The College Graduation Party

College Graduation Party, St Augustine Beach, 1984 (photo by M.E.)

From Left: Teen, Kennedy, Tintin, Troyer, Dr. Van Lueven,  Ledbetter and "Man wants a case of beer" Harvey

Straight Guy's Guide to Interior Design

Fabulous over the couch

You Can Buy Me A Beer

Basic Training, Ft Jackson, 19 May 1976

How do I get outta here?

The minute the photographer (maroon polyester sport coat & grey Sansabelts) triggered the shutter release, I turned to watch a car drive by. I remember wishing, in that exact moment, that I was in that car and leaving what was, up to that point in my life, the biggest mistake I ever made.  I like to tell folks who are curious about what the Army's like, "It's as close as you can get to being in jail." 

Basic training started 37 years ago today.  Put another terrifying way...when I entered the service, 1940 was 36 years ago.  You always wore a uniform flying commercial...not because you were required to... but because some WWII  veteran would buy you a beer or two at the airport bar in Atlanta.  The saying back then was, if you die and go to Hell, you'll have a stop over in Atlanta.  I listened to their stories and I saw some eyes well up.  Like mine sometimes do... when I tell a story today.  Maybe that comes with being over 50.

Thoughts of the Army are complicated.  When watching the light show of tracer ball on a night range during basic training -- A moment of clarity dawned on me. I realized I could easily be on the receiving end.  Not the best motivation for an infantryman.  When starting any training, all I wanted to know was, "When is this over? What's the date?" As long as I had a date - you could shit on my head all you wanted - just so I knew I was leaving by a certain square on the calender.

What I loved? We were all in the same boat.  That's really what comradeship is all about...an equality of being screwed or what was called, "BOHICA." Bend Over Here It Comes Again. About the only place I feel a sharing of misery in civilian life is being stuck in traffic.

After a couple of years I started to happily settle into Army life.  But mysteries persisted.  I knew highly honorable and ethical men...who slept with their best friend's wives. There was this law that you didn't plank another soldier's wife but 'horny' always seemed to get in the way.  Consequently, Army life was a huge soap opera with loads of messy divorces and spousal abuse...on both sides. A man I worked with, the incomparably cool, Sergeant Knight, would come to work with cuts and bruises. He would tell us he fell, he cut himself, he tripped...One day he disappeared and we would learn his wife, who was the origin of his many injuries, almost killed him.

I heard nightmares of Vietnam veterans in the field.  It got to the point where you heard the screaming, knew what it was and rolled over under a mosquito bar... giving it no more thought than what was for breakfast.  What I can see now, not then, but now...we were all part of a thing bigger than ourselves.  You took the good with the bad but in the end...we were contributing to something important. It's hard to feel the same way about selling insurance.

So if you see me in the airport -- don't thank me for my service.  Buy me a beer and I'll tell you a story.

On the Shore

The Delays are that Summer kind of band full of wind -- A Summer Wind -- Loaded with hope and bubble gum. Back when you were crisp... and feeling like you belonged. In your starched white shirt. Sitting on the beach. Eating tomato sandwiches on white bread with mayo.  But for now, just shut the fuck up and listen.

Friday Nights & Afropop

Daara J from Senegal



1989 - I remember the drive home from work on Friday nights in an '86 maroon Jetta with a dying heater that smelled like feet, under arm and crotch...all at the same time. The radio was tuned to NPR and the whining news was followed by by Georges Collinet, radio host of Afropop.  It was perfect for Friday nights. The end of the week being wide open to new music. Hell, new anything.

Collinet's beautiful voice...happy and surprised at the same time...introduced groups I never heard of. Back then it wasn't easy tracking them down. Not so hard today. Daara J's, 'Paris Dakar' (featuring Disiz La Peste) was a favorite back in 2003. Date night is Saturday night but Friday nights are for what you don't know -- and it might very well kill you.

Jean Shepherd's, "Mabel, Black Label"

"I must admit...I've always had a thing for Mable.

I see her -- Some nights in crowds.

Untouchable....in the dark American streets."

Jean Shepherd

Hanging On by the Skin of it's Closed Vent Suit

There was an easy scruffiness to Philadelphia in the '80s.  A Center City news stand sold half cover M magazines for half price. Innocent ignorance would be corrected by a girl friend, later a wife, later an ex-wife, who knew the owner was returning half covers as unsold and selling the magazines at a discount. Philly always had an angle and while everyone seemed to come from money -- no one ever had any. 

Private clubs in Philadelphia were everywhere; thread bare and worn.  Boat House Row gets my vote for most thread bare. Schuylkill means hidden river in Dutch but unlike NYC, not much was hidden in Philadelphia.  I was in my senior year of college in January '84, but would work for a year in Philadelphia in 1986 and it was not at all unusual to see men wearing a straw boater hat and seersucker suit strolling east on Samson and entering the Union League Club through the back entrance.  Mostly, people were what they said they were and save for Chicago, I've never known a less pretentious city.

There was an active social scene and I was invited to a party at the Vesper Club Boat House Row.  It's one thing to be a Naval officer's son - - quite the other to be a Green Beret officer's son. No one cared. There was a diverse mix of Jews, blacks and gays at these parties and I'll never forget a beautiful Iranian woman who owned an art gallery. She almost had me taking Farsi lessons.  What was important was your attire. An Italian friend, a Mummer, might have problems at the Vesper. Sammy had that, South Philly-closed vent suit- tone on tone shirt- grey leather shoes- thing going on and he always wore a crucifix explaining he wasn't religious...he just didn't want to be mistaken for being Jewish.

Late Friday night,  I walk by an old brownstone on Spruce and hear a band playing.  I slow to listen and overhear someone say the Hooters are practicing.  I pass the onlookers as the bass line of 'All You Zombies' thumps in time to my cadence. 

In 2001, I moved back -- after 15 years. Looking for something. But Philadelphia turned into a city of Zombies.  Gutted, vacant, broke and hanging on by the skin of its closed vent suit, it seemed ready for a revival.  A diamond in the rough just waiting...

Happy Mother's Day

Hampton, VA 1973 -  Beau sits between my mother and sister

It pains me to reveal I had a poodle growing up but it wasn't my dog.  It was every bit my mother's dog. Beau once ate a  big box of Crayola crayons -- The one with the sharpener on the back. For a couple days he'd shit a pile of multi-colored poop.  Years later,  on my first business trip to South Beach Miami, I wasn't all that surprised by the similarity of South Beach to Beau's Crayola crap.

Sucker in London

How To Layer Summer

Hermès, 1995

Gabardine
Linen
Linen Crepe
Silk Twill
Cotton

A Stirring Story

Crate&Barrel Martini Pitcher

My mother hired me to tend bar for a party in her home the Summer between my leaving the Army and starting college.  It was mostly opening beer bottles, pouring white wine and sloshing together the occasional G&T or V&T.

A neighbor, who had flown B-17s in WWII, dated Suzanne Pleshette and wrote for Esquire in the late '50s, approached my bar in the kitchen, flashed his brilliant smile and asked for a gin martini. For years, I had made martinis for the Old Man. That  consisted of taking a bottle of Beefeater and a martini glass out of the freezer, filling the glass with syrupy chilled gin and adding a couple olives. It was how the old man liked it -- It was how I liked it.

I explain to Bernie there's no gin in the freezer and he scoffs, "You don't make martinis with frozen gin." I'm guessing Bernie was in his early sixties then. "Got a pitcher?" We find the appropriate mid 20th century Danish glass vessel and set to work. Bernie pours eight ounces of gin, adds a teaspoon of dry Vermouth and throws in a couple handfuls of ice.

Etsy Italian Martini Pitcher

I volunteer my unsolicited wisdom of 22 years, "Stirred, not shaken? I never understood that. Doesn't get cold enough. I'd rather just have it out of the freezer." Bernie stir's the pitcher with a glass rod, "The gin needs the dilution from the ice," Bernie says while the ice sounds like the high keys of a piano. I shake my head, "Bernie, this could take years." Bernie looks surprised, "You have someplace to go?" "No," I admit, "Not at ten bucks an hour." Bernie asks if I've decided my major. "English," I say proudly.

The glass rod continues counter clockwise. Bernie stares into the pitcher, smiles and looks up at me, "I was an English major." Bernie pauses and stirs...I'll tell you a story every English major should know. Sadly, most don't. Lost to time, I guess." "Sure," I say and wonder if this is when Bernie'll tell me how he planked Suzanne Pleshette.

"So," Bernie stirs, "Oscar Wilde was released from a prison in Reading after serving a couple years for sodomy. Everyone knew it was with Alfred Douglas, the son of the Marquess of Queensberry." "The boxing Queensberry?" I ask. Bernie stirs and nods, "Mmmm, Alfred was known among his friends as Bosie. His father, the Marquess, had it in for Wilde. Set Wilde up - although in the trial it was Wilde who put himself in jail." "Really?" I say, lost in the pentameter of the glass rod.

Slope Martini Pitcher

"It's true," Bernie says. "Wilde's released in the late afternoon and since London's almost a day away by coach, he looked for a hotel room in town.  Everywhere he went, once he signed the register, he was told to leave. He drags himself into a tiny inn and explains to the innkeeper, "Look, I'm Oscar Wilde. I have served two years hard labor for my crime, I've learned my lesson and have turned over a new leaf. I've been turned away from every inn and am desperate for a room. Would you help me, sir?" The pitcher frosts with the chill of ice as Bernie maintains his stirring cadence."

"So what did the innkeeper do?" I ask. Bernie smiles, "What could he do? He rings for a page and instructs the young man to carry Wilde's bags to his room. Wilde thanks the innkeeper and follows the young man up the stairs. Five minutes go by and no page.  Then 10, 15. Finally, a half hour later the page still hasn't returned. The innkeeper trudges up the stairs and knocks on Wilde's door. No answer." Juniper wafts around our heads and it whets my appetite like garlic hitting hot olive oil.

Orrefors Martini Pitcher

"You do have olives?" Bernie asks. "Sure," I grab a Manzanilla bottle from the fridge. Bernie hums to himself while I open the olive jar and ask, "So, no answer at the door?" I bring Bernie back from some place far away. I'm guessing he's with Suzanne Pleshette. I know I'd be. "No answer at the door. So the innkeeper pulls out a key, opens the door and there's Wilde, stark naked in bed with the page, also naked. The innkeeper, shocked, says, 'Mr Wilde! You assured me you had turned over a new leaf!' Wilde looks up at the innkeeper and says, 'And I promise I will, sir - - Just as soon as I get to the bottom of this page.'"

You probably had to have been an English major to appreciate this -- but every man should have his own martini pitcher and stirring story. 

Support Your Local Bartender

"Human beings are at their best in bars." Alec Waugh.

The Bartender... I've known a few. Some more intimate than others. I have a standing rule with the profession. Don't drink to an excess in their presence. If I do manage to get over served, I leave immediately. I want to to come back and be welcomed, and frankly, I don't think anything leaves a bad memory more than a drunk in a bar.

If a woman tries to pick you up at the bar it's always best to leave with her. Even if you just take her to her door. Your bartender doesn't have to know and you don't have to tell him. But he'll remember when you return. He doesn't want to know anything and it would be bad form to bring it up. Instead, he'll grab the bar in fornt of you with both hands and smile, "Whadaya have?" And that's all that needs to be said about that.


Do not tell your bartender how to make a drink. Either in conversation or on anything as vulgar as the other side of your business card. If your barman is incapable, suck up what he fixed and order an idiot proof beer or glass of wine. Hopefully you'll be picked up and can leave immediately.

Do not make a meal of the nut dish. One bowl and no more than two. Same to be said for martini olives. Only women ask for more than three. Besides, you can't afford to lose that much displacement.

Get to know your barman. His past, his loves, his hopes. Often this works far better than over tipping... except in NYC. A bartender at the Union League in Philadelphia took me to a strip club where we bonded over red heads. What he called, "Strawberry Shortcake."  I rarely received a free drink but he always took good care of me. I took a bar maid to a black tie charity auction in Chicago. She became a warehouse of free drinks. So much so I stopped going for fear she'd be fired.

Never forget a good bartender. In 1985, I went to Harry's Bar in Philadelphia and had one of the best gin martinis of my life. I returned to the city 16 yrs later and mentioned the bar, sadly closed, to a local who told me,  "He's at the Liberty Place Westin now." I went to the Westin and there he was. "Murray, you're the only reason I came back to this goddamn city." Murray, like any man, is proud of his work and a sincere compliment goes a long way.

If you can tell a story-- tell it to the bartender. It can't be long. And it has to be your story. Not a joke. For instance, the bartender suggests a double Johnny Walker Blue and you reply, "That's like saying there goes a really good looking nun." Somebody at the bar says, "Well, that's his tale of woe" and you reply, "Sadly, there's a lot more woe than there is tail in this world." Your bartender may have heard these but they're used as simple exclamation points.

Conversation is key. I mean, why would you even be in a bar unless you wanted to converse? Which is when we're really at our best.

For the Lusty in All of Us

Hotter Than A Scalamandré Zebra

The straight guy's guide to interior design. Coming soon.

Bill Cunningham Will Take Your Picture

Shore Leave

No need for Brasso

Gym bag or a lunch bag

It's a big mother -- 24" long, 12" wide and 12" deep. You see a lot of bags like this in NYC. Always a guy who's in shape and lives at the gym. I don't go to the gym anymore and when I did I had a locker. Even had a laundry service although it could turn a black t-shirt light grey in one washing. Anyone looking to distress t-shirts should go no further than the Union League in Chicago.

I like this bag despite it looking somewhat "Tommy Hilfiger-ish." At least it's not "Vera Bradley-ish."  Made of Dacron sail cloth (not cheap stuff), it's roots are nautical but it's not gonna look outta place on 57th and 5th Avenue. Heck, Bill Cunningham might take your picture if you're carrying this bag -- and you look like you work out.  I think it's the perfect size for a lunch bag. 

I gave the Americana bag by True Wind to a young Navy lieutenant who's gotta thing for socks. He was in town on shore leave -- so to speak -- and volunteered to be my model. Anchor Crankers are like that. Always volunteering. After I volunteered for the army I never volunteered for anything again... I only wish he was wearing dress whites. That'd be a snappy look with this bag -- Bill Cunningham would be all over it.

The Americana Bag
$220
Get it here.

My Fantasy Tavern

Not necessarily famous or a tavern

Less than an hour from Famous Jim's...

In the town of Coatesville,

With a interesting parking lot

and plenty of views...

Is The Whip Tavern

Not so big

But snug...

and warm.

Like the best taverns are.

 Tucked in.

A real tavern is hard to find.  Make no mistake about it. In a world of hyped up ersatz with insipid beer and food owned by mysterious LLCs, it only seems right to celebrate finding something real. I stumbled on The Whip in Coatesville, PA and remember it being praised by Andy of The Main Line Sportsman.   Sitting in a corner by a fire I wondered what it is about a good tavern that sets it apart from a bar.

A roaring fire helps but there's more.  There's serenity in the horsey art. Familiarity in simple wooden stools. Softness in the light -- I almost feel like I'm being tucked in.  I can sit here and look off into space forever sipping a pint rather than guzzling.  Not that I like drinkinig alone but friends in a good tavern are a distraction.  I might miss some navel gazing insight of self awareness as I relax with myself.

A tavern has a lot in common with an English pub. It's really not the place for martinis or cosmopolitans or the attitude those cocktails come with.  Whenever I'm in a good country tavern...I like to think of myself as a farmer. Not a big farm.  Something small and about a mile away.  I have two pints and walk home... careful to  keep a distance from passing carriages.  Gravel crunches under my boots as I take out a pocket watch and figure the walk'll take a half hour or so. I put the watch back in my overalls, shove my hands in pockets and breathe in the honeysuckle of Chester County.

Update on Tompkins

The new Tompkins web site went live today.  Check it our here.  He even has shirts for fat boys like me.

Bermuda Shorts

Photos courtesy of Business Insurance Magazine



I went to the English Sports Shop on Front St in Hamilton and picked out:

Salmon Bermuda shorts with royal blue socks

Royal blue Bermuda shorts w/ yellow socks

The Bermudian sales lady rang it all up and asked for my address. I told her I was staying at the Hamilton Princess. “Oh!" she said, "I thought you were a local.” That might go down as one of the happiest moments of my life.

G. Bruce Boyer on Al Hibbler

A number of legendary singers in the 20th Century made their name during the Big Band Jazz Era 1930 – 1950. Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole, Billy Eckstine, and Tony Bennett come immediately to mind, as do Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Billy Holiday, and Sarah Vaughn. But there were other incomparable vocalists who came along during that period whose names have seemingly vanished like ashes in the wind. No less a musical genius than John Coltrane pronounced the incomparable vocalist Johnny Hartman – not exactly a household name -- the greatest ballad singer ever. And Mr. Five-by-Five, the ebullient Jimmy Rushing, was the most gloriously happy singer next to Louis Armstrong himself.

And then there was Duke Ellington's favorite singer, Al Hibbler. Hibbler is completely impossible to categorize, thank god we have the recordings.

For most people, Hibbler was the most problematic. He was a peerless stylist with an unforgettable burnished baritone voice that could croon and growl in the same line, but he wasn't even an acquired taste. He didn't have great general appeal, and you either got Al Hibbler or you didn't. He's one of those performers you either adore or don’t understand what the fervor is about. But Hibbler sang like first-degree murder, he was intent to do it. He sang his ardent fans out of their seats at Carnegie Hall dozens of times. Ellington loved him.

It was at a record dance as a teenager I first heard Hibbler's sublime rendition of “When the Lights Go Down Low”, and that was it for me. I've been a Hibbler fan ever since. “When the Lights ...” was something of a brief hit at the time, and was quickly followed by another, “Unchained Melody” (originally the musical theme of the film “Unchained”). There were a few other songs that made the charts, but Al's voice – his phrasing, his accent (often oddly sounding like a Cockney), the timbre (given to the occasional growl, bark, and chortle), the strange rough-and-smooth seersucker quality of his deep, bluesy baritone – was just too uniquely mannered for many listeners. His phrasing had an innate sense of drama combined with an incredible vocal power, yet he was never – and I say this as the greatest possible compliment – a pop singer in any sense of that word. You could categorize him as a jazz singer, a blues singer, a saloon singer, or a big band singer, but never as a pop singer.

He was decidedly sophisticated and urbane as a vocalist. He had a wonderful ability to make the most mawkishly sentimental songs seem somehow authentically emotional, so his renditions were completely antithetical to pop music. I’m sure you understand how difficult this is to do, given the nature of so many adolescent lyrics. His recordings of the poem-songs “He”, “Trees”, and “Old Folks” are in fact majestic, as is his affectingly tender version of the sentimental Irish ballad “Danny Boy”.

And Hibbler had a great influence with other performers. The Righteous Brothers did a hugely successful version of “Unchained Melody” (but then so did Elvis, The Supremes, and Joni Mitchell among others), and there have been numerous recordings of “After the Lights ...” (Marvin Gaye, Lou Rawls, and Freda Payne among the best). None comes anywhere near the originals by Hibbler. To my mind, no one could.

Albert Hibbler was born in Tyro, Mississippi in 1915, blind. He first recorded with Territory bandleader Jay McShann, then Ellington (with whose band he sang for eight years), Count Basie, and Johnny Hodges. His versions of “Don't Get Around Much Anymore”, “Solitude”, “I Surrender, Dear”, and “Do Nothing Til You Hear from Me” (which Ellington wrote specifically for him) are definitive classics by anyone's standards. He was part R&B, part swing, part gospel, and all soul. He won both Esquire’s and Down Beat's “Best Band Vocalist” award, even though real success such as enjoyed by some other Black singers eluded him. Not to mention that Rock ‘n Roll had washed over the land and swamped virtually every jazz singer around.

In the '50s and '60s he became a civil rights activist, was arrested and jailed on several protest occasions. The notoriety and the rapid demise of big band music pretty much finished off Al's career completely, and for the remaining thirty years of his life he recorded rarely. But perhaps his single greatest honor was yet to come. In July, 1971 he was asked to sing at Louis Armstrong's funeral. He chose the song, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen”. Louis would have adored it. A year after that he made his last album, “A Meeting of the Minds” with saxophonist Rahsaaan Kirk. He spent his last two decades in relative obscurity in Chicago, and died in April, 2001. He was a man of consummate style always.

Selected Discography

Al Hibbler: 1946 – 1949 (Classics)

Al Hibbler: 1950 – 1952 (Classics)

After the Lights Go Down Low (Atlantic)

Monday Every Day: Al Hibbler Sings the Blues (Collectables Jazz Classics)

Oliver Reed: How To Wear DB Blazer

Here's a man who owned the look.

Grandma Frickert 'Sex Can Be Fun After 60'

I grew up with this reel to reel tape of Jonathan Winters doing, for its time, a fairly blue rant. For instance, a gay motorist pulled over by a cop.

"Ok, buddy. Where's the fire?"
"In your eyes officer - In your eyes."
"What are you...some kind of fairy?"
"Do you see any wings?"

There's also a skit of Grandma Frickert being raped (found it) by Lenny the farm hand.  It's of the time 50 years ago but it's also genius. I first listened to it when I was eight and laughed, like an eight year old, without understanding very much of it.  Today, it's like a favorite food you knew as a child.  Suddenly, I'm eight again. No longer a secret since it was released on CD in 2007.  It's on iTunes.

"Your Suit & Your Hair's Not Right"

"Manhattan"

The hotel above and the street below
People come and people go
All the friends that we used to know

Ain't coming back
Ain't coming back
Ain't coming back

You say your heart has a rhythm
Well see you got your secret on
You say hey and nothing to hide
You and your secret life

Don't look at the moon tonight
You'll never be never be never be Manhattan
Don't look at the moon tonight
You can never be never be never be never be Manhattan

Your badge and your suitcase on
Your suit and your hair's not right
Cause nobody knows this woman by your side

It's not me you know, it's a useful woman by your side
It's not me you know, it's a useful woman by your side
Manhattan

See your heart has a rhythm
Well see you got your secret on
She say hey and nothing to hide
You and your secret life

Don't look at the moon tonight
You'll never be never be never be Manhattan
Don't look at the moon tonight
You can never be never be never be never be Manhattan

See your heart has a rhythm
You got your secret on
And you say you got nothing to hide
You, you, you and your secret life

You'll never be never be never be Manhattan
Hollerin' at me hollerin' at you
Hollerin' at me hollerin' at you

Liberty in the basement light
Free speech, lipstick and the moonlight
Howling to get me, howlin’ to get you
In Harlem, in a dark back room
Dancing to a different tune
Howling at me, howling at you

Homesick For London: Tompkins Menswear

Being from nowhere --  I never get homesick  -- depending on the company.  Even though Clay Tompkins and I come from vastly different places...we share a connection over London.  I worked in London in the late '80s and never once was homesick but ever since, almost every day,  I get a little homesick for London.

Clay's line of shirts and trousers bring back bits and pieces of London and that language of clothing.  Side tabs and cocktail cuffs are giveaways of bespoke in the wine bars and pubs of the financial district known simply as, 'the city.' I was fascinated with these details  having come from button downs, center vents and Tiffany monogrammed buckles.

It was a uniform in every sense of the word but like the branches of the military...insurance men dressed differently from advertising men who dressed differently from bankers.  Each sent out very clear messages about who they were or who they wanted to be.   Americans seem to stick out like a sore thumb, until acclimated, and then they begin to adapt. Usually slowly.   As an army brat, I went native inside of two weeks.  Out went center vents suits, button downs and tassel loafers -- In came side vents, spread collars and cap toes.

Clay has taken subtle London design cues, not to mention some humor, and had it all made in the US.  A trouser by Brooklyn's Julie Hertling is a magnificent thing. Even more so when made from a 130s gabardine.  Light but tough, you shouldn't blow through the crotch for donkey years.  Shirts are made in NJ by Mitch Gambert.  The party pocket will hold one condom, or 'rubber' as it was known in my time, but not an 'eraser' as it's known in a London office.  There's also an optional iPhone 5 pocket which I chalk up to Clay not being that far removed from Wall Street.

Right now proper winter weight trousers are on sale for $150.  That's a steal for Hertlings.  An updated web site should be up any day -- along with a stunning Savile Row like navy blazer with that distinctive flair below the waist which dates back to 18th century English great coats.  Nothing like wearing a little history.  As someone once told me about my being homeless, "You have a home...they're your friends." True, that.  Give Clay a call.  You never know...you might score a great pair of trousers and even find a friend.