Esquire articles from March 2004

Esquire archives from March 2004

Editor's letter.(Editorial)
March 1, 2004... REMEMBER TRAGEDY? Maybe it's that most modern catastrophes tend to pale in comparison to September 11, or maybe we should blame the hysteria of cable-television news, in which everything becomes the cause for panic, but we live in a time when...

Smart consumer introducing the All-New 2004 Toyota Tundra Double Cab.(Advertisement)
March 1, 2004... Bigger And Brawnier. The New Full-Size V8 Tundra Pickup Toyota's life-size pickup is brawnier, yet more capable too. * Assembled in America, exclusively for the North American market, the massive Toyota Tundra Double Cab is one brutal...

Toyota trucks--tough competitors: whether on NASCAR ovals or off-road, Toyota Motorsports and Toyota Racing Development are at the top of their game.(Advertisement)
March 1, 2004... The first pickup truck races were out in the Southern California desert, blasting from one point to another, 30 years ago. Toyota was there with the SR5. These early off-road truck races set the foundation for truck racing. Before that, nobody...

By invitation only: a special promotion for esquire readers.(Promotion)(special events)
March 1, 2004... NATIONAL COLORECAL CANCER RESEARCH ALLIANCE On October 16th, Esquire and Katie Couric hosted a charity fund-raiser at The Esquire Apartment for the Entertainment Industry Foundation's National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance (NCCRA)....

The sound and the fury.(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... JACK, WHO RE MAINS the coolest man in America, presided over our Meaning of Life issue (January), in which he surprised nearly everyone with his contrariness and, oh yes, his homage to Britney Spears. Keeping Nicholson company were superheroes...

The Esquire retail 100: America's finest menswear specialty stores.(Advertisement)
March 1, 2004... Shopping at a great specialty store is a fun and rewarding experience. The more you visit, the more you discover, and it is always a pleasure to be in an environment that reflects your tastes, needs, and interests. With outstanding service, a...

Journalism lite.(The Sound and the Fury)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... When columnist Tom Carson set his sights on Tim Russert in our January issue (The Screen), he profiled the latest in a long line of pseudo-adversarial careerists, one whose toughness as an interviewer is more perceived than real. Tom...

The music man.(The Sound and the Fury)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... Each month, music critic Andy Langer dutifully slogs through the mountains of CDs that pile up in the halls of Esquire to find the five or six rare gems actually worth the hype and a place in your collection. In regards to Andy Langer's...

A bad prescription.(The Sound and the Fury)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... An article in our November 2003 issue, "How to Buy Drugs Online" (Man at His Best), brought this response from a doctor in Georgia. The article "How to Buy Drugs Online" is unconscionable. Given the extraordinary number of lives decimated...

Letter of the month.(The Sound and the Fury)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... My love affair with your magazine started at the doctor's office when I was bored and wanted to read something. I loved every article. Most girls my age (I'm a freshman at Tulane) are reading about how to give the perfect blow job or how to...

Funny * joke from a beautiful woman.(Man at his best)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... There's a bear and a rabbit in the woods. The bear turns to the rabbit and says, "Do you have a problem with shit sticking to your fur?" And the rabbit goes, "No." So the bear wipes his ass with the rabbit. As told by ELISHA CUTHBERT ...

The 9 most remarkable things in culture this month.
March 1, 2004... Fightin' est Words "We assembled this list with the help of many discerning people whose musical dark nights of the soul resulted in selling trips to the used record store and even the destruction of offending albums. Some contributors...

Soul Machine: if OutKast opened your ears to genre-bending hip-hop, then Cee-Lo's new record built open your mind to even more.(Cee-Lo Green Is the Soul Machine)(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2004... I DON'T KNOW ANYONE WHO DOESN'T LOVE OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. I also don't know anyone who's listened to it all the way through. At 135 minutes, it's as bloated as it is brilliant. And while the idea was for Andre 3000 and Big Boi...

The dictionary according to Dizzee.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... With his debut album, Boy in da Corner, 19-year-old British rapper Dizzee Rascal has vaulted from the gritty projects of East London to the center of the music aristocracy Last fall, the disc unexpectedly beat out heavily favored Radiohead and...

Big important book of the month.(books)(Aloft)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... IN 1995, NATIVE SPEAKER announced itself as one of the most exemplary first novels of the last decade; 1999'sA Gesture Life was an elegant meditation on loss and loneliness. They proved Chang-rae Lee a deeply talented and empathetic novelist...

Rock pages.(former chief executive officer of CBS Records, Walter Yetnikoff)(his book Howling at the Moon)(Interview)
March 1, 2004... WALTER YETNIKOFF IS THE CLIVE Davis you've never heard of. That's all about to change. In his new memoir, Howling at the Moon (Broadway, 525), written with David Ritz, the flamboyant former CEO of CBS Records shares stories of cocktails...

Three more for your shelf.(books)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Nigerian novelist Chris Abani follows the treacherous days of a teenage Elvis impersonator in Lagos.... Brad Land's memoir, Goat (Random House, $ 23)--which carries us from his random abduction and beating to the oddly similar experience of...

The ombudsman's ombudsman.(Media)
March 1, 2004... HOW GOOD IS YOUR OMBUDSMAN, REALLY? It's a question we're asking ourselves now that The New York Times has appointed its very first ombudsman. And it raises an even better question: Just what the hell is an ombudsman? The first ombudsmen were...

A few cameras worth smiling for.(The Digital Man)
March 1, 2004... SPENT THE PAST THREE WEEKS at my house in Telluride. Colorado, theoretically getting away from it all. Unfortunately, my sciatica (unconscious rage, the doctor says) kept me off the ski slopes, so in addition to "testing" a lot of Bordeaux and...

The cannonbot run.(The Merchandise)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... THERE MAY BE NO FEAR AND LOATHING, but it's pretty freakin' gonzo. On March 13, 20 "autonomous ground vehicles" will compete in the DARPA Grand Challenge (darpa.mil), a government sponsored robot race from L. A. to Vegas. The rules? Each...

The rules.
March 1, 2004... RULE NO. 565: The adjective yummy should never be used to describe anything beyond food, and then only perhaps once in your lifetime. RULE NO. 566: The adjective scrumptious should be used only by the cast of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. RULE NO....

Undergarment of the month: you learn things when you wear a push-up thong.(The Merchandise)(La Vie en Rose)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Like when me lady in the subway booth holds up the line, too focused on the grapefruit in your pants to count your change, you learn how long 30 seconds takes. You learn things about women, too. You hear one walking past you say, "Oh,"...

The bacontini.(Food & Drink; martini)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... No shit: a bacon martini. The bent chemists at the Double Down Saloon in Vegas make it with (shudder) "bacon-infused vodka." It's terrible, of course--a hint of cooked pig in a swirl of greasy alcohol--but that isn't the point. It's the...

Al Green, the whiskey.(Food & Drink; Irish whiskey)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... IN THE EARLY '80S, when I was learning to take nourishment in the bars of New York, I had two drinks: a dry gin martini in places where such a thing wouldn't be out of place, and a Scotch and soda where it would--except in certain Irish joints,...

Roberto's: the best Italian Restaurant in America.(Food & Drink)(Brief Article)(Restaurant Review)
March 1, 2004... ROBERTO PACIULLO EXPLAINS a recent cancellation: "My waiter says, 'This actor Larry Fish, he call and say he's sorry 'cause he has to cancel his reservation.' I say, 'Who's this Larry Fish?' Then I think, Maybe he means Joe Pesci. 'No, no,' he...

Old West Gunfights, loud sex, drunk biking & Chekhov: Esquire's Answer Fella believes that there are no stupid questions, just stupid people who don't ask questions, fearing they'll look stupid. So ask Answer Fella anything. If he doesn't know the answer, he'll find out who does, or who has a guess that sounds right.(Questions and Answers)(Column)
March 1, 2004... Did people in the Old West actually have gunfights in the street like they do in the movies? Yes and no. Men did shoot one another down, publicly and in cold blood, as a means of expressing their pain, rage, and drunkenness--much as men...

The short list: Esquire's annual Alternative Oscars salutes Tom, Paris, and the little people who make it all possible.(comments on actors and films)
March 1, 2004... THIS YEAR, THE ACADEMY AWARDS will be held at the end of February instead of the end of March. As far as the Motion Picture Association of America is concerned, that's an extreme makeover. It's always the same show, beginning with a...

The esquire catalog: the stylish man's guide to spending his hard-earned cash: what clothes to wear, wheels to drive, food to eat, and toys to play with in the next six months.(style)(Buyers Guide)
March 1, 2004... $|65 A SCENT SHE'LL LOVE Clothing designer John Varvatos has taken his passion for meticulous detail to fragrance, using secret ingredients never before used in men's cologne. And though he won't divulge his formula, we can tell you this:...

Game over: all of a sudden, pro athletes are getting fired left and right. And not bad athletes, either. Good ones. Studs. It's the end of an era in big-time sports--and the beginning of something better.
March 1, 2004... WHEN I WAS SIXTEEN, I GOT FIRED. I was a Little League baseball coach in my tiny hometown, and the park board iced me in the second month of my three-month contract. Retrospectively, it seems almost impossible to get fired from this kind of...

The best dressed men in America: these men wear ties, trousers, and cuff links just like you do. The difference is, they wear them better.
March 1, 2004... In the more than seventy years that Esquire has set the standards of style for men, it's been guys Like these who have inspired us to dress just a Little bit better. They are the ten best dressed men in America. And Luhether their day consists...

Small miracles: magic doesn't happen much in baseball anymore. Except once each winter, in the forgotten grotto of the Rule 5 Draft.(baseball draft)
March 1, 2004... IT'S HARD TO KNOW WHEN, EXACTLY, Talley Haines's fate was fixed. Baseball lawyers agree that it was probably sometime in 1921, more than fifty years before Haines was born. It was then that it was decided that young men who played baseball for...

My girlfriend and I want to join the Mile High Club on our next flight. Any tips for beating the censors? And on logistics?(sexual advice)(Column)
March 1, 2004... Thank you for your interest in the Mile High Club. Membership has its privileges: Besides receiving a handsome checkbook cover, you'll be among the people who've had sex one mile up in the air. To get an idea of what that's like, imagine having...

The overstimulated girl: everyone else is taking performance-enhancing drugs--why not you?(dietary supplements and multivitamins)
March 1, 2004... ... But unlike, say, the Oakland Raiders' defensive line, you'll do it right. None of that testicle-shrinking, forehead-enlarging smack. What you'll want to try are the ingenious new mixes of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, amino acids, and...

Ask Dr. Oz: free advice from a medical professional!(anti-cholesterol medication)(Brief Article)(Column)
March 1, 2004... I've heard that doctors have come up with a new drug that magically declogs our arteries. Does that mean I'm now free to have a McGriddle for breakfast, a Big Bacon Classic for lunch, and a P'Zone for dinner as long as I pop a pill the morning...

Ten things you don't know about women.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... 1. We don't mind those tight-fitting basketball shorts you used to wear in the seventies. They showed off your muscled rear end. But these baggy ones you're always wearing now? Well, all they do is hide what we're really looking for and make us...

Mike White: life is good for the funniest great screenwriter in Hollywood. So why does his return to TV have him freaking out?(Interview)
March 1, 2004... ON A SUNNY AFTERNOON IN LOS ANGELES, on the back lot of the Fox studios, Mike White is frozen in the doorway of his office, chewing on a fingernail. He has just finished a long meeting with the network brass. His eyes are wide and unblinking....

The restless man.(canyoneering in Arizona)(includes notes on canyons to practice sport)
March 1, 2004... REAL ADVENTURES FOR REGULAR GUYS THIS MONTH: Canyoneering WHERE: A couple hours northeast of Phoenix DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: Can you hike a few miles? Swim a hundred yards? Are you not a weenie? COST OF THREE-DAY WEEKEND: $780...

The return of American style.
March 1, 2004... This spring marks the official return of American style. We saw it last summer on the runways and in the showrooms of Milan and Paris and New York. And there is one simple reason for it: The world, for good and ill, is all about America now....

American Ruffalo.(interview)(Interview)
March 1, 2004... A QUICK RECAP of what Mark Ruffalo heard in the first fourteen years of his professional Life: No. No. No. Nope. No. Nah. No. No. Sorry. No. No. No. No. We have only so much space for this article, so please continue until you reach eight...

Somewhere off Nashville's famed music row, you'll find the inspiration for spring's best new casual clothes: starring Rodney Crowell, Gary Allan, Matthew Ryan, Old Crow Medicine Show, Joe Nichols, BR549, and Dolly Parton.(fashion)(includes notes on country musicians)
March 1, 2004... Just when you thought the bolo tie had all but disappeared, this season's coolest casual duds borrow from the great American tradition of western wear, To celebrate this return to our roots, Esquire gathered a handful of Nashville legends and...

David Bowie: Chameleon, 57, New York City.(musician)(Interview)
March 1, 2004... With a suit, always wear big British shoes, the ones with large welts. There's nothing worse than dainty little Italian jobs at the end of the leg line. Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing...

Hired guns: the inside story of the private armies of operation Iraqi freedom.
March 1, 2004... Never before in a war zone has the United States relied so much on private citizens to perform military functions. Security firms such as DynCorp and Kroll, retained on State Department and Pentagon contracts worth billions of dollars, have...

Scenes from a Hollywood con: with the opulence of this season's coolest suits and casual clothes as his inspiration, an acclaimed screenwriter spins a Hollywood tale for Esquire in which the right suit can take you further than you deserve, and appearances aren't always what they seem.(includes notes on fashion and accessories)(Fictional Work)
March 1, 2004... "The Pathfinder" STARRING: Max Fred Ward Jonathan Derek Luke Scott William Lee Scott Screenplay by JOHN AUGUST (Go. Big Fish) Photographed by JONATHAN SKOW at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel FADE IN:...

The unlined suit.(fashion)
March 1, 2004... At one time or another, you've surely considered ripping the lining out of your suit jacket. Luckily, there's no need to go tearing apart your wardrobe, as several designers have gone ahead and done it for you this spring, showcasing a new...

The inside story.(unlined suits)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Unlined suits have been around for decades and, save for the indignity of being worn by Crockett and Tubbs in the 1980s, are an expression of what American men desire most: comfort. And lest you think today's designers are taking a short cut by...

The esquire quiz: find out exactly when you will have sex next!
March 1, 2004... 1 How long do you wait before trying to unzip your lady friend's pants? A Until this crisis in Iraq is over. B I'm a gentleman and leave it completely up to her. C An hour into the fifth date. D Three Mississippi. 2 You...

Mia Kirshner: a women we love: Mia Kirshner, the shy, cerebral star of Showtime's new lesbian drama, The L Word, does not want to be the object of your desire.(Interview)
March 1, 2004... Forget the sultry photos you see alongside these words. Never mind Mia Kirshner's raven-haired, almost Gothic beauty. Pay no attention to the twenty-nine-year-old actress's long string of sexually charged roles, which have included a stripper...

"Is something burning?" The night the fires came to Wild Cat Canyon.(narrative)
March 1, 2004... BOB YOUNGER WHISPERED into his wife's ear. There was alarm in his voice. "Honey, wake up." Sandra Younger blinked awake. She found herself on the sofa, still wearing her Hawaiian shirt and kukui-nut lei. It was early Sunday morning,...

George W. Bush's E-mail In-Box.(This Way Out)
March 1, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]