A Man and a Woman's Movie

Didn't plan anything for tonight?  You do know it's Valentine's Day? Looking for last minute ideas?  I've been served up a mountain of dross from hacks pitching everything from edible dark chocolate panties to  red suede Valentine Uggs.  Along the way I secured this not at all surprising nugget: 10% of the under 25 crowd would interrupt sex with their partner to check a text message.

I grew up with this 1966 soundtrack playing in the house so despite the, "...whaba-dhabba-dhap"  chorus that might seem so dated to you... the music still grabs me by the gonads and my heart.  I understand it does the same for some women. "Twitchy" is an expression I seem to remember. A Man and a Woman is available to rent and buy on iTunes. I can't find the original soundtrack but I'll keep looking and report back if found.

The film, which I first saw in 1972 at the Flick movie theater in Colorado Springs, has a little bit of everything.  Car crashes, stunt men, Samba, French countryside, cigarettes and Anouk Aimée.  It and she would leave a helluva impression -- Mostly, the importance of  understatement and restraint despite my short attention span.   Everything is about mood and the mood is a love story told very slowly and with death everywhere. Even in bed. It takes its time.  Just like you should take yours tonight.  Especially if this is your first viewing. 

Order this on your iPad, grab a bottle of something with bubbles, order in some Chinese dumplings and see what happens.  By the way, you might want to surprise her with a shearling coat.  A shearling coat and this movie could set you up for the rest of the year... but only if you put the phone away. 

Sanyo & (ahem) LaPerla

I've never owned a Sanyo raincoat.  Can't vouch for it keeping you dry or warm.  Not sure how Sanyo slipped by my 27 years of business raincoat ownership.  1985 was the year  I bought the first one.  A Burberry knock off at an unremembered men's discount store somewhere in Manhattan. The wool collar sold me. It looked just like the one Mike Wallace 'popped' on 60 Minutes.

Just after buying my coat, I spent a couple weeks watching a buddy's apartment and his two pet cray fish in Spanish Harlem. Walking to the subway one morning,  a couple kids, no more than 12 or 13, came up a hill on bicycles and one of 'em yelled as he rode by, "Hey, Asshole! You're supposed to tie the belt not run it through the buckle." I hope that kid's blogging today.

I have a never ending supply of stories about raincoats. How I lost 'em, how I found 'em, how I destroyed 'em and how one, my first real Burberry, got me all wet. Well, half of me. My stories, save the lady who  met me at the airport wearing only LaPerla under her trench, can't come close to the Sanyo story.

Above, is the first Sanyo raincoat made in Japan after WWII out of surplus parachute silk. Made for women, there was a waterproof finish covering the 'chute. Turned out to be a hit with the ladies and Sanyo was on its way.

I looked at three models. The Gold at $495, the Cortlandt at $798 and the Savina at $995.

The Gold at $495 is available here

Simple and straight forward.  It won't kill you to leave it in a Clearwater Beach hotel room.  It has a lining but it ain't gonna get you through a Chicago winter; not that any raincoat lining will.  If you have kids going to college in a few years, drive a Buick and own a beat up piece of shit that's been a train car for the past seven years -- This is your coat. Sit on the upper deck of the 6:31 Metra, and as you drape the Gold over the railing you will not be embarrassed by the Sanyo label -- Unlike the guy with the Jos. A Bank raincoat who sells scented urinal cakes for a living.

The Cortlandt at $798 available here

It comes with a belt.  I don't like belts.  Unless it's Friday.  I had a belted Aquascutum in the early '90s when I was making a worker's compensation video for Major League Baseball at Comisky Park. I was 30 pounds lighter and that belt made me look like a sausage link.  You can dump the belt on this all cotton number but I'd keep the wool collar. You'll look like Mike Wallace.  A 44" length gives you plenty of room and keeps you from looking like so many of these uber-urban storm troopers in short black trenches and black suede Ferragamos.  Geez, I hate those guys. 

The Savina at $995 available here

The top of the line Savina is made in Japan and looks it.You can see and feel the difference in this coat which I would not want to leave in a hotel room.  And while it tops out on price, I suspect it's a real steal and a helluva good value.  At 38",  it's only six inches shorter than the Cortlandt --  far from storm trooper length.

Made in a factory whose region was hit hard by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami,  Sanyo will keep the production there to help out the economy. The Japanese symbols on the label above stand for, "Integity, Quality and Beauty." For me, this coat stood out from all the others. It wouldn't look bad with a girlfriend's  LaPerla either.  Not a bad idea for Valentine's Day. I mean, if you're gonna do it right -- Might as well go all the way.

Late Valentine Bluchers

Happy M Day

"M" Magazine Volume One, Number One

I once gave a stripper a Whitman's Sampler for Valentine's Day. She was on the stage and on the pole but slid down with a huge grin when I held my offering over a front row of thugs with a dollar to stuff in her fluorescent green panties. I was 19 - and can say with confidence - it was my most successful Valentine's Day ever.

I've managed to screw the rest up. Mostly out of a belligerent disdain for mendacious 'Greeting Card' holidays. One of my middle aged (32) missteps involved a Victoria Secret white Teddy. She complained the fabric was itchy. I happily answered it wouldn't be on that long. She suggested the gift was for me and not her.

So, I give you something not so itchy but very selfish... the first issue of "M" Magazine. I had hoped to make an announcement today about my true love, "M" but it didn't happen. I think it might be payback for all those "V" Days I blew. But something is coming soon and it does not involve my wearing a white Teddy.

Screw Candy

Get her this from the Black Watch Shop. A must for your her Valentine's Day.

Romantic Rogering

Not so recent poster - Photos from Colonial Williamsburg

Recent Snowfall

Williamsburg Hipster

The Golf Foxtrot and I are big fans of the 18th C and all things from it sans consumption and open sewers. I get misty when I sit down to a colonial table with pewter chargers, tankards of ale and rich Welsh Rarebit by candle light. It ain't the food at Grammercy Tavern but it's fine comfort food and it's a fun way to connect with the past.

I've seen a number of print and television ads for Colonial Williamsburg lately and I was reminded of a recent interview. I've been interviewed a lot recently and they're always the same. The journalist has the story written before we talk and they come to me for quotes to support their story. And they all bring up the hipsters in Williamsburg.

"Don't you just hate the whole hipster thing in Williamsburg?" they would ask me. And I kept wondering what the hell they were talking about. All I ever saw in Williamsburg were the reenactors. And bad ones at that. I thought there could be some attraction to the furniture making and pottery but never could I recall seeing a hipster in Williamsburg, VA.

I finally figured it out. But I love Williamsburg (Virginia not Brooklyn) and a few years ago the Golf Foxtrot and I started staying in their colonial houses. Not a hotel. But a private home on site complete with working fireplaces and a built in romantic factor thanks to four poster beds and naughty 18th C literature we brought from home with lots of rogering.

At night, open fires on the street are tended by reenactors who answer questions in and out of character. The wood pops and embers crack in the night sky and your clothes pick up the smell of smoke - - Only to be reminded of the smell later in the night when you pull your sweater off over your head. You have to call for someone to build your own fire but they arrive quickly and are polite and sense you want 'em out fast once the birch takes and ignites the oak above it. "Another tankard of ale m' lord?" the Golf Foxtrot asks.

It's so romantic you don't need Valentine's Day. It could be any day or night and isn't that the best way?

It will be readily evident to all that I never have never - - nor will I ever - - see a dime from the folks at Colonial Williamsburg. Dinner at the hotel is not what it used to be. Chownings went from a charming restaurant to a snack bar. The visitors are more Disney than delft.

Even the pottery barn, a favorite growing up, has been reduced to a tourist trap with South West Indian art and black light paintings. Oh, it breaks the heart and easily depresses. But grab a bottle of cheap port on the way back to your lodgings, have your fire built, hear your floor boards creak as you make your way to the bedroom upstairs with a candle and all the bad goes away very quickly as you reenact a little history of your own.