Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2013 i Esquire

Essential information for this issue and your month "AREN'T WE JUST TRYING TO KILL THE INCOMPETENT, ENGORGED FEDERAL BEAST?" PAGE 86 "YOU WILL BE TALKING TO YOUR MAGAZINE." PAGE 32 "At this price, it must have been harvested from the top of a remote mountain by an endangered Amur leopard. With full union benefits." PAGE60 "HE'S THE JIMMY CARTER OF INTENSE INDIE ACTORS."PAGE 35 "EVERY TIME A JOB IS FINISHED, I LOOK AT MY CAR AND THINK, COULD LIVE IN IT?" PAGE 124 "I weighed almost 220 pounds, which, according to a BMI chart I'd found, made me the average Tongan." Page 106 "ASK BULGARIAN WOMAN TO YELL AT YOU." Page 156 "My butt was in his face. I could have said anything." PAGE 48 "THE BAD NEWS, HE TOLD…

1. Pick a last name for a protagonist named Jack: Schlomowitz (–10) Doodle (–10) Harper (5) 2. What was your favorite part of The Matrix? The hero's willful disillusionment. (10) The underground life- support pods. (10) The African American rebel leader/spirit guide. (10) 3. Who is the best foil for the white American hero? Desirable British woman. (1) Desirable Russian woman. (2) 4. Who was the most sympathetic character in I Am Legend? Will Smith's dog. (5) 5. Flashbacks? Tired. (–3) If surprising enough, sure. (3) 6. True or false: A woman can look ready for a night out no matter the time of day, climatic condition, state of the earth, or risk of imminent death. True (5) False (–5) 7. When you see Tom Cruise being shot at with…

Innovation in booze is supposed to come from the little guys—the dozens upon dozens of new whiskey distilleries that have opened around the country over the last few years. Unlike the old-line Kentucky and Tennessee outfits, the Jims and the Jacks, these guys are each making at most a barrel's worth a day, every drop under the personal supervision of a young artisan who's passionately committed to extending the parameters of the craft. (That's the theory, anyway.) While much of what they're making comes off the still as standard bourbon or rye, there's also a lot of less-standard stuff: straight corn whiskey, malt whiskey, millet whiskey, sorghum whiskey, spelt whiskey, whiskey made from mixed barley, oats, and rye, all kinds of things. The problem is whiskey is an interaction of…

Cologne, at this point, is not much more than a generic term. While it originally referred to a specific, mostly citrus fragrance made with water from Cologne, Germany, in the 18th century, now it's basically just a category name. So saying that you wear cologne is kind of like cooking a delicious roasted chicken and telling your guests that you'll be serving meat. What most of us spray on our neck and chest each morning is actually eau de toilette. Besides sounding fancier, the name denotes the percentage of essential oils used to make your scent, which can be anywhere between 5 and 15 percent. (The rest is mostly alcohol and a little water.) The next step up is eau de parfum, at 10 to 20 percent, followed by perfume…

EVERYTHING WE KNOW IS WRONG WHY WE LOVE MAD MEN The present is swallowed by the past, at least on television. Period shows achieved what you might have thought was a saturation point several years ago, yet more and more premiere every season. They are the memento mori of consumer culture, reminding us that everything we now wear will one day be silly. Mad Men, which resumes this month after an epic hiatus, is the greatest of all period shows because its history and its substance and its audience align perfectly—the man in the gray flannel suit is the direct ancestor of the man behind the MacBook watching him. The characters, like the audience obsessing over them fifty years later, are locked in the parochialism of their moment, slaves to…

The war is over, the good guys won, and Los Angeles is less a city than a string of small towns stretching from the Pacific to the Sierras. Hollywood, sure, but orchards, too—plenty of green and two-lane roads. No TV, just movies at the Aero, sandlot baseball, an ocean a quick walk away. His neighborhood is lower working class, far more Mexican than Anglo, but everyone gets along. A fine time and place to be a kid. He's a milkman's son, a lad who checks the box scores to see if Ted Williams got a couple of knocks yesterday, a boy with a paper route. He's on the corner at six in the morning, groggy, when the truck dumps the bale of the Santa Monica Independent. He folds up his…

Subject: Hey P Lena Headey here … Hello … Hi … Nice to meet you … Shoot for esquire was as painless as a shoot in underwear can be… . Unless you're Gisele… . Then I'm sure it's a glorious adventure… . Rankin is a true artist… . Though you can't take the tomboy out of the girl … So don't expect long glossy legs and a shapely derriere… . You'll only be disappointed… . Rather a scrapper with a penchant for ink. Look forward to a real introduction Lx Sent from mine own digits Unless she's Tori Spelling sending in her own updates to In Touch, it's rare for an actress to e-mail a writer directly. But Lena Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister, a ruthless, calculating queen who's sleeping…

Old Password New Password Password Requirements      • Your password must be at least 8 characters long.      • It must contain at least one uppercase letter, one number, and one special character.      • It must be difficult-to-impossible to remember.      • Think of a letter. Now think of another letter. Do not use either of those letters in your password.      • What, are you an abc123 man? Focus.      • Oh, you're gonna cry now?      • How about pussy123? That sound like a good password?      • Okay, then. Say this out loud:      • Fine. But this time make white-noise sounds to account for the inscrutability.      • Whatever sounds you're making, transcribe them and make that your password.      • Take the chorus of a Loggins & Messina song, shove all the words together, replace…

Patton Oswalt SCOTT RAAB TALKS TO THE ACTOR/COMIC ABOUT EPIC TV, THE RETURN OF THE JEDI, THE BLESSINGS OF EARLY FAILURE, AND A DIRTY ANIMAL JOKE Breakfast, Olives restaurant at the W Hotel, downtown New York City. PATTON OSWALT [To waiter]: I'll get a black tea. Thank you. SCOTT RAAB: Relax. Take a few minutes. PO: I landed at six yesterday, and then it took me two hours to get into the city. I was able to drop off my bags and get into another car to take me to a show. I did a benefit for Stand Up for Heroes. The lineup was Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Stewart, Ricky Gervais, Robin Williams, and me. I'll show you the lineup. [Shows Raab a photo on his iPhone.] That's the…

A MAN RACES into a bar, sweating and visibly shaken. He turns to all the patrons and starts yelling, "Does anyone own a six-foot penguin? Does anyone own a six-foot penguin?" All the patrons shake their head. The guy says, "Damn, I hit a nun." ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Eliza Coupe was your typical 13-year-old boy back in 1994: obsessing over Jim Carrey and Ace Ventura, taking penalties for fighting before the puck was dropped in her hockey games, getting boxing lessons from her dad. Now 31, the New Hampshire native says, "I was basically raised as a third son, but I've girlied out." And while she grew out of the fighting, she held on to her love of comedy. These days she plays Jane, one sixth of the cast of…

THE TASTIEST SCIENCE PROJECT WE HAVE EVER PUBLISHED I'm from Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay, so I'm accustomed to getting my hands on the freshest fish imaginable. There's no need to do much to fish when it's fresh, so I often turn it into ceviche, a dish that originated in the coastal cultures of Latin and Central America. Raw fish is soaked in an acid-based liquid—usually citrus juice is the main ingredient—which denatures the proteins, a process that changes the texture of the fish, leaving the interior opaque and the edges firm, almost as if heat had been applied. (People say in shorthand that it "cooks" the fish.) Ceviche is man's best seafood friend because it's a showy dish that's easy to make and rich enough to serve in…

INSIDE UNDERSTANDING The hell's a baton? What about a pusher? And do you need either? The difference between accuracy and precision. And the type of man who can get away with wearing a pocket watch. PURCHASING How to decide which watch shape is the best for your wrist. A simple way to determine how much you can spend. The only time you can haggle. UPKEEPING So you dropped it. What's next? Something to consider before sending your watch to the local repairman. And what to do when your leather band gets so smelly even you've started noticing. THE ANATOMY A THREE-MINUTE GUIDE TO WATCHMAKING JARGON THE CASE: The body that both holds and protects the watch movement. It's often made from one piece of metal and includes the lugs. THE…

1 VOLKSWAGEN IS THE FUTURE A friend at Automobile Magazine took this picture during this year's Detroit auto show. It shows some of the board members of the Volkswagen Group and the major brands they run—the larger carmakers and one motorcycle builder in which Volkswagen owns a controlling interest. Audi. Bentley. Bugatti. Lamborghini. Porsche. Ducati. These are all massive brands, powerhouses with legacies most companies would kill for. They don't just build things—they craft a lifestyle you feel you can't live without. And all are controlled, more or less, from one boardroom in Germany. This kind of consolidation is insane. It's also clearly the future. VW zeroed in on what was good about these smart yet struggling brands (Lambor-ghini's screaming engines and brutally gorgeous styling; Bentley's regal feel and hand-stitched…

FEEL HEALTHY NO MATTER HOW MANY MILES YOUR BODY HAS CLOCKED. AN OWNER'S MANUAL —PIECE BY PIECE, DECADE BY DECADE— FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO GET INTRODUCTION: HOW TO USE YOUR BODY You buy a new car. It's got all the essentials, this hot motor, the curves, the muscle. All these beautiful components. You push it at the beginning, to see what it can do. And it does anything you want it to do. It feels indestructible, and all you have to do is change the oil every three months. Keep the tire pressure at the right PSI. That's it. Then, as it gets older, more road behind it, you start having to do a little more. At 60,000 miles, you replace the…

SOME THINGS IN LIFE—THE CLOTHES ON OUR BACK, THE STORIES WE TELL, THIS GUY RIGHT HERE*—ONLY GET BETTER WITH AGE. AND FOR THE MAN WHO DOESN'T WANT TO WAIT, IT'S NEVER BEEN EASIER TO FIND PREWEATHERED, PREDISTRESSED CLOTHES THAT COME PRELOADED WITH CHARACTER. AFTER A FEW HOURS OF letting his mind wander up and down the neck of his guitar, Ben Harper will put the guitar down and spend the next few hours skateboarding. His living room in Los Angeles is a skate park, with rails and boxes to get up to and down from, but most often he can be found at Stoner Park in West L. A. or the Cove in Santa Monica, where he is a respected regular, and when he's in New York, he'll skate Central…

Willie Nelson was getting high once when he leaned in and whispered, "Two nuns are cycling down a cobbled street. The first one says, 'I've never come this way before.' The second replies, 'Must be the cobbles.' " I've never been so high or laughed so hard. Willie's jokes are old and corny—they're mostly about golf or sex. Sometimes both. But the goal in the telling seems to be to disarm. People get weird around famous people, let alone bona fide American icons. They talk too much or too little. They fidget and breathe heavy. But I've never seen anyone freak out around Willie Nelson. Laughter takes the edge off. So does humility. Last year, moments after the mayor of Austin unveiled an eight-foot, one-ton statue of Willie downtown at…

1. I sleep six or seven hours a night and I'm healthy. Why am I always so tired? DR. HARRY FISCH: Fatigue is perhaps the most common—and vague—symptom a man can have. The list of possible causes is long, but here are a few big-picture things to check: First, you may simply need more sleep. Research shows that on average, guys need seven to eight hours for optimal health. Next thing to consider is the quality of sleep. You might have sleep apnea, restless-leg syndrome, noisy neighbors, or some other problem preventing you from getting deep, restful sleep. Another thing: Your testosterone level might be below normal. The bottom line: Unexplained tiredness means something's not right. Ask a doctor to find the cause—or causes. 2. Can stress really make your…

Q IF I LOVE MY WIFE, WHY DO I KEEP DREAMINGABOUT OTHER WOMEN? There are as many reasons for dreaming about other women as there are other women you won't be sleeping with. Lauri Loewenberg, author of Dream On It: Unlock Your Dreams, Change Your Life, says that sex dreams signal an urge to incorporate that person's nonsexual qualities into yourself. "Ask yourself what stands out about this person. Is she laid-back? Maybe she's really good with computers." Is that it? Is she really good with computers? Ian Wallace, dream psychologist and author of The Top 100 Dreams: The Dreams That We All Have and What They Really Mean, says a dream of this sort has more to do with stifled creative instinct. "A woman tends to symbolize [a man's]…

The Assessment: The DenimJacket When Ronald Reagan sat down with Mikhail Gorbachev for their last head-to-head in 1988, he brought the Russian leader a parting gift: a denim jacket, something so rugged and cool—so effortlessly American—that ol' Gorby was moved to dissolve the U. S. S. R. right then and there. (Wait—that is what happened, right?) The denim jacket has been stuck since in a kind of sartorial limbo—is it nostalgic? ironic? fashiony?—until just recently. Designers such as Italo Zucchelli of Calvin Klein have updated it with shorter, slimmer cuts, variegated shading, and weathered textures. The best versions have the close fit and lived-in character we look for in our clothes right now, and while they tend to look best with chinos or cords, you could even wear them with…

For thirty years, the Republican party has been trying to "starve the government beast" by rejecting the taxation needed to finance the public sector. The Democratic party has timorously followed along. Despite Barack Obama's recent paeans to liberalism in his Inaugural and State of the Union addresses, the Republican agenda is very far advanced: The Age of Sequestration is at hand. The Democrats have walked into the Republican trap with eyes open. From the 2008 campaign until today, Obama campaigned on tax cuts for almost all American households. He embraced George W. Bush's unaffordable tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 and championed making them permanent. Observers of last year's campaign may have thought that a great debate over national priorities had been framed. Here's our great debate: Obama wanted to…

CRYOGENIC TANK AT ANTHONY ATALA'S LAB AT WAKE FOREST, CAPABLE OF HOLDING 100,000 SAMPLES OF STEM CELLS, A STORE THEORETICALLY BIG ENOUGH TO GROW ORGANS FOR 90 PERCENT OF THE POPULATION. Pig kidneys at Dr. Atala's lab, where they are being decellularized and reseeded with human kidney cells. ONE DAY, WHEN YOU ARE ILL, when your heart finally beats a thousand times too many, when your liver is sclerotic beyond use, when your pancreas stops producing insulin, when your kidneys no longer protect you from toxins, Dr. Anthony Atala wants to heal you. In his vision, you will visit a hospital in Omaha or San Francisco or Buffalo, and a specialist will diagnose you. Then you'll have blood taken to determine your genetic makeup, and then those results will be…

FOR AS LONG AS ANYBODY CAN REMEMBER, Monday night has been Manly Night at the Playboy Mansion. A little after five o'clock, nine or ten of Hugh Hefner's best friends—invited guests, holders of inner-circle memberships that will be good until death—start pulling up outside the front gate. They talk into what looks like a big round rock, and a disembodied voice questions and admits them, sometimes sounding surprised about it—"Oh, hey, you can come up"—and the gate swings open, revealing a hedge-lined driveway and two yellow warning signs: BRAKE FOR ANIMALS and PLAYMATES AT PLAY. The Mansion soon looms at the top of a rise, a Gothic pile with leaded glass windows that overlook immaculate grounds tended by men in green work shirts, each with the familiar white rabbit…