Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2014 i Esquire

Mentors 2014 A SPECIAL ISSUE ON RAISING THE NEXT GENERATION OF GOOD MEN PAGE 98 THE MENTORING DATABASE Boys need men in their lives, and many don't have them. A geographical guide to 89 organizations that can change a life. BY ANDREW CHAIKIVSKY PAGE 112 WHO MADE YOU THE MAN YOU ARE TODAY? A 21-page portfolio with pointed answers from some of the funniest, smartest, most influential men in America. PAGE 110 HOW TO BUILD A MAN Who do we want boys to be when they grow up? A communal answer from generations present and past. PAGE 135 BOYS, MENTOR THIS MAN What half a dozen boys teach a man about being a man. BY TOM CHIARELLA PAGE 144 THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE BOY SCOUTS Can Robert Gates…

The American Dream is a good one, as dreams go. It offers the prospect of comfort, of order in a chaotic universe, of fair play and even happiness. It doesn't promise these things. It raises them as possibilities, dangling them somewhere out there in the middle distance, just close enough to make them seem obtainable. And sometimes they are. But, man, the ground between here and there can be a real bastard for some people. Eileen Tumulty, the protagonist of Matthew Thomas's exceptional first novel, We Are Not Ourselves (Simon & Schuster, $28), is one of those people. She was born working-class in Queens, New York, in 1941, the daughter of "Big Mike" Tumulty, a hardscrabble Irish immigrant who hauls beer barrels for a living and sidelines as a sage…

A good recipe can open the door into a new world, and that's exactly what happened when I learned to make ramen. I was apprenticing at a ramen shop in Taipei, and although I honored my family's heritage and respected the traditional structure of ramen, my concern wasn't perfection or even authenticity. I wanted to develop a recipe that reflected my own life—an everyman's ramen. One day the pieces just came together: I took out all the complicated stuff and streamlined the most important elements into a one-pot method that gives you the ramen base you need. The key to ramen is the broth. There's no adding something at the last minute to enrich its taste. The flavor and balance must be slow-cooked in, which I do by mixing aromatics…

1 Make it custom. 'Cause in this day and age,anything and everything in your closet can be customized. Options range from computerized made-to-measure (i.e., those nifty Web sites that ask you to measure your own shoulders) to full-blown bespoke (i.e., rendered with you in mind from the first stitch). The happiest of mediums comes from Prada: Its made-to-measure program for suits, shirts, et al. is overseen by its team of tailors and craftsmen, who customize the fits and finishes to your liking. In the world according to Prada, the possibilities are practically endless. No. 2: It is only when a man doesn't have much to say (parole hearings, pool parties, the priesthood) that his choice of clothing doesn't mean much. With options come obligations, and the more options you've got,…

NOBODY KNOWS who he is and nobody knows who he was. When he was a young man—a boy, really—his anonymity fueled his desperation, and for a short time his desperation made him known. He didn't become famous the way other desperate and aggrieved young men have, but he made himself well-known enough to think that when he came home after eight and a half years in prison, there might be cameras waiting for him on his front lawn and people interested in asking him questions. There weren't. There was just his family and the rest of his life. So Trunk—a nickname he acquired when he went away—has returned to where he started out. He couldn't be more unknown. He couldn't be more anonymous. On the days he goes to college,…

NOW ON ESQUIRE.COM WATCH: Exclusive interviews with all fifty men. SHARE: Your stories, and your mentors, with the world. (We might even feature them in Esquire.) LEARN: How you (yes, you!) can change a kid's life. QUESTLOVE Drummer, deejay, teacher, night owl The person that made me the man that I am today is, of course, my father. He was a singer and he came from that James Brown school of fining. With James, if you. either made a mistake or hit. the wrong note, that meant..five dollars, and my dad was. that kind of bandleader..I started drumming for him when I was thirteen at Radio City Music Hall, which was one of my first gigs, and if you look at me now, people often ask, Like, who in their…

It wasn't until he was engaged in the melancholy task of moving his mother from her condo to assisted living that Robert Gates, a former CIA director and secretary of defense, discovered the truth hidden from him his entire life: His father was a Boy Scout. The family lived in Wichita, Kansas. Mel Gates sold wholesale auto parts. Robert was the younger of two sons by eight years. He remembers his dad being gruff in public but very affectionate at home. "He frightened my friends a little bit until they got to know him," Gates remembers, gesturing toward a table, to the black-and-white photo he'd unearthed in his mom's stuff—his dad in full scout regalia, Kansas City, 1918, when Mel was twelve years old and the Boy Scouts of America…

You can fit through that. —Mark, older brother, 1982 Most dogs are afraid of people. —Phil, best friend, 1984 Dance like nobody's watching. —Mark, older brother, 1991 You can't go wrong with jewelry. —Mort, father, 1998 Picture your audience naked. —Ken, boss, 2003 No one ever regretted quitting a job. —Martin, bartender, 2006 Two words: real estate. One more: Nevada. —P. T., broker, 2006 Everybody loves a clown. —Bud, uncle, 2007 Just be yourself. —Mort, father, 2008 There is no better investment than film school. —Mr. Buckles, teacher, 2009 Chicks love it when you shave down there. —Turk, roommate, 2009 Grab the bull by the horns. —Mark, older brother, 2011 Grab the bull by the balls. —Bud, uncle, 2011 If you ask them if they're cops, they have to tell…

SCOTT RAAB HANK AZARIA Lunch at Josie's restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan SCOTT RAAB: I was watching your docu-series, Fatherhood [available on aol.com]. You really opened yourself up. HANK AZARIA: I'm 50 now. We had Hal when I was 45. By the time I was about 43, 44, I was ambivalent about having a child. And my girlfriend—we're married now—she wasn't one of those women who knew she wanted to do it, either. She was very confused as well. And I was really tortured by this. [The waitress comes. For Azaria, the butternut-squash soup and veggie stir-fry. "No rice. No protein. Just veggies."] So, I have a regular poker game with my friends for a long time. They're all dads—and I'm driving them crazy with sincere questions.…

TORONTO MAYOR Rob Ford's reality show was canceled after just one episode. That's the difference between Americans and Canadians: If you're spinning out in America, your reality show will be renewed for another season. But Canadians just don't want to watch Canadian content. ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Given the chance, Sarah Gadon would like to scare you. For one, the 27-year-old actress stars in Dracula Untold (out October 17), the upcoming action-movie take on the Gothic novel. (She plays Mirena, the wife of the warrior who becomes the titular vampire.) But she also enjoys a more direct tactic. "It's so mean," she says, delighted. "You know how if somebody is coming up stairs and the stairs kind of bend and you scare them? I like to do that." She also has…

When you say "real," do you mean has it been scientifically proven in a clinic, clinically, that drinking makes people look more attractive to the drinker? It has, in a bar on a remote island, where physiologist Lewis G. Halsey found that drinkers were less able to perceive asymmetry in shapes. He duplicated his findings in a lab, and they have been re-proven every night, worldwide, ever since. There is sensation, or what "comes through your eyes," says neuroscientist Amanda Ellison, and perception, "the sense we make of" that information. Drinking causes the eye muscles to waver a bit, blurring your vision, and then it impairs the brain's frontal lobe, where decisions are made. Meanwhile, the subcortical lower brain, where sexual desire lives, or at least gets mail, remains relatively…

Most men would just as soon bathe in a vat of Valvoline as use body and hair oils, and that's probably because they assume it has the same effect. However, some oils actually produce less shine and greasiness than lotions and ointments do. Starting out For your first foray into the world of oil, try [1] Jack Black Epic Moisture MP 10 ($32; getjackblack.com), a multi-purpose oil that you can use for shaving, hairstyling, and moisturizing. Whereas a cream can leave a film on your skin that makes you gleam like George Hamilton at the beach, this light oil absorbs quickly and makes your skin look healthier. Cleaning One of the reasons we need to moisturize in the first place is that we strip our skin and hair of oils…

If you are a boy in America today, you are more likely to drop out of school, less likely to go to college, and far more likely to abuse alcohol or go to prison or kill yourself than the girl sitting next to you in class. Study after study has shown that the influence of fathers or substitute fathers (teachers, coaches) can be a major factor in a boy's future success, yet mentoring organizations across the country are struggling to find them. Boys and young men need mentors more than ever before, and there have never been more opportunities to become a mentor, help a boy, and work on your short game (or learn to surf, or get in shape, or have some fun) while you're doing it. Here are…

DAVID BLAINE MAGICIAN There used to be a hangout spot, a deli, in New York. And in the back room, all of the top magicians would come and meet, and every young magician would go and try to learn something. I met a magician there named Bill Kalush, and he showed me an incredible card move, and as he was about to leave, I stopped him and said, "Please show me how to do this." He was like, "Kid, don't waste your time—you'll never get this." But before he left, he showed me how to do it, and for the next six months—every day—I practiced it. Kalush, who's one of my best friends now, taught me that even when it feels like you're not going to. succeed and everything is…

STYLE TERM NO. 1 THE GHOST TIE The absence of the expected necktie can be just as powerful as the presence of one, since they know that you know that it's supposed to be there and you're going without one anyway. It's subversion at its most stylish, especially when executed with a crisp white shirt with a structured, stand-up collar. Wool coat ($4,495), double-breasted wool jacket ($3,795), cotton shirt ($695), wool trousers ($1,200), and silk scarf ($425) by Ermenegildo Zegna Couture. STYLE TERM NO. 2 THE BULLET-PROOF JACKET Unlike the typical eight to nine inches of shirt and tie frontage, a double-breasted jacket with an exceptionally high button stance reveals your shirt collar, your tie knot, and not much else, and the effect is streamlined and sculptural, military meets The…

Tell you what, let's see if we can't make the old Camelot metaphor turn handsprings and tie itself into a bowline, shall we? Once upon a time and not that long ago, and don't let it be forgot, there once was a glossy magazine named George. It was founded and edited by the late John Kennedy Jr., who was, by all accounts, a more than decent bloke. Its conceit was that there was no essential difference between politics and show business or between political celebrity and all other forms of celebrity. (I think we all can agree that JFK Jr. was something more than an authority on that last part.) Its first issue featured model Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington, who once had only Parson Weems as his personal…

An early English chemist once noted that aging a spirit in a barrel turns it into "a dilute tincture of oak." Or, in the case of some Brazilian cachaças, of ipê, balsamo, louro-canela, amendoim, amburana. Cachaça, the Brazilian national spirit, is made in vast quantities, all of it distilled from fresh sugarcane juice (as opposed to molasses, from which the vast majority of rums are made) and almost all of it destined for domestic consumption. The cachaça that does get exported is mostly what Brazilians classify as "industrial," a thin, raw, mostly unaged spirit that's okay in a caipirinha but not for sipping. In Brazil, however, there are hundreds of small, truly artisanal producers whose products rarely see the inside of a shipping container. Many of these cachaças are aged…

My two favorite stores in the world are Bergdorf Goodman and QuickChek. If QuickChek sold Brioni ties, I'd pretty much never shop anywhere else. The one near my house offers two different kinds of ice—cubes and the wondrous "chewy"—for its fountain sodas. But then last week, I had a heated debate with QuickChek's social-media editor. The northern New Jersey–based convenience store had for a brief time stocked Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cups and then just as quickly disappeared them. There is no substitute. That's the kind of loyalty that's helped make Butterfinger's maker, Nestlé S.A., based in Vevey, Switzerland, the world's largest food company, with annual sales exceeding $100 billion and a market capitalization of $240 billion. Investors, especially in the U. S., have an image of the company as a…

A NEW PORTRAIT OF THE AMERICAN MARRIAGE is emerging, both in real life and in pop culture—a portrait of marriage as psychological thriller. The film version of Gone Girl, out this month, is only the most recent and most anticipated example, with its finely woven vision of the relationship between the Dunnes presented as a skein of gripping secrets and lies. There are several new or newish shows that take this dark-marriage thrill as their principal theme—shows like Satisfaction and Masters of Sex. Marriage on television is getting weirder in general, however: The Good Wife is becoming the best it ever has been, largely because of the fascinating arranged relationship between Peter and Alicia Florrick, with its sly corruption, ferocious loyalty, and interlocking webs of sexual betrayal. The coolest, most…

*To answer that question, we drew from our interviews of prominent men (starting on page 112) and consulted our staff, some historical figures, and a few great books, enumerated, with context, in the footnotes below. We want them to be pioneering.1 We want them to be tough, but not so tough that it crowds out everything else. We want them to get outside more. We want them to do things we can't do. And tell us things we don't know. We want them to know that it might look easy, but it ain't.2 We want them to make it look easy. We want them to be in the moment, though everything in our culture conspires against it. To look us in the eye and give a firm handshake. To know…

THREE OF MY MENTORS WON'T look me in the eye when they speak. Four haven't worked a day in their lives. Another sleeps until noon and works only four hours a week. They can sometimes seem a little delusional, these mentors. One of them plans to carry a katana back and forth to his first job. That's the current extent of his expectations concerning work. Another hopes to live the rest of his life on money he will find "in a box somewhere." The chances, he says, are fifty-fifty. "Treasures can be real," he told me. "Really real." At least one of my mentors owns a snake. They are demanding. One mentor never eats potatoes. He won't even try them. Most of them despise walking. They eschew it. Bikes. Bikes…

Store Information For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the Web site or call the number provided. Style, p. 68: Jackets: Massimo Alba, mrporter.com. J. Hilburn, jhilburn.com. Billy Reid, billyreid.com. Tommy Hilfiger, 212-223-1824. Brunello Cucinelli sweater, 212-627-9202. Tommy Hilfiger shirt, 212-223-1824. Billy Reid tie, billyreid.com. P. 70: Bonobos sweater, bonobos.com. Tod's bag, tods.com. Filson bag, filson.com. P. 72: Tod's coat, monk-straps, and bag, tods.com. Hamilton Shirts shirt, 713-780-8222. P. 74: Tomas Maier jacket, shirt, trousers, and moccasins, tomasmaier.com. Boss tie, hugoboss.com. Shoes: Santoni, santonishoes.com. DiBianco, scarpe-dibianco.com. Church's, 212-758-5200. Cole Haan, 800-695-8945. Broken Suits and Ghost Ties, p. 151: Ermenegildo Zegna Couture coat, jacket, shirt, trousers, and scarf, zegna.com. P. 152: Calvin Klein Collection coat, jacket, shirt, and trousers, 212-292-9000. Burberry London tie, burberry.com. Church's shoes, 212-758-5200. P. 153: Giorgio…