BetterMen.org featured on ‘The Daily Show’

THAT’S SHOWBIZ—Samantha Bee, correspondent for “The Daily Show,” makes peace with Wayne Levine during production of a “Daily News” segment featuring Levine’s BetterMen.org men’s group. Though Bee’s segment made fun of the guys gathered in Malibu Creek State Park for their monthly meeting, Levine insists that the good-natured ridicule was worth getting his message across. Any publicity is good publicity.

At least that the story Wayne Levine, founder of BetterMen.org and the West Coast Men’s Center, is sticking to after his group was mocked in good fun on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” last week.

“When you’re on Jon Stewart, you know everything’s going to be satirized,” Levine said. “I knew they’d be having some fun at our expense or the expense of the subject matter. But we were still able to get a little bit of our message across.”

“Daily Show” correspondent Samantha Bee came out to visit Levine and sat in on one his men’s group meetings last month in Malibu Creek State Park. The show aired Feb. 3.

In the segment, Bee mocks the Agoura Hills group for claiming, “Men aren’t getting what they need.” While sitting in on a men’s circle, she refuses the group’s “talking stick” and rolls her eyes.

“I brought my own tool,” Bee says, as she whips out a bullhorn.

Bee proceeds to yell at the group through the horn, demanding the men “sack . . . up” in a short speech riddled with expletives.

Levine was fine with the piece, especially considering that the BetterMen sign posted in the ground survived the editing process.

“I’m really pleased with the exposure,” Levine said. “What would anyone pay to have their sign on ‘The Daily Show’?”

Levine said his company’s website saw a “tremendous” spike after the show aired.

“Some people just definitely wanted to know more,” Levine said. “And a lot of influential people in media watch that show, so maybe we’ll be filed away as a resource when a serious story comes up. The seed is planted. You just never know.”

Levine opened the West Coast Men’s Center in 2002.

“The purpose is to help men be the best men—fathers, husbands, brothers, sons—they can be,” Levine said. “The way we do that is that we put them into relationships with other men. You learn to become the best man you can be by in large part being in the company of other men and developing trusting relationships with men.”

Levine’s dad died when he was 9, and he realized later in life that growing up without a father had been very difficult for him.

“In my 30s I was introduced to a group who were part of a men’s organization,” Levine said. “I began to get fathered, and I got what I missed out on when I was a boy. I realized I had spent my whole life looking for a father.”

Levine changed careers, dropping his television production company, and returned to school to get his master’s in clinical psychology.

“I was meant to do men’s work,” he said. “Primarily what I do for men is that I help them go through most of what I have gone through myself. What I haven’t gone through myself I’ve learned (through) working with hundreds of men over the years.”

The process begins with an individual coaching session with Levine. From there, talks with Levine can continue, or men can meet in groups every week.

“They bring in issues of parenting, marriage, dealing with aging parents, whatever they are dealing with in their emotional worlds,” Levine said. “There’s never a shortage of material. We have a lot of fun. The work is important and serious, but if you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re doomed.”

The groups of about eight to 10 men meet for an hour and a half once a week. There are four different time slots, including afternoons and evenings. The time is often spent in the office or, if the weather is nice, Levine said, sitting on the patio with cigars.

“In the time in between, a lot of these men become friends. Many of them are really just looking for really solid friendships,” Levine said. “Each of the men develops a sense of feeling comfortable in their own skin. And when that happens, most find that they are more comfortable anywhere.”

The men in Levine’s group range from their late 20s to mid-60s and are single, married and divorced.

Levine said his work is not therapy.

“There’s a place for that, but we’ve found that this sort of honest, man-to-man circle, being part of a men’s community, is all many men need,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with these men. They don’t need a diagnosis—they need support.

He said he feels there’s a stigma and a lot of “cultural obstacles” for men who need to ask for help.

“There are guys who feel depressed and anxious—we develop a game plan to tackle that,” Levine said. “It’s totally natural to feel that way when we are stuck, alone, isolated and don’t know how to ask for help. But often the answer isn’t just a pill. It’s working through it.”

Levine said his specialty is relationships. The Oak Park resident has been married for 26 years. He and his wife have two children, who both attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

The key is for men to take responsibility for what they are bringing into the relationships, Levine said.

“It’s about being very clear about what they are committed to and then giving them the tools to honor that in relationships,” he said.

Levine is also working on forming a women’s group.

“I would facilitate a group of women to better understand their men and how to have better relationships,” he said. “I’d provide insight, a man’s perspective, into their own problems.”

For more information or for coaching and group pricing, visit www.bettermen.org.