Cutty Sark - Not Just for the Big Girl's Blouse

Cutty Sark by F.M. Tinseth, oil on canvas, 1976

Cutty Sark in Flagler College dorm room, 1983

Cutty Sark in September Esquire, 1961

Rare Cutty Sark tie on even rarer yellow university stripe oxford, 2013

Cutty Sark by A. J. Tinseth, 2013

My old man was very proud of his Cutty Sark.  His painting...not the Scotch. He was a gin martini  man through and through and Beefeater gin was his go to.  I don't ever remember him drinking anything else except beer, of which he gave no brand his loyalty, or the occasional glass of wine, which, if he knew anything, he learned from me.

His Cutty Sark painting was about an image - he knew - was instantly recognizable...at least by himself and his peers in the officer's clubs he frequented. My connection to Cutty Sark is through Berry Brothers and Rudd.  A wine merchant in the Pall Mall area of London, I was first introduced to the 300 year old merchant via their catalogs a London friend, Vodka Ronnie, kept by his toilet.  Not the most glorious of beginnings but Vodka Ronnie had very good taste in wine.

Barry & Rudd, as it's more commonly known, came up with the idea for a light blended Scotch as they were wine merchants and I assume didn't want to blow their customer's palettes outta the water with a double barrel Islay. Their target customer were Septics (Septic Tank- Yank) who were about to get back into Rub a Dubs (Rub a Dub- Pub) as Prohibition was coming to an end. With the Septic in mind, a 20 single malt blend was used with mostly Big Girl's Blouse Speyside (Glenrothes) being the predominant malt.

"Whis-KAY" as it's pronounced over there also sounds a lot like "Cut-TAY."  When I hear one, I think of the other.  I'm not sure why.  It's a Lemmon-NAY Whis-KAY.  Light and dry and being that it's not too dear, I think it's best to be mixed, which I did, with a $20 bottle. I  tried it with Polar Bitter Lemon (find it - far better than Canada Dry) and it wasn't bad. I mixed it with lemon flavored seltzer and thought it completely changed the Cutty with the soda giving it a rounder and fuller taste of a scotch double the price. Impressive for those like me who are mean when it comes to their Whis-KAY.

I used it to make a Side Car replacing the brandy with Cutty -- A favorite of the tasting and something I look forward to ordering in a Rub a Dub, "Make mine a Cut-TAY side car, To-NAY." If you're thinking a Manhattan -- I wouldn't -- Although I did.  There's just not enough backbone to the Cutty. Having said that, if you're a beginning Scotch drinker, this is the tricycle for you, in much the way Barry & Rudd always intended it to be, even if you are a big girl's blouse; I wear a 14.

A Criminal Oversight

Ted Lewis on the set of Get Carter, 1971


BBC4 Radio documentry on life & career of Ted Lewis, click image to enlarge

Get Carter with Michael Caine stands as one of the best noir - revenge films ever. I first saw it on video in the early '90s when college roommate Wallace Stroby included it with a couple Chow Yun-fat gangster flicks in what the ex-wife called, 'Wally Mail.' Carter was the far better picture and it got me thinking about how many awful revenge films are out there and why Carter was so different.

Every Mel Gibson picture, from Mad Max (which is pretty darned good) to the American Revolution disaster, The Patriot, are all revenge pics. Mel has a big family. Family gets killed when Mel isn't looking. Bad guys mess up Mel. Mel gets mad and boom, you're in Act III, Mel kills bad guys, roll credits.

Get Carter has a professional hit man in London (Caine) who comes home (Newcastle) to find out who killed his brother. That's a pretty standard setup. But it never goes where you expect it to and like the best noir, you're not so sure you wanna go with it. Stark and dark but there's beauty here too. Get Carter is about as beautiful as you're gonna see and hear in a revenge pic.

The words came from writer and artist, Ted Lewis (1940 - 1982) who wrote the book, Jack's Return Home, that the film is based on. Thanks to noir guy, Wallace Stroby, I learned of a 28 minute radio program on BBC4 (here) about Lewis and his very short life and career. The program is available on line for six more days. Sadly, Lewis's books are barely available at all (prices here) but BBC 4 presents the first radio episode of, Jack's Return Home tonight at 11:00 PM GMT / 6:00PM EST with the second episode to air at the same time on 4 September (here).

The exchange below between Caine and Ian Hendry as Eric Paice, is a good example of the poetry Lewis created. I suppose it helps that Caine, whose career was soaring, and Hendry, whose career was tanking, didn't like each other. But it was Ted Lewis that gave 'em the poetry.

Conclusion of Hard-Ons for Hitler: NSFW or Brown Shirts

Rare photo of Sgt Nick (standing, far right) and his Brassball Battalion, somewhere (Top Secret) in North Korea, 1978

Sgt Nick Penis & the Brassball Battalion

Memory is a funny thing. I was positive Sgt. Nick was shaving in the latrine...



But 34 years is a long time. A 1978 National Lampoon spoof of Sgt. Rock, 'Sgt. Nick Penis', was a gargantuan hit in my unit at Ft. Bragg. It would be quoted frequently until my ETS in 1980.


There was an artist in the barracks and he tried to do a poster of the panel above. It came off badly.


I was positive this reference to size was done in the first panel...which I thought was in the latrine, where Nick is shaving with a bayonet... still attached to his M-1.



Memory is a funny thing, but it's hard to forget, "They're good boys, but they still measure in inches."

The hard hitting ,"Hard-Ons for Hitler" concludes tomorrow.

You Know Film, Boy?

Topcon Super RE

Known in the states as the Super D. Bought by the old man in Korea in '70. He didn't like Nikons. They used leather for the film advance mechanism. Topcon used a chain. The camera lens is a hunk of 58mm glass and can open as wide as 1.4 -- Low light with Tri-X? Amazing what it could do.

Was kicked off the year book in '73 for arguing with the head photographer. Told him his Nikon and his pictures sucked. Retreated to dark rooms built by the old man. A bathroom in Hampton, VA. A basement in Colorado Springs. A dream retirement dark room off a Florida room.

Dad designed and built a custom print washer outta plexiglas. Piped stereo in. What felt like an hour was five. Time flew in the dark but we never worked together. I guess we liked being in the dark alone.

At 17, I apprenticed for a photographer who grabbed me in the crotch. Before that happened, I learned to use his 8x10 view camera and Hasselblads. Also learned to print Cibachrome. Man, Cibachrome's brilliant colors and plastic sheen finish was addictive. But not enough to stick around a perv who hailed from one of America's richest banking families.

Broke into the studio during a rain storm late one night. Grabbed a 3 ring binder of my negatives and never went back -- Except a year later. A portrait in my Army khakis and green beret. To prove a point. "Grab my dick now, motherfucker. I'll bite your Adams apple out and spit it in your face." He took the portrait with the 8x10 view and Panatomic 32.

I love film -- Rolling that sweet smell onto a stainless steel reel. You never forget, you know? It's like driving a stick. But no one seems interested in doing that anymore either.

'His Mother' & 'Contemporary Gothic' at the Mint

"Bringing War Home"

"Red Stripe Kitchen," from "Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful," by Martha Rosler, The New Yorker, August 7, 2000

This collage, done as part of a series during the Vietnam War, always defined my conflict with being a soldier. I understood that as an infantryman I had a job to do. I also understood I would have no say in wars fought, countries invaded or operations to stabilize. Regardless of my opinion.

Americans ask a lot of their military when it comes to sacrifice. In return, the military is quick to demand sacrifice from their families. Pride and honor swirl around phrases like"Suck it Up," and crying ain't allowed. There's gonna be a lot of people telling us we have to "Drive On." I'm not one of them. But that's my opinion.

By FMT

Goddess of the Western World 1975



Three Wise Men 1973


Back to Camp 1972


Number One Figure(s) 1976


Cutty Sark Label 1973


Fire Crackers 1968


Still Life 1970


The Recline 1969


Bust 1970


Blue Square 1973


The DMZ 1970


The Throw 1974


The Relaxed Man 1968

He started with Relaxed Man -- Painted after returning home from Vietnam. He told me last year it had been the first time he felt relaxed since coming home, which is why I refuse to put a bow tie on him.

He created the fire cracker series by squeezing tubes of acrylic paint on strings of fire crackers. That got messy and loud so he filled old light bulbs with paint and dropped them while standing on a stool.

There was the ink block of the 'Three Wise Men' he cut for a Christmas card. But he forgot to reverse his initials. Corrected initials were added later. Three of his paintings are at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC. Several more were purchased for corporate collections.

We never knew what the Hell he was gonna do next. I get the impression he didn't either. I guessed the date by associating the piece with his assignment. Advisor to the Charlotte National Guard, Information Officer at NORAD, General Staff at Ft Monroe.

It wasn't easy having nude paintings on your living room wall in Huntersville, NC in 1969. He didn't give a shit but I did. Many friends thought I was going straight to H-E- Double toothpicks back then but times have changed and you can see the influence of the late '60s and early '70s in his work. He gave it all up. Don't ask me why.

Most of these paintings are gone and these color slides are the only proof they ever existed. That's the way he would've wanted it.

Inspiration: Givenchy & The Viet Cong

I was recently asked how women might mix patterns. I started digging around the Trad archives and found this Givenchy Couture sketch I bought without really knowing why. I put it away with the intention of framing it but never did. I have a whole lotta stuff I need to frame.



In the same folder was this watercolor I've been meaning to have framed. The dealer who sold it to me called it "Commie Art" and it's of a VC squad attacking a U.S. Army camp. It's dated 1968. I also bought this without knowing why.

Sometimes I'll see something -- art, clothes, pictures -- and think it's something else. Once corrected, I almost always enjoy what I think I saw more. I'm not sure if that's creativity as much as as it's nearsighted stealing.


The Givenchy fabric on the top reminds me of the camouflage pattern on the '50s French Foreign Legion Paratrooper smock. The green, orange and black tartan echos the night attack with its tents, fire and shadows.

With the understanding that inspiration can come from anywhere, and it's Fashion Week in New York...I propose trousers in the top camo and a jacket in the tartan. With a white oxford button down of course. Now where's my tent?

American Film Polski

1947, Eryk Lipinski, Casablanca, 33 x 23in


1948, Henryk Tomaszewski, Citizen Kane, 34x24in Est. $1,200


1957, Waldemar Swierzy, Sunset Boulevard, 33.5 x 22.5in, Est. $4,500


1959, Maria Heidrich, Spellbound, 23 x 31.5in


1959 Franciszek Starowieyski, Satchmo the Great, 33 x 23in


1959, Marian Stachurski, Snows of Kilimanjaro, 34 x 23in


1973, Wiktor Gorka, Cabaret, 33 x 23in


1973, Waldemar Swierzy, Midnight Cowboy, 32 x 23in Est. $1,800


1978, Andrzej Klimowski, Taxi Driver, 38 x 26.5in


1978, Mieczyslaw Wasilewski, Three Women, 32.5 x 22.5in, Est. $90


1980, Marek Ploza-Dolinski, The Dirty Dozen, 27 x 39in, Est. $70


1984, Waldemar Swierzy, The Dogs of War, 38 x 26.5, Est. $132


1988, Mieczyslaw Wasilewski, Untouchables, 26.5 x 38in, Est. $107


2001, Wieslaw Walkuski, Face Off, 38.5 x 27in


2009, Joanna Gorska, Jerzy Sakun, Annie Hall, 27 x 29in, Est. $32

I loved watching foreign movies as a kid. They were my ticket and passport out of whatever crappy Army town I was living in. They were also a chance to share a film with my deaf sister thanks to subtitles. I'm not gonna tell you I was watching Bergman's, The Seventh Seal at 12, but I was a dedicated follower of the CBS Children's Film Festival. Never liked Kukla, Fran and Ollie much, but they were a small price for a ticket to Tokyo, London, Munich or even the Bronx.

Polish American Film Posters are a different point of view on established American ideas. Created a few years after the original release, the artists rarely saw the films but were given a written description. All but two of these (Dirty Dozen, Annie Hall) posters were taken from the 2002 exhibit, American Films in Polish Posters at the Polish Museum of America in Chicago.

If these float your boat, there are a number of dealers on the internet, and prices for all but the earliest works are affordable, if not down right cheap. There's a gap between 1949 and 1957 when American movies were banned by the communists. That really worked.

Compared to the huge American One-Sheets, these posters all run around 33" x 23", give or take. They also don't shout at you like American posters and tweed bicycle rides. There's an understatement that's intelligent, creative and fun. Just like my Polish grandmother.