Is Smoke Bomb Hill Kosher?

From Left: A couple A team sergeants and Dad on far right

Smoke Bomb Hill and Hammond Hills (click image to enlarge)

I remember him walking home. At eight, I was in my Hammond Hills bedroom researching an MG-TC. The Old Man was racing in the local SCCA club and I desperately wanted him to dump the Berkley with the chain driven motorcycle engine for a British Racing Green TC. For some reason, I look out my window and I see the swagger. More shoulder than hip - he had cocky written across his forehead.

The captain bars on his green beret glint from the sinking September sun. Starched jungle fatigues are cut at the waist with a web pistol belt. My Old Man is walking home from Smoke Bomb Hill with his XO who has less than seven months to live before drowning in the Son Toy River. Later that night, I'll fill an empty Budweiser bottle with water and wander out to the patio and stumble and weave in front of these two men who'll laugh their asses off.

10 years later I drank draft beers at the main post bowling alley with three of Dad's team sergeants from his tour in Vietnam. Two were still in Special Forces. The third had retired and spent most days sitting outside his trailer in Spring Lake, playing gospel music over a surplus PA system. The two sergeants told me how Dad used a Boy Scout wire saw to garrote VC. They laughed while the gospel lover just stared at me.

I was in the middle of zero month for the SF Qualification Course. Phase I at Camp McCall wouldn't start for another two weeks but I was happy fucking off on Smoke Bomb Hill. SF was a fairly loose group and I watched senior NCOs dry hump each other out in front of morning formations. There was so much dry humping in the Army that when I went back to college, still shitting army chow, I dry humped Roland Schumann who was bending over an ice box looking for a pint of chocolate milk. He turned and looked at me with this unmitigated terror in his eyes... and I realized he didn't get it. Neither did the 300 or so other students watching from the dining room.

Back in the Army, I knew I wasn't going to make it through Special Forces training. One of the few times I've accurately predicted anything. Of my class of 88, only three would get a green beret and they were all second term NCOs. The washout was so great, I was told my class was the last to allow anyone under E-5. But knowing I didn't have a prayer took a whole lot of pressure off and I Ghosted, disappearing to avoid details, whenever I could.

Another formation, more dry humping and names of the 85 "No-Go" are read. The 1st Sergeant repeats, "82nd Repo" over and over and over…until XVIII Airborne Corps goes to an PFC infantryman. Everyone looks at this bastard and wonders whose dick he's sucking. I'm wondering what the fuck an infantryman does at a corps headquarters and as I ponder the thought, my name gets closer and closer and the first sergeant, who's fond of saying to the formation, "You, in the green pants and black boots, come here," says my name and XVIII Airborne Corps. And everyone looks at me and wonders…

To this day, I still do. Before my father died a couple years ago I asked him for the umpteenth time, "Was it you? It had to have been you." He sucks on a cupped cigarette, inhales and blows out a pin stream of smoke and tightly wrapped words, "That wouldn't have been kosher."

Bureau of Trade: A Different Kind of Commerce

Michael Moskowitz, founder of The Bureau of Trade, talks in these M60 machine gun, rapid fire bursts... a pause so the barrel won't over heat. A tilted head at a comment I make and Moskowitz sighs, "Hell is other people." I think I like this guy. Bright, funny and a little off the reservation, his web site is filled with great stuff for men. Some of it Ebay. Some of it directly sourced. Almost all of it (I hate Corvettes) unique, sophisticated and with witty observations I find pretty damned refreshing. Although, he should know the price for a 560 SL is just the cover charge for getting in to see the mechanic. Check out his web site here.

What was the inspiration for Bureau of Trade?

What we wear, what we buy, and what we put in or on ourselves tells or telegraphs a very specific message about who we are. What we value. What our station in life is. Even where and how we envision ourselves in the world. I have always been interested in the specific history and provenance of not just of objects, but of everything. And I want to celebrate the notion of slower consumption and more purposeful purchases.

After the fifteenth, or maybe the twentieth flash-sale site meandered into my inbox, hocking unwanted, overstock drek – but purporting to sell something of genuine value – I made up my mind. I left my job as a designer at IDEO, and started a company that would make men smarter, make them laugh, and connect men of discernment to products with a history, products with a story, and narrative merchandise.

How is it going? Popularity wise and money wise?

Our audience is active, growing, and exceeding all of our expectations. There clearly is an appetite not just for our editorial content, but for the unique products we feature everyday. We've sold 19th century jail doors, taxidermy werewolf hands, vintage cufflinks and chronographs, antique dental equipment and classic convertibles. But I think what the team is most proud of is that we've helped a few (featured) rescue dogs find loving homes.

How do you see it growing?

As we refine what we offer on the site, we're expanding our voice to other platforms, like GQ and Gizmodo, where our content will appear this fall. We're also expanding into the brick and mortar world: stay tuned for live auctions all around the country.

How do you select the featured products? Aesthetic aside -- do you have any requirements other than what grabs your eye?

Two words dictate our selection process: beauty and authenticity. We work with a tremendous team of curators from around the world to find objects of the rarest quality and richest history. We are not a discount site; we are a value site. Items don't cost more than they should, but they never cost less than they're worth.

A Horny Woman in a Baptist Church Choir

Johnny Walters drove my '68 Dodge Charger into the back of an Army deuce and half legally parked on Butner Road. Walters was stoned to the bejesus and, like any trusting and brain dead Private First Class, I gave him my car to make a lunch run to the McDonalds just off post.

Looking for a replacement, I found a Porsche 356C for $5,000. A great deal and God knows the bullet I dodged. Thankfully, the Ft Bragg Credit Union refused to fiance anything older than 8years. I got a tip from a buddy in Public Affairs that a civilian he worked with was selling a 1977 Fiat X1/9. That's the bullet that didn't miss.



The credit union happily financed the car with as many months as I had left in the Army. Major improvements to the car's performance were attended to immediately. Cocoa mats, an X1/9 reflective strip across the top of the windshield and a Fiat gear shift knob. I found a crazy Italian mechanic who had worked at Ferrari in Italy. He and I became very close.

I put a Pioneer Super Tuner Cassette in the dash and since there wasn't anyplace big enough to mount 6"x9" Jensen tri-axles, I just stuffed 'em behind the seats. Ultravox, Fleetwood Mac, Kool and the Gang, Boston, The Bee Gees, Rod Stewart and KC & The Sunshine Band cassettes were all slotted in the fake red velvet interior of a fake leather brief case stuck in the spare tire well behind the passenger seat.



It wasn't what you'd call a popular car with the ladies. Certainly not in Fayettville where Camaros and Trans Ams ruled the day. Still, it did get noticed but almost never in a good way. Less than five minutes from Ft Bragg and you'd easily travel back in time to 1860. I was scared shitless on more than one occasion. And I was white.

My biggest concern was the car breaking down. Which it did. A lot. Each time I picked it up from the shop, I'd swear I was gonna put a For Sale on it. And each time I drove from the shop, I fell in love with it all over again. It wasn't fast but it handled like a horny woman in a Baptist Church choir. Confident, firm footed, loud and tight.


I went back to college after the Army. I'm not sure if it was the crazy Italian mechanic or my living on the G.I. Bill, but it soon became too much to keep up with. No one wanted to work on a mid-engine car and if they did... a pound of flesh was a bargain.

The tape deck was stolen. Anti freeze leaked over the cocoa mats. I learned Italian from the fuse box. Finally, there were signs of a coastal Florida cancer. Rust. It was everywhere. But it made it, just, through college. I sold it for $500 to a Cuban mechanic and spent $99 on a one way ticket to Newark on People's Express.


Sure it broke. And some folks thought I was a hair dresser for owning one. But, you know what? I wish I'd gone to hair dressing school. You know how much you can make in NYC cutting women's hair?

American Gigolo Sunglasses

I found these sunglasses in a Chicago thrift shop for $35. These frames must have been buried deep in my subconscious...under the 450 SL and the desire to learn Norwegian.


Photo: NY Times

I saw American Gigolo in the Spring of 1980 just before getting out of the Army. I left the theater and made a bee line for Coconut's Tapes and Records and picked up the Giorgio Moroder/Blondie soundtrack. And even though my Fiat X1/9 would later be called a "hair dresser's car" by friends in London -- With the top down and Blondie blaring outta my PX Jensen tri-axles -- I was Julian Kaye.



I asked a fellow I know at Paul Stuart if he saw older women buying younger men clothes. He told me he never saw it but did see a lot of older men buying younger men clothes. It's just not what I wanted to hear.


Photo: Clothes on Film blog

There was something about American Gigolo...the photography was all about sex. The sets were all about sex. That black 450SL was all about sex. And Julian was getting paid to have sex with beautiful women. When you're 22 years old... what's not to like?



Somehow these glasses dredged up Julian or Julian dredged up the glasses. Not sure which came first but I finally have a pair of Armani sunglasses. Maybe the SL comes next.


St. Augustine, FL, Summer, 1980 - Photo by DB


But in 1980, you did the best with what you had. Ciao, Tony...

At Auction: The Perfect Midlife Crisis Porsche

"Who's the U-Boat Commander?"


"It's what you want. It's what every white boy off the lake wants."


"I'd appreciate it, if you'd stop laying these little judgments on me, while you're leaning on your daddy's $40,000 car."


The lot description for the 928 (known for wild interiors) follows with a link to the auction site. I purchased my midlife crisis Audi TT at the Porsche-Audi Exchange in Highland Park, IL. Same dealership two of the film's four 928s were purchased. So I have that going for me.

The Auction House, Profiles in History, has some interesting curio perfect for a guy having a midlife crisis.

Steve McQueen's Heuer Monaco (est. $200,000 - $300,000)


A crew gift Zippo from John Wayne on The Green Berets (est. $300-$500)


My favorite, Michael Corleone's (size 42 - I'm guessing Short) camel hair polo coat from The Godfather Part II (est. $3,000 - $4,000)


"TOM CRUISE “JOEL GOODSEN” SCREEN-USED 1979 PORSCHE 928 FROM RISKY BUSINESS - (Warner Bros., 1983) This 1979 Porsche 928 VIN: 9289201213 features a 5-speed manual transmission, 16-inch offset 5-hole aluminum alloy wheels, a three-spoke steering wheel and a cork on cork leather interior.

The car’s exterior was originally painted green when it arrived to the set and was then painted gold by the production and pressed into use. In making A-rated films of this caliber, the production company always has more than one car on hand to ensure no time is wasted should one of the vehicles break down, become damaged, etc.

There were three driving cars used in the making of the film (plus a gutted “dump car” that plunged into Lake Michigan):

1) a 1981 automatic transmission car fitted with 15-inch “flat-face” 5-hole wheels, cork and brown interior and 4-spoke steering wheel.

2) a 1978 5-speed, with cork, brown and crème interior, rented only for one interior shot when the car was knocked out of gear by Rebecca DeMornay’s character (VIN of this vehicle is unknown).

3) the 1979 5-speed car being offered which enjoyed considerably more screen time than the 1981 automatic.

This 5-speed was shot primarily in driving scenes with wide shots where the whole car was in view, as well as in some of the chase scene with Guido the pimp. The VIN of this 1979 5-speed being offered appears on the production records for the film and, according to a recent in depth documentary on the subject entitled “The Quest for RB928,” producer of Risky Business, Jon Avnet, goes on record to state that the young Tom Cruise learned how to drive a stick (manual transmission) with this very car.

In addition, there are production photos obtained from Avnet showing this car on set with camera rigging as well as images of it being painted and prepped for filming. Following production the car returned to California and was repainted white before being discovered by the producer of “The Quest for RB928” and since returned to its original screen appearance.

Risky Business went on to become one of the biggest cult classics of the 1980s and helped launch the career of superstar Tom Cruise. In addition, the film exposed the Porsche brand to a whole new generation of future buyers. The lesser-used 1981 with the automatic was shipped to Europe following production and its whereabouts are unknown. This 1979 5-speed remains as the only known surviving documentable car which also happens to have the most screen time in this modern classic film.

The car’s odometer reads 102,755 miles and it is in operating condition. This car was on exhibit at the Forney Museum of Transportation in Denver in 2009 and many Porsche enthusiasts have called this the most famous Porsche 928 in the world." Lot # 742, Profiles in History, Hollywood Auction #49




Wish this Harris Tweed jacket of Joel's were up for auction. Guess I'll just have to be patient.

Something for the Weekend: Wagoneer Convertible

They ride like a 2 x 4, get crap m.p.g. and break more than a Fiat. Recently, 20-something Hispters have given them more exposure than Steve McQueen in Pitti wearing suede double monks. You'd think it was time to move on. You'd be wrong...about the Wagoneer.

Miller's Guide to Pornography

Martin Miller started Miller's Price Guides with his ex-wife, Judith. He told me a hysterical story of placing the prices under each photo by hand. I still have this Collector Car Guide. Don Draper called the XKE, "pornographic." I was always fond of the 2+2 fixed head coupe in English biscuit white. Better looking and far more endowed than the convertible. The automatic 2+2 is a steal and the transmission is easily converted to a five speed standard.

It Says More About Me Than I Care To Admit

Special Forces Recruitment Ad - 1976

I sat across from Army recruiter Dusty Rhodes in early May of 1976. A wooden name plate flanked by SFC chevrons was centered on his steel desk. He chain smoked Parliaments that he put out in a giant Army issue glass ash tray and two finger typed at a computer terminal.

"No, doesn't look good. You're too short."

"Too short?"

"Yeah, you gotta be five-ten to be an MP. I thought it might have changed by now but no luck."

"You mean it might change?"

"Sure. Hispanics are suing for discrimination. That sort'a thing. Could be next month or next year."

I stand. Shake Rhode's hand and head for the Air Force recruiter down the hall ignoring the Old Man's advice, "Join the Air Force as an MP and you'll be freezing your ass off guarding B-52s in Minot, North Dakota."

In the hallway is a poster. The understated graphic lends guts to the words, "It says more about you than you'd ever say about yourself." Words of comfort to a boy whose father always said, "You can't do anything right" and a mother who complained, "Nothing makes you happy." I'll be a Green Beret and everything will change.

MGB Ad - 1971

Little did I know the power and deception of Madison Avenue. Not to mention the plagiarism.

"If you know her name..."

"...postmodern, punk-inflected, Bach-Stravinsky-Coltrane-influenced string band." The New Yorker

Driving the Jersey Turnpike to NYC yesterday. A station wagon loaded with cheap chicken, cheap steaks, a 30 pack of Natty Lite with enough ass wipe and paper towels to last an eternity but will be history in a couple weeks.

Within range of WHYY, a Prairie Home Companion is live from Manhattan's Town Hall. I pray Mr Keillor does not sing. God ignores me but offers up Punch Brothers doing 'New York City' as recompense.

I'm doing 80 but the band is going faster. Crest the hill and look out at a billboard free stretch of trees turning the same mint green as some asshole's polo shirt in Swifty's. "New York City - Will you give her to me - I'll be yours forever."

Alive with Pleasure: Spring Break 1982

In 1982, GM was a word. "Geeyem." Like someone from Georgia says, "Jim." This one was a Buick deuce and a quarter. A white hunk of fat Detroit steel that made a trip one Spring Break from St Augustine to Daytona Beach with four friends.

Troyer drove the chariot. Golden haired and Aryan, none of us in the car that night knew he was gay. Some of us still don't. A cold case of canned Schaffer shared the back seat with Fusco and Beaudoin. None of us knew Fusco would wind up a screenwriter and producer -- although none of us would've bet against him. Movie star looks but amazingly cheap...he was pre-ordained for Hollywood success.

Beaudoin sat next to Fusco chasing raisins from a generic one pound box with beer. Brillo headed and bearded, the war in El Salvador was excuse for six hours of his indignant Boston accented argument that the Monroe Doctrine was the ultimate evil.

I'm riding shotgun and have to take a leak. Troyer offers to pull over on a stretch of darker-than-the-inside-of-a-goat, I-95. "No need." I say. Wise old man of the car, I explain how I pissed in cans during Army convoys while, "you fuckers were starting ninth grade." I open a beer can with a P38 on my key chain and pull down the fly on 30/30 khakis. I stick my dick in the can careful to avoid the sharp edges.

Success as I fill the can but seconds later feel warm pee covering my khakis. "No problem unless you piss more than 12 ounces," I say and fling the can out the window not knowing the back window is down. Not remembering all the windows are down in the white Detroit slab-o-steel Troyer's mom should be driving.

"Fuck, Tinseth!" Fusco screams as my nephron unit (thanks, Dr. Lardner) formation strikes him head and chest. Beaudoin, slow to catch on, thinks its raining for at least five seconds before a handful of piss-misted raisins are digested. Troyer, of course, laughs.

I spend the rest of the trip holding khakis out the car window at 70mph in an attempt to dry the large stain on my crotch. My friends. And they have remained friends... are tolerant. Like friends who get pissed on always are.

Jean Shepherd's Spitfire

Nobody can sell like the British. Nooobody. Whether it's a national airline or breath mints, you know they're gonna have a coat of arms. Something with a lion, a stag, some flag stuff and Latin. "Everything for Nothing - Nothing for Everything" is the motto I've selected for The Trad's coat of arms. I'd appreciate it if someone would put that in Latin for me.

Jean Shepherd did the voice over in this Triumph Spitfire commercial back in the early '70s. Shepherd, known mostly for A Christmas Story, was a writer who figured large in my world through fiction in Playboy and a column in Car & Driver. There was really nothing else I needed to read (except Penthouse).

Shortly after the commercial aired, Shepherd was on the Tonight Show and Johnny Carson asked him about the commercial. Shepherd tells a story of how even he was so impressed by this commercial that he bought a Spitfire. Minutes after driving off the car lot, Shepherd hits a LA highway and is happily cruising along until the car bonnet flys off.

I came very close to purchasing a white Spitfire because of Mr Shepherd. I also didn't buy a Spitfire because of Mr Shepherd. "Everything for Nothing - Nothing for Everything"

One Sexy Rear End: Penthouse 1973

Amazing isn't it? I'd like to wash her naked with a really big sponge and some...


Turtle Wax. The Volvo 1800 ES. Pretty sexy...

Especially for a wagon.

Mmm, A bucket of warm water, a bottle of Wash & Wax and thou...

Steve McQueen's Porsche

UK Classic Cars Magazine - 1993

The guy who insured pig farms came up with the idea over lunch. Get a syndicate together and buy Steve McQueen's Porsche 911. The marketing guy, who dreamed up porn movie plots, was in for $10,000. His best, a bizarre "I Dream of Jeannie" plot device where Major Nelson's penis size increased with each Jeannie "blink" while being boinked.

The pig farm guy was in for $20,000. He wasn't married, came from money and was boinking the agency owner's secretary. A courageous and ultimately foolish decision. I was married, poor and boinking no one so $10,000 to me was a stretch but not impossible since bonus time was fast approaching.

But January turned into February and rumors of the big day spread across the 20th floor of the Hancock like wild fire on the Serengeti. B-Day finally came in April -- Never under estimate the power of keeping people economically off balance. Account executives sneaked calculators into bathrooms where they would attempt to make sense of numbers in symbolic privacy.

Vice presidents closed office doors and, whether in defeat or celebration, called wives. Celebrants somehow managed to find each other after 5:01 PM and proceeded to drink, smoke cigars, fall off bar stools and show each other their bonus checks.

By midnight, the celebrants stumbled into homes where wives called them beer smelling ashtrays. The tirades cut short only by showing a crumpled piece of paper that turned into a new kitchen, car, bathroom or house. It did not turn into a 69 Porsche. I never did like Steve McQueen.

"...who screws around on you all the time"

Street fairs are usually street fairs. That is, it falls under my heading of an, 'F.P.E.' or Free Public Event and is to be avoided at all costs - - unless you're in desperate need of a pashmina scarf in July.

I thought the NY Bastille Day fair would be different. It was, in that Pashmina scarves were replaced with I don't how many crepe vendors. That and a fire broke out in a parking garage where a palpable panic broke out among tourists contrasted with native New Yorker's rubber necking.

Fleeing west, I was stopped by the most beautiful car in the world. The Citroen SM. The 2CV is too 2. The Traction Avant is too '30s and the DS is too damned much money, but I've had a thing for the SM since high school.

I was lured into buying one for 'a train car' in the suburbs of Chicago. White with a maroon velour interior, it was $6,000 at North Shore Imports. I was introduced to the mechanic who told me the French threw everything about cars out the window and did it their way.

I was reminded of a retirement party for a United pilot who told me he owned a Ferrari in the mid-60s. I asked what that was like. He told me it was like being married to the most beautiful woman in the world -- who screwed around on you all the time.

But the SM is beautiful.

There's a charm and soul to these cars I really connect to. The mechanic also told me the car I was looking at had been sold five times in the last couple of years.

Hairs raised on the back of my neck along with palpable panic.

I adore this door handle even though I have no clue why

Maybe it's just French.

This car has a cassette player. I'm thinking Francoise Hardy.

I would love to wash this car. Naked.

You can crack this vent open for the Gitanes smoke

I was always attracted to crazy girls when I was young, but I didn't need a mechanic.


Still, like knowing you can get a haircut in NYC at 4AM, it's nice to know this is available.