Notes by Tom Matlack on two amazing school visits.

Julio, James and I visited two schools for at-risk boys in Dorchester –– Epiphany School and Dorchester Youth Academy. Eighty-four middle school boys and girls attend Epiphany 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in an effort to break the cycle of poverty through education. It has Episcopal affiliation and is an amazing program and physical structure. Epiphany admits most students by lottery (younger siblings are generally admitted automatically), while 20% of students are referred from the state foster care system. About 60% of graduates have gone on to college after high school, nearly twice the national rate of their peers from low-income families.

The Dorchester Youth Academy serves kids who have been thrown out of school. Some are already in trouble with the law. The boys all read the book and were frankly the most positive reviewers of the book we have ever had. “That thing was MAD good!”

We talked to around 50 boys, and when I asked the teachers at both schools how many had fathers in their lives, the answer was less than 10%. “You can count it on one hand”, one teacher said.

At Epiphany School, the students had taken Julio’s essay and pulled out passages and posted on big boards, along with the boys responses to those passages. When we arrived, they showed us what they had written. I was profoundly moved by how much they took seriously what we had to say.

As always, James and I did our best but Julio was truly the star. The boys were shouting his name while we were still in the parking lot at both schools. It was like we were traveling with a rock star. They had us all sign their books. But above all, Julio’s message was inspiring and blunt and on point.

At Dorchester Youth Academy, the students wrote essays after our visit. Here are some things that the boys said they learned after hearing us speak:

“I’m going to let people help me instead of taking matters into my own hands.”

“Don’t always try to be the money man . If you want to be the money man, make it slow, hard, & safe instead of fast , easy , & dangerous. And also, “make the money, don’t let the money make you.”
“I learned the streets isn’t going anywhere. The streets, will always be there, but will school be?”

“Do Good. Don’t screw up & if you do screw up or mess up really bad, be ready to FIX or handle what ever the consequences may be.”

For an upcoming book, The Good Men Project is seeking vivid, compelling essays from 13- to 19-year-old boys that explore this topic: Describe a moment that changed you.

We’re looking for essays about family, identity, loss, conflict, friendship, sex, relationships, gender, sexuality, addiction, and anything else that may have changed you or profoundly impacted your life. Nothing is off limits. We want the opposite of what you might write for the essay portion of the SAT. Don’t tell us what you think we want to hear. Tell us the truth of your experience.

The more specific you can be about the moment that changed you, the better. Bring that moment to life for us. Help us understand what you were thinking and feeling. Did the moment change you for the better? For the worse? How has it impacted your view of the world, or of yourself?

Guidelines: Essays must be previously unpublished, double-spaced, and between 1,000 and 4,000 words. Be sure to include your name, email, and contact number on the top of the first page.

The deadline for this first round of submissions (we will likely have a second round in the fall) is July 1st, 2010. You can get the essay to us in one of two ways. 1) Email the essay to goodmenprojectbook2@gmail.com. Be sure to attach the essay as a word document and to paste the essay in the body of the email. OR 2) Mail the essay the old fashioned way to Good Men Boys Book, c/o Allison Matlack, 490 B Boston Post Road, Sudbury, MA, 01776. Essays should be stapled. Submissions will not be returned.

About The Good Men Project. It started as a book. Then a film. It has since grown into national discussion about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. There’s been a series of live events. And an online platform that includes Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and a slew of other sites.  An online magazine is launching June 1, 2010. The Good Men Project is also a part of the Good Men Foundation, a registered 501(3)c charitable organization designed to help men and boys at risk.

For more information, please contact Lisa Hickey lisahickeycreative@gmail.com

1) The conversation is important. Thirty-one guys have shared their stories with the world. Stories about war and sex and sexuality and infidelity and redemption and death and marriage. There are stories about men trying to be good fathers and men trying to be good sons. Are they all “good” men? You tell us. This is the conversation we want to have.

2) The reviews are as good as it gets. Ok, don’t believe everything you hear. Forget the hype for a minute. Pay no attention to the fact that out of 57 reviews of The Good Men Project, it’s nearly impossible to find one that’s critical. Maybe, instead, look at the words of a reviewer that validates what we set out to do in the first place: “Each man’s story shed light on my own.”

3) The stories will surprise you. Do you really know what it’s like to be a photojournalist in Iraq, one who thinks he might want to come back to the US, live a normal life, but finds himself inexplicitly drawn back to the foxholes again and again? Have you struggled with being a reluctant stay at home dad, envious of men who go off to work? Have you had a moment with your wife when you stormed out of the house, and in retrospect said, “Truth be told, I was leaving her.” The stories are varied, and rich, and interesting. For example, read Michael Kamber’s story here.

4) How often do you the get the chance to meet and talk to every character in a book?
You can friend Tom Matlack, Jesse Kornluth, Julio Medina on Facebook. Follow Perry Glasser and Andre Tippet on Twitter. Visit Mark St. Amant’s or Rick Federico’s blog. Comment on an interview with Christopher Koehler. Take a yoga class with Rolf Gates. They’re real people. Every one of them. You can talk to them.

5) It sure beats a hammer or a tie. Have you shopped for a Father’s Day gift lately? Not such a bad thing, to let your father know you think he’s a good man.

6) Not surprisingly, girls believe in The Good Men Project, too. Well, sure. Here’s a review from a site for girls: “…with everything from Tiger Woods, to Chris Brown, to the dozens of politicians having affairs, to all the kidnapping stories of young girls, to the kind of men we have experienced in our own lives… sometimes it’s hard for girls to have any kind of faith that there are good boys and men in the world. “The Good Men Project” is finally a group of men stepping up and saying that they want to be people we can believe in.” From THIS review.

7) Proceeds help at-risk boys and men. The Good Men Foundation is a registered New York State 501(c)(3) charitable corporation dedicated to helping organizations that provide educational, social, financial or legal support to men and boys at risk. A part of every sale goes back to the Foundation. What exactly does that mean? It means that when the Foundation gives $50 to The Big Brothers and Big Sisters, they can introduce a boy to a potential Big Brother. It means when the Foundation gives $25 to the Trinity Street Potential, that organization will have funds to buy art supplies for another week. It means that when the Boys and Girls Club gets $100, they can buy a violin for their music class. Money buys tangible things that help at-risk boys. That’s why we donate it.

You can buy The Good Men Project book on the website, here. It’s also on Amazon. Soon to be in stores such as Barnes & Noble. As a Kindle book. And don’t forget the DVD.

The NYC Dads Group is — well, just what it sounds like, — a group of dads in NYC that that helps involved fathers network with each other, share interesting thoughts, news, content and playgroup information. It also holds meet ups during the week for stay-at-home dads, part-time at home dads, freelance, etc., that are looking to get together during the week.

Here’s what they have to say about The Good Men Project book and DVD.

“What Does It Mean To Be A Good Man? This is the essential question addressed in a recent anthology, a group of essays, in The Good Men Project: Real stories from the front lines of modern manhood. I just finished reading this fascinating and powerful book.

Basically, The Good Men Project, is a forum for modern men of all stripes to share honest & gripping stories about their greatest challenges, struggles, losses, and triumphs. Even though this book revolves around the core of what it means to be a good man – the project pioneers that created this anthology (James Houghton, Larry Bean, and Tom Matlack) make sure to not provide an answer to this overarching question. No, they leave it to the reader to extrapolate pieces from the stories combined with self-reflection in their own lives to come to a conclusion. What sold me on this project is the depth, candid-ness, and graphic nature of the stories that the different men share.

Who are the men, the voices, telling these stories? They are fathers, sons, husbands, and workers. Some are wealthy and some are poor, some are white and some are from ethnic backgrounds, some are from urban areas and some from the burbs. “From Pulitzer winners and Poet Laureates to ex-cons, Pro Football Hall of Famers, a soldier, and just regular guys.”

There is even a story from Charlie LeDuff, describing his role as a stay-at-home dad… [READ MORE HERE ON THE NYC DADS GROUP BLOG]

Thank you New York!

By: REGIE O’HARE GIBSON

I am nine. It’s a typical Chicago summer, hot and urban, with the smell of barbecue and hot sauce spanking the air as though it were a disobedient three-year-old. My younger brother, Ron, and I are in Mother’s beauty shop, Gibson’s House of Styles. Today is Saturday, the day she sculpts the heathen heads of women into shapes God will accept in church tomorrow morning. Today my mother is a conjure woman, hard at work on her customers’ illusions. Her eye of newt and toe of frog? Sulfur 8 and lanolin shampoo. Her wool of bat and tongue of dog? Dark and Lovely and #8 black rinse. We watch as hair, once as unreasonable as a slumlord on the eighth of the month, surrenders to the merciless teeth of the black straightening comb––instrument of torture, agent of beauty.

I can remember every one of these women’s names: Miss Dorthee, Miss Moshell, Miss Dareese… They are every sepia shade imaginable. Some are as wide as a Sunday-morning church hat. Some are as skinny as they swear they will make their men’s wallets come Monday.

You damn right, I’m my own woman! I don’t need no man to take care of me.

I know what you mean girl! I’d do alright by myself too, and believe me my man better know it! And my man know that he better be payin’ for what’s on this head if he wants what’s in these pants…

Their collective laughter is fever-pitched in the blow-dried air. Livening their mouths are momentary glints of gold or silver teeth, giving away the Mississippi they came from.

If a man don’t wanna put clothes on your back then you don’t let him put you on yours!

Girl, you sho’ is right about that! Some say it’s what’s up front that counts, but if a man ain’t got dollars then bein’ with him just don’t make no sense.

I look up at my mother’s hands. They are busy hexing a head of hair. I look at myself, look over at my brother. He is staring at the television, lost in Saturday morning animation. But I am living the cartoon.

Is this what women really think, or are they just saying these things to get a laugh? Is this the way it really is between men and women? Did any of the men know this? Oh no, is my mother like them?

So how have these childhood memories and experiences affected me as a man and, subsequently, my relationship with women?

I can understand if you’ve drawn the conclusion that I don’t have a very high opinion of the women in the beauty shop. But that’s untrue. These women always treated me well. They were both formidable and kind. They handled their homes and children well, and despite their weekly reaming-of-the-man ritual, most of the women took care of the men in their lives in a loving, albeit heavy-handed, fashion. Still, I’ve been distrustful of women, fearing that one day a woman might give kisses on the face and on another day a knife in the back, and that women are materialistic and selfish and are only out for what they can get.

However, my closest friends have been women. Perhaps my confusion over what I call my “beauty-shop moments” has caused me to seek out genuine friendships with women. When I have related some of my fears to my women friends, more than a handful have said that they have sometimes felt the need to reduce a relationship to things monetary to compensate for a relationship’s lack of intimacy, communication, and simple courtesy.

So I have learned to conduct periodic “relationship check-ins” with the women in my life––whether the relationship is familial, romantic, or platonic. I don’t care what a man says; if he is honest, he will admit that a large part of his self-image hinges upon how he is perceived by the women around him.

And I have learned a few things about becoming a better husband, father, and man. I have learned the importance of preparing my home to receive a woman; this shows respect for her and for myself. I have learned to ask questions at least as much as I make statements, to be careful about raising my voice in anger—far too many women have experienced yelling as a prelude to violence—and to show strength and sensitivity. That is, to be respectful of women but not a fool for them. Yes, this might be fortune-cookie stuff, but it’s still good advice.

Confronting the question honestly has become part of a psychological journey that has been delightful and disturbing, nostalgic and nasty––but also necessary in my ongoing quest to understand this ever-shifting thing called manhood.

—

Regie O’Hare Gibson is one of the thirty-one original author/contributors in The Good Men Project anthology. A poet, songwriter, author, workshop facilitator and educator, Gibson and his work appear in the New Line Cinema film Love Jones, which is based largely on events in his life. His poem “Brother to the Night (A Blues for Nina)” is on the movie’s soundtrack and is performed by the film’s star, Larenz Tate. In the film, Gibson performs “Hey Nappyhead” with world-renowned percussionist and composer Kahil El Zabar, who wrote the score for the musical The Lion King.

I was fortunate enough to be in the room when the idea for Good Men, Vol. II was revealed to a public audience for the first time.  The concept is simple: invite the voices of young men (aged 12-19) through a nationwide essay contest and community outreach to respond to a prompt like: “What’s the hardest thing you have had to do and how did that change what you think is right?”  The Good Men Project would then select several dozen essays to be developed further with the help of the original Good Men (now “GOOD MENtors.”)  The best essays would be published in book form with the rest being posted on the website.

The excitement was palpable. The occasion was the 2010 ISHA Conference titled “The View From Mars: Where Does this Sexualized Culture Leave Today’s Youth?” We were in a room full of educators: health ed. teachers and nurses, deans and dorm advisors, who are on the front lines of boys trying to become men amidst widely-disseminated messages of violence, impulsiveness, sexual conquest, and intense pressures to achieve.  The faces were welcoming; the follow-up questions supportive.  I should have been thrilled by the reaction, but something didn’t feel quite right.

The very popularity of the concept made me wonder if men were washed up – maybe it’s too late for us – in the eyes of some of the audience members (who were 70% women).  Men striving to be good men were interesting, but men helping boys to become good men were truly praiseworthy.  It’s been an undercurrent I’ve noticed for the past year I’ve been involved with the Good Men Project: men, and men’s issues, are threatening.  When the discourse switched from men to boys the room seemed to exhale.

We distributed index cards that bore the question: “What adjectives/phrases would you use to define/come to mind when you think of a good man?”  The most common response for the women in the room was, “kind.”  The most common response for the men in the room was “honest.”   At one point a woman in the crowd described a good man as “tender and caring with his children,” and “chivalrous and polite” with his wife.  I understand; I want to fit both of those descriptions.  But being a man is more than that, and I’m afraid that it is going to have to be the men who plant and unfurl that flag.

As Tom Matlack, The Good Men Project cofounder, put it very succinctly that day, “We’re not talking about boys and men becoming more like women.”  Thinking again about the prompt for the nationwide essay contest (“What’s the hardest thing you have had to do and how did that change what you think is right?”), I think we can say that being a good man starts with knowing your own mind.  It’s not a coincidence that the word “confidence” comes from the root “to confide.”  To be able to express shameful and confusing secrets in a constructive way – to be boldly vulnerable – is a process by which one becomes okay with one’s self, by which one realizes perhaps for the first real time that one has a self.

I’m looking forward to a prompt or a series of prompts that put boys on the line to confide their moments of truth.  On the drive home from the presentation, I was greeted with a small parade of the moments that made me a man.  Those were the moments when I had only myself to query, when I had to make a decision that I could live with, often in contrast with the expectations of family and even the dictates of society.  I anticipate that a boy hearing his own voice could be the beginning of him knowing who he is.  That could reduce crime.  That could reduce teen suicide.  That could be considered kind.  But I don’t think we can get there any way but by encouraging writing that is honest, first.

Stuart Horwitz’s essay, “The Act You’ve Known for All These Years,” appears in The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Frontlines of Modern Manhood.

We’ve been to Sing Sing to talk to lifers, premiered our film in front of a standing-room-only crowd of 500 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and visited a boys’ school in Massachusetts with our NFL Hall of Fame contributor. In New York, we staged an Off Broadway reading with an ex-con who got out of the drug trade and Ivy League grad who left his family’s multinational business. We had another reading in New York on sexuality at a community center for gay and lesbians, and we screened the film at a feminist bookstore.

Co-Editors Tom Matlack, Larry Bean and James Houghton

We’ve presented a wide range of manhood-related topics at an even wider range of venues, but here I want to talk about fatherhood, specifically the effect the absence of a father can have on children. According to the Fathers & Families Coalition of America, more than 28 million children in the United States do not have a dad in their home, and more than a third of those children will not have any contact with their fathers in the next year. The coalition reports that a child with an absent father is 71 percent less likely to complete high school than is a child living in a household where a father is present, and that 85 percent of the youths in juvenile detention centers across the country grew up without fathers. These numbers suggest that boys from fatherless homes can easily fall into the at-risk population.

The Good Men Foundation, the charitable arm of the Good Men Project, was set up to benefit organizations that help boys who are at-risk. The foundation will donate proceeds from the sales of the book and DVDs to such organizations. Sales so far have been brisk enough for us to give thanks to a few groups that do amazing work with at-risk boys. We’re making $5,000 grants to the Boys & Girls Clubs, Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Dorchester Youth Alternative Academy and Trinity Street Potential in Boston, and Exodus Transitional Community in New York.

You can do your part as well: Buy our book and DVD package for the people–men and women–on your holiday gift list. All proceeds will go to the aforementioned organizations, and you’ll be spreading the work about the Good Men Project and helping to foster a nationwide conversation about what it means to be a good father, good son, good husband, good worker, and good man.

Tom Matlack addressing The Belmont Hill School where students asked questions like, “If I do something bad is it still possible for me to be a good man?”

The venue was Tory Row in Cambridge, MA. Around two dozen people showed up. There was a  bit of history on how the project started, how it started with a story, of course. And one story led to another, and now, through this simple act of story-telling, the Good Man Project is sparking a national discussion on what it means to be a man in America today. Essay winner Perry Glasser read “Iowa Black Dirt.” Tom Matlack read “Crash and Learn.” There were questions, discussion, laughter. And when we asked the audience, “Does this whole question of manhood matter to you?” there were eloquent answers. One felt the stories help teach lessons, another man cited that there is a building market for these kinds of stories especially since he just listened to a story of NPR about Michael Lewis’ book. Someone else admitted he uses the website as a touchstone to help him think through his current challenges as a working family man.

The book tour has begun.

Esquire Gets it Wrong, Again

As usual, Esquire continues to get it wrong. Once a dead-on reflection of how a man should act and a bastion of all things male, the magazine has fallen off its pedestal and become more like a farm team for People magazine. It certainly does not lead the parade for American men.

Consider the May issue, titled “How to Be a Man”, which tells us men “what” we should be and  ”who” we should emulate. It also lets us know what material “things” define us and should be found in the top drawer of our dressers.

Writer Tom Chiarella tells us that a guy should know how to “bust balls,”  “make things like a rock wall,” “surreptitiously sneak a look at cleavage,” and refer to a vagina as “snatch.” Tom also says, “…if a man doesn’t like his job he gets a new one.” Apparently Tom hasn’t taken a look at the job market lately.

Other Esquire writers assist in the issue’s attempt to weave the complex tapestry of men.

Consider the profiles of what I gather to be “real men.” The subjects include Joe Rogan. Forgive me, but this is a chap whose identity eludes me. My 17-year-old son tells me he was on a TV program called Fear Factor. Also profiled are Russell Crowe, Chris Rock, Peyton Manning, Mickey Rourke, Barack Obama, John McEnroe, and Brad Pitt. The common thread among these individuals is their status as celebrities by virtue of their accomplishments in politics , sports or entertainment.

So if being a movie or TV personality, famous politician or all-star athlete is the key to the Man kingdom, then count them in, and, I guess, me out. And also count out my neighbor Joe, who runs a small landscaping business with his two sons. And count out James, who was recently laid off from his job at a Boston utility company but is taking on odd landscaping jobs with Joe to help keep the house afloat and food on the table for him, his wife and two kids while he also tries to finish his business degree at night. My street is dotted with similar guys with parallel stories of manhood.

The most absurd part of this issue is the “stuff” the editorial staff feels every man should own. OK guys, try to imagine your lives without a $130 flashlight, $355 boots, a $500 chainsaw, a $60 business card holder, and a $500 weekend duffel bag (that’s $250 a day and, by my math, a week bag would cost $1,250). How have we gotten by for all these years without these necessities?

As a man, no, as a real man and not the kind of man who Esquire deems relevant, I find it easy to poke fun at the silly and vacuous approach this magazine takes in trying to define a man. But a real man does not laugh at the expense of others’ shortcomings without trying to offer help. So here it is, the essence of man according to Paul:

Being a man means that you are true to your word and accept life’s responsibilities. Do what you say you will, be where you say you’ll be, and walk only in your shoes.

In the final scene of the movie Forest Gump, Forest and his son, Little Forest, are sitting alongside the road outside their home, waiting for LF’s school bus. A simple father-and-son moment of small talk about doing well in school, minding your teachers–the kind of stuff about which a father would normally talk to his child. As the bus approaches, Forest turns to his son and, in one simply sublime and sweeping moment, sums up the essence of manhood by telling LF that he will “be here,” waiting for him when the bus brings him home from school.

Anyone can send flowers, buy Celtics tickets, plan trips and make and/or pay for dinner. Only a few men can make good on their word when they commit to something for themselves, family, or the greater world. This is where a man must continually score high marks. I can leave a meaningful legacy in life only by earning people’s trust and “being there.”

Sorry, George Clooney. You’re just not man enough for me.

I know it’s not politically correct to admit that the plump star of 30 Rock is my higher power, but ever since he appeared on a SNL cooking show skit talking about holiday balls and using a string of adjectives that started with sugary and sweet and ended swith ”shweaty,” I have been in love.  I know he’s a bad boy.  I know he was taped saying nasty things on his adolescent daughter’s voicemail, but what father of an adolescent girl hasn’t spoken sharply to her once in a while and harbored homicidal thoughts?

The May issue of The Atantic features a story about my man (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200905/alec-baldwin) and his book. The story’s author, Caitlin Flanagan, suggests that A Promise to Ourselves is really a love letter to Baldwin’s daughter.  I may be in the minority, but I agree with this view, however convoluted the man may be.

Alec is the poster boy for our humanity as men, guys struggling– despite our many problems–to do the right thing.  He wrote the book ostensibly to help other guys navigate family court, where, as fathers, we get screwed.  He isn’t anti-women (just anti-that-one-movie-star-woman); he’s pro-guy.  He describes the lengths to which he has had to go to protect his relationship with his daughter, including facing his own many shortcomings.  What father, married or divorced, can’t relate to that?

Then there’s the matter of his cranky approach to fame.  He is both amazingly arrogant and self-hating at the same time.  He hates the people he works for  (“network scumbags who are always trying to fuck me”) while openly admitting his own inadequacy (“I really don’t have a talent for movie acting”).  Whether you are a rocket scientist or collect garbage for a living, can’t you relate to the instinct to point fingers as a way of breaking the boredom of self doubt?

There has been much written about my hero, but my favorite profile of my Alec (actually my favorite profile, period) is the New Yorker’s “Why Me? Alec Baldwin’s disappointment, undimmed by success,” by Ian Parker.  http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/08/080908fa_fact_parker

Read it, love it, and learn from it.  Alec is the man.  Okay, he’s a guy just trying to get by, just like me and you.