Sometimes, role models do bad things. Very bad things. [Image] [Image]( My Favorite Teacher One night twenty years ago, my biology teacher picked up a seventeen-year-old hitchhiker named Jefferson Wesley. Hitchhikers were rare on Chicago's exclusive North Shore, where kids owned Camaros and carried plenty of taxi cash. Even rarer were high school teachers who picked them up. It was midnight. Mr. Lindwall pulled over his yellow Toyota Land Cruiser and told Wesley to hop in. Down the road, Mr. Lindwall stopped the Land Cruiser and asked Wesley to wait a second, the spare tire was rattling in back. Wesley said cool. Mr. Lindwall shut off the headlights, exited the vehicle, and popped open the back hatch. Among a pile of tools, he found his hunting knife, which he unsheathed and poked at Wesley's back. He ordered the boy to bend over and locate the hangman's noose by his feet. Wesley found it and tightened it around his neck in the way Mr. Lindwall instructed. My teacher climbed back into the driver's seat and explained: The seat belts in this jeep don't unfasten. Put your head between your legs. I'm going to tape your hands behind your back. This noose is attached to a series of pulleys. If you struggle, I can pull tight from here and control you. Wesley now had good reason to believe he'd be killed. The son of a Chicago cop, he'd heard his share of stories, and in those stories kids wearing nooses didn't live. [Read the Full Story]( [Image] [Image]( Chris Rock's Plan for Immortality This slim dude with the knowing eyes and the knife-sharp wit has somehow, at fifty-six, arrived at the belief that his place in the universeâof Black comedy, of comedy itself, of acting, of artistry, of defining the times in which he livesâis not quite set yet. That he must create more, more, more; that what he makes must be different, more challenging, and better, greater, superior. In our Summer issue cover story, Mitchell S. Jackson captures the star decades into his A-list career. [Read the Full Story](  [Image]( J.Crew's Dock Shorts (Still!) Demand to Be Bought in Bulk J. Crewâs dock shorts are the perfect, all-scenario shorts for your summer. Especially so considering the fact that this summer, we're all looking for go-between garments that work just as well lounging on the couch as they do sipping an Aperol Spritz by the bay with friends. These shorts are great for that. And that, too. With eight color options, you'd be hard pressed not to find a pair that fits the palette of your wardrobe quite nicely. If youâre like us, and everyone else in the world, you've become accustomed, if not addicted, to the drawstring waistband. [Read the Full Story]( [Image]( Skater Lucas Puig's New Adidas Sneakers Are Built for Chilling, Not Shredding If you donât know anything about Lucas Puig, the French skater who rides for [Palace]( and [Adidas]( (among other brands), the first thing to understand is that the 34-year-old has a masterful approach to turning any given cityscape into a skateable playground. The second thing to keep in mind is that for Puig, the cityscape most often encountered is Biarritz, a seaside town on the Basque coast in southwestern France. He surfs, too, because if youâre a talented skater living right next to the water in a picturesque part of the world, wellâ¦you surf. You need to know these little tidbits about Puig because they help explain the thought process that informed his latest sneaker with Adidas. [Read the Full Story]( Â
[Image]( 50 Gifts That'll Make Any Dad's Day Brighter Dad has been giving you stuff since you were born. Hand-me-down baseball gloves, Band-Aids, second opinions, backseat driving instructions, marinade recipes, a bit of bad advice, and a lot more good advice. It's about time you hit him back with something almost as great. We're not saying a gift will even the proverbial balance, but it certainly won't hurt to give him [something thoughtfulâand cool]( for his birthday, or any other special sorta day. So whether he's into outdoor gear, [interesting whiskey](, comfortable summer style, or making the most out of his [high-tech]( home, here are 50 gift ideas to make his day. [Read the Full Story]( [Image]( The Fortunes Wonâand Lostâin the Mind-Boggling Rise of r/WallStreetBets James never paid much attention to the stock market. The 41-year-old has worked for 20 years at the same aerospace company in Cincinnati, coating jet-engine parts with a protective layer of aluminide. He lives in Cheviot, a working-class Ohio suburb just minutes from his childhood home. Heâs not particularly emotive, and his goals in life are modestâhis greatest ambition is to own a house of his own, maybe a new car. He is a thoroughly ordinary guy. But when lockdown orders were issued last spring and the economy cratered, James, a longtime Reddit user enamored with the swashbuckling environment of r/WallStreetBets, a subreddit for high-risk retail investors, saw an opportunity to turn a quick buck in the stock market. Less than a year later, his account in the mobile stock-trading app Robinhood had grown to $80,000. [Read the Full Story]( Â
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