Trad Xmas List: Duke Wayne - Born in the USA

Life can be terribly unfair and nothing brings that home quite like 'John Wayne: The Legend and the Man' (powerHouse Books $24.91).  Chock full of personal photos of family and friends, it really is something to see the charmed life John Wayne lead or, in the case of John Huston, followed.

Huge family, successful career, yacht, homes, wives...Like last year's 'Gary Cooper: Enduring Style,' there's nothing that connects to a celebrity, dead or alive, like ogling their personal photos. More so when that life resembles royalty. 

Twitter and Instagram are diluting these images as celebrities post pictures of themselves left, right and center.  I've been obsessed (in a good way) with Faye Dunaway for over 40 years but after following her on Twitter...I'm not so sure I want to see her scrap books. 

Faye at the Pierre Hotel

For that reason, studio and publicity images of John Wayne ring tired and mostly false.  Tired, because they've been seen too many times.  False, because despite all those pictures in uniform, John Wayne never served in the military. What really impresses me, like the Cooper book, are the family scrap book pics of Wayne and his family.

Sands of Iwo Jima, 1949

It's like looking in an 18th century mirror and wondering who all has seen their reflection in it.  I look at Wayne and Pilar in the bathroom with their daughter, Assia and I don't see a movie star as much as I see a proud Dad with a film director's eye for composition and a laugh.

Calling someone in my army, 'John Wayne' was not a good thing.  Although, there was a round disc of chocolate that came with C rations called a 'John Wayne' bar.  That was a good thing.  There's a lot of speculation that Wayne's intense patriotism came from guilt from never having served.  It's a complicated story when you dig into it but it's easy to see the connection Wayne made with the sailors below in a Hawaiian bar.

I grew up with John Wayne movies so it's hard for me to see him without a certain amount of Duke Dogma. Wayne died in 1979 while I was stationed at Ft Bragg. As corny as most of us thought him for the Gung Ho Show - I don't think there was a one of us who thought it an act.  There was a party at the main post all-ranks club shortly after Wayne's death where the John Wayne Special was invented.  It was a bastardized version of the 'Airborne Special' served at Ft Benning.  Best as I can remember it goes something like this:

The John Wayne Special Cocktail

2 ozs Gin

2 ozs Vodka

2 ozs Scotch

2ozs Bourbon

8 ozs Grapefruit Juice

Grenadine

Bragg shared a connection with Wayne through his 1968 film, The Green Berets, even though most of the picture was shot at Ft Benning.  Somewhere on Smoke Bomb Hill, the Special Forces A.O. at Bragg, there's an odd marker, almost a tombstone, dedicated to Special Forces from Wayne. God only knows what tribute was given to Duke at the Special Forces Sport Parachute Club.   

Wayne with son, Ethan, on The Green Berets set

I don't know when the day will come that I won't be surprised by the homes of celebrities.  Usually it's someone like Howie Mandel living in a palatial estate with mixed media sculpture on his grounds and a collection of antique cars in a custom built garage.  Their aesthetic always in close approximation to their talent.  John Wayne's digs are nice...don't get me wrong, but no fur sinks here.  Understated in that Marin County way where the heavy spending goes to landscapers.   

Who knew?  You think Wayne would have people for this sort of thing.  Maybe that's the point.  Toupee-less, wrench in hand...John Wayne was a man. A lucky man?  You bet your ass.  A legend?  I used to think so...until this book.  He was a man.  He made mistakes.  He put together bicycles on Christmas morning.  He drank too much. He smoked too much.  In him, some of us see the man we'd like to be.  I think he saw in us, the man he wanted to be. Just a man.  Bold talk for a one-eyed fat man. 

A Connoisseur of Impending Doom

I'd get off at Wall Street even though Bowling Green was closer to the park service work boat.  One reason was an addiction to the balls-to-wall energy on Wall Street.  People moving with an expressed purpose, laser focused determination and guts full of cranky anxiety. You know, how most of us commute home.  In 1985, working women wore little silk blossom ties with navy flannel suits and white leather running shoes, their heels sticking out of LL Bean canvas totes. I wonder where they all went.

The other reason was food. There was a Greek coffee stand run by George. There's always a guy named George in a Greek coffee stand.  A regular coffee, three fast spoons of sugar, and too much cream.  Like melted Hagen Daaz coffee ice cream... only sweeter.

If I was flush, there was a small diner in an office building on Broad Street where two, huge breasted Puerto Rican waitresses, in turtlenecks and rainbow clip-on suspenders, served the only grits south of 125th Street.

The soundtrack came from Madonna's, Like A Virgin on a beat up Radio Shack walkman.  WNBC's,  Don Imus thought she sounded like Minnie Mouse on helium.  Young suits on park benches snorted cocaine with the Journal or NY Post on their lap and Ray Bans covering their eyes. But mostly I remember him and the smell.  A ripe and rotting  BO. 

He was tucked half way into a bright blue sleeping bag at the end of a park bench.  Long silver hair streaked in black fell onto a long grey beard that fell onto a signal yellow shirt. He looked up and pointed at me like he was gonna hit a fly ball my direction.  But he didn't. Instead, he yelled, "This could happen to you!" Fellow pedestrians peel away as his eyes lock on me. Too lazy to detour, I approach the bench as he follows me with his pointing finger, extended for emphasis, by a long yellow nail with a thick black crescent of crud underneath.

"Yeah, you.  Fucking, Stacy Keach! This could happen to you!"

I walk by looking straight ahead.  "Fuck you, Stacy Keach!  Fuck  youuuuuu..." slowly ebbs away under Minnie Mouse's, Dress You Up.  "Stacy Keach?" I wondered. I don't look like Stacy Keach.  Don't get me wrong.  I like Stacy Keach.  He's amazing in 'The Traveling Executioner' and 'Doc.'  27 years later I still don't get Stacy Keach -- That it could happen to me?  A day doesn't go by that I know it can and probably will.

Trad Xmas List: Flor Rose Prosecco & French Kissing in the USA

Flor Rose Prosecco : Not for your typical Commie

As vulgarity and coarseness become substitutes for wit and taste, it's important to remember that while the Cold War losing Russians & Chinese are buying up most of Manhattan and all reserves of Krug and Cristal, wine doesn't have to be expensive to be rich.

It's been said the Soviet Union went broke trying to keep up in the Cold War. That might stem from a poor judgement of value. The best car, the best tailor, the best art, the best missile system... like a newly minted Lotto winner, the Commies always associate the best with expensive.

A quick aside.  I went to a party on Park Avenue -- Somewhere in the 70's. You know... the private elevator, 15 rooms, flowing halls...striking. The owner, with homes in Beverly Hills and Palm Beach, sold his company for stock to a much larger competitor.  Problem was he couldn't sell the stock for five years.

As the stock price tumbled south, he called the new owner. "Look, you gotta let me sell some of this now before it goes even lower."  Instead, the owner just offers more stock. This fella tells me that reluctantly he takes more stock.

 Laughing hysterically, next to his grand piano, he raises his left arm and points to the ceiling while a $22 plastic Swatch sneaks out from under his shirt cuff, "Just as the five years comes up," he says, "Up the stock goes and it just keeps going up!" I watch his Swatch as he jabs it at his ceiling, "Up! Up! Up!"

A ten million dollar pile on Park and the guy's wearing a plastic Swatch. I know a Manhattan hipster who owns four watches worth $200,000, and he rents...in Little North Korea.

This guy probably serves Flor Rose Prosecco (availability here). At $17, it comes in an even more impressive magnum for around $28. That's a lotta holiday value for the buck. Served chilled, it's refreshing and bubbly soft with a grown up after taste that contrasts against prosecco's typical viridity. If champagne is like sex (and it is), then Flor Rose is a lot like French kissing. Not in China or Russia, but here...in the USA

The Genteel Look at Menswear

Interviews with, G. Bruce Boyer, Marc-Evan Blackman (chairperson, FIT's menswear dept.) and myself   - Story Here

M Mischianza

From left (reclining) Kevin Doyle; (center row) Lacey Doyle, Duncan Christy, Jayne Christy, Kent Black; (rear row) Christina Lynch; Mark Ganem; Kathleen "Kat" Butler, Margo Hammond, Lynette Cortez, Dennis Freedman, Tom Moran

From left (front row) George Chinsee, Steve Pomper, Dennis Freedman, Jayne Christy holding Elizabeth Christy; (rear row) Tom Moran, Kat Butler, John Jarvis, Kyle Ericksen, Malena Black, Kent Black, Kevin Doyle, Robert Bryan, Duncan Christy, Glenn Plaskin

This is only gonna make sense if you're at the Katie Murphy Ampitheatre on FIT's campus (Northwest Side of 7th Avenue at 27th Street) tonight at 6PM.  And even then...I'm not so sure. 

Mixing Plaids

Brannoch Advertisement, Fall, 1989

Brannoch is long gone.  Owned by Plaid Clothing Group, Inc. and acquired by Hartmarx in 1996, it died under the watch of William Roberti.  Mixing plaid successfully is not child's play. Neither is presiding over Brooks Brothers under Marks & Sparks or shooting Duck Head with a .410 shotgun.  Today Roberti works as a public sector crisis management consultant. He must be doing something right.

The Klansman

A well cast movie that sucks is like sex with a beautiful woman who doesn't. Looking for something to be thankful for? Be thankful you don't have to watch this.

Favorite Thanksgiving Movie...

...not to mention the aerial photography. Happy Thanksgiving

Clay Tompkins Launch: With The Grown Ups

Clay Tompkins launched his new US made menswear line (seen here) last Saturday night and I'm guessing there was at least $7,000 in baby sitter money on the floor.  Where have these people been for the last five years?  Obviously not where I've been.  That is, with their children in Red Wing boots, flannel plaid hunting shirts and rolled up selvedge drinking PBR at Capsule. 

It felt good to talk with grown ups again.  I didn't hear 'awesome' once.  No one brought a skate board, bicycle or a backpack.  No tattoos...that were visible.  Same goes for piercings. No ball caps.  It was actually...normal.   These are my people. 

Able to laugh without breaking into loud guttural guffaws.  Able to drink out of a glass instead of a bottle.  Able to talk while looking you in the eyes.  Able to shave. Able to afford socks.  Able to recall the Surf Club.  Able and willing to dance -- I may never go south of 14th Street again.

Sterling Hayden: The Men We Are

I was 15 when I first saw Sterling Hayden in Dr Strangelove. His performance as bat shit crazy General Jack Ripper, not to be confused with Keenan Wynn's, Colonel 'Bat' Guano, seemed wildly over the top to me -- Until I went in the Army and met General Hank Emerson but he's another story.

Here's another obscure interview with Hayden on his live aboard barge in Paris. Hayden, like a lot of actors who served in WWII, seemed embarrassed by his success and would drop in and out of Hollywood whenever he needed money or his soul. Stoic about his military service in the OSS, critical of his home land, he was in the end, light years ahead of most.

I once worked with a retired Alaska State Trooper who reminds me of Hayden.  Full of insane stories, he had an independence and insight I respected. He told me, "It's not what a man is born with that makes him a man.  We're all born with more than we need.  It's what we lose and give up in our life that makes us the men we are.

Hayden wrote in his 1964 autobiography, 'Wanderer,' " ...we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.  The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?"

Travel to Exotic Places, Meet Interesting People & Kill Them

Entrance to EOC, Ft. Bragg, 1978, Photo by D. Konop

The charge of quarters woke me at Oh-Dark-Thirty on 19 November 1978.  I was told the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) had been activated and I might not return for a couple days.  I walked the block and a half from the barracks to XVIII Airborne Corps Headquarters and climbed three flights of stairs to a six inch thick vault door just to the right of the third floor landing.

Pressing the cipher lock  -  rocker switches numbered 1 to 5 and hidden behind a grey steel panel,  I pushed the EOC vault door open and walked along a dark narrow hall with darkened offices for 50 feet or so before it  turned sharply to the right and into a bright florescent lit room filled with steel desks and lined with maps, clocks, classified, secret and top secret cover sheets.

Cover Sheet

The duty officer, a major and a highly decorated helicopter pilot, told me US civilians had been attacked and killed by the Guyana Army. I sat at my desk as an operations assistant and was told I was one of the first to arrive while others were driving in from their homes on and off post.  The major handed me a telex with a Secret cover sheet stapled to it and told me he had a secure call to make.

I lit a Marlboro, tossed the match in an army issue glass ashtray and turned the cover page over. Following  the distribution of military and government offices, two paragraphs described how a US Congressman was shot and killed at the Port Kaituma airstrip along with hundreds of US civilians.  I remember thinking, "Why would the Guyanese Army do that?"

Port Kaituma Airstrip, photo credit: FBI

The EOC filled with men and talk of kicking Guyana ass and taking names.  The Airborne motto, "Travel to Exotic Places - Meet Interesting People - And Kill Them" was finally going to happen.  I was told by the ops sergeant that as infantrymen our lives as Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers (REMF) would soon be over and  we'd be re-assigned to a line infantry unit in the 82nd Airborne.

My stomach dropped just below my knees as I imagined coal black Guyanese commandos with machetes chopping my unprepared REMF ass into tiny bite size pieces and then fighting over my Rolex and boots.  At 20, I was a huge smart ass but I worked that morning without saying a word and wondered if I shouldn't leave my watch behind.

Time, December 4, 1978

It took almost four hours before a telex told the true story.  A US Congressman and five civilians, mostly media, had been killed at the airstrip.  The Guyanese, our enemy seconds earlier, were helping us and had reported 200 - 300 dead at a camp  of American farmers.  In another couple hours we learned it was mass suicide - Some 900 dead.  A G-3 officer wrote in red wax pencil over a Sortie board, "Operation Bag-A-Bod."  A call for volunteers went up to to assist 1st COSCOM with the body removal.  I called my father and told him I was thinking of going.  He told me not to and went into vivid detail as to why.

I learned a lot 34 years ago today.  I learned not to believe everything you hear or read.  I learned a an officer had his heels locked and his ass chewed over a Sortie board. I later learned he retired a major and I think I know why.  Mostly, I learned time changes everything.

Two Foxy Sweaters - Only One Has Soul

Christopher Fischer Fox Sweater in Cashmere

Trad Needlepoint Fox Sweater in Cotton

I like mine better. From The Trad Archives, 27 April 2009

"My ex sister-in-law needle pointed this sweater as a wedding gift almost 21 years ago. I'll always remember her even though we haven't spoken since the divorce. I'll think about the superficial nature of clothes and then I wear this Fox on a Spring afternoon and am taken back to a time that no longer exists and to people I no longer know. The soul of something hand made with the power to take me back in time never ceases to amaze me."

FIT Ivy Symposium: Ivy in Japan

I'll be honest. I watched  Dr. Masafumi Monden's presentation with jaw dropping amazement last Friday at FIT's Ivy Symposium. Whenever I look at anything through a different set of eyes... what was common and every day turns into something new and in this case, damned near magical.

The other night I dreamed I was a dog hanging out with a bunch of other dogs who were my friends.  We were having a blast running around with our tongues hanging out.  I woke up and had new respect for what's it like being a dog.  I'm not sure if that makes any sense to you.  Music might be more accessible.  Masafumi turned me onto a new 'GS' band, The Wild Ones.    

You can hear a sample of  Japanese Group Sounds or GS here (@5:50 in there's a cover of the Beach Boy's, 'Surfing USA). I hear some friends outside barking so in the event you do enjoy looking at things through a different set of eyes, I leave you with this sweet biscuit...