Men's Journal

Photo credit: Nick Leary

Pick up the November issue of Men’s Journal to meet the man under Tim McGraw’s trademark black hat - and get a unique look at how he’s overcome his personal struggles and family battles. You’ll also get to see the incredible rides Jay Leno has stashed in his garage, follow in the footsteps of the deadly Birdman race of Easter Island, and learn about 28 great places to get sun and tropical adventure this winter. Plus: Don’t miss Justin Heckert’s haunting survival story of a father and son caught in a riptide and their struggle to endure overnight in the ocean.

From Stephen Rodrick’s The Redemption of Tim McGraw:

The Smithsonian should box and preserve Tim McGraw’s Nashville den for a future exhibit entitled “Early 21st Century American Man Cave.” There’s a cell phone that recently flashed a text reading “i’m a viking. call you later. brett.” His father Tug’s 1980 World Series Championship trophy sits on a desk. Above the fireplace is a framed American flag from his Navy vet grandfather. There are photos of his three daughters and Faith Hill, his wife. You may have heard of her.

McGraw has something else he wants to show me. Hanging off the back of his lounge chair is a tattered piece of blue fabric resembling an overgrown dish towel. “I’ve had that blanket since I was 13,” says McGraw, dressed in khaki shorts, a faded T-shirt, and a Tennessee Titans cap. He gives his Rosebud an affectionate rub. “There’s been a lot of ups and downs in life, good and bad. This blanket has been through it all.”

From Bucky McMahon’s I Am Birdman, Hear Me Roar:

It was a perfect morning for a Birdman. Bright. Blustery. I hiked up the ancient Ao Road singing, stopping just outside the gates of Orongo. From that great height I could see the corduroy of the swell, its pattern of shade and shimmer, and hear the roar as it gnawed at the shore far below. There was no Birdman king to signal “go!” No rival to compete against — no Esai Morales to my Jason Scott Lee. No one would be trying to murder me, and I wouldn’t be eaten if I lost, unless by a shark. But at that moment I believed I shared something of the spirit of the Birdman: for God, protein, and poontang!

I started running down the volcano toward the sea, dodging boulders, soaring down sudden inclines into 10-foot-tall grasses, past horses that craned their necks and showed me the whites of their eyes. The pell-mell descent took me back to boyhood running, tireless and hilarious, and seemingly always downhill. And back to the boyhood of man, when men sat around fires and made shit up, saying, “Who has the egg, he is the Birdman.”

At the end of the meadow, I passed under the shade of eucalyptus — reforestation — then back out into bright sunlight, the cliffs of Mataveri coming into sight now. I was leaping erosion ditches and scrambling over rocks, until at last I stood panting at the edge of a cliff some 40 feet above the sea.

From Ezra Dyer’s Jay Leno’s Time Machines:

Jay Leno peers at the maze of plumbing beneath the 1907 White steam car, produces a lighter and begins putting flame to a jet of gasoline spurting from one of the pipes. “You have to turn the gasoline into a vapor,” he says, as I reflexively back away, visions of a tragic pre-OSHA industrial boiler explosion leaping into my mind. Wondering how he ever perfected the procedure for starting a 1907 White — never mind the idiosyncrasies of all the other old machinery spread out over the property — I ask Leno how often he comes to his garage. “At least a couple of hours every day,” he says. “This is the only place I go.”

For good reason: Any gearhead worth his scraped knuckles would find Leno’s place to be the second coming of Eden. I had long heard tales of what’s stored inside, yet upon arrival I’m still awed by the scale of his obsession. “I have about 105 cars and about 85 motorcycles,” says Leno, his need to guesstimate hinting at the constant flux of the collection. Leno’s Big Dog Garage — and calling this edifice a garage is like calling the Vatican a honky-tonk holy house — is the centerpiece of his compound and is split between two industrial-park buildings that from the outside look like they should contain plumbing supplies. One is devoted to works in progress; the other houses those cars that are fettled and ready to drive.

From Justin Heckert’s Lost In The Waves:

The ocean at night is a terrible dream. There is nothing beyond the water except the profound discouragement of the sky, every black wave another singular misfortune. Walt Marino has been floating on his back for hours, the ocean on his skin, his mouth, soaking the curls of his graying hair. The water has cracked his lips, has formed a slippery glaze on his shoulders and arms. The salt has stuck to his contact lenses, burning the edges of his eyes. A small silver pendant of the Virgin Mary sticks to his collarbone on a link chain. He can no longer see the car key floating below his stomach, tied to the string of his floral swim trunks. The water licks against his ears. Every familiar sound is gone.

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