Indice dei contenuti per August 2014 in Esquire

PAGE 50 CAMERON DIAZ: THE BEST SHE'S EVER BEENMeet the Cameron Diaz we've been waiting 20 years for—at her most beautiful and fearless. BY TOM CHIARELLA PAGE 58 WHY WE LOVE FORTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD WOMEN A lot has changed since Mrs. Robinson. BY TOM JUNOD PAGE 60 ESQUIRE FICTION: THAT BUS IS ANOTHER WORLD What does it take to distract a man from being late for the interview of his life? Something evil. BY STEPHEN KING PAGE 64 THE STATE OF THE AMERICAN DOG In this country, no dog is more vilified and abandoned than the pit bull. BY TOM JUNOD PAGE 76 LANCE IN PURGATORY Being pushed out of the cancer foundation he founded and funded was the worst blow to Lance Armstrong—worse than the doping scandal and all the Internet…

BEST CHARACTER Tina Belcher on Bob's Burgers. Tina Belcher is a sexually frustrated animated teen-age girl. She writes erotic friend fiction. After developing a crush on her dentist, she gifts him with a subscription to Highlights because "he loves that magazine." She is played by a 33-year-old man. If Tina were live-action, her awkwardness would transcend watchability. Instead: the funniest character on television. SPORTSCASTER OF THE YEAR Josh Charles as his old Sports Night character, Dan Rydell, on ESPN's Olbermann. BIGGEST ASSHOLE Lily on Modern Family. The showrunners solved the problem of a kid who grows up and thus ceases to be cute and mute by making the six-year-old a cynical eye-rolling jerk. MOST POIGNANT WEDDING SPEECH "All emotions and in particular love stand opposed to the pure, cold, hard…

William T. Vollmann has always risked everything, carrying on a major literary career heedless of death or dismemberment. On a magazine assignment in Bosnia in the '90s, he was in a car that hit a land mine near Mostar. His fixer and driver died gruesomely, but Vollmann survived, lying injured on the floorboard. Around the same time, he turned an assignment to write about the Khmer Rouge (for this magazine) into a much more harrowing tale of whoring his way across Asia, looking depravity square in the mirror. He has written about freight-hopping and giant homeless encampments and (again for this magazine) a bracing confessional on what it's like to be ugly. That's not even to mention the massive historical novels he hemorrhaged on the settlement of the New World;…

This is the bag you want for wherever you're headed this weekend. For one thing, it's made from the sturdiest of cotton weaves; for another, it's made by Ghurka, a storied purveyor of long-lasting luggage, meaning it could very well outlive you. (The brand takes its name from the fabled troop of hard-boiled Nepalese soldiers. It's not for nothing that famed Indian field marshal Sam Manekshaw once noted, "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha.") It holds a change of clothes, a few creature comforts, and not much else, and when you never know where a weekend may take you, you'll want a bag that holds up strong. Cotton-twill-and-leather bag ($1,095) by Ghurka. SO YOU'RE GOING ON A TRIP…

NEWS IS BOOMING JUST AS THE NEWS is preparing its own funeral. The Washington Post sold for the price of a decent painting by Cézanne, newspaper advertising revenues have shrunk to the levels of the 1950s, and, at the same time, in the past couple months alone, Vice News, The Intercept, Vox.com, and FiveThirtyEight have all launched—sites that will join their predecessors like Capital New York and Business Insider and Gawker in proudly brandishing the word news even as the term becomes as squishy as celebrity. In the hysteria of "industry transformation" and "model disruption," one curious fact has remained hidden: how little the news, in its essentials, has changed. The new news sites present themselves as prophets of forward-thinking journalism, possessors of the true vision of media that the…

WILSON'S MOTHER, NOT ONE OF the world's sunshiny people, had a saying: "When things go wrong, they keep going wrong until there's tears." Mindful of this, as he was of all the folk wisdom he'd learned at his mother's knee ("An orange is gold in the morning and lead at night" was another gem), Wilson was careful to take out insurance—which he thought of as bumpers—ahead of occasions that were particularly important, and no occasion in his adult life was more important than his trip to New York, where he would present his portfolio and his pitch to the top brass at Market Forward. MF was one of the most important advertising firms of the Internet age. Wilson's company, Southland Concepts, was a one-man outfit based in Birmingham. Such chances…

Day-to-night suit n: 1. a matching jacket-and-trouser set that transitions smoothly from afternoon to evening. 2. any of the nine suits seen here. Two-button wool-and-silk suit ($1,295) and cotton shirt ($350) by Calvin Klein Collection; silk knit tie ($225) by Giorgio Armani; leather shoes ($1,265) by John Lobb. Two-button wool suit ($4,995) and cotton shirt ($795) by Ermenegildo Zegna Couture; leather boots ($535) by Church's. Photographed at Bolt Barbers. Two-button wool suit ($3,345) and cotton shirt ($415) by Dolce & Gabbana; silk tie ($285) by Prada; leather shoes ($625) by Church's. Photographed at Ace Hotel Los Angeles. The more streamlined the silhouette (see: high armholes, notch lapels), the more mileage you'll get out of the suit. Two-button wool suit ($1,695), cotton shirt ($325), and silk tie ($155) by Ralph Lauren…

Store Information For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the Web site or call the number provided. Style, p. 39: Ghurka bag, ghurka.com. P. 40: Tumi carry-on, tumi.com. Rimowa trunk, rimowa.de. Dunhill bag, dunhill.com. Skagen tech sleeve, skagen.com. P. 41: J. Crew suit, jcrew.com. Esquire shirt, menswarehouse.com. Church's monk-straps, church-footwear.com. Zenith watch, zenith-watches.com. Gap shirt and shorts, gap.com. Vans sneakers, vans.com. Jack Spade duffel bag, jackspade.com. Vince Camuto jacket, vincecamuto.com. Paul Stuart shirt, paulstuart.com. Banana Republic trousers, bananarepublic.com. CH Carolina Herrera shoes, 310-276-8900. Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, beatsbydre.com. P. 42: Baxter of California comb and shave balm, baxterofcalifornia.com. Dove Men + Care shampoo and body wash, dovemencare.com. Oral-B toothbrush, oralb.com. Kiehl's moisturizer, kiehls.com. Axe deodorant, theaxeeffect.com. Old Spice putty, oldspice.com. Anthony Logistics nail tools, anthony.com. Crest toothpaste, 3dwhite.com.…

INSIDE: Chris Jones on the Roger Ebert documentary, the Alternative Emmys, easy fish stew, a very small picture of Jessica Alba. Sunday brunch, the Red Cat, downtown Manhattan.The longtime collaboratorshave most recently worked together on Boyhood, which was filmed in short bursts over 12 years with the same actors, including Hawke; Ellar Coltrane, who plays the boy; Patricia Arquette, who plays his mother; and Lorelei Linklater (the director's daughter), who plays the boy's sister. SCOTT RAAB: Where do you get the balls to take 12 years to make a movie? RICHARD LINKLATER: When I first sat down and told Ethan about this idea, he got this weird look on his face. That's a crazy idea. He was in like that. Our commitment to this probably really informed the next two…

It's wretchedly hot. You have friends coming over. You want to make them something good (see: friends), but you don't really want to work that hard (see: wretched heat), nor do you want to cope with a debris field of dishes afterward (see: full life). The answer? The answer is a big, beautiful fish stew. From the bouillabaisse of Marseille to the cioppino of San Francisco, all the great seafaring stews have two things in common: They're made with ingredients found nearby, and they're prepared in a single pot, simmered to pull out every last bit of flavor. Our take, inspired by the Basque style, relies on authentic Spanish chorizo, peeled so that the unique blend of garlic, sea salt, pork fat, and pimentón de La Vera (paprika made from…

Because they take credit for everything, that's why! "Historically," says David Eisenbach, coauthor of One Nation Under Sex: How the Private Lives of Presidents, First Ladies and Their Lovers Changed the Course of American History, "it's a pretty even spread." Everyone forgets that the Democrats are responsible for huge growth in the scandal sphere: Kennedy, Clinton, Condit, Edwards, Spitzer, and that latest guy, what was his name, Weiner? The GOP hasn't had a good contender since Larry Wide stance Craig. So why, then, when people think of sex scandals, do they think of the Republican party? Some say it's because the Democrats' sex scandals tend to be routine in nature (interns, mistresses, texting), whereas Republican scandals all happen in public restrooms. Others, like former American Psychological Association president Frank Farley,…

I'm looking for brightly colored clothes to expand my wardrobe, but I have fair hair and skin, so I'm having a tough time finding any that look good on me. What can I get away with? JONAH LUNDBERG BOSTON, MASS. It's true, Jonah: Tan skin and dark hair tend to work with anything, but if you're fair-haired (and fair-skinned to boot), your options are more limited. The one color you can always bank on is blue [Fig. 1, polo shirts ($50 each) by Nautica]. I'd try balancing darker, richer blues, like navy, with lighter ones, like sky- and ocean-blue, and even those weird blue-greens you see on beach postcards from the Caribbean. Avoid yellow and orange at all costs, but then you already knew that. Lately I've been hearing how…

WR'RE HIKING A DESERT TRAIL COMPLEX IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, a mere twenty minutes into the hills, just three quarters of a mile out—less than that maybe—when Cameron Diaz declares she wants to stop and rest. She even says she needs to. This is nonsense. She's being nice, mostly as a gesture to my labored breathing, and we both know it. She gives me no choice. She is knowing and hard to resist. And me, I have questions. So if she sits, I do, too. No choice. Out here, everything is slow. The traffic on the distant 405. The planes lifting off as if with the machinery of a hot air balloon. Even before she arrived, I sat on a rock at the park entrance watching a rattlesnake nudge itself in…

IT was night, and we—my daughter and I—were walking our dog. His name was, and is, Dexter. He was, and is, a pit bull. We had just gotten him. We'd had him for four days. An ambulance came slowly and silently up the street, its light whirling. It stopped in front of a house, and we watched an emergency technician climb out. Then a woman began shouting, "Watch out—he doesn't like other dogs!" I looked away from the house being visited by the ambulance to the house next door. The woman who had shouted the warning was standing in the doorway; her dog, at full tilt, was already halfway across her lawn, its teeth bared, its eyes as big as eggs. It was a cocker spaniel, a breed well known…

> I don't see any evidence of wisdom accelerating as you get older. Old people will say it does, but they're generally speaking full of shit. > Given free rein, our imagination can get infinite. > A couple of weeks before she died, my mother—so old and sweet—said, "You've made quite a good living out of your fibs." > I'd gone to Granada to see where Lorca was murdered on the mountainside by the Franco people. That Franco was a wicked cocksucker, but they certainly never bothered killing poets in America. > Legends I wrote in nine days. But that's the only time it ever happened that well. It was like taking dictation … but it was after I'd thought about the story for five years. > I won't even…

A LITTLE PART OF ME, 46, DIES A LITTLE PART OF ME died Sunday when I read an article about the successful funding of Whistle, a start-up described as "Fitbit for dogs." It followed the recent death of another little part of me when I read an article using the word momtrepreneur. "TOO SOON," 12,041, IS DEAD "TOO SOON," THE IDEA that a respectable amount of time should pass between a tragic event and humorous comments about that event, died January 4. The cause was the tweeting of an Everly Brothers joke by Denver comedian Sebastian Farrow 21 seconds after the Associated Press published Phillip "Phil" Everly's obituary online. "Anyone know which one died? I bet the one who's still alive is confused too. 'Hey, guys, remind me—am I Don…

ABOUT THE JOKESTER: If you aren't a fan of the long-running BBC series Doctor Who, you might not know Karen Gillan yet. The 26-year-old Scot showed up in nearly every home in the UK each week for three years straight as the Doctor's sidekick, while all of America missed out—save for those Anglophile fanboys who'd caught on to the show in the States. "We filmed an episode in Central Park once and hundreds of screaming people showed up. I thought, My God, people in New York know who we are. It was like being in the Beatles for a day." She ought to get used to the attention now that she's starring as the villainous Nebula in Marvel's latest blockbuster franchise, Guardians of the Galaxy (out August 1). Given that…

Here's the problem: Whiskey comes in shots and draft beer in pints. In itself, not an issue. But sometimes—okay, a lot of times—I like to have them together, one and one, sip and sip, and it takes me something like seven sips to get through a shot and about 15 to empty a standard pint. (Yes, I counted; it's my job.) So do I have two whiskeys—whether separately or as a double—for every pint? Do I keep working the pint when the whiskey's all gone? Either way, that's a lot of alcohol, particularly if the beer is one of the strong microbrews that we're drinking in America today, and before too many rounds it's welcome to Drunkistan. Or do I, God forbid, park the rest of the pint on an…

There's an old joke about Jews trying to outdo one another with the elaborateness of bar mitzvah preparations: One family takes 200 guests on an African safari and suddenly their elephants are delayed because "there's another bar mitzvah in front of us." The stock market can be a practical application of rigorous analysis. But it's more often a popularity contest. Momentum and one-upsmanship in a bull market lead to ridiculously inflated valuations, which we saw throughout 2013. When the market cools down, as it did during the first half of 2014, the same herd mentality can make mistakes in valuing stocks down. Tesla Motors, Twitter, and Whole Foods Market were all overbought. All three have been punished and all three stocks have tanked. But two of them are now oversold.…

There was a time when beachgoers would slather on oil and bake like a deep-fried turkey. It wasn't safe then, but it's definitely not safe now, with the sun's UVA rays (the ultraviolet rays that cause wrinkling and aging) and UVB rays (those that cause sunburn and are more likely to cause skin cancer) having increased since we started tracking them in the '70s. Sun Protection Factor The SPF listed on every sun-protection product from lip balms, like [1] Coppertone Sport ($3; coppertone.com), to your standard beach spray, like [2] Ocean Potion Sport ($9; oceanpotion.com), tells you how long sunscreen protects you. It's also an indication of how much UV radiation the product absorbs. SPF 15 absorbs about 93 percent of UV rays, and SPF 34 absorbs about 97 percent.…

Let's face it: There used to be something tragic about even the most beautiful forty-two-year-old woman. With half her life still ahead of her, she was deemed to be at the end of something—namely, everything society valued in her, other than her success as a mother. If she remained sexual, she was either predatory or desperate; if she remained beautiful, what gave her beauty force was the fact of its fading. And if she remained alone … well, then God help her. Mrs. Robinson was forty-two. And so if you want to see how our conception of forty-two-year-old women has changed over the last five decades, simply imagine The Graduate remade today, with Cameron Diaz in the part made famous by Anne Bancroft. Or Sofia Vergara. Or Leslie Mann. Or…

AFTER A GREAT FALL, WHAT DO WE REMEMBER? WE REMEMBER THE CHEATING, AND THE LIES. WE REMEMBER THE CULT OF PERSONALITY THAT WE EAGERLY EMBRACED, AND THEN FELT BETRAYED BY. BUT WHAT OF THE MAN WHO FELL? WHAT ABOUT THE WORK HE DIDN'T CHEAT AT? WHAT ABOUT THE 16 YEARS LANCE ARMSTRONG SPENT BUILDING A GLOBAL CANCER ADVOCACY? DID IT MATTER? DOES IT STILL? DOES IT MATTER THAT LIVESTRONG, THE FOUNDATION THAT KICKED HIM OUT, NOW WANTS HIM BACK? DO WE CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GREAT WORK A MAN HAS DONE, AFTER A GREAT FALL? HERE IN PURGATORY, the mansion is smaller, but the wine cellar, paneled in rich mahogany and stocked with thousands of bottles, is truly magnificent. The TV will go over on that wall. The lighting…

Arturo Madrigal's cell phone rings and he doesn't recognize the number, but he can see that it's coming from his hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico. It's May 27, 2008. He's in San Antonio, where he's been living part time for most of the past two decades, launching one start-up after another: used-car dealerships, restaurants, lawn-care companies, rental properties. He thinks that once you know how to manage one sort of business, the skills are basically transferable. Case in point: Arturo recently, through a complicated series of events, acquired the rights to a film script written by a notable American screenwriter. It's potentially a very valuable script, and although Arturo has no prior experience in the business of making movies, he'd like to try to get this one produced. He answers the…