the actual ones— have no choice but to withdraw from life as we know it. They’re rarely out in public, except to hurry from the limo to the red carpet or sneak in the back door of some ballroom to speak briefly at an event that will raise money for the charity they are most aligned with. We’ve chased them into hiding. Beginning this month and continuing for the next two issues, we will have the three largest male movie stars on our cover, back-to-back-to-back, starting with Mr. DiCaprio. We have them on the cover b ecause they are indisputably interesting, we admire their work, they represent something about how we American men see ourselves, and yes, indeed, because we hope they will motivate people to pick up the magazine and read it. But I’m genuinely curious about their relationship to their own fame. No one has ever been more famous than Leonardo DiCaprio was after Titanic became the biggest movie of all time. As you’ll read in Tom Junod’s story, he was both completely taken by surprise and pretty well prepared for it. Surprised because no one could anticipate what a sensation that movie would be and prepared because he had already built a protective cocoon of friends he took with him on his journey to extreme celebrity—friends (and managers and publicists) who are still there, still the buffer between Leo and the madness that awaits when he steps out of a limo. Junod and I were curious about what kind of life that can be, inside the Green Zone that DiCaprio and the other two men we’ll be writing about have built for themselves. How different for each, how alienating, how fulfilling? In DiCaprio’s case, from Junod’s limited view, which he shares beginning on page 106, it is a world he has mastered and made his own.
Helene F. Rubinstein
David Curcurito
DEPUTY EDITOR EDITORIAL DIRECTOR DESIGN DIRECTOR
Lisa Hintelmann
Mark Warren
NickSullivan
EDITORIAL PROJECTS EXECUTIVE EDITOR FASHION DIRECTOR DIRECTOR
John Kenney
Mike Nizza
MANAGING EDITOR
EDITOR, ESQUIRE DIGITAL
Ryan D’Agostino, Ross McCammon, Tyler Cabot, Peter Martin
Richard Dorment SENIOR EDITOR
ARTICLES EDITORS
Mark Mikin (mobile editions)
Joe Keohane
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Matt Goulet
SENIOR EDITOR, ESQUIRE DIGITAL
Nate Hopper
ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR IN CHIEF
ASSISTANT EDITOR, ESQUIRE DIGITAL
Jessie Kissinger, Anna Peele, Elizabeth Sile EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
A RT StravinskiPierre ART DIRECTOR
Frank Augugliaro
DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR
Tito Jones
SENIOR DESIGNER, E-READERS
Geraldson Chua
DESIGN ASSISTANT
Steve Fusco
DIGITAL IMAGING SPECIALIST
PHOTOGRAPHY Michael Norseng Alison Unterreiner PHOTO DIRECTOR
PHOTO EDITOR
Deb Weno
PHOTO COORDINATOR
FASHION Wendell Brown
SENIOR FASHION EDITOR
Nic Screws
SENIOR ASSOCIATE MARKET EDITOR
Michael Steanov
ASSOCIATE FASHION EDITOR
COPY Aimee E. Bartol
SENIOR COPY EDITOR
Christine A. Leddy
ASSISTANT COPY EDITOR
RESEARCH Robert Schefler
Kevin McDonnell
RESEARCH EDITOR
ASSOCIATE RESEARCH EDITOR
Lydia Woolever
ASSISTANT RESEARCH EDITOR
A. J. Jacobs
EDITOR AT LARGE
WRITERS AT LARGE Tom Chiarella, Cal Fussman, Chris Jones, Tom Junod, Charles P. Pierce, Scott Raab, John H. Richardson, Mike Sager
FICTION Tyler Cabot
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Ted Allen, Thomas P. M. Barnett, Colby Buzzell, Andrew Chaikivsky, Luke Dittrich, David Katz, Ken Kurson, Andy Langer, Stephen Marche, Francine Maroukian, Bucky McMahon, Brian Mockenhaupt, MaryLouise Parker, Benjamin Percy, Barry Sonneneld, Daniel Voll, Stacey Grenrock Woods John Mariani FOOD & TRAVEL CORRESPONDENT David Wondrich DRINKS CORRESPONDENT
Eric C. Goeres GENERAL MANAGER, MEN’S NETWORK, HEARST DIGITAL
Jonathan Evans STYLE & GROOMING EDITOR, ESQUIRE.COM Paul Schrodt ONLINE EDITOR, ESQUIRE.COM ESQUIRE INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS Li Xiang China Francisco J. Escobar S. Colombia Antonin Herbeck Czech Republic Kostas N. Tsitsas Greece Cho Man Wai Hong Kong Dwi Sutarjantono Indonesia Andrey Zharkov Kazakhstan Min Heesik Korea Manuel Martínez Torres Latin America Sam Coleman Malaysia Jeremy Lawrence Middle East Arno Kantelberg Netherlands Erwin Romulo Philippines Radu Coman Romania Dmitry Golubovsky Russia Sam Coleman Singapore Andrés Rodriguez Spain Steve Chen Taiwan Panu Burusratanapant Thailand Okan Can Yantir Turkey Alexey Tarasov Ukraine Alex Bilmes United Kingdom EDITORS IN CHIEF Duncan Edwards PRESIDENT AND CEO Simon Horne SENIOR VICEPRESIDENT, CFO, AND GENERAL MANAGER Gautam Ranji SENIOR VICEPRESIDENT, DIRECTOR OF LICENSING AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Kim St. Clair Bodden SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, HEARST INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS Astrid O. Bertoncini EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, EDITORIAL Peter Yates CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Tony Gervino EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Kristen Ingersoll FASHION AND ENTERTAINMENT DIRECTOR Luis Veronese SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS EDITOR
THIS MONTH IN LOGOS (AND AVAILABILITY) Your avorite app (not Ruzzle, but Netpage) just got itsel a new, very instructive logo that you can see right here and at th e bottom o many pages in thi s issue. It’s a reminder that you can use Netpage to unlock multimedia content throughout the magazine and to make every image and story interactive. Plus, Netpage is now available in the Google Play store. So i you have an Android phone, you can finally discover what we’ve been so excited about.
D A Z R E D A N I H G A T Y B H P A R G O T O H P
LAB SERIES
MAX
LS
THE PROVEN ANTI-AGING SYSTEM ENGINEERED FOR MEN TO KEEP SKIN LOOKING YOUNGER LONGER 88% AND TIGHTENING
88%
IN THE E YE AREA*
SAW SMOOTH AND
SAW LIFTING
RENEWED SKIN*
CONSUMER RATED**
90% SAW REDUCTION IN THE LOOK OF LINES AND WRINKLES*
MAX LS AGE-LESS FACE CREAM, MAX LS OVERNIGHT RENEWAL SERUM and MAX LS INSTANT EYE LIFT together create the ultimate anti-aging,
Sirtuin-inspired skincare system with proven results. *Consumer testing after 4 weeks. **Consumer rated at labseries.com as of 3/18/13.
HIGH TECH. HIGH PERFORMANCE. SKINCARE FOR MEN. ONLY. Available at Bloomingdale’s and Bloomingdales.com. In New York City call 212-705-2101.
THIS MONTH, SPORTS!
BEFORE WE BEGIN
The third volume of Esquire’s 80th anniversary anthology feature s the eight greates t sports storie s of all time. Tom Wolfe on Junior Johnson. Richard Ben Cramer on Ted Williams. Michael Paterniti on Thurman Munson. Plus, David Foster Wallace, Luke Dit trich, John Irving, Scott Raa b, and W.C. Heinz. Buy it at esquire.com/80stories or right now via Netpage.
E L S E W H E R E
I N T H E C U LT U R E
Notable occurrences that, interested or not, you should at least be aware o. May 1 The HBO documentary Manhunt is the real-life version of Zero Dark Thirty.
May ay 7 She & Him re lea se Volum e 3, their newest album of catchy, smiley indie pop.
May 14 Crime-solving professor Robe rt L angd on ta kes o n his next icon in the new Dan Brow n thr ille r, Inferno.
May 17 Terrorism strikes the U. S. S. Enterprise in Star Trek: Into Darkness.
May 23 The posthumous release of J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic narrative poem, The Fall of Arthur.
May 24 Fast & Furious 6 shows that action movies can successfully recycle the same premise.
ESQUIRE INDULGES NOT MUCH MAKES US HAPPIER THAN MAKING YOU HAPPIER, SO WHEN YOU SEND IN REQUESTS, WE TRY TO FULFILL THEM. EXCEPT FOR THE WEIRD STUFF.
WOULD YOU PLEASE PROVIDE US WI TH AN UPDATE ON IRAQ WAR VETERAN BRYAN ANDERS ON? —DAN PONTIS, LONGMONT, COLO.
We first wrote about Army Sergeant Anderson, who I started acting a little bit, too. It’s been a lot of lost both his legs and much of his left arm in an IED fun, and I hope to continue with it. I’ve been on CSI: attack three months before he finished his second NY and All My Children, and in The Wrestler, with tour in Iraq, in our January 2007 issue. In the six Mickey Rourke. And I just did an episode of Nick years since, he’s done some amazing things. After Searcy’s Web series, Acting School.One of the coolbeing given a few leading questions and convinced est things I’ve gotten to do is host a show on PBS in that his answers wouldn’t come Chicago called Reporting for Seracross as bragging, he sent the folvice with Bryan Anderson. [ Edilowing update: tor’s note: Anderson and the show I’m living in Rolling Meadwon an Emmy. ] I interview peoows (outside Chicago). For about ple who are making a difference two years, I lived in Pennsylvania in their community, and then grab and helped design and test wheela bunch of people to go volunteer. chairs that would hold up to what I’m a triple amputee taking 100 a soldier would put them through. kids to go work a farm. I’m outta In terms of work, I kinda have my chair, digging in the dirt. It’s six jobs. There’s Quantum Rehab, great. We’ve done one episode so where I work in research and defar, with hopefully more to come. velopment, testing chairs and travThe more I see the effects of all eling to VAs to talk to clinicians this, the more I want to do. and therapists. I’m a spokesperson Even with all that work, I still for USA Cares, a veterans’ organihave a lot of fun. I snowboard, I zation that helps post-9/11 vets in have a motorcycle, and I have their most vulnerable moments, a quad that I love to ride in the whether it’s saving their homes or mountains. I’m trying paint-ballhelping put food on the table. And ing with my brother and even I was recently made an ambassastarted flying lessons. I have nine dor for the Gary Sinise Foundasolo takeoffs and landings. tion and have been making appear As far as where I’m going, who Top: Anderson on the January ances on the foundation’s behalf. I knows? But I can tell you I’m ex2007 cover of Esquire. Bottom: On also wrote a book called No Turn- the set of his PBS show, Reporting cited to see what happens next— for Service with Bryan Anderson. and what I can do with it. ing Back.
AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT May 24 The Hangover Part III shows that comedies have a slightly harder time of it.
May 24 We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks pres ent s an account of whistle-blower Bradley Manning juxta pos ed wi th a d amn ing p ortrait of Julian Assange.
May 28 The National Spelling Bee re tur ns.
14
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
Esquire sex columnist Stacey Grenrock Woods is reprising her role as Trisha Thoon on the new season o Arrested Development. She graciously ofered a ew spoilers: > The banana stand is a sled. > George Sr. plays topless ping-pong with a handsome doctor. > Lucille adopts the kid who shot Omar.
The kid who shot Omar also shot J. R. > Gob brings Lady Sybil back to lie in the Aztec Tomb. > Tony Soprano plays another Journey song and then something by Warrant. > Bruce Willis has been dead the whole time. > Sergeant Brody is actually Cat Stevens. > The narrator turns out to be Ron Howard. >
Not enough Bryan Anderson? Scan here with Netpage to watch him in action.
A F A I R P O I N T F R O M K E N
BEFORE WE BEGIN
In his article on gun control (A Thousand Words, March), Stephen Marche implies that a well-armed militia wouldn’t stand a chance against a single company of Marines. I thought
Jack Essig
that question was put to rest 230 years ago. —Ken Foley, St. Joseph, Ill.
SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT, PUBLISHING DIRECTOR & CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER
LETTERS OF THE MONTH
MarciaKline
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ADVERTISING
Jill Meenaghan
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/GROUP MARKETING DIRECTOR
Don Perri
ENRAGED (TOWARD THE GOVERNMENT)
ENRAGED (TOWARD THE SHOOTER)
SYMPATHETIC TO THE SHOOTER
GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR
Bill McGarry
ENRAGED (TOWARD ASHTON KUTCHER)
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DIGITAL ADVERTISING, HEARST MEN’S GROUP
Stephanie Clement
CONFUSED, SINCE BIN LADEN WAS A CIA OPERATIVE WHO ACTUALLY DIED IN 2001
Hillary Deppeler
DETROIT DIRECTOR SPIRITS, NEW ENGLAND & FLORIDA DIRECTOR
Louis F. Coletti
INTERNATIONAL FASHION & RETAIL DIRECTOR
Adam C. Dub
Caryn Kesler
Justin Harris
Jonathan Homan
EXECUTIVE ACCOUNT DIRECTOR MIDWEST DIRECTOR
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF LUXURY GOODS
ACCOUNT MANAGER
Todd A. Simons SOUTHWEST DIRECTOR ITALY Luciano Bernardini de Pace, Davide Da Rold (011) 39-02-796-451 SWITZERLAND Daniella Angheben (011) 39-02-764-581 FRANCE Marie Armande de Sparre (011) 33-1-42-84-33-80 CANADA AND TEXAS Adam C. Dub 212-649-4159 PACIFIC NORTHWEST Andrea Wiener/Athena Media Partners 415-828-0908 SOUTHEAST (EXCEPT FLORIDA) Mandel Media Group 404-256-3800
Tara Buchalter
INTEGRATED SALES & MARKETING ASSOCIATE
David Thomson
THE REACTION METER
SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER
RESPONSES TO PHIL BRONSTEIN’S PROFILE OF THE NAVY SEAL WHO SHOT BIN LA DEN, LEFT THE NAVY, AND THEN FOUND HIMSELF WITH LITTLE HELP FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
Kate Filippelli, Meghan Washington DIGITAL ACCOUNT MANAGERS
Nancy Olsen, Yvonne Villareal, Mary Beth Yale, Ashley Andrews INTEGRATION ASSOCIATES
MARKETING SERVICES
A
s a recently retired naval ofcer with 30 years o active duty, I had the opportunity to serve with a SEAL unit. I have the
utmost respect or SEALs and call many o them my close riends. However, I chuckled as Bronstein painted the government as a bad guy who screwed the Shooter over. This guy chose to leave despite being short the 20 years o service. Your arti cle made a mocking statement that the Shooter would get the same pension as someone in the Navy choir. What it does not mention is that SEALs get the highest bonuses o anyone in the Navy, as they should. At the end o the day, the Shooter needs to live with his deci sion to get out. —Name and address withheld MANATHISBEST
Like all servicemen and women in combat, the Shooter is a true Ameri can hero, and we need to treat him as such. But his claim that the Navy screwed him is pure BS. He screwed him sel. The act is that the Shooter didn’t retire. He quit ater 16 years, and it takes 20 or retirement. I have no doubt he is burned out, and un derstandably so, but he had choices. R O B E R T D. B R O W N , L T . C OL ., USMC (RET.) Cary, N. C. MARCH2013
THE TRUE STORY OF THE M I S S I O N , T H E M A N N O W, A N D H O W T H E G O V E R N M E N T ABANDONS ITS ELITE WARRIORS. BY PHIL BRONSTEIN
This is a ascinating article. The thought that my taxes are being unneled to ward either useless pork
projects or some unde serving welare gluttons while these soldiers are abandoned is maddening. Hopeully Bronstein’s story will convince the govern ment to step up its respon sibilities to our returning servicemen. R I CK S OLOWAY Baltimore, Md. SEALs are reallie super heroes, shrouded in se crecy, with superhuman mental and physical capa bilities. These men are well aware o the danger, risk, and personal toll that come along with their chosen path. Still, the government asks them to operate in the most dangerous locations and to do things that would crush the average human. It should take a lesson rom the SEAL code and demon strate loyalty and respon sibility to these men who bravely fight and die or our country. P H I L L I P P OM A Newark, Calif.
THINGS WE WON’T BE COVERING THIS MONTH
The recent “success” in transplanting leg hair to bald men’s scalps. Dad dySc rub s, ho spi -
16
ESQUIRE
tal scrubs that proudly proclaim “I’m the Dad dy” o n the back . Girls Gone Wild’s explanation for filing
MAY 2013
for ban kru ptcy. Wake Up On Time, a pil l you tak e bef ore bed that releases energy eight hours
later to wake you up “refreshed.” Bret M ich ael ’s ne w Travel Channel series, Rock My RV.
Scott Lehmann
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS AND EVENTS
Kate Carrington
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STRATEGIC MARKETING
Dawn Sheggeby
INTEGRATED MARKETING DIRECTOR
Jeri Dack
WilliamUpton
Colin H. Stayton
Natasha Zarinsky
Peter Davis
WilliamCarter
ASSOCIATE MERCHANDISING DIRECTOR
MARKETING DIRECTOR
INTEGRATED MARKETING ASSOCIATE
RESEARCH MANAGER
SENIOR INTEGRATED MARKETING MANAGER CONSUMER MARKETING DIRECTOR
ADMINISTRATION AND PRODUCTION Rosi D. Gana
Terry Giella
Karen Otto
Connie Black
ASSOCIATE BUSINESS MANAGER
GROUP PRODUCTION DIRECTOR
ADVERTISING SERVICES MANAGER GROUP PRODUCTION MANAGER
Deidra Robinson
ASSOCIATE PRODUCTION MANAGER
DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING ChristineHall John Stankewitz D IRECTOR
SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER (212) 649-4201 FAX: (646) 280-4201
PUBLISHED BY HEARST C O M M U N I C A T I O NS , I N C . Frank A. Bennack, Jr. EXECUTIVE VICE CHAIRMAN & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Steven R. Swartz
PRESIDENT & CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
HEARST MAGAZINES DIVISION David Carey Michael Clinton PRESIDENT
John P. Loughlin
PRESIDENT, MARKETING & PUBLISHING DIRECTOR
EXECUTIVE VICEPRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER
Ellen Levine
Gilbert C. Maurer
Mark F. Miller
PUBLISHING CONSULTANT
PUBLISHING CONSULTANT
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
PUBLISHED AT 300 WEST FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10019-3797. EDITORIAL OFFICES: (212) 649-4020. ADVERTISING OFFICES: (212) 649-4050 ® FAX: (212) 649-4303 WWW.ESQUIRE.COM. FOR SUBSCRIPTION OR CUSTOMER-SERVICE QUESTIONS, PLEASE VISIT SERVICE.ESQUIRE.COM OR WRITE TO ESQUIRE, P.O. BOX 6000, HARLAN, IA 51593. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
TRIM, SHAVE AND EDGE THE 3-IN-1 TOOL FOR WHATEVER BODY STYLE SHE LIKES.
CONTEXT-FREE HIGHLIGHTS FROM LETTERS WE WON’T BE RUNNING
BEFORE WE BEGIN
“I would like to buy some videos and mugs of these hefty Walmart gals. Please, no greeters!” to steal inheritances.”
“Smiley face had access to a late-model car that works.“
“Stalkers distract you to make you sick. Bastard-makers want
“Blue balls, for which there is relief: atte mpting to lift something very
heavy (like a car, from its bumper) in a proper squatting position.”
CHINESE EGGPLANT KIMCHI INGREDIENTS: 1 lb Chinese eggplant 1 tsp sea salt ½ cup water >
MARINADE: 2 tbsp soy sauce 2 tsp resh lime juice 2 tsp sesame oil 1 tsp fish sauce 1 tsp honey 2 cloves garlic, grated on a Microplane 1 small knob ginger, grated on a Microplane ½ tbsp toasted sesame seeds 1 tsp chile flakes 2 tbsp chopped green onions >
the pot and let cool. Gently transer to a glass container. Create marinade by combining ingredients in a small bowl and whisking together. Add to the eggplant and gently toss. Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate overnight. CONSUMPTION: Enjoy over steamed rice and grilled pork with a garnish o reshly chopped mint. >
The UP is home to more than 200 wateralls.
GARNISH: 1 tsp chopped mint
The UP contains 29 percent o the land area o Michigan but just 3 percent o its total population.
>
THE ESQUIRE IRE
PICKLE This month, Esquire contributor and master pickler che Edward Lee is publishing his first book, Smoke & Pickles: Recipes and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen (Artisan, $30). To mark the occasion, he de-
signed a pickle just or us. (He also reminded us that anything can be pickled. Even eggplant.)
Edw ard L ee is the che f and owner of 610 Magnolia in Louisville. Open only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, his Asi an/ Sou the rn re sta urant offers a chef’s tasting menu that changes weekly. You’ll need reservations. Or try his take on bar food at his new restaurant, MilkWood.
GET TO KNOW YOUR HOSTESS Highlights from a conversation with 21-year-old Danish model Nina Nina Agdal, who hosts this month’s music coverage. (See page 124.) On her first trip to America: I went to Boca Raton. Weird place. e. Than Thankk God
it was spring break, so there were a lot o young people there,, but that’s not where you go with your parents when you’re 18 years old. On her apartment: I’m very cheap, so I decided to live really close ose to Penn Station and the Long Island Rail Road. And they have an indoorr basketball court in my building, so whenever I’m here I play almost every day. day. On her musical tastes: I’m in a Rihanna and Justin Timberlake mode right now. The Fray is my avorite band in the world probably, and I love a Danish band called Dúné. It all depends on my mood. On her musical whims: I couldn’t sleep, so I had a glass o red wine and put on *NSync, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera. That was as my jam. On dancing: I danced competitively or almost ten years, hip-hop hop and disco. You had all these costumes—mine was yellow and green, with ith a lot o glitter. But I don’t do booty-popping and all that. I leave that to others.
SOMETHING NEW YOU CAN EXPECT EVERY WEEK . . .
Starting this month, i you’ve downloaded the Esquire app or your tablet, each week we’ll send you a digital supplement to the magazine—brand-new original content,
18
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
It is commonly reerred to as the UP. People who live in the UP call themselves Yoopers.
>
INSTRUCTIONS:Cut eggplant into 2-inch lengths, then split lengthwise into quarters. Add to a large pot with sea salt and water. Bring to a boil, cover with a lid, and turn heat to medium. Let eggplant steam or about 15 minutes or until the meat is tender and alling away rom the skin. Remove eggplant rom
A FE W FACT S WE LEARNED ABOUT MICHIGAN’S UPPER PENINSULA
including Charles P. Pierce on Politics, Stephen Marche on Culture, Josh Ozersky on ood, and A. J. Jacobs on ways to improve your lie. It’s like getting extra page s o your avorite magazine or ree, delivered right to you.
In August 1923, entrepreneurs and riends Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford camped together near Iron Mountain in the UP. Notre Dame’s first allAmerican ootball player,, George Gipp (“the Gipper,” rom r Knute Rockne’s oc ne’s amous speech), grew up in Laurium, in the UP. Former president pres Teddy Roosevelt sued UP Roosevel newspaper Iron Ore or slander in 11912 ater it accused him h o public drunkenness. runkenne He won ssix x cents. c UP P residents residen are quick to notice wh when you omit their portion o Michigan rom a map, as we accidentally did in February. They hey are a also a very orgiving people.
. . . AND EVERY MORNING
At Esquire.com, you can now find a daily curated list o the most important things to read, watch, or simply be aware o beore starting your day. Hope you’re ready to impress people.
T O P L I H P S I R H C Y B P A M
T A S T E I S O N LY E V E R Y T H I N G Meet the new Budweiser Black Crown, a 6% alc./vol. golden amber lager brewed with toasted caramel malt and beechwood fnished or a smooth and distinctive avor. Tasted, chosen and handpicked by the loud, the savvy and the amous, at bars and estivals across the nation. And then, dressed in black. #TASTEIS
©2013 A-B, Budweiser® Black Crown Lager, St. Louis, MO
MAY 2013
QUESTLOVE THE PRODUCER/DRUMMER/ MUSICOLOGIST TALKS TO SCOTT RAAB ABOUT PRINCE, PUBLIC ENEMY, BILL WITHERS, TEACHING, PHILLY, AND POLITICS Late Night with Jimmy Fallon studios at 30 Rockeeller Plaza, where Questlove is finishing rehearsals or The Music of Prince at Carnegie Hall later this week. SCOTT RAAB: You got time
or me? QUESTLOVE: O course I do. SR: You’ve got a lot going on. QL: We’re going to my apart-
A A B S C O T T R
M U S II C 2 0 1 3
ment to eat. My che made us some stuf. SR: That’s awully nice. MAYA RU DOLPH: Am I coming with you? [Her Prince tribute band, Princess, is playing the show, too.] QL: Yeah. MR: Where are you going? QL: I’m going home, but your hotel is near my home. [To Al Roker ] What’s up, man? It’s Ahmir. AL ROKER: Oh, hey! Hi. Nice to see you. SR: Can’t believe you bothered Mr. Roker. QL: I wonder i he’s gonna wash his hands ater that. [Later, at Questlove’s apartment.] QL: Tonight, I just gotta act like it’s a regular night. Not like anything special is going on. SR: I hear there’s something really special going on. QL: In Brooklyn. SR: You sure you have time to do this interview? QL: This is a break. This is the treat. 9:30 tonight is when the stress starts. This is Ardenia [Questlove’s personal chef ]. ARDENIA: Hi! SR: I smell greens. CONTINUED
ROCK OF GIBRALTAR
THE POP-CULTURE FIELD GUIDE Things you may encounter on your journey
Clip, Save, Share, rom any page. Download ree rom the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
1. 1,400-foot
limestone monolith at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. 2. Location of counterterrorism operation “Wildlife” in John le Carré’s spy novel A Delicate Truth.
21
Clockwise from far left: On the tour bus with his father’s band Lee Andrews and the Hearts, 1975; with the Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon; with his sister, Donn, in their west Philadelphia home, 1975.
SR: Something’s wrong. SomeQUESTLOVE CONTINUED
ARDENIA: Yes, you do. It’s kale
and cannelloni bean—a mixture. With rib-eye steak and glazed butternut squash. QL [looking at phone]: Chris Rock’s trying to move his parent-teacher meeting to come tonight. SR: Are you always this busy? QL: This is a typical day. I’ve come to the conclusion that the average person can do about our things a day, like our real things a day. SR: Four discrete tasks? QL: I think our is enough. I could probably do six. Today I worked out. I had to edit the book. I’ve had rehearsals or the Prince show this week, too. Actually, I’m doing two books. The memoir Mo’ Meta Blues, out next month and a coee-table book on Soul Train. SR: What’s happening tonight? QL: I talked D’Angelo into doing a sort o kamikaze, hit-andrun thing. I told him that we got to get rid o our comort system. No background singers, no other musicians. Just him and me, one stage—nothing else. No preparation, no rehearsal. We’ll just go onstage and make songs. SR: That’s at 9:30? QL: Yeah. Tickets sold out in 45 seconds. SR: It’s fine to say no, but can I go? QL: Yeah! It shouldn’t be a problem. SR: D’Angelo’s doing all right? QL: He’s doing fine. He’s E R U E T D L I U U C - G D P L O E P I E F H T
slowly putting his eet back in the water. SR: I read an early copy o your memoir. I was ascinated by the Philly part o your book. You grew up on Osage Avenue—the street that was bombed by the police. QL: I was there the day they stormed the MOVE headquarters. SR: You were a kid. QL: I was 14. May 13, ’85. That Thursday was the worst day ever, man. I got dumped by my ninth-grade girlriend. And then on 20/20, they had the “backward masking” episode. My mom’s like, “Wait a minute. ‘Stairway to Heaven’—don’t you listen to that?” My parents were notorious or throwing records away during that Christian phase o the mid-’80s. It was also around the time o the Lena Horne episode o The Cosby Show. SR: Philadelphia is one o the most juicy and underrated cities in the world. QL: Despite the violence that it’s been mired in. Three Saturdays ago, I took a very weird pilgrimage. I had to do a Silence of the Lambs–esque trip to one o my storage units. I took a flashlight not knowing what I was going to run into. SR: I’m glad you didn’t find what Jodie Foster ound. QL: I was looking or baby photos. I ound them. I was gonna go back, but then I just had this strange craving to ride SEPTA. SR: That is a strange craving.
QL: So I took my car, drove to
69th Street. I rode the El the complete way around. Then I rode it again and got o at 40th Street, and then took the trolley. I just wanted to revisit parts o my childhood because I hadn’t seen it in such a long time. So I rode the El, the trolley, and the subway in a our-hour period. I was done by 11 o’clock. And then I went back to New York. SR: You were satisfied? In terms o the craving. QL: The trains are pristine now. Not like the trains o Japan or anything. I kinda wanted the urine-inested, death-deying SEPTA. SR: That’s the aroma I associate with SEPTA. QL: It was too clean. SR: Do you still want to do something with Bill Withers? It’s a shame that the singer o “Lean on Me” has been lost to the ages. QL: Yeah, and or the wrong reasons. His sel-imposed exile is based on misinormation. I read that he did a show in Chicago in ’85, and I think only 19 people showed up. But what he ails to register in his brain is that three eet o snow was on the ground in Chicago. The show should have been canceled. But I guess his ego said, “Well, the people don’t want me no more. I’ll retire.”
RICHARD “THE ICEMAN” KUKLINSKI
DANTE’S INFERNO
1. Mafia contract killer who hid his profession from
1. The
his family for decades until his arrest in 1986. 2. Froze bodies to obscure time of death. 3. Played by Michael Shannon in the drama The Iceman.
22
ESQUIRE
thing beyond a crowd o 19 in a blizzard. QL: He came to one o my shows and I begged him to sing, and he said, “Nah, man. I don’t want to si ng.” I keep trying. I thought, I’ll use the Al Green record I did Lay it Down, 2008 as proo. I said, “Okay, Bill, you’re next.” And he said no. Then I did John Legend’s record. It was like, All right, we’re going to cover a Bill Withers song, and then we’re going to get a lot o Grammys, and then Bill will come running. Got John Legend his Grammys, and Bill still said no. So then I worked on Booker T.’s album. Bill’s still saying no. I gotta figure out another plan. Hopeully this time around he’ll come out o exile. I have everyone on board—his wie, his daughter. SR: How old is he now? QL: He was in his 30s when “Lean on Me” came out in 1972. So already he was at a more mature place than most people when they have their debut records. SR: The breadth o your music knowledge is incredible. I’m a hip-hop ignoramus, by the way. Once Public Enemy stopped putting out product, I stopped, too. QL: You think you have dierences with hip-hop? I definitely have issues. That was my lesson last week in the class I teach at NYU. I give my students records ahead o time, so they can put them on their iPods. And I always ask them,
M AY 2 0 1 3
CONTINUED
first installment of 14th-century allegorical poem The Divine Comedy. 2. Filled with hidden codes discovered by symbologist Robert Langdon in Dan Brown’s new novel, Inferno.
Scan here with Netpage to read an excerpt from Questlove’s upcoming memoir, Mo’ Meta Blues.
PROMOTION
GIVES YOU MORE OF WHAT YOU LOVE. Each issue of Car and Driver is filled with all you need to know about the latest automotive news, styles, and technology. Subscribe today and you’ll find everything when you want it and how you want it—on our new digital edition.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 67% OFF THE COVER PRICE.
Order online: my.caranddriver.com
QL: During the 2008 election, I
With D’Angelo at the Brooklyn Bowl, March. QUESTLOVE CONTINUED
“Okay, how do you eel?” With Michael Jackson and Public Enemy, it was the same thing. Hal the class was like, “You know, this is cool. I remember my mom and dad playing this stu or me.” And the other hal was like, “Mmm, it didn’t move me as much.” I knew that Michael Jackson would be an easier sell because I gave them something o the master reels o the Of the Wall record. SR: That’s amazing—the master reels? QL: You know the greatest thing about working on Fallon? I get so many anonymous gits. Somebody gave them to me, and I was floored about what I didn’t know or didn’t hear on the record—the things they didn’t use. O course, he amously cries at the end o one song. Take one o “She’s Out o My Lie” is really heartbreaking to listen to. It doesn’t eel like it’s theater or overacting. You really eel his pain. So I was trying to explain the sonic importance o Public Enemy and why they matter and how they pushed boundaries sonically. I’m not even talking about with messages and whatever—these are cratsmen. The students who had indierence with it just can’t contextualize it. And that’s our ault. SR: Nation o Millions?! QL: I was on an NPR blog, and they have a section where they have their interns review established classic records. And the reviewer actually hated it. Everybody’s browbeating him. “You 18-year-old ool.” And I al E R U E T D L I U U C - G D P L O E P I E F H T
most got caught up in it. But I caught mysel and thought, Oh, God, this is my ault. People in my age range have to pay up and start teaching. We take or granted that the ripple o hiphop is going to spread and people will know what quality music is. You just take or granted that Pet Sounds is gonna last orever because everyone’s gonna know Brian Wilson was a genius. I mean it could be Van Morrison. It could be Dylan. It could be whatever. I know I’m not going to change the world by teaching this stu, but hopeully I have an impact on those 24 kids in my class. SR: I don’t know how many people in any field hold themselves accountable or the teaching part. Teaching’s tough. You gotta have the passion and the ability to articulate it. QL: And patience. It’s still a learning curve or me. I’m probably a good three years away rom taking the training wheels o. They want me to teach 75 students, 150, the supply-anddemand thing. And I was telling them I think we should really just keep it small—Wait a minute! [Sees Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un on TV.] I’m sorry. He’s hanging with him? SR: It’s been all over the media today. QL: Lately I’ve cooled o on watching TV. During the election, I was obsessed with it. SR: Do you consider yoursel a political person? Do you think a musician or any other perormer is responsible or speaking to larger issues?
GREAT NECK, LONG ISLAND 1. Affluent coastal suburb. Half-hour com-
mute to Manhattan. 2. Inspiration for “new money” West Egg, host of the better parties in The Great Gatsby.
24
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
made clear to the Obama campaign that I don’t think it’s wise or me to orce my personal political agenda on anyone. They wanted me to do speeches. I said, “Wow, I’m glad you gu ys are so trusting, but I’m not there yet.” In 2008, I did menial work—driving vans, collecting signs. For a long time, I was the runner getting sandwiches or volunteers. I graduated to telephones once I elt more confident. I might eel a personal responsibility, but it’s a thin line between that and “Follow me and my ideology because I’m on television.” I’d rather people think or themselves. SR: I don’t know i there’s a whole lot o that going around—people thinking or themselves. QL: Ater the 2000 election, there was a rozen empowerment—the eeling that nothing matters because the outcome will go the way that a higher power deems that it should go. Artists got really scared. Nata-
PEOPLE IN MY AGE RANGE HAVE TO PAY UP AND START TEACHING. WE TAKE FOR GRANTED PEOPLE WILL KNOW WHAT QUALITY MUSIC IS.
“
”
lie Maines and the Dixie Chicks were the tipping point. Ater she said “We’re not proud o our president,” they lost everything. It was almost like the entertainment world’s version o Job. Everyone was just rozen—all the let-o-center and political-leaning artists in hip-hop and pop CONTINUED
THE ESQUIRE DOSSIER
AHMIR “QUESTLOVE” THOMPSON DATE OF BIRTH: January 20, 1971 WHICH MAKES HIM: 42 HOMETOWN: Philadelphia OCCUPATION: Drummer and coounder o the Roots SIDE JOBS: DJ, leader o the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon house band, NYU proessor, purveyor o hoodies at Lower East Side store the Hoodie Shop ALMA MATER: Accepted to Juilliard but couldn’t aord tuition. ENTRÉE INTO SHOW BUSINESS: Doing wardrobe, lights, and eventually percussion or his parents’ touring oldies band. FIRST ROOTS GIG: Busking FIRST ROOTS BREAK: Opening or the Beastie Boys FIRST EXPOSURE TO THE BEASTIE BOYS: Ater church in 1984, when he and his cousin cassette-recorded the group on a Philadelphia hip-hop radio show. NATIONALITY HE ASSUMED THEY WERE: Puerto Rican CONTROVERSY: Playing Fishbone’s “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” when Michele Bachmann appeared on Late Night. OTHER WALK-ON-SONG PAIRINGS: LeVar Burton and the Roots theme; Joy Behar and “Happy Happy Joy Joy” rom Ren & Stimpy; Ashlee Simpson and Milli Vanilli’s lip-synced “Girl You Know It’s True.” RECORDCOLLECTION: 78,000 large BACK TO THE FUTURE –SOURCED PICKUP LINE HE TOLD ROLLING STONE HE’S SAVING FOR ALISON BRIE: “I’m your density.” ALISON BRIE: This issue, page 114. PREMISE OF 2011 ROOTS CONCEPT ALBUM UNDUN: The deathbed musings o fi ctional drug dealer Redord Stephens, inspired by a Sufjan Stevens song. DRINK: Kahlúa and cream
MANDARIN 1. Chinese supervillain in the Marvel universe. 2. Previously employed as a janitor; currently working as a
scientist/martial artist. 3. Foe of Iron Man, played by half-Indian actor Sir Ben Kingsley in Iron Man 3.
n o i t c e l l o c r e c n a l e e r f | m o c . l i e w d n o m y a r
QUESTLOVE CONTINUED
music. All the political voices were silenced. SR: Whenever someone uses the word urban instead o black or African, it makes me a little crazy. And I’m a Jewish guy rom Cleveland. Does the “urban” label bother you? QL: When I was preparing Nation of Millions or my NYU class last week, I saw an old Billboard magazine rom 1985. At the top o the page, I saw the word Black. Back in ’85 they called it “Black charts.” It was “Race music” beore that. It doesn’t bother me now simply because radio is no longer the controlling orce in music. Billboard is now allowing YouTube to count or chart success. Two o the number-one singles on the pop charts are number one because o YouTube plays. YouTube plays count or 20 or 30 percent o your chart action. Labels are about to go the way o the cassette and eight-track. SR: So the old categories are nullified. QL: I’m certain that by 2040, it’ll be a whole new system we deal with, which will be unortunate or me because I think I’ll be 70. [Later, in the car heading to Brooklyn Bowl.] SR: We’re a long way rom Philly right now. Do you ever think about how incredible it is that you’re now working with a range o musicians rom D’Angelo to Elvis Costello? QL: I mean, Prince was on the [Fallon] show Friday. But I always eel like sel-congratulation is the jinx. That’s why I had to do that SEPTA pilgrimage. Part o me really enjoyed that our-hour trek o taking the subway, taking the El, taking the trolley, going to the Wawa where I bought Michelle Morgan a hoagie. But I’ll admit that when I got o at 22nd Street and got back to my ca r, I was happy to come home to my comortable high-rise. This was a long time coming. SR: You still drive a Scion? QL: Yeah, I went to my Scion. ≥
CATCHING UP WITH THE PUT-UPON MAN MARC MARON IS BUT THE LATEST BY RICHARD DORMENT
ou would not believe the day I’m having. My kid wakes up with a load in his
diaper and then some. There is shit everywhere—in his crib, on the wall, on a lampshade like five feet away. It looks like a murder scene, only with shit. Then I look out the window and see a cop writing me a ticket because I’m parked 13 feet from a fire hydrant and not the required-by-law 15 feet. Two feet? I ask her. And how do you even know it’s two feet? She ha nds me the ticket. This could be the opening scene of a TV show. A bad TV show, but still. The petty grievances of put-upon men have given us the darker episodes of Seinfeld (which is to say the funnier ones), the funnier episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm(which is to say the darker ones), and the best episodes of the most revered and studied comedy on TV right now, Louie.Coming off its third season, Louie is like its predecessors in all the obvious ways (thinly fictionalized, frequently absurdist, expertly written and acted) but one: It has emotional and moral dimensions that stay with you long after the jokes end. It’s funny, but it’s also a little sad and sometimes even poignant. It’s great television. It’s also on hiatus until next spring, so for now there’s Maron, a new IFC show starring Louis C. K.’s friend and podcast king Marc Maron. The similarities between the two shows are many, but they’re all superficial—single-camera show, working comedian navigating the fringes of fame— whereas the differences are essential. And critical. Louie is a likable Eeyore, a decent guy who often steps in it, but Maron is an open wound, running around Los Angeles picking fights with real and would-be nemeses. The first three episodes are nasty and exhausting, a nd the fictional version of Maron is just not much fun to be around. Audiences will accept a lot from their antiheroes— cynicism, neuroses, the stink of failure—but nobody wants to be around an asshole all the time. The show might get better, but in the mean time we can look forward to the rest of what Louie hath wrought. NBC has already picked up a comedy with Michael J. Fox playing Mike, a father and husband who gets diagnosed with Parkinson’s and plays his daily struggles for what pass as laughs on NBC. And then there’s comedian John Mulaney’s as-yet-to-be-picked-up sitcom about a joke writer named John. There will be others. After Louie comes the flood. ≥
VISUAL RULE NO.
T T I R R E M Y E L S E W Y B
A LW AY S
26
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
SOMETIMES
NEVER
Watch the Visual Rule in action by scanning here with Netpage.
S N O I T A R T S U L L I
Ever wonder how we make our delicious Vanilla Honey Caramel Greek Frozen Yogurt? No? Well, we’ll tell you anyway. First, the bees churn out the honey we swirl into our creamy Greek yogurt. Then, we stir in the Fair Trade vanilla and the caramel swirls, before putting the whole concoction in the freezer. Not the bees though, they taste weird.
It’s really Greekin’ good.
AS TOLD BY
LAURA HADDOCK A BLIND MAN AND HIS SEEINGeye dog come to a busy intersection. Ignoring the high volume of traffic zooming by, the dog leads the man right into the thick of it. Horns blare as panicked drivers try desperately not to hit the pair. They reach the other side of the street, and the man pulls out a cookie and offers it to the dog. A passerby says, “Why are you rewarding your dog? He nearly got you killed!” The blind man says, “To find out where his head is, so I can kick his ass.” Beore she was cast in Da Vinci’s Demons on Starz, Laura Haddock appeared in plenty o UK TV and movies that didn’t quite make it stateside. Now that she’s here, she’s oicially overtaken the Cadbury Flake in our personal hierarchy o British imports. The 27-year-old plays Lucrezia Donati, a oil to Leonardo on the show created by Dark Knight trilogy cowriter David Goyer. She’s settling in nicely to the American way o shooting: “I think the sound o an American accent makes everything suddenly eel really proessional. We’ve got to be making something pretty big because there’s an American involved!” We think she’ll do just fine here in the States. —MATT GOULET ABOUT THE JOKESTER:
A N U T R O F S I R H C Y B H P A R G O T O H P
Esquire cannot guarantee that this * joke will be fu nny to everyone.
28
ESQUIRE
Laura Haddock has a few important Esquire service announcements. Scan here with Netpage to watch them.
calvinkleinbeauty.com macy’s and macys.com
n e m ™ a i r o h p u e n o i t a r o p r o C c i t e m s o C n i e l K n i v l a C 2 1 0 2 ©
HOLD ON TO YOUR TURTLENECKS.
INTRODUCING MINI PACEMAN. Combining available all-wheel drive, go-kart handling and sophisticated design, the MINI Paceman never slows down for long. Design your own at
MINIUSA.COM/PACEMAN
All-wheel drive available on MINI Cooper S Paceman ALL4. © 2013 MINI USA, a division of BMW of North America, LLC. The MINI name, model names and logo are registered trademarks.
M A N A T H I S B E S T
HOW TO WRITE A BEST SELLER IF YOU’RE KHALED HOSSEINI, WHOSE LAST TWO NOVELS SOLD 38 MILLION COPIES, YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO BY MARK WARREN
wasn’t sure I was supposed to like The Kite Runner,
as my impression was that it was more of a woman’s book,” a young colleague of mine tells me. And what, by contrast, is a man’s book? I ask. “Something more overtly masculine, less emotional, less loving.” Less loving ? “Something more dick-on-the-table,” he says. “But in spite of my confusion, I couldn’t put the book down. I thought it was great.” And millions of other people agreed with this guy, making The Kite Runner one of the most surprising runaway best sellers ever. Just goes to show the “impediments” a truly marvelous story can overcome. When a book sells a million copies, it is regarded as wildly successful, but when you sell 38 million books (when you sell 38 million of anything, really), as Hosseini did with his first two novels, you qualify as a phenomenon and a cultural force, and when you
THE RULES
32
ESQUIRE
No. 179 No matter how tempting, e-mails from unknown people with the subject line “Hi babe!” are not to be opened.
MAY 2013
No. 267 The simper is the most underrated of facial expressions.
are one of the 38 million readers, you become part of a movement, a throng. After that, you have expectations and needs that, if a writer is smar t, he or she will try to meet in subsequent books. Write a book like that and you will do well to write another one just like it. By that measure, Hosseini will not disappoint his audience with And the Mountains Echoed (Riverhead, $29). Like his previous books, the new novel is a complex mosaic, a portrait of the Afghan diaspora as it is folded into the West and of those left behind. And more so than his other books, the new novel is designed specifically to hit the pleasure centers of Hosseini’s by-now-rapt audience. The book is elevated by a strong sense of parable and some finely drawn characters and is inventively constructed as it leaps from voice to voice—here a female narrator, there a male—and from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco. In fact, but for his first two novels, this might’ve been one of the more interesting books I’ve read in a long time. Hosseini is not a poet (although a fine writer), yet it is the world he creates, and the emotions that he relentlessly mines, that will get you in the end. And that is the problem with this book, if one can call it a problem: I couldn’t help but feel as I finished the book that I was supposed to be exhausted of my emotions, and because I wasn’t, that I had somehow failed the book. Very much like a Spielberg film, if I didn’t share the singular emotional response its creator had intended and had been riding me roughshod toward—if I wasn’t devastated —then maybe my emotions weren’t working correctly. Or maybe it’s the book’s fault. Maybe, now that he has become no mere writer but a franchise, Hosseini should have the license and the confidence to do something completely different. But is that fair? Why on earth would J. K. Rowling leave Hogwarts (even though she now has)? And when you think of it, the great Philip Roth never wrote a thing that wasn’t about Philip Roth. But of course, Hosseini is not burdened by Roth’s talent. And maybe if Roth had ever sold 38 million of anything, I would have had my fill years ago and yearned for him to try setting a novel in, say, Afghanistan for a change. No, less successful authors do not face this dilemma. And Hosseini will get away with it this time, with the completion of his triptych, because And the Mountains Echoed is just good enough. ≥
No. 398 Never Google Image search a word ending in -osis.
No. 983 The use of the expression “Good gravy!” invalidates your alarm.
No. 984 Unless you’re talking about some really good gravy, then by all means.
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
PROMOTION
TIME TO WATCH “The Tribeca Film Festival has an international reputation for supporting budding and like good movies: they come close to p erf ection and th ey’re all ab out emotions” JON PATRICOF
From epic dramas to offbeat indies, romances, the moviegoing experience
technical precision, artistic vision and rich
holds a universal allure. The lights go down, the screen lights up, and we settle
into a familiar state of anticipation,
worlds and revealing truths that connect It is this unique brand of movie magic
manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen’s insati-
PROMOTION
F O R T H E L OV E OF CINEMA
PROMOTION
silver screen and red carpet.
Off camera, IWC provides invaluable support to the
limited-edition products and more. IWC has assembled a actors, directors and producers with whom the brand has longstanding relationships.
IWC presents the ultimate collector’s item has made a difference around the globe, including
the “TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2013”, IWC Portuguese Automatic on a leather BEHIND THE SCENES
Festival ®
Tribeca Film Institute ® through grants, professional development and resources. The second piec e is the limi ted-edition detai led below,
SWISS BLOCKBUSTER.
STARRING AT IWC SCHAFFHAUSEN’S NEW YORK CITY FLAGSHIP BOUTIQUE.
Portuguese Automatic
time than even the greatest epics in cinematic IWC. ENGINEERED FOR MEN
official Festival-Time Partner, we are proud to IWC-manufactured automatic movement, Pellaton self-
D A V I D W
O N D R I C H
A M
H B
WHY THE APERITIF THE LIMITLESS UTILITY OF THOSE FANCY-LOOKING BOTTLES
o make vermouth, you steep a little bit of worm-
wood and a number of other spices in wine that has been beefed up with a distilled spirit and let everything rest for a while. In the late-19th century, American bartenders discovered that the resulting product was ideal for rounding the sharp edges off a cocktail, made theretofore with only spirits, sugar, bitters, and ice. The vermouth not only smooths out the drink and adds a pleasing complexity, it also lowers the alcohol content without thinning its texture—useful if you want to stick around for more than a round or two. It’s not just vermouth that does this, as they knew back then. The 19th century saw the launch of a whole raft of French aperitifs and Italian aperitivi—literally “openers,” given their supposed appetitestimulating qualities. These took the basic vermouth formula and tweaked the botanicals, usually upping the bitterness in the process. On their own, perhaps not the most exciting things to drink, at least to an American palate like ours. But mix them with a good, strong spirit and you’ve got a dead-simple, stimulating, and delicious cocktail. Before Prohibition, there were dozens of drinks on the books based on this principle. Nowadays, there are hundreds, as modern bartenders have rediscovered the old opener with a vengeance. Here, then, is our guide to a round dozen of these openers, many of them imported for the first time in decades. To make things simpler, we’ve divided them into those that make a satisfying drink when mixed in equal parts (or one third/two thirds) with your gin
or whiskey (or whatever) and ones that require a third ingredient to do their best work: TWO-INGREDIENT APERITIFS: These tend to be slightly bitter, like vermouthwith an edge, except when they’reeven milder. The old mainstays here are Dubonnet ($16), which comes off as a slightly altered vermouth: lightly bitter, juicy, and simple, and Lillet blanc ($20), which is so mild that it’s best to mix it with subtle spirits, such as Irish whiskey or one of the softer gins. Dubonnet works fine with bourbon, blended Scotch, or any gin. Byrrh ($19), almost impossible to order by name in a bar, is like a more robust Dubonnet, while Cocchi Americano Aperitivo ($19) is like a more ro bust Lillet. You can go dark rum or full-on rye with the first, and even break out the tequila with the second. More bitter yet—although still relatively restrained—are the dark, dry, and spicy Punt e Mes ($25) and the Bonal GentianeQuina ($19), which gets its bitterness not only from the cinchona bark that tends to drive the others in this class but also the funky, more bitter gentian root. These can stand up to pretty much anything you want to mix them with, short of straight absinthe. Finally, there’s the delicate, almost completely nonbitter Maurin Quina ($39), which is essentially a vermouth infused with cherries. It makes a hell of a manhattan, especially if you prefer a cherry to a twist. LIKE THIS: THE HATTAN
An abbreviated manhattan. Quick and damn tasty. 1 2 oz Rittenhouse rye and 1 / 2 oz > Stir with cracked ice: 1 1 / Maurin Quina. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe and twist a swatch of thin-cut lemon peel over the top. In our experience, these work best mixed in equal parts with booze and vermouth, which cushions their intensity. Campari ($27), the flagship here, is both intense—intensely bitter, sweet, and red—and indispensable when mixed with gin or bourbon or anything that’s got oomph. At 24 percent alcohol, it’s also appreciably more alcoholic than the others. Like Campari, Aperol ($22), its training-wheel version, is made not from wine but neutral spirits. It’s bitter, of course, although less so and only 11 percent alcohol. If, perish the thought, Campari is too wimpy for you, there’s Gran Classico Bitter ($33), which is darker, more bitter, more vegetal, and even higher in alcohol. Finally, Salers ($20) and Suze ($30) are a couple of spirit-based high-gentian aperitifs, dry and lightly vegetal and almost as intense as Campari. Mix the Suze with a sweet white vermouth and a blanco tequila. THREE-INGREDIENT APERITIFS:
LIKE THIS: THE NEGRANDE
A fighty Negroni. > Stir with cracked ice: 1 oz high-proof gin (such as Old Raj, Hayman’s Royal Dock, or Perry’s Tot), 1 oz Gran Classico Bitter, and 1 oz Dolin blanc or Martini & Rossi Bianco sweet white vermouth. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe and twist a swatch of thin-cut orange peel over the top. ≥
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
37
ESQ.
COOKING SCHOOL MONTH
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec HOW TO
CUT VEGETABLES The Diagonal or Bias
THE VEGETABLE EPIPHANY FINALLY, A QUICK, FOOLPROOF WAY TO MAKE ANY VEGETABLE TASTE GOOD As told to Francine Maroukian
’m a chef who grew up in the era just before the green-market revolution. Like so many others, my
mother was a Birds Eye queen, and the Jolly Green Giant was her best friend, always hidin g in the cupboard. So as I grew older and my passion for food grew, I wanted to come up with a simple, tasty, and healthy way to prepare garden or green-market vegetables. After many years of cooking, I find myself always returning to this one tried-and-true technique. It never fails me, and my guests always want to know how I did it. Simplicity, I tell them. The secret lies in the techniq ue, and after a couple tries, you’ll pick it right up. To use a restaurant phrase, it’s done à la minute—“in a minute,” or done to order. The goal is a reduced sauce clinging to vegetables that still have their picked-from-the-garden taste. There’s another phrase in professional kitchens: mise en place, meaning all the ingredients prepped and in place before you start cooking. So now when I tell you these vegetables go from place to plate in about four minutes, you know what I mean. —C H E F M I C H A E L K A P H A N
RECIPE: Asparagus and Morels* CHEF: Michael Kaphan RESTAURANT: Purdy’s Farmer & the Fish North Salem, New York
· 1 1 / 2 tbsp unsalted butter,
divided in half · 1 sh all ot, d ice d · 1 / 2 lb pencil asparagus, cut on the diagonal
· 5 medium morel mush-
rooms,** cleaned and halved · leaves picked from several sprigs of thyme · 1 / 4 cup chicken stock · wedge of lemon · coarse salt and ground black pepper to taste > Heat a skillet over me-
dium-high heat. Add half the butter, the shallot, asparagus, morels, and thyme, swirling the pan
to disperse. > When the vegetables start to sweat out (but before they pick up any color), add the chicken stock. It will sizzle and come quickly to a boil. Add the remaining butter, and as it melts, toss to coat the vegetables with sauce. There shouldn’t be a pool in the pan. > Squeeze in lemon
juice and adjust seasonings if need be. (It will depend on the saltiness of the stock you use, so taste before you commit.) Serves 2. **If you can’t find morels, use 3 oz of another seasonal wild mushroom, like chanterelles or porcinis— or shaved truffles if you want to splurge.
*Other excellent vegetable combinations: Sugar snaps and shaved hakurei turnips, corn kernels and shiitake mushrooms, English peas and fava beans, snow peas and sunchokes, haricots verts and summer squash.
38
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
Use on straight, slender vegetables, like asparagus, scallions, and carrots. The elongated oval exposes more surace area and reduces cooking time, useul in stirries. For asparagus, trim rough ends. Holding the knie at an angle (the sharper the angle, the more elongated the oval), cut the stems on the diagonal, adjusting the angle o the blade so pieces are uniorm.
The Dice
Increases surace area o carrots, celery root, parsnips, onions, beets, etc., so more o the ingredient touches the pan. I you’re sweating the vegetable, it shortens cooking time, preserving resh flavor; i browning, it means more surace to brown—also more flavor. Trim round sides so that each side has a flat surace. Cut crosshatch-style into quarter-inch cubes.
Still don’t get it? Watch this episode o the Esquire Cooking School on video with Netpage.
Y R D N E K C
M E O J Y B S N O I T A R T S U L L I
COMPLETE D A I LY F O R M U L A FUELS ENERGY A N D S U P P O R T S CALORIE BURNING.
The cooking competition gets real.
TUES APR 23 9 | 8c ON THE NEW EsquireTV.com
1
THE UPGRADE:
COMPONENT STEREOS
M U S II C 2 0 1 3
WITH THE RIGHT STEREO SYSTEM, YOU CAN STOP LISTENING TO MUSIC AND START EXPERIENCING IT BY PETER MARTIN
nlike most of the docks,
AirPlay speakers, and TVs tuned to satellite radio that many of us use to listen to music, a component stereo system plays songs the way artists meant for them to be heard: clear and full, with a depth that makes listening to an album feel like being at a concert. Your Macklemore bootlegs will sound better than ever. But first, an important step: Prepare yourself. You cannot become an audiophile, even a moderate one, without opening your wallet. Nope, wider. But there is some hope. While a top-of-the-line stereo can easily run you more than $100,000, Christopher
Hansen, co-owner of Simply Home Entertainment in Beverly Hills, says you can assemble an excellent system for around $4,000 (see next page). Or $13,000 (below) if you’re feeling particularly flush. Start by finding your speakers. They have the clearest sonic fingerprint of any component, Hansen says. Change them and you change the dynamics of the sound. So if you listen primarily to Mahler, you’ll want different speakers than someone who listens to A$AP Rocky. Just be sure to test the speakers with your music in the store before buying. From there, you’ll want to pick your preamp and amp. You could buy these togeth er as a combined integrated amp C O N T I N U E D
THE $13,000 SYSTEM 4
2
3
42
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
black sheep.
I n d i a n M o t o r c y c l e i s a d i v i s i o n o f P o l a r i s I n d u s t r i e s I n c . © 2 0 1 3 P o l a r i s I n d u s t r i e s I n c .
Wolf. is coming to american motorcycles
THE $4,000 $4,000 SYSTEM 7
A FEW FOR YOUR HEAD 5
6
(if there’s an incorporated tuner, too, it’s called a receiver)—many less expensive setups do this—but the more electronics you have in one component, the greater your chances of distortion. Think of the pre-amp as your control center. It receives the signal from your source and handles volume. The amp is your power center. In general, the bigger the speakers—and the bigger the room you put them in—the more powerful an amp you n eed. Finally, you want to pick your source. Out of all the stereo components, this is the worst place to skimp. According to Hansen, if you don’t start with good sonic details, even the most expensive components can’t add them. Vinyl is best, he says, followed by CDs. Just forget about using your MP3’s. They’re so compressed, to use them on a good system would be like feeding corn chips to a thoroughbred. CONTINUED
expense of bass, which is why ML added a woofer. Pair them with the [2] Oppo BDP-105 ($1,199; oppodigital.com), which serves as a pre-amp and Bluray player and gives you exceptional clarity, whether you’re listening to a CD or watching Magic Mike. For your amp, the two-channel, 75-watt [3] McIn tosh MC275 ($6,500; mcintoshlabs.com) uses vacuum tubes to retain the warmth (that classic vinyl hiss that some people love) removed by modern tran sistors. It has 4-, 8-, and 16-ohm outputs, so it can handle the Ethos—and nearly any other speakers you choose. Plus, well, it’s beautiful. If you prefer a more modern look and the crispness of transistors, the Pass Labs XA30.5 ($5,500; passlabs.com) and the B.M.C. CS2 ($8,390; aaudioimports.com) are also excellent choices. Tack on a [4]Sonos Connect ($349; sonos.com) and you’ll be able to play music from any other source in the house.
THE $13,000 SYSTEM
BOWERS & WILKINS P3
Smal l, co mfor tab le, and affordable, with clear, rich soun d and minimal weight. ($200; bowerswilkins.com)
GRADO GS1000i
[1] MartinLogan Ethos ($6,795 per pair; martinlogan.com) speakers are electrostatic, with a curved panel that helps disperse your music throughout a room. With electrostatic, a thin plastic film is placed between two steel mesh panels and charged with electricity, forcing it to move and produce sound waves. The technology gives you less distortion than traditional dynamic speakers, but often at the
THE $4,000 SYSTEM
For an excellent setup at a slightly lower price (say you have a family that wants to eat or wear weather-appropriate clothing), Hansen recommends the [5] Marantz CD5004 CD player ($349; marantz. com), the [6]PM5004 integrated amplifier ($449), and [7] Paradigm Signature S2 speakers ($3,398 per pair; paradigm.com).
The standard of design and fidelity. Not to be su lli ed through use with an iPod. ($995; grado lab s.co m)
INVESTME NT-WORTHY DOC KS
9
8
PARROT ZIK
For those of us who don’t want to dedicate a good portion of our livingroom space to a ste reo, the best choice is a wireless speaker. You can get a good one for $200 to $300 (try the Sam sung DA-E670; samsung.com), but lately companies have been
44
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
introducing higherend ver sions that come closer to repli cating the sound and power of a component system. The best (and most expensive) we’ve seen is the [8] McIntosh McAire ($3,000), an allinone system that runs on Apple’s AirPlay. For
a quarter the price—and with a much more modern design— there’s Monster’s recently intro duced [9] Katana ($700; mon sterproducts.com), a twofoot Bluetooth speaker that manages to make music feel as if i t’s com ing from all around you.
Nois e-c anc eli ng Blu eto oth t hat knows when you take it off your head and automatically pauses. ($400; parrot.com)
You can buy some of the items mentioned in this story now by scanning here with Netpage.
Get a Hold of Your Finances | ON E PASSWORD | SECURE UNLIMITED DOCUMENT STORAGE | AUTOMATIC ORGANIZATION FREE
Everything In One Place
™
Be the voice for those who have no voice
Join us worldwildlife.org
like I do on my fingernails? You do. They’re just less common and harder to see. 5. Why are toenail clippers
so much bigger than fingernail clippers? Because your toenails are bigger. And thicker. Also, the flatter arc of toenail clippers allows for a straighter, easier cut.
already suffer from germfestering conditions like athlete’s foot or hyperhidrosis, can be passed on through direct or indirect contact (like that gym shower you were so blasé about). DeSantis says the warts on your feet are caused by a strain of the human papillomavirus— the same virus that causes genital warts.
6. Is there anything I can
LIGHTNING ROUND:
SUMMER FEET IT’S TIME FOR BEACHES, FLIP-FLOPS, AND FINALLY CARING FOR THOSE THINGS YOU USUALLY HIDE IN SHOES. ANY QUESTIONS? BY RODNEY CUTLER 1. I don’t want pretty eet, just unembarrassing eet. What should I be doing? You probably already know to cut your toenails straight, leaving just a sliver of white at the top. Rounding them like you would your fi ngernails leads to ingrown toenails, then pain. Maybe puss. Once a week, remove any calluses or dry, dead skin with a pumice stone or foot file. It’ll take a minute. Two, tops. (If you have diabetes, podiatrist Dr. Jeffrey DeSantis suggests leaving the exfoliation to your doctor, since poor circulation can dull sensation and pre vent you from noticing when you’ve scraped too far.) And try a little lotion when you get out of the shower. You’ll keep your heels from looking cracked—and maybe stop snagging your sheets.
2. Lotion? Yes, lotion. Get something with peppermint. It smells nice. 3. What about me? I want
pretty eet. Consider the professional pedicure: calluses scraped down, ingrown toenails removed, skin softened through various soaks and ointments. Plus, you get a foot rub. Just ask them not to buff your nails, which tends to look like you got a coat of clear polish. One warning: Some salons don’t properly disinfect between customers, which can lead to fungal infections. If you’re particularly worried about this, DeSantis recommends investing in and bringing your own tools.
do about my sweaty eet? Like 2 to 3 percent of Americans, you could be suffering from hyperhidrosis. It’s not a big deal. DeSantis recommends washing your feet thoroughly with antibacterial soap and dusting them with Gold Bond to remove excess moisture. You can also switch from cotton to synthetic socks, which wick sweat away instead of absorbing it. If that doesn’t work, try antiperspirant. It blocks sweat glands on your feet just as it does under your arms. Or there are always Botox injections, which last several months and can cost upwards of $1,500. 7. Do I really need flip-
flops to take a shower at the gym? Yes. Unless you like athlete’s foot. 8. Why do fingernails grow
so much aster than toenails? Nobody knows, but scientists speculate fingernails receive greater blood flow, since they are closer to your heart.
10. How do I get rid o
this hard little knot o skin on the bottom o my oot? It doesn’t usually hurt. It’s probably just a callus, which can form due to excessive pressure. If it doesn’t bother you, leave it alone. If you decide you don’t like it, you can scrape it down with a pumice stone, but if it’s deep, see a professional. 11. My girlriend let her
nail brush in the shower. Is there any real benefit to this thing? Nope. DeSantis says nail brushes do nothing for you, and using someone else’s puts you at risk of catching a fungus. 12. Anything else I should
be aware o? Don’t forget sunscreen. Every year DeSantis notices an increase in melanoma on feet as more people wear flip-flops. Nothing ruins beach time faster than skin cancer. Rodney Cutler is an Ironman triathlete and the owner of Cutler salons in New York City.
9. Warts are contagious? 4. Why don’t I get little
white dots on my toenails
Sure are. Warts, which you are likelier to contract if you
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
Questions of your own? Send them to us at
[email protected].
45
more people are exposed to it, the less scary it will be and the more approachable.” We can only hope. Maybe one day it’ll be un or the whole amily.
DO ANIMALS CHEAT? Cheatt how? At w On their e r taxes? a cards? c s? I will w take ta e your silence to mean me n that t t you’re you’r as asking i animals a s have e aairs, a a rs, and i that’s tthe e case, c e,, what w at I have av to tell you may come e as a surprise: sur Only 3 percentt o o m mammals, a which I’m pretty sure re most animals are, are monogamous. The other 97 percent say only that it’s complicated. O the animals in committed relationships, some do cheat, but only when there’s a good reason and it doesn’t interere with their main activity: murder (or, as they call it, “eating”). Birds are the real dogs. “There’s a lot o evidence o emales moving o the area they share with the male at first light in the morning and going over to a neighboring territory, mating with a neighboring male, and coming back,” says bi ologist David Westneat, who specializes in avian social and re-
productive behavior. “They’re mating with males that have some qualities that appear to be better than their pair-bonded mates’ . . . a more elaborate song, a brighter plumage, or they’re bigger or older.” So like I said, when there’s a good reason. It seems the only animal that never cheats is the Caliornia mouse, which I suspect is because no one wants to uck it. Essentially, it’s almost impossible to determine what constitutes animal infidelity (or, as they call it, “rape”), but or what it’s worth, I’d like to say that I’ve known some very aithul pigs. I BDSM is so popular, why have I never encountered it? Whoever said it was popular, hmm? Tell me who and I’ll see that he’s severely reprimanded. BDSM, or what regular olk call S&M, is by its very nature too
slippery to measure. Few studies are conducted, and the most recent one (1993 is considered recent, yes?) ound that only 14 percent o men and 11 percent o women have had “some personal experience” with S&M, which is not only vague but most likely inaccurate, since participants change their answers every time you spank them. FetLie.com, which is considered the Facebook o etishes (though I thought that was what MySpace was), boasts two million users. That does sound like a lot until you put it into perspective: O the 20 million people watching NCIS last Tuesday, only 5 percent were gagged and chained—not quite as many as your mom and her book club would have you believe. “I think it will certainly get there eventually,” says “Mike B.” o Fetish Tribe, a BDSM community. “The
There are so many sexual-enhancement products or men, but none or women. Not even those herbal packets at gas stations. Why not? Simply put, i t’s because women don’t get hard-ons. Erectile dysunction is easily observable, at least in theory. The penis unctions much like a simple hydraulic pump and thereore can be fixed with medication by anyone with a pump license. Female sexual response, on the other hand, unctions like a dream catcher, which makes it harder to in terpret. “There’s no medicine that improves sexual desire in women,” says Dr. Dana R. Gossett, chie o gynecology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “People have tried a variety o things . . . but oten it’s simply a question o the woman deciding that sexuality is once again a priority.” (Since that’ll never happen, there are over-thecounter topical medications you can try.) I agree that i t’s unair that society places a higher premium on the ability o men to enjoy sex, but unortunately the arousal o men is worth more evolutionarily. I men don’t get it up, the whole thing goes down. Got a sex question o your own? E-mail it to us at
[email protected].
O E N U C N H O J Y B
. . . AN D OTHER TOPICS
46
ESQUIRE
Do hill people still exist? Yes, and most o them have shows on TLC.
M AY 2 0 1 3
Whatever happened to acid rain? Global warming fixed it.
Is it ever okay or a man to say the word yay ? I he just got great tickets to the One Direction show.
How old can my FB profile picture be beore I’m misleadingpeople? You’re already misleading people.
What do cats dream about? Revenge.
Clip, Save, Share, rom any page. Download ree rom the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
N O I T A R T S U L L I : P O T
PROMOTION
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
WOODFORD RESERVE ® & ESQUIRE ‘MANHATTAN EXPERIENCE’ FINALE Woodford Reserve and Esquire crowned this year’s Master of the Manhattan at the gala finale of the Manhattan Experience cocktail competition at No. 8 in NYC on January 7th. Master of Ceremonies Kelly Choi guided the energetic crowd as the top regional winners displayed their mixology expertise for a panel of celebrity judges. Detroit’s Travis Fourmont took home the title with his masterful creation, the Midnight Manhattan. View the full recipe at www.woodfordreserve.com/manhattanexperience.
EVENT PARTNERS
9
Kyle Grosz 2 Woodford Reserve Brand Manager Laura Petry, Michael Symon, Master of Ceremonies Kelly Choi 4 Manhattan Experience Judges—David Wondrich, Chris Morris, Andy Seymour 5 Garron Gore, Marc Yanga, Charles Tappan, Chris Morris, Travis Fourmont, Christopher Ryan James, Kyle Grosz 6 Charles Tappan 7 Tony Makayev, Christopher Ryan James (front), Kyle Grosz (back), Travis Fourmont, Garron Gore, Charles Tappan, Marc Yanga 9 Master of the Manhattan Winner Travis Fourmont 1
Photographer Credit: Craig Giambrone
B Y I N V I T A T I O N O N L Y
WW1 CHRONOGRAPHE MONOPOUSSOIR · Tel +1.888.307.7887 · e-Boutique: www.bellross.com
M AY 2 0 1 3
. K R O Y W E N , N Y L K O O R B , Y R E N I W N Y L K O O R B T A N O I T A C O L N O T O H S . S L L E W N O T S E W Y B H P A R G O T O H P
The Next Chapter for
Perry Ellis Perry, Ralph, Calvin: With those three names, you get all that was good and right and exciting about men’s style in the early 1980s. Ralph Lauren was the traditional one; Calvin Klein the minimalist one; and Perry Ellis the unpredictab le one, shooting straight down the middle with clothes that could look both preppy and urbane, accessible and unexpected. A new capsule line, Perry Ellis by Duckie Brown, recaptures some o that old magic in the hands o Duckie’s design duo, Steven Cox and Dani el Silver. In a collection called “50 Shades o Khaki,” Cox and Silver have created slim-cut suits and tailored separates, suede bomber jackets and hand-knit sweaters in many, many shades o khaki, ranging rom of-white to borderline brown. Elli s, who died in 1986, wore khaki chinos pretty much every day, and it’s easy to imagine him mixing and matching all the khakis here in diferent combinations. Care to give it a try? Two-button cotton jacket ($720), cotton shirt ($264), cotton trousers ($395), and leather shoes, Perry Ellis by Duckie Brown. Use Netpage to buy s elect items from this section.
Visit Esquire’s online home for daily style news at esquire.com/style.
49
3 1 0 2 . 5 0 E L Y T S E R I U Q S E THE ENDORSEMENT
THE BEST SOCKS IN THE WORLD Dress socks are a problem, and the problem is a) dress socks fking suck, and b) since boyhood, we’ve been trained to accept terrible dress socks as one o the many pr ices we pay or being a man. Here are the ways in which dress socks suck: 1. They are almost always wool. Wool makes eet itch. Wool makes eet hot. Socks should not be wool. 2. Within a ew wearings, most dress socks reuse to stay up and begin to pool around at least one o your ankles. 3. Sometimes they are “sheer.” The dress socks made by a man named VK Nagrani are perect. They are mostly cotton, with some other stu blended in. Not only do they stay up, they also caress your calves. The only thing I can compare the sensation to is the way Un der Armour compression shorts, you know, snug you up. I’ve told people that these socks have changed my lie. Their reaction alls into one o two camps. One camp is mystified; these people I write o as insensate. The other camp wants the URL. Now. It’s VKNagrani.com.* $38 a pair. —DAVID GRANGER
THE EXTRA 10 PERCENT
The New Way to Wear
White Shoes The first thing you want to do is relax your definition. White
need not mean the color of a brand-new piece of chalk or celebrity dentistry. In fact, it’s probably better if it doesn’t. Instead, look for a shade that has a hint of brown and some depth to it. You might also consider looking beyond your classic low-cut lace-ups. Billy Reid, the designer of these here kickers, calls them shoe-boots—a hybrid of the inherently formal lace-up and the casual-skewing ankle boot. Stake out the middle ground and walk far. Calfskin suede shoe-boots ($395) by Billy Reid.
HOW TO WEAR IT McG reg or, E .
*You can also buy them at great stores like Richards or Mitchells on the East Coast and Mario’s in Seattle.
T H E ( S U M M E R S O C K ) R U L E S NEVER WITH BOAT SHOES, SAND ALS, O R ESPAD RILLES. / / SOCKS OR NOT, USE A HEAVY HAND WITH THE GOLD BON D OR BABY POWDER. IT’S SUMMER: YOUR FEET WILL SWEAT. // THE DARINGNESS OF THE SHOE SHOULD BE IN DI RECT PROPORTION TO THE SUBTLETY O F THE SOC K. // YOUR FEET MAY HURT AND YOU R DOGS MAY BARK, BUT YOUR TO OTSIES MUST NEVER ACHE.
THE SUMMER SHOE SCALE Bright-white leather loaers. Wear with anything except socks, pre fer abl y wh en y ou ’re tan. By Ovadia & Sons ($595).. E T I H W Y L L A E R , Y L L A E R
50
ESQUIRE
Classic white leather oxords. Wear with a seersucker or cotton suit. Florsheim by D uck ie B row wn ($150)..
Cream-colored wing tips. Wear with anything. Socks optional. By Esquivel ($950). 50).
Khaki linen-covered lace-ups. Wear with je an s. ( Th e te xt ure s wi ll complement each other.) By Church’s ’s ($460).
Brown suede wing-tip double-monk-straps. Wear with chinos in a contrasting color. By O’Keeffe ’Kee ($620).
W N H O I T T E R A E T A A L L L Y L
MAY 2013
S L L E W N O T S E W Y B H P A R G O T O H P : T F E L P O T
We made the best Civic even better. Introducing a funner, smarter, techier Honda Civic. Funner, with Pandora compatibility. Smart er, with a customizable multi-informational display and SMS texting functionality. Techier, with standard features like B l u et o o t h , USB integration and rearview camera. Basica lly, it’s every thing…er. 1
®
2
®3
1 Pandora,
4
the Pandora logo, and the Pandora trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of Pandora Media, Inc. Used with p ermission. Compatible with select smartphones. See: www.pandora.com/everywhere/mobile. Not all devices compatible with USB connection. Your wireless carrier’s rate plans appl y. 2 Compatible with select phones with Blu eto oth .® Your w ire les s car rie r’s r ate pla ns a ppl y. Sta te o r lo cal law s ma y l imi t us e of tex tin g fe atur e. O nly use tex tin g fe atur e wh en c ondi tio ns a llo w yo u to do s o sa fel y. 3 The Blu eto oth ® word
mark and logos are owned b y the Bluetooth SIG, Inc., and any use of such marks by Honda Motor Co., Ltd., is under license. 4 The U SB A udi o In terf ace i s use d fo r di rect con nect ion to and control of some current digital audio players and other USB devices that contain MP3, WMA or AAC music files. Some USB devices with security software and digital rights-protected files may not work. Please see your Honda d ealer for details. EX - L model shown. © 2013 American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
3 1 0 2 . 5 0 E L Y T S E R I U Q S E
THE RESTLESS MAN
COMMENT
THE THING ABOU T GATSBY
So You Need a
New Bag H
E R A C
T
>
2
1
I
W E
L
D
N
A
H
3
5
B E
A
T
U
>
P
4
1. Tod’s: The Double Stripe, a new luggage collec-
3. Tommy Hilfiger: It’s a tough t rucksack—kind of.
tion from Tod’s, has the distinctive title feature shooting straight down the middle of all its pieces. Since it’s made in soft calfskin (the customer is able to choose from six different colors) and costs a month’s rent, it’s best handled with care. $1,665. 2. Ghurka: The cotton-twill shell is both water and stain repellent (and the khaki color conceals dirt), but given the buttery leather handles and the brass detailing (and the four-figure price tag that reflects them), we recommend taking it easy on the beautiful bastard. $1,295.
The pleated pocket in the center offers quick access to important items, and the cotton-and-linen shell can take a beating. Also, given the price, you won’t feel quite so bad putting it to the test. $350. 4. Ben Sherman: Hardy canvas shell. Dark, dirtconcealing color. Easy-to-swallow price. Do your worst. $248. 5. Coach: Yes, it’s leather. But it’s pebbled cowhide, and given the simplicity of the design and the shape, it’s the kind of leather bag that only looks better the more nicks and crannies it picks up. Treat it accordingly. $898.
THE COLLABORATION
There is the white suit thing. And the goldtie thing. And the “shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and applegreen and lavender and aint orange, with monograms o Indi an blue” thing. But the most important thing to know about Jay Gatsby, rom his earliest days as ink on paper to his lat est (3-D!) turn in Baz Luhrmann’s new film, has always been his aspiration. He dressed the way he wished to be per ceived and treated, thus ensuring that he would be perceived and treated as such. At parties. Doing business. We are un damentally against cribbing the style o othersleave mim icry to mynah birds but i you brave The Great Gatsby this month and borrow anything rom its hero (and the cloth ing created or him by Catherine Martin, the film’s costume designer), remember this: What you wear can be just as per suasive and defini tive as what you do or say. “You always look so cool,” Daisy says to Gatsby in the new movie. “The man in the cool, beautiul shirts.” Could that be you? We think it could be you.. It could be you..
RIMOWA BY MONCLER CHALK THIS UP TO A WEIRD-SOUNDING COLLABORATION THAT ACTUALLY WORKS. THE OUTSIDE OF THIS ROLLING SUITCASE IS PURE RIMOWA—ALL LIGHTWEIGHT, TOUGH-AS-HELL, SLIGHTLY MENACING BLACK ALUMINUM. INSIDE, HOWEVER, THE THIN QUILTED LINING IS STUFFED WITH DOWN BY MONCLER, THE BETTER TO PROVIDE A COCOONLIKE ENVELOPE FOR WHATEVER YOU’RE PACKING. THE LINING HELPS KEEP THINGS FROM SHIFTING AROUND AND PROTECTS YOUR CARGO FROM ANY POTENTIAL TRAUMA. $1,700. 54
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
S L L E W N O T S E W Y B H P A R G O T O H P : T F E L M O T T O B
Y N A P M O C O C S E N E G A 3 1 0 2 © ®
JOHNSTONMURPHY.COM/KICKOFCOLOR
Ask Nick
3 1 0 2 . 5 0 E L Y T S E R I U Q S E
fig. 1
Sullivan THE ESQUIRE FASHION DIRECTOR WILL NOW TAKE YOUR QUESTIONS
I’M DUE FOR AN EYE EXAM AND WAS HOPING FOR SOME TIPS ON STURDY, FASHIONABLE EYEWEAR. M Y TEN-MONTH-O LD’S FAVORITE NEW GAME IS YANKING MY CURRENT GLASSES OFF MY FACE AND LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY. UNTIL I CAN CONVINCE H IM OTHERWISE, ANY SUGGESTIONS NEED TO BE ABL E TO SU RVIVE T HAT.
RECOMMEND LOAFERS THAT LOOK PROFESSIONAL? JOE ZADROZ NY SHANGHAI, CHINA
fig. 2
JER EMY JOSL IN CHICAGO, ILL.
In my experience, no specs are indestructible, and no ten-month-old stoppable. I’ve ruined more glasses than I care to admit, and it ’s an expensive problem. Or it was before Warby Parker plopped onto the optical scene a few years ago. The New York– based company set out to make specs that are easy, attractive, and relatively affordable. Now $95 will get you the frames and lenses, such as mine in the Cros by style [Fig. 1]. And for every pair you buy, a pair of prescription specs is provided to a sight-challenged person in an impoverished region of the world. It’s a win-win. I’M A SIMPLE MAN WHO ENJOYS STAYING HOME WITH MY FAMILY. BUT ONCE IN A WHILE, I DO LIKE TO GET DRESSED UP TO GO OUT FOR AN EVE NING . I S TH ERE A RULE FOR DETERMINING WHEN TO WEAR A FULL SUIT OR MERELY A SPORT COAT? TERENCE CONDRICH CLEVELAND, OHIO
Terence, we are in something of a prime time for the sport coat, a period we have not been in for a good 20, even 30 years, and men most everywhere are looking for ways to express their inner steez with some variation of the piece. (Note: The crumpled unlined jacket [Fig. 2, by L.B.M. 1911, 56
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
$650] is the nexus of the whole thing.) However, therein lies a paradox: Because the sport coat is increasingly ubiquitous and even common, it’s not automatically the stuff of dressing up anymore. A special evening requires special attire. Wear your suit. MONOGRAMS ON SHIRTS: YES OR NO? AND IF SO, WHERE? AND WHAT FONT OR STYLE SHOULD BE AVOIDED ?
fig. 3
I SPEND MOST OF MY TIME IN ASIA , AN D I HAVE TO TAKE MY SHOES OFF SEVERAL TIMES DURING THE DAY. LACE-UPS CAN BE A PAIN. CAN YOU
MICHAEL KORS [FIG. 5] WEARS A T-SHI RT AND BLAZ ER LI KE A UNI FORM . CAN A NOR MAL PERSON DO THIS, OR DO YOU HAVE TO BE A MOGUL? TYLER PROW NEW YORK, N. Y.
fig. 4
DAVE COOK JAKA RTA, IN DONES IA
Monogrammed shirts, like Coldplay and politics, are a matter of taste and thus be yond a mere thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Favored spots for the stitching are on the cuff (for the showy) [Fig. 3, by Hamilton Shirts]; below waistband-level on the lowerleft shirt front (for the discreet); and, in the Italian style, just above the waist band on the lower-left shirt front, making it visible above the waistband when you open your jacket (discreet for Italians). As to fonts, I would avoid only the likes of old Gothic. Unless you’re in a death-metal band.
I’d look for classic leathersoled loafers like Allen Edmonds’s Walden style [Fig. 4, $250] in a deep cognac or chestnut. You can wear them with anything except a black suit. But that’s okay—you’re not wearing black are you?
fig. 5
Let me tell you a story: Last summer, the ranks of the men’s fashion world arrived in Florence for Pitti Uomo in the midst of an even hotterthan-usual heat wave. Normally I wear a dress shirt, no tie, under an unlined jacket, but substandard air-conditioning proved to be a trial. I lasted midway through my first day and then promptly changed into a slim-fit T-shirt and threw the jacket back on. Over the next two weeks, just about everyone around me wore more or less the same thing. So while it may help to be fashion royalty, anyone can make it work provided you get one thing right: the fit. Keep things crisp and close, and you should be fine. (Note: It should be stated that a certain editor in chief of a certain men’s periodical is strongly against wearing T-shirts under jackets. This question and answer may not make it on page.) GOT A QUESTION FOR NICK SULLIVAN? E-MAIL HIM AT
[email protected].
R E K C E D R E F F I H C S D N R E B Y B N O I T A R T S U L L I
3 1 0 2 . 5 0 E L Y T S E R I U Q S E
WATCHES REFERENCED
FIG. 1
Ste el R adi omi r Bla ck Sea l ($6 ,7 00) by Pa ne rai .
H O W I D R E S S N O W
EZRA KOENIG THE LEAD SINGER OF VAMPIRE WEEKEND ON HIS FIRST WATCH, TIME AND MONEY, AND THE STYLE OF SUCCESS
I got my first watch a few weeks ago. It’s a Ca-
sio retrofitted with a three-color band: red, white, and black. People often mistake the black for blue and assume I’m repping the French tricolor on my wrist. Once they realize the actual color scheme, they think it’s either Thom Browne or, very occasionally, the striped flag of Yemen. I go with Yemen because its flag is one of the few that references the concept of time: The red stands for the bloodshed of martyrs, the white for a bright future, and the black for the dark past. Past and future in a flag— perfect for a watchband, no? I’d never considered wearing a watch before, but it struck me as a sensible step toward spending less time on my phone. It ’s one less reason to pull out my “precious”—and perhaps a small step away from that hyperconnected, everything-allof-the-time modern anxiety. I’ll admit it’s hard to fully trust something that’s not connected to the Internet, but I think, with time, it’ll work out. Now that I have a watch, I notice other people’s watches. This leads to more conversations about watches and more time spent thinking about watches. This is a slippery slope: You start as an earnest young man who’s trying to keep track of the precious minutes of life and suddenly you’re a potbellied old bore trapped in endless conversations about Panerais [Fig. 1], waiting for death. It’s a frightening thought. There is certainly something appealing about the elegance and craftsmanship of a well-made watch, but there is a dark side to modern watch culture, too. 58
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
Jacques Séguéla, the French millionaire and close friend of Sarkozy, famously stated on TV: “Everyone has a Rolex [Fig. 2]. If you don’t have a Rolex by the time you reach 50, then you have clearly failed in your life.” I’ve always been fascinated by this type of rich-guy talk; it’s easy to deride as the ramblings of an out-of-touch maniac, but maybe there’s something heavier beneath the surface. The watch is a symbol of both money and time, right? A $20,000 Audemars Piguet [Fig. 3] on your wrist clearly shows that you are rich, but a watch, as opposed to a ring or chain or any other accessory, measures the one t hing that money can’t buy, the one thing that devours us all, rich and poor alike: time. There’s something almost tragic (or hilarious, depending on your sense of humor) about a French millionaire cradling this fancy toy that simultaneously flaunts his status and ticks on toward the ultimate end of status— death, that great equalizer. But . . . what if Séguéla is right? What if not having a Rolex by 50 really means you have failed in life? I am a very superstitious person. I need to understand. Do you have to wear the Rolex? Is secretly buying one and keeping it in your safe enough to ensure that you are a success? What about a Patek Philippe [Fig. 4]? I’m going to do s ome research. Will let you know. Koenig is now touring with Vampire Weekend to sup port their latest record, Modern Vampires of the City, out this month. He currently knows what time it is.
FIG. 2
Ste el O yst er Pe rp et ual Exp lor er I I ($8 ,1 00) by Rolex.
FIG. 3
Ste el Ro yal O ak extra-thin ($22,500) by Aud ema rs P ig uet .
D N A L S K A N I T S U D Y B H P A R G O T O H P : P O T . 0 6 1 E G A P
FIG. 4
Ste el A qu an aut extra-large ($20,300) by Pate k Phi lip pe .
E E S N O I T A M R O F N I E R O T S R O F
You can’t rank any higher than this. Bosch has been ranked “Highest in Customer Satisfaction 1 with Dishwashers” by J.D. Power and Associates.
The J.D. Power and Associates 2012 Kitchen Appliance Satisfaction Study SM ranks Bosch highest in customer satisfaction with dishwashers.¹ And it’s easy to see why, since we’re the quietest dishwasher brand in the nation 2 and we’ve got the awards and accolades to prove it. It just means a lot more coming from you, so thank you, America. www.bosch-home.com/us
© 2013 BSH Home Appliances Corporation. 1 Bosch received the highest numerical score for dishwashers in the proprietary J.D. Power and Associates 2012 Kitchen Appliance Study SM. Study based on 12,615 total responses measuring 16 brands, and measured opinions of consumers about their dishwashers obtained new in the past 24 months. Proprietar y study results are based on experiences and perceptions of consumers surveyed in January–Febr uary 2012. Your experiences may vary. Visit jdpower.com. 2 Bosch offers the quietest dishwashers in the U.S., and no major brand offers a quieter model at any Bosch price point, based on internal research, February 2012. 13BJD12-14-108305-1
THERE ARE NO SAINTS
ONLINE . . . BUT THE INTERNET WILL BE CLEANED UP YET
The Internet has reached peak hate. It had to. At every other moment in history when there has been an explosion of text—whether through social change, like the birth of a religious movement, or technological change, like the advent of print—a period of nasty struggle ensued before the forces of civility reined it in. In the past few months alone, we’ve seen the catfishing of Manti Te’o, a professional tennis player quit because of trolling, and a rash of teenage suicides from cyberbullying alongside the by-nowstandard Twitter hatestorms of various strengths and durations. The sheer bulk of the rage at the moment can seem overwhelming. But the fact that we recognize it and have acknowledged its unacceptability is a sign of the ancient process reasserting itself yet again. The Internet is in the process of beComedian Bill Burr claims that ing civilized. exactly 13 percent of people Hate is a source of acknowlonline are cool. “The rest are just a bunch of animals.” edged pleasure. Hate-watching.
60
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
Hate-listening. Hate-reading. These are all things that you, your friends, and your neighbors, not monsters, likely do. We deliberately expose ourselves to objects of contempt to stoke inner outrage in order to enjoy the release of fury. It’s not just online, though the Internet is the most obvious theater of cruelty. What’s new is how all the bullying is on the record, so you can see just how horrific it is. Cyberbullying and its adult cousin, trolling, are merely the most extreme expressions of the low-level, mean-spirited abuse that fills every comment board and social-media forum. The change in tone is coming because the cost of hate is becoming clearer. The research on the psyIn the sentencing hearing of Andrew “Weev” chological effects of bullying has Auernheimer for hacking become much starker in i ts anal- into AT&T’s servers and ysis recently. In February, a long- stealing iPad users’ e-mail addresses, his hostile term study published in the Journal chat on Reddit’s “Ask Me of the American Medical Association Anything” was cited three times by prosecutors. He Psychiatry established that bullies was sentenced to more and their victims both have a higher than three years in prison.
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
E R O T C I V S E M A J Y B N O I T A R T S U L L I
“YOU’LL GET HOME SOME DAY & UR BITCHES THRO AT WILL BE CUT & UR SON WILL BE GONE.” A tweet sent to Irish writer Leo Traynor. Later he received a Tupperware lunchbox ull o ashes in the mail with a note: “Say hello to your relatives rom Auschwitz.” It turns out the troll was his riend’s seventeen-year-old son.
HIDDEN ONLINE IDENTITIES
Ano nymo us comm ent ers wri te 5 TIMES as much online as those who use th eir real names.
BEING AN ASSHOLE HURTS EVERYONE
Bul lie s: 4.1 TIMES
as great a risk of having an antisocial per son ali ty d iso rder.
Science nce rate of mental illness for decades afterward. Scie magazine reported on the effects of nasty comments about science stories online: Not only do they fail to improve debate, they also make people stupider. The “nasty effect,” as the researchers call it, has a polarizing effect in that readers react by becoming more entrenched in their previous opinions, whether positive or negative. The use of pseudonyms greatly increases how much people write online—by as much as five times—but the depersonalization and the indirectness fuel abuse; people say things online they would never say to your face. But Twitter and Web comments are really just new expressions of that oldest of monsters: the crowd. Elias Canetti described the seething unstoppability Power: “The of mass momentum fifty years ago in Crowds and Power: most important occurrence within the crowd is the discharge. Before this the crowd does not actually exist; it is the discharge which creates it. This is the moment when all who belong to the crowd get rid of their differences and feel equal.” Hate is the crudest means to fellow feeling—the desire to over over-come the alienation that the Internet is so amazing at provoking. Canetti even has a prescient explanation for why retweets are efProo that online hate fective and hatestorms die down as now ails: We used to fast as they rise up: “The crowd, as have Borking. Now we have Hageling, berating a such, disintegrates. It has a presencandidate with the harshest timent of this and fears it. It can only personal assaults, only to have him become secretary go on existing if the process of diso deense anyway. charge is continued with new people who join it.” The impermanence of Twitter, Twitter, the fact that tha t it dissipates in the mist of its own transience, is the source of its genius. It would be silly to blame Twitter or the comment boards for this human impulse. People are the problem, not technology. technolog y. Every leap forward in our access to one another, The movement against Web hate is rippling every period in the intensification through Hollywood. Marc of discourse and debate, inevitably Jacobs, the coolest man in ashion, plays a cyber generates the question What are scumbag in Disconnect, the appropriate limits of speech? a new film about the ugly After the explosi on of pamphl pamphlet et perils o the Web.
Those who are at times both victim and bully are
Victims of bullying are
14.5 TIMES
as likely to have an anxiety disorder.
as likely to have a panic disorder.
4.3 TIMES
. A M A J ; S U Q S I D : S E C R U O S
culture in the seventeenth century—which created a froth of furious, often anonymous debate—the English created the Royal Society to regulate discourse and verify authori al integrity, as well as to establish a common framework for exchange. English boxer Curtis Wo Woodhouse odhouse fulfilled the fantasy fantasy of of many many when when he set out to confront hi s Twitter troll directly. directly. Almost every day more civilizing efforts arrive, whether it’s the Illinois state legislature proposing an anti-anonymity bill Herald shutor Google+ requiring ID verification or The Miami Herald shutting down anonymous comments or MIT’s media lab working out a bullying algorithm that can identify hurtful comments before they’re the y’re even posted. No less a prophet than Google’s Eric Schmidt predicts the end of anonymity as governments lose their taste for “unverified citizens” and Web searches tie into online profiles. “The true cost of remaining anony mous, then, might be irrelevance,” he says. Pretty soon, the anonymous will be nameless a nd marginalized even more. Voices in dark alleys to be ignored. But sheer experience is also altering the landscape. After you’ve been through one or two of these hatestorms, you recognize a very simple reality: They change nothing. As a promotion for his new show, comedian Nathan Fielder challenged Twitter to hurt his feelings, and nobody could manage it. Everybody knows there is a vague climate of hate surrounding everything that is distinct in any way. So who cares? Wildness is always followed by civilization, the root of civilization is civility, and the rules of civility have not meaningfully changed in two thousand years. Cicero outlined them in “On Duties”: Speak clearly. Don’t speak too much. Make sure everybody has a chance. Don’t interrupt. Alternate topics so that everybody can talk about something of inAsshole o the Year: Michael Brutsch, who went by the terest to them. Don’t criticize name Violentacrez (beore people behind their backs. Don’t Gawker outed him), created be angry or lazy. These are the Reddit discussions called incest, chokeabitch, and rules. You already know them. Jewmerica, as well as jailbait, in which he urged users to They’ve always been the rules. post photos o attractive People are just going to start folteenage girls ound on Facebook and other Web sites. lowing them again. ≥
. ) e r u t l u c / s g o l b / m o c . e r i u q s e ( g o l B e r u t l u C e h T n o y l r a l u g e r s e t i r w e h c r a M n e h p e t S
63
clean cut
clean cut
Look Sharp for Spring. There’ss more There’ more for men at Walmar Walmart. t.
©2013 Unilever INT 114816
NEW
Get your face ready for action. LOOK FOR AXE SHAVE ONLY AT WALMART.
y a t O n l y m a r t l W a m
y a t O n l y m a r t W a l m
CLEANSE
©2013 Energizer.
SHAVE
ates.
STYLE
0 2 5 2
2 0 2 5 ESQ.
ESQ.
0 3 5 3
3 0 3 5
APRIL
N YOU
22
ESQ.
TV
5 3 0 3
3 5 3 0 ESQ.
ESQ.
5 2 0 2
2 5 2 0
ON APRIL 22, YOUR LIFE WILL CHANGE. OR AT LEAST YOUR TV LISTINGS WILL. THAT DAY MARKS THE LAUNCH OF THE ESQUIRE NETWORK, A CHANNEL DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR MEN. THERE WILL BE HUMOR. THERE WILL BE TRAVEL. THERE WILL BE OCCASIONAL FISTICUFFS. WE THOUGHT YOU SHOULD BE PREPARED.
ESQUIRE NETWORK’S PROGRAMMING IS EXPANDING BY THE DAY. FOR NOW, HERE ARE SOME OF THE MORE NOTABLE ORIGINAL AND SYNDICATED SHOWS YOU CAN CATCH. Knife Fight: Like Top Chef/Iron Chef, only everyone’s drunk. (See page 69.)
WHAT TO WATCH
NEW
CLASSIC
Parks and Recreation: Small-town Indiana government. The only show to successfully combine sweet and funny.
OTHER THINGS HAPPENING APRIL 22
66
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon: See right. Risky Listing: The seedy world of nightclub realty. Psych: Charlie from The West Wing helps his police-detective friend
ASSORTED EARTH DAY CELEBRATIONS
solve crimes. Funny. The Getaway: Joel McHale, Eve, Aziz Ansari, and more guide you through their favorite cities.
Burn Notice: A spy abandoned by the government turns to detective work. How I Rock It: MTV’s Cribs, only in the closets of well-dressed men.
Party Down: See page 69. THE PEAK OF THE LYRID METEOR SHOWER
THE NASHVILLE
FREQUENTLY* ASKED QUESTIONS B Y D AV I D G R A N G E R
When does it start? April 22, about 9:00 A.M. What channel will it be on? It’s a cable channel, so where do you live? You can go to esquiretv.com/channelfinder, type in your ZIP code and cable service, and it will tell you exactly. How did this come about? Adam Stotsky o NBCUniversal was entrusted with remaking a cable-television network that used to be called G4. He noticed two things: There was a lot o programming or men scattered around the cable universe but not really any networks designated as being or men. A great deal o the programming or men was—how shall we put this?—kind o like an anthropological study o a oreign species o men, many o whom were dirty or wore unny beards. Stotsky decided to take a somewhat more ambitious route. When he asked us about it, we talked it over with him or a ew months, did some haggling, and thought it was a fine idea. Will the Esquire Network be just like Esquire magazine? No. Esquire magazine is a magazine. (See page 162 or the dierences.) What the Esquire Network will capture is the spirit o the magazine, translating it into the entertainment needs o an entirely dierent medium. What kind o shows will be on the Esquire Network? At the start, there will be a ew original shows, with more to come over time—mostly what the TV guys call unscripted dramas. There will be an extreme cooking competition called Knie Fight and a travel show called The Getaway. There will also be reruns o two muchloved shows, Parks and Recreation and Party Down. And starting April 24, you can watch the heir apparent to The Tonight Show at 7:00 P.M. every weeknight.
Will Esquire be responsible or the programming? We’re leaving programming to the proessionals, but we do have regular meetings to talk about the shows they have planned and how we can help. I have an idea or a show. Should I pitch it to you? We have lots o ideas or shows, too, and—so ar—the guys at the Esquire Network have not started developing any o them. Tell you what: You know how we acknowledge only a ew o the letters we receive in the ront o the magazin e (Beore We Begin) each month? The really good (or unny) ones? Send programming ideas to the same place (editor@esquire. com or use the USPS) and we will see that the best ones get to the proper authorities. O course, i you are agented by someone at WME or CAA, well, you don’t need us. What’s with all the Adam Scott shows? Come on. Have you seen Party Down? Actually, neither have I, but lots o riends and relatives and riends o relatives have. Can’t wait. But what we’re really looking orward to is reassessing the Pierce Brosnan–era Bond movies. I am not a man. Can I watch the Esquire Network? No man has ever successully told a woman what to do. What i I don’t like reality TV? We have two words or you: Party Fking Down. And two more: Jimmy Fking Fallon. And, actually, we’ve seen some o the pilots or the unscripted dramas and we kinda thought to ourselves Huh, we’d watch that. Are your editors attractive enough or TV? Some o us are attractive enough or TV, especially cable. But we’d like to remain the humble public servants we are.
*Okay, honestly, there haven’t really been all that many questions asked yet (other than random people looking or work or pitching new shows), but we figure there will be some. These are our answers.
TROUBLESHOOTING
I can’t find Esquire Network on my channel guide. Go to es quiretv.com/ channelfinder. Simple. I you have DirecTV, you don’t get the channel. Yet. But that link will let you email them to request it. I you don’t have cable, well, you’re out o luck. I’m on the Esquire Network channel, but it’s still showing G4 programming. You mean American Ninja Warrior ? That’ll continue. People love it.
THE (MINI) ESQ&A:
I can’t seem to find Women We Love. It’s coming. Lat er this year, the Esquire Network is slated to air a special that you might want to check out. I was hoping or Law & Order.
Sorry. But at least it’s already on everywhere else. You should take a look at Risky Listing, a show about nightclub re altors premier ing this sum mer. Those guys have probably murdered peo ple. So, kind o similar. My TV is on, but I’m not getting a picture. Maybe try the input button?
JIMMY FALLON A ew questions for the host of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which will have encore airings (one week later) on the Esquire Network weekday nights at 7:00 P.M. starting April 24. To simulate game conditions, we asked him to wait a week before answering. Esquire: Complete this sentence: The best
thing about watching Late Night with Jimmy Fallon a week later is ________. Jimmy Fallon: You can see the parts you slept through the first time. ESQ: Lots of things are better the second time around. Like chili. Or fried chicken. Does Late Night qualify? JF: Late Nightis more like leftover Chinese. It might be even better the second time around, and you’ll want to watch it again an hour later. ESQ: Are you ready to go up against Wheel of Fortune? JF: So ready. Our main advantage is that we
ZOO’S 21ST ANNUAL GOLF CLASSIC MCDONALD’S LAUNCH OF THE EGG-WHITE DELIGHT, A MARGINALLY HEALTHIER YOLK-FREE VERSION OF THE EGG
Don’t know what channel the Esquire Network is on? Scan here with Netpage to find out.
67
give vowels away for free—you don’t have to buy them. ESQ: If things go well at 7:00, would you consider changing the name of the show to Twilight with Jimmy Fallon? JF: No, because that’s what my journal is called. ESQ: Is there any other magazine whose TV network you’d rather be a part of ? JF: Mad magazine. Because I’ve always wanted to meet Alfred E. Neuman. ESQ: You’re replacing Quantum Leap in your new time slot. Is that intimidating? JF: I personally don’t think many people will notice the change, as our shows are so similar. But have you considered that maybe I’m just Sam Beckett and I’ve leaped into Jimmy Fallon’s body? ESQ: Questlove appears in this issue of Esquire (see page 21), too, and talks about how he sometimes gets cool things sent to him because he’s on Late Night. What kind of perks do you expect to be getting now that you’re on the Esquire Network? JF: Probably gallons and gallons of cologne samples. ESQ: Appearing on a basic-cable channel named after a magazine . . . when you were a boy, did you ever dream of such things? JF: Actually, when I was a boy, I just dreamed about getting basic cable.
HOW TO TUNE INTO THE ESQUIRE NETWORK
01
02
Check calendar to make sure it’s ater April 22.
Make a cocktail.
THE PREDICTIVE QUIZ:
WILL YOU BE WATCHING THE ESQUIRE NETWORK? Answer the questions below, then add up the assigned points to see if you should set aside a little more couch time in the future. 1. Do you own a TV? a. Yes (10) b. No (–100)
3. Do you enjoy Esquire magazine? a. Yes (10) b. No (–10) 4. Are you a man? a. Yes (10) b. No (8) 5. Which, if any, of the following channels are you fond of? a. ESPN (10) b. ESPN2 (15) c. Nickelodeon (–15) d. WE tv (–15) e. truTV (5) . Comedy Central (10) g. HGTV (5) 6. Which of the following things should be only for men? (Mark all that apply.) a. Cologne (0) b. Hair dye (5) c. Yogurt (10) d. Dr. Pepper Ten (15) e. TV stations (15) 7. Say you walk into a bar. What drink do you order? a. Beer (5) b. Rye manhattan (5) c. Jack and ginger (5)
03
04
Turn on TV.
Push the necessary buttons to change the channel to the Esquire Network.
9. Nope. a. That seems dumb. (5)
14. Same scenario, but now it’s on a night that AMC is playing The Shawshank Redemption. a. Yes (5) b. No (–5) c. Trick question. AMC plays Shawshank every night. (10) 15. What’s this?
10. Actually, it was to show that Esquire Network should appeal to men of all tastes and types. a. Huh. Okay. (5) b. That sounds like marketing bullshit. (–5) 11. Where were we? a. You were asking me silly questions. (0) b. Taking a quiz! (2) 12. Say you walk into a barbershop. Which of the following instructions are you most likely to give your barber? a. Layered, with more texture in the ront. (5) b. Make me look like Brad Pitt. (–5) c. A little o the top. (5) d. One men’s haircut, please. (10) 13. You’re supposed to meet your wife at her friend’s birthday party. Is it okay to be thirty minutes late? a. Yes (5)
a. No idea. (0) b. Antique iron? (–5) c. A grout float. (5) 16. What’s this?
a. A knie. (0) b. Santoku knie. (5) c. Ask my wie. (–5) 17. Who’s this?
a. That guy rom Parks and Rec. (5) b. That guy rom Party Down. (5) c. Both. He was in Step Brothers and Friends with Kids, too. Love that guy. (15) d. Anna Kendrick? (–10)
More than 75 points: You will be watching t he Esquire Network. 25 to 75 points: You won’t argue i someone else tu rns it on. Fewer than 25 points: You won’t be watching the Esquire Network. At first. But you’ll come around.
PEOPLE WHO SHOULD WATCH THE ESQUIRE NETWORK CLOONEY, Y, G.
b. No (–5)
8. Have you ever chopped down a tree? a. Wait a second. It didn’t matter what drink I would order? (0)
2. Do you enjoy watching TV? a. Yes (0) b. No (–50)
ANSWER KEY:
d. Piña colada (5) e. Seltzer with lime (5)
GLO GLOVER, R, D.
3, R.G. R. G.
PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT BROWN, WN, C.
FANNING, FANNI E. & D.
MCMUFFIN THE END OF THE PREORDER PERIOD FOR DAVID SEDARIS’S NEW COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, LET’S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS VLADIMIR
68
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
. L A T I G I D I D M : E T O M E R ; T O P L I H P S I R H C : G N I N U T
THE RECIPE
Separate the yolks rom the whites o our eggs. > Coat a cold 8-inch nonstick pan with olive oil and pour in the whites. Place over gentle heat and season with salt. The lower the flame, the better. > As the omelet cooks, boil an inch o water in a pot. > Put the yolks in a metal bowl wide enough to rest on top o the pot. Add a pinch o salt and a splash o be er. Sweeten with a little sugar, honey, or maple syrup (whatever you have handy). Balance the bowl over the steaming pot o boiling water and whisk the ingredients very briskly. Within seconds, they will come together and thicken. The moment the mixture starts to thicken, remove rom heat but continue to whisk until it starts to cool down. You want the sabayon to be the consistency >
THE THREE-INGREDIENT
BREAKFAST If you’re a fan of televised cooking competitions, you probably remember
Ilan Hall as the winner of the second season of Bravo’s Top Chef. Knife Fight, Hall’s new show on the Esquire Network, takes the basic conceit of programs like Top Chef and Iron Chef and adds a drunken, heckling audience: “It’s sort of like the opening of Rocky III ,” Hall says. “We did one about a week ago, and it was so loud that at the end everybody’s ears were ringing like we were at a hardcore show.” The crowd gives the show an organic feel, which makes sense, since the battles in Hall’s L. A. restaurant, the Gorbals, were taking place after-hours long before the Esquire Network’s cameras started documenting them. The premise is simple: Two chefs cook with up to three ingredients from the Gorbals’ kitchen and are judged by Hall and his foodie friends, like Elijah Wood and Drew Barrymore. We asked Hall to do some three-ingredient improvising of his own, and he came up with the following, based on what he found in his business partner’s fridge—beer, eggs, and avocado. The dish is an egg-white omelet made fancy by sabayon, a frothy egg-and booze sauce that will make you look like you know what you’re doing. Which is never a bad thing. — A NN A P E E L E
o barely whipped cream. Taste. Season with salt and pepper i necessary. Set aside. The egg-white omelet should be completely opaque and not browned. Slide rom pan in one piece and place in the center o a plate. Slice avocado thinly and arrange on the omelet so that it covers the surace like tiles. Season with salt and pepper again. Spoon the sabayon over the avocado. Make it look pretty.
Party Down is one of those shows that make critics despair. It’s almost as i , be-
THE ENDORSEMENT
PARTY DOWN
cause people who write about television love it so m uch, the show had to die. The show produced only twenty episodes. Each one i s brilliant. The collection o struggling actors, writers, musicians, and comedians who work at the eponymous catering company try, and mostly ail, to figure out whether they’re just about to make it or in the earliest stages o total career collapse. They ride the line o the American dream (which has nothing to do with solid middle-class property ownership and everything to do with the chance o being superrich and amous). In the meantime, they receive a pretty decent tour o the toxic vanities o southern Caliornia. The premise, seeing a di erent party every show, allows or immersion in dierent worlds—rom senior singles seminars to corporate retreats, jaded backstage parties to attempted orgies. They’re all hilarious, without exception. The true strength o this show, however, is in the perormances. The women in particular are amazing. In the fi rst season, Jane Lynch does not have a sin gle scene that isn’t incredible. Megan Mullally has never been unni er, and that’s saying something. Liz zy Caplan as Casey Klein is maybe the most intelligent emale lead ever put at the center o an Am erican television comedy. Or maybe she’s just the most acerbic. I have trouble telling those apart. The show, exactly like its characters, was not an outright success. It never became a massive hit. But also like its characters, it shows that sometimes it’s okay not to be huge. Sometimes it’s okay just to be awesome and talented and really, really unny. —STEPHEN MARCHE
LENIN’S BIRTHDAY THE PREMIERE OF CURIOUS GEORGE SWINGS INTO SPRING ON PBS KIDS ANTICIPATION PEAKS FOR MICHAEL BUBLÉ’S TO BE LOVED. ≥
Need something to watch? Watch a supercut video from Knife Fight. Scan here with Netpage.
69
T F U L F I L L M E N D N A E N U T R U I D E T O F O Y O U R 2 0 1 3 G
BACK. G IN R A O R IS A AMERIC WORK T A S S A K IC K O T D YOU NEE THE E IN M R E D N U L ’L U RIGH T NO W OR YO CK O F A B E M O C IC M O N INCIPIEN T ECO N TION YOUR E M TO T O N — N IO AN EN TIRE NA T PINESS P A H D N A , TH R O - W O WN SALAR Y, SELF R Y THING E V E . R E E R A C R U YO FOR THE RES T OF C T TO WARD A U O Y W O H — K R YOU DO A T WO , WHA T YOU R A E W U O Y T A H O THERS, W T TERS A M — G IN H T Y R E V E SA Y AND WRI TE, D AS YOU O O G S A D N A . R E MORE THAN E V G BE T TER. IN O D E B D L U O C ARE, YOU AGES, P N E V E L E T X E N E FINALL Y, ON TH ND MOS T E P S E W E C A L P E AD VICE FOR TH IFE. > > OF OUR WAKING L
74
Ad vi ce fo r e nt re pr en eu rs , b y t he Ac e o f Ca ke s
speaking, by Joel Osteen speakin ing rules
84
80
76
How to be gracious, by Tom Chiarella
As k Es qu ire : A n ad vi ce co lu mn a bo ut w or k
What I’ve Learned: Jim Fannin, life coach to the elit e
88
82
78 8
An in ssp ir in g e ss ay on pu bl ic
The workplace guide to facial hair
82
The commut-
What to wear and how to wear it: From casual to formal
73
ESQUIRE, WORKING FROM THE EDITOR
We believe in work. Not just the necessity of earning the almighty dollar. We believe in mutual effort toward accomplishment. And the acquisition of the almighty dollar. We believe this is the year the American economy wi ll finish better than it started. We believe hard work, a rededication to doing things that have never been done before, and impatience—the same burning impatience that has fueled every great thing this country has ever done—will make it so. We believe in treating others well so that t hey will treat you well and you will be all the richer for it. We believe in the suit, the tie, the gingham shirt, the shiny watch, the leather briefcase, the brown lace-up, the black oxford, the sport coat you can wear with anything. We believe the free market has never been so free, and that anyone who puts his mind to it can run the damn company someday. Tomorrow, even. And when it comes down to it, we believe in you. We don’t know you that well. We’ve never met, actually. But we believe in you. Good luck. Read on. — D A V I D G R A N G E R
HOW TO START A BU SINE SS Success is oten the result o recognizing and taking advantage o opportunities you stumble across. In Du’s case, it was athoming the obvious: People liked his unusual personality and cakes much more than his unusual music.
Few would argue with the “crazy” part. I he thinks Dad is so smart, why doesn’t he listen to me more? A shout-out to UCLA’s superb economics program—it changed my lie or the better.
Being engaged in many activities can result in unexpected opportunities. For Du it was birthday cakes or rich kids. For Dad, it was enjoying racquetball in graduate school.
Actually, Du, you were also told not to be araid o making mistakes. Learn rom them but don’t repeat any. The first rule o business: I something isn’t working, stop; i it is, continue. O course, Du always had a job waiting or him i this career path didn’t work out: cleaning toilets in my health clubs.
Entrepreneurial wisdom from the Ace of Cakes, one of the most successful food personalities on television. With annotations, corrections, and additional advice from his very successful father. By Duf Goldman (and Morrie Goldman) My business and everything that’s come out o it—the bakery, the television show, the cakes or celebrities, and this year’s presidential inauguration—is actually a big accident. I was working as a private che when I really wanted to be on tour in a rock band. I was twenty-five at the time. I had made a couple o birthday cakes or the kids o the people I worked or, and they liked them so much, they asked me to make cakes or their riends. The more cakes I made, the more requests I got. It didn’t take long to figure out that I could make it work as a business. But there was no dream o owning a bakery and being on TV. I just needed the kind o business that would allow me to take a month o now and then to go on tour. I saw it as my path to rock stardom. Here’s the thing, though. My dad is an entrepreneur with a Ph.D. in economics rom UCLA. He’s crazy smart—the kind o guy who can grasp the essence o a situation quicker than you can explain it to hi m. By the time you’re done with your sentence, he already has a couple o questions. Over the years, he’s used his knowledge to advise the likes o GM, Sprint, and Congress, and to start a think tank in international economics. He built and owns chains o health clubs and physicaltherapy clinics. So when I thought about trying to make some money, I knew that I had a Ph.D. super-badass en trepreneur on speed dial. I called hi m up and said, “Dad, I wanna start a business baking cakes.” The first thing he said was “I you want to have a cake business, you need to sell cake.” As you can imagine, I was underwhelmed. I needed more than that. And he said, “No you don’t. All you need to do is s ell a cake. Once you sell a cake, the n I’ll give you step two. First, find somebody who needs a cake and s ell ’em one.” That was it. So I called my brother, and he built me a cheap site using this rid iculous thing called My First Website, or something. I didn’t have enough money to buy busin ess cards, so I went to Kinko’s, printed a bunch out, and used their paper cutters to slice them into individual cards. I had about a hundred business cards. I went to work on a dummy cake, which is a cake made with real cake materials on the outside but Styrooam on the inside. Then I put on my che’s coat—appearance is everything—slipped the business cards in the ront pocket, and headed out toward a wedding venue near my apartment. What I noticed was that on Saturdays, when somebody was getting married, lots o other brides-to-be would stop in to get ideas, to see the tablecloths and flowers. It was the best time to see what the place looked like when it was all done up, because during the week when there was nothing going on, there was nothing to see. So every Saturday I headed over in my crisp, clean che’s coat carrying my ake cake, and walked real slowly down the sidewalk in ront o this place, then back up. Down, then up. I would do laps like this or our or five hours. And as people would come in to look at the place or their wedding, they would stop me and say, “Oh, wow, is that a wedding cake?” “Yeah,” I’d say. And they’d say, “Do you have a business card?” Within two months, I was making the cakes or every wedding at the place. Two and a hal years later, I had my own shop. We did things a little dierently, because i I were just to make the same cupcakes everybody else does, nobody would care. So we made huge cakes and cakes in strange shapes. Then came my own TV show, and business exploded. I now have a second bakery in L. A. plus a new concept bakery where we teach cake decorating to customers. We’ve made a liesized baby-elephant cake or a dot-com mogul and a lie-sized race car with spinning, smokin g tires or a Nascar sponsor. And earlier this year, I was asked to bake a cake or the president o the United States. These days, I don’t even need business cards. —AS TOLD TO CAL FUSSMAN
Du’s older brother, Willie, has the street smarts in the amily (think o a kinder, bighearted version o Ari Gold on Entourage ). They’ve helped each other’s careers immensely and are extremely close. As a dad, this fills me with more pride than their business and entertainment successes.
This is outside-the-box thinking. Indeed, Du is so ar outside that he usually doesn’t know what a box is. The lesson here is to be aware o past successul techniques, but not to be constrained by them, especially i you are low on unds. This was Du’s version o guerrilla marketing.
0 0 6 0 0 4 9 2 1 2 1 + e n o h P . C N I S N O I H S A F S S O B O G U H S / 0 1 5 0 S S O B
SHOP ONLINE HUGOBOSS.COM
ESQUIRE, WORKING
T H I N G S A M A N S H O U L D A L W A Y S H A V E I N H I S D E S K :
C O L L A R S T A Y S . H O S T E S S G I F T F O R E M E R G E N C I E S . N O T W I N E .
HOW TO BE
GRACIOUS, AND WHY
In business, the little things—a favor acknowledged, a favor returned, proper introductions, smiles, attentiveness—are really the big things By Tom Chiarella Graciousness looks easy, but
of course it is not. Do not mi stake mere manners for graciousness. Manners are rules. Helpful, yes. But graciousness reflects a state of being; it emanates from your inventory of self. Start with what you already possess. You, for instance, have a job. Live up to that.
76
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
When wandering the world, forget your business cards. Don’t look for more contacts. Instead, observe. Say hello to the people you see every day, but don’t make a fetish out of it. Stay interested in others. Be generous in your attentions but not showy. Don’t wink, snap your fingers, high-five, or shout, though laugh with
those who do. It bears repeating: Look around. Remember names. Remember where people were born. On the street, in the lobby, square your shoulders to people you meet. Make a handshake matter—eye contact, good grip, elbow erring toward a right angle. Do not pump the hand, unless the other person is insistent on just that. Then pump the hell out of their hand. Smile. If you can’t smile, you can’t be gracious. You aren’t some dopey English butler. You are you. Remember that the only representation of you, no matter what your station, is you— your presentation, your demeanor. You simply must attend. Stand when someone enters the room, especially if you are lowly and he is the boss, and even if the reverse is true. Look them in the eye. Ask yourself: Does anybody need an introduction? If so, before you say one word about business, introduce them to others with pleasure in your voice. If you can’t muster enthusiasm for the people you happen upon in life, then you cannot be gracious. Remem ber, true graciousness demands that you have time for others. So listen. Be attentive to what people say. Respond, without interruption. You always have time. You own the time in which you live. You grant it to others without obligation. That is the gift of being gracious. The return—the pay back, if you will—is the reputation you will quickly earn, the curiosity of others, the sense that people want to be in the room with you. The gracious man does not dwell on himself, but you can be confident that your reputation precedes you in everything you do and lingers long after you are finished. People will mark you for it. You will see it in their eyes. People trust the gracious man to care. The return comes in kind.
A BRIEF MEMO ON OFFICE ORGANIZATION
Lamp: O your choosing, to improve upon the soporific LED glare buzzing rom the ceiling. Something warm and amber. This small measure o control is good or your retinas and your soul. “Current” pile: A small (keep it small) stack o things to deal with first. The key here is something called visual persistence. You can set something aside or a moment, but it’s always in your line o sight. Pile of things whose existence you are denying: Things that don’t
have to be dealt with now but that you will eventually have to ace. A note on clutter: Studies show a cluttered desk is the sign o a busy and intelligent mind at work, while a clean work area shows you don’t have enough to do. Other studies show the exact opposite. Whatever. Just avoid chaos, which makes some managers question your ability to not lose important shit. Personal photo: This reminds people that you are a person with a lie. And it reminds you that there is a point to all this work. The maximum is two, though. Nothing with you in it. Some inspiration: A quotation or memento that inspires you. This should not be a poster o an eagle that says SOAR E V E R H I G H E R . Maybe it’s a coee mug rom your first job. Maybe it’s something somebody amous said, taped up so only you can see it. I you don’t have one, eel ree to use this: “My best moment is still coming.” —Carmelo Anthony (as quoted in Esquire, January 2005) Headphones: Entirely acceptable in today’s workplace. Just don’t turn them up so loud that when people need your attention, they have to throw things at you. Screen saver: Use the one that comes with your computer, not a picture rom your vacation. Open space: Do what you can to open up the space you have. Eliminate barriers. Push tables to the side. This makes you appear more powerul, not less, because your domain seems larger and you’ve made it clear that you don’t need a desk between you and your underlings to show your authority.
Clip, Save, Share, rom any page. Download ree rom the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
A TRIBUTE TO THE MAN WHO CHANGED WATCHMAKING FOREVER
In 1821, Nicolas Rieussec changed watchmaking forever with the invention of the first chronograph. Today, the Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph Automatic is a tribute to the chronograph’s technical evolution. 43 mm stainless steel case, skelleted horns and sapphire crystal back, black calfskin strap with white stitching. Crafted in the Montblanc Manufacture in Le Locle, Switzerland.
V I S I T A N D S H O P M O N T B L A N C . C O M
ESQUIRE, WORKING
E V E R Y B O D Y B R I N G S W I N E . W E S U G G E S T A B O T T L E O F G O O D S H E R R Y O R T H E E X Q U I S I T E O I L F R O M G E O R G I A O L I V E F A R M S , F R O M T H E F I R S T C O M M E R C I A L H A R V E S T O F
HOW TO
OWN THE ROOM BY JOEL OSTEEN Senior pastor, Lakewood Church, Houston
For seventeen years, my father tried to get
In the first few months after I took over for my father as pastor, I tried to be like him. He was old-school, more dynamic and strong, preaching at people. But that just wasn’t who I was. When I stepped into who I felt I was
me up in front of people at his church. I said, “Daddy, I am not a minister.” I couldn’t even get up and make announcements. I was so nervous and I so dreaded doing it, I had to hold on to the podium because I felt like my hands would shake. My first thought was Why are all these people staring at me? IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT SHOWING Then I looked up three or four UNSHAKABLE CONFIDENCE; years later and thought, Ya know, IT’S ABOUT BEING YOURSELF AND I’m pretty good at this. I used to play basketball with FINDING YOUR VOICE. YOU CAN’T a lot of guys at the YMCA. They BE SOMEONE YOU’RE NOT. knew I was a preacher’s kid, but these were just guys. They didn’t go to church. But my dad’s church was on TV then, and when he died and I took meant to be—when I stayed within my own over, I knew these guys were going to see me gifts—that’s when the ministry started to on television. So I made the decision then grow. I learned over time it ’s easier for peothat when I spoke in the church, I was going ple to listen to you—to hear you—when you to imagine I was speaking to the basketball change your pacing, when you’re conversaplayers, the ones that didn’t go to church. I tional. Now I memorize the whole thing. I spoke in everyday language. type my speech word for word, and I’ll go The biggest mistake I made was early on. over it a half page at a time. Maybe it’s a sto-
78
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
ry. I get the story down, and I move on to the next one. Your memory is like a muscle. The more you use it, the better it gets. There’s nothing wrong with using notes, but go over them and know them real well. The day before I give a sermon, I’ll practice it and act as if people were actually there listening. If I mess up, I recover. I don’t stop and go get a drink of water. If something happens in the middle of an actual speech, someone stands up or the mic doesn’t work, or if you get tense, you have to tell yourself to slow down, relax, regroup. So even when I’m practicing, sometimes I’ll say, “I forgot my spot!” or “I’ll need to look at my notes.” Try taping yourself when you practice. Most people can’t stand to listen to themselves on tape or watch themselves, but that’s the only way you can grow. I used to say “ya know” every sentence, and it wasn’t until I watched it that I got out of that habit. You’ll pick up other things. Why do I look down? Why do I talk so fast? Plus, you’ll pick up a lot of good things! Oh, man, I’m good at that. That’s important. If you’re taking questions, be confident enough to say, “I don’t know.” There’s nothing wrong with saying, “We haven’t crossed that bridge, and I’ll have to think about that answer.” It’s not all about showing unshakable confidence; it’s about being yourself and finding your own voice. I have some of the greatest ministers in the world come to the church, and, man, they sound like James Earl Jones. They give me goosebumps. And I think, My goodness, I am so stinkin’ boring. But you have to be confident that Okay, this is who I am. I’m going to do the best that I can. It’s not that we can’t all change and grow, but you’re never going to be someone you’re not. A lot of speakers are a little bit on edge, and they’re a little bit angry because of it. I think 99.9 percent of the people you’re speaking to, they don’t even know why you’re that way. And you have to fight those thoughts of This is boring to them; they’re not getting it. You have to think, They’re enjoying this; this is good information; I’m doing my best; and everybody likes it. If you want to get people’s attention, think about if you’d like to listen to it. Edit yourself. Ya know what? These two sentences are not even necessary. When I get eight and a half pages down to seven? That’s when I get really good. And if you’re talking to one person or a smaller group of people, eye contact is very important. But with a large crowd, I don’t focus on individual people. I just see it as a big group. If I focus on individuals, I tend to lose my train of thought and start thinking, Are they listening? Are they paying attention? Why is that? What are they wearing? So I just stare out. — AS T OLD
TO R ACH EL R IC HAR DSO N
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
M O C . I M U T T A E R O M E R O L P X E
MAKE NEW YORK
LIFE |
PARI S
B E AU AU T I F U L W O R K |
MIL AN
|
SHANGHA I
|
LO NDON
|
TOK YO
|
DUBA I
|
HON G KONG
ESQUIRE, WORKING
O L I V E S E A S T O F T H E M I S S I S S I P P I S I N C E T H E 1 8 0 0 S . ( G E O R G I A O L I V E F A R M S . C O M ) M A T C H E S . P A P E R B A C K F O R U N E X P E C T E D T R I P S . $ 5 0 C A S H . S T A M P S . E X T R A S E T O F E A R B U D S . B O T T L E O P E N E R . N A I L C L I P P E R S . T O O T H B R U S H , T O O T H P A S T E ,
ASK: ESQUIRE, WORKING
Real-world answers to the questions you can’t ask in meetings, from the hiring director at a major American corporation, who shall remain absolutely secret
is it about those ideas that you can go to school on? Or about his presentation? Is he more organized than you, more passionate? It’s not enough to have good ideas; you have to be able to sell them in a way that resonates with your particular leader and express how you can make them reality. reality. Take Martin, my former colleague. Poor Martin. He kept pitching the same idea at every meeting and getting shot down. It wasn’t a bad idea, it wasn’t a good idea—it was just an idea, and he wasn’t convincing in his pitch. And after the third time, you coul could d see the door doorss crac crack k open on our coal furnace of a boss,, who boss who might forg forget et how many drinks he had at lunch that day but wouldn’t forget this. Soon enough, I had Martin’s job. If you’re better on paper, try to get through using e-mail. If that’s not working, get a meeting with the boss. Explain you would like to do better and ask specifically what your ideas are lacking. If he’s a good boss, he’ll tell you. At least the first time. And if not, wel well, l, glue yours yourself elf to Joe. Maybe he’ll take you with him to his next job. WHAT’S THE ETIQUETTE
I’M ABOUT TO BE OFFERED A NEW JOB AND WILL HAVE TO DISCUSS SALARY. WHAT’S THE BEST APPROACH? Any novice knows that you always want the other guy to go first, and the guy on the other side is no novice. He’ll probably ask a sk what you’re currently Truthinessis making. Truthiness is the watchword here. The recruiter will probably have some sense of what you’re making, so inflate by no more than 10 percent. He names his figure. I advise expressing enthusiasm at bein g offered the job and politely asking if i f there is any wiggle room because you were hoping for closer to x. to x. You have to know your le verage points; whethe whetherr or not you are current currently ly employe employed d is a big one. Also: How long has this job been open? How big a stretch is it for you? Just exactly how big a catch are you? He may insist on an answer by the end of the day. I would. Whatever you do, don’t say you need to talk it over with your wife tonight. Pussy.
OF TAKING READING MATERIAL INTO THE MEN’S ROOM? ACCEPTABLE:
Things you can read on your phone or anything that folds discreetly in your pocket. UNACCEPTABLE: An iPad Game of Thrones or, as blaring Game blaring one of my former colleagues was known to do, parking in the stall with a stack of magazines between your feet. I’M 27 AND WAS JUST MADE A BOSS OVER SE VERAL OF THE GUYS I HANG AROUND WITH, AS WELL AS COLLEAGUES TWICE MY AGE. THINGS I NEED TO
SURPRISED HALF THE
WORRY ABOUT? The ones
NY ALWAYS ALWAYS PROFESS ES
TIME. HOW DO I GET MY
TO LIKE JOE’S IDEAS, EVEN
IDEAS THROUGH?
THOUGH IT’S CLEAR TO EV-
Guess what? Joe’s ideas don’t suck or they wouldn’t be getting through. Study Joe. What
twice your age are going to be half as much trouble as your peers. I’ve been there, and in variably varia bly,, if if someo someone ne is 50 and still not a boss, he knows he’s
THE HEAD OF M Y COMPA-
ERYONE THAT JOE’S IDEAS SUCK. EVEN JOE SEEMS
80
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
not boss material. Your buddies, on the other hand—the ones you drank with, talked about women with, and, yes, griped about the boss with—they’re pissed, whether they show it or not. No matter how much you’ve shined, they’re thinking, Why him? Why not me? The best way to show you’re in charge is to blatantly not show you’re in charge. Do your job well, with humility but not false modesty—no “Shucks, fellas, it could have been any of us.” Cut them a little slack, but expect someone to challenge your authority early. Nip this in the bud in a way that the word gets around. “No, Jack, just because I can expense $200 at lunch doesn’t mean you can.” Oh, and find a new Thursday-night poker game. MY SUPERVISOR E-MAILS ME ALL NIGHT. DOES HE EX-
Many bossess are bosse are obse obsessiv ssive, e, ADHD ADHD,, hypervigilant, and other words associated with both success and assholery. Some do get off on the power of sending you a late-night message they know will wet your drawers. But look at it from his viewpoint for a second. He’s often stuck in meetings all day day.. Nighttime is his chance to catch up. Our whole office got missives stamped 3:00 A.M. recently. We grumbled about it until some body inform informed ed us that the big guy was in Europe, where it was a perfectly reasonable 8:00 A.M. Unless you’re a trader handling the Far East, don’t get sucked into late-night e-mail rondelet. Answer anything urgent but give yourself a cutoff. Mine is 10:00 P.M. I answer nothing after that and try not to even look at my Droid. Of course some suck-up is showing how “on it” he is while you’re playing basketball or reading to your kids. Let him. You’ll weigh in in the morning. Sometimes you have to choose life, you know? But take it as a compliment. If you weren’t valuable, would you be on on the the boss’ boss’ss mind mind at at midnight? PECT ME TO ANSWER?
Clip, Save, Share, from any page.
PROMOTION
ORDER NOW
THE BIG BLA BLACK BOOK Save 25% OFF NOW if you pre-order the Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter 2013 issues (Free Shipping)
O N A N D S T S S N E W
! W O N
ORDER NOW ONLINE
BBB.ESQUIRE.COM OR CALL 1.800.888.3579 THE BIG BLACK BOOK IS THE STYLE MANUAL FOR SUCCESSFUL MEN, AND WITH EACH ISSUE, WE AIM TO GIVE OUR READERS INFORMATION, ADVICE, AND INSTRUCTION ON MASTERING THE ART OF LIVING. THE SPRING/SUMMER 2013 EDITION IS FILLED WITH MORE THAN 150 PAGE PAGES S OF PRODUCTS, PEOPLE, AND PLACES, INCLUDING: THE ESSENTIALS
THE INFORMATION
THE RESOURCES
The new breed of summer suits, shoes for work and weekend, diving watches for every depth, vacations for the restless traveler, and meals for the discerning eater. Plus: some cocktails.
A concise how-to-guide for life, including: everything you could possibly want to know about weddings; the art of well-packed luggage; the science of summer grooming; and a master class in luxury travel.
An insider’s insider’s guide to the best barbers, cobblers, and all-purpose neck savers in the most stylish city on earth.
ESQUIRE, WORKING F L O S S ,A N D M O U T H W A S H . A D V I L . S M A L L B O T T L E O F S O M E T H I N G T O D R I N K N E A T W H E N Y O U ’ R E W O R K I N G L A T E . ( W E S U G G E S T D U L C E V I D A O R G A N I C A Ñ E J O T E Q U I L A , W H I C H I S S M O O T H A N D D E L I C I O U S A N D ,A C C O R D I N G T O S O M E U S E R S , P R O M O T E S
A MAN AND HIS FACIAL HAIR: CEO EDITION
Diamond Church Street Choir,” by the Gaslight Anthem; “Memo from Turner,” by the Rolling Stones. Music recommended
for neither the commute to nor from work: “Working for the Weekend,” by Loverboy. If the person next to you on the bus or in the elevator stares at you for what feels like a moment too long—like you might have something on your face—it’s because he or she can hear the music coming out of your headphones. Might want to turn that shit down. It is a miracle that more people don’t get killed in parking garages by cars speeding around the corners.
I it’s done right—which is to say, i it’s tended to with care and requency— acial hair can be more than just the mark o a weekend stretching into the workweek. In act, the right scruf can even give you gravitas. More than ever beore, your acial hair (or lack thereo) says a lot about you. And nowadays what it says is not “I work or a logging company.” —RODNEY CUTLER THE GOATEE Richard Branson, CEO, Virgin Group A goatee creates the illusion o length on a round ace. In his case, it also oers a hint o underlying zaniness. No man having this much un would be clean-shaven.
THE GOATEE (WITH CHIN STRAP) Kendall Powell, CEO, General Mills Intelligent and proessional, but able to relax when nobody’s around to care. Like a proessor you’d want to have a drink with.
THE BEARD Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle A ull beard gives the illusion o a strong (and single) chin on a chubbier ace; on slim aces, it can widen the cheeks. Just don’t dye it. Even the best dye jobs look like they were done with shoe polish.
THE SCRUFF Mark Parker, CEO, Nike A ew days’ stubble—trimmed neatly above the Adam’s apple—suggests that you could start a fire or climb a rock wall just as easily as you could run a company. You have a job and a lie.
THE MUSTACHE Keith E. Wandell, CEO, Harley-Davidson I you have a larger philtrum—the gap between your nose and upper lip—a mustache can help fill the space. For Wandell, it’s probably more a case o knowing his clientele.
82
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
Once in a while,
THE COMMUTING RULES Once in a while, on
your way to the office, pick up a box of doughnuts for everybody. If you spot a coworker on the bus/subway/ train/sidewalk while traveling to work, a simple nod and smile will suffice. Let’s sa vor these last moments of personal time in the morning, shall we? No matter your mode of transportation—driving, riding, walking— the consumption of food
and drink while commuting is rarely smooth. Eat at home. You’re not saving any time. Recommended
music for the commute to work: “The Rat,” by the Walkmen; “Rock and Roll,” by Led Zeppelin; “Good Morning (the Future),” by Rogue Wave. Recommended music for the commute home from work: “Re boot the Mission,” by the Wallflowers; “The
read a novel. On your commute. Life is bigger than work. Unless you commute by car. Books on tape are overrated. Wearing high-quality
sneakers to work before changing into dress shoes is probably really good for your feet. It also makes you look like a dorkus malorkus. Get to know the regular hosts along the way: the garage attendant, the train conductor, the bus driver, the security guard. Someday you might be a buck short or a minute late and need a hand. There is no shame
in stopping into a bar for a quick drink on your way home, the way men used to do. A small pour, seven minutes, nine bucks. Nobody has to know.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOE M
C
KENDRY
THE LAST WORD
ESQUIRE, WORKING
C R E A T I V I T Y . ) A G L A S S .D U L C E V I D A O R G A N I C A Ñ E J O T E Q U I L A D O E S N ’ T T A S T E A S G O O D I N P A P E R C O F F E E C U P S . U M B R E L L A . N U T S .R A W A L M O N D S A R E T H E H E A L T H I E S T A N D T H E Y F I L L Y O U U ,P B U T A N Y T H I N G I S B E T T E R F O R Y O U T H A N F R I T O S . F R I T O S .
W H AT I ’ V E L E A R N E D JIM FANNIN 63, LIFE COACH, BURR RIDGE , ILLINOIS
> You are what you think. > Think about what you think about. > The number-one deense mechanism: Putting yoursel down—“God, I’m getting so at. I can’t believe it”—so nobody else will talk about how at you are. > Some people—man, i I talked to them the way they talk to themselves, they’d fire my ass. > Do this: Get multiple people in the room, then test some body’s arm strength. Have him hold his arm steadast. You can’t move it. Then ask him to
leave the room. Once the per son leaves, have everybody in the room drop their heads and start to think negative thoughts. Not about that per son, just negative thoughts in their own lie. Then have the person come back in the room. Test his arm strength again, and he will have no strength. He’ll drop his arm. Every time. Ev ery time! And he won’t know what happened. Then have him leave the room again. Have ev erybody in the room raise their heads and think o something unbelievably positive. When the person comes back into the room, test that person again. That person’s arm will be as strong as it was the first time. This is not Jim Fannin hocus pocus. It’s why the Cubs lose. > A major part o genius is simplicity. > When you look someone in the eye long enough to discern eye color, a thousand words are conveyed. > I don’t go into the past—ex cept to learn and evaluate. Then I bury it in the backyard like a dead carcass, not to be dug up
again. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll go back and belly laugh with an old riend. But outside o that, I don’t give two craps what hap pened five seconds ago. > You know what’s gonna be on my tombstone? “Next!” > When someone is making love, hopeully they’re not think ing o something else. > Visualization works because your subconscious mind does not know the dierence be tween antasy and reality. > You will never be in the zone without your jaw unhinged and your tongue relaxed. That’s why Michael Jordan stuck his tongue out when he went to the hole. That’s why A-Rod, when he’s at his best, looks like he’s yawning. > CEOs ask me how to change the numbers on their P&L state ment. They look at the P&L as a dead P&L. That’s too high. That’s too low. We need to change this. But they have to realize that a P&L statement is really a living P&L, that there are thoughts— the average person has two thousand thoughts per day— that run through each line item. Customer thoughts. Supplier
thoughts. Employee thoughts. Leadership thoughts. Change the thoughts and the numbers will change. > You’re only a s good as the day ater greatness. > Three fourths o doctor’s vis its are rom hypochondriacs. People have thought them selves to death. > You know the singing group the Judds? I lived next door to them when I was growing up. The mother, Naomi, had a broth er who was my best riend. Bri an got Hodgkin’s disease. It was discovered when both he and I were delivering papers. He dis covered a lump under his arm. Brian died in the hospital in my arms, and I made up my mind that day that I would never have a bad day again. > I visualized my death at his uneral. I went to the end o my lie, saw everybody happy, saw me happy. I saw mysel having an awesome lie. And I’ve nev er had a bad day since. Not one. Not the day my dad died. Not the day my mom died. I cele brated their lives. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’d give up all my earthly possessions just to have lunch with my mother or ather one more time. I simply don’t have bad days. > Never compromise your prin ciples. Unortunately, a lot o people don’t know what princi ples they have. > Everyone wishes there was a manual or living. I have it.
HOW TO B E BETTER AT E-MAIL JUST IN CASE THERE’S ANYTHING YOU’RE DOING WRONG By David McDowell, senior director, Yahoo! Mail I have 36,815 e-mails in my in-box, which gives me more per-
spective than most people on what makes a good e-mail. First and foremost, a good e-mail is brief. With more people reading e-mail on the go, all the important information in an e-mail should be visible in one smartphone screen, which displays about one hundred words. It’s hard to convey the emotion you intend with so few words, and that may be why grown-up e-mailers are using texting habits like emoticons, acronyms (LOL), and elaborate punctuation!!! But at work, it’s best to stick to the facts. And if subtlety is important, that’s a good signal it’s time to pick up the phone. No one needs more e-mail, especially the boss. ;--) As a manager myself, I prefer a brief e-mail summary to being copied on e-mails and wading through a long e-mail thread. Even better, I like stand-up meetings where issues are discussed verbally and action items are e-mailed. And I think the only time BCC: should be used is to move someone from the TO: or CC: line, which gracefully prevents that person from receiving future replies. People are overwhelmed by the amount of e-mail they re-
84
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
ceive, so don’t underestimate the importance of the subject line to make an e-mail stand out. If there is an action needed or if the e-mail is just a heads-up, let the recipient know what is expected of them by including “FYI” or “Action Requested” right in the subject line. Speaking of the subject line, be specific. For instance, when e-mailing a résumé, use “McDowell Resume for Manager Position” rather than “Resume” as the subject line. Start fresh with a new subject line when changing topics. A relevant subject helps when scanning or searching the in-box to find a particular e-mail. Finally, be specific with your out-of- office reply, too. Include information about when you will return and whom to contact in your absence. Many e-mail clients have the ability to tailor an out-of-office reply based on the sender. Take advantage of that feature to provide the right level of detail to important contacts without oversharing vacation plans with everyone! When it comes to humor in your out-of-office, it ’s probably never a good idea. A joke is funny once, but if someone is copying you on emails while you’re away, it will get old fast.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE M
C
KENDRY
1 IMMACULATE PERCEPTION Gives you a tailored Eliminates EFG
2 HALO EFFECT
3
HOLY SHIRT!
IT’S A MIRACLE
SIN
– boxy undershirt
REDEMPTION
– TOMMY JOHN
TOMMYJOHNUNDERWEAR.COM INTELLIGENT MENSWEAR
ENTER “ TJMAYESQ” AT CHECKOUT FOR SPECIAL OFFER ALSO AVAILABLE AT NORDSTROM
www.fossil.com/swiss
INTRODUCING THE NEW
FOSSIL SWISS
COLLECTION
Our automatic-mo vement watch es co ntain h undreds of independ ent mo ving parts, assembled by hand, that work togethe r toward a commo n go al . The results are exemplified in the Fossil Swiss Automatic —it’s complex, unique and remarkable.
Fossil Swiss: the perfect union of A merican in genuity and Swiss craftsm an ship.
ESQUIRE:
WORKING STYLE
THE
BEST DRESSED GUY IN THE OFFICE IN A SUIT AND TIE. IN A BLAZER AND JEANS. IN A POLO SHIRT AND CHINOS. HEY,, IT COU LD BE YOU. HEY PHOTOGRAPH BY MATTIAS EDWALL
GENTLEMEN: We’ve come a long way. Gone (mostly) is the tyranny o the twopiece suit, and the less said about Casual Fridays the better. Today, Today, more and more o us are earning the right rig ht to wear a mix o casual and tailored clothing to work, and it’s important to invest wisely. I picking up a sport jacket, look or a highquality cloth that has an interesting texture and a light construction. I wearing jeans, make sure they’re dark and they fit impeccably. Don’t skimp on quality or cratsmanship simply because you’ve opted to loosen up. Invest wisely and look your best every day.
Three-button cotton jacket ($195) by Banana Republic; cashmere-and-cotton sweater ($695) by Ermenegildo Zegna; cotton shirt ($195) by Hamilton Shirts; cotton jeans ($168) by AG Adriano Goldschmied; suede shoes ($365) by Grenson; canvasand-nylon briefcase ($225) by Jack Spade.
88
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
. d e v r e s e r s t h g i r l l A . c n I , s r e t f a r C s n e L 3 1 0 2 ©
PERFORMANCE NOW IN PRESCRIPTION IN THE LATEST SUN FRAMES
All the best sport frames are now available in prescription. Now you can perform better an d see better too.
A L L B U S I N E S S
THE NEW
POWER SUIT Say you’re still required to throw on a two-piece every day. In addition to the navy blues and solid grays already in your closet, spring for a power suit for the days you really need a lift. A ballsy pattern (chalk stripes, say, or glen plaid) or a distinctive weave (like this here wool-silk blend) commands attention, and provided you keep your shirt and tie relatively restrained, you can’t help but make a good impression.
Two-button wooland-silk suit ($4,195) by Giorgio Armani; cotton shirt ($375) by Ermenegildo Zegna; silk tie ($60) by Banana Republic; leather shoes ($395) by Johnston & Murphy; steel Traditional GMT Quartz watch ($450) by Tissot. Opposite: Doublebreasted wool suit ($3,365), , , cotton co on shirt s r ($375), and silk tie ($195) by Ermenegildo Zegna; steel-andtitanium TimeWa titanium TimeWalker er ChronoVoyager UTC watch ($6,415) by Montblanc.
90
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
ESQUIRE:
WORKING
THE DOUBLE-BREASTED SITUATION:
If you ’ve b een si tti ng out the recent DB craze to see how it was going to pan out, this just in: DB is here to stay. It’s a great way to turn up the volume of a standard suit, especially when the jacket is cut slim in the torso and arms.
STYLE
THE ENDORSEMENT
THE
BlackShoe Don’t get us wrong: We love a polished brown lace-up around here. But the classic black cap-toe oxford shown above remains the platonic ideal of a dress shoe, and if you are to invest your time and tender into one pair of shoes, let this be it. Leather shoes ($475) by Johnston & Murphy.
THE NEW
L L A W D E S A I T T A M Y B S H P A R G O T O H P : T F E L
SHIRT AND TIE RULES
Gingham? Sure. But butch it up some with a wool tie that has some weight to it. Cotton shirt ($109) by J. Hilburn; wool tie ($15) by the Tie Bar.
Smaller pattern on shirt, bigger pattern on tie. Bigger pattern on shirt, smaller pattern on tie. Repeat. Cotton shirt ($375) by Ermenegildo Zegna; silk tie ($15) by the Tie Bar.
The man who bristles at the wearing of pink does not deserve the glory of its splendor. Cotton shirt ($270) by Thomas Pink; silk tie ($155) by Paul Smith.
Blue shirts are boring. Liven things up and take a chance with your tie. Cotton shirt ($135) by Thomas Mason for J. Crew; silk tie ($195) by Ralph Lauren Purple Label.
P O T , E G A P S I H T D N A E T I S O P P O
Many colors at once: tricky. When in doubt, match major color in your tie to minor color in your shirt (or vice versa). Cotton shirt ($304) by Ascot Chang; linen tie ($150) by Alexander Olch.
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
91
THE GUIDE
T H E C A S U A L O F F I C E
HOW CASUAL ARE YOUR PANTS?
POLO OR NO POLO?
The polo shirt got a bad rap during the Casual Frid ay de bac le. B ut if it fit s imp ecc abl y in t he ar ms an d sides (and lacks any visible logos), it’s a perfectly sensible option to pair with chinos and decent shoes. Take you r cas ual c ues f rom you b oss, and i f he p olo s, so can you.
NOT VERY
1
A L L B U S I N E S S
2
3
4
THE EXTRA 10 PERCENT THE SUGGESTION: WEAR A TIE WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO.
L L A W D E
The Double-MonkStrap Loafers
S A I T T A M
5
VERY Especially i it’s a casual tie, meaning: It has texture. (Less shiny and flat than a typical dress tie.) And it’s thin. (Thinner, anyway, than what you’re used to.) And it’s squared at the bottom. And it looks great. Silk knit tie ($60) by J. Crew.
92
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
Please wear accordingly. 1. Cotton moleskin trousers
($487) by Phineas Cole. 2. Cotton corduroy trousers ($195) by J. Lindeberg. 3. Cotton
These are either the dressiest of a man’s casual shoes or the most casual of his dress shoes, and you can wear them to elevate a pair of weathered khakis or dark jeans above lazy-weekend status. Leather monk-straps ($675) by Church’s.
trousers ($395) by Dunhill. 4. Cotton jeans ($244) by True Religion. 5. Cotton chinos ($68) by Dockers.
Y B S H P A R G O T O H P : T F E L P O T , E G A P S I H T D N A E T I S O P P O
ESQUIRE: ONE GOOD
SPORT JACKET
WORKING STYLE
Now is a great time to be in the market for a sport jacket (or a blazer, or whatever you want to call it). The range of patterns and cloths is staggering, and you’ll want to look for a light construction (i.e., not too much padding) and a hint of texture, which conveys it wasn’t swiped from a suit. Throw it over a dress shirt or a more laid-back button-down and you’re ready for anything.
FOR STORE INFORMATION SEE PAGE 160.
Two-button cotton-and-linen jacket ($665) by L.B.M. 1911; cotton shirt ($195), Black Fleece by Brooks Brothers; cotton jeans ($180) by Diesel; cotton pocket square ($40) by Paul Stuart. Opposite: Cotton polo shirt ($85) by Jack Spade; cotton chinos ($80) by Kenneth Cole; suede ankle boots ($440) by Church’s; steel Gent’s Freelancer chronograph ($3,100) by Raymond Weil.
93
POLITICS
confidence” would have been to lose the previous two presidential elections retroactively. What also was plain was that the president had no intention of being moved off this choice—or, for that matter, off his subsequent elevation of John Brennan to head the CIA despite the loud opposition of the political left—me included—over the drone program that got so heedless that some progressive voices even lined up with nutty Rand Paul in his “talking filibuster” against the Brennan nomination, until many of them realized that, on 99.99 percent of the issues facing the nation, Rand Paul is nuttier than his father. The president stood as strongly behind Brennan as he did behind Hagel, and as strongly as he stood behind attorney general Eric Holder during that whole preposterous “Fast and Furious” faux scandal. This is a president who has needed flak catchers as much as any president ever has, and his record indicates that he knows this as well as anybody. Two of the least satisfying things about the early days of The West Wing were all those earnest invocations of how they all “served at the pleasure of the president,” and the fact that a Democratic administration was forever threatening to fire, or not to hire, qualified people because there was something in their public records that would set off an ensemble hissy fit among the opposition. (Leo McGarry at one point vetoes the appointment of his own sister because she treated some home-schooled larvae badly on the issue of the constitutionality of public-school prayer.) Both of BY CHARLES P. PIERCE these flip the fundamental dynamic of pubThere was a moment back last winter, as the administration labored mightily to get lic service on its head. The president works Chuck Hagel confirmed as the new secretary of defense, in which I thought everything for the country. The president hires people might just snap. I thought there might come a moment in whi ch Hagel, fed up with the to work for the country and, occasionally, piddling and the sniping and the intimations that he was preparing to sell Fort Bragg and increasingly more often over the past to Islamic Jihad, would simply rip from his body the shrapnel that he sti ll carries there thirty years, the interests of the president from his days in Vietnam and throw the bloody chunks of it in the faces of his various and the interests of the country radically ditormentors both in and out of the United States Senate. This moment came when many verge. Generally, presidents don’t have to of the dimmer bulbs in the legislative chandelier—I mean, honestly, Ted Cruz and care about that very much, but presidential Ron Johnson? The ’ho-mongering David Vitter? Jim Inhofe?—signed a letter, per- appointees are put in an impossible bind. haps in crayon or perhaps not, in which they expressed their reservations a bout giving And those are only the ones who do not reHagel the job. The letter read, in part: quire congressional approval. “While we respect Senator Hagel’s honorable mili tary service, in the interest of naUltimately, to take any job in an admintional security, we respectfully request that you withdraw his nomination. It would istration below that of president or vice be unprecedented for a Secretary of Defense to take office without the broad base of president is to work on borrowed time. bipartisan support and confidence needed to serve effectively in this (There’s a reason why every Cabinet memcritical position.” ber hands in a letter of resignation at the Of course, it was plain to everyone watching this extended exercise beginning of a president’s second term.) Charles P. in Kabuki that the only way Barack Obama could have found someone But increasingly, and especially during Pierce writes every day on with what was being described by this collection of the lame, the halt, the past two Democratic administrations, Esquire.com’s Politics Blog. and the very, very stupid as a “broad base of bipartisan support and the personnel decisions of the executive
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S FLAK CATCHERS
Seldom has an opposition party been more meretricious, and never has there been a president more in need of guys to take the slings and arrows. Think you want to work for the president? Think again.
T 94
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
ILLUSTRATION BY LEO JUNG
POLITICS
branch are becoming subject to the poli- sponsibilities in administering the affairs tics of the moment, and, as such, the peo- of the government. As a collective body, ple being appointed increasingly find that they are about as useful as a vermiform apthey are the targets in proxy wars that have pendix—though far more honored.” Even nothing to do with their qualifications or presidents believe this, somewhere in the abilities and everything to do with simply broad, bloodless space between their huhurting Obama. Their nominations are be- man hearts and their political viscera. ing used as weapons in the political battles Richard Nixon allowed Henry Kissingover the policies they might be asked to er, then the national security advisor, to carry out, as though Chuck Hagel were go- do everything to Secretary of State Wiling to soften the country’s stance regard- liam Rogers except throw Rogers into the ing Iran—or any other threat to America, Tidal Basin before finally simply removing real or merely fantasized at CPAC—with- Rogers and replacing him with Kissinger.
Guinier’s academic record was impeccable. But the Journal falsely labeled her a “quota queen.” (In fact, Guinier had written extensively in academic journals about her opposition to quotas.) The resulting firestorm of enabled falsehood— which, as was customary during the Clinton presidency, lapped over from the fever swamps of the conservative media and into the mainstream—had the White House running for cover. (Clinton only recently had hired former Republican panjandrum David Gergen to reorganize his administration so that it could “pivot to the center.” Which, according to Beltway wiseguy conventional wisdom, is the only way a Democratic president is allowed to pivot.) Quickly, abandoning Guinier became yet another test of Clinton’s “centrism.” He passed. She went over the side. For all his maddening attempts to reconcile with the irreconcilable, and despite what I believe is as Republican-friendly a form of centrism as any practiced by Clinout the president noticing what was going What has changed a little is that, increas- ton, the one area in which the president on. This is anticipatory political war based ingly, the Congress has taken Reedy’s as- has stood firm—with one notable excepon something an administration might sessment to heart as well. tion, which we’ll get to in a moment—is in do—no, scratch that, based on something I am not one of those boring sods who be- putting the people he wants around him a deranged right-wing fever dream of an lieve that “politics” should always be kept in the jobs that he wants them to do, and administration might do—rather than any- out of the appointment process. (If Condi standing by them when the nonsense bething it has shown the slightest inclina- Rice had had as hard a slog to get to be sec- gins to fly. And that same discipline seems tion of actually doing, a way of limiting retary of state as Hagel did to be secretary of to hold true for most of the W hite House the president’s options on decisions pre- defense, I would have been a much happier staff as well. When it looked like Holder emptively, lest Obama go through with his man.) Every office in government is a polit- was taking on water over Fast and Furiplans to make Ban Ki-moon copresident. ical office. The system was designed to be ous, there was no anonymous wheedling (Just watch, that last thing will have legs.) that way. Confirmation fights are supposed from the administration to the effect that Hagel’s nomination fight was a way to tell to be political fights. The problems come in it might be time for Holder to take one for the president that any shift on Iran—or, in- when presidents decide they don’t want to the team and go spend more time with his deed, any major departure from the fun- win them because they might be too hard. family. There was very little sub rosa cavildamental principles of the war on “terIn many ways, Bill Clinton was an admi- ing over Hagel, either, even when the likes ror”—would be taken at his own peril. The rable president, but his towering political of Ted Cruz—Washington’s newest case president, to his credit, did not blink. He skills had one great flaw. If he saw a polit- of rhetorical ringworm (was there ever a still has the same options in 2014 and 2015 ical fight in which he had no room t o tri- smirk more in need of being wiped off a that he had before Chuck Hagel ever went angulate his position—in which there was man’s face?)—was intimating that the for before the committee. This was not always no Third Way—he often would abandon mer right-wing senator from Nebraska the case. Presidents can be defined by how it in favor of a political fight that gave him might be committing treason by cashing they allow their future policy choices to be more room to maneuver. Unfortunately, retainer checks from North Korea. This circumscribed. Presidents can be defined on several occasions, the former included is not merely because, from long expenot only by whom they hire but also by nomination fights, which had real conse- rience, this president has a nearly inhuwhom they choose to fire. Or not. And why. quences for individual people, and which man ability to avoid rising to the bait. And lent Clinton’s administration not an air of it’s not merely because the criticism was The late historian George Reedy, who incompetence but an air of fecklessness. so laughable and the “scandals” so empwrote The Twilight of the Presidency, Most notably, this was true in the 1993 ty. It’s that, far more than the previous which remains a seminal and prescient ac- case of Lani Guinier, Clinton’s nominee Democratic president, this one sees the count of how the office works, once wrote to be the assistant attorney general for civil policies and the people who carry them of a president’s Cabinet that it “is one of rights, whom he abandoned in the face of a out as inseparable. A fight over one is a those institutions in which the whole is harsh—and completely meretricious—at- fight over the other. For all his profess ed less than the sum of its parts. As individ- tack on Guinier’s scholarship by The Wall coolness, and for all his apparent abiliual officers, the members bear heavy re- Street Journal. ty to let personal [ continued on page 160]
IF CONDI RICE HAD HAD AS HARD A SLOG TO GET TO BE SECRETARY OF STATE AS CHUCK HAGEL DID TO BE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, I WOULD HAVE BEEN A MUCH HAPPIER MAN.
T
96
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
Clip, Save, Share.
PROMOTION
Style is nothing without quality craftsmanship to hold it together. Suit up with Herradura’s ultra-premium tequila for a drink that’s always the right fit. Herradura Vesuvio Ingredients
2 oz Herradura Silver ¾ oz Red pepper juice ½ oz Lime Juice ¼ oz Cholula hot sauce ¼ oz Agave nectar Directions
Rim a coupe glass with mix of cayenne pepper and salt. Add all ingredients in a cocktail shaker, shake hard and strain into the chilled coupe glass. More craft cocktails at facebook.com/herraduratequila MAKE A CLEAR STATEMENT. DRINK RESPONSIBLY. Alc. 40% by Vol. (80 proof). Tequila imported by Brown-Forman, Louisville, KY ©2013
A simple reflection of urban Swiss style, the new ‘Bally Stripe’ collection of leather goods possesses the quality and craftsmanship expected from Bally, while simultaneously delivering an understated casual-luxe take on the brand’s signature red-and-white stripes. Comprised of an assortment of duffels, messenger bags and totes, the collection hits stores in May priced from $995 to $2,095. 212-446-3912; www.BALLY.com
A four-supplement pack designed specifically for active men. Contains our scientifically formulated Mega Men ® Sport Multivitamin with 2,000 IU of vitamin D-3 and an energy enhancer to boost metabolism and burn calories. Also included is an L-arginine and L-citrulline combination to provide support for nitric oxide production and L-glutamine to support recovery.
A T W E D W H N A — T S I D E HERE G OU N I E B O U T T F E R O ’ E N T I O I L E W E B R A O W H R S D O A C E L T R O G E L I K E P A U L S T R I L L U
A T I O
Y N S B
Winter is over, and temperatures have returned to a level hospitable to creatures with warm blood. So get off the couch and into some shorts. Maybe put on a little sunscreen. It’s time to get outside again. 98
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
NOW IS THE TIME
to discover a world where the fame o the grill burns long and bright and true. Where each grill is created with equal parts o joy and technology. Where starters start, temperatures hold strong, and the goodness o the grill is endless. So come along. Pick up the tongs. Raise your spatulas. It’s time.
THE ENDORSEMENT
OU T OF DOORS TH E OU TD OO R SHOWER
2013
When a Man Learns to Slalom AS MUCH FUN AS I T IS ALR EADY, WATERSKIING CAN BE EVEN BETTER—AS SOON AS YOU GET A LITTL E HELP
BY
PETER
The best thing about waterskiing—
aside from the rush of skimming over the water at the top speed of a Kia—is that everyone can do it, from a kid to a grandpa. And that’s where the trouble starts: You start to think you know what you’re doing. Which is dumb. You wouldn’t take up the oboe with only a few pointers from a n eighbor, and you shouldn’t do it with waterskiing, either. My dad taught me to ski, just like he taught me to throw a baseball and tuck my undershirt directly into my underwear. But unlike baseball, no coach ever took over for waterskiing. And unlike my Hanes undersuit, waterskiing didn’t solve itself the first time I walked in front of a mirror. On the water, I was limited to what he could teach me and what I could figure out on my own. Which was fine, until I got bored and wanted to slalom. No matter how much advice my dad gave or how many times I watched him, I couldn’t get out of the water. It sucked. And it hurt. I’d basically given up, and then I spent time with Boca Raton ski instructor an d former national barefoot champion Mike Frankenbush ($140 per hour; walkinonwaterski.com). What I couldn’t learn in two weeks, he taught me in two hours. And he didn’t seem to care or know that I took a leak while he did it.
MARTIN
SOME OF HIS TIPS: BALANCE LEG: To know which foot to use, start
on two skis and try the skier’s salute: Raise the tip of one ski high in the air while balancing on the other. Use whichever leg you can stay up on for ten seconds. PREP: Ball up like a cannonball, with your forward knee touching your chest. Your back leg should be out of the ski and extended behind you, and your ski should be barely above the surface of the water, with the smallest angle you can get between tip and water. STANDING: When you think you should stand, wait. Let the ski fully plane before you attempt to extend your leg. Then—and this is the most helpful thing a beginning slalom skier can learn—to gain balance, jam your back foot into the wake like a rudder. You may not look that smooth, but your rear foot provides support until your front leg is under control. SKIING: Everybody wants to lean back, but you should actually keep your knees bent and your body centered over your feet. Once you’re up, slalom is actually easier than two skis. And a lot more fun. CONFIDENCE: Don’t ask about the alligators until after you’ve headed in for the day.
REQUIRED DEDICATION LOW
HO Sports Burner Pro: Wide, with a deep V bottom or improved stability. ($215; hosports.com)
THE GEAR
300 Feet Up ROCK CLIMBERS ARE EITHER HIGHLY TECHNICAL, OR DEAD
BY DAVID CURCURITO
W H I T E - W AT E R R A F T I N G ON THE SNAKE RIVER
A FEW PLACES TO GO
100
ESQUIRE
HIGH
HELLS CANYON, OREGON
MAY 2013
Movies. Drinking. Children. While perectly enjoyable indoors, they all become exponentially better when brought outside. And those are just run-o-the-mill joys. Now think about your shower. Inside, it’s a sanctuary. Outside, it’s a celebration o luxury and privacy. Without steam to smother you, your body eels every degree o diference between the chill o the air and the heat o the water. Your mind relaxes, distracted by the beauty around it, but there’s also a pleasant tensiona sense that, purely by being unclothed, you’re doing something illicit. Embrace it. Ater all, you’re outside, just as God intended. Naked, just as God intended. And in a private space, just as your neighbors preer. P. M.
Rock climbing is a lot like golf: You’ll be a beginner for the rest of your life. It’s also not at all like golf, in that picking the wrong club won’t end with you falling to your death. The sport requires constant precision, which means climbers are nothing like your average jock. There’s not a lot of ass slapping or chest poundi ng. There’s no time for that k ind of thin g. Not when you have checks, double checks, and triple checks to follow. Your life depends on the choices you make—and the mistakes.
Category IV rapids in the deepest river gorge in North America. One boat goes ahead to set up lunch and camp, so it’s ready when you get there. (three-day trip, $990 per person; rowadventures.com )
Buy selected items rom this story by scanning here with Netpage.
THE GEAR
Stihl MS-271: Compact and powerul, with low emissions to help you eel green. You know, while you’re cutting down trees. ($440; stihlusa.com)
My Acre WHERE I CAN DO, LEARN, AND FELL WHATEVER I WANT
BY
R YA N
D’AGOSTIN O
Long before my wife and I bought the house, some for-
gotten storm had knocked over an oak, and it had landed at the base of a birch. No one ever cleared the oak, and its rotted-out hulk sat against the trunk of the birch, redirecting its growth, forcing it into a gnarled arc hanging like a gal lows over what is now my driveway. My father looked at it when he was helping us move in. “You’ll probably want to get a chain saw and do something about that,” he said. Soon enough, I forgot about the birch. There was so much to do, and in the first few months I tackled jobs that seemed more urgent, like painting, and removing the nest mice had built in the engine of my car. Also, there was the fear. It would be embarrassing to cut off my leg with a chain saw so soon after moving to the country. Not
Your most important choice is your climbing partner. You need to trust him with your lie. Your first climb will probably go something like this: “Um, so you’ve got me, right? This rope will hold me, right?” Then you climb a little and ask again. You climb a little higher and you lock up—staring directly ahead, gripping the rock so tightly your arms shake. Your hands are sweating like crazy and you yell to your partner, “I can’t do this, I’m going to all, I’m going to all.” Then your arms give out and you all—our to six inches.
PIKE FISHING IN SASKATCHEWAN
MISAW LAKE LODGE, SASKATCHEWAN
that I mentioned the fear to my father, who is not afraid of anythi ng. I called Stihl, because Andreas Stihl invented the chain saw. I told them my story: new house, medium-sized tree, not scared at all. They suggested the MS-271, a workhorse. They also suggested bright orange chaps, a helmet with a mesh mask and built-in earphones, gloves, and goggles. I got it all. I also spent a good hour with Mark at Bethel Power Equipment, asking him to show me one more time how to start it, what to do if it kicks back, the right stance. Finally, one warm Saturday, I called my dad and asked if he wanted to come check out the saw. He loves this stuff. If it’s outside and there’s two-cycle-engine oil involved, he’s in. An hour later we were standing next to the birch. I wore the helmet with the built-in earphones and the mesh mask, the gloves, the orange chaps. I looked like an ironworker dressed up as a smoke jumper. My dad wore old khakis. He showed me how to cut a notch so the tree wouldn’t bind around the blade. I braced the chain saw against the ground with my boot, as Mark had shown me. I pulled the starter and the chain saw roared into the spring air like a turboprop. I tightened my grip, aimed the blade at the invisible mark my dad had drawn on the trunk with his finger. I held it close to the wood. I was nervous. Three seconds. That’s probably what it took to make the notch. Then another ten to draw the blade through the trunk. I barel y felt it—that’s how powerful a chain saw is. My whole body was tensed , guarding against a kickback. I was imagining, even as I sawed, what all those tiny tooth blades could do to my leg if they could float through a tree trunk that easily. “Nice one,” my dad said as the birch fell. “I gotta admit,” I said. “I was a little scared.” And he looked over at me and said, “That’s good.” I removed my giant helmet. “Yeah?” “Oh, yeah,” he said. “You always want to be a little scared of a chain saw.”
REQUIRED DEDICATION
LOW
You eel the weight o your body in the harness. You pry your eyes back open and thin k, I didn’t die. That’s not so bad. Also: Look at the size of my junk in this harness. And so you try again, but this time you have more trust in the equipment, your partner, and, most important, yoursel. Eventually you learn to rely on your eet and legs—not your arms, as p eople assume. It’s about the small movements, not the leaps and dangles. When done well, climbing looks eortless, like a dance. And it’s thrilling. Hanging three hundred eet
HIG H
above the ground on a vertical slab, your heart pumping, the wind blowin g in your hair, and a small pee stain on your pants—you get a real sense o accomplishment, a workout, and a antastic view. No matter how good you get, one thing you never wan t to lose in climbing is ear. Use it to your advan tage. A climber with no ear is probably dead. REQUIRED DEDICATION
LOW
HI GH
A sixteen-person fly-in camp just inside the northeast border o Saskatchewan—our hours and hundreds o miles rom anything you could even begin to consider civilization. Gourmet breakast and dinner at the lodge, but every other minute is fishing, routinely pulling in orty-five-inch northern pike with your Indian guide. Ask or Thomas. ($3,595 or five days; misawlakelodge.com)
101
OU T OF DOORS 2013
The Joy of Tennis BUT ONLY WHEN YOU’RE WINNING
BY
RICHARD
I can tell you the last time I loved playing tennis. It
was late in the summer of 1990, and I was playing the only other eleven-year-old I knew who could beat me with any consistency. He was a pint-sized McEnroe— all serve and volley and Are you KIDDING me?!?—and I was a little Borg, holding the baseline, chasing down the ball, waiting for his returns to go long or wide or in the net. I broke him late in the first
DORMENT
set, and he slammed down his racket, screeched, and broke down in tears. It was brutally hot and impossibly sunny, and as I waited for his tantrum to subside and felt my sunscreened sweat burn my eyes, I remember thinking, This is fun. It didn’t last long. He beat me that day in three, and after working relentlessly on his game the following winter, he’d never drop a set to me again. Other kids our age also started to get serious about
COOKING
HO W TO COOK OUTSIDE
BY JEREMY SEWALL CHEF, ISLAND CREEK OYSTER BAR, BOSTON
SCUBA DIVING THE GREAT BLUE HOLE
BELIZE
102
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
I come from a family of lobstermen. Growing up, we would have big clambakes on the beach, with lob sters caught that morning. You can recreate this pretty much anywhere with a classic New England bonfire. Dig a hole in the sand or dirt, one oot deep and two and a hal eet by two and a hal eet across. Build a big fire inside. Use hardwood i you have it—apple, oak, birch. Wait until the flames burn down an d you have a bed o really, really hot coals. First thing to do is get some potatoes going. They take about an hour. Wrap each one in oil and set them around th e edge o the fire, right in the coals. Spin them 180 degrees a couple o times as they coo k. Next, prop a grill grate eight i nches above the coals. Put a ew sticks o butter in a pot and set it toward the edge so the butter melts while you get the fis h ready. (Keep your seaood in a cooler on a layer o ice until you’re ready to cook it, but never let the ice melt so mu ch that your clams or lobsters are in standing water. They’ll drown.) Lay hard-shelled clams li ke littlenecks or cherrystones directly on the grill and let them open up. Grab th em o the grill with tongs and dip them in the melted butter. You can do the same thing with oysters, minus the butter. Split live lobsters in hal lengthwise by laying each one on its back and drivin g the tip o a knie through the head—this kills them instantly. Then just continue cutting down the length o the lobster. Crack the claws a little so the meat gets exposed to the heat—claw shells are thicker than th e rest o the body. Throw on the grill and turn them while they cook. When the tail meat is nice and white and eels firm, the lobster is cooked. There are no rules to this. Let everyone graze around the fire all aternoon and into the night. You’ll have some resh lemon you’re squeezing on everyth ing. Everyone will be eating with their hands. And you’ll never want it to stop.
Drop into the warm water o this beautiul, enormous circular sinkhole and you’ll quickly find yoursel deeper than you’ve ever gone beore. Then look up to see the unmistakable silhouettes o curious sharks. Dozens o them. Maybe hundreds. Don’t orget to breathe. ($225 per person; frenchiesdivingbelize.com )
Clip, Save, Share, rom any page. Download ree rom the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
tennis—about topspin and pronation and strategy. And they would eventually kick my ass, too. I never wanted to get serious. I only wanted to have fun, and those easy lessons on long summer days were all the fun I ever needed. I wasn’t smart enough to realize until it was too late that winning, or even the prospect of winning, was the fun part for me, and once I let my peers get so far ahead of me in form and technique, the fun pretty much stopped. I would spend the next twenty years not playing a game that had filled my bookshelf with trophies, and I now look back on that time the way friends of mine talk about their early soccer stardom or Little League no-hitters: I was really good as a kid, you know. That’s how I found myself taking daily lessons at Manhattan Plaza Racquet Club in New York City. Bored with the gym and facing another summer sitting on my ass, I convinced myself that with intensive practice and a little discipline, I could recapture what I’d lost and maybe even improve on it. I bought some Federer Nikes (ugly, but comfortable), borrowed a racket (see right), and committed myself to becoming the best eleven year-old player I could possibly be. My instructor, Hunter Holbrook, was once a DIII all-conference player (and a former intern at this magazine), and after hitting with me for an hour on my first day, he was encouraged. “Good fundamental stroke mechanics,” he wrote in his notes (which he
/IncredibleEdibleEgg Brought to you by America’s egg farmers.
THE GEAR
Wilson Steam 99S:
A new stringing technique improves topspin, which Wilson claims virtually lengthens the court by up to a foot. ($220; wilson.com/tennis)
shared with me in full after I’d completed my training with him). “Understandably very rusty considering lack of time on court in recent years . . . but the ability is there.” I tore up my feet and hands with blisters, pulled muscles in my shoulders and hips. I looked at first like John Candy huffing and heaving his way through the racquetball game in Splash. But gradually, I did get better. With each lesson, which typically ended with a few games of competitive match play (with Hunter playing at around 30 percent), I’d sense that once familiar feeling creep up on me. Was this fun? It was fun. I was having fun! The last time I played with Hunter, his notes read, “With the right amount of time on court, you coul d really make great strides.” And this got me to thinking about one of our lessons early on. There were two matches going on on neighboring courts. On court one: two guys roughly my age and build, hitting and spinning the shit out of the ball and locked in some kind of grudge match to settle a bar ta b. On court two: an older married couple thick with age, dinking the ball back and forth, complimenting each other’s points, laughing at each other’s faults, and having what appeared to be a blast. What a great way, I thought, to spend an afternoon. For them. I had to get back to my ground strokes.
REQUIRED DEDICATION LOW
HIGH
OU T OF DOORS 2013
How to Camp Alone YOU CAN’T KNOW WHAT’S ESSENTIAL UNTIL YOU’RE LEFT WITH NOTHING BUT BY
STEVEN
LECKART
In my twenties, I embraced treks into the wilder-
THE
GEAR ness because, like any liberal-arts major hopped up on Kerouac, I craved adventure and Zen and nournourishment for the soul, man. Now a thirty-something omet ng husband and dad with far less time (and marijuana) on hand, an , I’ve discovered that camping does, nevertheless, offer er more more than a reprieve from domesticity. Yes, I savor the break ea from rom broken garbage disposals and diaper changes. But it’s ’s not likee digging your own toilet, building a fire, and climbing trails ra s with wt thirty-one pounds of gear on your back is any less of aa slog. s og. Sierra Designs I choose to camp because it’s Pack Sabbath: Time alone one just ust Light Year 1: to exist with what little you can carry. Stripping away all the Only two pounds, 11 ounces, and material stuff you don’t need (a hardback best seller, spare unfits both you and derwear) and prioritizing everything you do (water, complex your pack with a little room to carbohydrates, two-ply toilet paper) is a reminder of what’s esspare. ($190; sierrasential in this world. You don’t have to journey far, or for long, designs.com) to appreciate this. Recently, I spent a night on Angel Island, a small state park in San Francisco Bay with more deer than campers and magnificent views of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s not the backwoods of Alaska. But it worked. I also got more than I’d expected: At dinner, my headlamp illumina ted two glowing green eyes in the bushes. “Our raccoons,” a park ranger had warned me that morning, “are particularly aggressive.” If you find yourself in such a predicament, here is what will go down: You will pull out your pocketknife, and you will bellow to no one in particular, “I got this.” And when that furry little bastard charges, you won’t hesitate. Or maybe you’ll just shuffle briskly into your tent, zip it shut, and keep swigging from a flask until you conk out at 8:17 P.M., only to awaken two hours later to something from outside slapping against your leg. And you’ll kick whatever-the-fk-that-is until it scampers away, allowing you to slip back into a not-so-deep sleep. Either way, you’ll awaken when the sun decides you should . The tent will feel more cramped than it did the night before. You’ll reek of bad breath, bourbon, and nutsack. But stepping back outside to look around, you will feel refreshed. And you’ll fire up your little stove, and brew a cup of black coffee, and sip it leisurely, because there REQUIRED DEDICATION is nowhere you have to be, and nothing LOW HIGH else to do. Not right now. ≥
ICE CLIMBING IN ALASKA
CHUGACH MOUNTAINS, A NC HO RA GE
104
ESQUIRE
MONTH 2011
There’s ice year-round. Get set up with gear, then spend the day climbing vertical clis o glacier ice. (from $250 per person; ascendingpath.com )
TIM MCGRAW 3-TIME GRAMMY®
WINNER
P E N N Z O I L . ®
TWO L A N E S O F F R E E D O M . ONE A M A Z I N G T O U R .
CRUISE INTO THE SUMMER CONCERT SEASON WITH TIM MCGRAW AND PENNZOIL.® No matter what car you drive, Pennzoil has the right motor oil for you. From conventional to full synthetic, every bottle of Pennzoil is formulated with Active Cleansing Agents™ to help clean out dirt and sludge lesser oils leave behind*. It doesn’t matter whether you love the freedom of the open road or the excitement of life in the fast lane; it only matters what you put in your car.
™
MAKE IT A PENNZOIL CHANGE.
*Based on severe sludge clean-up test using SAE 5W-30. ©2013 SOPUS Products. All rights reserved. SRT is a registered trademark of Chrysler Group LLC.
106
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
O D R A LEON N A M A E M A BEC
OUS M A F T S H E M O WO R L D T S E O D T HE G M A N I N R A I N OF L I V I N ? OR E ST O H D T L S E U FE E ST O F E S H E M A K E S R E H T AS HOIC C E F I L EG R E E E D H T E E N R O A EN B ET W E DERF UL AND N O F WO O T H E R ? AN
UKUL D A V X A M Y HS B PHOTOGRAP
Guy sitting t ng in a room, talking about how comfortable r hee feels. ee Then he cracks his neck. ec Thing n is, he cracks rac s his neck at at the t exactt moment m he’ss talking ta about how comfortable ort he feels—as ee s he’ss giving v a little t e speech sp about his feelings ngs of o comfort.. Thiss iss whatt hee says: s “Most recently, “Mos c , tthe last a few year years, I feel e way wa more re comfortable than an I’ve ever felt. e You always talk about that, at,and an then one . day a yo you’re like: If they don’t like this, well, fuck ’’em.What can you do?? It’s It’ a resignation to life and who you are. e.Hey,, look, lo I’m pretty well-formed as an adult now. I don’t havee to impress anybody. ty w You o ask yourself these different questions: What do I want to do? Interestingquestion: What do I want to do? What makes me really happy? I’ve learned all these things that I’m supposed to do. I know I’m supposed to be in that place and do that thing . . . but to really, deeply ask yourself that question—What do I want to do?” First crack comes at the beginning of the speech, as the punctuation of the first sentence. And it’s really loud. He’s sitting in a chair when he does it, in the big empty conference room of a big expensive hotel. He’s been sitting in the chair a couple hours. He’s been all twisty, one leg slung over the other, the collar of his V-neck T-shirt not lining up with the collar of the
108
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
blue-and-black-checked shirt he wears over it. He’s one of those guys who has to invest a lot of energy into staying put, and so as he makes his speech, he’s also untangling himself, putting his hands on his knees and his feet on the floor. And then he starts straining against himself, like Samson in chains. This is how it goes: When he says “Most recently, the last few years, I feel way more comfortable than I’ve ever felt,” he turns his chin toward his right shoulder, a full 45 degrees. A stripe of blue vein shows up in his surprisingly thick neck. Crack. And when he says “Interesting question:What do I want to do?” he turns his chin toward his left shoulder. Crack. Each crack has a snappy percussive element, like a fingernail flicked hard against a snare drum. Each one is loud enough to be heard on a tape recorder. Now, the guy is an actor, so imagine if he cracked his neck like that in a movie while giving a speech about, you know, happiness. Imagine that he’s sitting in a big empty room, and he’s dwarfed by both its size and its ratty, faded elegance—the scarred little ta ble next to his chair, the yellowed carpet under his feet, the dustgray chandelier that hangs over his head. And imagine one more thing—that he’s wearing a jaunty little driving cap and smoking a
battery-powered cigarette with a glowing green tip. . . no, that he’s been blowing smoke rings with the battery-powered cigarette, even though the whole point of the battery-powered cigarette is that there’s no fire and nothing ever really burns. The cracked neck would mean something, right? In a movie, it would be a gesture— a tell. It would reveal character. If the screenwriter put it in the script, it would serve the story. If the director suggested it, it would serve his vision. And if the actor just, like, did it in a take, it would show how intuitive he is. He would crack his neck to add tension to the scene, to communicate menace, or, at the very least, to undercut his own claims of comfort. One thing is certain: No actor cracks his neck like that in a movie for no reason at all. But here’s the thing: Leonardo DiCaprio is not in a movie. He’s just being himself. The cracked neck is just a cracked neck, not a significant gesture but rather a neutral and therefore inscrutable one. You’re not even supposed to ask about it, and when you do the conversation immediately sounds ridiculous: “You just cracked your neck.” “I did.” “That was some crack.” “It was. It was pretty loud.” And so the cracked neck becomes the measure of the difference between the two lives that Leonardo DiCaprio has made for himself: In the dark of the movie theater, it would mean everything. In the light of day, it means nothing at all. Guy walks wa s into the venerable Hollywood establishment Dan Tana’s. Differ na’ Different e guy—not Leonardo DiCaprio. But this guy, Rick Yorn, has as something s very valuable in a place like Dan Tana’s back in n 1999—he 11999— has Leonardo DiCaprio, whom he has represented as a client c ientt since ssin DiCaprio was a kid. When the kid was just a teenager, he made mad ad two movies that announced his talent to a new generation of era of moviegoers the way, says one of his friends, that The Gra Graduate te and Midnight Cowboy announced not just the arrival of an actor o act actornamed Dustin Hoffman but also a whole new style of acting. The movies were This Boy’s LifeandWhat’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and in the first one the kid stands up to Robert De Niro, in the second to Johnny Depp. And then he made Romeo + Juliet and Titanic, which made him, as a very young man, the biggest movie star in the world. So when Yorn goes to Dan Tana’s to meet some friends, he gets summoned to the table of a tanned old man in big black eyeglasses, Lew Wasserman. Wasserman is the wise old owl of Hollywood, in the sense that he has night vision and talons. He’s a combination rabbi and mobster, pope and Caesar, Darryl Zanuck and Henry Ford—he in-
vented the industry he lords over. And now he wants to speak to Yorn about his client. “Lew was old and near the end by this time,” Yorn says. “He died a year or two later. But he knew I was Leo’s manager, and he wanted to give me some advice. He said, ‘Only let them see him in a dark room.’ It took me a minute to figure it out. But what he meant was only let people see him in the movie theater. That’s the dark room.” It’s harder now, Yorn says. It’s harder to live out of the public eye than it was in Wasserman’s day. Every citizen has a camera, and every tabloid photographer has a camera with a telephoto lens. The kid lives in a celebrity surveillance state. Still, he’s done a pretty good job of “maintaining his mystique,” Yorn says—of making his living in the dark. And besides, he’s not a kid anymore. These days, when you call Rick Yorn and tell him you want to talk about Leo nardo DiCaprio, this is what he exclaims: “The king!” He’s been a pretty good king, as kings go. No, we don’t know very much about him outside the dark room, by his own design. What we do know is that he’s been doing what he’s doing for a very long time, and that he seems to have created for himself a life of unalloyed advantage. He has meaningful work and meaningful friendships. He has the power to make any movie he wants and a choice of both directors and women. He can go anywhere he pleases and has lately chosen to go where he feels he can do the most good. He’s not only talented but driven. He’s dogged in everything he’s ever done, a largely unschooled man who’s learned the value of doing his homework. If, at times, talking to him about life is like talking about food with someone who’s never done anything but order from a menu—well, the menu has been both expensive and extensive, and he’s learned enough to know exactly what he likes. He is always in ferocious demand, and yet he has always been in equally ferocious control of his own life, from the time he was very young. Is there anything else we can possibly ask of him, other than to lose control of his life, for our benefit? Is there anything else we can possibly ask of any of them, be they Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt or Matt Damon? We have a prejudice about kids who become kings, in that we like to see them earn their crown, preferably by enduring some kind of trial—by going off to battle or taking speech lessons or marrying a tragic queen. But what can we possibly ask Leonardo DiCaprio to endure, to prove himself to us? Can we see him as any less a man because he made the road to manhood look so easy? A few years ago, he was on a plane. He was flying to Russia. He was due to meet with Vladimir Putin at a conference Putin organized to help save the Siberian tiger. He’s taken the tiger as his cause. He was on a Delta flight to Moscow. He often flies commercial, according to friends who say that, after all, he’s just a regular guy. The flight had departed Kennedy and was already out over the ocean. He was looking out the window when he saw one of the engines explode. Remember that scene in Twilight Zone: The Movie when the guy looking out the window sees the monster gleefully tearing apart the wing? Leo fucking loves that movie, loves The Twilight Zone. He’s trying to produce a Twilight Zone movie of his own. But it was like that—he was, like, the first to see the engine explode, so he didn’t know if the engine had really exploded. Like a lot of famous people, he’s learned how to sleep on planes, so
109
he thought maybe he was dreaming. Or crazy, teen years ago, when he went from promising like the John Lithgow character in the movie. film star to international pop star, and his fame He thought to himself, Holy shit!but he didn’t jumped the boundaries of Lew Wasserman’s want to come right out and saythat. Then some dark room. He had the kind of young man’s guy in the first-class cabin said “Holy shit!” face beloved by young girls, soft and smoo th, really loud, in a heavy Russian accent. Then maybe even a little safe: a beautiful face, not . S H T the lights went out. Then the other engine, the unlike their own. And he still does, even now, ON : NINE M E K I L second engine, went out. He’s on this plane out in the haggard hotel room that scrubs even a over the ocean, the lights are out, and the simug like DiCaprio’s of its dark-room mysteries. lence is, like, consummate.Sure, there are peoIn person, he has what he has in the movies— ple screaming and shrieking and crying and unsullied cheeks, eyes striking not just for their E I V O praying, but the silence is what undergirds evcolor but for the volatility of their regard, and a M THAT D I D I erything, the silence is what’s inspiring peo big mobile forehead that he forces into frowns ple to make all that noise. The plane’s gliding, both expressive and utterly evanescent. It’s an dude. The pilots had to shut down the work American face, wide and malleable, with the ing engine to make sure that the engine he saw nibs of a mustache and beard, and dark exotexplode wasn’t on fire. ic eyebrows that function like Gothic arches , He had been in a similar situation once bein a megachurch. Eight years ago, his face was fore, when he was tandem skydiving and the attacked by a woman with a wineglass at a parchute didn’t open. He was just falling, falling, ty in the Hollywood Hills. He sustained sevfalling, in that eerie encompassing silence enteen stitches. But those scars have been eiof unbroken descent . . . while his instructor ther meticulously or miraculously dissolved. O T Y L T N worked to cut the line and deploy what turned It is no longer an unmixed blessing, that face. CONSTA out to be a second tangled chute. So he recogHis manager, Rick Yorn, calls him “a characnizes this feeling. He’s felt it before. He says to ter actor in a leading man’s body,” and he has OVIES IN himself, This is not good, whereupon he hears reached the point where his face needs to grow GREAT M the Russian guy echoing him in that heavy Rusinto his roles, not vice versa. His last two movsian accent, This is not good. . . . ies have seen him take on his own beauty— Then the second engine restarts, and they with makeup and claustrophobic prosthetics go up . . . but now they have to fly around for in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, and with what an hour, dumping fuel into the ocean, behe calls the “old-fashioned sand paint” that cause otherwise they’d be too heavy even for stained his teeth in Quentin Tarantino’s Djanthe emergency landing, the descent into the swirling red lights go Unchained.His friends suggest that he’s eager to leave his boyassembled on the tarmac. He can see them, too, through the winishness behind, but until he finds a replacement for it he’ll have dow in the distance, the consoling fire instead of the annihilating to work to make audiences accept him as a man. one, getting closer and closer—and then they land, and he signs It is not simply a matter of his face. He is a man on the verge autographs for the crew. of middle age who has not had the experiences that force oth And then he has to figure out what to do next. He has to decide er men to leave their boyhoods behind once and for all. He has whether to get in the air again. It’s not like he wants to, because not gotten married. He has not had children. He has not had to when you fall like that, you realize something about the air—it’s live with his mistakes. Instead, he has had experiences that most air. It’s not solid, and it can drown you. But he has—and this is other men can only dream of and has endured nothing but sucwhat people don’t realize—responsibilities. So he finds a private cess—fame, respect, money, meaningful work, adulation. Many plane willing to go right to St. Petersburg. By now, though, there’s of his friends remark upon his maturity. But even they can’t say weather over the Atlantic, and the private jet takes such a beathow he acquired it. ing that it can’t reach Russia on the allotted fuel. There’s an un“The Leo I know now is a man. The Leo I knew at nineteen scheduled landing in Helsinki. Still, he makes it to St. Petersburg, was a boy,” says Baz Luhrmann. Luhrmann directed DiCaprio makes Putin’s conference, and he writes a check for the tigers—$1 in Romeo + Juliet, the movie that introduced him to the teenmillion of his own money. And Putin recognizes not only a man age market and set him up for the seismic success of Titanic. In who loves tigers as much as he does, he recognizes a peer. One a way, Luhrmann was the last to see DiCaprio before he became, is a politician who has acquired enough power to live like a film in Luhrmann’s words, “as big as the Beatles.” star. One is a film star who has acquired enough fame to live like Now, twenty years later, he’s directed DiCaprio in this suma politician. They’re both the same; they both exist in t he world mer’s Great Gatsby. And he speaks of DiCaprio’s maturity with a of transcendent and transnational celebrity, and so when Putin reverence born of surprise and relief. “I tell people that they have addresses the conference, he asks Leonardo DiCaprio to stand up. to understand that Leonardo’s only ever be en on a movie set. He He recounts the whole story. And then at last, speaking in Rusknows nothing else. So I think it’s a paradox. There’s absolutesian, he pronounces DiCaprio a “nastoyashi muzhik” : ly no question that he’s grown and matured, but he’s grown and A real man. matured in a way unique to Leonardo. Nobody knows the kind of fame that Leonardo knows, and it’s far more common for people He does not yet look like a real man. Not with that face. It’s a fato become deranged by it. It’s generally quite toxic. But somehow mous face—famous for looking young. He’s thirty-eight years it hasn’t been toxic for Leonardo. He’s been very good at making old, but he doesn’t look substantially different than he did sixchoices for his self-preservation.”
NG O L W O H
U’RE O Y ? R O F T THA
,
.
110
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
. Y T I
N A M U H F O S N E Z I T I C Y B S N A E J ; I C C U G Y B T R I H S D N A R E T A E W S : 8 0 1 E G A P . A N A B B A G & E C L O D Y B E I T D N A , T R I H S , T I U S
Leo e was maybe twelve. He was on his way home from school with hiss mom.. He saw sa a kid making an episode of a TV show on a street in n L. A. He recognized the kid from auditions. That’s mainly what he e did in L. A., so he saw a lot of kids who were, on the surface, just like him—they were all animated by the same dream and had the li same determination and deep down they were all just as desperate.. But this kid,, Tobey Maguire, he really was just like Leo: He grew re up in L.. A. and he was being raised by a single mom and he didn’t n’t speak, s like, five languages and he just wanted—needed —to act. So DiCaprio told his mother to stop the car, like, now. “I literally jumped out of the car,” he says. “I was like, ‘Tobey! Tobey! Hey! Hey!’ And he was like, ‘Oh, yeah—I know you. You’re . . . that guy.’ But I just made him my pal. When I want someone to be my friend, I just make them my friend.” It was the beginning of a famous friendship; it was also the beginning of DiCaprio’s effort to organize around himself the surrogate family he would need to survive what he was about to become. He couldn’t have known the level of stardom that awaited him, and yet both DiCaprio and Maguire acknowledge that their friendship was no accidental adolescent alliance but rather an accomplishment of DiCaprio’s overweening sense of purpose: “You don’t become as successful as Leo if you don’t know how to get what you want,” Maguire says. DiCaprio wanted to be friends with Maguire, and with Lukas Haas and later with Kevin Connolly, in the same way that he wanted parts in movies. They were all child actors rather than simply children, and so they knew their way around the competition and rivalries that poison friendships formed in simpler circumstances—knew their way around the discovery that DiCaprio was not the same as them. It was a discovery that Maguire made when, after DiCaprio beat him out for the lead role in This Boy’s Life, Maguire got a part as one of his friends . . . and so had a chance to be on the set and witness the level of preparation that DiCaprio brought to his performance. It was a discovery that Connolly made watching DiCaprio play the mentally disabled boy in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, a role that earned DiCaprio an Academy Award nomination at the age of nineteen, and, in Connolly’s words, “changed everything.” No, it didn’t change their immediate circumstances; they were still living in crash pads in Westwood and Studio City and roaming L. A. like a pack of wolves. But it changed Connolly’s presumptions about his friend. He always thought—and still insists—that Leonardo DiCaprio is a “painfully normal guy.” But
112
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
he wasn’t, really, at least in terms of what he could do in the dark room. And so it was going to be Connolly’s task to help Leonardo DiCaprio lead the semblance of a normal life. It worked as well as it could. Twenty years ago, when Baz Luhrmann invited him to Australia to start working on Romeo + Juliet, DiCaprio traded in his business-class ticket for five tickets in coach and brought his friends with him. “I thought, He realizes he’s never going home,” Luhrmann says. “So he brought his home with him.” Luhrmann was right, on both counts. The level of fame that DiCaprio achieved when most of his friends were still struggling to get parts was both liberating and obliterating. On the one hand, he could do anything—have any woman, make any movie. On the other . . . well, “I was like, Oh, my God. I really didn’t understand what fame was and I didn’t understand what being in a giant hit was and I didn’t understand what a giant hit Titanic was compared with other giant hits. There was no rule book. There was nobody to navigate me through the experience of being watched all the time and nobody to tell me how to be normal when everybody is acting and looking at me differently.” He turned to his friends and shared the fruits of his fame with them. They were all the same guys, but now they became notorious—Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Pussy Posse” of the late nineties—because he was notorious. But hell, that was long ago. Some of those guys became famous in their own right—Tobey Maguire for Spider-Man and Kevin Connolly for his role as the force of sanity in the life of a good-looking megastar on Entourage. And then they started having lives of their own, getting married, having kids. And DiCaprio didn’t. Oh, he had a life, sure, but it was like, the same life, allowing for differences in scale. All the guy did was make movies. There were women, of course, some of them famous beauties, but, as he says, “six months of being on location or being off in Morocco or someplace like that is not the best thing for a relationship.” He got a dog but had to give it to his mom to take care of because “if I had to feed it, it would starve and die.” Over the last two years, he made three movies, Gatsby, Django Unchained, and The Wolf of Wall Street, and when he finally came home, his friends were like, “Dude, you don’t even live here anymore.” No, he can’t have a normal life. But his friends can. They were total wingmen when he was leading them through the high-life of L. A. and New York and Paris more than fifteen years ago. Now he’s their wingman as they give him a tour of the kitchen, the patio, a glimpse of domestic comfort. Connolly lives in the same neighborhood as DiCaprio—“ten houses away,” he says. So does Maguire. And so they go back and forth. They play basketball on Saturdays, they watch sports on TV, they talk about the work they want to have done on their houses or about nothing at all. “We have the most unimpressive conversations,” Connolly says. “You wouldn’t believe how unimpressive.” And DiCaprio? He’s Uncle Leo when he’s in the neighborhood, and if that designation sounds inherently ridiculous, well, good—it’s what he fights for, because it means freedom. “People are always like, ‘It must be so hard for you, not to be able to leave your house,’ ” DiCaprio says. “I’m like, ‘No, I go where I want and do whatever I want all the time.’ ‘No, you walk down the street?’ ‘Yeah, I do all the time.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah, all the time.’ You have the feeling that they want to protect you from what they
Scan this page with Netpage for even more DiCaprio.
imagine your life to be like.” But what is his life like? Nobody knows, and when you tell him that nobody knows, he says, “Really? Huh—I thought it was the exact opposite.” He has done his best to let us s ee him only in the dark, and as a result he appears to live his life at the extremities— he appears to live a life at once impossibly large and impossibly small. It is easy to miss him, easy to look at him and see a boy growing older without having to grow up. It is harder to see what his friends have the opportunity to see: a man, unusual only for t he degree of his talent and the extent of his fame. They see a loyal and generous friend—a member of their weddings, a guy who served as a pallbearer at the funeral of Kevin Connolly ’s mother and who gave Kate Winslet away when she was recently married. They see a guy who happens to win most of the time but who has lost occasionally, with predictable results. Asked if Leo has ever been heartbroken, Connolly says, “Absolutely—big time. He has been 100 percent heartbroken by a girl.” But they also see, by consensus, a guy “fiercely protective of his privacy,” whose privacy they are obliged to protect. That this is something of a fiction—that if Leo has been made vulnerable by fame, he has also been heavily armored—is invisible to them by dint of the roles that they themselves play. They are not only protective of their friend Leo; they would not be in his life if they were not. He exists at the center of a protective network of which his friends are a part. “His friends are supposed to be the meas ure of his normalcy,” says a Hollywood producer who has worked closely with him. “But how normal is it for anyone to have the same friends he had when he was thirteen years old? Ask yourself—how many of your friends from that time do you still hang around with? Things change. But for Leo, nothing ever really changes.” A little while ago, he had to make a decision. It was a big one. He had to decide whether he wanted to star in Baz Luhrmann’sGreat Gatsby as Gatsby. Luhrmann had asked if he wanted to do it. It was a big, iconic role—“America’s Hamlet,” is what Luhrmann calls it—but that’s not why DiCaprio had to think it over. Originally, the project belonged to Sony and DiCaprio has his deal with Warner Brothers, but that wasn’t the reason, either. Luhrmann had been on the phone with DiCaprio, and he knew that DiCaprio was cautious about playing Gatsby for a very specific reason: Gatsby is very good-looking. Luhrmann had been through this before with DiCaprio. He had been through it when he asked DiCaprio to play Romeo opposite Claire Danes’s Juliet. DiCaprio had made his name playing what were essentially character roles, and he understood that the glamour of Luhrmann’s conception of Romeo would change his life. He’d been right. Now with Gatsby, he was looking at the same kind of decision. He had spent the decade and a half since making Titanic on the run from his beautiful face, from his compulsive movie-star charm, and from movies that required him to be attractive in order to work. He’d worked with Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Christopher
Nolan, Clint Eastwood, and five times with Martin Scorsese. He takes very seriously his responsibilities as a leading man. “There’s so much more responsibility in being a lead,” he says. “There’s the arc of that character and how each of your decisions affects the story line. When I was inGilbert Grape, I could spit spaghetti out and climb trees and make any noise I wanted, because Johnny had to move the story along, for the story to make sense.” And now he was hesitant to be in another movie that to some degree was about his looks.. . . “Getting Leonardo to make the decision to play Romeo when he was nineteen was high drama,” Luhrmann says. “He said, ‘I won’t do that again’ with Gatsby, and he did it again. It was the exact same thing.” What turned DiCaprio—convinced him—was the book. Luhrmann gave him a first edition, and DiCaprio says that he wound up reading it at least twenty times. He discovered a character who is “this peasant who is unaccepted by the American aristocracy,” DiCaprio says. “He will never be t hem and he will never truly belong.” He was not only attractive—Gatsby had to be attractive in order to manipulate people, and he had to manipulate people to achieve what Luhrmann calls a “no ble cause—the love of a single woman.” And once DiCaprio saw that attractiveness was fundamental to any true characterization of Gatsby, he decided to take it on. He wound up giving a performance in which “he’s not hiding from the fact that he can be attractive onscreen,” Luhrmann says. “Leonardo took the immense leap of not fearing the natural charismatic ability that Gatsby requires and that in many of his movies Leonardo has been shy of.” But first he had to call Tobey Maguire and ask him if he wanted to play the role of Gats by’s only friend, Nick Carraway. N IT, IT CA A B OU T L U F The biggest big decision he ever made was not E R CA really a a decision at all. It predated decision making. aki It was something he remembered rather t e than t chose. It expressed itself as a wanting, a and ultimately as a need. He wanted tthat, at, at , unt until it became this—the life he has now. ““It’s truly tr my first memory, wanting to do this,” s,” he says. “I went to a concert once when I was as a llittle kid and ran up onstage, started IS R E H P A R dancing, started saying anything that came to PHOTOG my head. I was like a little vaudevillian. I did imitations of anyone who came to my parents’ house, and that was my identity at school—if there were ten minutes to lunch and the teacher was done with the lesson, he’d say, ‘Okay, Leo, get up there and do something.’ ” His life became pretty simple after that. His first choice determined many of the choices that followed. The Leonardo DiCaprio who ran wild after the success of Titanic could do anything he wanted, but for all we could see, he only had to decide two things: Which movie to make? Which model to date? He is an older man now, but not necessarily a more complicated one. He has many responsibilities, but they are almost exclusively the responsibilities of stardom. Indeed, the decision that he [ continued on page 158]
N X I E T Y. A L A I C O S A O GOING T
P M U J O T G N GOI MI OF THING A BEING
IT, BUT F O T U O
.
113
WE LOVE ALISON BRIE. BECAUSE OF MAD MEN , BECAUSE OF COMMUNITY , BECAUSE . . . WELL, IT SHOULD BE COMPLETELY OBVIOUS. ALL WE WANTED TO KNOW WAS, WHAT DOES ALISON BRIE LOVE?
TheEnthusiasmsofAlisonBrie PhotographsbyMikoLim INTERVIEWED BY CAL FUSSMAN
115
Brie currently appears on the sixth season of Mad Men and the fourth season of Community. She also stars in The Kings of Summer, in theaters next month.
I LOVE . . . . . . the number thirty-eight. It’s so round. It’s a voluptuous num ber. Eighty-eight has gone too far. Seeing my reflection in somebody else’s sunglasses. It’s a nice way to check in with yourself. How loud my mother laughs at her own jokes. Giraes, because their bodies defy nature and embrace it at the same time. Getting a script in the mail from Mad Men. How there doesn’t seem to be any alcoholics in Scotland, even though everybody drinks all day every day. My aternoons, because they’re always different. Going to bed early. If I can get eight hours . . . Going to bed watching The American President. I’ve seen it so many times I can close my eyes and still know what’s happening. The moment when Annette Bening has her date with the president lined up. She’s in her office. A guy is talking to her. She’s just kind of lost in space, tapping her pencil near a cup of pens. The guy says, “What’s wrong? Got a big date tonight?” She does a double take and knocks over the pens. It’s my favorite comedic moment. It seems so unexpected. It doesn’t seem calculated. You know she thought out that move. It was probably written in: Looks up, surprised. Knocks over pens. But it comes off so sincere. Trying to recall the details of my dreams when I first wake up. My ability to say no to people now that I’ve turned thirty. Movie theaters when they’re either supercrowded or totally empty. Your opinion is not influenced by anyone when you’re alone at a matinee. It’s just you and the movie. And crowds at a premiere or at Sundance are a special treat. At Sundance, nobody’s like, “We didn’t have anything to do tonight, so we came here.” The romance in parks. Being on a blanket with the right person. You don’t want to be on a blanket with just anyone. My agents, because they don’t ever want me to do nudity. Butternut squash. Spaghetti squash. Kabocha squash. My real last name. But the mispronunciation of it is like nails on a chalkboard. It starts S-c-h, so everybody pronounces it as if it were Shermerhorn. But it should be pronounced like it’s Skermerhorn. Yoga. It’s like my church. My sister’s temper. It keeps me in check. Teahouses. Green tea as opposed to jasmine green, which is a little more flowery. I like to taste that green. Aretha Franklin— but in the evening. Whistling, but I’m terrible at it and embarrassed to do it in front of people. “Strawberry Fields Forever.” It’s the first song that I thought was so beautiful it brought me to tears. Frank Gore and the Niners. I didn’t miss a game last season. Getting photos of my little nephew. They make me laugh i n a way I never did before. Cupcakes. The smaller the better. You can taste different flavors and not feel guilty. Living in the hills above Hollywood. The quiet gives you time to think. Popcorn. On the stove top, with a little olive oil. The Princess Bride. “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Holly Hunter. She’s got gumption. Coming home after I travel. Sex, because some of the most humorous things happen when you’re naked with another person. Even more Alison Brie: Scan here with Netpage.
The cast on Community and the way everyone moves the comedy. There’s n othing to love about auditions. Petting my cats’ ur. So soft, and how my cats love being pet. Money. Money means better meals at better places. Securing reservations. Darioush Winery in Napa. Duel is the wine the owner made with
his son, so it’s the two of them bringing their styles. Running, because it never seems like a strenuous exercise and always clears my head. Organization. Omakase. That means the sushi chef just makes you whatever.
I love not having to make decisions. Mrs. Carlson, my second-grade teacher at Mount Washington
Elementary. She had the most wonderful stories. She would travel around the world and come back and show us pictures. I remember this story about her being in Africa. This baby ostrich kicked her in the leg and almost broke it, and she showed us the giant bruise. She had us make corn tortillas from scratch. What a great second-grade class. I wonder if she’s A still teaching. WOMAN Flowers. If you’re a guy, you should get girls WE flowers all the time. They never get old and LOVE you can never get them enough. I’m never disappointed when I get flowers. I always thought guys who don’t buy women flowers are such fools. All it takes is one. A little goes a long way with flowers. Shorts. My clothing of choice. They’re easy. But don’t give me shorts without pockets. Working. It makes life much simpler. Virgin America. Deep-tissue massages. I like to be in pain when I’m getting
massaged. That way I know I’m getting my money’s worth. Looking at my dad when we’re singing together around the holidays. About 80 percent of my day. Who doesn’t love authenticity? ≥
117
ESQUIRE FICTION
BY BENJAMIN P E R C Y A N EXCLU E XC LU SI VE E XC E RPT R PT FRO FROM M T HE H E BO B OOK OK OF T HE SU SUM M ME MERR
PATRICK WISHES HE HADN’T ORDERED THE LARGE COKE. BUT HE WAS TIRED—AND
he doesn’t drink coffee because it tastes like dirt—and the large cup cost only ten cents more than the medium—so he thought, What the hell. ¶ But now he has to pee. And he has the window seat. And there is no way he can sneak past the two women sitting next to him without making them shut down their laptops, making them stand, making a big production, making everybody on the plane look up and stare at him and think, “Oh, that kid has to pee.” And they will be thinking that—they will be thinking about him peeing—when he locks himself into the chemical-smelling closet of a bathroom and struggles with his zipper and tries to maintain his balance, tries not to piss all over himself while turbulence shakes the plane. Just as he is about to touch his neighbor on the wrist, to tell her excuse me, he’s sorry but he has to get up, someone two rows ahead of him, a man in a charcoal suit, rises from his seat. 118
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
His face is pale and sweating. His body seems twitchy along the edges, almost as if he were humming, vibrating. His neatly combed hair is starting to come loose in gray strands that fall across his forehead. Patrick wonders if the turbulence is getting to him, if he is going to be sick. The man staggers down the aisle, yanks open the bathroom door, and slams it shut behind him. Patrick curses under his breath. Not only does he have to wait, but he has to wait for a puker. He turns around in his seat three times in as many minutes, checking the bathroom, willing the door to open. Each time he looks, there is another person standing in the aisle, their arms crossed, their fa ces pensive, waiting. He supposes he should join them. He unbuckles his seat belt and opens his mouth—ready to fi-
LISTEN NOW
Download a recording of Benjamin Percy reading “The Infected” at esquire.com/redmoon, or stream now via Netpage.
nally excuse himself, to stand—when a ragged snarl comes from the back of the cabin. It is hard to place, with the shout of the engines, the chatter of so many voices. Patrick wonders if there is something wrong with the plane. He remembers seeing a news report about how so many pla nes are behind on their maintenance schedules and shouldn’t be in the air at all. Maybe the turbulence has shaken loose the screws holding the tail in place. There is a growl, a long drawn-out guttural rumbling, and though it is hard to place, it seems more animal than machine. The cabin is now hushed except for the creaking of seats as people turn around with anxious expressions. The bathroom door crashes open. A bald man in a Rose Bowl sweatshirt is the first in line—and so is he the first to die. The door jars him back. He would have fallen except for the narrow aisle where he stands, the plane’s wall catch-
119
ing him and preventing any further retreat as the thing emerges from the restroom, rushing forward like a gray wraith, a blurred mass of hair and muscle and claws. It swings an arm. The bald man’s scream is cut short, his throat excised and replaced by a second red mouth that he brings his hands to, as if he could hold the blood in place. But it sprays between his fingers. As if to make up for his sudden silence, the rest of the plane begins to scream, all of their voices coming together like a siren that rises and falls. The thing begins to move up the aisle. The lycan moves so quickly it is difficult to make sense of it— to secure an image of it—except that it looks like a man, only covered in a gray downy hair, like the hair of the possum. Teeth flash. Foam rips from a seat cushion like a strip of fat. Blood splatters, decorating the porthole windows, dripping from the ceiling. It is sometimes on all fours and sometimes balanced on its hind legs. Its back is hunched. Its face is pronounced by a blunt snout that flashes teeth as long and sharp as bony fingers, a skeleton’s fist of a smile. And its hands—oversized and pouched and decorated with long nails—are greedily outstretched and slashing the air. A woman’s face tears away like a mask. Ropes of intestine are yanked out of a belly. A neck is chewed through in a terrible kiss. A little boy is snatched up and thrown against the wall, his screams silenced. The plane is shuddering. The pilot is yelling something over the intercom but his voice is lost to the screams that fill the cabin. Some people are weeping. Some are praying. Some are climbing out of their seats, pushing their way up the aisle, where they bang at the cockpit door, slam their fists and feet and shoulders up against it, desperate to get in, to get away from the terror working its way toward them. CHASE REMEMBERS THE FIRST TIME HE TALKED
to Augustus. Seventh grade, Obsidian Junior High, after gym class, he walks into the locker room. Showers sizzle. Steam fills the air. Boys are scrubbing their armpits with soap or toweling off in front of their open lockers. He spins his combo and pauses before yanking the lock—because of the voices he hears, jeering, laughing like jackals. Three boys—still in their shorts and tank tops—stand outside a toilet stall and kick at the door hard enough to dent the thin sheet metal. “Come on,” they say. “Come out and show us your pussy.” Another kick and the door jars open. Chase recognizes the kid inside. They’re in the same section of math, and the other day, in line at the cafeteria, a girl turned to the kid, who had accidentally rubbed up ag ainst her, and said, “Don’t touch me. You haven’t even gone through puberty yet.” He wears small glasses on a head too big for his body. His hair is the wispy blond of corn silk. His arms and legs are stumpy, his torso round. All of this giving him the appearance of an enormous baby. The same can’t be said of Chase, who feels so much younger than his body. A few years ago his bones began to ache and he developed ope a vicious hunger, gobbling up six eggs for breakfast, a whole o e pizza p for dinner, sucking down five gallons of milk every week. wee . He studied himself often in the mirror, as his limbs stretched stretc e to t match his oversized feet, his hands, what his mother called puppy up paws. He started rubbing himself off in fifth g rade, shaving in n sixth grade with his father’s razor and Barbasol. He is taller than t a most of his teachers and plays forward on the varsity basketball et team. He’s ’ not a good guy—he knows that has nothing to do with what happens ns next. ne But most of his trespasses have to do with plea-
120
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
sure, seeking it out, the buzz of a beer, the way a blowjob makes his whole body feel like a tingly nerve ending. He’s not a bad guy either—he has a certain sense of righteousness motivated now by these three punks getting off on ganging up on somebody weaker than them. From what Chase gathers, as he moves toward them, the kid has been camping out in the toilet stall after gym, skipping his shower, changing where no one can observe him. Chase comes up behind them. Without pause he kicks one of the boys square in the ass and sends him keeling into the wall— striking it with a wet thud, crumpling into a mewling ball. Chase cracks together the skulls of the other two boys and then shoves them headfirst into the nearby urinals. He holds them there for a good five seconds, mashing their mouths into the deodorant pucks. Then he slams the flush bars and leaves them sputtering. The kid has gathered up his clothes. His face is impassive—and his glasses have fogged over, hiding his eyes. Neither of them says anything. Not until the next day, after algebra, when the kid introduces himself as Augustus and asks what he can do for Chase. “You don’t owe me nothing.” The rest of the class is filing out of the room, glancing at the strange pair, Augustus standing with his arms crossed and Chase sitting with his legs sprawled out, their height about equal. “I disagree,” the kid says. “And maybe you will as well when you hear my proposal.” The precision of the kid’s words—the confident purse of his mouth—the white short-sleeve shirt, like something an accountant would wear in the summer. “I’m not stupid. And I’m not looking for help.” Chase is less angered than amused. “My grades are fine.” “You have obligations I do not: sports and socializing. Homework gets in the way of these, yes? If you feel like completing your assignments on your own, great. But if on occasion you have an away game or date—then you will hand the work off to me and I will happily oblige.” “And for this I kick anybody’s ass who messes with you?” A curt nod. “Tit for tat.” A contract they have more or less honored the past thirty years.
CHASE HAS NEVER CALLED AUGUSTUS BY HIS NAME.
It was a mouthful, and obnoxious, the name of some old poet who liked to write about the pansies growing in his garden. The kid. That’s what Chase called him—until they enrolled at Uni versity of Oregon, when the kid took Chase aside during orientation and said he would rather not be called that anymore. “Why not?” “It implies a lack of strength.” “Then what the hell am I supposed to call you?” “My name.” “Out of the question.” He settled on Buffalo. For the enormous head, too big for any hat, that seems to grow directly out of his sloped shoulders. Chase nicknames everyone he meets. His administrative assistant, Moneypenny. His legal counsel, No Fun. The head of his security detail, Shrek, for his bald head, jutting forehead, his barrel of a torso balanced on tiny legs. Even the people he doesn’t know, he finds a way to name them—a bartender is honey or sugar, a valet or groundskeeper is buddy or friend. It’s his way of making people come a little closer, look him in the eye and smile. “Sweetheart” is what he calls the woman working the front desk at the Kazumi Day Spa. He recognizes her from the teahouse. The wrinkled face and squat body and silvery hair pulled back into a bun stabbed through with chopsticks. A potted bamboo sits in the corner. A scroll bearing a string of Japanese characters hangs behind her. She doesn’t smile at him, but lifts her arm, gesturing to a dark hallway and says, with a heavy accent, “Last door on the left.” The spa is in southwest Salem—not too far from the teahouse— a nondescript windowless brick building tucked between a pawnshop and a moneylender, the street busy with rusted- out cars missing their mufflers. In a back room, the recessed lighting gives off a dim orange glow. Music trembles—piped in through the overhead speakers—something acoustic, what Chase recognizes as the same instrument played at the teahouse, the koto, the plucked strings
E S Q U I R E F I C T I O N
making him think of spider’s legs dancing across a web. In the center of the room waits the massage table an d against the wall squats a glass-doored, marbled-topped bureau, full of white downy towels, bottles of oil and lotion. On top of it, a plug-in fountain, water gurgling over colored stones. Buffalo used to tell him not to come here. For a long time, his principal duty, as chief of staff, seemed to be telling Chase what not to do. Do not bad-mouth Weyerhaeuser. Do not get intoxi cated at black-tie fundraisers. Do not punch Ron Wyden. Do not tell The Oregonian that you think Nancy Pelosi is hot. The attacks changed everything. “You realize,” Buffalo said, more than a month ago, when the planes came down, “that this is the best thing that could have possibly happened?” He and Buffalo were sitting in wing-backed oxblood leather chairs, watching the flat-screen, flipping back and forth between CNN and Fox News. Same footage, different talking heads. Outside Denver, the wreckage smoldered in a wheat field. At PDX and Logan International, the planes were parked on the tarmac like gi ant white coffins. A reporter interviewed a woman wearing a Looney Tunes sweatshirt and purple leggings. The tape at the bottom of the screen identified her as a family member of one of the passengers. “It’s the most horrible thing in the world,” she said, roughing away her tears with the remains of a tissue. “And it’s happening right here.” Buffalo stood then and tucked his hands in the pockets of his sport coat and walked over to the window, the gray light coming through the water-spotted glass. “One way of looking at it is this,” Buffalo said. “As a tragedy.” He turned to Chase and removed a hand from his pocket and pointed it like a gun. “Here is another. It is a game changer.” Buffalo was the one who approached Chase about running for governor—and now, for the first time, Chase can see it in his trembling mouth, Buffalo seems to believe in the possibility of reelection. “We need to get you behind a microphone by this evening, ideally with that plane in the background. Speak from the heart. Just make sure your heart is more furious than mournful.” On the television, another shot of the flaming wreckage. Buffalo’s glasses catch the shimmering orange light and the lenses glow like twin suns. “People are ready for fury.” Fury is what Chase gave them, two hours later, outside the open hangar that now housed the plane, rain wetting his face, a crowd of reporters gathered around him. “What do I think?” he said to them. “I think it’s time to tighten the leash, roll up a newspaper, say bad dog.” AT T H E DA Y SP A , IN T H E BA CK R OOM , A D IGITA L
thermostat on the wall reveals the temperature to be 75 degrees, warm enough to make Chase eager to kick off his boots, peel off his clothes, pil e them in a heap in the corner. Jeans and a denim shirt. Corduroy jacket. Belt with a Buck knife holstered to it. Silver six-inch blade. A birthday present from his father when he turned sixteen. He carried it in the Lycan Republic and doesn’t go anywhere without it now. He retired as a colonel and across his naked shoulder, like a bruise, he carries the faded ink of the anchor-and-eagle tattoo. He palms a condom from his pocket. A white towel hangs from a hook. He ties it around his middle. The light is such tha t his shadow hardly seems to exist, oozing faintly across the floor, and then the massage table. He climbs up and settles his face into the cushioned groove. He hears the knob rattle, the door click cl osed, the footsteps
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
121
whisper across the carpet. Her name is Choko. They visit for an hour every few weeks. Sometimes he lets her dampen his back with oil, rub the poison out of his muscles—and sometimes he does not. Sometimes he asks her to flip him over. Sometimes she takes him in her mouth or her hand. An d sometimes she climbs onto the table with him. “Hey, you,” he says and raises his head to peer at the woman standing a few feet away. She wears a red kimono with a black dragon stitched into it. Long hair down to her elbows framing a face as triangular as a hatchet. She smiles. The fountain gurgles. He lets his head drop into the groove agai n. “Give me a little rub, will you? I’m knotted up.” He feels a hungry anticipation. The blood pools in his center. His erection presses uncomfortably against the table. He hears her clothes drop. He hears her breathing heavily, almost panting. “Hey, what kind of a party’s going on without me?” He is smiling when he rises up on his elbow. The pressure of the table has made his vision muddy. At first he believes this is why her nude form seems to shift, to bulge and bend, like a reflection seen on the body of a passing car. And then he blinks hard and observes
Her posture is hunched and her breasts dangle pendulously and her arms rake the air and her face is nearly impossible to decipher beneath all that hair. She makes a noise that sounds like a guttural string of words. His skin goes tight. She begins to climb over the table, toward him, one arm and then the other. He tries to run and nearly topples, his feet sliding across the stones. He is nearly to the clothes when she leaps and knocks him to the floor. For a moment they might be lovers, a tangle of limbs, breathing heavily. She is faster than him but he is stronger. He loops an arm around her throat and drags them back against the wall. Her body bucks against his but he holds her in place. She wears his arm like a necklace. He is choking her and she claws at him, tearing away ribbons of skin from his forearm, his thighs, his ribs, wherever she can reach, while he sets his jaw against the pain and uses his free arm to seek out the knife, yanking his belt from the pile of clothes, fumbling with the leather casing. Finally he withdraws it and thumbs open the blade. In its sil very flash he catches a gli mpse of his eyes, wide with fright.
SHE DOESN’T REASSUME HER HUMAN FORM. NOT LIKE IN THE between blinks the contorted posture, the lengthening teeth, the black hair bristling like quills from her skin. He feels a hole in his stomach like he used to get when small-arm fire popped in the near distance, when tracer rounds streaked through the night like blood-red comets. Her voice is guttural when she says, “I have a message from the Resistance.” Before he can slide off the table, she has his leg—snatching it up—her claws and then her teeth sinking into his calf. He kicks at her and she falls with a mouth full of blood. His blood. He doesn’t take the time to examine the wound, to recognize what this means, infection. She growls. It is a bestial sound. He can feel it. Feel it in his bones like when bass pours from a too-loud stereo. He has never been more vulnerable, naked and unarmed, bleeding. He doesn’t feel any pain, not yet. Only the warmth of blood running along his leg, its tackiness underfoot when he stumbles back, looking for a weapon, something to swing. The bureau jars against his spine, preventing any further retreat. The mist from the fountain licks his back. He yanks its cord from the outlet and scoops it up and hurls it at the lycan. Its stones are like a brightly colored hail rattling the floor. The bowl arcs toward her and she puts out her arms to catch it and it thuds against her chest and the water dampens her hair and makes it appear a rippling shadow. She is on one side of the massage table—the padding torn through in yellow slashes—and he is on the other. He needs to get to the pile of clothes, the knife nested in it, on the opposite ppos te side of the room. He can smell her. er. Hee would wou recognize recogn ze that t at smell anywhere, e, the t e smell sme of o a lycan. ycan. Like L e an unwashed unwas e crotch. crotc . Supposedly y set set off o byy their t e r hyperstimulated yperst mu ate pituitary p tu tarygland. g an . “The Infected” e ” was adapted a apte from rom Benjamin Ben am n Percy’s new novel, nove , Red Moon, which is being published this month.
122
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 01 3
Then he draws the knife toward them in an arc. The woman— no, the lycan, the thing—tries to block the blade, swatting and tearing at him, but her strength is fading and after a few wild swings he sneaks the knife to her chest, where it catches against a rib—and grinds its way inside her. What would have been a growl, against the pressure of his choke hold, escapes as a plaintive mewl. He stabs her again and again, so many times—knife, knife, knife—far more than necessary, her body limp in his lap. She doesn’t reassume her human form. Not like in the fairy tales. She dies a beast and a beast she remains. He feels faint. The room seems so cold and her body so warm. He tries not to look at his ruined arm when he retrieves the towel from the floor and makes a tourniquet of it. Roses of blood bloom immediately through the cotton. There are no windows. There is only one way out. And only one way in. It takes him a while, but he drag s the bureau against the door. He remembers how severely the old woman s tared at him, and he knows Choko is not acting alone. He needs help. His hand is trembling and slick with blood but somehow he manages to retrieve the handheld from his jacket pocket. Four men, all wearing tracksuits, pick up Augustus in a black Chevy Suburban and drive at a perilous speed to the Kazumi Day Spa, honking their way through red lights, screeching their way around corners. It’s an unlisted address, but Augustus gustusknows nowsthe t e way and directs them from the t e backseat—telling ac seat—te ng them t em to to hurry,, goddammit, amm t, hurry—even urry—even as hee leans eans into nto a turn turn and an braces races an arm against aga nst the t e window w n ow to to keep eep hiss balance. a ance. They ey find n the t e front rontdoor oor locked oc e and an use a metal meta battering atter ng ram to splinter sp nter itt from rom its tshinges. nges.One man remains rema ns posted poste at the t e enen trance while w e the t e ot others, ers, their t e r Glocks G oc s unholstered, un o stere , charge c argeinside. ns e. They T ey g give ve tthee aall cclear ear and an Augustus walks wa s into n to the t e dim m entryentr way. The T e lights g ts are off, o , the t e hallways a waysand an rooms empty—except for one barricaded door. They shove at it and a cra crack of of orange orange
light appears and only then does Augustus tell them “Stop.” The men step away and wait for him t o tell them what t o do. “Stay here,” he says and shoulders past them and puts all of his weight against the door until the bureau slides away and allows him entrance. He hurries the door closed before the men can spot Chase, curled up on the floor—dizzy and naked and shivering from blood loss, but alive. There is blood smeared across the wall and soaked into the carpet that squelches underfoot. “I’m here,” Augustus says, not daring to touch his friend, not knowing how long the disease can live once exposed to the air. He toes the slumped body of the transfo rmed lycan. Her hair, tacky with blood, has the look of s eaweed plastered across the beach at low tide. “Bitch,” he says, “you really fucked things up.” The governor attacked in a whorehouse. Half-dead and likely infected. His political career finished. Augustus brings back his foot and considers kicking her face but doesn’t, not wanting to dirty his shoe. Instead he covers her body with towels so that the others won’t see her. Red splotches soak through immediately. He pulls
Chase is wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and nothing else except for the bandages that patch his arm and torso. He dips up and down, his face red and wet with sweat. “You get bit by a rabid dog, you get rabies—isn’t that the gist of it?” “Not exactly. Saliva isn’t enough—thank God—or every sneeze on a subway would infect a dozen people.” The spoon clicks against the bowl and then his teeth. “We’re fortunate that lobos is more like HIV, a blood-borne contagion. A bite doesn’t guarantee infection, but it’s quite possible. A lycan’s gums bleed after they transform, and it’s a great way for the prion to propagate itse lf.” “I’m fucked.” “If by that you mean ‘Am I infected?’ Yes, I think we can assume as much. But if by that you mean ‘Am I finished as a politician?’ Not necessarily. Three people know what happened in that room. One of them is dead.”
E S Q U I R E F I C T I O N
C H A S E A P P E A R S I N T H E S T A T E H OU S E R O T U N D A
in dress uniform—peaked cap, midnight-blue jacket with red trim and a standing collar. Behind him, when he tromps down the marble stairs, follow members of the Oregon National Guard. He
FAIRY TALES.SHEDIES ABEASTAND ABEAST SHE REMAINS. a terry-cloth robe off a hook and tucks it around Chase. There is only one choice. He opens the door and tells the men to get a makeshift stretcher for Chase, and then, once they get him to the car, “Burn the place. Burn it to the ground.” BUFFALO’S LIVING ROOM BECOMES A MAKESHIFT
hospital. Chase can hear him, dimly. It’s a comforting sound. Like when, as a child, on long car trips, he would intermittently wake to the murmur of his parents talking in the front seat. He strains his neck to observe his friend pacing back and forth with his handheld pressed against his ear. His voice is panicked, hurried. Chase wants to tell him to take it easy, but then the darkness of sleep once again overtakes him. An air mattress replaces the bloodstained tarp. He smears disinfectant and changes bandages. He draws a warm bath and seasons it with alcohol and tincture of iodine. He buys OxyContin off one of his neighbors, a doctor and campaign donor, and dopes away the pain with 160 mg doses. He serves Chase Gatorade to get his electrolytes up, brings him platters of eggs and toast when he has an appetite. All the while Augustus wears a mask, goggles, and latex gloves. Every day he disposes of the black plastic garbage bag that grows big bellied with soiled bandages and washcloths and latex gloves he peels off as carefully as if they were a diseased condom. He tells the staff, the reporters, that Chase is at a strategy retreat. When they ask if the rumors are true, if he has taken ill, Augustus laughs and says, “He’s, as always, the picture of health.” The dinette runs up against the living room and Augustus sits at the table, spooning into a bowl of c ottage cheese, while Chase weakly attempts to exercise. For the past few weeks he has done nothing but sleep and stumble back and forth to the bathroom. He needs to get the blood flowing again, he says, or he might rot away into a husk. “You understand the way this works, I assume?” Augustus says.
Clip, Save, Share.
approaches the podium, its front adorned with the Oregon sea l, and pauses there as the soldiers perform a traditional march. Their swords slash the air and their boots thud the stone floor and make the air tremble. They come to a stop beneath a massive American flag suspended between two pillars. Chase snaps off a salute and removes his hat to set on the podium. “Thank you,” he says, first to the guardsmen and then to the reporters who sit in folding chairs twenty rows deep. Their cameras flash and create a strobelike effect that blinds him. For three weeks he has not made a public appearance. After appearing everywhere, he was suddenly nowhere, and the media took note. The press conference is Buffalo’s idea: a show of strength and a bold declaration that will distract from the gossip of his sudden absence. Despite his rigid posture, despite his small smile, Chase does not feel well. He doesn’t feel like himself—maybe that’s a better way to put it. He is a man divided, host to a pathogen that can overtake him at any moment. Sometimes his heart races and his breath comes in hurried pants. His muscles ache. His toothbrush pulls away from his mouth bloody. He rakes a hand through his hair and finds it wet with sweat. He can smell himself, his armpits and crotch damp musky pockets. His consciousness sometimes feels as though it has short-circuited, whirling with lights, through which dart, alternately, the silhouette of a man, and then a wolf. The reporters lower their cameras and the white haze of his vision solidifies. “I stand here a proud, humble Oregon boy.” He pauses and cocks his head, at first wondering what he hears, realizing it is their pens scratching across paper, like the noise of hundreds of insects chewing something fibrous. Chase clears his throat. “My family has lived in this state for three generations. My great-grandfather laid roads in eastern Oregon. My grandfather designed the lumber mill that was for so many years the industrial heart of Old [ continued on page 157]
123
H
O T N E T S I L O OW T
ITE L L E T A S D N FY A I T O P S H T I W ALL E W , A R O D PA N D N TO A T E O I H D G A L R A C I S L I V E I N A M UK I N G . H E R E W I T H , MA N W O R U O O T OF Y T I N U T R YO U R O P P O B R E A K O U T.
FEATURING:
SONGS A MAN SHOULD HEAR. A GUIDE TO MUSIC SERVICES. THE STATE OF LISTENING TO MUSIC. ALSO: TECHNOLOGY! (WHAT, YOU DON’T SEE
THE HEADPHONES? THEY’RE RIGHT OVER THERE.)
124
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
SONGS EVERY MAN SHOULD LISTEN TO BY ANDY LANGER
“BURIED AL IVE,” YEAH YEAH YEAHS
Even though the main event is a battle between an angular guitar and a spacey Gorillaz-like groove, things get particularly freaky with a verse-long revival of Kool Keith’s assumed-dead extraterrestrial gynecologist alter ego, Dr. Octagon. Turns out he was missed.
“TOO MUCH,” KENDRICK SCOTT
Scott transforms a six-minute Sufjan Stevens cover into a windy road map toward a new jazz. ORACLE
“I FEEL A SIN COMIN’ ON,” PISTOL Miranda Lam bert, Ashley Monroe, and Angaleena Presley join voices to plead not for the grace of resistance but for permission: “Please, Jesus, don’t hold me back.” ANNIES
MORE ON THIS WOMAN, PAGE 18.
“WRAITH,” PEACE WITH YOUR HOSTESS
NINA AGDAL
AGDAL PHOTOGRAPHED BY DEREK KETTELA ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARION HUGO
Because the last time a few brothers delivered a de but as singularly cocksure and scuzzy, it was Kings of Leon. 125
EN TO T S I L O T W O H IC BETTER MUS
TECH!
There is no “tech” here. Sorry.
“LOW LIGHT BUDDY OF MINE,” IRON AND WINE If Ornette Coleman
slowed Rush’s “Tom Saw yer” to a crawl? This.
“ENTERTAINMENT,” PHOENIX Maybe it’s just
our French, but we suspect that what’s gone largely unnoticed about this booming anthem is that it hinges on a wordless chorus—a rare songwriting device that matches the song’s most memorable section to a bit of unintelligible lyrical blather. And whatever you sing to it can’t be wrong— we love any song for that.
m H T H a o k w E e A W s n O a d p y R l L M a y a H l n O i g s t e L r E
:
“Step,” Vampire Weekend (2013)
Contains a Modest Mouse reference.
“Bukowski,” Modest Mouse (2004)
Contains a Charles Bukowski reference.
“THE WALKER,” FITZ AND THE TANTRUMS
On this R&B-laced singalong, the stanky twentytwo-second horn breakdown sounds like an outtake from Check Your Head or Ill Communication.
126
ESQUIRE
“MAM A’S BABY, DADDY’S MAYBE ,”
Phoenix
SWAMP DOGG Until
now, vinyl scavengers placed a premium on Total Destruction to Your Mind, this R&B eccentric’s 1970 debut, because it somehow hadn’t made the transition to CD, let alone iTunes. With a belated reissue, it’s as endearing and enduring as advertised, but mostly these paternity-test blues are simply hilarious. REZNOR Significantly
“MANTRA,” DAVE GROHL, JOSHUA HOMME, AND TRENT
most-eight-minute sprawler from Grohl’s Sound City documentary sounds like the blueprint for his next
trippier but no less melodic than the average Foo Fighters tune, this al-
“GET THAT RHYTHM RIGHT” “Frank’s Wild Years,” Tom Waits (1983)
A Bukowskiinspired monologue that’s ostensibly about how it’s the little
!! ! I the goal o modern electro-pop is to slam as many beats per minute into as small a space as possible, this represents a spacious alternative, its power stemming rom restraint. Picture an Ohio Players 45 spun at 33 rpm. Note: You’ll need to adj ust your dancing: This is designed or a rotating neck sway, not a ull-on arm flail.
Not pictured: Nina lip-synching to some of the music in this section. Scan here with Netpage to watch the video.
SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS
SUCKS
Y A D E H T
D E I D C I S U M E H T ) E M R O (F
NEW MUSIC AND I broke up March 2, 1998. I just
O T I R U C R U BY DAVID C
prison colony maybe. Watch the videos “Fatty Boom Boom” or “I wasn’t feeling it anymore and thought it best we went Fink U Freeky” and you’ll be asking for your mommy, especially if our separate ways. And it could be the feeling was Bon Iver is your normal cup of tea. mutual, because that’s the very day I started to confront my musiNow, just because I don’t have ears for new music doesn’t mean cal mortality, to face the death of my own personal cool. Who would that I don’t love the Spotify. I have every album ever made (except I become if I wasn’t aware of Youth Lagoon or Vampire Weekend? for the Beatles’ and AC/DC’s, which aren’t available), every new Or was that Youth Weekend at Vampire Lagoon? I, like any healthy release, every new single anywhere I go. I swear I’ll never buy anteenager, am partial to music that makes me want to vandalize your other song from iTunes ever again. It’s the perfect way for me to home, but for some damn reason I find the stuff that’s popular right listen to some new stuff and forget it immediately. One of my new now makes me lactate. And the reality is I couldn’t name any of the favorites is Gary Clark Jr., who is a fantastic singer/guitar player from bands at the Grammys, and I know only a very small handful of bands Texas. Full of soul and blues, he sounds just like . . . wait a minute, named in these very pages. There was a time when it was important he sounds a lot like . . . Stevie Ray mixed with Albert Collins maybe. to know who was who; it was like having a cool badge. The more ob- Why don’t I just punch up the originals? I’ll set my radio to Gary scure your musical references, the more you’d have people believe Clark Jr., and usually it’s pretty good until I hit a band like Grizzly in your shamanic powers. The spirit world must be Bear, and then I want to kill Grizzly Bear. It’s all so dehappy with us—here’s the latest Sigur Rós record; it’s rivative of older music. I can usually name the original not out for another two weeks. band the new band is copying and the song that’s being What’s going on? Music today is an overmarketed, ripped off. Why wouldn’t I just listen to the original? autotuned, asexual bunch of skinny jeans raised on BarI’m just amazed at how abundant older music is on the ney and American Idol. That particular combo doesn’t Spotify. Can you believe the entire Frank Zappa cataspell danger, defiance, demonic possession, and devilog is there? I can’t find two minutes away from that ant sex, the essential ingredients of a good rock song. material to discover new stuff . . . except for Die AntIt seems that for the first time in history, parents and woord. Man, I’m strangely attracted to the tiny blond their kids are enjoying the same music at the same time. woman in the group—her murderface, her black conHMMM . . . Whatever happened to the good ol’ days when teenagtacts covering the whites of her eyes, her little mouse ers would commit suicide and their parents would blame the band? voice singing “Yo fuck the system. My system pumps off its fuckin Whatever happened to the utter disgust your parents would have for face,” her maniac partner, with some of the worst tattoos imaginthe shit blasting through your bedroom door when you were a teen- able, flailing behind like a sex offender on crack. ager? Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be? I have to get away from Die Antwoord. The band scares me, in a Let’s take a band I was told is important this year: the Lumineers. very alluring way. As music it’s crap, actually, but it certainly is danWhat would interest me in a chanting jug-band jamboree trio? Their gerous. Wasn’t good rock ’n’ roll always scary and dangerous? Does suspenders and unusual hats? How am I supposed to feel when I everything become antiseptic over time? Will Marilyn Manson soon listen to that music? Why the hell would I wander into the forest of become his own late-night infomercial? I am so confused. I think I new music when I know I might run into that helpless, whining crit- may be going through the stages of grief. (Is horny one of the stages?) ter? I might have to feed it. But I’d rather feed it to Die Antwoord and Need a shot of “Welcome to the Jungle.” There, that’s better. You see the blood rolling down its chin. Good God, now that’s a newish know, the depressing thing is that even when I travel to Los Angroup that I can get behind. This South African rap/rave trio makes geles on business, I stay at a hotel where aging rock stars go to be prison rape look like something not to be missed. Its presentation is comfortable, and I happen to love it, okay? On any given weekend, just terrifying—dangerous and riveting and alive—just what music I’ll run into an old favorite at the bar or pool. Hey, look, there’s Neal should feel like. It’s as if the group’s from another planet, an alien Schon from Journey having some toast. Hey, isn’t that Joe Perry from
EN TO T S I L O T W O H IC BETTER MUS Aerosmith heading to the spa in his robe? Excuse me, Mr. Walsh, you dropped your pillbox. I may be in a vegetative musical state, but at least I’m warm and comfortable. So please, keep your pseudo-post-punk intellectual folk band with your unusual eyewear, beards, hats, and that, that, that Gotye. You can Mumford your Sons for all I care, my friend. And why did you name your band Fun.? Your music isn’t fun; it makes
Chance the Rapper
me want to beat you up. They say the last stage of grief is acceptance, and I can accept this fact: I’ve been a man in search of music, and the music that I love is mostly gone, long since neutered and tamed. All the same, I’ll slip on my slippers, pour a fine single-malt Scotch, and relax with “Evil Boy (Fuck You in the Face Mix),” by Die Antwoord. And I’ll rejoice, secure in the knowledge that music is music, danger is danger, and those two things will always find a way to go tog ether, like a nice cold beer and an afternoon with your mom.
show at the Brooklyn Bowl earlier this year (see inter view, page 21) shows how powerful and memorable a simple collaboration between legends—one firmly established, the other newly crowned—can be.
“LET THE DAY BEGIN,” BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB
career move. (The unlistenable remainder of the soundtrack—aside from “Sirvana,” his Paul McCartney–Nirvana collaboration—suggests he needs a Plan C more than we thought he did.)
to record 10 Day, his mixtape debut. At just nineteen years old, he sings and raps and has already mastered the toughest illusion in hip-hop: His flow seems improvised even when it’s not.
In 1989, the Call topped the charts with this muscular prayer for renewal. A little more than twenty years later, frontman Michael Been died of a heart attack at an overseas music festi val while working as a soundman for his son’s band, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. This is its tribute, loving and loud.
“STOMPA,” SERENA RYDER If Adele covered
“JUICE,” CHANCE THE RAPPER As a Chi-
cago high school student, Chancelor Bennett used a ten-day school suspension
“TELL ME I F YOU STILL CARE,”
“Into the Groove”? This.
D’ANGELO AND QUEST-
“THE BEAUTY SURROUNDS,”
LOVE This
performance from a hastily planned
HOUSES “A Hard Rain’s
“BEST OF FRIENDS” PALMA VIOLETS What some music sto res we’ve talked to call the “Mumord eect” is a little horriying: They’re selling only a raction o the electric guitars they used to sell to kids, as they all want acoustics, banjos, and mandolins. I that makes you wince, this song will gi ve you hope. You’ll hear the trickle-down influence o U2, the Clash, and the Ramones, but mostly you’ll replicate the exhilarating rush o the first time you heard “Welcome to the Jungl e.”
128
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
( c o n t ’ d )
WT O H R E M H O L E
things that drive us crazy.
“Perth,“ Bon Iver (2011)
Heath Ledger’s approach to the Joker in The Dark Knight was reportedly inspired by Tom Waits. This tune— written by Justin Vernon after hanging with a friend of Ledger’s at the time of his death— was inspired by the actor’s passing and named for his birthplace.
“Elephant,“ Tame Impala (2012)
Currently Perth’s biggest psychedelicrock export. Australia’s Rolling Stone Awards named the band’s second album, Lonerism , 2012’s Album of the Year, an award Tame Impala also won in 2010 for its debut album, InnerSpeaker.
A-Gonna Fall” will always be the best song ever written about nuclear war, but this holocaust dirge—part of a concept record about a husband and wife who are separated but trying to reconnect before their certain deaths—is almost as terrifying and at least 80 percent more sad. Youth Lagoon
“MUTE,” YOUTH LAGOON Three of the six
minutes of this song basically constitute a sprawling, ambient guitar solo so mesmerizing and hypnotic that nothing else matters, which is notable because Trevor Powers (aka Youth Lagoon) usually offers up heavily textured conceptual pieces about psychological dysphoria and metaphysics. This one could be equally deep, but it’s hard to tell.
“SOMETHING IN COMMON,” DAWES Dawes’s Taylor Goldsmith counts guys like Kris Kristofferson, Jackson Browne, and Warren Zevon as his heroes. They wrote wordy, but they were always the right words: conversational words, words that trigger
8TRACKS
SPOTIFY
Considering every service has some kind o playlist eature that apes Pandora’s Music Genome Project, this one’s got a pretty great tagline telling you what you need to know: “8tracks is Internet radio created by people, not algorithms.” Compile eight tracks or more, add a title and cover art, and share. Free.
Spotiy has perhaps done more to render your CD collection obsolete than any other service. But it’s what you don’t own that’s invaluable— it doesn’t cost you any more to check out a track rom someone you’ve read about, heard on the radio, or a riend recommended, etc.
Lets you listen to 70,000 live terrestrial radio broadcasters and online stations, so there’s an insane variety. A new eature promotes radio “events,” so i an artist you like is being interviewed or perorming live on-air in Tucson but you live in Boston, you’ll be able to know and listen in. Free.
PANDORA The granddaddy o streaming radio services. Enter a mood or a avorite band and it builds a station around your taste, powered by the geeky and occasionally spooky Music Genome Project, which applies musicological markers to music recommendations. It’s almost impossible to start a station and not find a new band or five that are similar. Free, or
A desktop version with ads is free. Ad-free is $4.99 a month and mobile- and home-device use is $9.99 a month.
NPR’ S FIRST LISTEN
... And you want great sound quality...
TUNEIN
Or...
You have no attachment to radio stations, but you value curation .. .
A week or more beore a major release hits the streets, First Listen typically has it. Free.
ad-free for $36 a year.
Or... But you don’t want to visit 100 blogs...
YOU WANT INSTANT GRATIFICATION . . .
F O S N MEA Y R E V O C S I D YOU MISS ACTUAL MIXTAPES . .
YOU WANT TO FIND MUSIC SIMILAR TO WHAT YOU LOVE...
.
MO G
Both Mog and Spotiy put millions o songs at your fingertips. Mog streams at 320 kbps—a significantly better sound quality than that o its competitors. Free.
B Y A N DY L ANG ER
YOU HAVE AN ATTACHMENT TO RADIO STATIONS . . .
SLACKER
YOU CARE LESS ABOUT SERVICE THAN YOU DO ABOUT LISTENING TO EXTREMELY NEW MUSIC . .
Then $4.99 a month for unlimited ad-free online and $9.99 a month with mobile access.
.
... And you want to ditch your CDs.. .
See Pandora. And add an array o preprogramming by proessional DJs. The “fine tune” option presents a slider that lets you request “newer or older songs.” Keeping it set to “newer” makes this one o the easiest discovery tools on the list. Free with ads and
limited customization.
RDIO
SOUNDCLOUD
Similar to Spotiy but with a cleaner, more user-riendly interace. Fewer o your Facebook riends are sharing playlists on Rdio, but most o our Rdio-using riends keep their eeds unlocked, so you can see a complete history o what they’ve listened to—useul i you share similar tastes. Rdio also suggests high-profile users to ollow, olks like O Montreal and Questlove. Free for up to six months. Then $4.99 a month
for Rdio Web, giving you unlimited listening from the Web. Rdio Unlimited is $9.99 a month, providing Web and mobile use.
THE HYPE MACHINE Still the best o the online music aggregators, the Hype Machine pulls the music rom blog posts, ranks it, and makes it listenable in one place. Free.
This is the music player that powers most music blogs. Designed to be easily embedded in blogs and tweets and also on Facebook, SoundCloud isn’t any more complicated than pressing the P L A Y button. The site’s E X P L O R E tab is a wormhole: You’ll start somewhere and end up someplace completely dierent—there’s thousands o artist and label profiles, singles, rarities, live tracks, and themed compilations. Free.
GROOVESHARK LAST.FM A radio service that determines what to play on the basis o the Scrobbler—a profile eaturing details o what you listen to on Last.m and on other bands you indicate you “like” on Facebook. You can “scrobble” your selections rom sites like Spotiy or the Hype Machine to Last.m, which makes Last.m smarter and more likely to mirror your tastes than it did beore. Free.
Once a giant and now an embattled underdog orced to end against lawsuits, Grooveshark still has plenty o music, but it’s grown aggressive about finding and highlighting unsigned indie bands rom around the country. There’s a lot here that iTunes, Spotiy, and similar services simply haven’t ound yet. Free.
EN TO T S I L O T W O H IC BETTER MUS
TECH!
Vinyl gives you the highest level o musical fidelity. And kitsch. For other sources and a system to play them on, turn to page 42. Pro-Ject Xtension 10 Evolution ($3,000; needledoctor.com).
“HACIENDA MOTEL” PICKWICK Galen Disston is our avorite new soul singer since Raphael Saadiq. Over a groove that closes the gap between Spoon and the Commodores, he’s authoritative but casual, even in alsetto—traditionally the toughest way to sing and look cool at the same time.
universal emotion, words with two meanings. Goldsmith has yet to string ’em together quite like “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” but he’s already our best throw back to the days when words mattered. Every last one of them in this ballad will gut you, including “The way that she remembers me is not the way I really am. But I’m hoping they got something in common.”
“AFRAID OF HEIGHTS,” WAVVES Weezer verses. Nirvana chorus. 130
ESQUIRE
“DO YOURSELF A FAVER,” JAMIE LIDELL What everyone
hoped the new Prince song would sound like.
“UNORTHODOX,” JOEY BADA$$ The
thumpy boom-bap and lyrical scratching of your Wavves
favorite old-school hiphop records? If he didn’t invent it, DJ Premier perfected it. On this oneoff single, the man behind moments that helped transition Nas, Jay-Z, and Biggie from boys to men extends his hands to New York’s preeminent
( c o n t ’ d )
WT O H R E M H O L E
“You’re Gonna Miss Me,” The 13th Floor Elevators (1966)
There’s a school o thought that crowns the 13th Floor Elevators— led by Texas guitarist Roky Erickson—the very first psychedelic rock band.
“Shock Corridor,“ Lovestreams (2013)
In January, Okkervil River mastermind Will She announced a new recording project and oered
teenage rap phenom— Joey Bada$$—who may not yet be, as he suggests, “best rapper alive,” but who is certainly one single closer.
“RUMB LE A ND S WAY,” JAMIE N COMMONS
Hip-hop producers rarely pivot well into rock ’n’ roll. (Chris Cornell must still rue the day he met Timbaland.) But Alex Da Kid, the guy behind Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie,” B.o.B’s “Airplanes,” and hits from Nicki Minaj and Dr. Dre, makes the right move every time on Commons’s U. S.-debut single. Fiery horns, glitchy guitars, finger snaps, and a scrappy piano add up to a promising debut for both parties.
“DON’T PLAY WITH GUNS,” THE BLACK ANGELS An antigun
message from Texas is
I T ’S G E T T I N
GH
G N O S A E V O L
DER R A H D N A ARDER
TO
O BY TOM JUN
I AM A COLLECTOR. I am not on Spotify and only
occasionally make use of Pandora. I disdain both. I am the listener Steve Jobs had in mind when, in 2007, he said that music subscription services were doomed to fail because “people want to own their music.” I like to own my music. I have arranged my iTunes “library” not in alphabetical but rather in archaeological order—by date of acquisition. I know the first song I downloaded to my computer, three computers ago. I have been collecting music on my computer for ten years and can see not what I was listening to at crucial times in my life but rather what I was getting and grabbing and calling my own. Like all collectors, I regard my collection as nothing less than a creati on, though I created none of it, and the achievement of a lifetime, though i t required less effort than buying groceries. I am also somewhat embarrassed by it, because I know Jobs was wrong. My collection is already outmoded—not by my taste (which is, of course, peerless), but by the taste of the technology that put it together. Music subscriptions will eventually replace music collections because the digital universe is oriented against the idea of ownership—because music ownership is itself the eight-track of the Internet. I always looked askance at Pandora and Spotify, regarding both as a passive means of experiencing music; they feed you music they presume you will like, and eventually you like it. I distrust them not because I distrust the songs they offer but rather their capacity to allow the listener to breathe an atmosphere of songs algorithmically and demographically decided upon. They represent the fulfillment of the Internet’s interest in turning everything into background music. Compare the experience of listening to a song you love on Pandora with the experience of listening to the same song on iTunes shuffle. One comes to you by means of a database, the other by means of history—your own history with the song. You have had the opportunity to love it before you are put under the obligation to “like” or “dislike” it, with a virtual thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and that makes all the difference. It is the same song, playing from the same white earbuds or the same crappy speakers, and its fleeting transit through your ears owes itself to the same impulse: the impulse to engineer a listening environment that will never be anything but congenial to your experience and flattering to your taste. Whether you listen to music that you “own” or listen to music that, in some respect, owns you, the only thing certain in the digitized musical universe is that you will never be able to escape music that you like . . . and so the question that remains to be
D
asked goes beyond the music, beyond the merits of a particular song: Do you like listening to music that serves an encompassing demographic or music that allows you to maintain an illusion of individuality by serving a demographic of one? I collect songs because I want to control what I—what everybody within earshot—listens to. But I began ceding control as soon as I started putting the collection together: first by agreeing to buy songs infected by the plague of DRM and later by uploading every song I pretended to own to the whimsical omnivorum of Apple’s iCloud. Indeed, I collect music on my computer only to have the collection defeat its own purpose. As it has grown inexorably, it has also grown inexorably less exclusive. The main difference between listening to music on a computer and listening to music on vinyl or disc is not sound quality or even portability; it’s that when you listen to musi c on a computer, you listen to music on the same instrument you use to acquire it. You think you won’t be able to find new music? Try stopping. Listening to a song generates not only pleasure, not only rapture, not only contemplation and awe, but also an appetite for another version (live or cover), a song from the same album, a song by the same band, a song by a different band that shares the same drummer. . . . It doesn’t matter whether the song is good or bad, only that it leads to another. So yes, I am able to name the songs I first downloaded and bought on my computer. I am also able to name the song that’s stayed on my computer the longest without ever being played—a Doors cover by Thievery Corporation, which I downloaded in 2006. I own approximately four thousand songs just like it, songs collected and then unplayed, even in shuffle. I have resisted the subscription services because I fear that a diet of songs I don’t have to decide upon will in reality be a diet of songs I don’t have to engage with, and that music will slip from foreground into background. I don’t fear for myself as a collector so much as I fear for myself as a listener. But collecting music—owning and acquiring music—in the digital age degrades the listening experience in an entirely different way, fomenting restlessness and ultimately dissatisfaction, even while you’re listening to songs you love. I love having virtually every song I’ve ever had any feeling for on my computer and, of course, available on my devices. I love using those songs as the basis for finding new ones. But whether you listen to music by stream or purchase, whether you listen to songs on Spotify or Sirius, finding new music in the digital universe isn’t the problem. Listening is.
IT DOESN’T MATTER WHETHER THE SONG IS GOOD OR BAD, ONLY THAT IT LEADS TO ANOTHER.
EN TO T S I L O T W O H IC BETTER MUS
( c o n t ’ d )
WT O H R E M H O L E
Boy, obviously.
Lovestreams’ first song as a ree MP3. In 2010, She produced Erickson’s comeback album, True Love Cast Out All Evil.
“I Am a Laser,” David Bowie and the Astronettes (1973)
“Shock Corridor” reers to an Astronettes bootleg. The Astronettes were David Bowie’s mid-seventies backup singers, one o whom was Ava Cherry.
TECH!
Pick your speakers first, on the basis o your sound preerences and the type o music you like to listen to. For more tips—and more speakers— turn to page 42. McIn-
“Sound and Vision,” Beck (2013)
tosh XR100 ($10,000 per pair; mcintoshlabs.com).
notable, but it’s a red herring: The blitzkrieg guitars and fuzzed-out vocals suggest this is less about politics than it is about the Black Angels’ quest to hang on to its title as the most important psychedelic rock band of our time. It does.
“HIGH SCHOOL LOVER,” CAYUCAS In one frantic swoop, this debunks an important supposed truth, namely, that Flea had ruined slap bass for us forever.
heard from this Swiss-German women’s duo focus on the hormonal rush of a relationship’s early stages. Before Facebook, it all started with “seven little numbers.”
“I MISS YOU,” “LITTLE NUMBERS,” BOY
The best songs we’ve
KACEY MUSGRAVES
There’s a cartel agree-
“STRICTLY RESERVED FOR YOU” CHARLES BRADLEY Homelessness. His brother’s murder. A career spent impersonating James Brown, literally. That’s this late-blooming sixty-something’s backstory, documented in last year’s Soul of America, a film not dissimilar to and every bit as powerul as Searching for Sugar Man. Perseverance gives his voice unparalleled integrity, but on this slinky valentine he lets pure uncut lust do the driving.
132
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
For a new Lincolnsponsored video project, Beck and a 160-piece ensemble team up or a 9:30 version o the Bowie classic.
“Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard,” Portland Cello Project (2012)
This is the genrebending Portlandbased cello collective’s interpretation o the opening composition in Beck’s Song Reader, a collection o sheet music he hoped other musicians would record or perorm.
ment on Music Row: When they pick a next big thing, things move quickly. At twenty-four, this Texas expatriate landed an Academy of Country Music Award nomination for Female Vocalist of the Year before her debut album hit the shelves. And she’s blocked out her summer to play stadiums with Kenny Chesney. Whether she pans out as a hit maker or not, the songs that won’t be hits—like this one— ought to keep interested those of us who expect better from country music.
“YEAH Y EAH,” WILLY Because any friend of the Bo Diddley beat is a friend of ours. MOON
“AZAMANE TILIA DE,” BOMBINO Hailing from
the Tuareg Ifoghas tribe of nomads in Niger, this young guitarist and former desert herder plays desert blues sung in his native Tamashek. His playing features the tone of a young Mark Knopfler and the energy of Gary Clark Jr. (See page 133.) What’s tagged “world music” these days rarely sounds this essential or accessible. Maybe this one does because the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach produced it. ≥
ESQUIRE
STYLE AYES
M S
R U N T
Z
T I F | . R J
D
N
A
T A E H T
N T ER H | H U
IN
PRESENTS
| W I Z K H A L
I F A
| N
E - Y
O
JUST. PRES .
| C O
L D
W
A
R K I D
HUFFL .
K
S
R
A
L C
Y R
A
G :
G
N
I
R
U
T
A E
BY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
ANDY LANGER
TURE LILLEGRAVEN
F
SOME WERE NOMINEES. SOME WERE PERFORMERS. AND SOME WERE JUST BANGING AROUND LOS ANGELES. THE DAY BEFORE THIS YEAR’S GRAMMY AWARDS, FOURTEEN MUSICIANS FROM ACROSS THE JUKEBOX SPECTRUM GATHERED IN ONE PLACE TO SHOW HOW A LITTLE VARIETY—ON YOUR PLAYLIST AND IN YOUR CLOSET—CAN GO A LONG WAY.
WANT TO HEAR THESE GUYS SING? SCAN THE FO LLOWING PAGES USING YOUR NETPAGE APP TO LISTEN TO MU SIC FROM E ACH ARTIST.
Clip, Save, Share.
133
Linen-and-resin jacket ($998), cotton jeans ($298), and suede boots ($598) by John Varvatos; cotton T-shirt ($55) by Boss Orange; wool hat ($78) by Gents.
FOR THE UNINITIATED: When
Eric Clapton tells you that you’re the blues guitar player who makes him want to play again, you’re probably on to something. After cutting his teeth as a teenage prodigy around Austin’s blues scene, Clark has emerged as rock ’n’ roll’s preeminent guitar hero, an honor largely earned with bli stering, moneymaker-shaking sets in front of huge festi val crowds at Bonnaroo, Coachella, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. His debut album, last year ’s Bla k and Blu, is an impressive all-over-the-map fusio n of R&B, hip-hop, neo-soul, and, yes, blues. Lots of blues. ON PLAYING FOR GIANT FESTIVAL CROWDS: “It’s humbling when people choose your stage. It’s hot, it’s funky, but there they are, hanging and listening, caring about what you ’re doi ng. To thi nk a wei rd i dea I no odl ed o n at the hou se has gon e to som ething forty thousand people might hear at a festival is an indescribable feeling. As coo l as I mi ght try to b e, I thi nk, Oh, my God, this is real. ” THE PRESHOW RITUAL: “Most of the time, we gather backsta ge and put on O. V. Wright’s ‘Ace of Spades.’ It’s a badass southern s oul tune. We dance around to it like idiots. Everybody gets loose. And sometimes it’s the Otis Redding album In Per son a t the W hisk y a Go G o. Then we go.” 134
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
E S Q U I R E S T Y L E M
U S I C 2 0 1 3
Two-button linen suit ($3,195) by Giorgio Armani; cotton shirt ($145) by Boss Orange; leather shoes ($460) by Fratelli Rossetti.
Clip, Save, Share.
AND THE
Led by Michael “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, these R&B revivalists blend a love for classic Motown and Stax with bits of Hall & Oates–inspired pop. They turned a reputation for blistering Los Angeles club shows into a record deal and 2010’s Pic kin ’ Up the Pie ces , which yielded an instantly classic summer song, “MoneyGrabber.” The ban d’s f oll ow-u p, More tha n Jus t a Dre am, lands this month. FITZ ON THEIR SOUND: “There’s just two markers—it has to make you want to sing along before it ’s over, and it has to make you want to dance. Those are the goals. Every time.” ON THE STATE OF SOUL MUSIC: “A lot of what’s out there is not melodic; it’s rhythmic. They’re creating hooks with rhythm and repetition, but a lot of times it’s the same note over and over. For us, it’s about strong melodies. Melody gives people a way in. It makes them want to b e a part of the band, dancing in their living room or singing along in the car. It’s at the core of every great pop song.” ON FAME AND EVERYTHING AFTER: “To have anyone give a shit enough to weigh in on what we do is pretty amazing. Good, bad, ugly, I’ll take it. Be fore, I couldn’t get anyone to care. I’ve be en i n a l ot o f ba nds and pla yed a lot of shitty shows for empty rooms. And I kn ow t hes e t hin gs c ome and go. One minute they love you, one moment they couldn’t care less. I hope that’s not true for us, but just in case I plan on enjoying every fucking moment.” WHAT THEY’RE LISTENING TO: Capital Cities, “Patience Gets Us Nowhere Fast”; the Airborne Toxic Event, “Timeless.” FOR THE UNINITIATED:
136
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
E S Q U I R E S T Y L E M
U S I C
From let, on Joseph Karnes, bassist: Leather jacket ($2,675) by Paul Smith; cotton T-shirt ($78) by Diesel; cotton jeans ($98) by Levi’s; canvas boots ($598) by John Varvatos. On John Wicks, drummer: Cotton jacket ($595) by Boss; cotton jeans ($98) by Levi’s; leather boots ($875) by Esquivel. On Michael “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, lead singer: Leather jacket ($1,795) by Rag & Bone; cashmere sweater ($198) by Tommy Hilfiger; cotton trousers ($128) by All Saints; leather boots ($698) by John Varvatos. On Noelle Scaggs, vocalist: Sweater by Thakoon Addition; tank by Asos; shorts by All Saints; shoes by BCBG Max Azria. On Jeremy Ruzumna, keyboardist: Cotton peacoat ($1,398), cotton T-shirt ($148), cotton jeans ($298), leather boots ($898), and scar ($228) by John Varvatos. On James King, saxophonist: Cotton jacket ($925) by Emporio Armani; cotton T-shirt ($85) by Boss Orange; cotton jeans ($98) by Levi’s; leather shoes ($550) by John Varvatos; hat by Goorin Bros.
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
137
H UNTER H AYES FOR THE UNINITIATED: This
Above: Leather jacket ($2,075) by Dolce & Gabbana; denim shirt ($760) by Dior Homme; cotton jeans ($90) by Kill City; sneakers by Converse. Above right and below: Leather sneakers ($325) by Rag & Bone.
138
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
twenty-one-yearold country phenom was nominated for Best New Artist at this year’s Grammys, but he ain’t really new. Hayes joined his fir st ban d at fou r an d pe rfo rme d wi th Ha nk Williams Jr. and Charlie Daniels before graduating elementary school. For his selftitled major-label debut, he wrote or cowrote all the songs, served as coproducer, and played more than thirty instruments. The album spawned three massive countryradio hits, and he’s logged more than two hundred dates a year on the road. ON GROWING UP CO UNTRY: “Every demo I do has a mandolin or resonator on it—some element of the bluegrass or classic country world that I grew up listening to and that first drew me in. And then I always try to find somewhere for a bluesy guitar sound, bec aus e th at ’s al so w hat I lo ve. Mus ica lly, I’m always finding my way home.” ON PLAYING LIVE: “The stage is my comfort zone, and playing live is what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s why I want to do two hundred dates a year. I wouldn’t feel that way if I were nervous onstage. These days, we play a two-and-a-half-hour headlining show. We have a song with a twenty-minute outro on it. Things evolve and I love that.” TELL US MORE ABOUT THAT: “Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There’s a connection because there’s a vul ner abi lit y, a co nfe ssi ona l qu ali ty, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in. ” WHAT HE’S LISTENING TO: MercyMe, “So Long Self”; Lori McKenna, “Ladders and Parachutes.” Clip, Save, Share.
FOR THE UNINITIATED: Typically photographed with
a giant halo o f smoke hovering overhead, Wiz Khalifa earned his reputation on the back of good old-fashioned hustle: Mixtapes and hard touring culminated in his blazing breakout track “Black and Yellow.” Late last year, he released O.N.I.F.C., which has already generated two hit singles, “Work Hard, Play Hard” and “Remember You.” ON HIS SOUND: “I’m about partying, so my songs are usually just about smoking weed and having fun. When somebody isn’t having a great day, I like to be the guy that takes tha t load off your back.” ON HIS BIG MOMENT: “Performing with Snoop at Coachella [in 2012] was crazy. I grew up listening to Snoop and idolizing him. But not only did he bring me out that night, he brought out Dr. Dre and freakin’ hologram Tupac. To be in that sentence is pretty amazing. Pinch yourself? I had to slap myself.” ON GETTING HIS: “This is a serious job. It’s why I’m constantly at odds with friends and family—they don’t understand why I go so hard, why I never stop. But I like learning new things. Right now, I’m learning to sue people and get my money. After talking to people who work for Donald Trump—smart, successful people—I’ve realized I gotta go after all that. That’s what I ’m going to do that I didn’t last year.” WHAT HE’S LISTENING TO: Chief Keef, “I Don’t Like”; Juicy J, “Bandz a Make Her Dance.”
Rayon shirt ($575) and wool trousers ($575) by Alexander Wang; leather boots ($339) by Vintage Shoe Company.
E S Q U I R E S T Y L E M
U S I C 2 0 3
FOR THE UNINITIATED:
He calls them his “Four Kings”—Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevi e Wonder, Sammy Davis Jr.—and in thi s songwriter, Grammy-winning solo artist , dancer, and actor, their influence is easy to spot. His latest album, R.E. D., features perhaps the lushest valentine of his care er, “Let Me Love You.” ON DANCING: “I’m not a natural. I had to teach myself—or be taught—everythin g I do. I just spent hours and hours in the mirror mimicking Michael Jackson.” ON SAMMY ET AL.: “I grew up in Las Vegas. My mom worked in pretty much every casino on t he Strip. She brought home the Rat Pack stuff. Sammy was the only one that looked like me, so I naturally gravitated to him. Sammy made it cool to be black at a time when, let’s just say it, it wasn’t very cool to be black. His name was on the front of the building in lights, and he had to go in the back. But you never saw him sweat.” ON THE BIG MOMENT: “Early on, I was at a festival in Japan—eighty thousand people. My first song was ‘So Sick,’ which was my first number one as an artist, and I turned the mic around to the crowd and they sang the whole so ng. Every lyric. That was my first experience with the power of music. No barriers exist. Age. Race. Language. A great song—that trumps everything else.”
E S Q U I R E S T Y L M S I C
1
Above: Wool shirt ($570) and mohair trousers ($835) by Prada; leather shoes ($415) by Grenson.
Opposite: Cotton cardigan ($980) and cotton trousers ($750) by Bottega Veneta; leather monk-straps ($675) by O’Keefe; cottonand-silk scar ($425) by Burberry London; hat by Hollywood Hatters.
141
FOR STORE INFORMATION SEE PAGE 160. PRODUCTION BY MEAGAN SZASZ FOR LAH PRODUCES. GROOMING BY DANIELLE DECKER, PROP STYLING BY ABRAHAM LATHAM, BOTH FOR ARTMIX. ADDITIONAL STYLING BY ARIANNE TUNNEY FOR TRACEY MATTINGLY.
Opposite page, from left, on Dann Gallucci, guitarist: Wool blazer ($1,195) by Calvin Klein Collection; cotton shirt ($220) by Rag & Bone; silk tie ($225) by Dolce & Gabbana; cotton jeans ($298) by John Varvatos; leather shoes ($750) by Esquivel. On Matt Maust, bassist: Leatherand-nylon jacket ($1,795) by Z Zegna; cotton jeans ($88) by Levi’s; leather shoes by Dr. Martens; glasses ($340) by Oliver Peoples. On Nathan Willett, lead singer: Leather jacket by Schott; cotton shirt ($125) by Polo Ralph Lauren; cotton jeans ($78) by Levi’s; leather shoes ($830) by Louis Vuitton. On Matt Aveiro, drummer: Vintage blazer by Gant; cotton shirt ($204) by Steven Alan.
142
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
Clip, Save, Share.
FOR THE UNINITIATED:
Bluesy barrelhouse piano. Propulsive pop melodies. Jittery bits of guitar. A breathless plea. Repe at. Formulaic? Maybe. But after fits and starts of brilliance on its first three records, this Long Beach–based quartet has hit its stride and locked into a very intense groove for the fourth, the new Dea r Mis s Lon ely hea rts. LEAD SINGER NATHAN WILLET ON THEIR SOUND: “Our songs hinge on dynamics—big, chaotic, crashing moments and soft, sensitive moments. . . . Some songs have both, s ome one or the other. But a lot of them have both.” ON BEING IN A BAND: “Maintaining a band means a lot of meetings. And the y’ re n ot a lwa ys r eal mee ti ngs . It ’s ca ll t his dud e. Ha ve a beer with that dude. Tell one guy what the other guy said. But the value is at the end of the day, we know everybody is trying to protect what’s special about this band. We need those checks and balances.” ON THE LONG GAME: “We’re not about radio hits; we’re not about selling one song or one record. Four records in, we have a bod y of wor k. A nd I kno w we ’re a be tte r ba nd, mak in g be tte r music, than we’ve ever been. We look up to the bands like R.E.M., U2, or even the National—bands that were hitting their stride, tapping into something special, on their fifth record. That’s what we’re looking to do.” WHAT THEY’RE LISTENING TO: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “We No Who U R”; Frank Ocean, “Pilot Jones.”
E S Q U I R E S T Y L E U S I C 2 0 1 3
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR, 56, WASHINGTON I N T E R V I E W E D B Y C A L F U S S M A N , M A R C H 1 3 , 2 0 1 3
> I somebody’s trying to get you angry, the calmer you get, the angrier they’ll get. > I try not to keep any ice cream in the house because I can go through a pint pretty fast. > Anytime I was hesitant about taking a chance, my grandmother would say, “Valerie, put yourself in the path of lightning.” > I was the first person in my family to become a lawyer. I was working on the seventy-ninth floor of the Sears Tower. I had a great office overlooking the sailboats on Lake Michigan. But I was miserable. A friend advised me to think about city government. I was hesitant—I was on my path and, miserable as I might be, it was my path. But Harold Washington had become the first black mayor of Chicago, and I made the move. I got a cubicle . . . with a window facing an alley. That was a little jarring. But as soon as I stepped in that cubicle, I felt This is where I belong. I was working with people who shared a common passion in their love for the city. I thought, Hey, I can get used to this cubicle. > Just because you’re nervous doesn’t mean you have to look nervous. Nobody can look inside you. Project what you want to project. > I was doing an interview on a panel of women. The question was, Is it more important for a woman to be respected or liked? My view is you can actually be both—if you add being decent. > Children play the same no matter where they come from. > Laughter is very important to health. So I laugh a lot. On the hard days, you try to find a little bit of humor, even if it’s macabre. > The president is the kind of person who, the day before the final exam, would open the book, read it, and get an A. The First Lady is the kind of person who, the first day of class when they were discussing dissertations, would plot out how to finish hers. > I spent the first eighteen years of our relationship being the older mentor. I liked our relationship like that. It worked for me. One of the reasons it was so easy to have my mentee become my boss is because I respect him. > When you’re an only child, friendship becomes really important. > You can’t expect people to put your friendship on hold because you’re in a demanding job. Friends require investment. Like a garden, you have to water them. If you don’t, they dry up. > I was chairing the board of the Chicago Transit Authority and we were in a terrible budget situation. We were having to shrink the service we were providing, and people started demonstrating outside my co-op. I had just closed on it, and it was still under renovation. The co-op members have to approve you coming in. I hadn’t even had a chance to move in yet and give everybody a chance to see how adorable my daughter was and fall in love with us. So here we are, strangers stil l, and the protesters showed up. So I went and bought them coffee and doughnuts. I’m not sure if it was the coffee and doughnuts or the cold weather, but they dispersed. My daughter was about eleven. She said, “Why do you do this?” meaning why are you chairing the board of the Chicago Transit Authority? I said, “I would rather be the one making the decisions than somebody else because I know I’m going to be as thoughtful as possible.” > Someone once said to me that part of being a leader is you have to be able to absorb a lot of pain. The president is able to absorb a lot of incoming fire. > There’s nothing worse than boredom. > I’m low on drama. That’s one thing I share with the president. Our challenges are too big for us to have to fight among ourselves. > It doesn’t mean we don’t debate ideas. One of the president’s strengths, I think, is his ability to make people feel safe expressing themselves, knowing that if he disagrees with you it doesn’t mean that he disrespects you. He simply disagrees with you. A healthy disagreement enables him to make better decisions. > You have to look at people in order to be able to read them. > I did question the president back when he decided to run for the U. S. Senate. I wasn’t sure it was the right ti me for him. That has generated periodic humor at my expense. > As you get older, it gets easier to know who to trust. > I you had asked me on the night when I first met him, could that be possible, I probably would’ve said yes, but it would’ve been a fantasy. But to then live it and share it wit h my daughter, who thinks it’s perfectly normal to have your mom’s friend become president of the United States . . . > You can have it all, just not at the same time and in all the proportions that you may want. ≥
144
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
Clip, Save, Share, from any page. Download free from the iTunes App Store or Google Play.
Jarrett met the uture president when he was just out o law school and she was deputy chie o staf or Chicago mayor Richard Daley. She interviewed Michelle Robinson, who had recently become engaged to Obama, or a job, and the three became riends. 145
A HOUSE ON THE RIVER BILL PETIT SUFFERED THE WORST LOSS A MAN CAN GO THROUGH, HIS FAMILY BRUTALLY MURDERED. THIS IS THE STORY OF HOW, LITTLE BY LITTLE, A MAN PUTS A LIFE TOGETHER.
“You never saw these,” Bill Petit says as he opens his front door. Aten THURSDAY It’s o’clock in the morning and he is holding a stack of broken-down cardboard boxes he was supposed to take out to the trash. They missed the recycling last week. They’re still getting used to the schedule. He and his wife, Christine, moved into this house a month ago, not long after the wedding, and she’s trying to make it nice, to give it “the feminine touch,” as Bill says. And that means not having boxes stacked by the front door. He steps out past the pumpkin left over from Halloween and half eaten by squirrels, and gets rid of them before she sees. BY RYAN D’AGOSTINO PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOÃO CANZIANI 147
His hair is damp from the shower, combed back. His beard is trimmed neat. He wears a checked shirt and jeans. He is a newlywed, for the first time in a long time, and a new homeowner, so his days are full of little interactions with his wife and with his house, the little interactions that make up a life. Since the murders, it’s these moments that little by little have brought Petit back to life. Back inside, he fiddles with the sliding doors that lead out to the deck. “These sliders don’t sit right,” he says. “They’re not flush.” Have to fix that. He jiggles the door shut. The house is a baby-blue prefab sitting on steel beams and concrete footings at the end of a residential street along the Farmington River in western Connecticut. Off to one side is a copse of maple trees along the river’s edge, some of them felled by the beavers who gnaw the trunks until the trees topple and land with a deep thud on the bed of brown leaves below. On the other side of the house, right outside the front door, is a pumping station about the size of a tennis court, with a chainlink fence around it—the town recently put in a sewer system, and a pumping station ended up here in the Petits’ new front yard. The room in the house that’s supposed to be the master bedroom faces the pumping station. Bill and Christine instead squeezed their bed into the small room across the hall, which is not much larger than the bed itself, but it faces the river. That’s the side of the house they choose to focus on. That’s the view they want, the peace they want. “We painted this, the inside,” Petit says, nodding to the white walls of the living room. “This was all dark. All dark. Then she put these funky lights in. Put a new floor in, got rid of some furniture, tried to fit in here. No basement, no attic, no garage, no storage. What you see is what you get.” One of the funky lights is a chandelier that looks like a giant fluffy white dandelion. That’s pure Christine. And the benches out on the deck, which the previous owner left behind—she had Bill paint those bright purple. Christine Paluf Petit sings out as she enters the room, “Shangri-la!” She waves her hands around like a hostess on a game show. Then she lowers her voice a notch—still several notches, and a couple of octaves, above Bill’s dry New England monotone— and, extending her damp right hand, says of their home, “We like it. It’s fun. I just washed my hands. Nice to meet you.” She whirls around the room, putting water on for tea, straightening a blanket on the arm of a chair, sliding an ottoman over in front of Bill so he can put his feet up. “It’s peaceful here, you know? It’s hard to find that,” she says, clanging out mugs and spoons on the counter. “The town here is an artsy kind of place, and there’s something about those places that—the mind-set is to create new things, you know? Like this lamp. That’s the whimsy! Look at the shadows it makes. This is the jewelry, I call it. I’m trying to draw your eye awaaay from the bad walls, the bad windows.” She flicks her hands at the chandelier and says, “You’re not gonna look at that because this is here!” She smiles and her eyes drift out the window toward the river. She runs a hand through her
YOU JUST KEEP GOING, HE SAYS. NO, CHRISTINE SAYS. SHE CORRECTS HIM: YOU JUST KEEP GOING. YOU FIND A WAY TO KEEP LIVING. NOT EVERYONE WOULD, OR COULD. TO WHICH BILL SCRUNCHES HIS FACE INTO A LOOK THAT SAYS, IF YOU SAY SO.
148
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
beach-blond hair. “I’ll open this door a little,” she says to no one. “It’s a nice day.” Bill’s eyes follow her, and he grins a little as she buzzes around. “But the house is so small, so it’s hard,” she says, going on the way she sometimes does, filling the silence. “Literally, literally, you can’t walk around the bed in the room we made into our bedroom. But you can see the water! So of course we did it that way. Why would I want to look at that fence?” “Whose idea was that?” Bill asks. Christine gives him a glare and a smile. “Just checking,” he says. She’s back in the kitchen now, fixing the tea. Petit absently picks up his phone from a side table. His hand brushes a stack of brochures that say “Michaela’s Garden.” On the front cover is an emblem depicting a mother bird wrapping two baby birds in her wing, and the birds form the shape of a heart. Inside each brochure is a small packet of flower seeds. The flowers are called fouro’clocks, because their blooms open up in the late afternoon each day and blossom all night before their petals fold in again with the first rays of dawn light. Bill’s daughter Michaela loved four-o’clocks— they’re showy flowers, red and white and pink and yellow, trumpet-shaped, bushy. She and Bill used to like to plant them around the yard when they lived a couple towns over in Cheshire, the two of them out there on their knees in the dirt. Bill liked them because they were easy to plant—pop the seed in the soil about a quarter-inch down, cover it up, boom. Done. After the murders, he started the Petit Family Foundation in memory of the girls and his wife Jennifer, who was forty-eight when one of the intruders raped her on their living-room floor, and then strangled her with his hands before soaking her body with gasoline. Hay-
ley was seventeen—she almost escaped, having been tied to her bed for hours with nylons and rope, a pillowcase over her head. Michaela was only eleven, and died in her bed after the younger of the two men sodomized her, then poured gas all over her room just before the fire started. The seeds in the small packet inside the brochures were harvested from the very plants she and Bill planted. The house was torn down— the fire burned so fast and so hot that the structure was beyond salvation. But before it was, Petit’s brother-in-law and a few others went over and dug up as many four-o’clocks as they could and replanted them far from that place. Now the seeds are harvested—something like three hundred thousand so far—and sold in little packets inside the brochures for ten dollars, for the foundation. Petit pokes his phone with his thumb. “Too many e-mails,” he says without looking up. Foundation business, invitations to appear as an honored guest at this function or that, junk ma il. “I try to look at the ten worst ones and get rid of them. Th ere’s Williams and Sonomas. Somehow Williams and Sonomas—we got a couple of wedding gifts and somehow now they have us on their list for the rest of our lives.” He keeps scrolling. “That thing at Children’s Hospital is next Tuesday at 3:15,” he calls over to Christine. “Tuesday the eleventh. Meet ’em in the lobby.” She looks up. “What thing?” “That lady, Wilma Hoffman, from Bulkeley High School who does the knitting club. They knit stuff for the kids. We gave ’em a grant, and we’re gonna go with them to Children’s Hospital.” Christine pulls out her phone. This is what they have to do constantly. Sync. “The thirteenth?” “Eleventh. Tuesday the eleventh. Three-fifteen.” “Okay. Children’s Hospital. Which one?” “The one in Hartford,” Bill says. He pauses before adding, “The only one.” Christine murmurs a little singsongy reminder: “I don’t know that.” They put their coats on. There are the usual errands to do. Petit shoves the storm door closed as he leaves. A gust of wind caught it the other day and busted the bracket that keeps it latched, so you need to really push it to make sure it’s shut. Have to fix that.
Lunch first. They’ll walk into town,
12:15 P.M.
which they like to do. Petit can do things to relax these days. Or at least he can do the kinds of things other people do to relax. He can simulate leisure. At the end of Petit’s driveway, an old railroad bridge creaks over the river. On the other side: an antiques barn, a package store, some gifty shops, a wine bar, a pub in the old depot, a place to rent kayaks. Cute town. There’s this one sandwich place where everything’s homemade. They do a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce on pumpernickel that Bill gets almost every time. Bill and Christine sit and eat and talk and watch people. No one stares at him here. Bill sometimes makes jokes that show his age, and Christine’s—he’s fifty-six, she’s thirty-six. At the lunch counter, the girl hands Christine a bowl of steaming winter-squash soup. “Danger, Will Robinson,” Bill says to his wife as she picks it up, quoting a television show that went off the air nine years before she was born. When she successfully carries it to the table without burning herself, he says,
“Well done, Grasshopper.” Yeah, well, you gotta make some jokes. You just keep going. That’s the way Petit has lived since the morning of July 23, 2007, the first day in more than twenty-two years that he had neither a family nor a home, both of which were savagely taken from him the night before, just a few hours after he fell asleep. Two men broke in. Ripped his life from him in the most hideous way imaginable. And now he just keeps going. He doesn’t talk about it much, his soldiering on or whatever people call it. His courage, his fortitude. It’s just how he was brought up, he says. You do what you have to, he says. You just keep going, he says. No, Christine says. She corrects him: You do what you have to. You just keep going. You find ways to keep living. Not everyone would, or could. To which Bill scrunches his face into a look that says, If you say so, his fingers absently gathering the fallen leaves from a dying plant into a neat pile on the table. After that—after you keep going for a while—you yearn for the return of mundane normalcy, if such a thing is even possible. Your days, like anyone’s days, become a mosaic of present and past, each piece as surprising as the next. But in your case, the past is a conflagration, the end of the world. So you go on, and the most important questions in your life, the ones you ask yourself every day and the ones people think but don’t say out loud, become: Where, exactly, are you going? Will there ever come a time when you’ll be able to salvage what is good and leave the horror behind? How do you get out of bed in the morning? Will you ever be able to sleep again?
He talks to the car radio.
“Sorry dudes. You’re out,” he says to the Rolling Stones after a cou2:00 P.M.
ple of verses of “Midnight Rambler,” looking at the dash as he punches the buttons. “Oh, crap. Okay, we got about four tenths of a gal lon left. It says we got about ten miles left. Just about get us to Plainville.” “Oh don’t do that,” Christine says. “Get gas.” She knows how to poke him like that. He liked that in her from the time they met. It was in the Founders Room at the Farmington Country Club, where Bill plays golf with his best fr iend, Ron. If you dreamed up a room you’d want to hang out in after a round of golf, the Founders Room would be it. Everything is dark wood. At one end is a mammoth fireplace, at the other end, the bar, which is where they first started talking. She was the club’s marketing director, and she also tended bar in the Founders Room. She didn’t know who he was, which is to say that she didn’t know he was “Dr. Bill Petit.” She didn’t know his family had been murdered. She wasn’t living in Connecticut when it happened, and the news had passed her by. She just knew he was a member of the club, and she thought he was cute. He would order a Diet Coke with three cherries. They talked. One of Christine’s friends at the club noticed, but didn’t say anything. Ron noticed. Ron’s known him since Little League, when Bill was on the Owls and Ron was on the Seals. Known him through every crush, every girlfriend. Knew Jen, of course. How about her? he’d say to Bill. The girl behind the bar. Nothing happened. Eventually Christine went back to Boston, where she was studying photography at Boston University’s Center for Digital Imaging Arts. For her final project, she had to volunteer her services to a nonprofit. She e-mailed Bill Petit, who, she now knew, had lost his family and had a foundation. Did they need any pictures? He knew who she was, and he knew she was pretty, and he knew she could crack a joke. It took him about five seconds to say yes, Christine was welcome to photograph whatever she liked. Petit scans the radio, nixing songs. “Nope . . . nope . . . nope.” The road follows the curvature of the Farmington River, and he’s on a stretch with no stoplights, speed limit fifty, cruising along. Thin hori-
To read our original 2011 story about Bill Petit, scan here with Netpage.
149
zontal white and gray clouds lash across the baby-blue midwinter sky. “Nice blue,” says Bill. “Look at all the layers,” says Christine. They drive on for a minute without talking. “Farmington tiramisu,” Bill finally says. Down Unionville Avenue, getting closer to Plainville, roads he could drive blindfolded. “My dad and my uncl e Charlie used to run this package store here,” he says. “And that’s where I used to work when I was sixteen years old, that shop. Making sandwiches.” Christine mutters something about how he sure doesn’t make sandwiches anymore. “I got paid for it,” he replies. “You pay me, I’ll make you a sandwich.” “I’ll keep washing your socks.” “I’ll just buy new socks.” The relationship moved pretty fast. One of the men who invaded Petit’s home and killed his wife and daughters went on trial in the fall of 2011, and Christine came with Bill to the courthouse. Petit and his parents and sister and aunts and uncles and friends would drive the fifty minutes from Plainville to New Haven each morning, not talking much on the way. They sat in the courtroom on the sixth floor of New Haven Superior Court, just a few feet from the man who saw Jen and Michaela at the supermarket one Sunday afternoon— the afternoon of July 22, 2007—and followed them home, then went back in the middle of the night with a friend he had met in a halfway house, another shitbag who wanted to learn how to break into houses and steal money, as if people with nice houses keep stacks of cash around. It was around three in the morning. They saw Petit zonked out on the couch in the sunroom. The younger of the two tried every door and window until he hit on the one that was unlocked: the basement bulkhead door. He
way he wanted. The funeral itself happened so quickly—the tragedy took place early on a Monday morning, and the funeral was that Friday. Bill went straight from the hospital to the church. All his clothes burned, so he was wearing a suit that a local tail or had donated after reading about the murders. The suit felt strange, like a rented tux. The stitches in his head were still red and tender and swollen. Ron had taken care of everything. All I want is white caskets, Bill told him. You do the rest. And Ron did, perfectly. But the headstone, that took some time, took until long after the paroxysm of that first week had dissolved into the unbearable daily routine of trying to live. Once you plant a rock in the grass with their names chiseled into it, it’s set in stone, as they say. Right? It’s final. When the task is done, and your mind is unoccupied, the gaping maw of the universe comes to swallow you whole. So Bill took his time, worked and worked on the stone, choosing the right one, getting the design just right, the shape. It’s Virginia slate, and the man Bill bought it from said it came from so deep in the earth that it would last five hundred years. At the top is a circle divided into four parts, each quadrant etched with an image. A rose, for Michaela Rose. A rower with a long ponytail, powering a scull through the water— Hayley was going to be on the crew team at Dartmouth. An angel, with the hint of a smile—that represents all three of them. Jennifer was good to her core. She ran the health center at a boarding school, and she was like a mother to those girls. The worst thing she would ever say about another person was “He’s a baddie.” The preacher’s daughter, not a mean bone. Petit does this thing where he counts the days, hours, and minutes since the girls died. He has a computational mind, likes num bers, is always calculating. One February day this year, he drove to the cemetery. There had been snow on the ground for weeks. Sometimes when it’s cold and snowy, or when the rains come, there aren’t many visitors. When Petit went that day, he didn’t see footprints in the snow. It didn’t bother him much— people are busy, and it was a cold winter. But he took a picture of the headstone and tweeted it. “5 years, 7 months and 24 days. We will never forget,” he wrote. In the fourth part of the circle, Petit chose the Latin phrase Vox clamantis in deserto. From the Old Testament. It’s the Dartmouth College motto. Petit’s alma mater. Hayley would have g raduated two years ago by now. A voice crying out in the wilderness.
THE MAN BROUGHT THE BAT DOWN ONTO PETIT’S SKULL. HE CAME TO, DIDN’T KNOW IF HE WAS AWAKE OR ASLEEP, ALIVE OR DEAD. HE COULD SEE THAT ONE OF THE MEN HAD A GUN. walked in, found a baseball bat in the cellar, and went up to the sunporch. He lifted the bat over his head and b rought it down onto Petit’s skull—two, three, four, five times. Petit came to, didn ’t know if he was awake or asleep or alive or dead. Through the blood in his eyes, he could see that one of the men had a gun. “If he moves, put two bullets in him,” one said to the other. Christine and Bill wanted to sit together in the courtroom, of course. But the victims’ advocate, a representative of the court who helps victims through the legal process, told them that wasn’t a g ood idea in front of the jury. Christine sat behind. Unionville turns into North Washington. A cemetery rises on the left, across from a gas station. “Oh, this is the cemetery that the girls are buried in,” Christine says. “We could probably drive by there on the way back.” Bill doesn’t say anything at first. Vox clamantis in deserto.
“Yeah,” he says after driving another hundred yards. It had to be a hundred degrees the day they put that headstone in. “Depends what time we get back. Sun goes down around 4:10 now,” he says. It took him a good two years, maybe three, to get it made the 150
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
The ofce o the Petit Family Foundation is actually
2:30 P.M.
an office within an office, a small room with a desk, leased from a company that no longer needs the space. The foundation has two employees: Rolande Petit, the wife of Bill’s cousin Tim, who grew up down the street from him, and Hayley Hovhanessian, the daughter of a guy Bill went to high school with. She met Hayley Petit at basketball camp at Miss Porter’s School, and they became friends. Christine says Hayley is the backbone of the foundation. “Hey, Hayley-girl,” Petit says as he and Christine walk into the office. Hayley is twenty-three, the same age Hayley Petit would be, and wears her long brown hair in a ponytail. She has bright saucer eyes that light up when she smiles. Hayley-girl. “Hey,” she says, upbeat, grinning through a stack of papers. Petit looks at the yellow Post-it note on the pile. “Uh-oh,” he says. “ ‘Bill to
Sign.’ Oh, crap.” Hayley keeps smiling. She knows he doesn’t mind signing these letters. They have a system: Hayley and Rolande enter every donation into a database and generate a letter of thanks to be signed by Petit. He comes in a few times a week and signs and signs. If he knows the recipient personally, he crosses out the formal “Dear Mr. and Mrs.” and handwrites their first names. There are lots of donations from strangers, mostly checks, but sometimes a single, heartbreaking dollar bill stuffed in an envelope with a scrawled letter. Petit sometimes writes little notes as he signs. He holds one up for Christine. “Can you read my handwriting at all, or is it just a mess?” She tries to read: “ ‘Thank you for . . . this . . . my’—something.” “Thank you for this very generous gift.” Christine frowns. “Show me four letters in that word. Show me two, even. Put the front end on the v at least.” Bill puts the front end on the v and moves to the next letter in the pile. “Here’s a guy I went to medical school with. He’s an anesthesiologist in Pennsylvania now.” He scratches out some words on the bottom. Christine peers over his shoulder and reads. “ ‘Very . . . Christmas.’ ” “That’s ‘Merry Christmas.’ Come on.” Hayley-girl. It just comes out. That’s what he used to call his firstborn. Hayley-girl. It just comes out sometimes when he sees Hayley at the office. She was a force of nature, Hayley was. You never saw anyone work so hard at school. Always a book in her hand. Over at Aunt Hanna’s house, she would flop down on that chair by the kitchen with her book. In the car on the way to basketball games, she read her book in the backseat next to her dad as he worked. Even on that last family vacation, to Cape Cod, ten days before she was murdered, she had a book with her the whole time. She lived for seventeen years. She was beautiful. Six feet tall by the time she graduated from high school. Chestnut hair, a smile like she knew everything would be all right. Bill took her everywhere, even when she was little. If he had to make his roun ds at the hospital on a weekend, he took her along, wanted to show her the world. When she got older, he took her to basketball games at the University of Connecticut, and it became their thing. They had season tickets for both the men’s and women’s teams. Usually it was Bill, Hayley, Hanna, and Bill Sr. That was the core. Sometimes Michaela came along, and Jen went to two or three games a year—that was enough for her. But Hayley always went. She was always so busy, rowing crew, cocaptain of the basketball team, doing her homework until after midnight sometimes, up in that second-floor office with Bill. She pushed herself so hard. At the games, though—at the games, it was glorious. Him and Hayley, standing and cheering from the minute the Huskies ran onto the court. They knew every player, every statistic by heart. It was fun. Just so much . . . fun. One of the letters in the stack on Hayley’s desk at the foundatio n is written in a child’s hand. “Oh, these boys are great,” Petit says. There are these three brothers, he explains, and every year at their birthday party, instead of asking for presents, they ask their friends to make a donation to the Petit Family Foundation. And they mail a check for, like, seventytwo dollars, with a note. Clip, Save, Share.
THE PETIT HOUSE WAS SO BADLY BURNED THAT IT HAD TO BE RAZED AND CARTED AWAY, FOUNDATION AND ALL. NEIGHBORS HAVE MADE THE PROPERTY INTO A MEMORIAL GARDEN, BUT PETIT HASN’T BEEN BACK SINCE THAT NIGHT.
“Dear Dr. Petit,” this one says. “How are you? I just had my 10th birthday party. I invited all my friends and family. We celebrated at my favorite place, the Sports Arena. Like my brothers, I wanted to donate my presents to your foundation. I hope these donations help your awesome foundation to help others who are less fortunate.” It can be overwhelming, the support. Checks for $10,000. And things like this—kids donating their birthday presents. Can you imagine? Ten-year-old kid? The foundation is going good now. People understand the mission statement, and when the applications for grants roll in, they usually fit in with it somehow: “foster the education of young people, especially women in the sciences; to improve the lives of those affected by chronic illnesses; and to support efforts to protect and help those affected by violence.” Petit knows the girls would be proud, especially Jennifer. The foundation does an annual golf tournament and a road race. The next few years will be interesting. See if the donations keep coming. It would be nice if the foundation got to where it was self-sustaining, living off its own interest. For now, the board meets every two months, and Petit drives all over the state drumming up support, handing out big cardboard checks, shaking hands, saying a few words, flashing his best smile. He’s the face of the thing. The day he loses the energy to keep showing up is the day they spend the few million dollars in the kitty and close up shop. But for now, it is what Bill does every day. In that way, it’s how they all live on—Jennifer, Hayley, Michaela, and Bil l. For the first few years, he did all these appearances alone. His parents were usually there, sure, and Hanna, and Ron, and his brother 151
Glenn, and his friends. But when it came time to step up to TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND the podium or cut the ribbon, it was Bill Petit. Now he has a PIECES OF MAIL date, a partner, someone to drive there with and drive home CAME AFTER with, and that’s no small thing. Now he has a wife. His secTHAT NIGHT, ond wife. Miss Christine, he calls her sometimes. Christine, FROM ALL OVER who hangs funky chandeliers and paints things purple. FunTHE WORLD. ny, brassy, blond Miss Christine, whose laugh is like an aria SOME SENT and who says what she feels and so be it. MONEY FOR “Bill’s so good at going to everything,” she says. “Those THE FOUNDATION, A DOLLAR relationships, the face-to-face. So many people have supBILL TUCKED ported the foundation, and so many of those people have INTO A SYMPAtheir own foundations, and they really like it when he’s at THY CARD, OR A their events. I bought more dresses this year than in my $5,000 CHECK. whole life. Remember we went to that black tie and you NO MATTER, were like, Why don’t you have anything you can wear? He THE PETIT FAMthinks it’s normal to have all these black-tie outfits.” ILY WOULD AN“What black tie did we go to?” SWER THEM ALL, BY HAND. “New Britain.” “Oh yeah. The museum?” “Yeah, and you can’t wear the same dress you wore to the last one—hello, same people. And we have three events in the next week and a half that are all dress-up. And we’re going with his best friend’s wife to every one of them.” “Ron and Susan. So just call Susan and agree to wear the same dress,” Bill says. Christine just looks at him. Petit asked Christine to marry him the night before New Year’s Eve, 2011. They were living in a 572-square-foot house on a lake. It was small and they were only there a few months, but it was the first place they lived together that neither had lived in before, so it was exciting—the newness. She went out with a few friends early in the night for some Christmas drinks and came home to find the house mostly dark and Bill sitting on the bed. She kicked off her shoes and took her coat off times she tries to lift it back up, and sometimes she knows to let it fall. and flopped down next to him. Then she saw that he was holding Slowly, it’s getting easier. And always, she jokes. “You don’t like dothe ring box in his hand. ing dishes, do you?” she’ll say. “And how’d that go over with Jennifer?” The next night, they went to Ron Bucchi’s house to spend New Year’s And Bill laughs. Eve with Ron and Susan. Susan and Jennifer were friends, seeing each other mostly at countless country-club events, and now Susan had taken —Peaceful, easy feeling, and I know you won’t let me down. a real liking to Christine. The Bucchis live in a fabulous house on a suburban cul-de-sac, a house they designed themselves. Susan and Chris“Finally,” Petit says, settling on a radio station. He turns the voltine went off to the kitchen. As Ron put away their coats, Bill gave him a ume up a tiny bit. They’re back in the car now, he and Christine, nudge and told him, almost in a whisper, that he was going to announce heading over to see his parents. ’Cause I’m alllll-ready standing . . . on the ground. to him and Susan that night that he had asked Christine to marry him. Act happy even if you’re not, Bill said with a smirk. “Do-do-do, do-do- do, do-do-do,” Petit sings, doing the instruRon clapped him on the back and said, What are you talking about? mental part, tapping the wheel as he pulls i nto the driveway. This is I’m happy! where he lived for more than four years after the murders. It was just that Bill knew people worried about him. Nothing to Long driveway. Could fit twenty cars, easy. It was full every day do with Christine. In fact, Christine was perfect. for weeks after it happened. Relatives, mostly. Friends. The grocer, When she was growing up, sometimes someone from their church an old friend, had so many orders for the Petits he called Barbara who had nowhere else to go would stay with her family. Christine’s to see if she wanted him to space them out, so they wouldn’t spoil. mom is a psychiatric nurse, and from her Christine learned how to lisDelivery trucks. Mail, so much mail. People coming and going. Peten. How to be there and not say anything. Early on when they were tit would look out the window every once in a while, from the secdating, if she saw Bill going to a dark place in his mind, she was quiet, ond-floor room that was now his. just holding his hand. He used to thank her for that. “For what?” she Bill Sr. and Barbara, Petit’s parents, bought the biggest house in would ask. And he would tell her that a lot of people don’t know how to town about twenty years ago. Neither came from money, but he made not do anything, and that’s usually what he needed. Just an easy silence. a good living running neighborhood stores. The house was built in The nightmares aren’t the tough part. She comforts him as anyone 1923 by the richest man in town, name of Norton. By the time Billy would comfort a child. The tough part is looking past his unmoving was a boy, in the late fifties and early sixties, the sloping acres beface and trying to read whether at any particular moment he feels un- hind it had become Norton Park, where Billy and Hanna Petit and speakable pain or feels like going out for a sandwich. Sometimes in their brothers and every kid in the neighborhood used to play evthe car, on the way to an event, they’ll be all dressed up, she’s cracking ery afternoon until dinnertime. Billy goes by the house a few times jokes, and suddenly the mood in the car just drops like a rock. Some- a week, usually with Christine.
3:45 P.M.
152
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
Clip, Save, Share.
Inside, Billy’s mom is fishing through boxes of Christmas ornaments. A Christmas tree, a good eight feet, stands in the bright entry hall at the center of the house. This is the first Christmas the Petits have put up a tree since 2006. “Looks good,” he says to his dad. Bill Sr. leans in. At seventy-nine the guy looks great, and his voice is still strong and deep and clear, but the ears aren’t so good. “The tree. Looks good,” Billy says a little louder. “Oh, yeah.” Photographs of Bill Sr. and Barbara’s grandchildren hang along the grand staircase, which is outfitted with those automatic chairs that carry people up and down. On the top are Hayley’s senior-year photo and Michaela’s last school picture before she was murdered. She was in the fifth grade. At the top of the stairs, Barbara has boxes stacked and labeled, full of stuff for the foundation. Lord knows there’s no room for them in the little office downtown, so here they are. There’s an attic space on the third floor, and that’s where the lett ers are. Remember how they used to come? Those white postal bins. Overflowing. Every day, sometimes two deliveries a day. Barbara climbs the steps, opens a door at the end of the hall, and switches on a single lightbulb. There, stacked in even rows on the floorboards of the attic, are the boxes. The kind of boxes you see used for legal papers, usually. Stacked two and three on top of one another, reaching almost up to the rafters and the insulation under the roof of the house. Each box labeled with a Sharpie in Barbara’s hand. Billy’s mail. People didn’t know what to do, so they sent money. Five dollars. A thousand dollars. Five thousand. Fifty bucks. Tucked into drugstore sympathy cards. Or folded into notes composed with careful hands, printed on plain paper, signed at the bottom. Some brief and polite, some long and personal. Some really long and really personal. Some from children. Some from friends down the street. The post office in Plainville was great about it. Some of the envelopes just said “William Petit, Connecticut,” but they knew where to take it. “I am sure you have heard this from many people but I hope you know how much your courage and strength has changed my life. When I am having a moment where I am fretting about the small stuff, I think of you and count my blessings.” From a family that Jen used to babysit for when she was a teenager: “It was easy to see why our son took to his new babysitter very quickly and developed the biggest crush on her. . . . For those that are faithful while on this earth I know when God calls us home it is to a place where we cannot understand the peace, love and wonder of this place called heaven. Jenny and your daughters are there now with the Lord watching over them.” “I hope you feel better Dr. William Petit Jr.” A lot of religious stuff. CDs. Religious music, Josh Groban—songs people find inspirational. Books about Holocaust survivors. Letters from prisoners. Letters from people in China and Ireland and Italy. Letters from women wondering if Bill needed a friend. A cake from a baker in Alaska. Cards from entire first-grade classes. Buckets and buckets of mail. Bill’s parents, his sister Hanna, his brother Glenn, his aunts and uncles and cousins who populated the Petit’s stately brick house in the days and weeks afterward—everyone wondered what to do with it all. “We’re going to answer it,” Bill said. And so they answered it. The family sat in an assembly line around the table on the porch and wrote responses by hand. If there wasn’t a return address, they went online to try to find it, or called information. A family friend showed Hanna how to catalog each piece of mail in a computer spreadsheet: name, address, type of letter, date received, date responded to. And then everything went into boxes.
No one organizes like Barbara—with five kids, you had to. She has a special closet just for tablecloths, which she keeps pressed and on hangers with plastic over them. For Billy’s mail, she wrapped elastic bands around each bundle and stacked them neatly i n their designated box. Then she and Bill Sr. hauled them one by one, dozens of boxes, to the third-floor attic, where they sit. “I don’t know why I did all this,” Barbara says. She stands there for a few long minutes, one hand on her hip, the other resting on the lid of a box. There are at least twenty-five thousand pieces of mail up here. Mail that came for her boy, to make him feel better. “I just did,” she says.
The chamaecyparis tree out back, behind Bill and
Barbara’s house, used to be by the driveway at Petit’s old house. They 4:00 P.M. had it transplanted. “That one in the right front of the garage—I’m sorry, in the right front of the garden—was right by the driveway by the garage, by where we had the basketball hoop,” Petit says, looking out the back window at it. “I think about shooting hoops with Hayley and the ball bouncing off the chamaecyparis.” The house in Cheshire had to be demolished. Hanna had been inside a few times, had walked across the charred, soaked floor, had breathed in the ugly black air that hung in every room. Bill, still recovering from his beating, once asked her to look for something in a drawer in the kitchen. “Bill,” she told him. “There are no more drawers. There’s no more kitchen.” The invaders had soaked everything with gas, trying to destroy the evidence, including three human beings. They didn’t know that half the Cheshire Police Department was circling the house. But the fire burned too quick. Weeks later, Ron went a couple of times to meet with the insurance adjuster. They stood in the driveway and talked, and Ron said he could go inside with the guy. The insurance man asked Ron if he had been inside since the fire. No, Ron said, he hadn’t. “Don’t,” the man said. “The owner is your friend? Don’t go in. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” When Hayley was about three, Petit planted a Japanese maple on the other side of the driveway from the chamaecyparis. It was may be two feet tall when he planted it. There were rhododendrons on the north end of the house that Jen and Bill used to deadhead, to try to maximize the number of blooms. And they had a huge viburnum in the front yard, which had these spectacular white flowers in the springtime and little berries in the summer and the fal l. Petit barely touched that thing and it grew like mad. People would stop and take pictures. One sunny fall day a few months after the murders, a fleet of trucks showed up at Bill’s parents’ house, where he was living. Flatbeds and pickups loaded with his trees and bushes, their gargantuan root balls swathed in burlap. Trays and trays of perennials, the dark soil still clinging to their stringy white roots. There was the chamaecyparis. There was the Japanese maple, purple and majesti c and delicate, carefully strapped to the truck so it wouldn’t topple. One truck carried the rhododendrons from the north side of the house. There was the viburnum. Michaela’s four-o’clocks. Bill was out at the time. He drove in the driveway and saw them laid out neatly in the yard, all these beautiful, vibrant plants from a life he would never see again. All winter he worked on designing a garden in his parents’ back yard. It would be in the shape of a heart—the base would be just behind the sunporch, and the plants would go around both sides before meeting in the middle at a— “I wanna say trellis. Not called a trellis,” Petit says. “What’s it called?” “Arbor?” says Christine. 153
They’re outside his parents’ house now, surveying the damage from a recent winter storm, and giving a tour of the garden. “Arch. Oh, and there are some big lights up on that tree. There were big lights on those trees there, but that came down in the last storm. And over there, that’s a—I was gonna say ambrosia but it’s not that.” Christine offers, “Rhododendron?” “No, no. Not mountain laurels. No.” Bill is scratching his chin, staring at the plants. He doesn’t like not being able to call up the name. He likes knowing every name—in Latin. “That’s a mountain laurel or a rhodie, isn’t it?” Christine says. “No, you’re 0 for 2. It’s a . . . crap. It’s not crap, it’s—well, those are scabiosa there. Button flowers.” “It’s not a mountain laurel?” “No, not even close, dear.” “Get a book out.” “Artemisia? No. Arte—andromeda.” Christine was so nervous when she came over to photograph the garden, her first assignment for the foundation. She liked Bill, but she didn’t know he liked her, too. She thought maybe, but . . . Then, as they were walking through the garden—him pointing out the different species in Latin, her taking pictures—he stopped, looked at her, and reached up and touched her earring. Her heart jumped. She rushed away, started taking pictures again. “I was like, whoa! I gotta go!” Bill rolls his eyes and smiles when he
Petit parks himself by the tables where the food is. There are these little chicken, bacon, and pineapple skewers that are just delicious, and he downs three of them with another Bud. Just then, two kids walk in, a boy around eight who looks momentarily stunned to be in a bar full of grown-ups, and a bouncing redheaded girl of five or six. “Here comes trouble,” Petit says, his eyes going wide. The boy stares, the girl just looks up at him with a shy grin. Petit scooches down so he’s on their level. He grabs a bunch of grapes and swings them in front of the girl’s eyes, but she shakes her head. “What? You
PETIT WITH MICHAELA, HAYLEY, AND JENNIFER ON CAPE COD, JULY 2007, ABOUT TEN DAYS BEFORE THEY WERE KILLED. THEIR MURDERERS ARE NOW BOTH ON DEATH ROW IN CONNECTICUT.
hears her retell it. “I just asked you where you got ’em or somethin g,” he says. “I know,” she says. “But—you were closer than normal.” “Okay.” “It was one of my favorite moments.” He looks right at her, smiles. “Okay.” Christine enters the Central Cafe before Bill. He’s outside talking to his brother Glenn, who’s been a champ through all this. Sat with Billy every night in the hospital that first week. Went with Hanna to identify the bodies. Told Billy not to go, to remember them as they were. Told him Jen was unrecognizable. Tickets are twenty bucks a head tonight, all proceeds going to the Plainville Community Food Pantry. You get two free drink tickets— when Petit finally wanders in he orders a Bud and Christine gets a Guinness. Over in the back corner is a raffle table, and Petit buys a couple of tickets, stuffs them in the box. He knows the ladies doing the raffle and chats them up over the music. In Plainville, everybody knows Bill Petit. Not because of what happened to his family. Everybody always knew Bill Petit. His dad used to own every store in town, it seemed like, and served on the Chamber of Commerce, the town council. His mom was on the library board. And Billy used to work in his dad’s stores, manning the register before he was thirteen years old. He was already up to six feet tall by then, so he looked older, and he was so mature, so smart, so well mannered—Bill Sr. didn’t think twice about leaving the kid in charge.
5:10 P.M.
154
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
don’t like grapes?” he asks with mock constern ation. He turns back to the table, scans it for something they might want. Baby carrots. The boy says he doesn’t like carrots. “You don’t want a—well that’s good because this isn’t a carrot,” he says. “It’s French. It’s a carrot.” He pronounces the word with a thick French accent: cah- roe. The boy giggles a little bit, and the girl takes him up on it and eats the carrot. He asks them about school, about what they want for Christmas, about anything he can think of. He’s bent down talking to these kids for a g ood five minutes, the roomful of grown-ups swirling around him. At the beginning, after it happened, Petit could hardly stand to be around kids. Even the ones he loved most—especially the ones he loved most. Hanna’s kids were the most difficult. Hayley was two years older than Hanna’s Abby, and Hanna’s Andrew was a year older than Michaela. Abby is more of an extrovert than Hayley ever was—goofier, louder. Hayley was pretty shy, actually. Abby used to run across the field at Hayley’s school yelling her name and shouting “I love you!” and tackle her, sending the two of them into a tangle of limbs and squeals on the grass. Michaela, she thought Andrew was the coolest. Michaela wasn’t much for UConn basketball—not like Hayley and her dad—but if Andrew was going to a game, she was there. At the beginning, after it happened, it was too much. He felt like he made Abby and Andrew miserable. He felt like an ogre, big, sad Uncle Billy, who they suddenly didn’t know how to act around, or how to talk to. He told Hanna, who responded by saying, Well, you know what? They make you sad and miserable, too, don’t they? He thought about it.
Yeah, of course they did. Well, not miserable. He loved them. But— it was overwhelming to be around kids who knew the girls. All he saw were Hayley and Michaela. It wasn’t fair to anyone. After a couple of hours at the Central, Bill and Christine start working their way out of the room. Christi ne, coat in hand, is chatting with someone, and Bill is a few steps behind, finishing his beer, talking to some old classmate or another. Right now he’s just a guy at a bar, having a good time. And then, “Excuse me, Dr. Petit?” A woman wearing a brown leather coat and hoopy earrings is standing in front of him. She is probably in her forti es, with frosted blond hair, warm, forlorn eyes, and a bashful smile. She speaks quietly and politely. “Do you recognize my voice?” Hoo boy. This happens sometimes. People approach him, people he met once maybe, who remember him because he’s Bill Petit but who, for him, are part of an endless parade of truly kind people who are sometimes hard to place. He purses his lips and looks at the floor. “Okay, talk a little more so I have a chance,” he says. She says her name is Dawn, and that they’ve talked a lot over the years. It turns out she worked at one of the answering services his medical practice used, so she called him probably a hundred times over the years with messages from patients, at all hours. Dawn doesn’t get too close to Petit. “I always wanted to come up to you during one of the road races, but I didn’t want to bother you,” she says. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” He gives her a little hug, thanks her, and follows his wife out into the night.
Dr. William A. Petit Jr. is standing in the cafeteria
the hospital, and they’ve come to deliver their gifts. Wilma Hoffman, the lady with orange beauty-parlor hair who runs the knitting club, invited Petit to come. He is always invited to come, and he always shows up. It’s important, he thinks, to go—lets people know he appreciates the good work they do. He knows it’s him they want to see, the man who runs the foundation, the man who crisscrosses the state, who signs every check, the man whose family was murdered. The Lego man is life-sized, just a few inches shorter than Petit, who is a good six foot three. Petit looks at the toy statue blankly, raises his eyebrows for an almost imperceptible second, like a heartbeat on a cardiograph. His wife’s camera is around his neck, and he takes a picture. This is a fun one, the knitting club. The half dozen students here with Wilma don’t say much aside from some nudged whispers among one another. A girl from Burma speaks not a word as she presents Petit with a knit cap, which he puts on as he makes a goofy face. Another girl, Cristal, who could be a junior but has the round, bright face of a girl a few years younger, sits on a radiator, knitting. Wilma announces to everyone that Cristal is knitting a hat for her six-month-old baby. Wilma is great. Some people, you’d give them five hundred bucks and they’d say thanks, see you later. Not Wilma. She sends in every receipt—twelve dollars and forty-five cents for yarn, everything— so that the foundation can see where its money is going. Exactitude. Petit loves it. Wilma asks Petit if he wants to say anything. The girls stare and fidget. He pauses, then begins: “What you do to help others probably makes you all feel better as well.” His voice is soft, and he clips each sentence at the end, letting a beat pass before starting the next. “And while doing those things, you’re teaching your classmates about caring for other people. You set off a chain reaction. People say, Huh, they’re taking their time and doing this, maybe there’s something to it. So it’s very nice for you to set the example, especially at your age, help other people with things, and not expecting anything in return.” He pauses, and then he adds, his voice even softer now, “You’re quiet leaders.” He is looking past the girls now, past Wilma, past this dim, sterile, hot room to another anonymous institutional room—Courtroom 6A, New Haven Superior Courthouse. Hayley went to Sunday school each week, and all the teachers wanted her in their class, as she was a natural leader—though quiet. In Connecticut, the victims of a crime may make a victim’s impact statement, affirming for the record how a crime has affected their lives. It comes at the end—after the trial, after the verdict, when the sentence has already been determined. It serves no obvious legal purpose. I learned many things from Michaela’s teachers after she died that I wish they had told me before. One teacher said she always made an effort to go over to someone who was ignored by others in the class. But the victim’s impact statement lets the record show that when Michaela Rose Petit drew her last breath in her bed, surrounded by her stuffed animals, and when Hayley Elizabeth Petit collapsed in the upstairs hall just outside her bedroom, running to try to save her family before she was overcome by smoke, and when Jennifer Lynn Hawke-Petit’s lar ynx was crushed by the han ds of a stranger who had broken into her home—in those horrible few minutes, the world became and would forever be a poorer place. I miss Michaela running to the door and yelling “Da-Da’s home!” On Friday nights, when she went to Great-grandma’s house, she always called my cell phone and wanted to know when I would be there and what I wanted for dinner. When I arrived, she made a great show of
of the Connecticut Children’s Medical CenterTUESDAY at Hartford HospiTHE FOLLOWING tal, staring at a man made out of Legos. It’s a chilly, blue December afternoon outside. Inside, the cafeteria is almost empty. The room, all bright colors and happy posters, is at the base of a swirling atrium that spirals up six floors. It looks like the bottom of a missil e silo that was decorated by children. Rainbow crepe-paper mobiles bob from the ceiling. The floor tiles shine and squeak. The air smells like French fries. Off in a corner, a security guard pays for a Snapple, joking in Spanish with the girl behind the register. Petit knows this hospital well. He knows every hospital in the state. He’s an endocrinologist, endocrinology being a branch of internal medicine dealing with the glands that deliver hormones to the bloodstream—his particular expertise is treating diabetes and thyroid problems. He is the former director of the prestigious Joslin Diabetes Center at the Hospital of Central Connecticut, and a coauthor of The Encyclopedia of Diabetes, a definitive 436-page text. He has given speeches all over the country. He is one of the best. But he is not here today as a doctor. He hasn’t practiced medicine since the day before the murders. He’s here because the Petit Family Foundation gave a $500 grant to the knitting club at Bulkeley High School, a fortress of a school in a poor, banged-up part of Hartford. Some of the girls have knit scarves and ha ts for the sick children in
SLOWLY, IT’S GETTING EASIER. AND ALWAYS, CHRISTINE JOKES. “YOU DON’T LIKE DOING DISHES, DO YOU?” SHE’LL SAY. “AND HOW’D THAT GO OVER WITH JENNIFER?” AND BILL LAUGHS.
155
WORKS FOR YOU... OR YOUR MONEY BACK !
Bill Petit serving me specially and watching me eat. . . . Late in her senior year, I learned something from her friends. I heard her friends talking about WWHD and I said, “What?” They laughed and smiled and said, “When we have a problem we say ‘WWHD.’ ‘What would Hayley do?’ Because that usually leads to the right answer.” . . . When you are with someone twenty-six years, it takes a long time for habits to change. For months, and still on occasion, I s tart to think, “I’ll just ask Jen.” . . . In the late nineties she developed strange symptoms and, as a nurse, always thought the worst—she figured she had brain cancer. When she actually found out she had MS, she was relieved, because it was treatable—though she secretly feared deteriorating and not being able to care for Hayley and Michaela. . . . What do I miss? I miss my entire family, my home, everything we had together. . . . “Well this has been very, very nice.” It’s Wilma talking, thanking Dr. Petit and the cheery hospital administrators for having the girls from the knitting club come for a tour. “I’m sure the girls appreciate this.” And Bill Petit stands, folds his knit cap into the pocket of his winter jacket, places his wife’s hand in his, and turns up his lips in a smile. Christine warms some
apple pie and
7:15 P.M. spoons a blob of whipped cream on it for her
Available or purchase with coupon in fne stores everywhere or online at:
www.appliednutrition.com Enter Coupon Code: 011185 Now Available in 10 Count
LIBIDO-MAX for
MEN
75 Count ONLY
SAVE $3 EXPIRES 07/31/13
MANUFACTURERS COUPON
Consumer: Redeemable at retail locations only. Not valid for online or mail-order purchases. Retailer: Irwin Naturals will reimburse you for the face value plus 8 (cents) handling provided it is redeemed by a consumer at the time of purchase on the brand specified. Coupons not properly redeemed will be void and held. Reproduction by any party by any means is expressly prohibited. Any other use constitutes fraud. Irwin Naturals reserves the right to deny reimbursement (due to misredemption activity) and/ or request proof of purchase for coupon(s) submitted. Mail to: CMS Dept. 10363, Irwin Naturals, 1 Fawcett Drive, Del Rio, TX 78840. Cash value: .001 (cents). Void where taxed or restricted. ONE COUPON PER PURCHASE. Not valid for mail order/websites. Retail only.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
husband. Outside the sliding doors, the colored lights she strung on the deck hang like planets against the black backdrop of the in visible river beyond. He sits in his chair, scooping up the pie. It’s getting late, but not for him. He used to take sleep medication after the tragedy. He didn’t sleep more than two hours in a night for the first three months, but finally he found the combination of pills that numbed his brain enough that he could sleep. The problem then was, the more sleep he got, the more nightmares he had. And the deeper he slept, the greater the chance that he would wake up in the morning and, for a wonderful, terrible split-second, forget. He doesn’t use the pills much anymore. They make him groggy all the next day. But he gets about five hours most nights, which isn’t terrible. He’s gotten used to just not sleeping much. But on a bad night—o n a bad night he’s lucky to get two or three. He keeps a few lights on in the living room all night. Petit breathes deep. “In the beginning when I couldn’t sleep, it was always that night,” he says. “In the beginning it was always late at night, since it started to happen at two or three in the morning”—that’s when the men broke in—“so I’d be bolt-awake at 3:00 A.M. just like clockwork, no matter what. If I hadn’t fallen asleep or if I had just fallen asleep at two-thirty, I’d be awake at three. And then it sorta switched to the mornings. The mornings got bad. It would just always be rig ht in front of me.” Those
men again, come to end the world. He holds his palm, rigid, right up to his face. “Right in front of your face.” Petit heard a sound coming through the floor. He was in the basement of his home, the house in Cheshire he and Jennifer had made over eighteen years. Over there was the puppet theater the girls used when they were little, to put on shows. A life-sized poster of one of the UConn women’s players, one of their idols, hung next to the bulkhead door leading up to the backyard. It was all blurry. Everything. He was tied to the steel po le in the center of the basement, his hands bound to it with plastic zip ties and clothesline. He had to get out. Blood was flowing into his eyes. He was a doctor—that much he could remember—and he knew that if he raised and lowered his body up and down the pole, he could keep his blood pressure up and maybe he wouldn’t keep slipping into unconsciousness. Up and down, up and down, up and down. He had been taking Coumadin, a prescription blood thinner, which only made the blood gush from his head wounds faster. And he had a pacemaker, sewn into his heart a few years ago. He could barely slide his frame up the pole. No way he could take on two younger men who had a gun. If he escaped, he would crawl outside through the bulkhead door and over to Simcik’s, next door, where he could call for help. He had to stay alive. For hours he struggled to stay conscious, unaware of what the men upstairs were doing t o his family. Thump, thump, thump. What the hell was that? He thought the thumping was the sound of the men gathering the furniture and other stuff they were going to steal, getting it ready to load into a car or something. He couldn’t bring himself to imagine that it was the sound of his wife, Jennifer, being raped on their living-room floor. “Hey,” he groaned as loud as he could. It took all the strength he had to make a sound. His head throbbed. There was blood all over the cement basement floor, mostly from his head but also from his wrists and ankles, where the ties had cut through his skin. “Don’t worry,” one of them yelled down. “It’s all going to be over in a couple of minutes.” And then it was over, and there was nothing left. Even after his wounds healed, Bill Petit himself was more dead than alive. But he was not dead. And life, as it turns out, wants to live. And little miracles happen. Christ ine. Christine is determined to keep things light. To keep things happy, to have some fun. She understands the irony of her posit ion, knows that if all had gone according to plan, Bill never would have married her, and that this life with her husband wouldn’t exist. Which is a strange thing. But she gets th at. And she never wants him to forget one minute of that life he built, that life he loved. For eighteen years he lived in the same house, slept in the same bed with the same woman. When he reached over to turn on the light by his bed, his hand knew where to go in the darkness.
Life after death requires great effort, and she herself gets down sometimes, too. But Christine is also warm, and vital, and in life it’s just good to have someone to hold you as you sleep, you know? Before they started dating, she saw him mostly through her camera lens. Smaller than life, drifting across the frame, his lips moving as he spoke to someone on the other side of the room. “I watched him for years at those events, because I had to photograph him,” she says. “And it was years before I could even get a smile. But then he sorta started to—you could just see things changing. Things were starting to lift just a little. And then there was this humor that was just shocking. When he’s in a good mood, forget it. Which was hugely important to me. Because you don’t want to be involved with someone who you can’t have a normal life with. Who’s not going to be fun.” She tucks her feet underneath her on the chair, pulls on the sleeves of her sweater, cups her tea with both hands. She looks over and smiles at Bill. He’s done with his pie. “Right?” He once dreaded the inevitability of night. 9:40 P.M. People have always been afraid of the dark, from the beginning, but not Bill Petit, not before the night consumed his family. But now, in the hours before bed, Petit is starting to feel the kind of calm most of us feel every night before sleep. It’s a calmness he last truly felt on that warm Sunday night in 2007 when he fell asleep on the couch, tired after an afternoon in the July sun playing golf with his dad and a pasta dinner with his wife and daughters. Maybe it’s his supreme rationality again asserting itself, or a simple resignati on to the rhythms of the day, or just maybe the blessing of a resilient heart and someone to talk to come evening, but Bill Petit is starting to face the darkness the way he used to. He reads in the living room, magazines mostly. Golf magazines, Sports Illustrated , The Week. He and Christine talk about the things couples talk about—that woman at the party who was so nice but just would not stop talking, and who’s going to take which car tomorrow, and whether there’s any pie left. He looks at Twitter on his iPad, which he finds an efficient way to follow world events. Usually the local news is on TV in the background. Sometimes they watch the end of a movie they didn’t finish the night before. On this night, Christine gets tired and says it’s time for bed—“It’s time for bed,” she says—and her new husband walks down the hall, past the hum of the dishwasher, past the framed finger painting that Hayley did when she was little, past the small room they ’ll use as an office when Bill finishes setting it up, to the tiny bedroom in the house on the rive r. And he gets ready for sleep, the daily hibernation in which each of us, every night, is at our most peaceful and our most vulnerable. The nights never will be the same, but Bill Petit’s face is placid as he breathes in deep enough to feel the air fill his chest, lets it ou t slowly, reaches over to turn off the light, and closes his eyes. ≥
The Infected [ continued from page 123] Mountain. My father ran a six-thousand-head cattle ranch. My roots go deep.” He almost never speaks from scripted material, but Buffalo says that has to change, that he can no longer leave anything to chance and risk a flash of fear or ang er. Somewhere in the distance he hears a siren. A police cruiser, he feels certain, though really he has no idea how to tell the difference between the wail of one compared with that of an ambulance or fire truck. Regardless, someone is in trouble. “Some of you might remember there was a time when the billboards at our state ’s border read, WELCOM E TO OREGON . NOW GO HOME . ” Many in the audience smile. “It was a joke, but not really. Oregon is a treasure. And we did not want it spoiled by out siders. Which is exactly what has happened. We’ve become a haven—especially those liberal enclaves of Eugene and Portland—for lycans. We have compromised our borders and our safety. One thing I know as a rancher, you’ve got to build good fences. “I am introducing legislation that I hope will be approved by year’s end.” He pauses when the cameras flash again and the reporters whisper among each other. For the moment no one speaks—no one looks up—all of them bent over their notebooks and laptops, writing furiously. A cell phone rings and goes unanswered. He spots the red eye of a video camera blinking at him. He stares into it. “There should be absolutely no mercy shown to any lycan offenders in our state, and our legislation serves to impose the strictest standards of supervision to ensure that we are protected. Our old way of worrying about who might be offended must be radically altered to account for keeping people safe. New policies will require open minds, a willingness to do things differently, more strictly. The expense to some will be to the benefit of many. This state can benchmark the nation’s policies. And to those who think my goals are too high, too extreme, I say, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” He doesn’t field questions. When he escapes up the stairs, he can he ar every one of their voices calling after him. The sky is closing down and dark is coming. It’s that time when the day isn’t really gone but isn’t really here. Augustus escorts Chase to his home in Keizer, a white neocolonial with black shutters. He does not entertain visitors, so the walls are as white and bare now as they were the day he moved in, the rooms mostly empty except for an Ikea table and chairs in the dinette, a couch set before a wide-screen television in the living room, a mattress and box spring in the master suite upstairs. The basement remains unfinished, the ceiling bare studs, the walls cinder block, the floor a sloping concrete with a central drain. Three naked lightbulbs offer meager light. Augustus stuffed the recessed windows with insulation and covered them with ply-
wood to muffle the sound and prevent anyone from peering inside. He hired a security firm to install a steel cage, its panels built out of heavy-duty six-gauge wire welded at every wire contact point. The swinging door is hinged with flanged head bolts and fitted with an industrial padlock made with a casehardened alloy steel shackle. A garden hose runs fromthe industrial sink into a coil on the floor. Later, he will use it to spray away the shit and piss and blood, the foaming tide of it swirling down the central floor drain. Chase pauses before the cage and says, “I hate this,” and Augustus says, “I know,” and puts a hand on his shoulder to show his support and encourage him forward. “Take off your clothes,” Augustus says. “You don’t want to ruin them like the last time.” It is not that he grows larger. It is that he soils himself in excitement, claws himself in agitation. Chase peels off his uniform and tosses it into a ball outside the cage. Thin scars crosshatch his shoulders and chest where the claw marks healed over. His left forearm is a lumpy mass of reddish scar tissue. The door clicks shut and the padlock snaps into place and Augustus settles into the aluminum folding chair and adjusts his glasses and rests his hands on his knees like a theater patron who waits for the lights to dim, the curtains to part. Every night, he transforms. Augustus demands it. To get it out of his system and exhaust his body. To normalize it, control it. Transformation does not come easil y, he has told Augustus, every bone seeming to break, his skin crawling with angry wasps. He cries out and falls to the floor. His body contorts itself as if run through with electrici ty. From what Augustus has read, this will get easier over time, like a nerve deadened by repeated blows. “This never would have happened,” Augustus says under his breath, “if you had just listened to me.” As if in respons e, Chase hurls himsel f against the bars of the cage. He would have made a fine berserker, Augustus thinks, those Norse lycans who so long ago worked themselves into a frenzy, transforming before battle and fighting in a savage trance. This would take time, months maybe, but Augustus, as a boy, owned several dogs, and with discipline and patience they all learned to fetch his slippers and shit outside. He has no doubt the same will be true of Chase. “Isn’t that right, old friend?” Chase circles his enclosure. His arms lash at nothing but air. His teeth snap together as though chattering out some code. He presses his face, wild-eyed and misshapen and split by a fanged grin, against the cage. There is a fridge in the corner, and Buffalo withdraws from it a package of raw hamburger. He tears off the plastic and crushes his fingers into the bloody mess. He molds tiny red balls and tosses them into the cage and, with a peculiar little smile, watches Chase devour them, one after another. ≥ 157
Leonardo DiCaprio [ continued from page 113] made in regard to Gatsby—and the decisions that he makes as the head of his production company, Appian Way—are in keeping with the decisions he be gan making when he was still a child. What’s changed is his degree of power; as Warner Brothers president Jeff Robinov says, “I don’t know of a movie that Leo has wanted to make that hasn’t been made.” And yet the agonizing decision of whether or not to make a movie that requires you to be attractive does not seem, on the surface, to be the kind of decision that would make a man of you. Has Leo ever had to make any other kind of decisions? Has he had to make the kind of choices that most people make routinely in the course of their lives—agonizing choices unrelated to the dictates of art and fame? Or was the die cast, when he, as a boy, as a child, chose to do exactly what he does now? “There have been a lot of other choices,” he says. “But you have to understand—in this industry there are a lot of other people who are passionate about becoming actors. You wonder who you are going to become. You’re not even a formed man, and you try to decide what’s going to become of you for the next eight or nine years. And I always thought of myself as the underdog because I didn’t have nice enough clothes or maybe my hair didn’t look good. And so you have to understand— getting your foot in the door is like winning the lottery. It’s literally like winning the lottery if you get to have a career. And I’ve always felt Okay, now I’ve gotten this shot, and I’m lucky to have gotten this shot, and if I don’t do this to the best of my ability—if I don’t work my ass off and make a life of it—I’ve squandered this incredibly golden opportunity. And that’s always been what has propelled me.” He is saying, in essence, that yes, the die was cast. He is also saying that as a very young man he had more responsibility for himself than many men do after they’ve ostensibly grown up. His life raises not only the possibility that the experience we regard as infantilizing—the experience of extreme celebrity—might pro vide as legitimate a route to “manhood” as the experience of disappointment and suffering; it raises the possibility that manhood, as an arbiter of meaning, barely matters. Ask Clint Eastwood why Leonardo DiCaprio is a fine actor and he answers in three words: “He enjoys it.” And ask Le o himself, after he cracks h is neck, how he answers his own question— What makes me really happy? —and he responds as though the answer has been selfevident all along: “I think I’m doing it!” One day, in 2010, Leo DiCaprio expanded the purview of the decisions he had to make. He still had to ask himself what movies to make and what model to date. But he also had to decide what species to save. He called Carter Roberts, the president of the World Wildlife Fund, and asked him to come to L. A. Roberts went. They met at a restaurant in Hollywood, and “we have this long lunch talking about the magic of having a champion for the cause of 158
ESQUIRE
M AY 2 0 1 3
every animal.” DiCaprio wanted to champion the tiger. He grew up in L. A. He used to go down to the La Brea tar pits to look at sabertoothed tigers drowned and preserved in tar and wonder how such creatures had disappeared from the earth; he used to go to the Natural History Museum and try to think of something else he wanted to do besides become a famous actor. And now that he is a famous actor, he doesn’t just like tigers; he thinks a world without them—or a world in which they only live in zoos—would be a “fucking nightmare.” What’s at stake is not simply the fate of the tiger—but of wildness itself. “World leaders,” says Carter Roberts, “like Vladimir Putin, like the king of Bhutan, and like Leo, see a little of themselves in tigers. They ’re at the top of the food chain, they’re killers, and they’re incredibly good-looking. What’s not to like?” Guy goes to Leo’s house to make him a coffee. The guy’s name is Todd Carmichael. He’s an adventurer who has set records for wilderness trekking and who develops coffee farms in very remote and impoverished parts of the world. He spawns little economies by buying the coffee, roasting and selling it. He also believes that “every man should have his animal.” Carmichael’s animal is the Indonesian orangutan. When he heard that one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s animals is the Sumatran tiger, he gave him a call. “I thought that the con versation would last two minutes. But it kept going and going, and by the end we had a product. I said, ‘I’m going to make you a coffee.’ ” He did not mean that he was going to grind beans and pour hot water through them. He meant that he was going to create a coffee for Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio would put his name on it, and Carmichael would sell it under hisbrandname,LaColombe,withallprofitsgoing to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. The coffee would be called Lyon. But first DiCaprio had to approve it. So Carmichael went out to L. A. to have lunch with Leonardo DiCaprio and create a Leonardo DiCaprio “taste profile.” The lunch took place at DiCaprio’s house. The food was brought in. Carmichael offered different kinds of foods to DiCaprio and noted whether or not he liked them. “I’d give him some frisée, and he’d shake his head. And I’d say, ‘So no bitters?’ ‘No, no bitters. No way, frisée!’ ” In many ways, it was the quintessential Leonardo DiCaprio experience. It was kingly. It occurred in the house where he feels comfortable. It was for a cause, but it allowed him to exert control. Lyon coffee would exist as an expression of both his generosity and his ongoing efforts of discrimination. And he has to do nothing but lend it his Leo-ness, knowing his Leo-ness is enough. And so Carmichael bought the coffee and roasted the beans, and when DiCaprio tasted it, he was amazed at how perfectly it captured him. “I felt like a genius,” Carmichael says. He acts in his chair in the hotel conference room. He performs. He can’t stop himself any more than he can stop himself from being what
Baz Luhrmann calls “attractive.” He is sitting in his chair, talking about his compulsion to collect “old stuff”—everything from bones to original movie posters—in an effort to see reports from an unfiltered world, untouched by the hands of media and fame. And he says that, for him, the ultimate unfiltered world is the ruin of Pompeii. You have to go, dude. You have to wake up and go early in the morning, when nobody is there, when there are no tourists around, and see the molds these people made in the ash at the moment they died, two thousand years ago. They’re captured for all time in all these campy Nosferatu poses of death . . . and now Leonardo DiCaprio, in his chair, begins performing, begins assuming these “campy Nosferatu poses of death,” curling up on himself, bringing his hands to his face, enfolding his cheeks with his long fingers, looking for all the world like a silent-film star himself as he mimics the awe and terror of a woman holding her baby in what she knows is the last moment of real life. He never really stops performing after that. He’s excited; he’s an enthusiast; he likes to tell you where to go and what things to see. He’s returned to L. A. after two years of making movies, and though he feels more comfortable with himself than ever before, he’s also trying to decide whether or not to take a vacation. He’s just cracked his neck and has just talked about asking himself what it takes for him to be happy. Now he goes on—“I’m talking about in any situation in life. In anything that might come up. I have a production company, I have a foundation, I have a lot of responsibilities. Not family—just a lot of responsibilities. But things take care of themselves when you’re gone. Then you come back, and it’s like, You gotta be here, you gotta be there, you gotta do this, you gotta sign that, you gotta read scripts, you gotta go to the photo shoot, you gotta do the interview, you have meetings, this person needs you, that person wants you, and it’s like, ‘Wait a second, can I just please . . . take a breath?’ ” And he keeps going like this, keeps talking faster and faster until he’s a little out of breath, theatrically out of breath, and then he raises his hands again to his face like a longdead silent-film star acting out the agonized ending of the long-dead inhabitants of an ancient Roman city, and with his lungs pumping like bellows he suddenly says— “Oh, shit!” And stops. You really need to try his coffee. It’s made from beans grown in Haiti, Peru, Brazil, and Ethiopia, and all its proceeds will go to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. But you really need to taste it, because it’s him in some kind of distilled essence. It’s not bitter. It’s not sweet. It’s not, well, anything really, except a rounded feeling in your mouth, a space where other tastes may grow, a presence defined by an absence. It’s incredibly soft but also exquisitely confrontational—you’ll have to decide what you think about it. You’ll have to decide whether it’s the Leonardo DiCaprio you’ve seen in the dark room or the Leonardo DiCaprio who lives in the light of day. ≥
Politics
Credits
[ continued from page 96] criticism slide off his back, this is not a president who suffers attacks on his people idly. By standing by them, he keeps them from becoming sym bols, the way Lani Guinier became a s ym bol, because the people who should have had her back allowed the other people to make one out of her. More to the point, this is a president who has spent his life living both his personal and professional lives in a universe of extraneous noise. By all accounts, he simply doesn’t hear it anymore. And if that occasionally makes him oblivious to the fact that extraneous noise can have substantial consequences, as I believe it has during the prolonged stalemates over what should be done with the country’s economy, it also makes for a kind of steady focus that makes the president look even more anomalous in our current political culture than he already is. Keep calm and carry on, indeed. Especially in the face of nut bags who have declared themselves the last line of defense between the Constitution and the Kenyan. All of which brings us to the strange case of Susan Rice, who may be the exception that proves the rule. It’s important to remember that Rice never really was nominated for the job of secretary of state. It’s also important to remember that the entire opposition to her candidacy was based on things she’d said about the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi on various Sunday panel shows, which somehow had become hallowed by a kind of oath among the chattering classes. The same group of senators who later would come at Hagel used the Benghazi incident to cut up Rice as a means of attacking the president. And it worked. The president, who at one point suggested that if people like Lindsey Graham and John McCain wanted to go after someone, “they should go after me,” accepted Rice’s withdrawal from consideration for a job for which she never had been nominated formally. For herself, Rice told The Washington Post that she’d withdrawn her name to keep a long, drawn-out nomination battle from hamstringing the administration’s second term right at its beginning. “If my nomination meant that the odds of getting comprehensive immigration reform passed or any other major priority were substantially reduced,” she said, “I couldn’t live with myself.” Back in 1993, once her nomination was savaged into splinters, Lani Guinier disappeared from Washington politics. She continued to do great work. If the country would listen to her on proportional voting, a number of problems with the way we run our elections would disappear. But among the elites, she existed only as the personification of something else. At the beginning of this past March, however, the rumors began in earnest about whom the president was preparing to appoint to replace Tom Donilon as his national security advisor. The overwhelming favorite was Susan Rice. ≥ 160
ESQUIRE
MAY 2013
Store Information For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the Web site or call the number provided.
Style, p. 49: Perry Ellis by Duckie Brown jacket, shirt, trousers, and shoes, perryellisbyduckiebrown.com. P. 50: Billy Reid shoe-boots, billyreid.com. Shoes: Ovadia & Sons, ovadiaandsons.com. Florsheim by Duckie Brown, 212-752-8017. Esquivel, esquivelshoes.com. Church’s, church-footwear.com. O’Keeffe, mrporter. com. P. 54: Bags: Tod’s, tods.com. Ghurka, ghurka. com. Tommy Hilfiger, 212-223-1824. Ben Sherman, bensherman.com. Coach, coach.com. Rimowa by Moncler suitcase,moncler.com. P. 56: Warby Parker glasses, warbyparker.com. L.B.M. 1911 jacket, 203-622-0551. Hamilton Shirts shirt, hamiltonshirts.com. Allen Edmonds shoes, allenedmonds.com. P. 58: Watches: Panerai, panerai.com. Rolex, rolex.com. Audemars Piguet,audemarspiguet.com.PatekPhilippe,patek.com. Esquire, Working, p. 88: Banana Republic jacket, bananarepublic.com. Ermenegildo Zegna sweater,zegna.com. Hamilton Shirts shirt, hamiltonshirts.com. AG Adriano Goldschmied jeans, agjeans.com. Grenson shoes, grenson.co.uk. Jack Spade briecase, jackspade.com.P. 90: Giorgio Armani suit, armani.com.Ermenegildo Zegna shirt, zegna.com. Banana Republic tie, bananarepublic.com. Johnston & Murphy shoes, johnstonmurp hy.com. Tisso t watch, us.tissotshop. com. P. 91: Ermenegildo Zegna suit, shirts, and tie, zegna.com. Montblanc watch, montblanc.com. Johnston & Murphy shoes, johnstonmurphy.com. J. Hilburn shirt, jhilburn.com. The Tie Bar ties, thetiebar.com. Ascot Chang shirt, 212-759-3333. Alexander Olch tie, olch.com. Thomas Pink shirt, thomas pink.com. Paul Smith tie, 646-613-3060. Thomas Mason for J. Crew shirt, jcrew.com. Ralph Lauren Purple Label tie, ralphlauren.com. P. 92: Jack Spade polo shirt, jackspade.com. Kenneth Cole chinos, kennethcole.com. Church’s boots and shoes, church-footwear.com. Raymond Weil chronograph, raymondweil.com. J. Crew tie, jcrew.com. Trousers: Phineas Cole, paulstuart.com. J. Lindeberg, jlindebergusa. com. Dunhill, dunhill.com. True Religion, truereligionbrandjeans.com. Dockers, dockers.com. P. 93: L.B.M. 1911 jacket, lubiam.it. Black Fleece by Brooks Brothers shirt, brooksbrothers.com. Diesel jeans, diesel.com. Paul Stuart pocket square, paulstuart.com. Just Press Shufle, p. 134: John Varvatos jacket, jeans, and boots, johnvarvatos.com. Boss Orange Tshirt, hugoboss.com. Gents hat, gentsco.com. P. 135: Giorgio Armani suit, armani.com. Boss Orange shirt, hugoboss.com. Fratelli Rossetti shoes, 212-888-5107. Pp. 136–137: Paul Smith jacket, 646-613-3060. Diesel T-shirt, diesel.com. Levi’s jeans, levi.com. John Varvatos peacoat, T-shirt, jeans, boots, shoes,and scar, johnvarvatos.com. Bossjacketand Boss OrangeT-shirt, hugoboss.com. Esquivel boots, esquivelshoes.com.Rag & Bone jacket, rag-bone.com. Tommy Hilfiger sweater, tommy.com. All Saints trousers, us.allsaints.com. Emporio Armani jacket,armani.com. Goorin Bros. hat, goorin.com. P. 138: Dolce & Gabbana jacket,dolcega bbana.it. Dior Homme shirt, diorhomme.com. Kill City jeans, killcity.net. Converse sneakers,converse.com. Rag & Bonesneakers, rag-bone.com.P. 139: Alexander Wang shirt andtrousers, alexanderwang.com. Vintage Shoe Company boots, vintageshoecompany.com. P. 140: BottegaVeneta cardiganandtrousers,bottegaveneta.com. O’Keeffe monk-straps, jeffreynewyork.com. Burberry London scar, burberry.com.HollywoodHatters hat, hollywoodhatters.com. P. 141: Prada shirt and trousers, prada.com. Grenson shoes, grenson.co.uk. Pp. 142–143: Calvin Klein Collection blazer, 212-2929000. Rag & Bone shirt, rag-bone.com. Dolce & Gabbanatie, dolcegabbana.it.John Varvatos jeans,johnvarvatos.com. Esquivel shoes, esquivelshoes.com. Z Zegna jacket, zegna.com. Levi’s jeans, levi.com. Dr. Martens shoes, drmartens.com. Oliver Peoples glasses, oliverpeoples.com. Schott jacket, schottnyc.com. Polo Ralph Lauren shirt, ralphlauren.com. Louis Vuitton shoes, louisvuitton.com. Steven Alan shirt, stevenalan.com.
Photos & Illustrations Beore We Begin, p. 14: She & Him: Paul Drinkwater/ NBCU Photo Bank/Getty; Quinto, Saldana: Bad Robot/ Paramount/Kobal Collection; The Hangover Part III: AF Archive/Alamy; Reporting for Servicewith BryanAnderson: Courtesy Anderson; p. 18: Pickles: Jeffrey West brook/Studio D; Agdal: Bryan Steffy/Getty. Man at His Best, p. 21: Questlove: Mark Zibert/August; Rock of Gi braltar: Ian Dagnall/Alamy;p. 22: Lee Andrews and the Hearts, Questlove and sister: Courtesy Questlove; the Roots: Lloyd Bishop/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty; Shannon: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage; devil: Bridgeman Art Library/Getty; p. 24: Questlove and D’Angelo: Will Deitz; Kingsley: Rene Miko/isifa/Getty; p. 28: Styling by Constanze Lyndsay Han; hair by Kylee Heath, makeup by Jamie Greenberg, both for the Wall Group;
prop styling by Nick Faiella; shirt by Mikhael Kale; bra and panties by Marlies Dekkers; shoes by Sergio Rossi; p. 32: Jeffrey Westbrook/Studio D; p. 37: Bottles: Aaron Graubart/Studio D; Hattan: Rob Lawson/Photo Library/Getty; Negrande: Simon Watson/Foodpix/ Getty;p. 38: Aaron Graubart/Studio D; p. 42: Ben Goldstein/Studio D; p. 44: Stereo system, headphones: Ben Goldstein/Studio D; p. 45: Jeffrey Westbrook/Studio D.Style, p. 50: McGregor: George Pimentel/Studio D; socks, shoes: Jeffrey Westbrook/Studio D; p. 54: Bags: Jeffrey Westbrook/Studio D; The Great Gatsby: Courtesy Warner Bros.; p. 56: Kors: Peter Michael Dills/Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week/Getty. A Thousand Words, p. 60: Mother Teresa: AP Images; Burr: Dimitrios Kam bouris/Getty; Auernheimer: Julio Cortez/AP Images; p. 63: Hagel: Jason Reed-Pool/Getty; Jacobs: Peter Michael Dills/Getty. Esquire Network, p: 66: Pinup: Everett Collection; p. 68: Clooney: Jason Merritt/Getty; Glover: Jamie McCarthy/WireImages; Griffin: Patrick McDermott/Getty; Brown: Dan MacMedan/WireImage; Elle and Dakota Fanning: Han Myung-Gu/WireImage. Esquire, Working, p. 74: Post-its: Jeffrey Westbrook/ Studio D; Morrie and Duff Goldman: Courtesy Duff Goldman; p. 76: Handshake: Superstock/Getty; Office Space: Everett Collection; p. 78: Alex Tehrani/Corbis Outline; p. 80: Phillip Toledano/Trunk Archive; p. 82: Commuters: New York Daily News Archive/Getty. Politics, p. 94: Hand with sleeve: Thomas Northcut/Getty; fingers: Don Bayley/Getty. Out o Doors, p. 100: Shower: National General/Kobal Collection; p. 102: Cast Away: Mary Evans/20th Century Fox/Dreamworks/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection. Brie, pp. 115–117: Styling by Lisa Michelle Boyd, makeup by Garret Gervais, manicure by Emi Kudo, all for Opus Beauty; hair by Robert Ramos for Celestine Agency; prop styling by Nick Faiella;p. 115: Swimsuit by Eres; p. 116: Vest by Maison Martin Margiela; underpinning by Commando; p. 117: Swimsuit by Eres; shoes by Dries Van Noten. The Inected, pp. 118 119:Anton Koslov Mayr/Gallery Stock; pp. 120–121:Roland Symons/Getty. Better Music, pp. 124–126, 130, 132:Agdal: Styling by Inge Fonteyne, hair by Dennis Gots, both forJedRoot; makeup by Valery Gherman forDeFacto; manicure by Gina Edwards for Kate Ryan; prop st yling by Matt Jackson for Brydges MacKinney; bodysuit by Natori: Courtesy the Albright Fashion Library; thong by Kiki de Montparnasse; bodysuit by Hervé Léger; p. 126: Phoenix, !!!: Getty; p. 127:Gotye:Tim Mosenfelder/Cor bis; Grizzly Bear: WireImage; Bon Iver, the Lumineers: Redferns/Getty; p. 128: Palma Violets: Redferns/Getty; Youth Lagoon: Getty;p. 130: Pickwick:Redferns/Getty; Wavves: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty; p. 131: Record: Mark Weiss/Photodisc/Getty; CD: B en Dower/E+/Getty; cassette: William Andrew/Photographers Choice/Getty; p. 132: Bradley: Getty; Boy: Redferns/Getty. What I’ve Learned, p. 145: Mike McGregor/Contour by Getty. “The Inected,” pp. 118–123: Adapted from Red Moon. Copyright 2013 by Benjamin Percy. Printed with permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved. (ISSN 0194-9535) is published monthly (except a combined June/July issue) by Hearst Communications, Inc., 300 West 57th St., NY, NY 10019 USA. Frank A. Bennack, Jr., Executive Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Steven R. Swartz, President and Chief Operating Officer; Catherine A. Bostron, Secretary; Ronald J. Doerfler, Senior Vice-President and Treasurer. Hearst Magazines Division: David Carey, President; John P. Loughlin, Execut ive Vice-Pres ident and General Manager; John A. Rohan, Jr., Senior Vice-President, Finance. © 2013 by Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Esquire, Man at His Best, Dubious Achievement Awards, The Sound and t he Fury, and are registered trademarks of Hearst Communications, Inc. Periodicals postage paid at N. Y., N. Y., and additional entry post of fices. Canada Post International Publications mail product (Canadian distribution) sales agreement no. 40012499. Editorial and Advertising Offices: 300 West 57th St., NY, NY 10019-3797. Send returns (Canada) to Bleuchip Internation al, P. O. Box 25542, London, Ontario N6C 6B2. Subscription prices: United States and possessions, $7.97 a year; Canada and all other countries, $19.97 a year. Subscription services: Esquire will, upon receipt of a complete subscription order, undertake fulfillment of that order so as to provide the first copy for delivery by the Postal Service or alternate carrier within four to six weeks. From time to time, we make our subscriber list available to companies that sell goods and services by mail that we believe would interest our readers. If you would rather not receive such mailings, please send your current mailing label or an exact copy to Mail Preference Service, P. O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593. For customer service, changes of address, and subscription orders, log on to service.esquire.com or write to Customer Service Department, Esquire, P. O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593. Esquire is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or art. None will be returned unless accompani ed by return postage and envelope. Canada BN NBR 10231 0943 RT. Postmaster: Please send address changes to Esquire, P. O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593. Printed in the USA.
ColsenKeane Leather
American made custom leather goods for the vintage-minded in the digital age. ww w.ColsenKea ne.com R
SUKI LEATHER BRAC ELETS & N E C KLAC ES
NEVER
STOP EXPLORING AVAILABLE WITH HIDDEN MAGNETS
Handsome braided leather available in many sizes and colors. Ultra-strong magnetic clasps in aluminum or sterling silver. $30 to $125 Made in USA
liberator.com
www.suki-usa.com
1.8 66. 542.7283
BUY THE REAL VIAGRA
PROPECIA, STAXYN AND MORE
FREE
Medical Review Included Call Now
HABLAMOS ESPAÑOL
WWW.VIAMEDIC.COM
800-551-0449
