Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Michael Barbaro** (0:38)
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily on Sunday.
The writer Tom Junod is a student of flawed men. In a long and varied career in American magazines, at places like GQ and Esquire, Tom profiled complicated figures like Norman Mailer, Kevin Spacey, and Tony Curtis. But in all of those profiles, another flawed man loomed in the background. One who informed how Tom thought about the very nature of masculinity and manhood, and that was his father, Lou. A man who had a life full of secrets. Tom's relationship with his dad is the subject of his new book, which is part memoir and part detective story. It's called, In the Days of My Youth, I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man. And it's a powerful meditation on what we need from a father, what we inherit from a father, and how we somehow make peace with the gap in between those. Today, on Father's Day, my conversation with Tom Junod. It's Sunday, June 21st.
Tom.

**Tom Junod** (2:06)
Michael.

**Michael Barbaro** (2:06)
Welcome to The Sunday Daily.

**Tom Junod** (2:08)
It's so great to be here.

**Michael Barbaro** (2:09)
It's an honor to have you. Can I ask you to read from the eulogy that you read at your father's funeral?

**Tom Junod** (2:19)
Sure.

**Michael Barbaro** (2:21)
I believe it's on page four.

**Tom Junod** (2:24)
Yeah.
So the eulogy had a title, If You're Gonna Be a Bear, Be a Grizzly. And that was one of my dad's sayings. My father, dad, Pop Pop, was not like other fathers. He was not like other people, period.
A lot of people have told me that he's with Jesus now. Well, with all due respect, I have my doubts. Unless, of course, Jesus has shaved his beard, ditched the sandals, and is drinking a martini at the El Morocco circa 1955 with Frank and Ava.
This is not to say my father was not a believer. He had a whole belief system. He believed in a lot of things, and what he believed in, he believed in absolutely. He believed that there was not a person in the world whose appearance could not be helped by exposure to the sun or what he called a fresh burn. He believed that there was not an ailment in the world that could not be cured by salt water. He believed that the way Rhett Butler treated Scarlett was the way all women should be treated and that Clark Gable was robbed when he didn't win the Oscar for Best Actor in 1939 He believed that the lottery was a game of skill rather than chance and that he had won it twice, but for some reason had neglected to turn in the ticket. He believed to the very end that he was going to win again, and then, as he said, then I'll teach you how to live.

**Michael Barbaro** (3:59)
I mean, just from those brief words, it's very evident that your dad was a larger-than-life character.

**Tom Junod** (4:08)
Yeah. Well, so, he had all these maxims, he had all these ideas about how men should be, and he lived by them, and that's the thing about him. It's not just that he thought that every man should have a fresh burn, theoretically, and he didn't just say, wear white to the face, or a turtleneck is the most flattering thing a man can wear. I mean, he followed all these things religiously, and they worked. I mean, that's the thing I think that you have to understand with my dad, is that it all worked. I mean, if he walked into a restaurant, what am I seeing? Yeah. So you saw a guy who was wearing a blue shirt with a white collar, high to the face, a big fat knot, cufflinks, floor-shyme shoes, skin, the color of mahogany or A1 steak. So it's any sort of synonym that you could figure out for brown. He was that.
And then he had eyes.