Maximillian Potter
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Covers:
politics, crime, wine, characters
Writer-Editor @protctdemocracy /// Contributing Editor @vanityfair /// Author of NYT & WSJ Best Wine Book, Shadows in the Vineyard amzn.to/2H5ikFW
Articles by Maximillian Potter
INCIDENT TO SERVICE
In 2018, 21-year-old Dez Del Barba had put his plan for the rest of his life in motion. A senior at Sonoma State University, Dez had set his sights on becoming an officer in the United States Army. Already, he had been accepted into Officer Candidate School and was on his way to completing the necessary prerequisite of basic training. To get a jump on basic, Dez enlisted in the Army National Guard and obtained a leave from Sonoma State for a semester of his senior year.
“It’s About Truth and Accountability”: The Military Families Fighting the Feres Doctrine
“My son Patrick Vega, died on March 25, 2018, just 10 days into Marine Corps Boot Camp.” So began a note I received from Manny Vega, on July 31, 2021.
The ‘Feres’ Doctrine: The Fight to End a Systemic Miscarriage of Military Justice
In 2018, 21-year-old Dez Del Barba had put his plan for the rest of his life in motion. A senior at Sonoma State University, Dez had set his sights on becoming an officer in the United States Army. Already, he had been accepted into Officer Candidate School and was on his way to completing the necessary prerequisite of basic training. To get a jump on basic, Dez enlisted in the Army National Guard and obtained a leave from Sonoma State for a semester of his senior year.
The Director - Killed Stories
• None The New Yorker: The Mower
LAST DANCE | Vanity Fair | NOVEMBER 2021
When Ashley Byers and Doug Benefield met on the 2016 Trump trail, it was a coup de foudre for the two gun-enthusiast evangelicals. Four years later, their passion project—a ballet company for unconventional dancers—would be in shambles, and one of them would be dead
THE BONE COLLECTOR
Features THE PASSION OF DWAYNE JOHNSON NOVEMBER 2021 By CHRIS HEATH Features LAST DANCE NOVEMBER 2021 By ALICE ROBB Features Katie Porter Has the Floor NOVEMBER 2021 By MAXIMILLIAN POTTER Features All That Zaz NOVEMBER 2021 By JOE POMPEO Features That Night in Ravello NOVEMBER 2021 By Alan Cumming Vanities Four Horsemen of the Forever War NOVEMBER 2021 By Chris Whipple
Katie Porter and Her Whiteboard Are Just Getting Started
Impact—Porter despises the word. She’s banned her staff from using it. “Impact, impactful…it means nothing,” she told me. “Millions of Americans were impacted by COVID; they lost their jobs and can’t afford rent. Jeff Bezos was also impacted by COVID; he got billions of dollars richer. So let’s not say impact. Let’s be clear about how people are affected.” Anyhow, back to the lunch.
Stranger Things David Harbour Has Had His Own Trip to the Upside Down and Back
David Harbour hated Stranger Things. The title, that is. Initially the Netflix series was called Montauk, after the show’s original setting, but logistical changes forced the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, to choose a new location—they decided to shoot it in Atlanta—and to change the title. Harbour, who had been cast as police chief Jim Hopper, was not pleased, a sentiment he made abundantly clear in an email to the Duffer brothers.
THE BEST BARS IN AMERICA, 2019
Bars in America are changing, and we believe that’s a good thing. Macho posturing and mixologist preening are on the way out. Wine bars are on the rise, and so are alcohol-free options. The watering holes that we honor here, on our annual list, are the ones that we think do the best job of deepening a sense of community and making everyone feel at home . . . while also pouring exactly what you need.
UPTOWN FUNK | Esquire | Summer 2019
One day, I was working in the store, sleep-deprived as usual, when Little Man, a hustler who worked for the Harlem boss James “Jack” Jackson, walked in with his girl. Everyone in the place started crowding around her. When I walked over to see what all the commotion was about, the girl held up a small brown leather clutch with a repeating pattern of gold letters—an L overlapping a V. That was the first time I’d seen a Louis Vuitton up close. It was a beautiful bag made with amazing craftsmanship.
F*** YOUR BURRATA
How the now-ubiquitous LUMP OF CHEESE became the most unoriginal thing on the menu
Life According to...Pete Contos, Restaurateur
When Pete Contos arrived in Denver in 1955, fresh off the plane from Greece, he didn’t have a dime in his pocket or know a word of English. He found a job washing dishes and worked his way up; today, the 76-year-old Contos owns eight dining establishments under the “Pete’s” brand, including the iconic greasy spoon Pete’s Kitchen. Along the way, he learned a thing or two about life, marriage, modeling, and barroom brawls.
The Great Buffalo Caper
When two Boulder businessmen financed the creation of a one-of-a-kind piece of art—a buffalo skeleton with Native American myths carved over every inch of bone by an artist named "Big Jim"—they thought it was an opportunity to be a part of something important. And, just maybe, they might make some money. But what started as a high-minded project quickly devolved into a surreal mystery.
All the News that's Fit to be Killed
Fifty-five days shy of the Rocky Mountain News' 150th anniversary, the paper's corporate owner shut it down. Executives of the E.W. Scripps Company said it had to be done. That's one way of looking at it. By Maximillian Potter | 5280 June 2009 Newspaper editors, those who still have jobs anyway, tend to be relentlessly literal. If your mother tells you she loves you, so goes the old newsroom adage, check it out. The trait is a professional necessity.
Erased - Jack Nance
Erased By Maximillian Potter Premiere August 1997 Pages 92-95, 106-107 His role in David Lynch's "Eraserhead" made actor Jack Nance a cult-movie icon. His own life was as tortured and dark as that of the character he embodied; his death may be a mystery forever. Jack Nance crossed the parking lot of Winchell's Doughnut House. Chances are he was drunk. Maybe still drunk, maybe already drunk. Once a recovering alcoholic, he had returned to drinking a few years earlier, hoping to numb his blood.
‘Nobody Is Going to Believe You’
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Bryan Singer’s Accusers Speak Out
Over the past two decades, Bryan Singer’s films—The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie, Superman Returns, four of the X-Men movies—have earned more than $3 billion at the box office, putting him in the top tier of Hollywood directors. He’s known for taking risks in his storytelling: It was Singer’s idea, for instance, to open the original X-Men movie with a scene at Auschwitz, where a boy uses his superpowers to bend the metal gates that separate him from his parents.
Jon Hamm Is Ready to Break Free From Don Draper
Jon Hamm has arranged for us to meet for breakfast at what must be one of Vancouver’s most opulent hotel restaurants. All wood-and-gold midcentury mod, it’s the sort of place Don Draper, the hard-drinking, never-not-dashing Eisenhower-era adman Hamm played on Mad Men, would frequent—that is, if he were Canadian, lived in the 21st century, and had a soft spot for nouvelle cuisine. Hamm arrives looking less than Draper-iffic.
Jon Hamm Talks New Beirut Movie, Life Before Mad Men and Rehab
Jon Hamm has arranged for us to meet for breakfast at what must be one of Vancouver’s most opulent hotel restaurants. All wood-and-gold midcentury mod, it’s the sort of place Don Draper, the hard-drinking, never-not-dashing Eisenhower-era adman Hamm played on Mad Men, would frequent—that is, if he were Canadian, lived in the 21st century, and had a soft spot for nouvelle cuisine. Hamm arrives looking less than Draper-iffic.
Jon Hamm Talks New Beirut Movie, Life Before Mad Men and Rehab
Jon Hamm has arranged for us to meet for breakfast at what must be one of Vancouver’s most opulent hotel restaurants. All wood-and-gold midcentury mod, it’s the sort of place Don Draper, the hard-drinking, never-not-dashing Eisenhower-era adman Hamm played on Mad Men, would frequent—that is, if he were Canadian, lived in the 21st century, and had a soft spot for nouvelle cuisine. Hamm arrives looking less than Draper-iffic.
Private Selves, Public Lies
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Josh Brolin Talks No Country for Old Men, Only the Brave in Esquire September Cover Story
Late in the afternoon on June 5, 2016, Josh Brolin walked onto the deck of the house he was renting in the hills outside Santa Fe. There was something he needed to do. In a few short days, the Oscar-nominated actor would start filming Only the Brave, a drama based on the real-life story of nineteen elite wildland firefighters who died battling a blaze in Prescott, Arizona, in 2013. In the movie, which will be released this fall, Brolin is Eric Marsh, the gruff "Papa Bear" of the hotshot crew.
Idris Elba Talks James Bond Rumors, 'The Dark Tower' Movie and 'The Wire'
It's a Saturday afternoon in late spring, and the Farmers' Market in London's Notting Hill neighborhood is bustling: People mill about the tents and tables, blissfully shopping for organically grown tomatoes, raw milk, and little gem lettuce. A white Range Rover pulls up and Idris Elba steps onto the sidewalk. He is dressed in black, from his loafers to the oversized beanie cocked atop his head, and from the looks of it—eyes lowered, hands in pockets—he is doing his best to go unnoticed.
What I've Learned: Garry Kasparov
When I was ten or eleven, my mother put a handwritten motto on the top of my bed that read, "If not you, who else?" She spent her entire life and her whole energy on me, not just as a mother but as everything—a manager, a friend, a teacher. It couldn't compensate for the absence of my father, who died of leukemia when I was seven, but it helped me overcome the psychological trauma. From a very early age, my life had a purpose.
Former Gawker Editor Discusses Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Case
"I've been thinking a lot about a photo of me from the trial that ran in The New York Times," A. J. Daulerio tells me one Sunday this past September. We are on the concrete porch of an apartment he's renting in a dismal section of Singer Island, Florida. He's wearing a T-shirt, baggy basketball shorts, sweat socks to midcalf, and shower shoes—a look he describes as "homeless chic." He rolls a cigarette and a lighter around in his palm like they're Chinese therapy balls.
The Lonely Hedonist
FEATURES The Lonely Hedonist The founder of one of the country's most exclusive sex clubs has everything he ever wanted. So why is he so unhappy? November 1 2016 Mike Sager Jeff Minton
On anticipatory obedience and the media
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. In early 2017, Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele, an adviser to our organization, Protect Democracy, who’d spent roughly a decade living in Hungary during the rise of Viktor Orbán, offered us a warning: beware that the newly elected American president might copy Orbán’s autocratic technique of using the regulatory state to punish media outlets whose coverage he dislikes. Prime Minister Orbán did this to great effect.
The Moment Matthew McConaughey Decided to Disappear
McConaughey recognizes that there's a lot of Big Jim in him, but he dismisses the notion that bearing witness to his parents' volatile marriage might have factored into his waiting five years to pop the question to Camila. It was clear to McConaughey for a long time that Camila was the one for him. What wasn't so clear was what was so necessary about getting married. He kept asking himself, "What is it more than a signed document? What is it more than a formality?
The 5280 Fifty | 5280
It's been five years since we last ranked Denver's most powerful people, and, oh, how the town has changed.
The Colorado Governor Who Could Be Hillary's Veep Loves Being Underestimated
My father died when I was eight. When you grow up a fatherless son, in many ways you have to raise yourself. No one tells you what looks good on you, how to carry yourself, or provides the approval. Without a father, you grow up never knowing what you didn't have. There is no intimate model of who you want to become, so it's as if you're always guessing. My mother taught me you can't control the hand life deals you, but you do control your response.
THE OPPOSITE OF WOE
When it comes to political memoirs, a notoriously guarded, agenda-driven genre, readers are not wrong to be wary. What, then, to make of this exquisitely timed publication by a two-term governor of a purple state only months before his party casts about for a vice presidential nominee? Hickenlooper has lived a life sufficiently varied and interesting that his run for office doesn’t occur until past the midpoint of the narrative.
John Hickenlooper - The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics - at GW Jack Morton Auditorium
John Hickenlooper was elected governor of Colorado in 2010, making him the second brewer in the nation’s history to attain that office— after Samuel Adams of Massachusetts in 1792. Hickenlooper’s candid, often funny memoir, The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics is a trove of similar unlikely yet fitting parallels and anecdotes, alongside stories of his life before and after politics.
Mallory Ortberg: LibraryThing Author Interview
Mallory Ortberg has written for Gawker, New York Magazine, The Hairpin, and The Atlantic. She is also—along with partner in crime/editing Nicole Cliffe—the co-creator of The Toast, a general-interest website geared toward women. Since its debut in July 2013, The Toast has developed quite a cult following.
Proof: The Science of Booze
A spirited narrative on the fascinating art and science of alcohol, sure to inspire cocktail party chats on making booze, tasting it, and its effects on our bodies and brains. Drinking gets a lot more interesting when you know what's actually inside your glass of microbrewed ale, single-malt whisky, or Napa Cabernet Sauvignon. All of them begin with fermentation, where a fungus called yeast binges on sugar molecules and poops out ethanol. Humans have been drinking the results for 10,000 years.
The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps
Maps have long exerted a special fascination on viewers - both as beautiful works of art and as practical tools to navigate the world. But to those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects. Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E.
Shadows In The Vineyard excerpt
Excerpted with permission from Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the Worlds Greatest Wine by Maximillian Potter, to be published on July 29 by Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The chamber the man had built for himself was small and dark, filled with a kind of disquieting energy. The very same things could be said for his mind. It was a late fall night in 2009, and inside that small, dark space, he began to stir.
Plot To Poison Famed French Wine Makes For Gripping (Pinot) Noir
Romanée-Conti — a legendary French vineyard — produces one of the most elegant and extravagantly-priced wines in the world. In January 2010, proprietor Aubert de Villaine received a threat to his livelihood, if not his life: Pay more than 1 million euros in ransom, or his Burgundy vines would be poisoned. Maximillian Potter first wrote about this plot for Vanity Fair and has now authored a book called Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine.
Make wine and kill the king: The legendary vineyard at the heart of a grand European conspiracy
As he stepped into a Paris night late in the summer of 1755, Louis-François de Bourbon presumed he was under surveillance. He figured spies had eyes on him that very moment. He had no doubt they had been intercepting and inspecting his mail. Someone had been clumsy about removing the seals on his letters. Melting away wax marques by candle heat and then replicating and reapplying counterfeit seals was an art that required surgical attention to detail.
The Life of the Party
Bob Beauprez came off the ranch to lead the state GOP, won one of the tightest U.S. Congressional races in history, and now he's the Republican frontrunner in the Colorado governor's race. What would JFK say? He's at it again. For at least the fifth time in 36 hours, U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez is pitching his life story. "My grandfather came to Colorado from Belgium," he says, addressing his audience of the moment. Some 30 people surround him on a gazebo outside of Colorado Springs' City Hall.
Second Nature | 5280
One afternoon last August, a Boulder County public school hosted an extraordinary parent-teacher meeting. Inside the brick, single-story school in the shadow of the Flatirons, the faculty gathered to hear from one parent, Judy Martin. Martin had asked for the gathering. The way the 42-year-old mother had framed her request to the principal, and in turn to the school district's administrators, there really wasn't much of a choice.
The Happy Shrewdness of John W. Hickenlooper
The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today! Morning, Friday, May 6, 2011 | The Longest Day During those crazy last days of his first legislative session, there was a bowl of red apples in the middle of the long conference table in his office.
The Assassin in the Vineyard
It was after moving about, leaving the D.R.C., that a 26-year-old de Villaine came to realize that his life, his soul, was indeed rooted in the Domaine, and in 1965 he asked his father if he could begin working at the vineyard. Ever since, de Villaine’s reverence for the D.R.C. has been absolute. He and Pamela do not have children, so in the fall of 2010, he turned over his shares in the Domaine to his nieces and nephews.
The Great Buffalo Caper
The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today! Inside a run-down house reeking of weed, two dudes in their thirties and a lady who could’ve passed for older or younger anxiously scurried about, each throwing together an overnight bag. One of the men was fat and freckled with receding red hair, the other was thin and bony with a receding blond mullet; both of them were covered in tattoos. The lady was visibly pregnant.
Second Nature
The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today! One afternoon last August, a Boulder County public school hosted an extraordinary parent-teacher meeting. Inside the brick, single-story school in the shadow of the Flatirons, the faculty gathered to hear from one parent, Judy Martin. Martin had asked for the gathering.
Broken Treaties
Denver Detective Abe Alonzo was pretty sure he was about to make a historic bust. Just to be certain, he drove his unmarked car by the guy strolling along the seedy stretch of neon-lit stores on East Colfax Avenue, swung a U-turn through the morning’s rush-hour traffic, and passed him again for another look.
Private Stites Should Have Been Saved
Politics Why are so many army soldiers committing suicide? Take a look at its basic training and the tragic death of Private Nolan Stites. By Maximillian Potter August 28, 2010 Richard Stites lays pictures of his dead son on the family’s dining room table. Here’s a shot of Nolan Edward Stites when he was 7: a fair-skinned cowlick of a kid aiming a .22-caliber rifle in the woods. An avid outdoorsman, Richard couldn’t wait to teach his boy to shoot and survive in the wild.
No Más Mustache - 5280
Features U.S. Senator Ken Salazar's unlikely ascent. Maximillian Potter • 5280 August 2008 Hear Maxmillian Potter discuss his story on Senator Salazar here. Senator Ken Salazar has raised the profile of Latino political leaders across Colorado and throughout the nation. Click here to visit our Web roundup of the state’s most politically influential Latinos, including four under the age of 40.
Broken Treaties
News Government officials promised Arlo Looking Cloud a deal if he’d help them solve one of the most notorious murders in Native American history. So what’s he doing in prison? By Maximillian Potter August 28, 2010 Denver Detective Abe Alonzo was pretty sure he was about to make a historic bust.
Second Nature
The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today! One afternoon last August, a Boulder County public school hosted an extraordinary parent-teacher meeting. Inside the brick, single-story school in the shadow of the Flatirons, the faculty gathered to hear from one parent, Judy Martin. Martin had asked for the gathering.
Bob Saget | Esquire | JANUARY 2006
What I've Learned Bob Saget Entertainer, 49, Los Angeles January 1 2006 Mike Sager Gregg Segal
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