I’m not generally a moviegoer. Not including the nights or afternoons we accompanied our son to the latest Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean installments, my wife and I can count on one hand the number of times we have gone to see a movie in the past five years. Now that our boy is 18 and traveling with a pack of friends, we seldom are invited (actually, we’re never invited) to join him and his mates at the local cineplex. So the only movie watching we do these days is in from the couch, in the cozy confines of our living room, when as we order a pay-per-view movie or indulge in an umpteenth viewing of The Godfather or Chinatown.

There is, however, another reason why it has been so easy for me to walk out on the movies: The characters—particularly the male ones—are typically less-than-endearing and/or lack redeeming qualities, or they are larger-than–life heroes. I can’t warm up to any of these men.

Even the best-film nominees featured in Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony didn’t appeal to me enough to usher me into the cinema. However one film that was nominated for a major Oscar, best actress, did strike my fancy. The leading male character, played by Stanley Tucci, was a guy who was truly heroic in his unabashed love for his wife and in his ability to ardently support her life’s passion without paring away any of his masculinity or identity. The movie was Julie & Julia.

Julia Child and her husband, Paul, were not a couple out of central casting. Hunk and hottie would never be used to describe this wonderfully odd couple, but theirs was a love affair that could put all others to shame. It was a wonderful cassoulet of intelligence, humor, passion, respect, and food. All of us should be so fortunate at Paul Child. To be in love with a woman who makes you laugh and weak in the knees at the same time, while she serves you a forkful of sole meuniere. Guys, it just doesn’t get better than that.

Paul Child was an original Renaissance man. He learned the language of every country where he worked as a cultural liaison for the U.S. government. He also held a black belt in judo, painted (art, not houses, although I suspect he did that with aplomb as well), taught mechanical drawing, and was a curator, photographer, gourmand, and, later in life, a wine connoisseur. He had an insatiable appetite for life and learning, and looked forward to whatever came next round the corner. I would love to have spent time with him, and I envy him for living such an enchanting life and having such a captivating relationship with his wife.

For every great woman, I’d like to think there is an equally wonderful man who’s got her back. That certainly was the case with Julia Child, who, without the support of her husband, may have fallen victim to the times and stayed at home to raise a family and tend to the manor. Paul allowed her to fail at bridge, hat making and learning French, before she discovered the glories of butter and inspired legions of people, including myself, who fell in love with cooking through the antics of this big-boned woman with that melodic trill in her voice. Little did I know that I owed thanks to her unassuming, confident and inspirational husband, who had the courage to support and nourish her. In the movie, Paul tells Julia that she is “the butter to my bread; the breath to my life.” Anyone who says that to his wife deserves a special place in the male pantheon, and maybe even an Oscar.

*****

Paul Kidwell is a public relations consultant who lives in Boston with his wife and son.


During his 11-season, hall-of-fame career in the NBA, Dave Cowens led the Boston Celtics to two championships, played in seven all-star games, and earned one league MVP award. Following his third and final retirement, after playing for the Milwaukee Bucks during the 1982–83 season, Cowens ran the Sports Museum of New England and then returned to professional basketball, serving two stints as an assistant coach and two as a head coach in the NBA and one as a general manager and head coach in the WNBA. Since 1972, he has run the Dave Cowens Basketball School an overnight summer program in Massachusetts for boys and girls ages 10 through 18. Cowens estimates that over the years some 35,000 kids have participated in the camp.

Good Men Project cofounder Tom Matlack, an unabashed Celtics fan, met with Cowens, now 61, last month at Cowens’ home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Matlack gave Big Red the Manhood Quiz and also spoke with him about the first time he retired as a player and his becoming a cab driver, which, contrary to common belief, are two different stories.

Tom Matlack: So what are you up to these days? Are you scouting for the Pistons?

Dave Cowens: Scouting. My contract ends in June. I went to Detroit as an assistant coach with [former head coach] Flip Saunders a few years ago, and then they fired him. I wanted to be the head coach, but instead they hired Michael Curry.

So I went to Joe [Dumars, the Pistons president of basketball operations] and said, “I’ve got one year left on my contract. Why don’t you have me do some college scouting? I’ve got a place in Florida, and we’ve got the ACC, the SEC, the Big East all playing in Florida. I could scout for you down there.” This was last February. He says, “I don’t know about that.” And I said, “OK, just think about it.” 

And then after the season, during my exit interview, Joe said, “You know, Dave, what you talked about, I think we’re going to do that.” So it was one of my better negotiations [laughing.].

TM: Tell me, when you were playing and you kind of semi-retired for a little while, what was that all about? And what did you learn during that period?

DC: I retired three times. The first time I stopped playing [at the beginning of the 1976–77 season] was right after we won a championship. I just got burned out on basketball. I didn’t care to compete anymore.

I wasn’t the most talented guy around, so I had to give it that big effort just to play against an average guy. So, I said, “Red [Auerbach, then the general manager of the Celtics], I need a break from the game. My attitude isn’t what is should be, and I don’t feel right about taking a paycheck when my heart isn’t in the game.” He was really good about it and told me to take as much time as I needed to get right.

The dumb thing was I went all the way through training camp, which is the hardest part of the season, and then decided to leave. I guess I just needed to prove to myself that I needed a change of atmosphere.

TM: What did you do when you took time off?

DC: I was thinking about working for a racetrack down in Foxboro [Massachusetts], harness racing. I had owned a harness horse, so I was interested in that business. When I began my internship down there I started talking to a lot of people at the track, and I realized it really wasn’t what I wanted to do.

I’m pretty independent, and I don’t really like working for people to a certain degree. I feel like, as an athlete, I was an independent contractor in a way.

I wasn’t married then, so I did a little traveling. I hooked up with some guys I went to college with, and we took a trip to Florida, visited some people. I just went on a long, extended road trip. Then after 60 days, I said, “I don’t know what else to do. I better start playing basketball again [laughing].” That’s when I went back and played the rest of that season and the next few seasons.

TM: Tell me about the time you became a cab driver.

DC: I think that was in ’77. We were in the playoffs. A buddy of mine from Kentucky was in town, and I said, “Hey, let’s go get a cab.” At that time, for like $35, you could get a cab to drive. You had to pay for your own gas, but whatever you made you could keep for yourself. 

We were driving around, trying to pick people up. But no one wanted to get in the cab because there were two of us in the front seat. 

So I let my buddy out and then business picked up. And then a crazy thing happened. I was stopped at an intersection, at Boylston and Tremont. A guy gets in and asks me to take him to Newton. As we’re driving down to the Mass Pike, he tells me he’s a reporter. He had been covering a Bruins game that night when he heard that Cowens was driving a cab. So he left the hockey game and started walking the streets of Boston, looking for my cab, and he found it at that intersection. Now you tell me, what are the odds of that happening?

He wrote a story about it, and eventually—because not too long before that I had taken my leave of absence—people started thinking that I had quit basketball to drive a cab. I drove the cab for one night, just as a lark, just for something to do.

The other day I was watching an NBA game on TV, and [color commentator and former NBA coach] Jeff Van Gundy says, “Cowens was always my favorite player. Do you think any of these players today would stop playing basketball and go drive a cab for a living?” So the story goes on and on.

TM: Let me ask you some of the questions from the project’s Manhood Quiz. Who in your life taught you about manhood?

DC: I have quite a few, because of sports and my father. However, I really had my eyes opened to manhood by strangers. Let me give you a couple of examples. The first time I ever saw to grown men fight was at a picnic on the Ohio River in Kentucky. It was mid-afternoon on a hot summer day. Families were grilling food over campfires; the men were playing horseshoes; me and the other kids were running around like crazy people, etc. All of a sudden these two very muscular men started to fist-fight. There was blood and mud, and a scary violence when you heard the fists hit their target. They punched and wrestled for what seemed like a long time, and then one of them wasn’t moving anymore. It was over, and everyone went back to their business. But I can still remember and feel the fear of wondering if that was what I would have to do one day to prove my manhood. I was 9 years old at the time.

The next school year a boy who was older than me challenged me to a fight. I don’t know why, but I was goaded into the fight by all the other older boys. I was pretty athletic, so I guess they wanted to find out if I was tough as well. After school we went across the street into his backyard. Everyone was there to watch us fight. This was a first for me. As I was remembering the two men from the picnic, he punched me in the head. I survived this hit and proceeded to fight him with all I had. When it was over, he was lying on the ground, and I was standing over him. I remembered nothing of what I had just done. I just walked away with a feeling of relief that I had prevailed. That boy and I became friends until he went to high school, and I hoped I would never have to do that again.

Then a few years later, when I was 15 years old, I was in the backseat of a car making out with this young woman who I had met at a dance. She was older than me, and quite frankly, I have no idea why she took an interest in me. Well, while we were going at it pretty hot and heavy, I hear this rapping on the window. I look out and there is this grown man standing there, looking really pissed off. I open the door, and he asks me what the hell I’m doing with his wife. Man, I about shit myself. I had no idea this woman was married, and I told him so. I thought back to the picnic fight again and realized that this time my ass was going to get whipped bad. But for some reason he just looked me up and down and said, “Take off.”  Well, he didn’t have to say it twice. I started walking down the street and didn’t look back until I was at the end of the block. Then what I saw was this big man on his knees, pleading with his wife to love him.

My father was a pretty good guy. I had a lot of issues with him, but I still had a dad who was morally intact and tried to do the right thing, I suppose, and was pretty supportive of everything I did. And then I had good coaches. Even in elementary school, I had just good guys, not the whackos who sometimes coach kids and beat them over the head and push them to win, win, win. They were people who were kind of laid-back and were doing it because they were having a good time. They had the right perspective. I had a really good disciplinarian for a high school coach, which I needed. And I had a college coach [at Florida State] who was a good teacher and task master. But my attitude at that time was that I could take anything you threw at me. By that time you’re a man, and if you don’t have it figured out by then, shame on you. 

TM: How do you suppose romantic loves shape you as a man?

DC: Romantic?

TM: Yeah, with women. How did it shape you growing up?

DC: I wouldn’t have any vices if it wasn’t for woman [laughing].

I grew up with guys who were two, three years older than me, so they were always more advanced. I’m watching those guys work, and I’m watching them with the dialogue, and I’m going, “Gee, I can’t do that. I just want to go play sports. Forget about that. That’s too stressful [laughing].

I took care of physical needs but kind of just decided I didn’t need that relationship thing. And that went on a long time.

And then I met [his wife] Deby—this was later in life—who I fell in love with, and I decided I’d like to have a family. So you make the commitment. If we had met in college, we would have been polar opposites. But because of when we met, and how we met, what we were ready to accomplish in our lives at the time, it worked out.

TM: How old were you when you met?

DC: Let’s see, we got married in ’78, so I was almost 30. She was the same. So I had already gotten all my honky-tonking out of the way, for the most part. I had lived that life, so I knew what that was all about. 

But still, it becomes a way of life, and when you get married there’s an adjustment. So it’s never easy.

TM: You were talking earlier about your dad. What are the two words that you would use to describe him?

DC: Two words? I don’t know if can do it in a couple of words.

TM: Then just tell me about him. What was he like?

DC: He was a typical World War II guys—never said anything about his whole deal over there and didn’t really talk about himself, about anything really. He just went to work, raised kids, and tried to do the right thing. Basically he was a barber. That was his main deal, being a barber. I used to go to his shop when I was a kid and watch all the men play checkers and listen to them talk about their families and politics and baseball. He was very active in the church and had leading roles in schools plays and sang in the choir.   

Before the war, right out of high school, one of his jobs was as a dance instructor. He would go and do all these Fred Astaire dances. And he’d be there with women, showing them how to do particular dances That’s what he was doing in the late ’30s, early ’40s. And then he went into the war.

On his enlistment forms, it said he was a dance instructor, so they thought he was an entertainment guy, and they assigned him as a radio guy instead of an infantry guy. “That probably saved my life,” he used to say. “I’d probably have been shot when I went over there and went on the beaches. But I was a radio guy, so they’d put me up on top of a hill, and I’d relay the messages about where the enemy was. And then they’d shoot from the ship to get them.” He got a Purple Heart because the enemy blew his jeep up one time. He just happened to jump out of it in time.

When he came home from the war, instead of going to college on the GI bill, he decided he had to go to work. He got married and had kids right away and went to work as a finance guy. And then eventually he decided he wanted to be a barber; he had done some barbering in the service to make a few extra bucks. 

TM: How do you suppose you’re different from him?

DC: He worked hard. He just went to work every day and tried to make ends meet. Sometimes he’d say to me, “I really feel like I’m a failure. I don’t have anything to give you kids.”  We’d try to tell him, “You’re all right. You did a good job. You gave us what we needed.” 

I’ve got a brother who was an oncologist—real bright guy. And my other brothers and I got married and had kids and had steady jobs. Everybody’s been good, solid, no problems. So that says something for him and my mom.

TM: How do you think you’re different from your dad?

DC: I’m much more free-spirited and wild. I was kind of the black sheep of the family. If somebody was going to do something crazy, it’d be me. I don’t know anybody who ever said that about him. He was very civic-minded, and I remember when I was young, handing out cards for him at bingo and standing at the polls on election day. If the old ladies didn’t like your candidate, they would just throw the cards on the ground or say something negative to you. If they were for your candidate they would wish you luck.

TM: When you look back, what mistake in your life do you think you learned the most from?

DC: My mistake was not being serious enough about things. I’m kind of still that way. If something doesn’t work out, screw it [laughing]; I’ll do something else. Thanks to the patience and support of many people everything has worked out well for me and my family.

TM: I’m kind of that way, too. 

DC: I think I probably should have been a little more disciplined in terms of reaching a potential for myself, a little more disciplined and not as carefree and immature about things. It probably would have helped me make better decisions. 

TM: Are you talking about your athletic career or other aspects of your life?

DC: Just in general. 

TM: Here’s our next question: How would the women in you life—your wife and daughters [Meghan, 29, and Samantha, 26]—describe you? And do you think what they would say is true.

DC: Whatever they say is true [laughing]. 

TM: That’s what I say about my wife and daughter.

DC: I don’t know what they would say, but whatever it is, it’s OK. 

TM: Who do you think is a good dad, and why do you think he’s a good dad?

DC: I’ve still got a lot of friends who I grew up with. I still see them. I still hang out with them. I don’t know all their grandkids’ names and everything, but I know what’s going on in their lives to a certain degree. They have had a lot of different experiences and are all totally different people, but all of them have just strived to do the right thing most of the time, to take the responsibility that goes along with being a father or a husband. Someone who tries to do the right thing for the right reason at the right time—to me, that’s a good guy. 

TM: Do you think you’ve been more successful in your public life or you private life?

DC: Mine are so intertwined, because many of the people I work with publicly are in my private life. As Dave Cowen the athlete, I was pretty successful. People have an idea that they know what I was about, and that’s partly true. They know what you show them when you lay it on the line. You’re showing them who you are to a degree. But they don’t know what kind of an asshole you might really be [laughing]. That’s the private side.

TM: One of the guys who write on our blog was saying that he thinks the definition of a good man is someone who lives a life of congruence, meaning that you’re the same person whether you’re in the spotlight or you’re at home or wherever. What you’re saying is that you’re the same person, but that you show something a little different in different situations.

DC: Kind of. What is important is to have character, not just to be one..

TM: When’s the last time you cried?

DC: I cry all the time. I see a movie, somebody does something that’s extraordinary I tear up. I hear a story, whatever—yeah, I well up on occasion.. 

TM: In England, a parliament member, David Cameron, lost his 6-year-old son recently. He’s usually a really stoic guy, and he was on national television and started crying. That threw the country into a tizzy. The Telegram, the newspaper in London, called me and asked me what I thought was going on with Cameron. I said, “He lost a kid. Don’t you think you’d cry? He’s human.”

DC: My father passed away a few years ago. He had been sick for a while, and before he died my mother had become kind of a caretaker for him. And when he died, my mother said, “I don’t know what it is, but I can’t cry.” They had been married for 60 years. She tells me now that she really misses my father, but at the time, when he finally died, she was ready for it. She knew it was coming, and she had prepared herself. 

My mother had a bit impact on my life when I was young, because I had a lot of respect for her. She had to live in an orphanage when she was like 10, 11, 12 years old. Back then, once you got to 13, you couldn’t stay in the orphanage anymore. You had to leave and go to work. Her father died at an early age, and she had a lot of brothers and sisters, and her mom couldn’t take care of all of them. So she and two other younger siblings went to the orphanage for a few years.

She went to high school and then she just started working in grocery stores until she ended up meeting my dad.

I remember one time when I was about 14 I decided I was going to run away from home. I wasn’t afraid of going out on the streets, because I could run and nobody could catch me. So I figured I could always get out of trouble.

And so I’m sneaking around downstairs, and I’m getting all my stuff together, and then my mother gets up and she comes downstairs. She says, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m leaving. I got to go. I’m running away.” And she said, “Well, let me fix you a sandwich.” And I decided maybe I won’t go [laughing].

TM: That’s great.

DC: I remember John Wooden telling a story about Bill Walton. You probably heard this one.

TM: No, go ahead.

DC: Walton was at UCLA, and he was going to rebel. He wanted to grow a beard and all this stuff. This was during the early ’70s. Wooden had said there’s no facial hair allowed, and you’ve got to keep your hair cut. So Walton came to Wooden and said, “Coach, I don’t think it’s right. I want to be able to grow a beard.” Walton was a pretty good player, of course, but Wooden looked at him and said, “I respect that, Bill, and we’ll miss you.” So what are you going to do? Wooden put it right on his ass. Walton shaved his beard; he went along with the program. 

That’s a good man, somebody who can be just like that—figure it out, say, “That’s the way it is,” and not worry about it. “Hey, that’s the rule. You don’t like it, we’ll get along without you.”

TM: What advice would you give adolescent boys about being a good man?

DC: I think one of the things that I would say would have helped me a lot. I wish I had asked questions and went and got help when I was struggling with making a decision, instead of trying to figure it out all by myself. That’s what I would suggest to everybody: If you’re having a problem, stop thinking about it by yourself and go talk to somebody who you really respect, and you’ll get a whole different look at it.

I think that’s good advice for all men, because men tend to think, “I can handle anything on my own. I can handle it. It ain’t no big deal. I can handle it.”

By DAVID ATCHISON 

In the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian, a Mongol general laments that his sons will never understand him. Being a great warrior, the general had conquered most of the surrounding territories and afforded his heirs an upbringing that he himself did not have. In one scene he asks his son, and then his slave Conan, one simple question: What’s best in life?

Mongol General: My fear is that my son will never understand me.
Mongol general: We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Mongol general’s son: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Mongol general: Wrong! Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Mongol general: That is good! That is good.

Conan’s reply is gruesome, but it resonates beyond the actual words themselves. Examining the context of his answer can reveal a lot about success. The Mongol general fears that his son won’t understand what drives him to be a conqueror. His son’s answer disappoints because it reveals that his heir is inundated with the spoils of war, rather than the war itself.

Conan’s answer pleases the Mongol general because the young slave-warrior finds reward in the battle, the work of a conqueror. The Mongol general begins to see Conan as the “son he never had” because Conan understands the “craft” the Mongol general has used to obtain the spoils of war that his son has become so preoccupied with.

In our own endeavors we too must ask, “What is best in life?” Are we too preoccupied with the eventual spoils of the endeavors we undertake? Or are we like Conan, focused on the job at hand and finding reward in the task? Most of the things that people view as success are actually byproducts of success. Varying degrees of economic freedom, notoriety, job security, financial stability, etc. are all byproducts of a job well done.

Those rewards come when a person understands what’s best in his or her own life. Today, I ask you to unleash your inner conqueror. Examine the battlefield of your life. Find what’s best in life about your job, your relationships, your existence, and relish in those things. Go to war with those things, conquer those things, and reap the spoils of your own war.

*****

David Atchison is a writer, producer and journalist whose work has appeared in a variety of mediums. He co-created and writes the Occult Crimes Taskforce with actress Rosario Dawson and illustrator Tony Shasteen for 12 Gauge Comics. OCT was optioned by Dimension Films. Atchison also wrote the Method Man Graphic Novel with hip-hop mainstay Method Man for Grand Central Publishing as well as successfully pitching True Believer, an in-production back door pilot for NBC Universal’s SyFy.

Before entertainment writing, Atchison served as military journalist and photographer for the Air Force and Reserve. Trained at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland, he has worked in support of operations in Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq and Southeast Asia.

The Good Men Project has been in Hollywood before, but never in a private suite at the Luxe Hotel on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

The book and DVD were given out to various celebs and VIPS who were there for the pre-Oscar hoopla. Some notable guests that walked through the suite where The Good Men Project was stationed were Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Bastards), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart), Lee Daniels (director of “Precious”), Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones), and Woody Harrelson (The Messenger).

And we heard from our secret agent in the field that quirky actor Crispin Glover (most recently appearing as The Knave of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland) was sitting in the corner of the suite reading The Good Men Project for over twenty minutes.

Many had heard about the book, others were seen reading it during the course of the day. A few folks asked if the film was nominated in the documentary category.

Nice to know that real stories about men have a place in the glitzy world of Beverly Hills.

Information on Hollywood Suite by Josh Mitchell.

By MARK ELLIS

Ten years ago, my girlfriend, who we’ll call Sharon for privacy’s sake, planted a copse of bamboo outside my family-room window. I’ve never paid much attention to matters horticultural; indeed, the yard and its myriad life forms were utterly her domain, but I know why she planted the bamboo. It was a response to my neighbor’s removing a venerable elm tree from the location. In Sharon’s world, that was an unpardonable offence and crime against nature.

She was near tears that Saturday morning when she woke me with the news that the “idiot neighbor” had a crew out attacking the elm. I followed her blearily to the window, and sure enough, two limb-jockeys were opening God-awful gashes in the canopy of leaves.

“Why are you doing this?” Sharon assailed the owner who stood by, but he was smart and scurrilous enough to shrug his shoulders and keep his mouth shut. I reckoned his reasons for removing the tree were the usual ones: for increased sunlight and less of the often considerable bother involved in raking leaves and other yard cleanup. But I dared not mention any logical reasons for such a removal to Sharon. No, my best bet was to join with her in the demonization of the tree-slayer, to share her sense of grievance and loss.

I remember damning him over coffee that morning, “Idiot.”  

The view out my window had featured a panoply of the seasons as experienced by an elm. Fallow-branched in winter, it would start a gorgeous cycle of budding growth in spring; come to full, hardy, waxy green eloquence in summer; and turn handsomely in October to all the reds, yellows, and golds associated with fall. Removal of the tree created a view of the neighbor’s mossy rooftop and pedestrian back yard. Sharon was determined to regain our privacy and lot aesthetics in the quickest way she knew how.

Just over the fence from the scene of destruction, which now featured a sad pile of neatly stacked elm firewood, she planted the few bamboo stalks that came in a plastic pot from Home Depot. Within the year the small stand had fanned out over the fence and was reaching for the sky.

Thenceforth the bamboo, which I have since learned is actually a species of grass, grew prodigiously, unstoppably. It is amazingly resilient. Neither summer’s roasting, 100-degree-plus days nor winter’s most intractable freezes seem to have any effect on it whatever. It has turned one entire side of the house into a wilderness area. There’s a gate in there somewhere, though no one has been able to walk through it for years. 

It is said that in tropical climes you can actually sit and watch the bamboo grow. I don’t know about that, but I do know that the copse Sharon nurtured to life a decade ago is now a veritable wall of slender stalks and light green leaves that rustle against the eaves with every gust of wind.  I can tell you this: The sight of my neighbor’s roof and backyard is a distant memory. In fact, the bamboo has outlasted the neighbor who took down the elm. Unfortunately it also has outlasted Sharon, and the joke now is that unless something is done, it will outlast and perhaps overwhelm me. 

*****

Mark Ellis is a writer in Portland, Oregon.

[Photo by rcbodden]

1.) Who taught you about manhood?
My father, through his own thoughts and actions, but also through those fathers he introduced me to, like Bugs Bunny, John F. Kennedy, Groucho Marx, Mel Brooks, Jackie Robinson, Luke Skywalker, John Coltrane, Richard Pryor, Frank Sinatra, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Joe Montana, Steve Martin, Bob Dylan. My father also facilitated my meeting poetic fathers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, John Berryman, John Ashbery. Like most fathers of poets who aren’t artists themselves, he didn’t—still doesn’t—understand exactly what I do, but I know he’s proud of me.

Humor teaches you to be both tough and tender. One must have great empathy to be funny. My father has a great sense of humor; my mother did too. Hers was a dry, dead-pan New England sensibility, veering towards the tall tale and vaudeville, very often surreal. My father, growing up in Brooklyn in the ’40s and ’50s, has more of that Italian/Jewish/New York sense of humor, also dead-pan, very dark, caustic, with Borscht Belt undertones.

2.) Has romantic love shaped you as a man?
Absolutely. My relationships have taught me never to take a woman for granted (though I sometimes do), to be honest with her (I always try to be, even when I shouldn’t), to treat her as an equal (metaphysically impossible for me to do otherwise), to not hold her up too high (I always tend to). I’m definitely a romantic.

My mother and father were great models for me. They had problems like any couple, but they also had a great partnership. They were very loving with one another. A man needs someone whom he can rely on, can be weak around, can reveal all his insecurities and doubts to, who will love him no matter what, will give him the space to catch himself. He should gladly do the same in return. When you’re in love, it’s easy.

3.) What two words describe your dad?
Intelligent and organized.

4.) How are you most unlike him?
Less purely analytical, more outwardly passionate, which, I know, is odd to say about an Italian-American father. Most of the men on my dad’s side of the family are quiet, unless sports are involved.

My father’s father, my grandfather, was a supply sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II, deployed before my father was born, in 1942. He didn’t see his first-born son until the war was over. My father grew up in a working-class household with a large extended family that had lived through the Great Depression. He was driven to get that high-paying white-collar job, to provide for his family all the things he never had. While I certainly wouldn’t turn down a $100,000 job offer, as a poet, that’s just not a salary I can realistically expect to receive in my lifetime, unless the Weinstein brothers want to option some of my poems. I’m grateful that my father gave me the time and space when I was a child to get into the habit of creating: poems, stories, songs, paintings, drawings, movies. It’s the habit of artistic creation that keeps me alive.

5.) From which of your mistakes did you learn the most?
My DUI in 2004. No injuries or damage to personal property, but embarrassing and definitely a wake-up call to slow down.

6.) What word would the women in your life use to describe you, and is it accurate?
Intense. Men and women, once they get to know me, have often relayed that they were intimidated by me at first. Sometimes at second and third, too. I can be quiet, shy really, and I think this, coupled with my natural tendency to observe what’s going on around me rather than run my mouth, causes people to think I’m aloof or unapproachable. I’m not. I’m just taking it all in.

7.) Who is the best dad you know, and how does he earn that distinction?
Besides my own father, I’d have to cite my friends like Mark Horosky, Daniel Nester, Brad Vesneski, Gennaro DeAngelis, Matt Hart, and many, many more. They’re just young dads doing their dad thing the best they can.

Douglas Crase must also be mentioned. Not only has his own writing been a direct influence on mine, but his advice and counsel since we’ve known each other have brought me tremendous joy.

I also appreciate the exploration of fatherhood that Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim engage in on their show Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job! You just have to watch it to understand. Or not.

8.) Have you been more successful in your public or private life?
Private life. I have so many friends and family who support me through good times and bad, highs and lows. I’m proud of the friendships I’ve forged with my close friends. I have no real concept of any kind of “public life” I may or may not have.

9.) When was the last time you cried?
In August 2009, my father suffered a series of seizures brought about by sleep apnea. I flew down to Florida to be with him and did a lot of crying in those first few weeks. I was reliving my mother’s death (1995, breast cancer) and facing the possibility of having to care for my father for the rest of his life. He’s since made a complete recovery, due in no small part to his own fortitude.

10.) What advice would you give teenage boys trying to figure out what it means to be a good man?
Read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays. Not because they’ll teach you to be like Emerson or like a certain kind of man, but because they’ll teach you, in fact, that you don’t need to take your cue from anyone. Remember when you read them that Emerson was a Yankee through and through, had a wicked sense of humor, is as self-deprecating as he is self-confident. This is an aspect of American Transcendentalism that many people overlook.

I think of this passage from the famous (and oft misunderstood) essay “Self-Reliance”: “There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular equality may be observed between the great men of the first and of the last ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than Plutarch’s heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in time is the race progressive. Phocion, Socrates, Anaxagoras, Diogenes, are great men, but they leave no class. He who is really of their class will not be called by their name, but will be his own man, and, in his turn, the founder of a sect.” We should not feel unworthy or intimidated by the distant past or even our immediate forefathers, for every thing that was available to them is available to us.

For Bonus Points: What is the your most cherished ritual as a guy?
Hanging out with other guy friends, shooting the shit, trying to verbally one up each other. I love having conversations comprising solely in-jokes, Simpsons or Aqua Teen Hunger Force references. Annoying to others? Sure is.

*****

Michael Schiavo is the author of The Mad Song. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Tin House, The Believer, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Yale Review, LIT, jubilat, Forklift, Ohio, Seneca Review, The Awl, and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of The Equalizer, an occasional poetry journal that will launch in 2010. He is also an editor of Tight and contributing editor to CUE. He lives in Vermont and blogs occasionally at The Unruly Servant.

By SHAWN KIRSCH

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting recently, much of which I’ve blogged about on my website, That Tall Dude. I kicked it off on a Monday, the anniversary of my return home from Iraq. Nothing that has happened since my return was part of “my plan.” I made many mistakes; I wound up in places I had no plans of returning to; and all of it made me a better version of myself than what I had been.

On that Tuesday, I posted a guest blog on my website, which was simply a paper my sister wrote about me for English 110. As I read through it again, it hit me a lot harder than it had when I read it years ago. I’m a bit older and wiser now, and I am realizing just how much people around us notice what we do, for better or worse. For people like me, who seemingly get involved with everything, there are even more people who see how we act.

The rest of the week, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’ve changed, how people view me, how my tiniest misstep can change someone’s perception of me. I never realized, growing up, that my sister looked up to me and how my arguments with our parents would leave such indelible images in her mind.

I moved in August. I quickly jumped into a great church and wasted no time getting involved in the community. In a few short months I have become a volunteer with the youth group, a go-to guy for tech support, a sound board operator relentless in making the worship team sound better, and the beneficiary of others’ wisdom in Bible studies.

One of those Bible study groups has a passion for father-son relationships. They put on an annual event called Boys to Men at Crystal Springs Baptist Camp, in Medina, North Dakota. They invite fathers and sons to come and try to provide an environment for them to connect with each other. There’s a little time for teaching and worship, but most of the weekend you’re free to do what you want, and lots of activities are available: trap shooting, ice fishing, four-wheeling, basketball, football, ping pong, board games, dodge ball, roller skating, snowball fights, massive bonfires, and more.

I attended the event at the end of the aforementioned week and was struck though, during discussions with the fathers and sons, how different my relationship with my dad is compared to others. At an age when I should be finding more and more things to talk to him about, I continue to struggle to find common ground where I won’t ultimately feel encouraged, or worse, like a disappointment.

Throughout my junior high and high school years, Dad was a truck driver, so he was gone most of the week and too tired to do much when he was home. Being a teenager, I had my fair share of arguments with Mom throughout the week, and then I had them again every weekend when Dad got home. It was a double dose of getting yelled at every week, and I still struggle to get over it.

Perhaps it would be different if I weren’t the oddball of the family, a major geek among digital neophytes. The only solid connection I seem to have with my dad is the farm we lived on before moving to town. I can talk about that stuff with him. But it seems we have to be driving in the pickup, just the two of us, traveling through areas he is comfortable in, before we can have even those conversations.

By the end of the weekend I had come to a strong conviction that relationships among men need to be set early in life, and they need to be kept positive. As technology advances, there are ever more distractions to come between us. We have the same amount of time previous generations did, but we spend it differently. Is there not something we can cut out of our schedules to spend some quality time with each other?

As I observed others that weekend, I saw fathers who at times were a bit bored, doing activities that can become mundane after 30 years of doing them. But they were also doing them with their sons, who were more than thrilled to be doing things they don’t get to do every day, and doing them with Dad. This was especially noticeable with younger sons. All of the fathers and sons were able to get away from the hectic pace of everyday life and talk about stuff they usually overlook.

As for me, I’m now 90 miles from Dad, who is still gone most of the week, and I have a schedule that keeps me busiest on nights and weekends. It isn’t getting any easier to connect with him. In fact, it’s perhaps more difficult now than ever before. I hope that someday we can work everything out and be as tight as some of my friends and their dads are. I hope that if I ever have a son of my own, I establish a great relationship with him at a young age and never let it sour. It may not always be easy, but from my point of view, it looks like it will be worth the time and effort.

*****

Shawn Kirsch describes himself as a 25-year-old, 6-foot-7 single male, who is a Christian, a drummer, a basketball fanatic (and player), a geek, a freelancer, an early adopter, a music lover, a networker, and a veteran.

[Truck photo by aturkus]

This essay is the latest in a series of monthly submissions from members of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity, Division 51 of the American Psychological Association. SPSMM’s objective is to advance knowledge in the psychology of men through research, education, training, public policy, and improved clinical practice.

By BRIAN J. MISTLER

Two heads are better than one. Most of us understand that this maxim speaks to the importance of community. Together you and I can do more than either of us could do apart. Relationships help us achieve greater life satisfaction; build bigger, better things; and make more money. In the language of business, focusing on relationships adds value to the bottom line.

And most of the time we do value our relationships. But often we—I mean, especially we men—act as though we don’t value relationships. In fact, I frequently see men damaging and even destroying relationships they say they value and have certainly worked hard to create. Why? Usually because anger, pride and a belief that pushing back is the way to get what we want causes us to lose focus. The irony is that when we do this, we are often acting in a way that gives us less control and less of what we want.

It’s not a surprise. As men, we grow up idealizing the battle-hardened, zero-tolerance gun slingers who embody the archetype of the detached man doing what it takes to get what he wants. In the Wild West the quickest gun wins, and callin’ me a name is reason enough to shoot ya’. A few thousand movies and maybe a couple playground battles later, and we get it: If someone hits you, hit him back. Of course this often degrades into a broad teach-them-a-lesson mentality, and one that doesn’t apply just to hitting. It applies whenever our pride is threatened or our ego bruised.

Perhaps a tit-for-tat approach is the best way to handle substantive negotiations. If we’re dividing up the marbles, justice may be approximated when I give you another marble only when you give me one. If instead we’re talking about community building and our long-term individual and group interests, we do a heck of a lot better if we also focus on our relationships. And there’s no risk’ Things like compassion, appreciation, and forgiveness are not limited resources.

So as a man, how can I begin to focus more on relationships? To start, listen—listen unconditionally. If I seek first to understand you, I benefit whether or not you reciprocate by understanding me.

Next, be consistently respectful. If the other guy or gal is being unreasonable and antagonistic, I can still do my part by behaving in an honorable, constructive way. In this way, I hold on to the power I have to prevent our conflict from escalating out of control when there is miscommunication and overreactions. In their book Getting Together: Building Relationships as We Negotiate, Roger Fisher and Scott Brown of the Harvard Negotiation Project reach this same conclusion: Putting relationships at the center of our negotiation strategy is critical.

It turns out the Wild West was not tamed just by lone gunslingers—far from it. America was built building by building, town by town, through countless acts of cooperation.  The same is true for today’s communities. Same is true for today’s workplaces, universities and families.

To build a relationship long-term, we can’t make our relationship conditional on the outcome of each quibble. Sure, I’ll lose sometimes. Would I rather get what I want? Absolutely. And if the relationship consistently causes me more pain than it’s worth, you better believe I’ll find another relationship.

Until then, if I can keep my head in the game and focused on the relationship—even when my girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, partner, work colleagues, or family members do not behave the way I would like—I’ll ultimately have better relationships and get much more of what I want. While two heads are better than one, one is better than none.

*****

Brian J. Mistler, PhD, is a psychologist at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and a senior business consultant with Excellence Tree. Named an International Ambassadorial Scholar by Rotary in 2001, Dr. Mistler received his master’s degree in conflict resolution from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom and regularly provides consultation and training in conflict resolution and building multicultural communities. He is the author of more than 50 scholarly and popular articles and a member of APA Division 51 (the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity).

2.) Has romantic love shaped you as a man?
Definitely. My kids (all grown up now, from 22 to 37 years old) call me “cheesy.” I fell madly in love, like love in the movies, once. I was 21. I was totally infatuated, and convinced her after a few weeks to actually marry me, which we managed to do (some extra logistics were involved, since she had returned from school to her home in Mexico City, to stay) about half a year later. We were both 22 when we married. We had a couple years together before our first child, and we ended up growing up together because we were both so young when we started. Love for us changed a great deal through the 40 years we’ve been married. We’ve changed, we’ve been many different people, and we were not always synchronized, but I do think we made each other better. We have annoyed the hell out of each other to different degrees at different times, but I’m amazed, in retrospect, to realize how lucky I was to have found her when I did—and how glad I am that we’re still together. She still amazes me, scares me sometimes, teaches me a lot, infuriates me, worries me, loves me, and reminds me of who I am (ugh), and who I want to be (much better).

3.) What two words describe your dad?
Mensch. Integrity.

4.) How are you most unlike him?
I’m spread a lot further. I’m more confused and less certain.

5.) From which of your mistakes did you learn the most?
For years I imagined that I had built my career, and particularly Palo Alto Software, by myself. I failed to recognize that my wife made it possible for me to work hard at the work I loved without losing the people I loved. It was really we, not I, two of us, who did that. But it took me about 40 years or adulthood to realize how much I had depended on her doing what she did. I did the business, the consulting, the books, the software, and so on; but she did the harder things that made it possible to do that and still be a human, with a family. I still regret how long I spent with that kind of blindness.

6.) What word would the women in your life use to describe you, and is it accurate?
I cheated on this one. I asked three of my four daughters. One said “dependable.” One said “dependable, honest, hardworking.” One said “reliable, dependable.” I’ll take that. And yes, I do think that’s accurate—boring, but accurate.

7.) Who is the best dad you know, and how does he earn that distinction?
I’m glad to say I know a lot of good dads, starting with my own dad, who managed to love us and teach us and stay true to himself and teach integrity by example. My son and my son-in-law are very active fathers, very involved with their children, very much on the right path, but their kids are still very young. I know several men who have been happy with their careers but found time to watch and even coach the kids’ teams, get home for dinner, get away with them for vacations, and keep their balance while teaching by example. How does one earn that distinction? By keeping priorities straight, getting out of the office on time for games, talking to teachers, changing diapers, playing ball, playing computer games, reading books after dinner, getting home for family dinner, being with the family on weekends and not in the office, taking kids into bed when they’re scared, staying up with them when they’re sick, listening to them when you can’t help and the only thing you can do is listen, giving advice that’s advice and not orders.

8.) Have you been more successful in public or private life?
I can’t answer that question because I’m superstitious, and an answer would be tempting fate, which I try not to do. I do know for sure I made the right decision when I married my wife of 40 years, and that’s really important. And I’m very proud of all five of our children.

9.) When was the last time you cried?
In 1999, when my mother-in-law died. I loved her very much. I know this is a man-oriented site, but she was a great woman who managed to give something special to every one around her.

10.) What advice would you give teenage boys trying to figure out what it means to be a good man?
Don’t get caught up in all the sludge that bombards us all. Become the man who stays around people he loves, who walks uphill when he has to rather than always downhill, who tells the damn truth, doesn’t make excuses, keeps promises. Look for somebody who is the same person all the time, not different characters for different people or situations, and that’s a man.

For Bonus Points: What is the your most cherished ritual as a guy?
Waking up early, long before anybody else wakes up, grinding the coffee from the beans, finding the plastic cone and paper filter to make my own cup, and then working on my writing, at the computer, until others wake up.

*****

Tim Berry is the founder and president of Palo Alto Software. Berry is an expert on small-business and entrepreneurship issues. He blogs at Bplans.com, which he founded, and at Huffington Post, USNews.com, Small Business Trends, Up and Running, and other business news sites.

By RON MATTOCKS 

When I was a boy, I watched my dad sink an axe blade into his right leg. He was trying to crack a welded join, connecting a pair of fifty-five-gallon barrels, when the axe head ricocheted off a drum and struck him square in the shin. I remember the dull thump of the metal hitting his leg and the bloody splinters of bone hanging from the cut in his jeans; but mostly I remember the calm way in which he went into the house, took a shower, and then drove himself to the hospital. Aside from muttering something about being stupid, Dad never said a word. Still, the pain contorting his face at every jagged step told me how much agony he must have been in.

It took him maybe twenty minutes to clean up, put on a sports coat, and walk out the door just as casually as if he was getting ready for church. When he backed the station wagon out of the driveway, I could hear the crackling of the gravel under the tires—the same sound that woke me the next morning when he left for work.

If there are tougher men than my father, I’ve never met them. The youngest of six and the son of an alcoholic father, Dad had strength that was formed from tough circumstances and years of manual labor on the family’s farm, and it served him well later in life as a decorated Green Beret fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. Now, at sixty, he might be beginning to show the signs of aging, but that hasn’t made him any less durable.

After his doctor repeatedly recommended knee surgery over the years, Dad finally agreed to the procedure—but only on the condition he could postpone it for eight more months, so that his recovery and rehab coincided with college basketball’s March Madness. Dad’s knees had been giving him trouble for God knows how long, and his legs were so bowed he looked like a plastic action figure made specifically to ride on a toy horse. Yet for all the discomfort this caused him, alleviating it could wait. “Winter’s coming,” he explained. “I need to cut and haul wood before it gets here.”

I’ve always hoped to be as strong as my father, but sitting behind a computer most of the day, I find it difficult to see myself as such. When I call my mother to see what Dad’s up to, I feel a twinge of guilt when she says he’s outside shoveling snow from the driveway. Moments like these make me realize there’s almost no comparison between us in this respect, which is why it surprised me when he admitted to something that he couldn’t handle.

“I couldn’t do it,” he said as I told him of the latest difficulties I was having with my ex-wife and her not allowing me access to my three sons. He shook his head. “You’re tougher than I am.”

It was strange hearing him say this, especially since he said it while we were inspecting the length of a fifty-foot wall he had constructed from rocks he hauled in a rusty wheelbarrow from the woods behind his house. I knew his sentiment was sincere, but I downplayed the problem nonetheless. Yes, it was difficult having to contend with the emotions of living hundreds of miles away from my own children while at the same time overcoming their mother’s roadblocks to my involvement in their lives. These were circumstances I had no choice but to live with, like a life-long illness for which you can treat the symptoms but not find a cure. Even so, I hardly considered my situation on par with hacking one’s shin with an axe blade.

Months later I flew to be with my oldest son while he was having his tonsils removed. It would be a quick trip, with little time for me to spend with all three of the boys, and further complicated by the guidelines their mother had laid down. This didn’t matter much to me, though. I was just grateful for the chance to calm my ten-year-old son’s fears before surgery and then to read to him in the recovery room afterward. But as always, the time together was hardly enough, a sample of sweetness that only reminded me of what I was missing.

That evening, I was given one more bittersweet taste of this when their mother agreed to let me visit with the boys before my flight early the next morning. When I walked through the door, my two youngest sons yelled, “Daddyyyy!” as they jumped on me. Their older brother was resting on the couch amid empty Jell-O cups and crumpled juice boxes. While he dozed, my middle son, who’s seven, took me on a proud tour of his house—the playroom, his bedroom, the guest quarters. “This is where you can stay tonight, Daddy,” he said, pointing to the bed. Of all the boys, he had been the most ecstatic over my presence, and there was hope in his voice, as though a long-requested prayer was about to be answered while he stood there holding my hand.

My stomach went sick. In a short while, the happiness in his face would be erased by the crushing reality that I would be leaving him again. Ignoring this, I smiled back, trying to remain focused on the bliss of the present rather than on the imminent future—a moment I think my son knew was coming despite the optimism in his heart.

A few hours later, the instant I got on my knees and gripped his shoulders, tears spilled down his cheeks. “Son…” I could barely cough out the words; the lump I was choking on wouldn’t let me.

“Dad, I miss you more than you know!” he sobbed, throwing his arms around me.

Having to say goodbye to my sons time and again, never sure of when our next chance to hug will come, is devastating. These gut-wrenching emotions play over and over in a hellish loop every time I have to walk away.

We held each other tightly. A tear streaked from my eye as I whispered that I missed him too. “Everyday,” I said, squeezing him, “everyday.” I made all the promises I could, wanting to make more, but knowing I held no sway over the innumerable circumstances working against my power to ever keep them.

After fifteen minutes and many hugs later—the final one shared next to the driver’s-side door of my rental—I backed out of the driveway. I could see the red rimming my son’s eyes as I waved to him, and he reciprocated the gesture with a withering feebleness.

As I drove away, desperation overcame me at the notion that our separation would be permanent, and I cursed myself for creating such a mess. This act of self-pity reminded me of what my father had said earlier—about not being able to deal with what I had to, that I was tougher than him. I replayed the axe cutting into Dad’s leg—the metal against the bone—and I recalled his strength to keep going despite the pain.

This image stopped me from focusing on my self-imposed state of helplessness and sparked a forgotten determination from a fundamental thought. Emotional pain might outweigh the physical, but we still have to ignore those feelings as we draw from that same internal strength that helps us cope with either one. Sometimes we may need to delve deeper to find that strength; and sometimes we don’t find enough, leaving us with no option but to endure and continue limping forward.  

******

Ron Mattocks is the author of Sugar Milk: What One Dad Drinks When He Can’t Afford Vodka, his memoir about being a divorced father of three boys who remarries, inherits two step-daughters, loses his job, and becomes a stay-at-home dad. Mattocks covers fatherhood issues on his blog, Clark Kent’s Lunchbox. 

[Photo by viZZZual.com]