SUIT UPDitch the

“poor collegestudent” look

SHE’S A NUTCASE

break up with her before she kills you

COLLEGE GRADUATES

WHY ITSUCKS TO BE YOUIt may surprise you...(it may not)

Ral

phLa

uren

.com

1-8

88-R

ALP

H

25 101 WAYS TO CHEAT DEATH How to ensure you live and breathe to fight another day T.E HOLT , M.D.

29 GAIN MUSCLE, LOSE POUNDS This food will help you do both KEVIN TURNER

34 IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S HER 5–somewhat easy ways to break up with lil’ Miss Lunatic RANDY JENSEN

37 HEALTHY MEALS ...That don’t involve tofu or artichoke (Promise) HANK RILEY

Photography by Richard Keele

40 THE SIMPLE LIFE The hardest thing in life may be ... to live simply WALTER SMITH

PURSUIT featuresApril 2012

8SUCKFESTSucks to be Us The reality that faces today’s college graduates: they’re screwed, coddled, self-absorbed, mocked and a surprisingly resilient generation. NOREEN MALONE

PURSUIT Magazine | 3

6 SPORT THE STYLISH SUIT 5 reasons why business casual is suitable for more than just business CHRISTINA PREETHA

14 COOL CASH FOR COLLEGE 9 Ways to loosen up that tight budget and pay for school J.D. ROTH

16 Q&A: THERE SHE IS, NOW WHAT? No more excuses! Talk to her with confidence DAVID DEANGELO

46 GET OUT AND CLIMB 10 great climbs that will kick your butt SAMUEL BIESINGER

50 DON’T LET YOUR NEW JOB KILL YOU Would it kill ya to put in an honest days work? –Maybe. RICK SWENSON

PURSUIT departments

On the CoverSucks to be US: The reality that faces today’s college graduates: they’re screwed, coddled, self-absorbed, mocked and a surprisingly resilient generation. Noreen Malone » p. 8

Suit Up - 5 Reasons why Men look good in Suits: Why business casual is suitable for more than just business Christina Preetha » p. 6

She’s a Nutcase: Break up with her before she kills you - 5–somewhat easy ways to break up with miss lunatic Randy Jensen » p. 34

Cover Photo: Richard Keele - Keele PhotographyModel: Jeff Hegerhorst

SUIT UPDitch the

“poor collegestudent” look

SHE’S A NUTCASE

break up with her before she kills you

COLLEGE GRADUATES

WHY ITSUCKS TO BE YOUIt may surprise you...(it may not)

4 | PURSUIT Magazine

1. ClassMen just look so classy in suits! You don’t have to be a

movie star to have that certain

indefinable something in your

air when you wear a suit.

Note: Please refer to my

previous statement about

looking like a used car sales-

man. That is not classy. Also,

if it is wacky or doesn’t fit

well or comes in the colors

of the rainbow, lay off or

risk looking like the Mask.

Women will be stealing covert

glances at you alright…and

laughing their heads off.

2. ConfidenceWomen aren’t just attracted to

your looks. You slouch when

you’re in casuals, but you know

that you need good posture to

carry off formals. This makes

you look more confident. Often,

exuding an air of confidence

makes up for other irregulari-

ties in your looks.

Note: It’s not just the suit,

you have to be comfortable

in it! If this is a problem,

practice wearing it in front of a

mirror. Choose suits which fit

you well and are comfortable

when you sit, walk or do other

everyday activities.

3. MaturityContrary to what you might

believe, wearing clothes a

teenager would wear does not

make you look any younger.

If you’re forty or fifty or even

older, be proud of it! Women

associate maturity with stabil-

ity and success. And they

also hope that you will behave

like a gentleman if you look

like one. Please do.

Repeat after me, looking mature is a good thing.

4. GroomingOne of my girlfriends once

told me that the first thing she

notices about a man is whether

he is well groomed. Men tend

to let themselves go a bit and

grooming takes a backseat in

daily casuals, but they’re much

more careful about it when

they’re wearing formals. And

all that extra effort shows!

Girls dig that, trust me.

5. It’s DifferentYou wear the same old jeans

and stuff everyday. And we

think you look good, honestly.

We like it when you’re just

chilling out and being yourself.

But looking at you in a suit

one fine day after weeks and

weeks of the same pair of jeans,

it’s like bam! You’re a different

guy. Women start to think that

there might be unplumbed

depths in you after all.

reasons women like men in suits

“Suits are full of joy‘They’re the sartorial equivalent of a

baby’s smile.”

» Barney Stinson: How I Met Your Mother

SUIT PURSUIT

I’ll let you in on a secret, guys: we think you look hot in formal wear. Do you want to be noticed by the woman you’ve been too scared to approach? Wear a suit. CHRisTiNa PReeTHa

5

6 | PURSUIT Magazine

WEAR ITWELL

Suit/TieMatching Tips

Even the nicest suit and most expensive designer tie can look cheap if matched incorrectly. Below are 3 tips that will make matching your suits and neck-ties a piece of cake:

1. ColorsThree simple things must be considered when it comes to color matching: The season of the year, do the colors on each clothing piece go together, and what colors look good on you.

2. PatternsIf you choose to wear a pat-terned suit and tie together make sure that the patterns are different in size and style. This is not only true for the suit and the tie but for all the clothing pieces on an outfit.

3. Fabric & Texture

Finally you should pay some attention to the fabric of the tie and the suit. Most neckties are made from silk but some (especially trendy skinny ties) are made from cotton or knitted wool. Make sure that the fabric of the tie matches the suit.

There you go ,with those simple tips you will be able to get the correct tie for any occa-sion and any suit you have.

Sinatra »

This guy knows what I’m talkin about »

SUCKSSUCKS to be US.

I know this might read as

very woe-is-us, but these are

the facts: Nearly 14 percent

of college graduates from the

classes of 2006 through 2010

can’t find full-time work, and

overall just 55.3 percent of

people ages 16 to 29 have jobs.

That’s the lowest percentage

since World War II, as you

might have heard an Occupy

Wall Street protester point out.

(Not coincidentally, one in five

young adults now lives below

the national poverty line.)

Almost a quarter more people

ages 25 to 34—in other words,

people who should be a few

years into their independent

lives—are living with their

parents than at the beginning

of the recession.

Every generation finds, eventually, a mode of

expression that suits it. Cavemen drew lines

on their cave walls. Sixties kids marched. My

generation, we Gchat, a million tiny windows

blinking orange with hopes and dreams and

YouTube links, with five-year plans and lunch

plans. So as I began to search for a single phrase that could,

preposterously, describe our entire cohort, post-crash, I did what

I always do in moments of crisis. I Gchatted my 24-year-old sister

Clare, who happens to be living back at home with our parents

while she looks for a job:

The reality that faces today’s college graduates: they’re screwed, coddled, self-absorbed, mocked and a surprisingly resilient generation. NoReeN MaLoNe

SUCKS to be US.

Being young is supposed to mean you have the luxury of time.

But in hard times, a few fallow years can become a lifetime drag on

what you earn, sort of the opposite of compound interest. Because

the average person grabs 70 percent of their total pay bumps dur-

ing their first ten years in the workforce, according to a paper from

the National Bureau of Economic Research, having stagnant

or nonexistent wages during that period

means you hit that springboard

at a crawl. Economist Lisa

Kahn explained to The Atlantic

in 2010 that those who graduate

into a recession are still earning an

average of 10 percent less nearly

two decades into their careers. In

hard, paycheck-shrinking numbers,

the salary lost over that stretch totals

around $100,000. That works out to $490

or so less a month, money that could go, say,

toward repaying student loans, which for the class

of 2009 average $24,000. Those student loans (the respon-

sible borrowing option!) have reportedly passed credit cards as the

nation’s largest source of debt. This is not just a rotten moment to

be young. It’s a putrid, stinking, several-months-old-stringy-goat-

meat moment to be young.

Earlier generations have weathered recessions, of course; this

stall we’re in has the look of something nastier. Social Security

and Medicare are going to be diminished, at best. Hours worked

are up even as hiring staggers along: Blood from a stone looks

to be the normal order of things “going forward,” to borrow the

business-speak. Economists are warning that even when the

economy recuperates, full employment will be lower and growth

will be slower—a sad little rhyme

that adds up to something decidedly

unpoetic. A ma- jority of Americans

say, for the first time ever, that this

generation will not be better

off than its parents.

And so we

find ourselves living among the scattered ashes and spilled

red wine and broken glass from a party we watched in our

pajamas, peering down the stairs at the grown-ups. This is not

a morning after we are prepared for, to judge by the composite

sketch sociologists have drawn of us. (Generation-naming is an

inexact science, but generally we’re talking here about the first

half of the Millennials, the terrible New Agey label we were

saddled with in the eighties.) Clare has us pegged pretty well:

We are self-centered and convinced of our specialness and

unaccustomed to being denied. “I am sad, jaded, disillusioned,

frustrated, and worried,” said one girl I talked to who feels

“stuck” in a finance job she took as a stepping-stone to more-

fulfilling work she now cannot find. Ours isn’t a generation that

will give you just one adjective to describe our hurt.

It might be hard, in fact,

to create a generation more

metaphysically ill-equipped to

adjust to this new tough-shit

world. Yet some of us, some-

how, are dealing pretty

well.

Our

generation

is the

product

of two

long- term so-

cial ex- periments

conducted by our parents.

The first sought to create little

hyperachievers encouraged

to explore our interests and

talents, so long as that could

be spun for maximum effect on

a college application. (I would

like to take this forum to at last

admit that my co-secretaryship

of the math club had nothing

to do with any passion for

numbers and much to do with

the extra-credit points.) In the

second experiment, which was

a reaction to their own distant

moms and dads, our parents

tried to see how much

self-confidence they

could pack into us,

like so many over-

stuffed microfiber

love seats, and

accordingly we were awarded

clip-art Certificates of Partici-

pation just for showing up.

The finite supply of actual

brass rings meant that the

first experiment would never

pan out, but the second was a

runaway success. Self-

esteem among young people in

America has been rising since

the seventies, but it’s now so

dramatically high that social

scientists

are considering whether

they need to find a different

measurement system—we’ve

broken the scale. Since we

are not in fact all perfect,

this means that the endless

praise we got growing up,

win or lose, must have really

sunk in. (Meanwhile, it’s this

characteristic that our parents’

generation—which instilled

it in us!—so delights in inter-

preting as “entitled.”)

I’ve got a working theory

about what’s happening as our

self-esteem surpluses collide

with a contracting world. A big

chunk of our generation, the

part David Brooks a decade

ago collectively labeled the

Organization Kid, more or

less happily embraced very

hard work within the system.

(Brooks was focused on

elite students, but I

think the term applies

equally well to your

typical first- and

second-honor-roll

strivers.) If

55.3%of people ages 16-29

have jobs. That’sthe lowest percentage

since World War II

Pho

togr

aphy

by

Ric

hard

Kee

le

10 | PURSUIT Magazine

you were an Organization Kid

and have prospered despite

the economy, landing one of

those jobs that come with an

embroidered gym bag, you’re

obviously fine. The big change

is that when you describe

yourself as lucky—a word that

comes up a lot with friends

I know like this—you may

actually mean it more than you

would have before. (Before, it

would have just been codespeak

for “privileged.”) If, though,

you set track records and made

summa cum laude—if you

earned praise not just for effort

but real achievements—only to

land back in the same bedroom

where you drilled for the SATs,

then you are unmoored. Your

less-decorated peers, feeling the

love regardless of results, came

to believe they’ll always be

appreciated. Whereas you have

had your worldview kicked in.

You become a little like my

friend Lael Goodman. “The

worst thing is that I’ve always

gotten self-worth from perfor-

mance, especially good

grades. But now that

I can’t get a job,

I feel worthless,”

she says.

Lael, who

is 27, was

the valedic-

torian of her

high school and

did very well in college too.

Unable to find a position that

paid a decent wage using

her English degree, she got

a master’s at the University

of Michigan in environmental

studies. She does technically

have a job, for now, filling

in for a woman on maternity

leave at a D.C. nonprofit, but

it’s not one that prevents all

her go-getting from seeming for

naught. Lael feels like she’s stranded on the wrong rung. “All the

articles in the newspaper say that investing in an IRA now means

I’ll have hundreds of thousands of extra dollars down the road, so

I should just scrimp and save,” she says. “But I can’t scrimp and

save because I’m doing that just to afford housing and groceries.

So I’m screwed now, unable to enjoy young adulthood in the way

that I feel I was promised, and screwed for the future.”

Then there is my friend Sam (not his real name,

because he felt that if I used his real name, he’d truly

be unemployable). In high school, Sam was the

sports captain who set all the curves in calculus.

I used to call him up the night before physics tests

to figure out what I should know. Sam went to the

best college he got into, for which he took out $50,000

in loans. He signed up for some abstract-math courses,

was cowed by classmates who worked theorems for kicks, and

majored in poetry writing rather than fall short in the subject

he’d built so much of his identity on. After graduating, he took

a job as a woodworker’s apprentice, not the expected outcome

for a grade-grubbing gunner, but also not all that unusual

back in the days before every decision about which major to

sign up for or job to take started to feel make-or-break. One

thing about being the boomers’ heirs growing up in boom times

was that it used to be okay to take a life-enriching sabbatical.

There was no reason to think you wouldn’t eventually be able

to get back on track.

Does your school suck?Percentage of recent graduates finding employment by school:

Sandiego State University

27%Columbia Illionis University

22%Saint Louis University

15%

Louisiana Tech University

30%University of Reno

20%Las Vegas University

23%

University of Detroit

29%Columbia Illionis University

19%Boise State University

14%

University of Connecticut

16%Ashen Community College

11%Richfield State University

35%PURSUIT Magazine | 11

“I have a lot of regret about

going tocollege,”

-Sam

Sam found out that woodworking turned out to be mostly

vacuuming up wood chips, and so after a few months, he moved

on to a series of other gigs, none of them exactly a career. When

he finally got sick of bouncing around in his broken-down $200

car and living with his parents—who kept pressuring him to

revisit his math-and-science aptitude—he got himself a $25,000

bank loan, which he used to cover expenses while enrolled in

continuing-ed classes in engineering at one of the U.C. schools.

He ran out of money pretty quickly. He then found a job work-

ing in urban education, but was laid off after a year and a half.

“That was the point in my life where I was like, I need to get a

career, I need to make that move,” he told me over the phone, in

the mellowed-out East Bay patois that had crept into his voice

since I last spoke with him. These days, he’s going to networking

events and desperately applying for jobs in the tech world, hope-

ful that landing something very entry-level will put him back on

a navigable route to success. He’s had creditors calling him at all

hours. He is rather earnestly worried that he might end up on the

street. His brothers are managing to stand on their own feet, and

he can’t bear to move back home.

“I have a lot of regret about going to college,” Sam, the person

in my high-school class who’d been most obsessed with getting

into a good college, now says. “If I could go back again, I think I’d

try … not going to college”—our generation’s ultimate blasphemy.

Sam blames himself for his predicament, not the economy,

mostly. But other people in similar straits are coming to see their

personal hardships as the product of broad inequalities. How

many young people will put themselves into that category is a big

test for Occupy Wall Street. One of its advocates created a Tumblr,

“We Are the 99 Percent,” to collect accounts of being screwed by

the recession. The posts from twentysomethings take stories that

sound something like Lael’s—“I worked hard (40 hours a week

during most of my education), for what? Tell me what I need to

do to get ahead, because I did

everything right!”—and make

them a call to arms.

The unions, we know, are

heeding that call, but a broader

youth movement has yet to

materialize.* The Obama 2008

campaign was the high-water

mark for twentysomething po-

litical involvement. The activ-

ism it entailed felt like work—

not a turnoff for us. Dialing

your way through spreadsheets

of get-out-the-vote phone num-

bers is something you can add

to a résumé; getting escorted

off the Brooklyn Bridge in

those plastic handcuffs is not.

But we’re done with that kind

of engagement, for now: While

this is by some measures the

most politically progressive

generation ever, young people

have never been more disil-

lusioned, as a group, about

their ability to bring about

meaningful change through the

electoral process.

Sam Graham-Felsen was

the Obama campaign’s chief

blogger last cycle and now

lectures about youth activism

all over the world. When we

Wow dude, you should be a doctor by now...

graduates based on age(National average)

19-24

10%24-26

15%27-29

35%30-33

25%34-36

17%37-39

7%

“If I could go back again, I think I’d try … not going to college”

Photography by Richard Keele

12 | PURSUIT Magazine

spoke during the early days

of the protests, he wasn’t

convinced Occupy Wall Street

could make activism cool for

kids again, a factor he views

as a key difference between

the U.S. and places like Egypt.

“Even just the physical style,

the types of chants, the stuff

that they’re eating, the gra-

nola—it’s just so derivative of

the sixties,” he said. “It’s like,

‘Guys, let’s do something that’s

more our generation.’ ”

What’s not clear is exactly

what that might look like. It’s

not that this is a generation

that doesn’t want to improve

the world—been to a college

activity fair lately?—but

ours is a fractured involve-

ment. The Cold War sort

of settled which was the

superior economic and politi-

cal system, leaving youthful

calls for revolution to be

shouted in the context of gay

rights and women’s rights and

pro-Palestinian-hummus-

in-the-campus-cafeteria

demonstrations, which are

really about improvements to

the status quo, not a wholesale

overthrow. In the sixties, that

generation’s protesters wanted

a blank slate, economic and

political chaos out of which

they could build something

new. We’ve got that chaos,

and all we want is a way to

get back to the structured

prosperity that preceded their

marching. It’s hard to build a

potent counterculture when

some of the people it’s meant

to appeal to are just hoping for

the chance to put on a tie and

report to their cubes.

“Maybe I don’t have to

make a splash. Maybe I’ll be

okay with just keeping afloat.”

If you look at the people

on the left who have painted

the darkest picture of what

the economic downturn means, they’re a generation ahead: Matt

Taibbi, for one, or Ken Layne, the publisher of Wonkette, whose

ironized blog prose mixes strangely with his incredibly

bleak reading of the economy and culture. (Layne

told me, in an e-mail of ambiguous

sincerity, that the main advice

he would give a recent graduate

was to own only what -

would fit in a

backpack and keep

a current passport always on hand.)

They are unabashedly, feverishly

upset. Their words

practically sweat clammily.

Our generation tends to prefer

our dystopian news delivered with the

impish smile of a Jon Stewart. (I turn the

channel when it’s time for scowling, ranting

Lewis Black.) Reared to

sponge up posi- tive reinforcement

that requires only a positive attitude

as a buy-in, we are just not that into anger.

I spent the summer listening to Helplessness

Blues, an album by Fleet Foxes. It is sweet and

comforting and hated by a certain kind of music snob,

and it was unexpectedly popular. The band, fronted by

a 25-year-old, owes much to the sounds of groups like

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but if such a thing is possible,

Fleet Foxes makes those older acts sound hard-edged. The

folk music of the sixties was protest music, but there is

nothing remotely political about this. Instead, the preoc-

cupations are inward-turning, the title track serving as a

gentle generational anthem: “I was raised up believing / I

was somehow unique / Like a snowflake, distinct among

snowflakes / Unique in each way you can see,” it begins. “But,

now, after some thinking, I’d say I’d rather be / A functioning cog

in some great machinery / Serving something beyond me.” It’s

not just the bearded dudes in flannel; some of our angry-sound-

ing musicians, it turns out, are just seeking affirmation. On

the song “Radicals,” rapper Tyler, the Creator snarls, “I’m not

saying just to go out and do some stupid shit, commit crimes.

What I’m trying to tell you is, do what the f--- you want, stand

for what the f--- you believe in and don’t let nobody tell you you

can’t do what the f--- you want.” Then the kicker: “I’m a f---ing

unicorn, and f--- anybody who say I’m not.” Today’s f---ing

unicorn is yesterday’s “F--- tha Police.”

Desi and I tried to picture the country in 50 years, as a kind

of parlor game. One we loved playing on boring nights when the

news was particularly noteworthy. End of the world type stuff.

“Oh! Mushroom cloud! It’s going to be a disaster!” he said. “It’s so

overwhelming there’s nothing in particular to be worried about.”

We both laughed, because it’s true.

“I was raised up believing I was somehow unique...

like asnowflake...”

Photography by Richard Keele

PURSUIT Magazine | 13

“We Are the

99Percent,

to collect accounts of being

screwed by the recession”

1. Avoid Non-academic Debt

It might seem like a good idea

to put that Xbox on a credit

card, but it’s not. Focus on de-

veloping good money skills with

cash. Worry about credit later.

2. Save and then Splurge If you decide you must have

that Xbox, then save for it.

Wait until you can pay cash.

3. Track your Spending Habits Use a notebook, or use Quicken

if you have it. Good records

will prevent you from getting

overdrawn at the bank or

charging more than your credit

limit. This habit also allows you

to detect spending patterns.

4. Budget

Making a good budget is often

the simplest solution to some of

the most serious financial dif-

ficulties. It doesn’t have to be

fancy. At the start of the month,

estimate how much money

you’ll receive and decide

where needs to go. Remember:

you don’t need to spend it all.

As a student, you approve.

5. Save your Urgent Receipts It’s easy. Just bring them home.

Put them in a shoebox under

your bed if you must, but hold

onto them. You’ll need to be

able to compare them with

statements at the end of the

month. And some you’ll need

to keep for several years. You’ll

know when to toss them.

6. Live Without a Car (Gasp!)Yes. I said it. Cars are

expensive: gas, maintenance,

insurance, registration, parking.

Stick close to campus. Learn to

use mass transit. Find a friend

who has a car. Who knows,

you may even like the reduced

amount of stress due to driving

in today’s heavy traffic.

7. Spend Less than You Earn Don’t earn much? Then don’t

spend much. If your spending

and income are roughly even,

you have two choices: earn

more or spend less. When I

was in college, I worked as

many as four jobs at once. This

gave me a lot of spending cash.

(Unfortunately, I didn’t do a

good job with the spend less

part of the equation.)

8. Be a Great Employee

Good work habits can pay

enormous dividends, leading

to recommendations and

contacts that you can use after

you’re out of school. Several

of my classmates turned work-

study jobs into launching pads

for future careers.

9. Start your own business Are you a passable guitar

player? Charge cheap rates

and exceed expectations. Word

will spread. When you’ve built

up a customer base, you can

raise your rates a little. This

is an awesome way to make

money. Am I right?

CASH in HAND

School’s back in session, Personal finance can be easy, even if you’re just starting out. You just have to know how it works. All of the following are concepts I wish I had known before heading to college. J.D. RoTH

9money tips forcollege students

“When you’ve built up a customer base, you can raise your rates a little.

This is an awesome way to make money.”

14 | PURSUIT Magazine

Be good to me–I’ll be good to you.

PURSUIT Magazine | 15

LADY LUCK

This week’s Q&A focuses on how to

avoid being nervous with women, the importance of

being confident in the dating

game, and not getting caught

in the “let’s be friends” trap.

David DeAngelo, author of

Double Your Dating: What

Every Man Should Know

About How To Be Success-

ful With Women, has your

answers. Trust him.

What’s a good way for a

shy guy to overcome that

nervous feeling that holds

him back from approaching

women? The answer is to start

small. Don’t worry about what

anyone else is doing or what

anyone else thinks.

Just go out for a day and

go to a mall alone. Walk

into every store and start a

conversation with a woman

who works there. Don’t worry

about whether the woman

is good-looking, married or

whatever. Simply practice.

At first, let the women start

the conversations. When they

say, “Can I help you find some-

thing?” reply with “Yes, that

would be great. I’m looking for

joy, peace and a rich girlfriend.

Do you have any of those

here?” Say it with a straight

face, like a comedian would.

Women love this kinda thing.

After you’ve done this 20

times, reflect on what you’ve

learned. Think about what

worked and what didn’t. Think

about the conversations that

took place as a result.

Take a break, walk down to

a department store, and spray

some cologne on each wrist.

Then, walk into 20 more

stores. This time, try to make

direct eye contact with the

first woman you see that works

there, and hold it until she

either starts talking to you or

she looks away. Then walk over

to her and say, “Hi, I need a

female perspective on some-

thing. Which of these colognes

do you like better?”

Then, when she chooses

one, shake your head and look

at her with a disapproving look

and say, “You would.”

Yes, it’s that time once again: the day we feature your dating and relationship questions. Your e-mail may even be answered in the process. DaviD DeaNgeLo

breaking the ice, confident advice

What’s a good way for a shy guy toovercome that nervous feeling that holds

him back from approaching women?

Photography by David stoker

Q&A:

16 | PURSUIT Magazine