“They were all impressed with your Halston dress and the people that you knew at Elaine’s"

 R.I.P. Elaine’s…P.J. Clarke’s woulda been a better victim.

“Elaine’s, one of the most iconic restaurants in New York, is closing its doors on May 26th. The restaurant – which has served a wide variety of celebrities and writers, including Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, and Gay Talese – simply couldn’t survive once its owner Elaine Kaufman died last December.”

A buddy of mine emailed me this article about the shuttering of another Gotham destination whose staying power pooped out…Elaine’s. My response was that Elaine’s without Elaine wasn't Elaine’s. Therefore I wasn't surprised. And of course every article I've read waxes nostalgic about the place but lands on the same conclusion. Here’s an excerpt from my email reply…

Subject: Re: Elaine's to Close Next Week - FishbowlNY

“Yep. Elaine's without Elaine. Not surprising. New York is gone...at least the Gotham that I WANT to imagine. London is closing in fast. P. J. Clarke's is nothing more than a TGI Fridays...limping along on some attenuated hardscrabble literary/journalist/show biz clientele memory. Their bouncer wears fingerless, ventilated driving gloves. And he smacks people. I've been present for the smacking but wasn't the smackee. Ditto the Algonquin.”

Then this from my buddy “…a few years ago, after the Big Renovation, walked over to Clarke’s, saw a Studio 54-like line consisting of  Studio 54-style hopefuls in, uh, contemporary attire – then heard the…music…that was spilling through the door onto the sidewalk.  Haven’t bothered to try since.  Now I understand it’s franchising, or at least has a satellite or two.  Clarke’s, RIP.   Smoky, greasy, dark, big urinal (I read they at least kept those) Clarke’s.  There the food was very, very, very secondary, often barely edible, I thought, while to me Elaine’s chow was always underrated. Or, its flaws overstated…”

Funny about the P. J. Clarke’s urinals. Sinatra said “you could stand Abe Beame in one and still have room.” 

And my buddy is spot-on about Clarke’s. You ain't gonna find the modern day complements to actor Richard Harris applying his restorative vodka shots or columnist and Nixon enemy George Frazier having a cheeseburger there. Interestingly, places like Clarke’s were at one time, destinations that reflected a segment of the Gotham strata.  

Frazier, in his epic 1960 Esquire treatise…The Art of Wearing Clothes…correlates P.J. Clarke’s with a sartorially stylish bunch.

“…for nowadays even the smallest town has a men's shop that carries the same suits and haberdashery that are on sale at, say Madison Avenue and Forty-fifth Street in New York. New Bedford, Massachusetts, for example, has Marty Sullivan's, a store so attuned to the fickleness of fashion that it has its buyers and designers spend part of their Manhattan visitations in such bars-and-grills as P. J. Clarke's, which attracts an extremely creatively-dressed Ivy League clientele.”

Oops…just realized something. What was I thinking? P. J. Clarke’s still reflects a slice of the Gotham strata. It’s just a different one. Look, I’m no anthropologist or intellectual or sociologist or whatever. So it’s not like I’m capturing a demo-socio-anthropological phenomenon here…quite the opposite actually. This was a breakthrough for me...not for y'all. I’m slow. So when the obvious lands late, we bring out the neuronal hazmat trucks. Shut up.

I remember Richard Merkin telling me that part of his motivation for decamping Gotham was its slow but obvious and steady slide towards homogeneity. Something about hookers being the proverbial Canaries in the Gotham Coal Mine. One day they were gone. These surrogate markers indexed to the inevitable beige sameness that one like Merkin, whose eyes had viewed Gotham for sixty-five years, might see earlier and more sensitively than others.

The one-offs in my hometown…the independents, the local characters and businesses of my youth save a few, have gone the way of Elaine’s. I took the photo above when I was home last month. This is Evans street—the source of all my childhood clothes and toys and also the sweet-spot for my Trad sartorial orientation. I’m standing in front of the haberdashery where I worked part time during my formative years. It opened there and remained so from 1927 till the about 1990. Everything’s now closed and the national chains are out near the Interstate.

The I-20 spur in Florence, South Carolina has a retail and entertainment strip manned by the likes of Applebee’s, Red Lobster, Target, Staples, Best Buy and a Borders. And so does Gotham and London and every other urban destination I find myself visiting.  Beige consistency…homogeneity…dead canaries everywhere. All in the same sequence…maybe the Red Lobster before Applebee’s now and again but every supporting actor in the sameness ensemble present and accounted for. Butcept Florence has no Duane Reads…which is probably what’ll take Elaine’s place.

Onward. Smelling something funny in the coal mine. Funny indeed. ADG, II  

Spring Break Odds and Ends

I accumulate from time to time a cache of pictures that really don’t tell a story per se…well now that I think about it…same can be said for a lot of what I assemble here. But as usual I digress. I had a smidge of LFG Spring Break visual remnants left and decided as opposed to a well thought out story; I’d just dump the menagerie here and now.

Gotham and the Waldorf…sans their bedbugs from a few years ago, was great fun. And when we returned home to Alexandria, we decided to finish out the week stay-cation style. You know, just hang around campus instead of another travel sortie. We have one week in each forthcoming June, July and August for additional travel frolic.

So we did fun local things including donating a ton of stuff to Goodwill as well as spending some time over at the Carpenters Shelter, a local homeless shelter that houses individuals and families.  Synthesizing the dichotomy between the Waldorf and the Carpenters Shelter was a good thing for me and LFG. It’s all about balance.

I remember one time when LFG was about three years old; we did what I call a Goodwill purge. We talked about the things that we didn’t need any more and how they’d be of value to those who have less. But we discussed it in “three year old” style/parlance. I’m an imperfect parent but one thing I try not to do is slather on the guilt that was part of my upbringing. (Jews and Catholics don’t have the market cornered on the guilt/suffering thang) Three year old LFG and I loaded up the car with a plethora of things, including her Dora the Explorer scooter that she never used. Never did actually—it was pristine. I told her how some other little girl would be overjoyed to have it and LFG agreed to donate it.

But by the time we arrived at the Goodwill shop, my little gal was pouting to beat the band. We need to help our children learn to be kind, less selfish and more truthful. We don’t need to teach them the opposites…those come standard…built-in…from the factory. I knew what it was. LFG didn’t want to give up the Dora Scooter. My first inclination was to give her the proverbial “big talking-to” about how blessed she was with material things and how selfish and uncaring she was being. But God’s hand was on my shoulder and his other one just slapped me upside the head. I told her that it was ok and that she could surely keep it. We offloaded the balance of the loot and the three of us…LFG, the Dora Scooter and I, headed home—home being a half-mile away. Just as we arrived, LFG said “Dad, can we take the scooter back to Goodwill now?” And we did…and I spent the next forever telling her how proud I was of her and how some little girl, just like her, was gonna love the scooter.

It’s easy being a good co-parent when the raw material for success is so rich and when LFG’s mother is such a good one. LFG is a really decent kid. Some say that having special needs kids is God’s way of teaching us how to REALLY love. My best buddy has a Downs Syndrome little girl and she’s such a sweet thing, though fraught with all the collateral issues that accompany Downs. And her daddy, my alpha, Ducks Unlimited, gruff, outdoorsman buddy is the most informed, focused and involved parent that any child and especially a special needs child, could ever hope for. I deal, so far, with nothing of that magnitude.

So LFG has made one “B” on her report cards this year. Based on who she is and how she’s doing in all things ten-year-old life journey-wise, when she wants a Day-Glo orange switch plate to accompany her lime green ones, I comply.

LFG’s room has been a work in progress and the progression took on a rather Seussian theme from the get go. After finding last summer’s inflatable hair, LFG concluded that there probably wasn't a better way to shield her golden curly locks from paint splatter than the B52 singers flip hair helmet.

I agreed.

“Oh no daddy, we’ve got paint on the carpet.” (The carpet was put down in 1989 and has been host to several tenants during the years that is was my investment/rental property. It’s time for new carpet in LFG’s room) “Ok, so we did LFG. Let’s now make the best of it”

Then Saturday afternoon saw us attending an independent film.

Rio in 3-D…that’s code for “Daddy in REM sleep with 3-D glasses on.”

And then the weather turned top-down-esque. So much so that LFG asked if there were any extra sunglasses in the car.

The 560SL procurement-due diligence-vetting process has opened our eyes to spotting SLs methinks, with a keener eye and greater regularity. My circumstances aren’t conducive to getting one of the Pagodas but we sure did love spotting this one in Georgetown on Easter Sunday. 

I’ll do another 560SL post shortly, when I have something to crow about.

So back at CasaMinimus LFG and I decided to do our spring planting. Hindsight is breathtakingly easy, 20/20 and I think, sometimes arrogant. But…if I had it to do over, I’d have stayed in my marital home. All of you decorator/design folks that read my drivel would've loved the bones of our seventy year old house and its mature trees and plantings. And digging outside was my greatest love. My compost project was as painful to leave as anything. So my compensatory unguent, other than Sinsayshun, involves planting in pots.

LFG and I reloaded the pots and tidied up my little sanctuary a bit.

Tidying up included turning the rugs. And here’s the deal, for the zillionth time, on the outdoor rugs. Yes, they remain outdoors year around. 

Yes they are old.. but not valuable...handmade carpets that I got in my divorce divvying. I shake ‘em out a few times a year and then, like this year, turn them over bi-annually. They get a good dose of patinating, bleaching sunshine but only a hint of rain from time to time.

And turning them over provides us with a fresh, clean look…at least for a while. I love communing out here with cocktails. Come see us and we’ll serve you up something. I’m thinking Martinis and Vienna Sausages with Wheat Thins.

The Easter Bunny, of course, showed up. Outside.  Adirondack chairs, carpets and freshly planted flora seemed an appropriate shrouding for Easter loot that included a little blue box.

And I recalled the hilarious Easter Egg Hunt that little twenty month old LFG attended. She was an amiable child, even back then. She was all-in when the gist of the egg hunt was explained to her. She was, at twenty months old, uncannily verbal. "Less go daddy"...And then she got pissed. It seems that Miss LFG thought that ALL of the eggs had been hidden for her. She delighted every time she found yet another egg. But when she saw others awash in the same glee, she got riled. "Mine! Nope, those are theirs and these are yours! Mine? Nope little bald girl and besides, you've found plenty". She's never had a tantrum and didn't have one then. She just ruminated. And then napped.

The LFG charm bracelet is currently back up at Tiffany in NYC getting her first charm permanently attached as well as having a few links removed for now. I’m looking forward to the tradition of finding little sterling charms for LFG during my/our travels. Yes, I’m trying to ruin her for any other man. Don’t challenge me on this.

Onward, post Spring Break. 

Pasty in madras.

ADG II Travelling

Happy New Year!

LFG and I are back from visiting my mom in S.C. Having subscribed to Toad’s NMP strategy a good while back-my visits home are generally fun and this trip was no exception. Entropy and inertia-delightfully so-are good characterizations for this holiday’s visit home. We never made it to Charleston-too many local folks that demanded an audience with Queen LFG and her Jester…that would be me.

I’d say the only negative aspect of the visit was the drive. I lie to LFG every time we go down there…saying…  “I know the drive is tough baby. We will never do it again-we’ll fly from now on”. I mean it when I say it. Then I price airfare and it always exceeds a roundtrip ticket to England for one person or one pair of shell cordovans and I balk. I-95 is getting worse by the day so who knows what I’ll do next time. Probably lie again.

The Brethren Outlet had a one million percent off sale so I pounced on an item or two when we stopped to pee. Always coordinate your bladder with the Brethren I say.

In an effort to perpetuate our valve closing culinary habits, we busted through the McD's drive by cholesterol window for a shot of fat and sodium. So strong it was that one of my Polo Cordovans blew right off my damn foot-right there in the rental car. Oh yeah, forgot to tell you that my Saab 9-3 convertible died in a big way. It's car time-one year sooner than planned. Y'all are lying your collective holiday asses off if you say you don't like the occasional trip through the drive-by at the Mc.D.

Our trip was characterized by the usual holiday activity-eating. Had we stayed one more day I’d be in the hospital in a lipid and hypertensive crisis. And I’d probably blow up to a 33 waist and 160 pounds. I did develop a tiny little paunch as evidenced in this pic of my favorite Christmas present. God knows how I love White Trash Cooking.

I realize that to you non-Southerners this looks like a grotesque autopsy tray. But let me tell you friends, this is manna from heaven-Hog Heaven. Shut up. Two pounds of barbecue and two pounds of ribs accompany a bottle of the best sauce in South Carolina. And no, you can’t have any. I travel with a cooler so that I can restock all of my heart valve closing treats.

And finally, another gift from LFG awaited me when we got home. Crane stationery in chocolate brown monogram and piping. Now if I could only learn to write.

Onward into Twenty-Oh-Ten as one of my clients says.

Jester ADG and Queen LFG

Travel-Carpet Update and Redux: The Man Cave

Greetings from Le Roi of Randomosity-and before I get rolling-let me say once again how smitten I am with the words being posited over at Mon Avis Mes Amis....   Only the Brits can cobble such tight little observational quips like...."Our postal system is up the spout, commie bastards….".

I rolled out of National Airport on Monday and had enough time to hang out in the Continental President’s Club before departing. Certainly a bit of a step up in décor but not as posh as the clubs used to be prior to the airlines’ tenuous financial situation.

The Continental Club is on the periphery of what used to be the original terminal at Washington National. There remains a hint or two of the deco-esque bones that used to characterize the terminal. I can see the terminal in the late 1930’s through the 1950’s as the venue of only those who travelled on business or those families wealthy enough to use air travel for pleasure. I see everyone dressed properly for travel and I see lots of cigarettes and cocktails. Mad Men…I’m channeling Mad Men.

I’m prone to nostalgia and I worry that when I’m an old man-the nostalgia will morph into curmudgeonly melancholia. Young people will hide from me when I attempt to regale them with stories of the good old days. LFG will have to give her kids a pep talk before they visit me at Shady Acres. “Be nice and let him hug you-I know he smells funny and wears his pants beyond his nipples but he is your grandfather. Yes-I know he smells funny but if you aren’t nice, I’m gonna make you spend two entire days with your great uncle Tintin. Now you pick your poison. And shut up”

I’m semi-slumming for the flight up to NJ. Levis 501s-Paul Stuart Gingham spread collar shirt-Flusser Cavalry Twill bellows pockets-three/two-chest pocket flap…could I have tarted this thing up with any more bells and whistles?

It’s the small touches that make sartorial pursuits interesting.

Side seam gussets on the Paul Stuart gingham would support not only the seam but my assertion.

Paul Stuart Man on the Fence embroidered on the shirt tail.

It seems that I'm not the only one sporting horizontal stripes these days.

Brown shell cordovan tassels from Ralph. Yes, shell cordovan comes in colors other than the classic Alden color 8. Stand back-these shoes will hurt you. Socks? Not so much today.

Floor and ceiling appointments in the President’s Club are a bit nicer than in the terminal. Wonder if these guys could come over to my pad and finish my crown moulding?

I’m not sure what’s going on in NJ that has booked all of the typical convention-business traveler hotels that I usually frequent. They were all booked this week so I had to seek other lodging options. I ended up abut twenty miles south of my client’s office in Bernardsville, N.J. as a guest at the Bernards Inn.

 I know the area well-having friends from my N.J. days who used to live just around the corner.

I need scores of electrical outlets-strong water pressure for a quick hot shower...you know-the typical requirements of one who is on the road for business-not pleasure. Ambiance is manifest at the Bernards Inn but not road warrior amenities. Slow to warm shower water propelled like five year old kiddies doing slow tumbles in gym class is what you get here.

The Bernards Inn opened in 1907 so there's tons of history and patina but...Two electrical outlets which had to be traded from time to time for various appliances accompanying my visit. I had to inflate my blow up doll manually.

The Somerset Hills area of New Jersey is beautiful and especially so this time of year. Those who have settled on an opinion of N.J. based solely on the visual offense registered when landing at Newark airport need to take a drive out to Bernardsville. The adjacent towns of Peapack-Gladstone-Bedminster-Far Hills etc are quaint and lovely. Golf House-The USGA Headquarters is out here as well. Great way to spend a few hours if you happen to be in the neighborhood.

The USGA moved out here from its Murray Hill townhouse sometime in the 1950’s I think.

Ok…it’s off to the shower and one more day of Renal Medicine Service Line Strategies. Then I get to go home.

Onward-with brown shell cordovan and a turn down truffle from the Bernards Inn.

Our buddy Longwing recently commented on my “Man Cave” and thus the genesis for this post…..
Every man needs a space. A study, a library, a workshop…whatever. My office in Old Town has always been the repository for things that weren’t “allowed” in the house…caricatures...old toy soldiers…vintage military stuff…guy stuff. A guy needs a room with which he can do whatever…décor wise…tidy or not tidy…you know. My office was my principal man cave until I became "re-single". Then, it was “man cave central” at home too. Oh, with one exception…LFG has a cute pink bedroom.

It’s obvious that my stuff at home is the manifestation of a former life. Too much stuff in a much smaller space. Dividing the stuff wasn’t too difficult. There were only a few pieces of furniture that I insisted on and the premarital stuff was a no brainer. Interestingly, there was a bumper crop of kilim, heriz, bohkara, hamadan etc. carpets. I'm a bit of a slob and I've gotta tell you, persian/oriental carpets are a sloppy guy's best friend. They show nothing. Red wine spills actually enhance some of the coloring! You can go years without using a vacuum. Just pick up the big pieces and let it roll!

So, here’s a random display...mostly art... of the Man Cave Collection…

Kilim Chaise....bought at an auction when I lived in New Orleans. I'm glad this thing can't talk.

Algernon Charles Swinburne. Pre-Raphaelite hanger on...weak chin...kinky hair. Decadent poet.
Hall bathroom...bad wallpaper...Cartier Bresson, Cecil Beaton portraits of Max Beerbohm, family pics and a pic of the Allison Brothers and Cale Yarborough...signed by all three...the legendary Daytona Speedway Fist Fight all on one wall. Yes, we have problems over here. Shut up. The Spoon-Nose Trick....Can you do it?Carlo Pellegrini... the caricaturist "Ape" from Vanity Fair. Beerbohm idolized him. So do I. We don't drink cocktails. The booze is for guests only.Papier-mâché-plaster Penfold Golfball advertising display from the 1940's. Just noticed that his hat needs dusting. I ain't doin' it. The Help....where's the Help? I got none. Drypoints of Whistler by Menpes and Rajon. My old office...caricatures....LFG's mom used to call them "baseball cards for big boys".

Helleu, Pellegrini, Haden, Sir Leslie Ward, unk. artists pencil sketches and drypoints.
Andre Plumot Self Portrait-1862. Ebay...
Plumot
Carlo Pellegrini, William Nicholson, Rockwell Kent....lithographs, watercolours, etchings and pencil studies.
Watercolour of W. G. Grace, M.D. ...the "Babe Ruth of Cricket"

Vanity Fair prints including the Prince of Wales at the top. Pre-Edward VII and Duke of Wallis....no wonder he reteated to that maternal-erotically inclined twice divorced acrobat from Baltimore. They dressed his a_s in sailor suits till he was a grown man/boy.
Great little 19th century oil painting on board from Boris Wilnitsky in Vienna. Wilnitsky has an impressive inventory and I think, very fair prices with shipping fees from Europe that are quite reasonable.

Ok...that's enough of the Man Cave for one day. There's at least one more post on this theme. Wait till you see the kitchen. It's scary as hell in there.

Tata from the Cave. Have a blessed day.