The Short, Unhappy Career of a Page Six Snoop |
For several months, beginning last fall and ending just after the inauguration, I lived a dazzling life. I had just turned twenty-four and my evenings were spent mingling with Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli and Faye Dunaway; Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut and Gay Talese; Linda Ronstadt, John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen; Chevy Chase, Kris Kristofferson and Peter Falk; Barbara Walters, Bella Abzug and Lee Radziwill; and finally even Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. For fourteen weeks I was invited to New York's most glamorous parties and accorded special attention at the ones I chose to attend. I was on the opening-night list for the theater, the advance-screening list for films and had my choice of tickets to concerts. Merely by mentioning my name, and generally without advance notice, I was assured a choice table at the most elegant restaurants. Often enough to make me uneasy, a check would not be presented unless I specifically requested one. Although Elaine (of Elaine's) never went that far, she did as much in her own way: a table up front, a kiss-on-the-cheek hello and an occasional round of Courvoisiers, on her, late at night. And what did I do to deserve all of this extraordinary treatment? Just one simple and unlikely thing. For a brief spell, I wrote a featured gossip column for the New York Post. Three days a week, the column appeared in the slot once occupied by Leonard Lyons. It bore my name as its title and was accompanied by my postage-stamp-size photograph. The result was a certain personal celebrity and a measure of power I had never before known. The power derived from the fact that exposure is a precious commodity, and my column could provide it in spades. The celebrity meant that I was recognized and sought out in public places, flattered by waitresses at the Stage Delicatessen and questioned with endless curiosity about my job. It also made me an open target for criticism, personal and professional, sometimes inaccurate, occasionally vicious and always disheartening. I lived a fast life and one result may have been inevitable: for a time, I became almost totally self-absorbed. Admonished to distrust the flattery and to keep my distance from the glamour, I grew infatuated with both. And like any infatuation, mine was blind. |
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Booze, Ja Rule, and 'Sports Pedicures': Inside a Nail Salon for Dudes |
Gentlemen, warmer temperatures are here, and we need to address the state of our feet. The wearing of flip-flops and shower shoes has transcended the pool party and spread into the grocery store, the airport, the restaurant. Places that were once the domain of whole-foot shoes are now places where you have to look at the back part of someone's heel—that special area where even the most fastidious gentleman looks like an ostrich. It is our responsibility to the world to put our best feet forward. But I have good news for you, my dude: it is finally safe for you to get a pedicure. |
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Praise the Car Gods: the Nissan Z Lives |
Ask a toddler to draw a fast car and chances are they'll instinctively draw the silhouette of the Nissan Z. But will they know what a sports car is by the time they get their driver's permit? Will they ever experience the dumb fun of ripping doughnuts in a strip-mall parking lot? Or just driving aimlessly on a Sunday? These joys are rapidly being left in the dust with the advent of electric cars, which can be quick and efficient but, for the most part, lack the drama and open-road emotion of the increasingly rare affordable two-seat sports car. There is the Miata, the Toyota 86, and, for more than 50 years, the Nissan Z. |
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The Divided Soul of Kendrick Lamar |
Kendrick Lamar's latest album, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, captures with the souls of Black folk in these yet to be United States. With bold, gut-wrenching poignancy, Lamar gets to the core essence of the 1903 classic The Souls of Black Folk wherein historian-activist W.E.B. DuBois' concept of double-consciousness articulates "a peculiar sensation...this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels [a] twoness—an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body." |
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The Best Movies of 2022 (So Far) |
Summer movie season is officially here—for better or worse. But we here at Esquire are big believers that that size doesn't always matter. Sure, there's nothing like a great popcorn-and-pyrotechnics-fueled blockbuster, but there are also plenty of movies worth your attention that have been boxed out of the multiplex for yet another screening of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (so very meh). In our continuing effort to hip you to the best movies of the year as they roll out, we've added five new worthy titles in this month's installment of the Best Movies of 2022 (So Far) and ranked them along with the previous contenders. So read on, and we'll see you at the movies. |
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What You Need to Know For the Post-Roe World |
Maybe you saw it online. Maybe you heard it on NPR. Maybe your girlfriend told you as you lay in bed together scrolling through your phones, her fielding frantic texts from her group chat or checking in on her mom, you reading legal analyses, both of you fluorescent with rage and despairing at the news: According to a leaked initial draft of its majority opinion, the Supreme Court planned to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision upholding our constitutional right to abortion. Legal access to safe, common, and often lifesaving medical care was disappearing before your eyes. But no matter how you learned of this, and no matter how consumed you were with righteous anger and concern that night, I'm willing to bet you did not wake up the morning after, or the morning after that, or every morning since, full of fear. I don't mean that you don't care, because I know you do. |
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