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I've Been Priviledged

November 9, 2014, 9:22 am
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To have had such an incredible mom. And it's always intrigued me to read her Salutatorian welcome speech from her high school graduation ceremony. She was sixteen when she crafted such a well written expression--only two years older than my LFG. My mom passed away about an hour ago.
And I feel fortunate that LFG, the last of her grandchildren, got here soon enough to firsthand see and feel my mom's love.
My mother was a gift of inestimable value. And I'm awash in the joy of relief--knowing that she is relieved--relieved of her suffering. And I'm reveling in the  blessing of having no regrets--no unrequited issues or situations that would be forever gnawing at and asking for resolution now impossible. My mother and I were rock solid in our uncomplicated and unencumbered love for each other during these last months of her journey.

My only regret is that the sixteen year old woman who wrote that lovely little welcome letter never read Friedan's The Feminine Mystique.

Onward. Now untethered.

ADG2
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I’m Home

November 16, 2014, 12:13 pm
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After a flight from Florence to Charlotte and then DCA. And it’s been an incredible past seven days. Home’s now redefined for me and I’ll have to see how this new definition takes form as time now moves on without my mom.

I’ll write something else later but for now I’m revelling in the ear shattering monastic silence that my aloneness this morning at home in Bethesda offers me. It’s good. It’s allowing me to reflect on how lush and rich and raw all of the humanity was last week. I suck at describing things with one or two words but if I had to, I would use “joyous relief” to describe the passing of my mother and the week of her funeral and outpouring of love from all who came to be with us.
I cannot begin to express my amazement that Toad drove nine hundred miles one-way to be with me and my mom and family.
There remains hope for this ugly world when Tom Tevlin, my tumblr friend and father of two lovely daughters, gets off work and drives thirteen hours the day before my mom’s service, bagpipes and kit in tow, and pipes her in and out of the sanctuary and then at the gravesite from a distance, sees her home, piping Amazing Grace. He then drives home to New Jersey after trying to eat a piece of fried chicken at my mom’s house with a knife and fork. My family is still bowled over by his gesture. (Not the knife and fork fried chicken rookie greenhorn thing, dumb-ass) They absolutely loved his presence.

Both of those mugwumps will get exclusive blog stories of praise and appreciation sometime soon. 
And my redneck country-ass brother from Greenville, N.C. was there too—in brown suede shoes. Kinda kills the assumption that these so called friendships, courtesy of the blogosphere are really at best, ersatz alliances—amorphic and when called to form. Non-existent when needed. Shut up.

Your personal emails to me have been incredible too. Here’s an excerpt from one that I got about ten days ago when my mom was still deciding to leave.

“I hope your S.C. riding is not too bumpy. And if it is, you are riding the bumps with grace and love. I am confident you are. I have not been where you are, so I can only imagine the reflection, the joy, the sorrow, the transitory nature of watching someone you love deeply slide to death. To stopping. To stop. We are such 'go' creatures. Stopping is often so elusive; we enjoy slowing down so that we can take in all the senses. Falling in love is slowing down. Falling out of love is the senses gone amuck. We don't taste, feel, smell, hear any more--at least not the way we once did. Maybe death brings us back to love since it rocks our senses. And that, I believe, is a good thing: to be rocked by love. Rocked in both meanings of the word: comforted gently and also to experience life with vigor and vitality, dancing and not caring if anyone is watching. I hope that you are rocked by your mom”.

And I replied to it again today with this…
“The first paragraph, as lovely as it was the first time I read it, is now lovelier. It struck me so the first time, as my still alive mother was amidst contemplating her departure, because it captured for me another way to look at death and loss and letting go. And I loved how love and cadence were key themes. And now after burying my mother, I’ve again read it simultaneously through the somewhat weary eyes of grown man Dustin and the always present eyes of the six year old me—the ukulele playing Dusty. And its lushness is even greater”.
I’ll now smugly begin plowing through the piles of unattended life things that have either been ignored or on hold for so many weeks. Fake swagger will be my guise to prop me up till I regain my sea legs. 

I appreciate all of you and my mom does too.

Onward. Home.

ADG2
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Flusser Apologetics and JMW Turner Unapologetically

November 22, 2014, 3:43 pm
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I kinda miss ole Daddy. ‘specially now since I’m a full-fledged orphan. Daddy this time being God, aka Alan Flusser. God you say? Yep. He’s a reluctant owner of the moniker but not too reluctant. I mean really, it makes no difference if you are a nice Jewish boy turned Buddhist from the upper middle class enclaves of the Garden State and then four decades Gotham habitué or like me, a country-ass redneck from the Palmetto State. Everyone loves a bit of adulation.  But my life circumstances have had me missing Alan’s Washington visits and my scant Gotham sorties haven’t offered Flusser Fellowship in over a year.
I started it. I’m the one who first called Alan God. I’ve admired him since way before he ever befriended me and started taking a lot of my money. And I’ve said it a zillion times and I’ll say it again to you knuckleheads who say “Alan Flusser? What happened?”Nothing has happened, dumbasses. Alan’s riding the waves of time just like the rest of us. 
And the “What happened?” question seems always posited on those forums in context to thirty year old publicity/jacket cover photos of Alan. Unless you are splashing on embalming fluid every morning, I’d bet that a thirty year progression of your mug shots would show us a journey not dissimilar. So back off of Daddy.
I’ve aged ten years in eighteen months. Shut up.
I too used to hang on to the idea of Alan Flusser, circa 1984 just like I did with Ralph Lauren, circa 1978. These were my Ed Sullivan moments for both Beatles-esque sartorial acts. The moments when they forever installed in themselves in my sartorial and aesthetic register, but when they were both on f_cking fire. Shut up. These were Ralph’s horse blanket Shetland plaid sport jackets (made in the USA by Lanham) moments and the horizontal dress shirted, gut end braces, chalk striped drapy trousered, double breasted days of Alan.
But things change—all life is transitory and that includes sartorial epochs. Bruce Springsteen said “every now and then you have to break your own narrative” and National Geographic photographer Dewitt Jones said that “if we don’t question our patterns, they become our prisons”. Alan and Ralph have never strayed too far from their core strategies but for the sake of their own engagement, relevance, and perhaps amusement, they mix it up a bit.
Artistic licence (If he’s is anything, he’s an artist) and relaxation would be two characteristics of Alan that I’d use to distinguish the current state of his evolution.  Alan is a grandfather and is long past the need care too much about the opinions of the general public or investors or journalists. So what if most of the world thinks he needs a haircut? I hope he grows it down to his ass and then sells locks of it. I'll buy some and a make a bracelet. Shut up.
Courtesy of Gentleman's Gazette
Look at the sockless daddy...with kick ass Gucci Deal Sleds on. Stronger than wolf nooky. Yep.The one-time arbiter of beltless, Thurston braced drapy trousers and made by Old Man Cleverley himself, buckled or laced shoes, now wears slip ons and flat front belted trousers almost exclusively. His two daughters flipped out when they discovered that he actually bought a pair of jeans. 
And the man is obsessed with comfort. Lora Piana drawstring lounge togs? If they exist, I bet Daddy Fluss has them on right now. Me? I’m in a dirty, terrycloth zebra print robe that I stole from the Hotel Monaco. 
Photo from The Trad
When scores of you suggested that I remove of couple of the dingy-ass cotton bracelets from my left wrist, I added three more. I only thinned out my circular fellowship of bracelets for my mamma’s funeral last week and I hope that Alan only grooms differently for such rare situations. I walked my sister down the marital aisle twice. I don’t think I’ll have to attend a re-do of my mamma’s send off so I’m going to reload my wrist. GTH.
And speaking of “GTH devotees”,I just saw the JMW Turner Late Pictures exhibition at the Tate Britain and was blown away. Every picture in this show was Turner aged sixty-five to his death at seventy-six. Nothing earlier. Radical. Mind bending. And imagine how imposing his pictures were to the aesthetic sensibilities of the Art Establishment of the time. Oh and here's a Turner self portrait as a young man. Probably idealized a bit but still, he was a young shaver when he painted it.
“The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free is the first exhibition devoted to the extraordinary work J.M.W. Turner created between 1835 and his death in 1851. Bringing together spectacular works from the UK and abroad, this exhibition celebrates Turner’s astonishing creative flowering in these later years when he produced many of his finest pictures but was also controversial and unjustly misunderstood”.
Turner even as a young man was always an incredible capturer of water and clouds. Water and air’s movement, energy and emotion are difficult to memorialize in any medium; watercolor, pastel, drypoint, tempera, or oil. And an artist’s attempt to convey it tests greatly their mechanical skill and even more so their talentfor finding and then really, really seeingthese magical properties.
Whistler had the same talent for seeing and conveying dawn, dusk and midnight. Anyone with basic artistic skill could capture a lush, painterly image of the old Battersea Bridge. But Whistler shrouded it in atmospherics. Twilights and dawn peeks, mists and vapors. He and Turner saw what others didn’t but that’s only one part of the gift. The artist must then transfer it. And this is the moment when talent and skill must congregate. Ralph and Alan. Congregationalists.
The volume of Whistler’s Venice pastels exist mainly because of chilly mornings and early evenings.  When he deemed it too cold to transfer artfully his mind’s eye capture on to an etching plate with a needle, he would bide his time drawing, courtesy of a little box of pastels and light brown cards that he kept in his pocket. 
When his hands warmed up, he’d tuck away his pastel kit and commence etching. I'm just happy that there were days when his hands were cold.
Photo Courtesy of My Damn Self
Folks, to be able to do that is talentand skill combined and Flusser has it out the ass. Still does. His eye remains unrivaled and his skill for conveying it courtesy of colors, textures, and mediums is as Turner-esque as ever. I deemed Flusser “God” long ago after manifold moments of him gently pulling me back from the crag where I’d unwittingly almost fall into the Canyon of Clowndom. Had Alan not steered me to this heathery green cashmere and wool option, surely I'd have ended up with some kind of bright green hootchie cootchie coat.
Photo from Off The Cuff DC
And I'd ape the hell out of Alan. There was a time when I’d simply see what Alan was wearing at the opening of a season or a trunk show and just say, “I’ll have that.” And thatwas always a good decision. Why try to knock off Turner and Whistler when you can simply have the Master create one for you?
Turner was sixty-five when he threw into overdrive his slaying  of the staid opinions and calcified mores of London’s Art Establishment. And he didn’t let up until he died eleven years later.  They literally thought Turner was demented. Maybe he was and thanks be to the neurosynaptic gods for it. Look at this picture. You almost need to dress for it. Barbour at minimum. Maybe a crash helmet too. 
Turner looked like this when he opened his final can of whoop ass, punching the Establishment right in the nose. Not quite the dashing fella of previous decades but still loaded with juice.
And how could I have rambled on about all this without including my friend and soothsayer of balance and restrained playfulness, the mighty eruditey, G. The Bruce. Boyer.  Bruce’s  afterburners didn’t even feel the need to kick in till he was into his fifth decade of extolling on things sartorial.  I know of no one who has more thoroughly enjoyed…reveled practically, in the digital age of sartorial expression. Like I’ve said before, nobody shit-talks Bruce Boyer.
Flussdaddy remains the go-to man, the unimpeachable control tower for the sartorial takings off and landings of stick and rudder Cessna guys like me who think they are the lead solo jet on the sartorial Thunderbirds.


Now get your b_tch ass in the kitchen and make me some pie.

Onward. Going home this week to mamma’s for Thanksgiving.

ADG2. Thankful. 
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The Texture of Christmas--2014

December 26, 2014, 9:33 am
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Texture-Pattern-Shape-Color…tactile and visual attributes. It’s no secret that the fuzzier for me the better. Until now.
Restraint? Well I’m not gonna go overboard. But I do think in my old-er age I might be pulling back just a teeny bit from my Southern, country ass, GTH togged “look at me, look at me” cornpone sprezzatura. Who knows, maybe I’m unwittingly slipping into a phase of official mourning. Somber, black crepe hanging attire included. Queen Victoria did it after Albert died. And God knows she loved Albert better than Peter loved the Lord. That’s almost as much as I loved my mama. False alarm. I just realized that if you’ve unwittingly slipped into something, it’s kinda hard to then deem it official upon arrival. Hold me. I’m confused. Unofficially.


Case in point regarding my new, albeit just a teeny-tiny scooch over towards modulated fuzzy moderation…I took a pass on this orange corduroy Ralph jacket the other day. I’m only six weeks into orphanhood and it just seemed damn wrong on all levels to consider taking title to it. Plus I didn’t go to Clemson or Princeton or Tennessee or Florida or any of those other schools that claim orange as one of their school hues.
But forty years of mourning? I do think Victoria took it a bit too far. What with only wearing black and refusing to leave Balmoral for ages on end and using nothing but black bordered mourning stationery for the rest of her chubby little roly-poly life. Johnny Cash is the only fella who had the color black’s permission to singularly don it for decades on end. And he wasn’t mourning a damn thing.
Apropos of her forty years of black creped-ness, Vanity Fair reissued their original portrait of Queen Victoria in monochrome black with a mourning border when she finally joined Albert and Jesus in 1901.
Here’s the colorful original version from Vanity Fair—June 17 1897.
And another thing about Queen Victoria before we move on…What we don’t knowfor sure is whether or not she was getting some real bereavement comfort from her trusted ghillie John Brown. I sure hope so. And I’m not just talking about the therapeutic benefits of long walks and talks. We all know that they did a bunch of that. Lord knows I can talk. And walking still comes easy. I’m thinking I need me one of them constant bereavement companions for a while. Butcept a girl one. With benefits.
The texture of my 2014 Christmas has so far been rough and smooth. I’m alone but not lonely. My heart is still heavy—now magnified by this being the first Christmas without my mama—but I’m not wallowing in it. I drove home yesterday. In a MINI Cooper. John Cooper Works performance edition to be exact ("Performance Edition"MINI...ain't that a hoot?)...with my prostate seven inches off of I-95 for 7.5 hours. I need another car. And a smaller...
I’m typing this from my childhood cowboy bedroom and the monastic silence of being here alone isn’t depressing at all. LFG is in Florida, my brother is around the corner at his house and I’ve reconnected with a bunch of childhood friends who are here for the holidays. So I’m by myself in this once boisterous and noisy holiday house but I’m ok. I had a visceral, primal need to be here so here I am.
A tree? Of course. I’ll never have an artificial one but since I was solo this Christmas I didn’t need a big one of any type. So I nabbed a piccolo fir and just donned it with my favorite ornaments.
And thanks to Susie and Dougie for sending me presents. Otherwise the tree wouldn’t a been the only thing attenuated.
Back to texture and pattern...I had to put on real clothes the other day and make some business and personal rounds. And I coulda put on some GTH Christmas corduroy embroidered caca trousers and some retail red waistcoating like all the other holiday revellers. But I didn’t. Remember, I’m in mourning.
So it was a navy blazer and my Daddy Flusser semi-GTH Bronco Buster wool challis togs. Oh, and my Meermins which are holding up just fine in year-two by the damn way. Shut up. 
And I even got a mourning haircut. I figure another year and my follicular vacancies will be such that I’ll go back to cutting the remaindered sprigs myself.


My bereavement is evident in this Polo Chevy Chase selfie that I took while out and about. Time will bring back my smirky little pinch mouthed puckishness. But time has deemed six weeks not enough.
Oh, and by the way…don’t dress like this and visit a retail establishment lest you want them to think you work there. I don’t.
And I tried on a few things that I can’t buy. Including this bereavement brown vest. Buy it for me.
Maybe brown is my mourning color.
Kinda. Brownish green-essence with a green leather club chair. I mean really…how damned crepe laden can a fuzzy-ass flâneur like me become?
Brown. It’s a restrained color ain’t it? But who says the texture-pattern thang has to be? I vote no and you should too.
I’m gonna close this drivel load now. It’s off to the shower and off to lunch. Christmas just ain't Christmas this year. But it's ok.

Onward. Rough and Smooth.


80-g-2
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The Stories…

February 1, 2015, 12:33 pm
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The Stories…
I’ll probably never write. I mean my head is full of them—and good ones, too. But I don’t think they’ll make it to daylight anytime soon.
Ennui by Walter Richard Sickert circa 1914
Why not? Ennui came to mind but that’s not it. Not at all. Ennui to me denotes waiting for something—a protracted, slow moving state of simmer—with a barely fueled yearn for something, even if you don’t quite know what that something should be or is going to be upon arrival. And I’m so settled on this rather comprehensive definition of ennui that even if it’s miles off the mark, my definition stands.

Writer’s block would indicate that I’m a writer so that one’s out too. Boredom? Not so much. Inability to concentrate, to hold a thought long enough for it to morph into a cogent flurry of words? Now we are getting somewhere. Inertia.

My blessings outweigh my challenges and my decades old strategy of taking the proverbial plusses and minuses inventory to reground me remains a decent technique. But one thing I’ve learned in the last year and a half is that pain and suffering are unique and the degree to which anyone suffers should never be discounted, regardless of how their pluses and minuses exercise nets out. I’ll never again trivialize anyone’s pain just because I view it as comparatively trifling.

Bottom line is that I think I’m still grieving. And I’m trying hard to step into it, to participate in its coursing through, yet not wallow. But it’s cold here and flannel sheets and lush robes and shearling lined bedroom slippers are conducive to a bit of wallowing. Shut up.
So if I could write I’d finally do the promised story on this shirt from the nice people at Sebastian Ward. 
I don’t shill so you know that if I agree to write about a product, it’s gonna be unvarnished. And  I’ve already got the title. Quirky Shirts. Because they are. And of course that suits the hell out of my fuzzy-diced, “give me one of everything that you can possibly add to a garment, please”proclivities. 
I asked for a third sleeve with holes for three cufflinks and the narrow thinking, unimaginative bastards at Sebastian Ward shut me down. Thank you.
And then there’s the story that if I did write it, I’d title it Miracle Mark. About my might as well be blood brother Mark Rykken and the fact that back when I was solvent, I had Puerto make an updated version of my favorite W. Bills brown houndstooth jacket.
Rykken and I are both getting a wee bit long in the tooth. I honestly could afford to gain eight to ten pounds; Rykken?
I had a bulletproof, go-to version of this baby that my sartorial daddy, Alan Flusser in concert with Rykken, made for me a zillion years ago. You can read all about that one here. And we did that one faithful to the old Brooks Brothers model…open patch breast, patch and flap side pockets, welt seams and my ADG 3/2 tweak. Just fuzzy enough, right? But times change, and gorge, button stance nuances, and other impertanalia redefine themselves. Redefinitions be damned because W.Bill was out of this houndstooth for several years. You couldn’t make, or remake one if you wanted to.
 But then a bolt miraculously emerged. So I transferred the old jacket to a faithful buyer who takes almost any and everything ADG bespoke off of my hands for win-win prices and put a down payment on the new one. And it took me a over year to finally get it finished. Both payment and fitting.
I've always had a thing for brown/tan houndstooth. Here I am in London twenty years ago with my other daddy R.E.B. Read more about him here. I'd just discovered the vintage clothing shop, Bertie Wooster in the Fulham Road earlier that day and pounced on the 3/2 peak number that I'm sporting for the photo opp.
Then a few years later, here's R.E.B. and me again. This time its October in Ponte Vedra and I'm to be married the next day. This houndstoothian version was wool and silk. I wore it to death. Alas.
Rykken didn't seem too chafed by my dilatory-essence. He offered that the jacket spawned a few additional sales when others gandered it. And after W.Bill ran out of the wool bolt, Rykken simply offered a one-hundred percent cashmere version to his more moneyed masses. 
And there’s the story that I never did on my friend Nick Hilton I titled Nick of Time. And it was going to be a good one too. About his kindness and renaissance man-ifestations and how his wife is as lovely as she is nice, too. Nick made a couple of jackets for me a zillion eons ago and I have things to say about them but also about his dad, Norman. And the mantle Nick bears and the Ralph connection and all of the other stuff that’s been rehashed along these lines. But not by me.
How could I not ideate on a story about my good friend Hetom at Sky Shoes?The Sky’s The Limit is the working title of that one. Hetom is a trained shoemaker who, given the right circumstances, could turn out bespoke shoes right here in D.C. He won’t do that for you but he is the go to oasis of shodding knowledge inside the Beltway and I don’t know why others don’t seek his counsel as often as I do. Crocket and Jones and Alden and other unique tasty goods are there for the having.
So the blue suede C&J bluchers don’t come with suede tassels? Not a problem. When your shoe supplier is also a shoemaker, he emails C&J and requests enough blue suede to make tassels and add them to my shoddings. Aftermarket fuzzy dice on demand. Bam!
Sky's new line of almost Belgians are off the hook.
And they are almost not as expensive as the NYC originals that I’m such a sycophant about. Shut.
SteinMart and Daddy Flusser would be in the queue for round two of Alan Flusser and MyMama or vice damn versa. Why? Because the Flusser goods at SteinMart continue to be tasty, fun and just fuzzy enough to have me pounce on them.
The nylon quilted goods this season are strong and at south of forty bucks, I now own three of these quilted vests.
The FlussMart collection, for the money, is the tastiest thing in the store.

I’d also tell you about Alan ringing my phone one morning. “I’m in a car, headed to Florence to do an appearance at your hometown SteinMart. What’s the name of that barbecue place that you always talk about? And your mom…” Alan asked about going to visit my mom. I demurred, knowing full-well that my hospital bed in the middle of the den, mama would be too embarrassed to receive strangers without me there. But I’ll never forget the gesture.
My baby’s too old for me to revel you with twee little stories about our daddy-daughter vacations and silly antics. But she’s still my baby and I’m so proud of her I could just bust. Burst? Whatever.
And last night she and her dance company sisters did an open house, pre-recital “let’s give the parents an update” kind of revue thing. 
She no longer a little ballerina prancing about on stage. She’s a serious dancer and she has chops.
She was just transitioning out of believing in Santa when I first shared her with you. Thirty-six months from now and, if the Lord tarries, LFG will be off to college.

Onward. 80-G-2
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I'm So Sorry, Mister Tumblr

February 10, 2015, 5:51 am
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I didn't mean to do it. Honestly I didn't. While Blogger allows you to shut down your blog at will, only to resurrect it when and if you desire, tumblr will have none of it. "It" being the latitude and autonomy to tamp down your tumble turd periodically. Shut up.
So I inadvertently deleted my entire tumblr, assuming that I could recall it later. It's gone forever. But fear not, I have a new one and you can follow it here. 

If that link doesn't work, here is the address... http://80-g-2.tumblr.com/

Onward-ish.

ADG-too

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It's Dustin Grainger and it's My Turn to Ask for Help

June 15, 2015, 11:08 am
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Dear friends:

First, I hope that this finds all of you well and thriving. I’m going to ask you for a favor but before I do so I’d like to share with you my perspective on giving, helping and sharing.

Like many of you, my work calendar has ruled me for more years than not. And when my time has been limited, I’ve often used money as the stand-in for not being able to help in more present ways like volunteering or just “being there” when my friends and loved ones have needs. I suppose that the old saying “if you can’t come, then send money” might have been created for me.

But 2014 saw a marked adjustment in how I used my resources to offer help. My brother, sister, and I put our personal and professional lives on hold as much as possiblein order to be with my mother in South Carolina and comfort her while she finished her last year of life in the security of the home where she raised us. The gift of being in service to another—of being physically present and knowing the firsthand efficacy of ones efforts is a reciprocal blessing that continues to humble me. (My business took a hit so those of you reading this who’ve hired my firm for strategy work in the past—pony up!)

Let me cut the chase and tell you that I’m going to ask you for money. And there are many of you on this email list who know that when you’ve asked me to support your causes, I’ve never said no. I never say no. Charity marathons, hockey events, walks, Movember hair growth—you name it—I never say no. 

So here’s my request. On March 21st, my niece Lindsay died tragically and suddenly. My sister and brother-in-law lost a daughter and all in her realm lost a friend, cousin, niece, and sister. It is an epic tragedy but most heartbreakingly, Lindsay’s three boys lost their mother. And it’s an understatement to say that these three little guys aren’t well situated for the future. My family will do the best we can for them but I’d ask you to consider helping too.


My brother-in-law, Barry Reimel, has established an educational trust fund for the boys. And the options to donate are decidedly low-tech. If you feel safest by sending a check the old fashioned way, then by all means do so. If you are comfortable using PayPal, then we have that option for you as well. Please give what you can. Any and every amount will be a blessing. And please, if you sense that this is some kind of scam request, please call me or my brother-in-law or the credit union where the trust account is established.

Dustin Grainger: 703-624-1598
Barry Reimel: 516-425-6087

I’ve never done a race for charity and I’ve not yet grown a goatee for cancer. So this is my first time ever asking for some kind of help. Whatever you can give would be great. I’ll be forever humbled by your gesture and as always, when I get your email asking me to support you in your endeavors, I’ll never say no.


How to Give
By Check

If you prefer mailing a check, please make payable and send to:

Lindsay Reimel Fulton Children's Trust
751 West Park Ave, Long Beach, NY 11561

The trust account is being managed by the:
Nassau Educators Federal Credit Union
Phone: 516-561-0030
Account #320650601
Tax ID# 47-0936673

By PayPal

Please remit to my brother-in-law’s PayPal account:

Jbarryreimel@aol.com


Make sure to click the “Friends and Family” option and provide your name in the notes section so that I will know who to thank. Barry will then transfer the funds to the trust account.
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Part One: Birmingham Alabama—In Alden Pebble Grain

June 18, 2015, 7:00 am
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South Carolina, my home state.  Number forty-eight in SAT scores and number two  in gonorrhea. We always jokingly said “thank God for Mississippi” because it always seemed that we were in a death roll headlock scrambling with them to either stay off of the top or bottom of some damn list.

Arkansas—my friend Dawson revels in forwarding me links to news reports about the always absurd shenanigans that go on in South Carolina. She feels better about her native Arkansas when she finds a little bit of embarrassing S.C. skinny to share. And even she’ll admit that her hopes for Bill Clinton’s presidency offering Arkansas a bit of polish were childish. Instead of a spiffed up image, Arkansas “got nothing but a schmear of tarted up red lipstick”. Her words, not mine.
It seemed that a few years ago there was something going on in my state every week. And this was several years after they finally got the damned rebel flag off the top of the state house.  Everyone knows about our governor being  MIA while supposedly taking a walkabout on the Appalachian Trail.
And an assistant state attorney general and former legislator, old enough to be an historical relic, found drunk in his SUV with a teenage hoochie coochie merchant and an array of sex toys and poppers throwed all about in rolling playpen. I got an urgent SCUD email about both of these unfortunate events, annotated  of course by Dawson.
And the one that Dawson took particular relish in sending over was the video clip of a South Carolina beauty pageant contestant speaking some kind of Pig Latin pidgin incoherency when answering her finalist impromptu question during the Miss Teen USA pageant. Her email simply said “You must be proud”.
It ain’t always easy being Southern. Oh, and before I go any further with this overwrought sub Mason-Dixon workout, let me say that the rest of the contiguous forty-eight ain’t any cleaner. It’s just that when we Southerners sin, we do it with relish. Sweet pepper relish. And devilled eggs, and pimiento cheese, and sweet tea and…shut up.  
I’ll never forget a documentary I watched about the efforts to integrate the University of Mississippi. They interviewed students who  were there amidst the conflict. And one member of the 1962 SEC champions, undefeated OleMiss football team from that year choked up during the interview. He confessed to the journalist that he’d been trying to make peace with the legacy of his beloved state for his entire life.
He was a big boy, and one who seemed disinclined to show much emotion and certainly not while a camera was rolling.  But you could tell that he was still hurtin’. And he said to the journalist in halting utterances, parsed to hold back his tears; something to the effect that “I’ve been speaking to any and every one of you who’ve ever contacted me over the years. And none of you get it right”.I don’t think the boy felt like anyone had ever really heard him and I think he felt like none of this journalist’s predecessors had done anything to help Mississippi heal.


Oh sh_t, I’m five hundred and fifty words in and I got side tracked. This was supposed to be about Alabama and Alden Pebble Grain tassel loafers. Hang with me, crackers.
I’m not sure why Alabama never entered my mind as I sought solace through finding at least one other Southern state to benchmark my crazy ass Palmetto patch against. Surely it hasn’t been easier to be from Alabama. Let me see here…Bull Connor, firehoses and attack dogs, church bombings and of course, Selma.
One of my colleagues when I was in the pharmaceutical industry revealed to me something one night. And within his confession, I could tell that after all these years, he still didn’t know how to wear it. He tugged at the too tight collar of it all while uttering every word to me. He grew up in Montgomery and it was his municipal bus driving uncle, his father’s brother, who ordered Rosa Parks to the back of the bus.
"Get your left hand off of my ass Mister President"
Thank God for Harper Lee, Truman Capote, Zelda Fitzgerald, Helen Keller, Winston Groom and Bear Bryant is all I got to say. Oops. I just realized that I threw a few crazies in this thank God compensatory Alabama bandage.
My sister married her high school sweetheart the October after they graduated from college. Just like she was supposed to. They moved to Birmingham and thus my association with the Pittsburgh of the South began.
My brother-in-law was my five year older brother. Not the older brother I never had. I had him. He was my brother. He was the older brother who told me that if I wanted to be a Knight of the Kappa Alpha Order like him, I had to do this, that and the other before I ever hit the doors of college so to better my chances of getting in. I had to pull my baggy Levis 501s up and cut my hair. And after I pulled my baggy jeans up I was told to trade them in for some khakis. And I bought a pair of Weejuns and remember thinking that if I didn’t get a KA bid, I had no clue what I’d do with those shoes. 
Mind you, I was still trying real hard to be a hippie—something I never was really good at.
I’m on the record as saying that I’d a sold my mama to get a bid from the KA’s. And y’all know how much I loved my mama. (Let me clarify. He wasn’t my actual blood brother. My characterization here is strictly metaphorical. I just panicked at the realization that some of you Yankee asses who read my caca might actually believe that we Southerners marry our siblings. That’s an ugly stereotype. We draw the line after first cousins.)

And so my two or three times a year visits to Birmingham were always fun. Visits made more so by the addition of young’uns—first a nephew and then a niece and another nephew after that. But my brother-in-law used me like a tool while I was there and I loved it.
I was his excuse for getting out of the house and going honky tonkin’. And he’d sorted out all of the best ones…the nicer, more respectable places around Five Points as well as the low-er brow ones sprinkled all over town. And God knows how back then I loved  a hyper-air conditioned Southern juke joint. I still do. Here I am one morning after a Birmingham night out. L.L. Bean Mocs, LaCoste knit shirt, old surplus khakis from Fort Bragg. Just about to spew.
Tants, The Plaza, and some really dodgy joint out near the airport come to mind. We would drop my brother-in-law’s Jaguar off with a guy who detailed private airplanes. His name was Ike and he detailed the dooky out of cars too. We’d then go to this joint nearby and eat a cheeseburger and have a dozen beers. Nirvana.

My Birmingham sorties trailed off for various reasons and until a couple of months ago, I hadn’t set foot in Birmingham for a decade.  My sister and brother-in-law divorced he, the  Topsider wearing, heavy starched khakis, bourbon and branch swilling good ole boy has been living with his current wife in New York for many years now.  
My mother’s  twenty month odyssey before leaving this world was transformative for me. Her passing was too slow coming and she’d be the first to tell you so. And it wore me out so as easy as I can say that it was transformative, it’s too soon for me to tell you what the final transformation will net-out.  

I was just getting used to wearing my orphan existentiality when I got the text that my niece was dead. It’s been three months the shocking cruelty and acuteness of it still has my head spinning. It’s a punishing world when four months after ones mom passes, the universe decides to rip the fledgling scab off of your heart by taking someone so young.
So my sojourn back to Birmingham was gut wrenching. But I was happy to be in the service of my sister while there. I ran the errands and did the mundane as well as the less than joyful duties involving retrieving ashes and such. But after a few days, I needed a break. So I let my errand running send me over to Mountain Brook in search of the old Richard’s of Mountain Brook haberdashery site. 

I’d revelled in my buddy TCD’s email from a few years ago about the shop and I posted it in a previous blog story but let me share it with you again….

Richards of Mountain Brook

“Every now and then when I write something that really resonates with someone; I’ll get a private email in response and sometimes the correspondence itself is post-worthy. I wrote Nuanced Authenticity back in August and received a delightful recollection about a haberdashery in the affluent area of Birmingham, Alabama known as Mountain Brook. I’m sharing it with permission from my buddy TCD because his email is to me, as evocative as my original story.

Or maybe it just hits all of my maudlin buttons. At any rate, here’s to the “Richards of Mountain Brook” caliber haberdasheries of days gone by. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m sorry that y’all…the younger set of Trads…missed these gems. And as my cousin Tin-Tin says of our now more derivative than ever world…“Not as good as it was. Better than it will be.”

Here’s TCD’s email…

“This post hit so many memory keys that I can't take the time to list them....but....
Our version of "your Singleton's" in a suburb of Birmingham, AL called Mountain Brook was "Richards of Mountain Brook".
It was located on a shady side street called Petticoat Lane in an old Tudor style building with two bay windows flanking an imposing door with a leaded glass coat of arms.

We knew we were adults when we graduated to Richards from the "CanterburyShop" a half a block away.

"Canterbury" was our "nuance 101" with Bass Weejuns ( $14.95), Gant OCBD, surcingle belts in about one hundred color combinations, Corbin trousers & Southwick Blazers & sport coats....
"Richards" took a high school freshman to his Dad's world & instantly verified it was where you wanted to be even if it had not occurred to you before.....
As you stepped into the doorway, you were confronted by a huge round mahogany table with reps, clubs, & foulards (all of course labelled..."made in England expressly for Richards".... arranged spoke in-wheel around the table grouped by color. Guarding the display on either side were two complete suits of armor.

Beyond the battle-ready armor were shelves and credenzas of Troy Guild OCBD....

Just down the center-hall, waist-high shelving displaying shoes (Crockett & Jones) and socks....
Suits (private label with requisite..."made in England" as well as Norman Hilton)....

Richard had a great eye and understood "Nuance" whether in selections offered or in antique furnishings which abundantly decorated the shop...

Just a great place (& owner) with a sixth sense in how to deploy service and an intelligent knowledge base of background of fabric, weave, fit, hand, & pattern as well as a flair for what was complimentary in terms of tradition or, if you dare, sprezzatura!
He magically combined both during the Christmas Season when posted Welsh Guards in full regalia in front of the shop and conducted Changing of the Guard twice per day....and then, when you had made your purchases....all were gift-wrapped in festive holiday color combinations of paper & ribbon in complex bows, each of which held a Johnny Walker scotch miniature.....

Thanks for the nudge to remember the late 60s and early 70s.....wonderful then and cherished now!””
And I found it. The old Richard’s of Mountain Brook space is now some kind of design shop. But as I snapped a few iPhone photos, I imagined it as TCD described it. And standing there gave me the same great feeling that I so enjoy when I walk any patch where years previous or centuries past, something significant occurred. 
I kid you not, the feeling is no less when I discover a Richards of Mountain Brook site than when I’m standing in the Huey Long assassination corridor fingering the bullet pocked granite walls of the Louisiana State House or looking through the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Suppository. (Ask any country boy…that wasn’t an impossible shot by any stretch)

So my errand running reprieve from bereavement nourished me even though I knew that the unguent was short acting. I shot some photos and emailed TCD to let him know that I was on the grounds of his former sartorial mother church. And then I rounded the corner…

I'll have Part Two ready for you sometime in early 2017. Shut up.

Onward. 80-G-2

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Part Two: Birmingham Alabama—In Alden Pebble Grain

June 22, 2015, 6:08 am
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Well to be honest I’m not quite ready for part two of my Alden Pebble Grain—Birmingham story. And I promise there will be more about haberdashery-esque observations and less ramblings about Birmingham in the tumultuous civil rights sixties.

But I’ve still got a little more of that stuff that I need to purge from my little system. The Mountain Brook Club and the Country Club of Birmingham and what I’ll call the Angst of the Mules must be addressed briefly in the next installment. Stay tuned.

What I am ready to talk about is Father’s Day. My hope is that all of you fathers in my sphere and all who comment on my blog and tumblr drivel—many of you who’ve become great friends—had a stellar day yesterday.
LFG and her mother came over to CasaMinimusBethesda and we had a nice dinner. Outside. Swathed in Deep Woods Off with DEET. And Miss Reilley, Lily’s Cavalier King Charles Princess was here in full form. She is forbidden to have table scraps. That’s code for “ADG gave her wee bits of grilled NY Strip steak and a lot of it." Yep.
I’m not sure I used my Father’s Day gift properly. LFG's mama was a hollerin' and suggesting that we call the fire department. 
And let me tell you. All of you huggers who think that DEET is the devil, well you must not have the high ass caliber skeeters that live here in my patch. These bad boys bit thru my heavy starched linen shirt last night. I think it’s a combination of the predictable skeeter insatiability  and a special siren song pull of knowing that my particular sweet meat awaits them. Otherwise, I just don’t think a skeeter would risk damaging their fencing foil snouts trying to punch through my stiff linen barrier. Shut the _____.
LFG and her mom. My baby is anything but a baby anymore.
And finally, the greatest gift that I could have received yesterday came from a friend—blood brother caliber friend—who started out as a client of mine. Almost bought tears to my eyes. Bill is navigating his journey with a level of grace and gratitude that can be a lesson for us all. He has two elementary school age little girls and an incredible wife. Bill and his wife are lovely inside and out because of the energy of sweet kindness that illuminates from within. Bill’s wife has metastatic breast cancer and is now declining further treatment. They are living moment by moment in gratitude for...The Moment.

The Moment. Folks, it’s really all we have.
Onward. With loving kindness. And wearing Hogg Howell GTH Kilim shoes. Just to piss off LFG's mom. 

ADG-II
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Bruce Boyer and True Style: The History and Principles of Classic Menswear

August 30, 2015, 8:50 am
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I love picture books. But I think I love words even more than pictures and God knows I’m a visual guy. My sartorial sensei’s volumes have always thrilled me and to this day I’ll pull one of them off the shelf—any one of them—and grab a bolus dose of Flusstaciousness. The fare’s quite rich and I never tire of the visual treats. And let me not give Alan short shrift. Daddy Flusser is pretty damned skilled with the written word too. 

Oh, and shut up in advance about me heading a story about Boyer's new book with a photo of Alan's classic. Either read-on or get off of my blog. 
I said long ago that I thought Bruce Boyer’s book, Elegance might have been slightly thwarted by the sartorial picture books that appeared at about the same time. And it’s a damn shame. Let’s admit it; photos are the MSG (Monosodium glutamatefor you South Carolinians. Oh hell, that didn’t clarify anything for the Sandlappers. Let me go at it another way. It’s the secret ingredient that makes all of the slop on the country buffet trough taste like something, last longer and look prettier. It's an enhancer and intensifier. Kind of a bullhorn for your country-ass taste buds.)  of sensory processing and we’ve been on an ever faster slide towards less reading and more pictures. Do you people read? I wonder because if you are reading my scrivening, you’re only a half-step away from the country buffet. Shut up.
Used without permission but with thanks from Daddy Flusser's site.
I’ll pull Elegance off the shelf from time to time for a different reason than when I feel the need to scratch my Flusser itch. There are some writers whose grocery lists would be on my to-read roster simply because of the way they write. Hitchens was one and Bruce Boyer is another. So Boyer’s a winning combination for me: Stories sartorial, but also nicely strung together. I swear I wish that I could write with the flourish of Flusser and the stylish discipline of Boyer. Here’s what I’m talking about. From page 101 in Boyer's Elegance, on the subject of double-breasted suits. "...this all sounds very Sherlock Holmes, but nonetheless and to move quickly to the denouement of this classic tale of crime and detection, when the police finally tracked down and captured George Metesky, we was indeed wearing a double breasted suit."  Most of the young I-Gents, who by the way, love Bruce and Bruce them, would throw in the towel upon getting all tangled up in the word denouement. Not me. Hell, I even save all of G. The Bruce's emails because even his most casually dashed-off missives sing.
One of the highlights of the past four years has been my growing acquaintance with Mister Boyer. 
Mathew Bruccoli in his forward to Charles Fountain’s biography of George Frazier wrote that there were "various Georges, depending on the company and setting". Well I’ve only discovered one Bruce so far. He’s authentic and consistent as hell. Whether he’s speaking about Miles Davis from the F.I.T. podium, at a book signing amidst admirers, debating and dickering one-on-one with tailors and shoe makers about crucial details, or sitting with you at lunch; he’s the same guy.
Used without permission but with thanks from Lehigh Valley Style 
Boyer offers no pretense, no bluster, and zero swagger. He doesn’t need any of those protective wrappers that the less confident are prone to rely upon.  The man knows who he is. Come to think of it, the concept of swagger seems vulgar when correlated with Bruce. But don’t get me wrong. The man is no pushover and like I’ve said before; nobody shit talks Bruce Boyer.
Thanks, Rose.
Here’s a resolute Boyer from a 2011 Wall Street Journal interview…“It is both delusional and stupid to think that clothes don't really matter and we should all wear whatever we want. Most people don't take clothing seriously enough, but whether we should or not, clothes do talk to us and we make decisions based on people's appearances”. There's probably no better tribute to Boyer than what Dr. Andre Churchwell would offer about the man. Andre, one of the best dressed mammals in the universe will essentially tell you that the greatest sartorial lessons he ever learned and the best bespoke clothing guidance he got came from GeeBruce. 
And he’s the same fella back home in Bethlehem as he is in Gotham City. I met Bruce at the Hotel Bethlehem for lunch back in the winter and his “I’m in my office at home writing so don’t expect a dressed to the nines lunch mate” sartorial ensemble intrigued me. He’s one of those guys who could get dressed in the dark and still nail the hell out of it. Boyer was sitting there in a cardigan sweater over one of his ever present neat-check tattersall shirts. Just so.

But it was the day's sneak peek of his ascot that got me. I wish I'd taken a picture of it. I say peek "of" instead of "at" for a reason. And it wasn’t really an ascot per se as much as it was a well-worn scarf, knotted loosely and set in a way that just the right amount of it showed. And what really got me was the most harmonious color play between the cardigan, the mini-tattersall, and the scarf. There was evidence of these things having been paid attention to during assemblage but not too much. That’s Boyer.
Used without permission but with thanks from Lehigh Valley Style 
You’ll also get the same Boyer should he invite you into his home. His digs are as well appointed as his clothes...well, but not over-done. And since he’s not one to brag  I’ll do it for him. Bruce’s wife is a stunner inside and out. She’s just as genuine as the Mister and to say that Bruce married way above his pay grade is an understatement. Sorry, Bruce but it’s true.
There’s lots of middling schmatta stuff to read on the internet but when was the last time you read really well written sartorial prose?  I’m happy that Bruce is offering us an oasis of tailored writing amidst all the run-on over-egged drivel like the sh_t you’re reading right now. True Style: The History and Principles of Classic Menswearis ready and waiting for you at amazon.com or wherever else you pick up your books. And like all the rest of my Boyer books, I’m looking forward to having the true north, the voice of reason and well cadenced sartorial sensibility sign my copy in a week or two.

And finally, this from G. The Bruce…
From The Sartorialist
“My dress is so conservative compared to some. You look at some of the guys in there, they are ready for Mardi Gras.” When Bruce said this during an interview for Lehigh Valley Style, I know he was talking about the book I am Dandy but he was probably also taking a shot at me.
Onward. To Boston this week for a rare these days billable.


ADG-2, Mister Mardi Gras. “Throw me sumpin Mistah!”
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Part Two: Birmingham Alabama—In Alden Pebble Grain

October 3, 2015, 7:36 am
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It’s been so long since I published my Part One: Birmingham Alabama—In Alden Pebble Grain that you might want to go back and read it first.

Part Two: Birmingham Alabama—In Alden Pebble Grain
Then I rounded the corner…
But before I begin this final round, I want to offer this quote from TCD’s original email regarding Richards of Mountain Brook…"Richards" took a high school freshman to his Dad's world & instantly verified it was where you wanted to be even if it had not occurred to you before".

“…instantly verified it was where you wanted to be even if it had not occurred to you before…” That’s a strong statement right there. Stronger than new rope. Strong in some kind of teenage existentially ethereal, one hundred percent cotton kinda way. Shut up.
But TCD, in response to part-one of this story emailed me and reminded me that any trip to Richards usually included a stop off at the drug store that’s anchored this little mercantile patch since 1928. AS TCD described this place, it occurred to me that Gilchrist Drug is the J&J Drugs of my hometown. Butcept like everything in Florence S.C. versus anywhere else ('cept maybe Tabor City N.C.), my hometown version is a redneck-y, inelegant comparator.
At least 30% of my caloric intake was courtesy of the J&J lunch counter during my days working at the haberdashery just opposite the J&J. I would go over to the J&J on some Saturday mornings before we opened the store, still capable of blowing a DUI I’m certain. Bill Tassios would patch me up with the same unguent, my Saturday morning “rescue usual” of two ham biscuits and a cup of coffee. I’d grab some breath mints and toss it all back before cinching up my four-in-hand and easing into my Saturday mercantile duties. Unfortunately, the photo above reveals what the J&J storefront looks like these days. Alas.
I’d say that for the first hour or two my internal dialogue was really a flurry of foxhole prayers to Jesus. “Lord, if you’ll make this hangover go away I’ll never get smashed on a Friday night again”. But by eleven o’clock I’d be feeling better thanks to my J&J fix and on the phone to my various cohorts, sorting out the Saturday night plan.
Oops, I digressed again. So  TCD told me that for him, the Gilchrist Pimiento Cheese (yes, you Yankees, Pimiento Cheese is capitalized. It’s a Southern thang that I’m not going to take time to ‘splain to you because you’ll never get it. Suffice it to say that the cheese and the assemblage of it on two pieces of toasted bread is sacred.) sandwich and a fresh squeezed right then and there glass of their limeade was his standing order. 
Here’s a quote from this articlethat best sums up why TCD made sure I understood the significance of the Gilchrist anchor… “Walk into Gilchrist, and you’re likely to see tables of teenagers and college kids, mothers and daughters, grandparents and great-grandparents — most of whom have been coming here all of their lives. Old snapshots of long-time customers fill a display case. “That’s the neatest thing about this place, is seeing somebody in their 70s come in here and talk about how they used to sit at that very same stool,” (current owner) Rosato says. “They grow up here in this community, and they grow up going to Gilchrist.””
Photo from Taste of the South Magazine
Typical of my A.D.D. impertinent country a_s, I stood right beside this hallowed sanctum sanctorum of samiches and such and didn’t have a clue of its existence. Otherwise, I’d a had a little bite of something to complement the sartorial rarefied air that I’d just finished breathing two doors down.

So I’d finished my photo taking reminiscent obligations to TCD and was headed back to the car. 
Then I rounded the corner and noticed a little haberdashery called Harrison Ltd. My painfully nostalgic self has long since resigned to the reality of TinTin’s  “Not as good as it once was, better than it will be” by-line.  But every town used to have a locally owned haberdashery and Harrison Ltd. is doing a damn fine job of campaigning the Richard’s legacy.
A faint smell of leather hit me when I walked in. Sort of a shoe repair shop olfactory déjà vu. The source was a gaggle of Alden shoe boxes above my immediate right that let me know I wasn’t in some kind of twee little attenuated J. Crew skinny jeans atelier. Shut up.
While this little oasis is trad out the as_; rest assured that Harrison Ltd. ain’t no maudlin throwback to a time now irrelevant. There’s a little bit of Mashburn folded into a good bit of your daddy’s favorite old-time tradberdashery.
What Harrison Ltd. seems to do so well is keep just enough of the immutable 3-Button patina spread ‘round ever so lightly while offering fresh takes on it all. And I don’t know how to write this in a way that you’ll understand what I’m trying to say but here goes…What Harrison Ltd. does is something more nuanced than that worn-ass-out hackneyed standard of “we take the classics and reinterpret them”. A monkey could do that. Trust me; I was a monkey at one time. Shut up.
So I’m standing there, doing anything to keep from having to return from my errand running tasks and this pebble grain thing gobsmacked me from the get-go. I ask for no sympathy when I say that there’s never been a time in my life when I was less able to buy anything nonessential. But I had some some cravings in this joint that warranted the ultimate sale of a few caricatures and antique toy soldiers. I think it came out of me before I even knew that I’d asked it. And the answer was yes, my size in these pebble graingers just happened to be on hand.
I love my versatile penny loafers but the Alden tassel mama is a step-up in the “if you could only have one shoe what would it be?” pantheon. Yep. Weejuns are kinda like the Canterbury Shop to the Alden tassel’s Richard’s of Mountain Brook. And of course since I’ve never owned an Alden tassel loafer in my life, I figured it was my time.
Granted I shoulda paid the freight for the shoes and cut outta there faster than a set of rims at a Puff Daddy concert butcept I didn’t. They had some belts and of course since I’ve never owned a belt, I figured it was my time. The Wiley Brothers Hoof Pickcontrivances and even my Sid Mashburn oyster shell buckled belt seemed clunky and ham fisted compared to this gem.
Matte alligator. I’d never had anything reptilian other than the shiny glazed stuff. So my first thought was whether or not it was the real thing or one of those hydraulic ersatz  stamped-stomped cowhide models. My first car, the MG Midget, was worth about five hundred and fifty bucks when I said goodbye to it. So the indicator of reptilian authenticity was an MSRP that was perilously close to the goodbye value of my Midget.
Fake it till you make it is remains part of my oeuvre but I can’t abide fake gator grained leather. The gator grain stamping process reminds me of what has to be the high-heat, hydraulic event that creates the undulating rib impressions on a McRib. As a Southerner and hogavore, I believe the McRib to be a multipronged insult to a pig. 
Painted on grill marks and rib impressions you are supposed to bite-through. Corrugated meat. Damn. We gnaw ribs where I’m from. We don’t bite through them. Ok, so I had to sell more toy soldiers.
At this point I figured that a knit tie to round my visit wouldn’t hurt. Most knit ties are too skinny and frail looking for me. But like everything else in this little oasis, I could have taken one of everything. And of course since I've never owned a tie, I figured one of these knit babies should be my first.
Photo from Robert Talbott
Scott Pyburn is the swizzle stick that stirs this trad cocktail. And if I lived in Birmingham, he and I would continue to visit and ideate on who could make me a pair of alligator tassel loafers; one hundred percent faithful to the Alden classic on the Aberdeen last.
Oh, and if you spend an amount equal to the value of your first car, Scott will give you a t-shirt and baseball cap. And since I've never...

Onward.

ADG II
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Sid Mashburn Washington D.C.

October 22, 2015, 8:34 am
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We've finally got a sartorial oasis in D.C. ! 

I spent an hour in one-on-one fellowship with Sid Mashburn last Saturday at the new store. I'll be concocting a story soon but until then, get on over there and wallow in the tasty goods.
And please ask for our man, Dexter Garner, IV. He's making friends and building a client base. Hard to believe there's been four Dexters.

Onward.

ADG-Only Two.
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A Boutonniere in One’s Lapel

January 21, 2016, 6:04 am
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Fiorello. Or piccolo fiore. A little flower. Two of my favorite writers and sartorialists had decided views on such little adornments. George Frazier wore his with elegant restraint. And Frazier devotee Richard Merkin sported his with predictable Merkinessence.
It seems that sometimes Merkin would comply with the tight-bud restraint characteristic of Frazier’s boutonnieres.
A less preening unfurledness rather than a full-bloom Oscar Wildely bunting. Unfurledness. Yes. It’s now a word.  
But then in typical Merkin foppishness there seems to be a full-blown, Full Cleveland floral throwdown on his lapel.
Flower and pocket handkerchief in tandem? I’m on the record as not being scared of making things as fuzzy as possible. I’d have three vents and eleven functional button holes on my sleeves if my bespokers would let me. Sh_t, just vote a straight ticket when you fill out the order form. Check the top box and give me the whole enchilada on the menu. I’m kind of the Ekeko of sartorial options. Just load my lucky ass up with one of everything.
Merkin spoke of the lesson that his surrogate daddy Frazier tried to teach him about flowered lapels.

“George Frazier was the most elegant man I’ve ever known, a columnist and journalist who wrote for the Boston Globe. He didn’t have much clothing but everything he had was impeccable. There was no room for any mistake. And it wasn’t self-conscious. It was at one with him. Every so often I would wear both a flower and a handkerchief and George always chided me for it. He said it was disturbing to have put the two things together. He was right. It’s just a spot of color that accents the whole totality. And it shouldn’t be two spots.”
I’ve never worn a boutonniere other than when a funeral or nuptials called for it. I’m not sure why but it’s certainly not because I’m worried about coming off as too foppy. 1985...with a toothpick in my hand. Musta just popped one of those gnarly wedding reception meatballs in my mouth.
Case in point regarding my fearlessness poor judgement is the unavoidable Thurston Howell the Turd affectation that’s de rigeur with wearing an ascot has never worried me. The cinched security of having my neck dressed in chilly weather trumps for me the unavoidable affectation. Shut up.
Oh, but I did clip a remaining bit of flora from a patio flower pot and slip it into my lapel a few months ago in prep for a good friend’s life celebration. I also wore a pocket handkerchief in tandem and she would have approved. It’s the pink linen one that I wore in my jacket when I drove newborn LFG home from Sibley Hospital.

Maybe I’ve never worn a flower in my lapel because they aren’t handy. Perhaps I would have developed a floral habit if I’d passed a flowering plant every morning as I headed out the door for work. Nowadays unless I’m seeing clients I don’t even have to get dressed.
So what’s all this about boutonnières?  Recently a young lady requested that I order one. That young lady was my daughter, LFG. My not so little girl had her first real date. A fine young man asked her to a semi-formal dance and as far as I can tell it was a sweet and chivalrous gesture.

And she needed a flower. Here’s the text from LFG, asking if I’d placed the flower order for her fella. Boutonniere ain’t real easy to spell so I reckon “bout thingy” is as good an effort as any.

This is old news but I’ll repeat it. I only have one child and she is the most important thing on this earth. And to say that I’ve been in denial about the inevitability of  things like growing up and going to high school and getting learner’s permits and having crushes and getting her heart broken and yes, going on dates; is a breathtaking understatement.

Denial aside for a moment…I’m so impressed with this young man and how he went about asking my daughter to accompany him to the dance. My LFG jumps in my car after school with a bouquet. It seems that the gentleman gave LFG a dozen roses between classes and asked her to be his date. He’s not my boy but I’m proud of him.

I was telling a guy who has five daughters about LFG’s first date.  And he shared with me a technique regarding how to convey to a young man a father’s sentiments on how he wants his daughter to be treated.
So this is for you, mister chivalrous man who has so impressed me by the way you asked my baby to be your homecoming date. And if our paths cross in the future, my challenge to you will be even more pertinent.

Whatever you do to my daughter, I’m going to do to you.

Treat her with dignity and respect and I’ll treat you with dignity and respect. Open doors for her, literally and figuratively and I’ll open literal and figurative doors for you. Make her laugh and I’ll make you laugh. Be kind to her always and I’ll always be kind to you. Try to be patient and give her some slack even when you don’t want to or don’t feel like it and I’ll offer you my patience and latitude. And have my daughter home by eleven.

Onward.

ADG-2 
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2016

January 22, 2016, 10:00 pm
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Happy New Year everyone. I've never been keen on making New Year's resolutions and nothing has changed in that regard. But I am going to try and post something here on my blog at least once per week in 2016. Why? Because I miss my blog. I miss writing stories that begin with a pair of socks and somehow traverses my childhood, cars, b.b. guns and cocktails before concluding. My dashboard has been so cluttered with life stuff and my focus has been so compromised over the last year-and-half that there's not been the energy for randomanalia and impertinabula over here.
And of course, there's tumblr--the MSG of blogging. I can't prove it but I do think that tumblr poaches some of my juju that would otherwise be directed here. Plus it's just easy and mindless, like MSG. F.Scott Fitzgerald used to poach his novel caliber drafts and ideas and sell them to magazines as short stories when he was pressed for cash. Some argue that he might a had another novel in him had he not stolen from his own cash register of material. With that said, the main was still one hell of a conjugator.
But I do have things that I want to write about. Things like LFG and my missing Piggly Wiggly t-shirts. We had several versions of the iconic pig and they're currently AWOL. Damn.
And I am going to write about my buddy and surrogate father, "PoPo Baker" who landed on Omaha beach on D-Day plus one. 
And I've got at least two stories about Chelsea and my boy Jimmy Whistler whose infamous White House (the hansom is stopped in front of it) was the talk of Tite street and then some.
And then there's a story about small paintings. Like this one by a young whippersnapper originally from Northern California who made his way to London and Paris and the tutelage of Whistler. He died at age 37 from blood poisoning after being accidentally stuck by a hat pin at a dance. I kid you not. Damn I love sleuthing and uncovering the proverbial back story.
And our boy over at The Old Law is about to be the daddy of a little girl.
And I declared on tumblr that I had no additional advice for him after Tommy Tevlin et al showered him with great wisdom. But then I remembered Meg Meeker's book. It's a must read.
West Evans street in my hometown. I never wrote a proper story about the haberdashery that spawned my sartorial addiction. I was busting to write it not long after my mother died. The fact that Toad and I stood in the entryway of this hallowed spot one night was a key motivator. And by the way, where the hell IS Toad?

Ok. So sit tight and let's see if my once a week commitment is sustainable.

Onward.

ADG II
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Florence, S.C.

January 29, 2016, 11:47 am
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From an email that I wrote this morning.


"I worked at Singleton’s Men’s Shop after school and summers for years. The J&J lunch counter, Roney’s, and the Sky View were my go-to spots for teenage and college years food consumption—when I wasn’t back at my mama’s getting clothes washed and country cooking. Reindeer Lane, the Christmas Parade down Evan’s Street, The Fair and hotdogs at the Civitan or Optimist food booths out there, the Southern 500 parade in Darlington, meeting “Goober” at the Florence airport and getting Bobby Richardson’s—the Yankee’s 2nd baseman from Sumter—autograph one Sunday when he spoke at College Park Church. And hearing my  mom and aunt Kat say they weren’t going to wash their necks for a week after Marshall Dillon—James Arness hugged their necks when he was the 500 Parade Marshall one year. Getting dragged to “town” (Gladstone’s/Furchgots) with my mom and aunts because there was nobody to watch over me on Saturday when I wanted to play. I thought I was going to die at five years old—having to “behave myself” while they tried on dresses ALL DAY. But then I’d get a dollar to spend a Woolworth’s or Kress and all would be ok again. Phil Nofal’s for cowboy boots once a year—when school started. Santa Claus was at Sears every year.  This is my Florence."
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An Evening with G. Bruce Boyer

April 7, 2016, 12:10 pm
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From the F.I.T. website… “G. Bruce Boyer, men’s fashion editor and author of True Style: The History & Principles of Classic Menswear, will discuss contemporary men’s dress and its history, styles, principles, and trends. Joining him will be Michael Bastian, founder and creative director of the luxury menswear line MICHAEL BASTIAN; Mark Cho, co-owner of the men's clothing businesses Drake's and The Armoury; and Stephen Pulvirent, executive digital editor of Surface Magazine. A book signing will follow the presentation”.

I’m unabashed when admitting that I have no objectivity about the sartorial people I respect or who’ve gobsmack me. Flusser’slong been on the list and Sid Mashburn is quickly securing a spot en perpetu.
Photo: Lehigh Valley Life
And please don’t ask me to rank my sycophantic short list—but if I was forced to draft the roster, G. Bruce Boyer would lead it off. Here’s a gush from one of my previous Boyer stories…  “I’ll pull Elegance off the shelf from time to time for a different reason than when I feel the need to scratch my Flusser itch. There are some writers whose grocery lists would be on my to-read roster simply because of the way they write. Hitchens was one and Bruce Boyer is another.”
I stole this from Rose Callahan
Of course you’ve already purchased Bruce’slatest book, right? Hell, I rode the bus all the way to Gotham just to get the man to sign a copy for me.
I don’t know when I’ll be in good enough form to write a story about my Steven Hitchcock Russel Plaid jacket. But when I do I’ll share some of my selfish trove of G. Bruce (with his permission of course) personal correspondence. His emails even sing.  “…then he (Hitchcock) casually asked me if I wanted to see your jacket. Just as casually I said yes, and he brought it out: I was knocked completely base over apex; the antique Russell plaid made up beautifully…”

After such praise from Boyer, I need no more affirmation regarding my sartorial bespokeydokeness. And that’s just the beginning of the Boyer-Grainger Russell Plaid saga. Stay tuned and I’ll tell the rest of the story in 2018.


But you need not wait till 2018 to experience the wit and wisdom of G. The Bruce. Sensei Bruce and an honorable complement of like-minded sartorialists will convene at F.I.T. on April 19th for a bit of True Style banter. I’m not sure that I’ll be in Gotham on the 19thbut if you are, I urge you to go and sit at the Cleverley shod feet of this Master and soak in all things Boyer. Word has it that all attendees will be eligible for a one-dollar price reduction on a Ring Jacket sportcoat at The Armoury.

Go here to register for the event.

Onward.

ADG II
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Ok...A Text Reply from This Morning

July 22, 2016, 7:24 am
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Thx. for tapping in.  Ok is relative, right?

So I'm not ok. By my definition. But it's good because I'm present and in the moment and dialed-in to what I deem not ok.

And there's a woman here. Still sleeping. So the monastic silence and palpable loneliness of being here by myself is gone.

I'm not lonely right now. Even though the house is monastically silent as she sleeps.

Because of the knowing.

Because knowing that she's here creates a different kind of silence. It's the peaceful and nourishing kind.  

The kind that allows me not to fear being alone with my thoughts.

The woman is sixteen. And she's learning to drive a stick shift. Fearfully. But that's ok because I'm right beside her.

She has curly hair and a suntan. And she starts her second summer at The Joffrey dance camp in New York next week.

We got rotisserie chicken and black beans and rice and cucumber salad last night. From the Peruvian couple who mind their little place ten hours a day, six days a week. They always seem more than ok.

And we ate it together sitting on the floor. In her room. Binge watching old Grey's Anatomy episodes.

So the eight minutes that I've taken to write this text has led me to see that I am. Ok.



Ok. 
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A Buckhead Boy

November 12, 2013, 10:12 am
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A Buckhead Boy
     He was a man in full. Kinda low-key though. In a cardigan sweater. He was a doctor but he’d be the first to tell you that he couldn’t cure a damn thing. And he had an affection for V.W.s—Karmann Ghias especially. Old cars. Used cars. The kind professors could afford. I found him one once. At Jimmy’s V.W. Service in Hartsville and it was an old British racing green one. All original…intact and patinated. Like him. I picked up my bug at Jimmy’s and saw it for sale. I told his son, my little brother in the fratty and Doctor Jim snatched it up fast. And then my little brother in the fratty—his son—totalled it within months.

     Doctor Jim and his wife reminded me of old Atlanta…now long gone…paved over like most everything else these days. He was a Georgia boy. Kinda. His rare surname is still found in Loudon County Virginia but his people more precisely were from Lovettsville back when it was the country. Now Loudon County and little Lovettsville, Virginia—like old Atlanta and even precious Buckhead—are paved over. Like most everything else these days.

     He wasn’t exactly a Buckhead boy. He graduated from Grady High School and then West Georgia College and the University of Georgia before heading north to Maryland for his doctorate. He was Southern but there was no false gentility, no treacle about him. 

     And there was married student housing. Or at least I’ve conjured it from the stories here and there that his oldest son, one of my best buddies in the whole world, used to tell. Seems like the oldest of the five children remember the modest times when Doctor Jim was finishing his doctorate at Maryland. Unlike the youngest of the five who, when the sprinklers came to life on the golf course at the Florence Country Club, found himself suddenly soaked and went over to the tennis pro shop and charged himself a dry outfit to Doctor Jim’s tab. But only once.
     Surely there are a thousand teachers today who would say that at minimum, Doctor Jim., as Chairman of the Department of Education at Francis Marion College, influenced their journey. And I bet there are some who would credit him as the primary influence on their decision to become a teacher. But I don’t care so much about that as much as I do about his toy soldiers.

     Doctor Jim loved casting little lead soldiers and painting them and enjoying the fellowship of other toy soldier makers and collectors. I remember the first time I ever saw his little tucked away work space. And I always wondered how a busy professor with five kids found the time to painstakingly pour hot lead into molds and then paint the damn things so nicely. He made a Mess Dress WarGame set for me. I’ve always treasured it but now that Doctor Jim is gone I treasure it even more.

     So Doctor Jim’s oldest boy is like a blood brother to me. It’s a love-hate brotherly thing like all of those kinda connections are. Maybe not with you but they all are with me. I’m an easy acquaintance. I’m an uneasy friend. And that same boy, that oldest boy predicted my divorce while at my wedding. Butcept he never told me. Till after my divorce. Peckerhead.

     And Doctor Jim’s daughter…the only sister of the five was my almost-every-song dance partner at Cotillion for the entire season. Not because she liked me. It was more of an understanding, you see. We both had to get through it so we might as well get through it together.
     My thinking is that Doctor Jim didn’t govern himself day-to-day in ways that focused on what kind of legacy he’d eventually leave. He just didn’t seem wired that way. Husband, father, grandfather, teacher. Boy Scouts and the Braves and toy soldiers and Pawley’s Island…these things all rolled up…are his legacy.

Onward.

ADG II … Florence Boy
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Aviator Chairs and Grades

November 14, 2013, 4:39 am
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My little girl. My heart. The little bald headed toddler who used to feed me bits of bread so that I'd behave at the table…
…the little gregarious gal who swaggered around a honky tonk in South Carolina, balloon on tow, sorting out everything and everyone in the joint…
…mother to a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and currently, Grunter and Eye Roller in Chief when it comes to me…
…has done it again. First grading period for 8th grade. Straight A’s.
I think I’m going to buy a chair  to celebrate.

Onward. Aviation-ating

ADG II
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Soixante-neuf and an Open Letter to Pat Conroy

November 24, 2013, 7:55 am
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Soixante-neuf…Sixty-nine. As much as I flirt with alternatives, I end up wearing a navy blazer sixty-nine percent of the time. Rain or shine, summer or winter, it’s a navy damn blazer for me. And I’ve just added yet another one to the fold.
Ok, I’m now off the hook for positing something about clothes so let’s move on to my open letter to Pat.

Dear Pat,

My buddy Lou owns a house on Fripp around the corner from you and says that he sees you from time to time at CVS. He says that you look ok but my selfish ass wants to admonish you to get crackin’ on another novel. Fast like. Enough already with these interim books.

Don’t get me wrong, Pat. I’m digging all these little placeholder books that you’ve published and I’m sure the cash flow from them is stronger than wolf nookie and really, who doesn’t fancy cash and a steady flow of it? And wolf nookie? I don’t know. But I’ll stand by the metaphor.

And these interim Conroy books aren’t where you want your home-stretch legacy to live. In your heart of hearts you too know that another Beach Music or Prince of Tides is what we need. Come on Pat, we need another novel.
I loved My Reading Life. I really did. It opened my eyes once again to the tortured genius of Thomas Wolfe. And My Losing Season was ok, too. Truth? I’ve read every f_cking word you’ve published. I even gave My Reading Life to one of my surrogate dad’s—the guy who hired me on at a Swiss Pharma company when I was a kid.
Photo borrowed from my buddy Reggie Darling
He’s the guy who first gave me Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden and told me that there were as many line management lessons to be learned therein as there were gardening tips. Most people wouldn’t a got it. But I did and you’d a gotten it too. Like me, he made his way into an industry that provided well for him but his true passions were elsewhere. He has an English degree from Carolina and I’m convinced that he hired me because he saw in me the same right-brained energy that he loved about himself. And like me, he never had a dad.
And Pat, Flo just made me aware of The Death of Santini. I could order it from Amazon but it won’t get to me till Tuesday. And I can’t wait that long. I’m gonna pay more for it and pick it up at Barnes and Noble so that I can read it tonight. I’ll sponge it up because for some reason these books….with their pathos confessed, violations reported, unrequited whatevers, and the frail treaties that at least some of you assholes were  able to cobble with your dads still draws me in like a moth to flame. You’d think I’d get enough of this formulaic caca but the half-life of any insights gained is for me a nanosecond. And the close-that-hole-in-my-heart unguent schmear offered therein wears off before I finish these kinda shitty books. Don’t be angry, Pat. It’s me, not you.
Photo Source
You might think that my pithiness is uncalled for and my bitterness should be better managed by now. On the other hand, I bet not. Because it’s obvious that like me with my dad, you are still trying to work out your shit with Colonel Conroy, even after the guy co-signed books with you amidst your tentative peace.
Photo Source
And the record shows a few photos of you and your dad, post Great Santini where he looks smug and self-satisfied and you look like you always do. In every photograph…frail and tentative. You’ve never lost that look you know. Neither have I. The frail tentativeness of your gangly adolescence is simply replaced fifty years later with an edematous version of the same. And I’m right behind you old sport. Genetics keep me from being as Humpty Dumpty gelatinous as you but my nose is getting bigger and purple-er by the month. So I’ll read your damn book but what I want to read is one of those big-ass novels of yours with imagery that blasts off the page and wraps around my head in ways that make me forget the rest of the world for at least an hour or two. 
Just so you’re confident that it’s me, not you...and just so you know that you aren't alone in your working shit out with daddy pathos, here are a pile of other books that I’ve read and re-read on the subject. You and I aren’t special, buddy. After the death of my friend’s dad and my listening to Dickey read his Buckhead Boys poem over and over, I re-read Summer of Deliverance in one sitting week before last. Dickey at fils et al is a bell ringer and the pathos, while not as physical as the ass whippings that Colonel Conroy put on you, are just as strong. My dad was more Dickey than your dad Conroy but was probably more of a physical coward than either.
Flusser led me to Merkin and then to Frazier. I’ve read Another Man’s Poison countless times and for some reason I tend to keep this little book in my reference pile. The sartorial pearls are intriguing but the examples of Frazier’s writing are what's so damn stellar. But then there’s his broken marriage and his protracted house of cards financial ruinous state while still deeply loving his two cast here and there amidst divorce drama sons. It’s this spore in the story that mighta fuelled the four hour dinner I had with one of his sons a couple of years ago. Of all the failed dads in this load of ADG drivel, I think Frazier showed that he loved his boys better than the rest of 'em. And that's a low-ass bar I'm setting. Let me tell you.
And God knows that the Wolff brothers might’ve had the wildest story to tell about dads. Narcissistic sociopaths rarely make for good fathers. But damn…my goodness, the adventures they can take you on.
Pat, I really wish that Blake Bailey’s Cheever had been three hundred pages shorter. Of all these dad pathos books, this is the one that had me saying every other page… “this is my dad, this was my life”. And Federico Cheever…Fred Cheever seemed to be me. After I finished the book, I even tracked down Fred Cheever and was going to send him an email telling him that I’d lived his same journey. But then I thought better of it. He seems to have put all this junk to rest better than most of us.

So Pat, thanks for the new book. I’m sure I’ll hoover it up in a sitting or two. But please, no more of this shit till we get another novel. Now let me slip on a navy blazer and head over to Barnes and Noble.

Onward. Sixty-nine percent of the damn time.


ADG II

And what the hell? How 'bout some Color Him Father by the Winstons.
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