Innholdsfortegnelse for April/May 2020 i Esquire

LISA TADDEO An award-winning journalist and the author of, most recently, the New York Times best seller Three Women, Taddeo debuts a short story, “Grace,” on page 101. This is far from her first appearance in Esquire: Back in 2011, Taddeo profiled Bradley Cooper, who cooked stuffed squid for her. ERIC SULLIVAN Sullivan is a senior editor at Esquire. A feature he edited about the alarming state of mental-health care in prisons, written by John J. Lennon, was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2019. His story on the little-known architects of some of the world’s biggest music tours begins on page 78. ROBBIE FIMMANO Fimmano, an Australian photographer based in Brooklyn, has shot subjects ranging from Lorde to Macaulay Culkin (the latter for this magazine). For this issue’s…

IN BUBBLEGUM (750-ish pages), Adam Levin envisions a world where the Internet never existed. The innovations that arise instead are Curios, “fleshand-bone robots.” At the center of the story is Belt Magnet, one of the lucky first adopters of a Curio, who is now writing his memoir. Esquire spoke with Levin about this imagined nightmare. —Adrienne Westenfeld In what way are Curios similar to the Internet? Curios are ideal pets. They could continually give companionship and entertainment, and instead people do impulsive violence to them. The Internet is perhaps a similar thing. Originally people were connecting through it, and now people are just dividing through it. When we look back, it seems silly that anyone thought it could go another way. At one point, Belt says, “People think they want…

LET’S BE REAL HERE: IF YOUR old man is anything like mine, he likely has no idea what in the hell you do all day. Enter the chore coat, that wardrobe essential from what dear old Dad would consider the halcyon days, when men worked with their hands outside instead of tapping away at a computer with a picture of a mountain as the desktop background. The classic version—the one that first cropped up on workers in 19th-century France and not long after in the States—is made from heavy cotton for durability, with three or four pockets at the front to hold tools and parts. You know, for all those chores. Newer versions, more suited to mememaking than manual labor, keep the pocket layout and come in everything from seersucker…

We’re guessing you’ve heard the term lately: self-care. It’s everywhere, this mantra. We are living through a volatile, infuriating, brain-bombarding era, and we are advised, sensibly, to take refuge from the endless waves of disinformation and destabilization through the simple act of giving ourselves space to heal and think and breathe. Here at Esquire, we’re not against self-care per se—not even in the Goop’d, CBD-oiled, seaweed-wrapped way in which it’s practiced on Instagram—but we do believe that there’s one approach to psychological maintenance that’s not getting enough love. That approach might be defined as: Fuck it, let’s throw a rager. When was the last time you hosted a real runaway train of a party? You’re all grown up now, so perhaps it has been a minute, especially in the age…

Seeing himself on Defending Jacob, Evans says, “was a little disconcerting. I was like, ‘Wow, I am watching my dad. I’m old.’ It just happened.” THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS CAPTAIN AMERICA IS FOUND IN seclusion at his rambling farmhouse, set back from the road on a couple of sylvan acres in the Boston suburbs, not far from his childhood home. It’s a warm, late-winter afternoon. The trees are bare. The sky is clear. Patches of melting snow cover the ground. Five miles away is Walden Pond, where another famous figure sought refuge from the world. With his fortieth birthday on the horizon, Chris Evans seems to have undertaken a similar retreat, returning to familiar ground to regroup. The Marvel Cinematic Universe now behind him, the actor has the time,…

The clearest way to communicate that you’re not headed to the office: COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF COLOR. Repeat after us: Keep your attitude fluid. Rock these like you would A TRACKSUIT. Remember, it’s not only about how you think but also about how you feel. These clothes are made for movement. The jackets? Well-cut. The pants? MUCH, MUCH ROOMIER. NEW SUITS MEAN NEW RULES. Leave the tie at home. Leave the pocket square at home. Hell, leave the shirt at home.…

There’s a note on my phone that I update each year on my birthday with annually decreasing numbers. On my twenty-seventh birthday, 27:18. On my twenty-eighth birthday, 25:41. On my twenty-ninth birthday, 24:30. And on my thirtieth, 24:14. Those are the times of the 5K—3.11 miles—I run on every anniversary of my birth. They’re not spectacular 5K times as far as 5K times go, but the only person I’m trying to beat is my younger self—it’s Present Day Matt versus Younger Matt. On Valentine’s Day (that’s my birthday, and a subject for another day), I drag myself out of bed or leave work early to run my own personal Mortality 5K. It’s me, the treadmill, some music, and a half hour to reflect on the past year, what’s ahead, and…

My zits didn’t show up with much esprit de corps until I was in my twenties, but in an effort to get ahead of embarrassment, my mom ordered Proactiv—the “easy three-step system that works for all ages and all skin types”—for my brother and me one lazy afternoon when we had the TV tuned to the infomercial channel. It was a whole ordeal. Someone over eighteen had to call a 1-800 number, and the phrase “check or money order” was involved. When the bottles arrived, I used the system once and got a rash in the shape of a beard around my jawline, an early but indelible lesson that anything describing itself as a “system” will come with some measure of pain. I never used it again, but orders that…

MY AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE CAME ON SLOWLY, AND THEN ALL AT ONCE. In early 2014, I began to lose weight. I was exhausted and thirsty all the time, peed constantly, woke up frequently with epic muscle cramps. I had to buy new clothes because the ones I owned no longer fit. It briefly occurred to me that I should find these developments troubling. I committed to eating more. Then I went back to my life. Eventually, a cold I couldn’t shake sent me to my doctor, and I casually mentioned my other symptoms. He suggested a blood test. A week later, as I was about to conduct an interview in front of a sizable crowd, I received an urgent message from my doctor. I excused myself, stepped outside, and called his…

HOW DO YOU MAKE A GRAIL, well… grail-ier? The Air Jordan 1 is already an icon, a universally beloved sneaker with 35 years of history and a tendency to sell out with each subsequent release. How do you top that? Easy: Just talk to Kim Jones. The creative director of Dior Men is a magician of the highlow collab. He’s done it once already, at Louis Vuitton, throwing the French fashion house together with Supreme and inspiring overnight queues—and astronomical resale prices—the world over. But that was back in 2017, when everyone was high as hell on in-your-face streetwear vibes. Now, in a more muted 2020, he’s achieved the same alchemical hype by taking the AJ1, plus a lineup of Jordan Brand apparel and accessories, in a pared-down direction. Basketball…

THE IDENTITY OF THE first guy to wear leopard has been lost to history. Most likely it was one of our more stylish ancestors, who, after winning a life-or-death fight with an actual leopard, looked down at the pelt of his vanquished foe and thought, Hey! I can make a loincloth out of that. In the 18th century, before Patek Philippe and Porsche became totems of conspicuous consumption, wealthy dudes would don leopardprint waistcoats and breeches as a sign of deep pockets. By the 1970s, leopard was popular with rock stars like Keith Richards and Rod Stewart, who stretched the fabric (and the bounds of good taste) by dressing from head to toe in it. Today the key to wearing anything with a leopard print is exercising some restraint. Want…

“MY WORLD IS SINKING, AND I AM THE captain of it all.” This lyric—this hazy, candid, could-be-from-the-’90s lyric—illuminates why 22-year-old Sophie Allison (known as Soccer Mommy) is the new vanguard of indie rock. Since dropping out of NYU and releasing her übercool, piercingly vulnerable studio debut, Clean, in 2018, she has emerged as Gen Z’s preeminent scholar of torment. Why do I feel what I feel? What am I supposed to do with all of this pain? she wonders in her music, gaze never flinching. Through her deeply intimate songwriting, Allison has managed to transcend age and era—captivating both younger listeners and sentimental loyalists of guitar-driven bedroom rock. “I have this weird disconnect with people when it comes to music and writing,” she admits when we meet in late February…

NOT TOO LONG AGO, AT A BAR IN CLEVELAND called the Spotted Owl, I did something that I hadn’t done in many years: I ordered a shot. Granted, this was not the throat-burner or sticky-sweet spring-break special that I might’ve recalled from college. This was a composed elixir of coconut-washed gin mixed with Dolin Blanc vermouth that had been infused with chai. It went down spicy and smooth—smooth enough to make me reconsider the lost art of doing shots. I reached out to Eddy Buckingham, an owner of Chinese Tuxedo in New York’s Chinatown, where I’ve witnessed quite a few celebratory shots taken. “I don’t like shots,” he says. But his thinking has evolved, as has mine. “When it comes to having a rager, there’s always that sweet spot where…

GARY IN 2019, BTS BECAME THE FIRST BAND since the Beatles to release three number-one records on the Billboard charts in the same year. One song amassed 74.6 million plays on YouTube in just twenty-four hours. They sold out Wembley Stadium in ninety minutes, were named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People, and set the Guinness World Record for the most Twitter engagements. BTS is an international juggernaut. And all that is making Gary Ferenchak a little nervous. Ferenchak, who’s fifty-six, sleeps some nights in a double slide-out Cross-Roads Zinger camper in the gravel lot at the edge of a cornfield in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Parked outside is a ’95 Subaru Legacy, his regular drive, and a ’92 Geo Tracker with locking hubs, which he’s trying to sell. Next door…

“I ain’t never told nobody this before,” the guy in the back row said, his voice low, steady, emotionless. “But I killed my little brother.” We took it in silently, the five of us on the dais and the sixty or so people in the room. Nobody knew how to react, because it was a lot, and also because he said it in the Q&A portion of a panel discussion about social media and type 1 diabetes. But he seemed to need to be unburdened, and nobody else was going to say anything, so he went on. He and his brother had both been diagnosed with type 1 in childhood, before either of them could remember, as many people are. It was the thing they had in common; the two…

“Years of Hope, Days of Rage.” It’s the subtitle of Todd Gitlin’s history of the 1960s, and a reminder that peace and harmony have never been staples of American life. Self-government is a messy business, a constant collision of interests, ideologies, and primal instincts. That’s particularly true in a nation that was in contravention of its founding principles from its first moment, and that has spent every moment since struggling to make them real. If you look back fondly on a happier, more tranquil time, you are gazing back on a landscape of American mythology. And yet it feels worse now. It’s hard to dispute that, in the words of the oft-mocked Marianne Williamson, there’s a “dark, psychic force” at work in this country today. By the end of the…

When I pick up my three-year-old, Ellie, at preschool and she sprints into my arms, the struggles of the day dissipate. When my newborn, Wilder, giggles as I tickle his tiny belly, my heart melts. But eventually, he’ll have a shit explosion out the back of his diaper just as she starts rolling on the floor, wailing, “I need a cheeeeeeese stiiiiiick!!!” Screw your cheese stick, honey. I’m reaching for the Wild Turkey. Intellectually, I know this is “bad parenting.” In actuality, drinking while dadding makes me much better at child-rearing. With a slight buzz, the relentless crises don’t seem so bad. Booze eliminates the inherent boredom of fatherhood; I stay off my phone and engage with my kids. It lowers my IQ and raises my sense of childlike wonder.…

Just north of the Wisconsin-Illinois border, at the intersection of Interstate 94 and State Highway 50, is a restaurant called the Brat Stop. It sells brats, obviously, along with a festival of other meats in tubular form. There is beer—so much beer—plus a cheese shop where you can grab cheese curds, meat sticks, and a six-pack of New Glarus (sold in Wisconsin only). It’s a jumping-off point for a land of majesty and plenty. Hillary Clinton lost more than the White House by failing to visit Wisconsin; she missed the Europe of the Midwest, whose people value beer, cheese, and encased meats. The landscape consists of wide rivers, undulant hills, happy valleys with golden farmland, towering forests, glacial lakes, and dramatic sandstone bluffs. Towns with French names like La Crosse,…

A FEW YEARS AFTER GRADUATING FROM THE ROYAL BALLET SCHOOL IN LONDON, SONOYA MIZUNO had a choice to make. She’d auditioned for a small part in Alex Garland’s directorial debut, Ex Machina, and even though she’d never read a screenplay before, he offered her a role that would require weeks of filming in London. But she was still on contract at Scottish Ballet. She could either continue down the path of a professional dancer, doing Sleeping Beauty for 80-year-olds, or break her contract and take a chance as an actor. Mizuno chose the latter. She drafted a letter of resignation, booked a flight, got on the plane, sent the email, and turned off her phone. “So that’s what I did, and like fuck, it worked out,” she tells me over…

BEFORE JAMES BOND, A MAN-ABOUT town’s watch of choice was invariably slim, gold, and dressy. The ’60s—and Bond in particular—ended all that: 007 was our guide through the changing times, sketching out an expanding world where the right clothes and equipment meant you were prepared for anything. And apart from a flirtation with early digital watches (as much a sign of Roger Moore’s era as a safari suit), Bond has always been a dive-watch guy. Since 1995, he has also always been an Omega guy. First Pierce Brosnan and later Daniel Craig have sported the Omega Seamaster, the brand’s preeminent diver, in every movie since. For Craig’s last appearance, in this fall’s No Time to Die, Omega is going all out for authenticity, providing Her Majesty’s longest-serving blunt instrument with…

If the keys still hanging from your front-door lock and the tipped-over remnants of “one last drink” weren’t evidence enough, the way you feel—like a shell of a human being—should do the trick. Yup, you’re deeply hungover. The problem is, you look the part, too. “Without sleep, skin cells aren’t able to repair themselves, resulting in puffiness, dark circles, and inflammation,” says aesthetician Cecilia Wong. That’s why you look haggard when you pull an all-nighter, but when you add alcohol, “you can also get redness, because alcohol expands capillaries,” says aesthetician Renée Rouleau. Fun. Luckily, you can hide (some of) your sins, even without an overstocked medicine cabinet. Here’s your “oh, shit” insurance plan for looking like you have your life together. START WITH A SPLASH Cold water “instantly hydrates…

OF COURSE, IT SEEMS SO SIMPLE: TOP-NOTCH DESIGN PLUS ATTAINABLE PRICES make for a brand that hits the sartorial sweet spot. But in an era of creative disruption and sticker shock, that’s surprisingly rare—which makes Italian label Caruso all the more enticing. In many ways, the company, founded in the late 1950s, is a typical manufacturer of the oldschool tailoring that forms the backbone of the made-in-Italy movement. It creates high-end clothes for a who’s who of the international men’s-runway scene from Italy to Paris to New York. Yet it’s the eponymous brand, which finally put a “Caruso” label on a garment in 2009, that’s getting all the attention right now. Under (newish) CEO Marco Angeloni, Caruso offers a fresh take on Italian style that has all the hallmarks of…

IT’S A FAMILIAR MOMENT FOR FAR TOO many parties. Kyle has four more IPAs than he needs, or Jessica knocks over a wineglass, or that couple you almost didn’t invite has the argument you feared most. In any case, the vibe has come to a screeching halt, and exit strategies begin to ruminate in the minds of your dearly beloved. Even the most neurotically planned gatherings can fall victim to a noticeable lack of chill, and it takes more than a well-curated guest list to avoid it. Weed, America’s darling drug, now accepted at more places than Mastercard, is a party staple that any shindig worth its salt has at least a bit of. But we’re not kids anymore—which means we’re not “smoking pot,” we’re not trying to sneak it,…

1966 The Clair brothers’ first touring gig, running sound for Frankie Valli. 1968 Big time: They do the audio for Cream at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. 1971 Bigger time: Elvis cuts them a $100 bonus check. Instead of framing it, they cash it. 1978 Mickey Tait, lighting genius, sets up shop in Lititz. A live-production mecca takes shape. The 1980s The Clair-Tait collab grows, serving acts including Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen. 2011 Tait partners with NASA to beam to a U2 concert a video of astronaut Mark Kelly introducing a song while in space. 2013 Gene Clair dies. Longtime client Elton John dedicates “Your Song” to him at a concert. 2014 A new LLC, Rock Lititz, brings the leaders of Clair and Tait together officially. 2015 Tait builds a…

Ah, the Internet, recipient of our queries, our secrets, our desires, our fears. If anyone knows why we are the way we are, it’s Google, which is why we asked the comedian Josh Gondelman, a writer and producer on Desus & Mero and a man in possession of an iron will (“I managed to go a whole day without Googling my own name”), to record everything he searched for during a cold, cooped-up 24-hour period in the doldrums of winter. Not the things he wished he’d Googled, but what he actually did. Here’s what he turned up. Tuesday, February 25, 10:56 p.m. JOE BIDEN HAIR PLUGS By the tenth Democratic primary debate, I was pretty exhausted, so I abdicated my civic duty to watch the Boston Celtics play the Portland…

For the items featured in Esquire, please consult the website or call the phone number provided. The Short Stories, p. 27: The Row jacket, modaoperandi.com. Dr. Martens shoes, drmartens.com. P. 30: Air Dior jacket, sweater, shirt, T-shirt, trousers, shorts, sneakers, and socks, 800-929-3467. P. 32: Omega watch, omegawatches.com. Sferra table linens, sferra.com. P. 38: Dries Van Noten jacket, 214-559-4510. Levi’s jeans, levi.com. Christian Louboutin boots, christianlouboutin.com. Yuketen belt, yuketen.com. David Yurman necklace, link bracelet, chain bracelet, and ring, davidyurman.com. Miansai bracelet, miansai.com. P. 42: Bode jacket, bodenewyork.com. Mr P. trousers, mrporter.com. P. 44: Aspesi jacket, aspesi.com. Bode jacket, bodenewyork.com. Craig Green jacket, mrporter.com. Carhartt WIP jacket, carhartt-wip.com. Loewe jacket, 646-350-1710. P. 50: Caruso jacket, sweater, T-shirt, and trousers, carusomenswear.com. Esquire Entertains, p. 53: Jaeger-LeCoultre watch, jaegerlecoultre.com. And Now Some Damn…