Why I Like Bourdain

This is a car wreck. You want to look away, but Alan's drapes and untucked shirt are like a pair of blue strobe lights cutting through the night on I-95. The crumpled metal and chrome stained with...triple cream.

Pride USA

I feel it. Can you?

Erin go... Bud Lite?

"The best part is we a have a local reveler who's a [little person] dressed as leprechaun running around all day giving out free shots of Jameson," says Rathbone's owner Chris Deboir, 38. He expects to sell around 150 cases of Bud Light and 64 gallons of Guinness."

The New York Post

The Maroon Blazer "Front!"

(Photo filched from Flickr)

A reader asked how I felt about the maroon blazer.

Early on in my sales career I had a manager who smoked, chewed gum and talked at 140 mph. All at the same time. Will was rail thin with coke bottle glasses and curly hair wound as tight as his disposition during a sales call. I didn't think he could sell a golf ball in a pro shop but success was built on his mantra, "If you don't ask for the order at least three times you'll never be successful." He didn't sell as much as he just wore you down.

One day he wore a full length fur coat and asked everyone, "This doesn't make me look gay does it?" And one day he wore a polyester maroon blazer. I assume it was polyester because I don't think a wool maroon blazer has ever been made. Will stood at my cubicle (which I was planning to line in a Pierre Deux toile) when another employee walked by and chimed, "Ding, ding...Front!"

Remember, you really don't need a name tag to look like you work behind a hotel desk. The maroon blazer can do it for you.

A Man's Movie: Summer Lovers

Shot on the Greek Island of Santorini, this 1982 guilty pleasure of cheese gives you travel poster scenery, gorgeous naked women, lots of drinking and smoking, plenty of sex and The Three Stooges. What it doesn't give you is a story but as a critic wrote, "Any movie about a menage a trois on a Greek Island can't be all bad." Amen to that. Daryl Hannah, Peter Gallagher and a stunning Valerie Quennessen (1957-1989) star.

Directed by Blue Lagoon's, Randal Kleiser, a college buddy turned screenwriter met the director at a party and told Kleiser how much his college room mate (me) loved this film. Kleiser avoided my buddy the rest of the night. The horrible story is kept alive with a bouncing sound track that includes Robert Palmer's, Johnny and Mary (covered by Tina Turner in the film) seen here in a equally cheesy Italian video from 1980. I suggest pairing this movie with a Santorini chardonnay and some feta. Make it a whole lotta feta.

Ethan Allen 1974

"Not as good as it was..."

Unless we're talking about 1974. When was it in the 70's that vulgar became such a popular choice? Nik Nik shirts, bozo the clown bow ties, leisure suits, harvest gold appliances, rust shag carpet, turquoise jewelry and the Pacer. I've often speculated the Soviets introduced an experimental drug via a popular U.S. soft drink. Instead of streets filled with our own citizens screaming, "Die capitalist war mongers!" we got Cheese. I assume the Soviets ran out of money and had to rush the drug into production and all of America fell in love with Ethan Allen and Kitsch.

I hear the company is in financial trouble. That's amazing. I'd have thought they went outta business 30 years ago.

I remember these living room suites growing up in the south. Wall to wall carpet with tiny, machine made Persian rugs scattered everywhere and a matching suite of furniture with art work bought from the same Ethan Allen store. A look sans any character or personality. As cold as the air conditioning in an Atlanta mall.

One thing concerns me...his suit. I swear those are hacking pockets on his suit jacket. A slanted pocket, it just happens to be a favorite detail of mine. I shudder at the thought but I drank a lot of Coca Cola in the 70's.

Airborne Trad

I'm walking up Lexington Avenue when I see these in the Stubbs & Wootton window. The old Airborne, "Death from Above" logo on a pair of linen slippers. The maroon beret signifies the Airborne or Paratrooper status. Oddly enough - - throughout the entire world. That's right. All countries signify their Airborne troops with a maroon beret. Nice to see the world can agree on one thing.

The skull is Death. And the wings are from US Army designed jump wings. Trad Airborne Slippers? No. They are not Trad. In fact, a Knish has a better chance at being Trad than these. I was in the Airborne and I find these repulsive. Those who will pay $395 for them in New York or Palm Beach will most likely have no idea what they are. The sales girl in NY certainly didn't know anything about them.

I find designer's impulse to "knock off" military patches and awards a lazy afront to those who "earned" them.

Not Trad