Just about every sea story starts out the same way: “No shit, this one time. . . ” I guess since I’m penning this right now while out to sea on a boat towing rocks and heavy machinery to Who Knows Where, AK, why not? Even though it’s not really a sea story.
No shit, this one time it was not two weeks before your interview with Caitlin Collins on CNN that I was preparing to give Esquire magazine a jingle. It had been over thirty years since I queried them about this topical issue or that. No shit, I wrote them once about some eco-crazies slamming their boats into other boats in the middle of the ocean in order to save whales and turtles and other majesties of the sea. It was a gutsy guy piece, I thought, that, as it turned out, earned me several rejection notices from all the giants: Playboy, GQ, Hustler, Penthouse, some not-so giants too. These notices were all drafted on cool company stationary and signed commonly by an editorial assistant. No shit, though, I did get this notice one time from a high-up editor at National Geographic, who replied to a query that I submitted about then topical Haiti. I’ll never forget his name or what he said: “National Geographic is a place to end a career not start one.”
You believe that shit?
But back to that other giant, Esquire, who didn’t write me back. No shit, I wrote an insolent letter to them asking why I hadn’t heard back like I did their peers at other magazines and, no shit, Bill T. (funny the names we carry some thirty odd years later, spelling and everything) wrote me back personally, asking for the entire manuscript, which of course got rejected. I think you were there when he was.
Mr. J., no shit, I’m writing to you today because a lot has happened over the past thirty-something years to where I found myself very recently considering giving Esquire another reach-out. Not so much in an effort to sell myself as this now plausible staff writer, which is what I was trying to do back then in vain, but rather to pose some manner of irreverent question like, The hell’s happened to you, Esquire? Okay, maybe schmooze them into considering me as a guest contributor once in a while, why not? We’re not insolent anymore. We’re “irreverent.”
The hell’s happened to Esquire since writers like you, Mr. J. Yessir, I carry your name, too. How do I not? Your writings were great reads back in my twenties.
Just a few weeks before your CNN interview, divided mentally and evenly between my draft to Esquire and consuming a short story collection by William Gay (love love love the southern writers), I looked your name up. For all I knew you’d gone tits up. If not, where’d you go? Had you ever written any books, I wondered.
And here we are. You’re not tits up as evidenced by your recent interview with Caitlin Collins on CNN. You got fired by Esquire, at least as far as I can tell. I know a little something about that. I was fired at age fifty five amid strong social winds that I suspect were similar to the ones that buffeted you. Why else am I towing goddamn rocks and big Tonka toys along the windy Aleutian chain right now? Hundred knot gusts just two days ago, no shit.
And yes, come to find out from that fresh CNN interview, you have written a book, son of a. . . I’m so happy it wasn’t a Fox night. I alternate.
Things Men Carry is what I began a little over five years ago, Sir, when I had decided two things: the short story form, which is what I concentrated in in grad school, is just not something I enjoy writing very much. I think my profs beat any enjoyment I had for it out of me. No shit, I had the honor of studying under a staff writer at Esquire who was there a while after you. He told me something similar to what National Geographic told me: “Yeah, so, you may want beat down some other doors first before Esquire.”
You believe that shit?
And for my second epiphany: I don’t recognize Esquire anymore; screw it, then, I told myself, I’ll start my own men’s magazine. Call it Esquire, but with the toilet seat up (close).
Or Men’s Room (closer).
I couldn’t copy Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried of course, the ultimate inspiration for my title. Things We Carry was already taken.
Now I sit, then, no shit, schmoozing you to submit something for us. Won’t you consider an excerpt from your book for Things Men Carry? Or something else that you carry that you didn’t get around to sharing in your book? The latter is most preferred; we’ll give you a nice bio at the end.
Way I see it, Things Men Carry is a colorful cast of irreverent but informed vignettes, many of which we can easily stretch out to longer pieces. We are men writing to and for men; that’s non-negotiable. We’re not prescriptive. We’re not coaches. We just carry things around here worth sharing with others and along the way, hopefully, shape ourselves into better, more informed men.
The beauty in all of this is that no matter what happens next–Esquire says no, you say no–I’ll still keep at this thing. A new follower here, another guest contributor there. I think it’s gonna take just one, which of course it’s never just one. There’ll be pay walls and subscriptions; I’ll even run full names. No shit, Mr. J., it’s where we’re going.
But only with giants like you helping us.
-tmc
Things Men Carry 