The Esquire Man Batting Averages

Many a stolen Epic hour has been spent with a good magazine. Just lying about. On a raft. In the pool. Or a hammock. Great magazines have a special part in the Epic routine. The problem is finding one these days.

Return readers will know that I have a love-hate relationship with Esquire. My continuing disappointment with the 2009 era magazine is in large part a reflection of the depth of my love for the Esquire of the 1960s and even the 1970s. I grew up as a magazine reader with old copies of Esquire. Through the mid 1970s, I eagerly awaited each copy that would arrive at my parents' home. Later in that decidedly odd decade I watched for my monthly issue to arrive at my college dorm. All the magic of Esquire is gone now that I am apparently beyond the boundary of its age demographic. Now I buy vintage copies on Ebay and pretend they are new. Call me a romantic.

But I love a list. So when I saw in an email recently that Esquire had posted lists of the seventy five albums a man has to have, the seventy-five books he has to read and the seventy-five things he has to do before he dies, I was lured into an immediate examination. Certainly, I thought, this would confirm that deep within the current magazine there was a faintly beating heart of the classic that almost single handedly made American men's publishing noteworthy throughout the world. Certainly, these lists would confirm that a man like me still had something in common with the magazine I had loved so long ago...

I have hundreds of albums of music from many genres. I love music. That in mind, I cannot say how amazed I was at the Esquire list of albums a man "must have" before floating off on the evening tide. Not one by Elvis Presley. I had not even heard of many of the artists. Of the seventy-five albums no doubt selected after hours and days of editorial office debate, I own exactly...four. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Sinatra's "In the Wee Small Hours", the Buena Vista Social Club and the Traveling Wilburys, Volume I. An Esquire Man musical batting average of 0.053. The crowning piece of evidence that Esquire has abandoned men of my vintage and interests is that my eleven year old son has two of the albums on this list. His Esquire Man musical batting average is therefore 0.026. Not bad for someone THIRTY EIGHT years younger than I am. If I sneak into his room tonight and lift his copy of Guns N Roses' Appetite for Destruction [an album I really, really like] I will raise my average to the heights of 0.066. Not worth the effort really. No wonder Frank has that lost, sad look on his face on the cover of Wee Small Hours...

He saw the writing on the wall.

Speaking of writing. If I love music, I TRULY love writing. I read a lot. All sorts of things. And I have been known to scribble a bit. In hope of a rebound, I turned expectantly to the Esquire list of seventy-five books a man must read before the clouds close in on him for good. Eight books. EIGHT lousy books. Has my intellectual life been so wasted? So un-Esquireish? Rabbit Run by Updike, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Tropic of Cancer, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, Master and Commander by O'Brian, Moby Dick, The Right Stuff by my fellow Washington and Lee alumni Tom Wolfe, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. An Esquire Man batting average of 0.11. I rounded that upward. If you remove the books that someone MADE me read, my average falls to 0.08. Pathetic. I cannot even raise my average by theft in this category. At least I had heard of SOME of the other authors. I felt a literary fog descending upon me. Did I mention that I went to the same school as Tom Wolfe?

Desperate for redemption at this point, I rapidly scanned the list of seventy-five things an Esquire Man MUST do before he shuffles off the mortal coil. Make a perfect omelet. Can do. Recognize the accomplishments of others. One of my fundamental principles. Cultivate a reputation. I've devoted my adult life to it. Learn three or four chords on the guitar and play a song with them. Check. Throw a real party. Done it. Do something that scares you. I did. Once. Overspend. Oh, RATHER. Sing in public. At AJ's in Vegas. With a pianist, not karaoke. Check. Give up your seat. How sad that this should be so rare as to be on the list. Just good manners. Take a vow and keep it. Marriage for twenty-two years. check. Spend time working for tips. Did it. Almost starved. Give a panhandler all your money. Yes. Raise a dog. What? THIS is a "must" to do before I die? Only a dog? Not any other species? Well, all right, check. At least in the experiential category I raised my Esquire Man average to a double digit apogee of 0.17. Still pretty lame.

The conclusions I drew from this exercise were:

1. The people running Esquire are totally disconnected from men like me.

2. I am proud of my musical and literary tastes, and very satisfied with my life experience this far down the road...no matter what they say. And no matter how far down my Esquire Man averages may sink.

Oh happy day!! I just won a new copy of Esquire on Ebay. June 1965. Now THIS looks like a magazine for a man of my tastes...

Forget the grunge/fusion/groaner albums, the mystico-coming of age-in-a-bathtub stories and the "thrill" of living nude for a year at high altitude with a dog you raised yourself. I am going to put on Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" [not on the list], read a chapter of The Great Gatsby [not on the list] and make a perfect cocktail [not on the list]. It is the Wee Small Hours and it is time for a martini...