The Burning House

Foster Huntington created a blog last month and came to me for advice. I have an email from April 13th documenting my fear "The Burning House" might be considered silly and shallow. I suggested too many responses would ring of, "I'd grab my Purple Label suit, Rugby tie and double monks 'cause they're so awesome. I wouldn't worry about socks 'cause I never wear 'em."

Foster came back with, "Maybe the title is a bit intense but it's the idea of neccesity weighed against aesthetics weighed against sentimental attachment." To which my gut told me and Foster, "I have no idea what works with blogs. Donald Trump will probably be elected president so my insight into intelligence and taste are usually wrong.

Foster's blog has been an overwhelming success with attention from the NY Times, NY Magazine, NPR and as many as 40k visits a day. There was even a spoof blog, "The Burning Asshole" which, while just recently shut down, was pretty damned funny if you don't take yourself too seriously.

Foster asked if I'd contribute. Pretty hard to argue to with his success. He came over and I shot him while he shot me. This may seem very hipster-ish but I remembered doing pretty much the same thing 30 years with a best friend and photographer who comments on this blog (DB) today. This 'stuff' grabs something in us. Whether it's history, family or, and sometimes this is all it is, just something that looks cool. As much as I hate to admit it. Check out the blog here.

"He's Coming Home" May 1967

I can't remember who delivered the green foot locker but it sat on the living room floor with white stenciled lettering, postage and the news, "He's coming home." And not as a captain but as a major. The good news, much like bad news then, seemed to come in packs of three or four.

The locker was his advance and filled with what he didn't or couldn't travel with. My mother lifted the lid open and Julie London and her black turtleneck stared back at us. I remember she was nestled in a camouflage cargo parachute and the earthy smell of Vietnam filled our living room.

The cargo parachute later hung from the ceiling of my army barracks and college dorm room where it gave everything and everybody beneath it a strange green cast. I lost the parachute but still have the reel to reel tape of Julie and thank my father for introducing me to her. Like so many things -- then and today -- I had no idea how lucky we were.

A Man's Movie: The Big Kahuna

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Le Veau d'Or Wins James Beard Award

"You go from one place to the other and you bullshit." Robert Treboux


"It's not classic old - it's classic ancient at this point." Cathy Treboux




It's far from hip. Michael Williams of 'A Continuous Lean' thinks it's an 'old folk's home.' Maybe, but it has more heart than any restaurant in this city. I've taken a lot of people here and insisted a lot of people take me here. There's no place I feel more at home and I'm not from anywhere.

The first time I stepped down into the dark and, at the time, smoke filled room was in 1988 and it immediately spoke to the part of me that is always looking for... I don't know - It's hard to describe. It's: Wrigley not Comiskey - J. Press not J. Crew - Jumbo lump not Krab. It's not 'distressed.' Instead there's an honesty that's perfectly happy with itself. Know what I mean?

I've met authors here and magazine publishers, photographers, film makers, fashion designers, teachers, wine merchants and insurance salesmen. So far I haven't met anyone from the NFL or a reality show. They're all down the street eating in a place they read was cool. No, Veau d'Or is not cool and I suspect it never will be. For that alone Robert and Cathy Trebeaux deserve congratulations.

The Gun Room: Holland & Holland

On the 19th floor of 10 East 40th Street is the Holland & Holland gun room. Gun rooms in NYC are as rare as places you can smoke. I'm always surprised how friends react to my love of guns. I don't know how many big city Republicans have told me the one thing we agree on is gun control -- only to drop their mouths when I tell them we don't.



Last night some gun lovers gathered at Holland & Holland for Burgundy (white and red), wild boar sausage and some real estate investment advice which, being the only poor Democrat in the room, I never really understood. "Save, schmave, I want that 20 gauge."


Everything about this room is tradition, and while I'm not into taxidermy it certainly suits Holland & Holland.



I was never much of a hunter until I was served a brace of smoked pheasant for lunch during a bird hunt in northern Illinois. I converted immediately.



I don't hunt that much and I promised myself after the army I would never go camping again. My idea of enjoying the four seasons is checking into one.


But the lore and history of guns speaks to the love of a well aimed shot. The smell of sulfur. The ejection of a shell and the sound of brass. The sweet banana smell of Hoppe's cleaning solvent...


and all that goes with it.


It's hard not to be impressed by the luxury of Holland & Holland. I have no idea what that cartridge box retails for. I don't want to know.


But the really interesting stuff isn't for sale. A small museum curated by H&H holds amazing treasures of history.


This is an 8 bore "Wild Fowling Hammer Gun' or what we would called in the army, "a B.F.G."



If you do work in fashion design and are still reading this...check out the imprint of the barrel above and below. This was done during manufacture and I think the same pattern would make for a pair of smashing batik trousers.
My favorite of the night was one of 10 replicas of the English Brown Bess. This musket was standard issue to the British soldier during the American Revolution or, what H&H might call, "The American War for Independence."


Lock,

stock

and barrel.

Operation Crazy Horse - 16 May - 5 June 1966

CIDG Camp - Vinh Thanh, May 1966


Back of photo - Pencil notes (all cap) added later.

Here's what I remember. Shortly after being promoted to sergeant I spent a week home on leave. After dinner my father and I smoked cigars and for the first time he told me about Operation Crazy Horse. He started the conversation with, "Never use men like they were office supplies."

Sam Castan 12 May 1935 - 21 May 1966

45 years ago Look Magazine senior editor and journalist Sam Castan was killed trying to break out of an ambush that, save two men, wiped out an entire platoon on Hereford Mountain in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Castan's body was looted of cameras and film only to be recovered from Viet Cong killed in a fight later the same day. These photographs were taken moments before Casten and the men in these pictures were killed.

I grew up staring at the images and wondering about Sam Castan. In many ways I felt like I knew him but it was a romantic image I created. Belted safari jacket. Nikons hanging from his neck. A cigarette dangling from his lips. War photography speaks to me in a terrifying but alluring way.

The photographs were published in S.L.A. Marshall's 1967, 'Battles in the Monsoon.' Castan stayed at my father's Special Forces camp the night before the ambush and remembers the journalist winning at a card game with soldiers of the 1st Air Cavalry and his A Team.

Fran Castan, a poet from Brooklyn and Sams's widow remembers Sam in her poem, 'Operation Crazy Horse.'

A grand Kowloon hotel. A hedge

of red hibiscus. A tiled pool.
A masseuse who pressed fragrant
oil of almond into my body
in the full heat of the sun.
Elsewhere, northeast of Saigon,
a man beheld you, and fired.

At the undertaker's you were
all made up and your hair
was parted wrong, so I smoothed it
the way you would have liked.
Someone shouted Stop, as if we were
caught making love on the couch
in my father's house. God knows

what they feared. Unfamiliar
streaks in your hair must have paled
at the moment of terror
and grown longer in the time since,
eerie as strands of ticker tape
still printing. Such dark hair
shocked white. How afraid you were.
All I could do was hold you.

NY Tailors: Leonard Logsdail

Len's kitchen


Cool Italian wool


Matching...in a good way



Patterns

Gekko's Pattern


More patterns


and even more patterns

Kenny G?


View of the courts









































$850 for ready made






$6,500 for bespoke

Jacket canvas






Len Logsdail has a solid reputation as being approachable and about as down to earth as you can get without digging a well. He reckons his nature has a lot to do with his success. When you're gonna drop $6,500 on a bespoke suit it helps to like the guy you're giving all that money to. It's hard not to like Len.

Len's studio is on 53rd Street just east of Paley Park and above Hamburger Heaven. Like Len, the front of the house is comfortable, relaxed and happily void of any pretentious bullshit. Even the celebrity client photo is of a no bullshit celebrity, Frank Langella. There was beautiful Spring light streaming in through open southern windows the day I visited and I couldn't help but think what a great restaurant Len's space would make.

Len takes me to the back of the house (plenty of room for a kitchen) and shows me a sport jacket he's working on in an Italian plaid. Not to my liking but you can't help but admire how feather light the fabric is. Len explains his house style is not so much Henry Poole-like as much as Poole is Lenord Logsdail - like. This is said as a matter of fact. There's nothing wrong with being down to earth and confident.

There's an old-world ostentation that you frequently see on Savile Row and in most Polo stores. Len isn't afraid to say it's a haughtiness that's born more out of resentment than station or rank. I'm a long time believer in the origins of arrogance being born of stupidity. The more you know, the less you have to pretend you know. You know?

Len isn't faking it. He has a great sense of humor and it shows most enjoyably in his linings. Whether a suit, sport coat or a pair of tweed boxers...Len's linings surprise, amuse and generate ideas and inspiration I've never thought of before. Really crazy ideas.

If you don't have $6,500 to drop on a suit or $5,000 on a sport coat or $1,600 on a pair of trousers, you may want to consider an affordable ready made line Len has recently come out with. You can see it on line here.