A Business Expense: Hair Grows on Company Time

Mayfair House Hotel (now condos)

A woman behind Mayfair's reception desk draws a map on the back of a post card and points me in the direction of a barber three blocks away.  Hair stylist really but she insists he cuts men too.  I like Mayfair House. Tucked away in Coconut Grove, each room has a balcony and every balcony a hot tub -- All of it hidden from the street by masses of flowers, vines and whatever else grows in Miami. It's 1993 and I had left three feet of snow in Chicago.

First night I'm neck deep in the tub plugged into a walkman with Alcione's, 'Sufoco,' sipping beer and puffing a La Gloria Cubana. Only problem... a headphone wire knocks my cigar out of the ashtray and into the tub. That's okay. I have a lot of cigars...


Alcione's Sufoco

Back then, Ernesto Carrillo was still making La Gloria's in Little Havana on Ocho street. After a piece ran in Cigar Afficianado his cigars, extremely affordable & Cuban like, became impossible to find.  Parking a couple blocks away from the source, the El Credito factory, I thought it best to wear a suit jacket since red suspenders with yellow felt teddy bears were holding my trousers up. 

The El Credito factory Photo by Tina Bucuvalas

In a dark grey Britches of Georgetown,  Kennedy-model suit, (designed by Mark Rykken) and Ray Ban Aviators, I stroll into Ernesto's tiny shop. To my right are three rows of cigar rollers. Dead ahead is Mrs Carrillo, who I think I recognize from the magazine. From her counter she looks up, stares at me, and excuses herself. Taking off my sunglasses, I look at the rollers and smile.  No one smiles back.  Mrs Carrillo returns, behind her Ernesto, trailed by several men, who all walk by and out the door.

Mrs Carrillo nervously asks how she can help.  Pulling out a list of orders from clients and friends back in Chicago, I start, " Three boxes of Wavells,  Two boxes of number one Torpedoes...  She looks at me dead pan and interrupts, "You just want cigars?" I tell her I do and that I'm from Chicago on a cigar run for some friends.

Everything changes. The room changes.  The rollers, up to now silent as a tomb, laugh and talk. Someone starts singing.  Mrs Carrillo smiles, pulls out a file folder and tells me Wavells and Torpedos are sold out.  I ask what she has. She runs a finger down her list and I remember what I look like.

La Gloria Glorias


'No one wears a suit jacket in Miami - Especially dark grey,' I think, while 10 boxes of Maduro Glorias, all Mrs Carrillo had, go to the back seat and the jacket gets thrown to the passenger seat. 'Unless they're cops.' I sit for a minute as the a/c cranks up and wonder who they thought I was. Immigration? Maybe. There's a pang of guilt and I remember walking in my barracks, Corcoran jump boots heavy on the floor and my friends, surprised the footsteps belonged to me, running outside to retrieve the bag of pot they threw out the window.

A block from the hair stylist in Coconut Grove I hear the screams of several men, "Put it down! Put it fucking down, now!" Then that unmistakable, 'Pop-Pop-Pop' movies never got right.  A terrifying sound far  from its home on the range. I look for anyone on the street to see a reaction, 'Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing,' but it's early and there's no one. Only cars passing by with tinted windows up against the heat.

I see the hair stylist and calmly run for his door.  Calmly run?   It's skipping - but faster.  A bell rings as I open the door and cold a/c freezes head and crotch sweat.  I tell the man what the hotel told me and he laughs.  I'll learn he's Honduran and in his 50s. I talk.  He cuts.

After half an hour, he tells me, "Have you ever seen a telephone wire with a bunch of birds sitting on it?" I nod. "Birds fly up and join the other birds..." He cuts. "But you my friend -- You're like the bird that flutters around the wire.  Not sure where or even if he wants to land."

He blow drys the hair off my shoulders and a woman walks in.  Did you hear the gun shots. "No," says my barber.  The police shot a nut case with a machete only a half hour ago right around the corner.  My barber looks at me, "Did you see it?" "No," I tell him. "I only heard it."

Chartwell Booksellers

55 East 52nd Street - In the lobby















Writer, Churchill-expert and owner of Chartwell Booksellers (see above), Barry Singer has a new book out. 'Churchill Style' is a primer of Churchill's food, wine, cigars, women, books and good country houses. Churchill is what John Fairchild would call, "A Civilized Man." I admit to never reading Churchill but I have read a couple biographies.

Somewhere in those books... or was it a London pub? -- I heard my favorite Churchill quote: "The definition of a Greek -- is a Turk -- trying to be an Italian." Singer made my day, hell, he made my year, by confirming that attribution. But - he saddles the famous Lady Astor/ Churchill rebuff, "I may be drunk, madam, but in the morning I'll be sober and you'll still be ugly" to Sir Frederick (F.E.) Smith, a close friend of Churchill but not of his wife, Clementine, "who believed him to be a bad influence on her husband as a drinker and as a gambler. He was, however, in every sense, Winston's equal."

In appropriating a style - you could do a helluva lot worse - Joe Stalin and Mao Tse Tung come to mind. Those Commie world visions have clearly soared off course as their descendants grab capitalism like a gibbet around a neck while making JP Morgan look like a girl scout selling do-si-dos outside a grocery store.

But Churchill is still English and the English are still Churchill. Thank God.

I'll review the book tomorrow. It's perfect for Father's Day. Even if Dad has to buy it for himself. Beats the crap out of a tie -- Unless it's a navy polka dot bow tie from Turnbull & Asser. Bloody hard to go wrong with that pairing.

Mining the Vintage Vein: Part III

I love places like this. They are the rock candy for my inability to focus.


John figures brand is less a consideration than stripe, pattern and details.


Green dress shirts are despised by retailers which must be why I like them so much.


A rag for many but at the stage of patina perfection for me.

Almost voile in weight and looking very '70s whether it is or not.


John and I talked a lot about the origins of clothing. To know why US Army issue khakis were always 8.2 ounces is to understand that military specifications had to be consistent regardless of who made them. Not 7 ounces. Not 11.2 ounces. 8.2 ounces. Otherwise...chaos.



My Norwegian fisherman's sweater goes back to 1986 and it's damned near like the day I bought it. Over a white cotton turtleneck and under a bright red down vest, we ran over sand dunes in South Haven, Michigan and later found ourselves covered in sand and Ladybugs. We didn't realize it then but our good luck had already happened.



I know I look back a lot. I guess it's the age or maybe there's just a lot to look back on. I'm still pissed off I left my swim trunks with the YMCA Shark patch in the pool locker room at Ft Bliss.



I was only six but that long ago regret has never gone away -- A slow shaking of the head as you look down at your feet knowing it's all your fault and there's nothing you can do about it -- The shoes change but the rest feels the same.


I've saved 4o or 50 empty cigar boxes. Each one is a story.

The Four Seasons bar in Chicago. A bunch of us from work and I crack open a cedar box of double coronas. A waiter brings the huge bar humidor over to a table of fellas sitting next to us. "Looks like my box is bigger than your box" says one of the fellas. I sadly look at my little box. After making their selections the waiter takes the humidor away. I lean towards their table and smile, "Looks like you don't have a box."



The Zippo burned a leg more than once. Careless overfilling with lighter fluid resulted in a red chafe-like circle on the thigh from seepage thru the pocket. I still have my grandfather's Zippo, a gift from his son -- But I long for the son's Vietnam Ronson engraved, "Fuck Communism."


Echos of French Souleiado. Hand carved block designs going back over 200 years to the south of France and made famous by Pierre Deux in Greenwich Village.



All the more special since the recent bankruptcy of Pierre Duex and the suburban success of insipid Vera Bradley knock offs.



Quartermaster Laundry starched fatigues cardboard stiff. I remember field stripping a cigarette butt by rolling the hot ash off between thumb and index finger. Butts were deposited in trouser pockets only to be pressed like tiny lumps if you forgot to take them out.

Wide Boys

A Wide Tie: Purple Label Shirt/ Tie & Turnbull Asser Blazer


A Wide Boy: Hardy Rodenstock aka Meinhard Gorke

They say they're coming back -- As if they ever left. In London, 'Wide Boy' is a derogatory term for a working class schemer. A phony always on the make. Someone who deals in goods of questionable authenticity. Hardy Rodenstock (not his real name) allegedly created bottles of rare wine (not his real job) and sold them to the world's biggest suckers. Rich people. I suppose it's hard to be poor and a sucker -- At least not for very long.

But Rich people can be suckers and live long lives -- As long as the money holds out. Kip Forbes paid $156,000 for a suspect bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson. I doubt it has kept him up nights. You can read about Hardy/Meinhard and Kip and Robert Parker and Michael Broadbent and lots of other "experts" in the true mystery, "The Billionaires Vinegar" by Benjamin Wallace. You'll never look at the wine world or experts in the same way.

Someone told me they were an 'expert' since they had read a 'book' on a hot new collectable. Of course, this party also sells these hot new collectables so I'm sure they know what they're doing. The point is, you should know what you're doing -- But that's not always possible. Like the $300 I threw away on a fake box of Cuban Cohiba cigars in 1994. Or, back in '76 when I gave $25 to a hooker -- who told me to drive around the corner where she'd meet me -- only to find a Fayetteville cop who asked me what the fuck I was doing and convinced me to leave before I got into, 'real trouble.'

There's a lotta Wide Boys in the world but there's not a lotta Wide Ties. Least not in the High Street shops. That's an old Purple Label up there from six or seven years ago. Word is they're coming back. Which means some of you are gonna have to have one or two. And that means you'll have to buy shirts with a spread collar. And suits with wider lapels. And a watch with a larger dial. And... You see where this going? No? Then I have a box of amazing Cuban cigars and if you'll give me $300 -- I'll meet you around the corner.

Sitting On My Hine

Instead of complaining about the weather why don't you do something about it. And since I'm not a cross country skier... Well, this works for me. I've tried the other cognacs and Hine VSOP is up there. No more than $50 a bottle, it's a lighter and more gentle cognac perfectly suited to an after dinner fire in winter. I gave up cigars a couple years ago but if you imbibe I'd suggest a 1926 Anniversario Maduro by Padron. Better than many Cubans and a lot easier to find. What's harder to find is a wife that allows this sort of behaviour.

H. Upmann