"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time..."

American Giant has offered up three black T shirts for field review. Two large and one extra large. If you'll comment on how you propose to do your field test and agree to report the results in two weeks -- I'll send you one.

American Giant Black T-Shirt $25

A lot of people in the apparel business will tell you it's impossible to manufacture in the U.S. anymore. Actually, what they're really saying is it's impossible to make a 600% to 1,000% markup manufacturing in the U.S. anymore. Man, that's criminal.

A year and half ago, Avery Lucas designed a canvas trouser for The Trad and I featured it here. Button fly with side tabs, Avery contrasted dressier details with humble canvas fabric. We found a U.S. manufacturer who'd make it for $60. We'd sell it direct for $120. A trouser twice the quality at half the cost. What happened? That's a very long story.

I sat down with American Giant CEO, Bayard Winthrop and in less than five minutes our heads were both going north and south over the issue of insane mark ups. Winthrop's idea is simple. Basic tops made in the U.S. and sold direct. He explained that men are a lot more comfortable ordering apparel on line. Especially if it's well made and well priced. I don't think he's onto something -- I know he is.

Sweatshirts ($60) and t-shirts ($25) are thick-solid and well made. I've seen old, made in USA, Russel sweatshirts going for $100+ in Manhattan's "Vintage" boutiques. Clearly, that's drunken sailor money and some will argue $25 for a t-shirt is too. I'll only say this. I have an affection for black t-shirts.


Dad wore 'em,



I wore 'em,



Sgt Nick Penis wore 'em,



Mayne wore 'em,





and Baretta wore 'em.


I could wear 'em all year long -- But I'll need to know, "where can I go where the cold winds don't blow."

"Bob Hope's an Asshole"

Death and taxes. I was reminded of the phrase last night when I remembered I hadn't done my father's taxes. Dead for two months, the ephemera of his life -- 80 pounds worth, has been distilled to ten pounds - give or take.

In a folder was a story he wrote for me. These were war stories of celebrities and journalists he met in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. He barely mentioned them to me and never told any to my friends despite my urging. Here, he finally does:

ENTERTAINERS:
Bob Hope's popularity was, and still is a myth! Most of us detested him, his silly-assed humor and the female teasers who accompanied him and couldn't be approached. The only way to fill the arena for his (filmed and money-making -- for him when televised) self serving shows was to give the troops the day off. Knowing that fully half the troops would stop at the first bar or whorehouse and go no further. Obviously, I have no regard for Hope and his ilk (Earlier B Hope story posted here).

Anne Margaret visited everywhere and only with one companion. Usually small units. She was charming and a good hugger who willingly posed for photos. Had a cute trick of not wearing panties and when sitting next to a grunt for a photo would raise one leg. These photos must be still be treasured souvenirs.

Most of the entertainers were selfless folks who really cared: Out of sheer boredom, I once went to a USO show in Pleiku. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and the Sons of the Pioneers. Not at all my kind of entertainment, and I almost didn't go in. But, I was surprised! They were genuinely friendly and informal -- like visiting friends or family. Nothing phony.

Raymond Burr visited the most remote units and just sat around shooting the breeze. He wrote down proper name and family contact of virtually every grunt he ever talked to and called their families (at his expense) when he returned to the U.S.

Billy Casper flew in with his clubs and a giant bag of balls. He'd give lessons and drive balls out into the undergrowth. We wondered if the bad guys thought they were a new kind of cluster bomb.

Martha Raye really was a nurse and when she visited hospitals, she really did jump in and do the dirty bed-pan work. After work, her informal act (while downing a tall glass of straight booze) with groups of SF guys were/still are legendary humor.

Some of the best entertainment was small USO groups of relatively unknown characters. Seldom more than four to six people. Typically a couple of movie/stage hopeful girl singer/dancers taking a gov't-paid break from cattle call auditions and two old vaudeville guys playing instruments and doing their shtick. Ultra-informal and fun.

All of the above (except Hope and similar assholes) usually traveled with no entourage. Many would jump on a helicopter alone or with only one travel companion and just poop around at random.

MEDIA FOLKS:
Ranged from total assholes (e.g., Morley Safer) to sincere people who often became close friends (as with reporter Jim Galloway and the famed Gen Hal Moore). Lou Cioffi (ABC) was our favorite TV guy. Best press photographer was Sam Castan, (Look Magazine- Castan Post here) killed in action at my place. No government stooges monitored us back then. The myth was that all reporters were "Clark Kents and Lois Lanes" -- the typical U.S. citizen know-nothing view, or enemy stooges -- the U.S. authorities view.

I once spent a pleasant afternoon at my Vinh Thanh SF camp with Bill Demarest, then Senior Foreign Editor of Time. I told him just how it was (you can't do that anymore). He was most grateful and asked what favor he could do for me. I casually mentioned my copy of Time always arrived raggedy after everybody along the way read it. Thought no more about it. Surprised me a few weeks later to start receiving Time in a plain brown envelope. This continued for well over a year after my subscription expired and I was back home.

Got a call one day from 1st Air Cav Info Officer wanting to drop two female reporters from Aussie newspaper "Overseas Weekly" (aka Oversexed Weekly) on us. Paper was critical of and in great disfavor with U.S. Gov't though very popular with U. S. troops. 1st Cav Commanding General didn't want them in his camp. My Team got spruced up a bit for female visitors but were dismayed when two middle-aged dumpy gals got off the chopper.

After a couple rounds of beer, dismay turned to hilarity as "girls" told raunchy tales of the REMFs (Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers) -- both military and press corps -- and did really funny imitations of Westmoreland lying to the press. (I think this was the first time I heard the "light at the end of the tunnel" defined as the "light of the oncoming train.")

It was quite funny done in Aussie accent and done profanely -- and it was so true. High point of their visit (for them) was when they went out to use our screened in latrine and VN from all the over the camp came to see what round-eye females look like up close and personal.

Some of the very best reporters were from small town U.S. Their original intent was family features on home town GIs. When the supposedly innocent GIs told them what things were really like, some of the reporters wrote touching stories much like those of Ernie Pyle in WWII. Too bad so few people ever got to see them.

And that's the way it was....

"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."

Haspel Fall Winter: Bespoke at Cost

My relationship with Haspel goes back 32 years. Not that we were close, but it was the poplin and seersucker suiting of choice save a short stint at Brooks Brothers and employee discount addiction.

Haspel carved out a narrow but deep niche in cotton suiting for the South. It was cheap, washable and most important, it was comfortable. Southerners attending Princeton brought Haspel to the southern most second most southern Ivy college and it caught on. In a big way.



What didn't catch on was Haspel in Fall & Winter. The romantic association with Summer's cotton, half linings and character filled wrinkles may have helped traditional offerings but a "Stick to your knitting" attitude by customers may have doomed Fall & Winter from the start.



I walked into the 25th floor loft of the Bryant Park Hotel earlier this week and could not believe it was Haspel Fall - Winter. The silhouette is London. You see that first. And it's a London of the '30s. This is Flusser's turf but at a fraction of the price.

Single breasted peak lapels, double breasted chalk stripes, brown window pane, ticket pockets, double vents...They are the details that drive men to bespoke tailors because they're impossible to find off the rack.





Silhouette and details are carried over to tweed and herringbone jackets. What you see in the windows on Savile Row or in Holland & Holland. Haspel avoided the Hipster runoff so popular with Heritage brands. Every day PR firms send out videos of a watch cap wearing guy in a three piece suit chopping logs with a $500 Challis National Axe to a steel guitar soundtrack.



Haspel seems intent on pursuing grown ups. Guys who work in banks, insurance companies and those other holdouts of employment where coat and tie are still expected. Men who are married with kids and don't have $5,000 for a suit or $500 for an axe.


Contrasting fabrics of cotton, corduroy and suede are hidden under sport jacket collars. If you ask me, they should stay hidden but you do what you have to.



Fabrics are thick with character, texture and color. This is warm stuff. I'm not sure how much use it will see in Haspel's hometown of New Orleans.









Now comes the bad news. Made in Indonesia. I'm not sure outta what. Maybe wax paper and toad shit for all I know. But, good news for pricing. Suiting is $595 and $695 ($100 & $125 for vest) while sport coats are $395 and $495 Like I said, you work someplace where a suit is required and your 401K and college funds are hoovering most of your take home pay... This is great value.



If, on the other hand, you chop wood in a three piece cashmere suit with a $500 axe, and have no kids...Well, there are plenty of people here in NYC who will be more than happy to assist you. For Haspel retailers go here.

Haspel Sees The Light

Some amazing things going on in the land of poplin & seersucker. Details tomorrow.

"Join the fun as the gang tears loose..."

On TCM 4/16/2012

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.

Holy Week: The Paper

54 East 64th Street, photo courtesy of John Wu Public Relations

INT: The 6:31PM north bound Chicago Metra train. On the upper deck a man hangs a salmon colored newspaper on the rail in front of him. A passenger points at the paper.

"Can I check out your FT?"
"It's not FT. It's the New York Observer."
"The what?"
"The New York Observer. It's a weekly."
"Why do you read that? We're in Chicago."
"It makes me laugh."
"Do you read any Chicago papers?"
"No."
"So you don't really know what's going on in Chicago?"
"I read the Sun Times when I get a shoe shine. It makes me laugh but not in the same way."

I like to think I was the first subscriber to NYO in Lake Bluff. I probably was the only subscriber in Lake Bluff. I loved the NYO. Wicked smart and with a point of view while the Chicago Tribune was only good for tire ads in the sports section. When I read the NYO I felt like I was in NYC with some very smart people who were not afraid to call the bullshitters out for what they were. A favorite was a send up of Saul Steinberg's vulgar 50th birthday bash by Michael Thomas, "...tomorrow I will be sober but you'll still be Saul Steinberg."

The newspaper was run out of a townhouse at 54 E. 64th until 2004. I swung by trying to pick up something by osmosis or, maybe I thought I could hear the walls talk. No such luck. Better to read the paper's best compiled in a book, The Kingdom of New York, by long time editor, Peter Kaplan. Some interviews with war stories are included as well. Look, if you live in NYC you must own this book...'cause I couldn't find it at the library.

Holy Week: "NYP" Plates

New York Press Plate

It is...

the cat's ass of my NYC want.

Saul P. Steinberg bought a TV station to get his. They are the equivalent of the rarely seen HALO badge of the U.S. Army. A Democratic access to free parking. It's what we Democrats love. Do I want one? Yes, I do. Can you help? Probably not. That's the attraction.

Holy Week: Fag...

Holy Week: Press Sweat

Heavy Tweed Jacket is doing some amazing stuff over here. His '97 J. Press catalog brought back plenty of memories with this sweat shirt banging 12 on the nostalgia meter. I had just started with Johnson & Higgins in Chicago and was in NYC to steal a client from my prior employer despite a non-compete -- The employer's in jail now so I guess we can talk.

I ran a booze, cigar and apparel gauntlet from my hotel, The Algonquin, straight east to the crusty & narrow JR Cigar for a thick cedar box of double-maduro robustos. Moving on through Brooks Brothers, where Marks and Sparks were doing their Anglican best to drive a stake through all that was golden-fleeced holy, the shoe department was always target rich for Alden cordovan on sale. A quick stop in Orvis where there was something fun (always) and (usually) a steal. Lastly, a final swing through the old J. Press before heading back to the hotel for a martini and a Marlboro with Mr Hoy.

I paid $45 for this sweat shirt and caught huge grief from the 'Echo Xray' who said it looked "cheesy." I suppose it does -- Which is why I wore it every chance I got. No longer available, one can only hope J. Press can get out of its own way and bring the sweat shirt back. Nobody knows what it is which is half the fun of wearing it. Someone in Chicago asked me if I graduated from Press. I did a spit take then -- but today, I like to think I did.

Holy Week: R100

Ruff Hewn - 1987


An Object of Desire


Far from the Ramrod



Somewhere in Chelsea - back in '85 - six vintage BMW motorcycles in front of a bar on Tenth Avenue. Five black. One white. Stopped - dead in my tracks. I ask Herbst to hold up, "Geez, man. Look at these! They're beautiful!" Herbst whines, "Tinseth. Lets go." "Hold on. What's your rush?" I lean over a speedometer to check the miles. "Tin-seth! Come on!"

I'm thinking, "What's his fucking problem?" Another voice. Deeper -- Closer. "You like bikes?" I look up to see three men covered in black leather and - for the first time - I see the name on the bar. 'The Ramrod.' "Yeah, I like BMWs," I say and turn to see Herbst a quarter of a block away with a smirk on his face.

"Why don't you come on inside and join us?" The invitation grunted by a man with a ring in his nose, a braided beard and a tattooed head. He takes a swig from a long neck Miller and holds a cigarette between two fingers -- his thumb hooked on black leather chaps. I stand and walk, not too quickly, towards Herbst. "Thanks. I better catch up with my buddy." "He can come too," says the tall one... and they all laugh.

Herbst was a free lance archeologist (Have Trowel- Will Travel) working a dig for the NPS under the Main Immigration Building at Ellis Island. I was loaned to him during renovations at the Statue of Liberty and most days it was just the two of us digging through oysters and mud.

Ellis was a garbage dump for Indians living on Manhattan going back five or eight hundred years - give or take a few hundred - based on the carbon date of a femur we found. In addition to throwing away oyster shells and refuse on the island, the Indians also left their dead there.

We had time to talk - looking for dead Indians. Herbst had a thing for Jeremiah Johnson and early trappers. He told me they'd eat once a day but dinner was five pounds of buffalo. There was a moment of silence as trowels scraped. Exposed light bulbs strung above us cast a honey yellow light on the dark dig. Herbst broke the silence, "Jesus, Tinseth...just imagine the huge piles of petrified shit all over the West."

Herbst had a Tudor Submariner and admired my Rolex Sub until he discovered it wasn't a chronograph. I don't think he ever like me after that. Still, he invited me to the wildest Manhattan party. All apartments on one floor were opened up. Jazz band in one. Bar in another. Food in another and so on. Herbst introduced me to a numerologist. She was pushing 40 in tight Guess jeans and a silk blouse.

Necking on her sofa later that night, she breaks away and stares at me. "I'm sorry," I said. I think I've gone too ..." She stands up, takes me by the hand and pulls me to her bedroom. She cut through a lot of bs.

It rained the next morning and we stayed in bed until late that afternoon. I treat her to a cheap brunch of French Toast and Bloodies at J. Melons then make tracks back to her bedroom. Grateful, I thank Herbst the next day. He points his trowel at my head and berates me under the honey yellow light, "Tinseth, she's the older woman. Don't you get that? She's supposed to fucking pay not you." This pissed him off more than my watch.

I haven't talked to Herbst in 12 years but called yesterday to fact check and catch up. He told me he had laryngitis and couldn't talk long. I finished fact checking and he promised to call back. I doubt I'll hear from him again. That's okay. I'm amazed by the trip I went on with a motorcycle I never owned.

Update: So much for fact checking. The bar was the Rawhide ( 8th Ave bet. 20th & 21st) and not the Ramrod. Apologies for my lack of leather bar knowledge.

Holy Week: Shagging

It's about a love of the South. Don't fuck with with me on this... It goes beyond accent. If you're from here -- you'll know it. If you've never seen it -- you owe me.

'Give It Everything'

Love,
What about the things you want?
What about the things you need,
Versus the things you don't have?
You should have,
All of this world's desires,
All of this world's entire
Bounty and beautiful love

Chorus
The stars and the moon
And the birds soar real soon
You should have
All the things that you need
Give it everything
All the world to bring
If you believe in something
You go to give it everything
Love
There's no time to waste
There's no life to take
Believers don't have to make haste

Oh no, but "I love you"
Are more than just some sweet words
"I love you"
Are the sweetest words I ever heard
One thing about I can't explain
That you are the world to me
When you're sure you love me
Show you love tenderly

Chorus

Why should settle for second best
When you haven't tasted all the rest
Listen to me
Listen to my request
You should have all the things you want,
the things you need
All of the things your mind can conceive

Al Green

Opposing Views on Spring

Savore looking @ Mezzogiorno


Mezzogiorno looking @ Savore

Billy Reid & the Tallahatchie Bridge

Water Rat lined coat - What do I know


Better you than me -- That's what I know

20 years ago, I was having dinner at Bistro 110 in Chicago with an ex-college roommate who's a screenwriter and film producer. He asked what I thought of his recent film, a sequel to a movie four years earlier. I slathered baked garlic on my bread and told him I wasn't sure why he did it. He looked visibly hurt and said, "I personally made over one million dollars on that film." I replied, "What the fuck do I know."

I look at Billy Reid and feel much the same as I did all those years ago. "What the fuck do I know." Today, as it was then, not so much as a question but as a statement. Reid's press release makes much of how recent travels to London and Europe inspired this collection for F/W 2012. You can take the boy outta the South but it's hard to take the South outta the boy... as they say.


A shoe with everything on it

The expression, 'Less is more' tends to thrive best north of the Mason Dixon Line. Of course, I'm General Izing but then, I'm an Army man. The South has always like the idea of 'everything on it.' Not that I advocate the minimal black trouser/turtleneck dude living with three pieces of Danish furniture in a Mies van der Rohe apartment. There is a middle ground.





It's just not here. The Blue Velvet suit ($2,195) threw me back to Charlotte, NC where drug store developed pictures of velvet clad prom boys in ruffled shirts with sideburns extending from their ear lobe to the corners of their mouths, sat proudly on stereo consoles all over Mecklenburg County. I'll never tell you what to wear, but if this is the look you're after, you can find it at Goodwill for considerably less.


I liked the Tweed suit ($2,295) with peak lapels. Not an entirely smart choice if last Winter is any indication of the global warming to come but damned good looking. Refreshingly center vented with a Daks waistband and the tweed is butter soft.




Camel hair sport coats ($TBD) are everywhere in the South. I'm not sure why I've never owned one. They're great looking with all matter of trouser: grey flannel, tartan, jean, cords...just stay away from khakis.

This one's incredibly well made but has peak lapels and side vents. This is exactly what an insurance agent from Charleston would come up with on Savile Row while visiting London for the first time. I'm guessing he would wear it in June with a Vineyard Vines tie.



The "Big Raincoat" ($795) or Duster, a la J Peterman, is a reminder that some men can pull stuff off that others can't. It's a great look if you're tall. Not so much if you're living in a world of boobs and belt buckles like some men I know (and am).




Billy's belts offer width over the narrow straps and Tiffany buckles so loved by the South (and me). Everybody is doing cheap versions these days: J Crew, Tommy H, Rugby... the usual suspects. The Reid buckle is distressed and that's silly. Made in Italy, it's got some heft and so, while never with a suit, it would show well with a sport coat. Monogram it with something witty like, "DRINK?" and you'll be miles ahead of the LOSER, Andy Spade.


Not very funny are two double breasted suits of such tire screeching anachronism that they belong in a Bobbie Gentry song. There's long been speculation over what Billy Joe and his girlfriend threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Whatever it was, I wish Billy Joe was wearing one of these suits when he jumped.




A grey wool DB called the Anderson ($1,695) comes with peak lapels and balanced button holes. As it should. The fabric is reflective of the price and I can live with that. Problems start with a patch breast pocket and end with a center vent. Things start getting weird with a jacket that buttons right to left.




Next is a cashmere grey DB ($3,295) that has peak lapels but the right lapel is missing a button hole. This is common in countries like Germany -- where apparel design is like watching someone hammer nails with a Stradivarius. The patch pocket stays and like the Anderson, throws off the stream lined DB aesthetic that is so London. The center vent remains but at least it buttons left to right.

I'm guessing that these two d-b's are cut for tall skinny guys with no ass. Hard to tell. If so, it's a look that the youth should enjoy. In the mean time, I'm looking for 1970s Soviet magazines that featured suits like these -- almost exclusively worn by mustached civil engineers in Estonia.


My bang-the-table favorite is this Engineer ($?) boot. I was told the leather has been through some sort of wash. It reminds me of my father's elephant skin wallet he bought in Vietnam. There's a crinkle finish that looks like an elephant butt with cracks that give it character. Simple. Soulful. Worn easily by anyone. Only problem is...no one knows how much it is or if it's even being made. The one thing I really like...but then, what the fuck do I know.

Update on the boot: Received following from Billy Reid's p.r. firm, "You can credit the boot as price upon request because it's not being produced. However, if someone was interested in purchasing it, they could contact the New York store at 212-598-9355 to inquire if they have a similar item or if the boot could be made for them.