Inhaltsverzeichnis für May 2016 in Esquire

IN LENIN’S TOMB, HIS LUCID ACCOUNT of the end of Soviet Russia, David Remnick uses as an epigraph a famous quote from Czech author Milan Kundera. “The struggle of man against power,” Kundera wrote, “is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” The philosophy was central to Remnick’s contention throughout the book that one of the critical weaknesses of the Soviet state, and of all of its satellite governments in Eastern Europe, including Kundera’s Czechoslovakia, was that it required its citizens to fight against their own memory, to unknow what they clearly knew. Sooner or later, the effort to forget and to unknow becomes too much of a burden for too many people and they force the collapse of the system. Humans are driven to remember. Humans can crack from the…

Date of birth: September 21, 1950 Which makes him: 65 Hometown: Wilmette, Illinois Childhood extracurriculars: Boy Scout, altar boy, Little League player, shag boy. Though he was: Kicked out of the first three. But not the last: Which he describes as “Some hacker . . . hit golf balls, and you would be the target.” Siblings: Eight, including three actors and one sister. By which we mean: A Catholic sister of the Dominican Order. First starring role: Meatballs, directed by Ivan Reitman. Who has said: “He’s frustrating to other creative people, and, frankly, unfair, because everything has to go on his clock. But he’s worth it.” Which explains his on-set nickname: “The Murricane” Some of his more far-fetched roles: Chicago mob boss, drag queen, bank robber/clown, Garfield the cat, vengeful oceanographer,…

Context-Free Wisdom from a Prior Esquire Appearance by Chelsea Handler From the September 2011 issue: “Have you ever been sued by a midget? It’s not fun.” 1. If you’re buying a woman balloons, stop. 2. There are certain things women find attractive: Just be yourself, be confident, and be black. 3. In an argument, we are always going to take the dog’s side. 4. It’s not that we don’t want kids; we don’t want your kids. 5. The only times it’s appropriate for a man to wear a necklace are when he’s Flavor Flav or severely allergic to penicillin. 6. The only time it’s appropriate for a man to wear an earring is when he isn’t anywhere near us. 7. We never want to hear you say the word blouse.…

THIS IS NOT A COLUMN I have looked forward to writing. But things are spinning out of control. ¶ When you work for guys who are in the single digits on the Forbes 400 list, they make you sign barbed-wire nondisclosure agreements. So I can’t go into detail about a project from which I recently was “separated.” But I can tell you that I wasn’t the right fit because the absurdly wealthy fellow who wanted me to write his memoir believes that everything is cyclical and can be explained by examining past economic cycles. And I don’t believe that. I believe that everything is going to shit. Actually, one of the things that make me so bearish on the world economy is exactly that—cycles. People are set up to believe…

THE EXTREMES The case for paying $ 600 vs . the case for paying $ 6 0 THE $600 PAIR: I’m a purist. When a friend insisted I buy Tom Ford jeans, I laughed. A Tom Ford tux? Yes. But jeans? I was wrong. They’re lightweight; the indigo matches even my cheap clothes; the fit accommodates my thighs. But the value lies in knowing I have the best. I won’t waste hours trying on others. I already paid for that time. Cotton jeans ($570) by Tom Ford; cotton T-shirt ($20) by Uniqlo. —WENDELL BROWN VS THE $60 PAIR: I love jeans. By accident years ago, I fell into a pair of darkwash Gap 1969 slim-fit jeans, and I’ve never climbed out of them. I buy them in twos. I can…

Date of birth: May 6, 1961 Which makes him: 54 Hometown: Lexington, Kentucky Which proved useful when: He sent the O Brother, Where Art Thou? script home to his uncle Jack, along with a tape recorder to capture his accent. Though he later learned that: Uncle Jack, a strict Baptist, had omitted all the damns and hells. Other relatives of note: Aunt Rosemary Clooney, cabaret singer and actress; father Nick Clooney, talk-show host and news anchor. First onscreen appearance: The Nick Clooney Show, at age five. Childhood aspiration: Baseball player Not an unrealistic goal, considering: That he tried out for the Cincinnati Reds when he was 17. But ended up: Studying broadcast journalism at Northern Kentucky University. After dropping out of which he: Moved to California with money saved from cutting…

I FIRST SUBSCRIBED TO ESQUIRE IN 1973, when I was twenty. I was selling men’s shoes in Cleveland, including platform boots with plastic heels that doubled as fishbowls. I liked selling shoes—I learned to hustle, think on my feet, and listen—and I was good at it. But I wasn’t nearly a full-grown man, much less a man at his best. I paid my share of the rent in a house with four other guys, but I had no wheels. I was in love with Cindy, the waitress at the burger joint across the street, but I had no chance. What I had was flat feet and a year’s subscription to Esquire. Crazy days. The America that raised me was ravaged, a cannibal land. I was sent home early from sixth…

I’ve had a lot of good days. I remember Jon Hamm saying those words in the video interview we did with him as part of Esquire’s eightieth-anniversary issue. We had asked him—as we had each of the other seventy-nine prominent men in that issue— what he considered the best day of his life. The first thing out of his mouth was “I’ve had a lot of good days,” which just sounded like gratitude— the words of a man who knows that he has been extremely fortunate. I am such a man. For eighteen years and ten months, I’ve been the editor in chief of Esquire. Which, when you look at it there in words, seems amazing. Jesus. On the verge of getting this gig, I met with Frank Bennack, who…

The Rules Rule No. 783: The dumber the man, the louder he talks. Rule No. 801: If it’s your first time, smoke it, don’t eat it. Rule No. 892: Lesbians really do make the best breakfasts. Rule No. 1,029: Very little good comes from looking back longingly. Rule No. 1,997: Nothing goes away. READING ONCE GUIDED ME toward the man I wanted to be: a self-reliant, gunslinging, smart-talking, historically notable badass women lusted after. I would slay a dragon one week, fly-fish a trout stream the next; command a World War II battalion before setting off on my horse or motorcycle to brave the rolling prairie, the open road. Like so many other young men, the shelves of my mind were crowded with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, McMurtry, King, and Krakauer.…

A YEAR AGO, I HAD ONE of those eerie, vivid nightmares that take place in the very room in which you are sleeping. I dreamed I was standing in the corner of my bedroom watching my husband have sex with Gisele in our bed. Not some random Gisele. Not Gisele Greenberg. Gisele the Supermodel. She was on top. It was a horrible dream. I woke up angry and jealous. Even though the dream was over, I was in a visceral panic from watching my husband fuck someone so much hotter than me—in fairness, hotter than anyone. So I did the only rational thing a person could do in this situation, which was shake him awake. Sleepy and confused, he listened as I told him what he’d “done.” “That’s ridiculous,” he…

RICKY GERVAIS NEEDS A DRINK and a wee. It’s late afternoon on a Friday in London, and he’s just connected over Skype when he steps away from the computer to take care of the latter. With him outside the frame, the room is unobscured: the cream-colored walls, a gold-framed mirror hanging in the study of his spacious home, and is that white marble? This Trump-Tower-done-tastefully decor was furnished by a man who has made a self-proclaimed “cottage industry” out of finding stories and comedy in the most unglamorous people and environments. It’s weird to see someone who openly eschews personal vanity (Gervais regularly publishes “horrendous” double-chinned photos of himself in the tub on social media) in this luxe home in tony Hampstead, with an apartment waiting for him on Manhattan’s…

Ah, spring and summer: times of warmth, of rebirth, of men wearing bright pants. Now, although there’s no shame in a good pair of khakis (a “dusty salmon”-colored pair, however. . .), try white jeans this time around. If you elevate them with some tailoring on top, as we explain here, you’ll have all the seasonal elegance—with an edge. Cotton jeans ($189) by 7 for All Mankind; three-button wool-silk-and-linen jacket ($1,990) by Canali; linen vest ($150) by Joseph Abboud; cotton shirt ($435) by Finamore; linen tie ($150) by Alexander Olch; suede shoes ($1,390) by John Lobb; leather belt ($98) by Bonobos; no-show socks ($15 for package of two) by Richer Poorer. DON’T BE SUCH A STIFF Even when you dress up the classiest of jeans, you will inevitably be dressing…

I know what I’m doing. Because I’ve been doing this a long time. Since before Kim. Before Taylor. Before I said what every black person in America was thinking about what George Bush thought about them. Before the accident. Before Chappelle’s Show. That man is a genius for putting me on his show. You don’t understand the responsibility that sits heavy on my shoulders every day. You ever gotten married? Not to the woman whose sex tape you jerked off to. The woman who has more than SIXTY MILLION Instagram followers, who Instagram would be NOTHING without. The result of God’s love and Kris’s genius and that Kim K. luck and more squats than people that watch her show every week. But maybe you got married to some regular woman,…

Look at her. It is the last time you will ever see her, and she is committing a crime. In the surveillance video, she is pushing and sometimes pulling a shopping cart through a Walmart, filling it with clothes and then emptying it, over and over again. An untrained eye might think she’s simply shopping with her boyfriend. But store security keeps an array of hidden cameras focused on her; the cameras don’t leave her for the hour she’s in the store, and when you see the entire tape you see something different from a young woman on a spree. You see someone who can’t possibly get away with it. For one thing, she’s shopping—shoplifting— at two in the morning. For another, she’s clearly high; she never stops moving, and…

TIP NO. 842 A Brighter Blue Means Business Take your somber navy two-piece out of the rotation for the summer and suit up instead in a brighter, richer shade of blue with the slightest touch of sheen. It’s just as versatile but packs that much more punch. TIP NO. 612 Double-Breasted Isn’t a Trend Which is a good thing. Nobody’s happier than us that the DB suit came roaring out of the closet a few years back as a bona fide trend in men’s wear. But then a funny thing happened: DB suits stuck around, lost the trendy tag, and became just another weapon in a man’s arsenal. Benjamin Walker has made a career out of the violent past: He’s played a nineteenth-century president who kills people in war (in…

Wednesday, March 9, 11:07 a.m. JFK airport. David Granger and Scott Raab pick up Bill Murray in Granger’s car. They are heading to the East Side of Manhattan, where Murray is staying. BILL MURRAY: I didn’t mean to deny you guys a ride down to Charleston. You can come down as soon as this Big East thing is over. We’ve got to have priorities here. SCOTT RAAB: Seeing your boy coach must be a lot of fun. [Murray’s son Luke is an assistant coach at Xavier.] BM: Just watching him in the time-outs is so much fun. He always had a function during the time-outs in his previous coaching. And this year I was like, “Luke, you don’t have a job during the time-outs.” He said, “I know. I’ve gotta…

By Adam Haslett (Little, Brown and Company, $26) For the family in Imagine Me Gone, crippling depression is an unwelcome family heirloom, passed on by the father along with a lifetime of financial and emotional debt. The eldest son, Michael—vividly and painfully wrought— bears the brunt of that inheritance. His voice— just one of the five that tell this story—takes us on unexpected excursions through his obsession with disco, prescription drugs, and critical theory. The novel brilliantly captures the excruciating burden of love and the role it plays in both our survival and our destruction. Haslett suspends a sense of dread over you like an anvil from page one, cutting the rope that holds it in the brutal last act. You’d be a fool to look away.…

The New Tequila Manhattan Stir well with cracked ice: > 2 oz good 100 percent agave añejo tequila > Scant ¾ oz red vermouth > ½ oz cream sherry > 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters or orange bitters Strain into chilled cocktail glass and twist a swatch of thin-cut orange peel over the top. Salud! OVER THE YEARS, I’ve watched an editor here at Esquire step up to one bar or another and order a tequila manhattan, one of the drinks that make a person appreciate the breadth of human diversity. I’ve tried to like the drink. After all, I love manhattans and I love tequila, as anyone should. And I love history, something the tequila manhattan has more than enough of (I’ll get to that in a moment). But try…

THE AG 360 STRETCH JEANS Not long ago, when a guy with legs like those of poet Joe Coleman (as in, thicker than toothpicks) wanted to pair slim-cut jeans with a tailored blazer, he found himself in a losing halfnaked wrestling match with an inanimate object. The denim, ever sturdy and stiffff, would not give— even if he did manage to get the jeans on his legs. That was how it was until pioneers like those at AG showed us the way with stretch denim, which they continue to improve upon. AG’s new 360 Denim jeans, with two-way stretching, are comfortable and refined enough to wear anywhere. The fading is artful, not abused. And they won’t constrict your circulation when you crouch. Cotton jeans ($198) and cotton T-shirt ($64) by…

THE MIDDLE: SHRINK TO FIT Effort required: Hanging to dry and a few days’ breaking in. Or one session in the tub and wearing till they dry. Relationship equivalent: Long-term dating that ends “on good terms” after “a few good years.” What to know going in: If hanging them to dry, buy two sizes wider and longer. Soaking in the tub: just two sizes longer. Cotton jeans ($178) by LeviÕs. MORE SO: SELVAGE Effort required: Months of attrition. Relationship equivalent: Marriage. It takes some negotiating, but it will become the most enduring and the best of matches. It will also come with an occasional blue-balls threat. What to know going in: They should be slightly tight at first; within a day, they will expand half a size. Denim jeans ($285)…

David granger: This will be the ninth time you’ve been on the cover of Esquire. George Clooney: This year? L et’s get a couple things out of the way. ¶ No, I did not meet Amal. You go to hang with George Clooney these days and that’s the first question anyone asks. ¶ Second, George made me a Nespresso. That fact seems to amuse people. It wasn’t a big deal—he didn’t call it Nespresso—he just asked if I wanted a coffee and then went over to his Nespresso machine and made us each a cup. I’d been hoping for tequila, but then again, it was only about 2:30. ¶ Third, and this takes a little getting used to: He looks and acts just like George Clooney. He’s exactly what you’d…

> Some people are natural-born leaders. Some people can be great leaders with the right training. Some people are better as individual contributors. Looking at them from above, it’s very hard to tell who fits in what category. But the people who work for them can tell you. > There’s no decision you should ever make that would embarrass you if it became public. > My first job at General Motors was as a quality inspector on the assembly line. I was checking fits between hoods and fenders. I had a little scale and clipboard. At one point, I was probably examining sixty jobs an hour during an eight-hour shift. A job like that teaches you to value all the people who do a job like that. > The people…

THE OLD MAN WAITS IN THE lobby in his usual road uniform: comfortable deck shoes, an ordinary suit with a forgettable shirt and tie, and a floppy Indiana Jones hat. He grew up in Iowa during World War II, the son of a sharecropper, and the plain style of the Midwest has never left him. The Chinese guide arrives. “Hello, Jim,” he says. “I brought this for you.” It’s a breathing mask. “One of the fancy ones,” the old man observes. Which is good because the last time he was here, the air was so bad he woke up choking in the middle of the night and had to rush to the emergency room. Now he carries a small bottle of prednisone in his suit pocket and takes it out…