During the worst of this heat and humidity, even the thought of a shirt and tie is enough to make you turn up the air conditioning. But in the weeks ahead when you have to trade in your flip-flops for tassel shoes, these guy mags can help with the transition.
Esquire is always a cut above the rest when it comes to the men’s mags because it’s smart and snarkyand yet not above gross-out humor. Esquire’s desire to be different crosses the line, however, in its piece on President Obama’s killing streak. It was not so much the subject matter that bothered us as the oddball execution that had the author write as if he were speaking directly to the president — and not in a convincing way. “You must know the boy, Mr. President. Though you’ve never spoken a word about him, you must know his name,” the author tells us — or rather the president — about a 16-year-old boy, an American, who was killed as part of Obama’s targeted killing program. We’re sure it gets better, but we don’t know because the author’s pleading voice was too exhausting to read. Still, we give Esquire kudos for being different, as it was with Part 2 of a strange novella by Stephen King and Joe Hill about a brother and sister duo who get lost in a field of tall grass. It’s strange but entertaining.
GQ is no longer a showcase for literary journalism, or at least its August edition isn’t. Instead there’s a bunch of semi-amusing features on the most annoying people in your Twitter feed and how difficult it is to go on vacation with small kids (the drive around the airport to find parking while the wife watches the kids is the most freedom you’ll enjoy). This is not what we turn to GQ for. Given that men reputedly think about sex every seven seconds, don’t expect to find any inspiration in these pages, unless British dandies in heavy tweedy suits chasing dogs around the streets of London gets you going. The nearest GQ gets to sauciness is a piece on how to shave your private parts without drawing blood. Art Cooper, whatever would you make of this?
When you see more of nerd comedian Judah Friedlander than the “Total Recall” women Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel, Maxim has failed in its mission. This month’s relatively tame edition just goes through the motions — bikini girl with power tool, topless car (as if that’s still funny), and barbecue tips. The only fun you’ll have is playing the sex olympics, Maxim’s classy tribute to the Summer Games.
First, fix the name, Nylon Guy, which sounds more like a mail order catalog for cross-dressing panty hose freaks than a male fashion title. To be fair, its official Wiki history explains that Nylon Guy is a spinoff of its parent pop culture-fashion mag, Nylon, which similarly was badly christened by a founding editor in 1999 because it sounded cool at the time. As an afterthought a few years later, owners spun the name, Nylon, declaring it to be an amalgam of word fragments of New York and London, where it claims to be influential.
Can hospital chains learn from The Cheesecake Factory? Thanks partly to the Affordable Care Act, hospitals will need more scale, and there will be more chains. The New Yorker in an interesting cover story examines how The Cheesecake Factory delivers quality food on a mass scale by having a kitchen manager rate every dish that comes across the counter. The problem is doctors are not paid based on quality, just services performed. And as chains get bigger, patients will have fewer choices. The New Yorker provides good food for thought on how to change the equation. A profile of the possible next Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, sheds light on where the country is heading, while a recap of the Olympics already feels dated.
Time handicaps the US presidential election in a precise and easy to understand way. It takes a long-range look at how much each candidate has to spend from money raised by friendly interest groups, their political parties and direct contributions. The conclusion: President Obama made a mistake by not patronizing money interests, and is trying to make up for lost time. Columnist Joe Klein calls this the most vapid presidential race he has ever covered. Time also introduces much of the public to the Constitution Party, whose presidential candidate says in a Q&A he is not going to hurt Republican nominee Mitt Romney in Virginia, though he is currently taking nine percent of the overall vote.