A man can be master in nothing, but he must be skillful in many things. Skills. You don’t have to be an expert of them all at once. You merely have to accumulate and build up a certain number of skills as the years go by. People count on you to get through the maze of life. That’s why you require these skills, to lead off.

Here is a list of the 75 skills every man should be able to master:

1. Give a worthy advice in a single sentence. I got run out of a job I really liked once, and while this was occurring, a guy stopped me in the lobby. Smart guy, but apt to saying too much. So I induced myself physically. I didn’t really want to hear it. I required a white knight, and I cognized it wasn’t him. He just suspired and said: When nobody has your back, you gotta move your back. Then he walked away. The most wonderful advice I ever got in my life. So true, yet in a single sentence…

2. No fear. Tell if someone is lying. Every individual has his own theory. Select one and test it thoroughly. Pick out the tells that work for you. I personally like these: Liars change the subject very quickly. Liars habitually look up and to their right when they speak. Liars utilize fewer contractions. Liars will occasionally stare straight at you and make a dead face. Liars will never lay a hand on their chest or heart except self-consciously. Liars position different objects between themselves and you during a conversation.

3. Take a photograph. Fill the frame.

4. Learn to keep score of a baseball game. Scoring a game is a good exercise in calculating, writing a shorthand of your very own. In this fashion, it’s a private language as much as a record of the baseball game. The only given is the numbering of the positions and the use of the diamond to express each batter’s performance around the bases. I usually darken the diamond when a run scores. I spot an RBI with a tally mark in the upper-right-hand corner. Whenever you score a game, you get a line on new elements to track: pitch count, balls and strikes, foul balls. It doesn’t really matter that this information is already available over the Internet. Keeping score of a baseball game is about bearing witness, enhancing your own capacity to observe.

5. Name a book that counts. A Tale of Two Cities does not count. Not really. You gotta read.

6. Know at least one music band as well as is possible. One guy at your table knows where Freddie was born and what his real name was. Another guy can argue with his experiments that the Stairway to Heaven does not contain any subliminal messages when played backwards. This is how it should be prepared. Music does not really involve agreement. Kurt Cobain. Slash. Angus Young. Robert Plant. John Lennon. Whatever. Choose. Nobody likes a know-all, because 1) you can’t practically know everything about and 2) music provides discrete and private lessons. So pick one out. Except Britney Spears. I heard the bitch is ranked on a list of Recording Artists Who Can’t Sing.

7. Cook meat somewhere excluding the grill.
Purchase Delia’s How to Cook, by Delia Smith. Try roasting. Braising. Broiling. Grilling. Slow-cooking. Stir-frying. Deep-frying. Pan searing. Think stews, soups and fish ‘n’ chips All of this will oblige you to comprehend the nature and functionality of different cuts.

8. Not monopolize the conversation.

9. Learn to write a letter.

So simple. So easily forgotten. A five-paragraph piece works quite well: Mention why you’re writing. Provide details. Make questions. Write news. Write a particular memory. Even if your handwriting is bad, type. Try to always close it formally.

10. Buy a suit.

Keep away from bargains. Know your likes, dislikes, and what you need it for (office, funerals, wedding, court etc). Wring the fabric — if it gets well with little or no sign of wrinkling, that means its fine, strong material. Also push the buttons gently. If they feel movable or shaky, that means they’re most likely coming off sooner rather than later. The jacket’s shoulder pads should make square with your shoulders; if they hang loosely or leave gouges in the cloth, the jacket is too big for you. The sleeves should never touch the wrist any lower than the base of the thumb — if they do, see if you can go down a size. Always get fitted when it comes to jackets.

11. Swim three different strokes. Doggie paddle, being a natural starting stroke for children, is not enough.

12. Show respect towards people without being a suck-up. Show respect towards the following, in this order: age, experience, record, reputation. Try not to mention any of it.

13. Throw a punch. Deliver a quick blow close enough, but not too close. Try to swing with your shoulders, not your arm. Long punches hardly ever land squarely. So overlook the roundhouse. You don’t have a knockout punch. Follow through; don’t pop and retreat. The length you provide the punch should come in the form of extension after the point of contact. Just keep in mind; the bones in your hand are small and easy to break. You’re better off hitting hard with the heel of your palm. Or you could get the guy a beer and talk it out.

14. Strike down a tree. Always know your escape path. When the tree begins to fall, use it.

15. Calculate square footage. Width times length.

16. Tie a bow tie.
Step a: Make a simple knot, allowing slightly more length (one to two inches) on the end of A.
Step b: Lay A out of the way, fold B into the normal bow shape, and position it on the first knot you made.
Step c: Drop A vertically over folded end B.
Step d: Double back A on itself and position it over the knot so that the two folded ends make a cross.
Step e: The hard part: Pass folded end A under and behind the left side (yours) of the knot and through the loop behind folded end B.
Step f: Tighten the knot you have created, straightening, particularly in the center.

17. Make a perfect drink in large batches.

When I gave an interview for my first job, one of the senior guys had me to his house for a greeting. He asked me for a cigarette and pointed me to a bowl of whiskey sours, like I was Darrin Stephens and he was Larry Tate. I can still recall that first tight little swallow and my thankfulness that I could go back for a refill without appearing like a drunk. I came to esteem the host over the next decade, but he never told me the recipe. So I follow this:

• For every 750-ml bottle of whiskey (use a decent bourbon or rye), add:
• 6 oz fresh-squeezed, strained lemon juice
• 6 oz simple syrup (mix superfine sugar and water in equal quantities)

To serve: Shake 3 oz per person with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glasses. Decorate with a cherry and an orange slice or, if you’re truly slick, a float of red wine. (Pour about 1/2 oz gradually into each glass over the back of a spoon; this is called a New York sour, and it’s awesome.)

18. Learn to speak a foreign language. Pas beaucoup. Mais faites un effort.

19. Draw close to a woman out of his league. Ever have a shoeshine from a person you really have a high regard for? He works hard enough that he doesn’t need to make stupid jokes; he doesn’t gaze at your legs; he is aware of things you aren’t, but he doesn’t talk about them every minute; he doesn’t scrape or feel sorry for his status or his job or the way he is dressed; he does his job boldly and with a quiet relish. That stuff is crazily inviting. Behave like that guy.

20. Sew a button.

21. Argue with a European without getting racist or abusing soccer.
Once, in our life span, much of Europe was nearing cultural and political irrelevance. After that they made like us and banded together into an organization of confederated states. So you can always suppose that they were plainly copying the United States as they now push us to the verge of cultural and political irrelevance.

22. Satisfy a woman in a way she doesn’t have to ask after it.
Or else, ask after it.

23. Be loyal. You will go wrong at it. You have already. A man who is not acquainted with loyalty, from both ends, does not know men. Loyalty is not a stuff of give-and-take: He did me a favor, so I owe him one. Nope. It is the acknowledgment of a bond, the honoring of a common history, the recurrence of the vows we make in the tight times. It doesn’t mean total agreement or invisible blood ties. It is a currency of self-sacrifice, given without anticipation and capable of the most prime return.

24. Know his toxicant, without standing there, pondering like a dope. Brand, amount, style, fast, and this way: Booker’s, double, neat.

25. Drive an eightpenny nail into a processed two-by-four without thinking about it.
Employ a contractor’s hammer. Swing hard and loose, just like a tennis serve.

26. Put a fishing rod without screeching or sighing or otherwise admitting defeat.

27. Learn to play gin with an old man. Old men will try to beat you. They’ll drown you in worthless chatter, tell stories about when they were kids this or in China that. Or they’ll move back into a taciturn posture designed to get you to do the conversation. They’ll observe your strategies without mentioning them, keep the stakes at a level they can manage, and change up their pace of play just to get you slipping up. You have to perform this — play their game, be it bingo or dominoes or chess. They may have been doing for decades. You take a beating as a means of engrossing the lessons they’ve learned without taking a lesson. But don’t be anxious to take them down. They can handle it.

28. Play go fish with a kid.
You don’t beat kids. You talk their ear off, build an event out of it, tell them stories about when you were a kiddo this or in Vegas that. You have to play their game, too, although they may have been playing only for weeks. Watch. Teach them without once offering a lesson. And don’t be scared to win. They can handle it.

29. Understand quantum physics sufficient enough that he can accept that a quarter might, at some point, pass straight through the table when dropped.

At times the laws of physics aren’t laws at all. Read The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone, by Kenneth W. Ford.

30. Feign interest. Ideal place to start: quantum physics.

31. Make a bed.

32. Explain a glass of wine in a single sentence without using the terms nutty, fruity, oaky, finish, or kick. I once stood in a wine store in West Hollywood where the owner explained a pinot noir he favored as “a night walk through a wet garden.” I purchased it. I went to my hotel and drank it by myself, starring at the flickering city with my feet on the windowsill. I don’t remember which was more right, the wine or the vision that he placed in my head. Point is, it was right.

33. Hit a jump shot in pool. It’s not something you apply a lot, but when you hit a jump shot, it symbols you as a player and temporarily impresses women. Make the angle of your cue steeper, plan for the bottommost fraction of the ball, and drive the cue efficiently six inches past the contact point, making sturdy downward contact with the felt.

34. Dress a wound. First off, prevent the bleeding. Apply pressure using a gauze pad. Stay with the pressure. If you can’t prevent the bleeding, forget the next step, just get to a hospital. Once the bleeding stops, make the wound clean. Use water or saline solution; a little soap is good, too. If you can’t get the wound clean, then disregard the next step, just get to a hospital. Finally, dress the wound. For a laceration, push the edges together and make a butterfly bandage. For avulsions, where the skin is punctured and retreated like a trapdoor, push the skin back and use a butterfly. Slather the area in antibacterial ointment. Cover the wound with a gauze pad taped into place. Change that dressing every 12 hours, examining cautiously for signs of infection. Better yet, get to a hospital.

35. Jump-start a car (without any drama). Change a flat tire (safely). Change the oil (once).

36. Arrange three different bets at a craps table. Play the least and most badly labeled areas, the bets where it’s apparently evident the casino doesn’t want you to go. Just play the pass line; once the point is set, play full odds (this is the only really good bet on the table); and when you want a little more action, inform the crew you wish to lay the 4 and the 10 for the minimum bet.

37. Shuffle a deck of cards.
I play cards with guys who can’t shuffle, and they lose. Always.

38. Tell a joke. Here’s one:
Two guys are walking down a dark alley when a robber approaches them and snatches their money. They both reluctantly pull out their wallets and start taking out their cash. Just then, one guy turns to the other, hands him a bill, and says, “Hey, here’s that 20 bucks I owe you.”

39. Know when to split his cards in blackjack.
Aces. Eights. Always.

40. Speak to an eight-year-old so he will hear. Use his first name. Don’t use baby talk. Don’t crank up your energy to match his. Ask questions and wait for answers. Follow up. Don’t pretend to be interested in Webkinz or Power Rangers or whatever. He’s as bored with that shit as you are. Focus instead on seeing the child as a person of his own.

41. Speak to a waiter so he will hear.
You don’t own the restaurant, so don’t act like it. You own the transaction. So don’t speak into the menu. Lift your chin. Make eye contact. All restaurants have secrets — let it be discovered that you expect to see some of them.

42. Talk to a dog so it will hear.
Go ahead, use baby talk.

43. Install: a disposal, an electronic thermostat, or a lighting fixture without asking for help. Just turn off the damned main.

44. Ask for help.
Guys who refuse to ask for help are the most cursed men of all. The stubborn, the self-possessed, and the distant. The hell with them.

45. Break another man’s grip on his wrist. Rotate your arm rapidly in the grip, toward the other guy’s thumb.

46. Tell a woman’s dress size.

47. Recite one poem from memory. Here you go:

WHEN YOU ARE OLD

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
–William Butler Yeats

48. Remove a stain. Blot. Always blot.

49. Say no.

50. Fry an egg sunny-side up. Cook until the white appears solid…and no longer.

51. Build a campfire.
There are three components:

a. The tinder — bone-dry, snappable twigs, about as long as your hand. You need two complete handfuls. Try birch bark; it burns long and hot.
b. The kindling — thick as your thumb, long as your forearm, breakable with two hands. You need two armfuls.
c. Fuel wood — anything broad and thick enough that it can’t be cracked by hand. It’s okay if it’s slightly damp. You need a knee-high stack.
Step I: Light the tinder, turning the pile gently to get air underneath it.
Step II: Feed the kindling into the emergent fire with some pace.
Step III: Lay on the fuel wood. Pyramid, the log cabin, no matter what — the idea is to make some kind of structure so that plenty of air gets to the fire.

52. Step into a job no one wants to do. When I was 13, my dad called me into his office at the large urban mall he ran. He was on the phone. What followed was a reasonably banal 15-minute conversation, which implicated the collection of rent from a store. On and on, droning about store hours and lighting problems. I kept raising my eyebrows, pretending to stand up, and my dad kept waving me down. I could hear only his end, garrulous and unrelenting. He rolled his eyes as the excuses kept coming. His assertions were simple and to the point, like a drumbeat. He wanted the rent. He wanted the store to stay open when the mall was open. Then suddenly, having given the job the time it deserved, he put it to an end. “So if I notice your gate down next Sunday noon, I’m gonna get a drill and attach a goddamn bolt in it and lock you down for the next week, right?” When he hung up, rent collected, he took a deep breath. “I’ve been dreading that call,” he said. “Once a week you gotta try somewhat you never would do if you had the choice. Otherwise, why are you here?” So he gave me that. And this…

53. Sometimes, kick some ass.

54. Break up a fight. Work in pairs if possible. Don’t get between people at first. Use the back of the collar, pull and force the person downward. If you can’t get him down, work for distance.

55. Point to the north at any time.
If you have a watch, you can spot the hour hand at the sun. Then locate the point directly between the hour hand and the 12. That’s south. The opposite direction is, certainly, north.

56. Make a playlist in which ten apparently random songs provide a secret message to one particular person.

57. Explain what a light-year is. It’s the measure of the distance that light travels over 365.25 days.

58. Avoid boredom. You have enough to eat. You can move. This must be acknowledged as a kind of freedom. You don’t always have to buy things, put things in your mouth, or be pleased.

59. Write a thank-you note.
Make a habit of it. Go after a simple formula like this one: First line is a thesis statement. The second line is evidential. The third is a kind of assertion. Close on an uptick.

Thanks for having me over to watch game six. Although they won, it’s clear the Red Sox are a soulless, overmarketed contrivance of Fox TV. Still, I’m awfully glad you have that huge high-def television. Next time, I really will get beer. Yours,…

60. Be brand loyal to at least one good. It teaches a lot about who you are and where you came from. Me? I like Hellman’s mayonnaise and Genesee beer, which makes me the fleshy, obstinately upstate ne’er-do-well that I’ll forever be.
.
61. Cook bacon.
Lay out the bacon on a rack on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

62. Hold a baby.

Newborns should be packed tightly and held against the chest. They love tight spaces (consider their earlier circumstances) and rhythmic movements, so grasp them snug, stick them in the crook of your elbow or against the skin of your neck. Rock your hips like you’re fed up, barely concentrating on the music at the edge of a wedding reception. No one has to notice except the baby. Don’t breathe all over them.

63. Deliver a eulogy. Take the job seriously. It matters. Speak first to the family, then to the outside world. Write it down. Avoid similes. Don’t read poetry. Be funny.

64. Know that Christopher Columbus was a son of a bitch. When I was a kiddo, because I’m Italian and because the Irish guys in my locality were inexorable with the beatings on St. Patrick’s Day, I adored the very idea of Christopher Columbus. I enjoyed the fact that Irish kids worshipped some gnome who forced back all the rats out of Ireland or whatever, whereas my hero was an explorer. Man, I drank the Kool-Aid on that guy. Of course, I later found out that he was a hand-chopping, land-stealing egotist who sold up an entire hemisphere to European avarice. So I left Columbus behind. Your understanding of your heroes must evolve. See Roger Clemens. See Bill Belichick.

65-67. Throw a baseball over-hand with some snap. Throw a football with a tight spiral. Shoot a 12-foot jump shot reliably.

If you can’t, play more ball.

68. Find his way out of the woods if lost. Notice your landmarks — mountains, power lines, the sound of a highway. Look for the sun: It sits in the south; it moves west. Estimate your direction every few minutes. If you’re completely stuck, take a small creek and follow it downstream. Water flows toward bigger bodies of water, where people use to live.

69. Tie a knot.
Square knot: left rope over right rope, turn under. Then right rope over left rope. Tuck under. Pull. Or as my pack leader, William Taylor, told me in a Boy Scouts meeting: “Left over right, right over left. What’s so freaking hard about that?”

70. Shake hands. Steady, firm, pump, let go. Utilize the time to make eye contact, since that’s where the social contract starts.

71. Iron a shirt. My uncle Johnny the tailor once told me of ironing: Start rough, end gently.

72. Stock an emergency bag for the car.
Blanket. Heavy flashlight. Hand warmers. Six bottles of water. Six packs of beef jerky. Atlas. Reflectors. Gloves. Socks. Bandages. Neosporin. Inhaler. Benadryl. Motrin. Hard candy. Telescoping magnet. Screwdriver. Channel-locks. Crescent wrench. Ski hat. Bandanna.

73. Caress a woman’s neck. Back of your fingers, in a slow fan. Neck kissing works like a charm.

74. Know some birds. If you can’t pay heed to a bird, then you can’t discover from detail, you aren’t likely to realize the beauty of evolution, and you don’t have a clue how birdlike your own habits may be. You’ve been exploring them blindly for years now. Get a guide.

75. Negotiate a better price. Be knowledgeable. Be aware of the price of competitors. In a big store, look for a manager. Don’t be a pussy. Take one phrase as your motto, like “I need a little support with this one.” Repeat it, as an incitement to him. Don’t plead. Ever. Provide something: your devotion, your next purchase, even your friendship, and, with the deal done, your gratefulness.