Inhaltsverzeichnis für March 2015 in Esquire

I’ve watched the kid across the street grow up and, since he learned to drive, observed the succession of pickup trucks parked by the curb in front of his house, the little driveway and garage reserved for his parents. I noticed, as well, that about the time of the first white pickup (later wrecked, replaced with a black one--they have all been black or white) he learned to spit. What’s that about? The spitting thing. I sense the spitting thing and the pickup thing may not be unrelated. May, in fact, together--especially here, in the almost clinical clarity of this paved and curbed and rectilinear 1950s neighborhood, so far from the confusion any pickup-worthy farm or ranch activity might introduce--present some seminal expression of the masculine relation to the world.…

Man at His Best Before she summons me to a restaurant on the outskirts of Brooklyn on the first snowy, sleety day of the new year—and before she was an actor, a producer, a social activist, a fire-breathing liberal, and (drumroll, please) a one-time list-topper of the Maxim Hot 100—Olivia Wilde was a precocious, dramatic child bouncing around her parents’ Georgetown townhouse and prone, like many precocious, dramatic children, to being a pain in the ass. Her parents were (and are) celebrated, deeply serious investigative journalists by the name of Cockburn (pronounced the Co-burn way, not the phonetic way) who treated her more or less as an adult from the get-go. “And whenever I was being kind of a pill, whining or whatever,” she says, “my parents would say, ‘Oh,…

AS TOLD BY SARAH BOLGER A DAD BUYS A ROBOT that slaps you when you lie and decides to try it out on his son. The dad says, “What did you do this afternoon?” The son goes, “Just some homework” and the robot slaps him. “Okay, okay. I was watching porn.” The dad says, “What? I didn’t even know what porn was at your age” and gets a slap. The man’s wife sighs and says, “He’s definitely your son.” The robot slaps her. ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Sarah Bolger is a butcher’s daughter from a land called Rathfarnham who grew up to become a princess. As the Irish actress says, “I’m a livin’, breathin’ fairy tale. And my mother is a fantastic baker—but if you say candlestick maker, I’m going to…

FEATURING ALEXANDER GILKES THE MAN :The 34-year-old cofounder of online auctioneer Paddle8. For more on his company’s explosive growth and its expansion this month into vintage-watch sales, go to Esquire.com. THE CLOTHES: The skinnysuit/skinny-jean thing is over, thank God, and the baggy, loungy silhouettes we’ve seen on European runways have yet to materialize in the mainstream. A good fit, the kind that hugs the parts that need hugging and leaves the rest of you alone, is somewhere in between. But it’s one thing when you look like Mr. Sample Size over here and a Ferragamo suit slips on like a second skin. How should the rest of us dress, and how should our clothes fit, when we don’t? 1. Two-button wool suit ($1,840) by Salvatore Ferragamo. 2. Cotton shirt ($370)…

Is it okay for a man to shop at a children’s store if the clothes fit better? ANTHONY VERDUCCI NEW YORK, N. Y. We talking skateboarder Tshirts or preppy blazers? Provided it’s appropriate for your age, I don’t see why not. Just try not to brag about it. Nobody needs to hear about your sweet new shirt from Gap Kids. How low should an untucked shirt hang below my waist? DAN SIMONE NEW ORLEANS, LA. It should not be untucked, unless you’re wearing a polo or Tshirt, in which case an inch below your hip should do [Fig. 1]. I’m five five and I have a difficult time finding suit jackets that don’t hang too low. Can a tailor shorten them? BRADLEY SHORT TULSA, OKLA. Yes, but if your shoulders…

THE NUMBERS ARE MIND-BOGGLING. Take the Ford F-Series, the best-selling vehicle in the country: More than 750,000 were sold in 2014, outselling the Toyota Camry by around 300,000. The Ford was also the best-selling vehicle last year and for the thirty-two years before that. That same year, the Chevrolet Silverado pickup was second in sales, with the Dodge Ram pickup third. Above $50,000, trucks outsell everything, including luxury cars. Americans are swimming in an Ocean of Truck, a sea to shining sea of tailgates, and we can’t get enough. The sales numbers represent the sheer scale of the nation, and the scale is important, because it dictates what the end product has to do. There are places in the world where people need to cruise at 85 mph in feathery…

I AM RIVEN TO MY PEOPLE WILLS MITH SAYS THOSE WORDS AT THE END OF ACONVERSATION IN WHICH THE FORTY- SIX-YEAR- OLD TALKS ABOUT BASKET BALL, HIS KIDS , HIS NEW FILM FOCUS, HUGH JACKMAN’S BODY FAT, CHRONIC DISSAT IS FACTION, AND, YES, HOW ARIVER REPRESENTS HIS HIGHEST A SPIRATION SITTING COURTSIDE AT THE SIXERS-GRIZZLIES GAME ON DECEMBER 13, 2014, AT THE WELLS FARGO CENTER IN PHILLY. Scott Raab: Nice seats. You come here often? Will Smith: I am not paying attention to the game at all this year. I’ve been in Pittsburgh shooting. Voices: Will Smith, I love you! Will Smith! WS: That’s hilarious. SR: Did you play in high school? WS: No, not at all. I didn’t have the basketball gene. My frst record came out when I…

We’ve been taught since we were boys what it means to dress up, yet lately we’ve been paying more attention to the fundamentals of dressing down. But what does it mean to dress differently—to think that a sweatshirt ought to fit and feel as good as a cashmere sweater? This double-faced cotton sweatshirt from Bally is spongy, ultrasoft, and sits close to your body, all while maintaining the sweatshirt’s key characteristics (elastic cuffs, V-pattern neck, exposed seams). It’s a very, very basic item redone by a luxury brand, and the difference is in the details. "I LOVE HOW EASILY COTTON SUITS CAN BE SPLIT UP, WITH BOTH PIECES WORKING EQUALLY HARD AND LOOKING JUST AS GOOD AS WHEN THEY'RE WORKING TOGETHER AS A SUIT." – PRO TIP “You just put…

Like all military innovations, the M-65 jacket was designed with the knowledge that any engineering flaw could cost someone life and/or limb. The finished product, first introduced in 1965, is based entirely on functional simplicity and reliability, with every pocket, stitch, and detail conceived to perform in difficult conditions. Today, outside of combat zones, the M-65 has been repurposed as the ultimate travel jacket. Whether it’s the streamlined cotton iteration from the Gap (left) or the Robert Capa–inspired jacket from Filson (below), it still performs, every time, and looks good doing it. “CASUAL CLOTHES-THE MAKE JHE MATERIALJHE PROPORTIONS-HAVE TO BE AS NICE AS THE FANCIER THINGS IN THE CLOSET. JUST ELEVATE THE CLOTHES YOU LOVE MOST TO THE NEXT LEVEL."…

The difference between everyday chinos and elevated chinos comes down to the details. This pair from Berluti combines elements both sartorial (a properly finished trouser waistband) and practical (the bar tacks that reinforce certain seams are just like the ones you’d find in wartime chinos), and they’re made in a very dense cotton twill. Tailored around the waist, roomier in the upper leg, and tapered below the knee—Berluti has applied a sartorial interest in this, the most casual of clothes. "THE CHINO IS THE MOST AMERICAN ITEM THAT EXISTS, AND LIKE EVERY ICONIC PIECE, IT IS OPEN TO ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES AND INTERPRETATIONS." THE PLEAT SITUATION Most of us had a two-decade reprieve from the ol’ to-pleat-or-not-to-pleat conundrum, but now that the pleat is returning to the mainstream, we need to…

Three guys sitting at a table in a Thai restaurant in San Francisco, talking about how they use the Internet through their phones. A mishmash of assertions, beliefs about what makes a phone app something you want to use every day. Simplicity matters. Boil function down to one action, maybe two. Tinder works because it’s just one of two swipes. Left or right. Simplicity. Simplicity is really the hard thing. And at the next table, three people doing the same thing. And three more beyond that. ¶ More conversations, more tables throughout the restaurant, small sets of people discussing ideas regarding what’s needed and why: what our thumbs are for, how many things we want to think about in a given moment, how we organize our thoughts, how to represent…

(Add up assigned points following each answer.) Are you an ablebodied “prime age” American man? Yes (15) No (0) When did you finish your education? More than five years ago. (0) Less than five years ago. (8) I’m still in school. (20) If you’re still in school, pick which type: Law (40) Other (0) At which rate do you make mistakes at work? Early and often. (5) Late and rarely. (0) Immediately and forever. (10) Which best describes your brand of grit? True (–5) Quaker Old Fashioned (5) Which is your preferred method for not succeeding? Poor planning. (5) Faulty analysis. (5) Insuficient research. (5) When a plan for a work project is set, you: Stick with it no matter what. (–5) Look for new truths that the original plans…

“The State of the Celebrity Chef ” Gordon Ramsay teaches cooking classes to children and inmates, for God’s sake. How much of a monster can he be? I worry this generation doesn’t appreciate a good yelling. As my Soul Cycle instructors advise me, “It’s not supposed to be easy.” They also urge me to “get comfortable with getting uncomfortable.” And they suggest, “Please wipe down your bike seat when you are finished.” This is my long-winded way of saying I’m Team Ramsay. “The Jersey Bird” There is nothing I love more than a dish that takes you straight back to your childhood. The childhood dish that takes me straight back home is delicious tuna casserole. Spaghetti, cream of mushroom soup, and tuna from the can. Throw in peas for color…

> The best way to get better, regardless of handicap, is to work on your short game. > Don’t goof around. I can’t believe how many of my competitors do cartwheels down the fairway. This is golf—not gym -nastics. > Strength training is important. My routine focuses on explosive exercises. A lot of your swing is all core and legs. Look at Tiger and some of the powerful golfers: For a brief moment, they’re in a squat position, then they explode out of their legs. > I have a power visor. My dad bought me a new visor today for good luck, but I wasn’t playing very well, so I put the old one on after the sixth hole. Then I almost came back from a three-shot defcit. Don’t replace…

SHOULDERS: The seam of your shoulder should end where your shoulder ends, and any padding or rigid structure that adds so much as a millimeter of unnecessary shape will throw the whole thing off balance. WAIST: The guys wearing pants that sit a few inches below a pronounced beer belly? They’re not fooling anyone—in fact, they’re only drawing attention to the extra pounds. The waist of your pants should always sit about two inches below your navel. SLEEVE: Make sure that there is nothing billowy about how the jacket frames your biceps—the best jackets today follow the natural contours of your upper arm, and if you’ve got chicken wings, a tailor can likely take in the fabric. The sleeves should stop where the arm ends and the thumb begins. LEGS:…

Stare at a pair of chinos* long enough and a story will begin to emerge. Put a pair on and into the slipstream of history one goes. In a photograph taken of my father’s father, my Papa Frank—dated 1944, when he was working as a research physicist on the Manhattan Project—he smiles with his arm around a young secretary, later my Grandma Ellie, under an old American elm at a botanical garden. He wears a plain white T-shirt and a pair of standard Armyissue khaki chinos. There are no pleats, there is no billowing: just cotton-twill fabric in a straight-leg silhouette. He was still young, and America was still refulgent. He served in what Studs Terkel called the “Good War,” along with so many grandfathers of men my age. And…

An old maxim holds that most large-truck buyers need the size only one day a week but have to drive all seven; in the sixties and seventies, the Japanese capitalized on this by popularizing the small car-sized pickup. They couldn’t haul that much, but they were cheap and more practical than a lot of small cars. Everyone from Detroit (Ford Ranger, Chevy S-10) to Germany (VW Rabbit pickup) chased that customer until improved small cars and better full-size trucks made it less relevant. Sales of small pickups in America peaked in 1994 and haven’t rebounded since. Ford left this game a couple years ago (Ranger, RIP, 1983–2011), as did Chrysler and GM. Toyota currently owns the market with its midsize Tacoma, whose last major redesign was in 2005. GM’s dip…

Fashion has a natural propensity toward violent allergic reactions to itself every now and again—change, as ever, is the only constant—and as a fashion editor in good standing, I am pleased to report we now find ourselves enjoying just such a change. ¶ ’Bout time, too. ¶ The last ten years have been powered by intermittent waves of dandyism that drove otherwise sensible American men to cultivate interesting facial hair, perfect the just-so billow of their pocket squares, and reeducate themselves in the lost art of throwing things together. We learned how to dress up, and stand out, all over again, and while there was something invigorating about this change of heart (and clothes), particularly following the fn de siècle business-casual clusterfuck, it all just became way too much. As…

The Persol 714’s, a revolutionary pair of foldable, collapsible sunglasses first created back in the 1960s, were synonymous with Steve McQueen, who wore them in The Thomas Crown Affair and who made everything he wore about 32 percent cooler. And the fact that they were purpose-built, with a problem in mind—what to do with one’s shades—reflects an optimal marriage of form and function. Persol recently updated and upgraded the original 714’s with lighter frames and a slimmer profile, all while maintaining the same unbeatable utility.…

“JUST LIKE ANY BEAUTIFUL BUILDING, STYLE STARTS WITH A STRONG FOUNDATION. WE WANT THINGS THAT FIT OUR LIFESTYLE, AND WE ALSO WANT THINGS TO BE VERSATILE... DAY INTO NIGHT, OR WORK INTO WEEKEND, GYM TO NIGHTCLUB. THE RULES HAVE CHANGED." RULE NO. 943 IN ASCENDING ORDER OF FORMALITY: CANVAS, DISTRESSED LEATHER, SUEDE, NUBUCK, POLISHED LEATHER, PATENT LEATHER. And nubuck, too. From the nubby hand of these chukka boots to the textured torso of that there varsity jacket on the opposite page, buffed leathers and their subtle naps offer just the right amount of texture and depth to keep things looking easy. And while suede’s soft hand (the result of buffing the inner side of the hide) and nubuck’s finer nap (the result of buffing the outer side of the hide)…

WHAT I’VE LEARNED ON JANUARY 9, 2015 All of a sudden—boom—here’s the gunman. Six-foot black guy in a bright-red leisure suit—back in the days when we wore leisure suits—and he’s got a white female hostage, gun to her head. He’s got the money bag in his hand around her throat. And he’s in the middle of a menacing crowd—this is South Boston, the height of the school-busing/desegregation crisis, the absolute wrong place for a black man to hold up a bank and take a white hostage. The first instinct for a cop is you face a gun, up comes your gun. But there’s no way I can shoot at him without probably hitting her or the bystanders, including other police who were now arriving with sirens blaring. So the training…

THE ENDORSEMENT You fucked up. You gave someone the wrong date and a deal blew up. The conference room has fallen into a state of mute horror because of a proposal you just tossed out there. The airline tickets are for the wrong day. Something’s on fire. Do you say you’ve been under a lot of stress at work or home? Or how sorry you are that “people were offended” or “you let people down”? Do you beg for forgiveness? No, you say this: “I fucked up.” Not “I’m sorry.” Not “Mistakes were made.” “I fucked up.” Apologies, in general, are full of loopholes and shading. They’re meant to be processed and approved or rejected. “I fucked up” allows for no such negotiation. It starts and ends the conversation. It…

THE APOSTATE About seven years ago a woman named Cass Phillipps recognized what she thought was a major problem in Silicon Valley—that everyone seemed to be failing but no one was willing to talk about it—and she came up with the idea of creating a daylong conference where all they did was talk about failure. She called it FailCon, and its upbeat, cando embrace of all things unsuccessful came to represent the veneration and fetishization of what had previously been taboo. Then things got weird. “I fully own that having a conference about failure probably is a big part of why failure has become this commercialized thing,” she says. “But we started it back at a time when people weren’t discussing their mistakes, when people were just lying to one…

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR I noticed that the magazine looked a little different last month. What’s that about? We constantly redesign the magazine, especially the front sections. I’ve always thought that if I’m getting bored with the way it looks, then the people who read it will, too, sooner rather than later. So we changed a bunch of stuff: Like we begin the entire magazine with a piece of writing, called The Cold Open. (See page 31.) Usually it will be tangentially related to something you will come across later. (In this case, it’s a funny beautiful essay on trucks, which to my mind are in the middle of a new golden age.) And Man at His Best is a little more freewheeling. We decided to stop filling holes,…

Gordon Ramsay is famous for two reasons that do not naturally belong together: He's a chef, and he calls people he doesn't know fucking idiots for the amusement of the public. Hell's Kitchen is now entering its 14th season, having been slated for at least 16, and the man at its center remains ^more or less unchanged from a decade and a half ago— a ragcaholic who defends his megalomaniac anger as "passion" and who stops just short of physical violence in the name of appetizers and entrees and desserts. More than anyone, he embodies the connection between fine food and being an insufferable prick, the definitive celebrity chef, a breed that is mercifully dying. Ramsay hasn’t changed, while the ground beneath him, how and why people love food, has.…

A MESSAGE FROM CHEVROLET EQUINOX ULTIMATE FLEXIBILITY.THE 2015 CHEVROLET EQUINOX OFFERS THE HANDLING AND FUEL ECONOMY OF A CAR, SPACIOUS INTERIOR AND CAPABILITY OF AN SUV CHEVROLET EQUINOX crossover buyers not wanting to sacrifice the space and comfort of larger SUVs will love EQUINOX.(which car and drive said combines “flrxible seating and exceptional cargo space, wrapped in a smooth package”) Adopted Leather iPhone Folio Case This [1] iPhone case from Adopted ($49.95, adoptednyc.com) features full-grain leather and a pocket for credit cards and IDs, all in a fold-up design you can fit in any pocket. You’ll never need a wallet or a cheap plastic phone case again. Aether Cone Speakers [2] Aether’s cone speakers ($399 each,aether.com) combine smart wireless technology with sleek, elevated design that will look great no matter…

1. TALLER GUY Deeper V: Many tall guys think they need a three-button jacket for their longer torso, but all that does is bring attention to the torso. Show of the chest with a low two-button stance. Longer jacket: A jacket that covers your hips makes your legs look shorter. Streamlined pants: Too much break brings attention to the bottom of your legs, emphasizing length. 2. BIGGER GUY The right fit: Most men with some size to them live in mortal fear of the too-tight jacket or the too-small pants, so they try to hide their figure with loose suits. Bad move. Extra material only makes you look larger. Light cloth: Any wrinkles or bulges will be exaggerated, so you want lighter wools that drape well and create clear lines,…

Alby drinks. Alby saves little birds. Alby says stupid shit. Alby fights his family. Alby’s a lovable asshole of the highest degree reeling from the slow death of his mother from cancer. He’s also the main character in Matt Sumell’s debut novel of interconnected stories, Making Nice, out now. Alby’s here, at the bar . . . OUTSIDE, IN THE gravel-and-weed parking lot, near a log that means Don’t go any farther or you’ll drive into the bay, I said, “Donny, Donny, Donny, wake up. Wake up, Donny. Donny, wake up. Donny, Donny, Donny, you’re a mailman. . . .” And then I kicked him, gently, in the ribs. He did not wake up. I’d seen him earlier, sitting at the bar, craning his neck down to his drink, droopy-eyed,…

We have to admit: We did not see this one coming. As recently as two or three years ago, a T-shirt and blazer worn together was still the stuff of Don Johnson’s fever dreams. But then blazers started changing—lightening and softening up. And then T-shirts started changing, too, with better fits and finer fabrics. And when you’ve got the right blazer (unlined, textured, lightly structured) and the right T-shirt (fitted but not tight; substantial without being thick), it looks casual and considered, laid-back and luxurious. “I BY TAKING THE SWEATSHIRT OUT OF THE ACTIVE SPORTSWEAR WORLD AND CLEANING IT UPF IT'S BECOME SOMETHING NEW, RELEVANT, AND FRESH AGAIN. JUST DON'T WEAR IT WITH YOUR JOGGING PANTS."…

They were perhaps the first performance shoe, the choice of badminton champions (Jack Purcell, 1935) and basketball players (Chuck Taylor, 1918) and anyone who needed to juke, jive, pivot, etc. The canvas is flexible and porous, allowing the foot to move and the skin to breathe; the rubber outersoles grip the ground; and their design is so simple that they’ll never get in your way. The best white canvas sneakers today (and they don’t get much better than Purcells, recently streamlined as part of a new Converse Signature series) don’t look all that different from how they did fifty years ago. We are the ones who are different, and we know that a well-designed sneaker can look as at home with an unlined suit as with a pair of rumpled…

“MEN JUST WANT TO RELAX. WE WANT SOMETHING WE CAN WEAR WITH JEANS, WITH A TROUSER, WITH A CHINO THE KINDS OF THINGS THAT SORT OF LIVE WITH YOU. VERSATILITY AND SIMPLICITY ARE THE KEYS." Notice, if you will, there is no date display cluttering up the dial of this here watch. And notice, if you can, the absence of chronograph pushers on either side of the crown interrupting the streamlined silhouette. There are no subdials and no moon phases or tiny numbers lining the bezel that you pretend to use as a tachymeter: It’s just a simple, straightforward, masculine watch that tells the time, and at 41mm in diameter, the case is no smaller or larger than a man’s wrist should bear. RULE NO. 656 THE BIGGER THE WATCH,…

“I HOW TO WEAR NEUTRALS WELL? TEXTURE IS IMPORTANT. HOW THE FABRIC MOVES IS IMPORTANT, TOO. AND ALWAYS LOOK FOR SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SHADES TO MAKE THINGS LOOK FRESHER AND RICHER." Since so much of men’s casual clothing stems from the military, it’s no surprise that most of it tends toward the neutral— all khakis, tans, and browns. And that runs the risk of things getting a little . . . beige. But the truth is that there’s such a multiplicity of colors within that military palette, and the key to wearing them well is to mix up separates in different shades of neutrals—olives, slates, even rust. Pick your tones and add an accent accordingly. THE EXTRA 10 PERCENT Shorter, narrower, and more restrained than the traditional kind, a good spring…

IN JANUARY 2013, Jody Sherman, whom a friend would later describe as “the Willy Wonka of the start-up world” for his liveliness, was a week shy of turning fortyeight. He was the cofounder of Ecomom, an online purveyor of eco-friendly household goods for mothers and their children that six months prior had raised $5 million. Sherman had started the company in 2008, after a previous project blossomed then collapsed and because he “wanted good in the world,” another friend wrote. But then, shockingly, he shot himself in his car. Two things proceeded to happen: First, and to everyone’s surprise, Ecomom collapsed. It seemed the $5 million had been sapped; the Web site’s interim president wrote a letter to investors that read: “After a review of the state of business .…

Like TED Talks with more booze and less pomp, the casual gatherings give entrepreneurs seven minutes, ten slides, and a rapt audience to air their lowest moments onstage in a combination of performance art and professional exorcism. Cofounder Leticia Gasca shares the company’s shockingly sensible story. Esquire: So what’d you fuck up? Leticia Gasca: I had a social enterprise in Mexico. One night I was looking at a spreadsheet and the whole thing was red. That’s when I realized that the business had already failed. ESQ: Did you at least get a good lesson out of it? LG: Yeah. If you don’t know anything about finance, find someone who does. ESQ: How did that lead to FuckUp Nights? LG: FuckUp Nights was born over a round of mescal. We were…

THE GOOD WIFE Alicia wins the state’s-attorney race. HOUSE OF CARDS Claire pitches a line of handbags to Macy’s. THE LEFTOVERS God apologizes, citing an administrative error. Don and Peggy open a whorehouse. PARKS AND RECREATION Pawnee burns. STAR WARS: EPISODE VII Luke is a nevernude. HILLARY Never liked Obama. YOUR VACATION IN APRIL Great, at first. THAT THING ON YOUR NECK It’s called a seborrheic keratosis, and it’s benign YOUR DOG Losing interest in you. YOUR FUTURE Career or personal? BOTH Might want to get a hobby. An inexpensive one. ANYTHING ELSE? What do you say we just concentrate on the good news about that keratosis? FOX & FRIENDS It was all a dream.…