White Meat and Madras

I may have, at least in my opinion—the only one that counts—arguably the best Go-To-Hell pants oeuvre accumulated. I’ve crowed about them before. Usually about this time of year…far enough into the sunnier days to have layered on a respectable patina of tan...I bring them out. “Patina of Tan”…sounds like a potentate from South Asia.

Anyway, here’s an already known-to-me fact that as summer 2011 surfaces, seems magnified one hundred fold. If you don’t have at least trace elements of a suntan…then madras, linen and most certainly, any of the edgier summer togs…batik, paisley…you know…the stuff that might get your ass beat if worn in unaccepting environs, looks like crap. The so-bad-for-you vitamin-D provoking, melanin teasing, ten years older looking than you are; ultra-violence, is THE secret sauce for making one’s summer togs pop. See above.

Butcept I won’t be popping with aplomb this season. That damned dermatologist I saw month before last might be saving my life and my hide but she’s effing with my dermal disposition. Shut up.

Patch madras, about which by the way, I've proffered no rules and regs for this season, looks like crap when your limbs are almost pale to a blue translucent level. I learned this last weekend at LFG’s soccer game.

And linen fares no better. Two inch cuffs are required but two inch turn ups hovering over ankles of the same hue create unwanted monochromatic sameness. And socks? With linen or madras or paisley trousers? Just shoot me now.

There are a few occasions when socks are ok with linen trou but the concession criteria are rigorous. Above I offer an example for your guidance. You can PayPal me.

And don’t even offer me the alternative of something spray-on. Even I, the foppish philanderer have a dandiacal breakpoint. Dandiacally pale...dermatically attenuated...in slippers.

The luminescence of one' ankles isn't even foreshadowed by the pimposity of blue and red suede Donald J. Plonker lug soled absurdities. Shut up. 

So here we go. Into the weekend...blessed...that at present, this is my biggest complaint.

Onward. ADG II

Straw Hats-Linen...and Sunscreen

Last Monday was a somber day for me. LFG was back in school after one of our typically great weeks of vacation debauchery. Debauchery defined as less than rigorous hygiene demands, no curfew and bad food. But at some point we all have to re-engage in more structured and responsible deportment. And I re-engaged Monday morning in linen…with the pastiest ankles to accompany my favorite fabric. It’s only April so the ankle color is similar in shade to the trouser.

And the rest of my rig needed to be a bit less fuzzy in keeping with Monday’s somber nature. Earth tones topped off with a brown polka dot pocket square.  One of my house-model Flussers… 3/2 rolled open patch pockets… seemed appropriate.

Which brings me to the other driver of Monday’s somberness…my skin. I’ve abused it in every way possible since I was old enough to seek the sun and it now shows. I’ve seen sixty year old sun avoiders with healthier, younger skin than mine. I get rather pasty in the winter but can get brown as a berry in the summer…and I always have until now. Sunscreen? Cursory daubs from time to time but I spent my life from birth till now doing all the summertime things that damage your skin. I wore a porn star mustache briefly in 1979 but no sunscreen. 

So I took the Metro on Monday morning to a Dermatologist office in D.C. I knew the lashing I was gonna get before ever meeting this very nice and almost too young to be out of her residency, Dermatologist. I had, luckily, only a few pre-cancerous little visitors that needed to be looked at and all will be fine…if I avoid the sun. A little zap here and a couple of prescriptions later and she’ll see me in a couple of months…right in the middle of sun tan time. Oy.

Which brings me to the issue of hats. I’ve never worn a straw dress hat. My spiritual and pragmatic mentor Toad is the hat king. But as soon as I saw this picture of Tommy Hitchcock in his straw pork pie hat, I declared that if I could ever find one of that caliber, I might give it a go. I love the dichotomy of straw and madras topping off Hitchcock in his camel hair Polo coat.  

But even with my level of not giving a shitake about rules and my love of all things fuzzy, I’ve never peered over into the straw-dress hat realm. Some people were born for hats. Toad seems as straw hat-esque as anyone.

Some people can sport esoteric straw hats with panache and aplomb. People ask me about this picture when they visit but I have nothing to provide. I don't know anything about this fella other than I bet he'd be fun at cocktail parties.

Some folks should leave straw hat esoterica to those who can execute on eccentricity.

So I’m walking to the Dermatology office and the sun is beating down on my head and I can feel it. Really feel it…the hair back there ain’t what it used to be. I encounter the windows of J.Press at about the same time and their hats are appropriately sitting in the windows. I’d already decided to stop in on them during my walk back from the Derm office. I needed to get a gift for a buddy.

This guy was having lunch at a place right beside J.Press and I immediately saw his rig as more ADG centric than if he’d had a straw hat on. Seersucker and a baseball hat…certainly more my speed.

So I go for my scolding and my medicine and sulk back over to J. Press. Gift shirt and a couple of grosgrain watch bands in hand and I’m ready to roll. And then I begin looking at hats. Not these. I’ll wear baseball caps before I don these Trad yet goofball looking things.

But the little modified brim Porkpie provokes me a bit. Coincidentally, it matches my outfit and it isn’t one of those, albeit perhaps aptly priced, three-hundred dollar things. It’s fairly cheap. And I don’t think it looks too absurd when I give it a go.

So I’m now headed to the Farragut North Metro stop in a Porkpie straw hat.

 I’m good with it. Really, I mean how much more self-conscious could a guy like me become after donning this straw topper? None actually. Remember, I’m the guy who wears slippers, outside of the house. Shut up.

So I’m thinking...even with a Dermatologist slathered red nose, that I’m pulling this look off ok.

 Let me know if I’m hallucinating.

And finally, just another shot of my complementary Flusser/Polo/Edward Green contrivance. Open patch pockets always get my attention.

Two inch cuffs. Don't argue this with me. Coarse-weave linen, flat front Polo togs and my EG Koss charity shoes.

Ok, off to soccer. With sunscreen. And a purple nose.

ADG II 

Walk-Over Saddles and Bucks

Walk-Over…in addition to GH Bass, provided a well priced dirty buck when I was in college. I can’t remember who sold them but I can remember having a pair or two.

And you can best believe that I’ll be sporting these fuzzies that I just found in their Spring 2011 lineup. Spare me the tisk tisking. You know I’ll get ‘em and you know I’ll wear ‘em.

I’m already channeling the Sunday afternoon that’ll call for them. Just a wee bit too much sun by the pool. Shave-shower and don the linen. The ADG carcass throwing off a bit of heat as the vitamin-D settles in and manifests its therapeutic pop.

Linen trousers that shoulda been thrown away two summers ago. Cocktails. Cold ones. Especially summer ones that are so cold they not only burn on the way down but sizzle when they bottom out. Who couldn't help but be energized? The post-pool shower accelerates the glow. Preening like a Jack Russell just back from the groomers.

A smug swagger offers just enough extra to further incense those who gawk at the absurdity of a middle aged man in green soled shoes.

And certainly, waist pageantry in a completely different shade of green will transport this contrivance beyond fuzzidom to some Oz-esque redneck boondoggle of vulgarity. Mizrahi meets Jackass.

I’m thinking dinner at the bar. It’s half-price wine night at Mendocino in Georgetown. A ruse that promises to relieve you of twice the dosh you’d spend on any other night. Funny how that works. Seems like a light, flaky pan fish of some type would complement not only my sartorial flakiness but the non-sweltering-laser focused sun and heat of the early day too. Grilled…almost dry. No mid-winter heavy sauce comfort food concoction required. 

It’s not needed on evenings when sun remnants still hold the sky at seven-thirty. Hurry spring. Hurry summer

Onward. Pastily.

ADG II

Love The Sinner-Hate The Sin: GTH Redefined

My trip to today’s Handlin’ is grounded in earth tones and monochromacity. To say that it’s antithetical to my June sartorial mores is an understatement. I’m doing this in honor of those who find most GTH contrivances an abomination. I’m also doing it because as much as I pay attention to what I wear, Jesus doesn’t care. He and his disciples dressed for comfort. Come to think of it, I do too but I just like a little more color and pattern than the boys from Galilee fancied. But if solid colors and earth tones were good enough for Jesus, they’re good enough for me—for one Sunday—one time—not forever—maybe never again—at least not in the summer.  

I’m reminded of some state or county official in Texas who when asked why he didn’t support funding for Bibles printed in Spanish said that … “if English was good enough for Jesus it oughta be good enough for everbody else”. EverBody—for some reason I’m thinking that would be a good name for board shorts or maybe even a surfboard line.

So this is my multivendor assemblage of things less GTH. Crocket and Jones for Polo, The Brethren, Flusser MTM courtesy of Southwick and back to Polo—Ralph to round out the belt and trousers. And other than the silk pocket handkerchief and my lycra thong, this rig is one hundred (or "hunderd" if that fella from Texas was sayin' it) percent linen.

Black linen trousers...these must be twenty years old. What was I thinking? I don't wear black trousers in the daytime butcept today...and black in the summer? Additional evidence of their age is manifest in the Deney Terrio Dance Fever "mini-cuff".

Linen...guaranteed to wrinkle. The perfect ADD man's fabric and also the manifest wrinkly metaphor for not giving too much of a shitake about precision and correctness. Worry unduly about such things and you'll end up looking overly crisp...the Adolphe Menjou syndrome I like to call it. Two buttons on the sleeve...an old WASP affectation seen routinely on jackets intended for the weekend.

As much as I loathe admitting it, the color palette connectivity of this mongrelosity really works well. Too bad I can't get my foot up around my open patch breast pocket when I have all of this on. I'm going to church, not hot yoga. The reason for going to church is to seek forgiveness for scores of impure thoughts manifest peri-Bikram. Peri Bikram...a post Raj lounge singer perhaps?

And finally, I picked up my dry cleaning yesterday and the reality is immutable. I am the antimonochromaticsolidcolornopatternrestraintlessismore man. Kinda like what Charlie Parker said about heroin..."you can get it out of my body but you can't get it out of my mind". 

Onward. Monochromatically for a day.

A D G

Home to My Jesus-In Seersucker

No wonder the Pharisees always stayed kinda mad at Jesus. After all, he made them look foolish on more than one occasion. Did they really want Jesus to condemn the adulterer or did they want to test Jesus’ influence? Jesus was able to challenge these authoritarians by inviting them without sin to commence stoning this woman caught in the act of adultery. It would have taken me three weeks to come up with such a clever statement to diffuse the situation.

John Chapter 8 and a couple of verses from Mathew provided all the reference necessary to let me know that yesterday’s sermon was exclusively for my country a_s.  Judgement and forgiveness is the tight little forty five minute message and I’m sitting there thinking “damn (even though you shouldn’t be thinking or saying “damn” at the handlin’) here we go again…another sermon aimed at ADG Ground Zero”….

Some top-line corollaries from John Chapter 8…Christ neither found fault with the law, nor excused the prisoner's guilt; nor did he countenance the pretended zeal of the Pharisees. Those are self-condemned who judge others, and yet do the same thing.  And then from Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge so that you will not be judged” Ok…looks like I’m gonna have to refrain from laughing at people who wear goofy shit. And “zeal”? Take that away from me and I got nothin’.

Now how in the world am I going to put fully in play the lessons from the handlin’? I posited a good while back in my post about why I love and write about clothes that I want people to learn about me and my character before casting me off as some sartorial snob. You can read it here. I declared in that post that I try really hard to offer the same latitude to those I meet…regardless of the number of tattoos you have, nose piercings or even, God forbid, vertical blinds. I can even dig deep enough and find the goodness in you if I notice a Thomas Kinkade painting hanging in your house. And that’s digging deep.

I suppose it’s no longer my authority to declare when you can or can’t wear things like patch madras and seersucker. And Allie, I’m gonna have to abandon my idea of resurrecting the Butt Police. Who am I to decide such things? And Spandex? Geez…can I really surrender my authority over such offensive fabrics? I’m against the death penalty but what about butt crack baggy jeans and backward baseball hats? 

Are y’all really comfortable with me letting go of my Pharisee-esque self proclaimed authoritarian weigh-in on all things Strip Mall? Was I delusional to think, just because I have people of distant, thank God, relation back in S.C.—who would actually be proud to make the People of Wal-Mart blog post—that I could straighten the world out on such matters? Just having an Aunt Tootie should qualify me.

 Let me conclude by saying that I’m gonna try really hard to actualize the lessons learned in Mathew and John. But I can’t promise anything. As I cobble this drivel together, my little pocket Mephistopheles is sitting on my shoulder telling me that if I don’t carry forth the mantle of sartorial judgement…the slippery slope of sartorial slovenosity will become ever steeper.

So it’s no longer upon me to declare white bucks and seersucker the current Sunday costume of choice for the masses. But for me yesterday—I was pleased to pounce. Flusser gray seersucker sportcoat, pink diagonal tone on tone Flusser button down, nicely patinated Polo white bucks and an old pair of bulletproof Hertling Irish linen trousers.

I’ve commented on the architecture of this sportcoat before but here’s a little refresher. At first glance one could quickly conclude that it’s just another ADG Fuzzy Dice contrivance. Double vented, three two roll, patch pockets with a patch ticket…finished off with an open patch breast pocket. Give me a break man! If ever the evidence would support throwing the first stone of ersatz sartorial contrivance…this might be it. But hold on a minute before you start pelting. This exact model hails from the Brooks Brothers Archives courtesy of Alan Flusser. So there.

I love this jacket. Those of you who bespeak things know that even from the same pattern, singular garments feel and fit differently based on a zillion factors. This creation fits exactly the way I like. Don’t ask me to explain further. It’s not for you or me to really understand in toto.

And Hertling trousers? I can only speak for myself—since I’ve given up my authority—but I’ll never need a nicer pair of trousers than what rolls out of the Hertling factory. I just worry about what’s gonna happen over in Brooklyn after Julie Hertling gives it up. China I reckon.

Toad did a great update on white bucks the other day. And as much as I want another pair, it ain’t in the budget and these patinated babies are good for a few more seasons.

I exchanged emails with someone from back home recently and we got on the subject of funerals. A sartorial legend from S.C. passed away and he was filling me in on the funeral service. I offered the following comment in an email reply….. “Funerals…I used to worry like hell about what my family will do on my behalf—regardless of what I’ve outlined in my Will. My mom remains undone over the fact that I’ve requested cremation. I would love for the Shaw Singers or the Blind Boys from Alabama to roll in and sing two songs… “Oh Happy Day” and “Home to My Jesus”. Then I’d like for everyone to have cocktails. No open casket nonsense for me”.

So I’m gonna leave you with Home to My Jesus by the Shaw Singers. Excuse the silly dancers visual…I can’t find another version of the song to post. I love the grittiness…the granularity of this poorly recorded gospel standard. I also like what the Rev. Al Green said about the difference between the Blues and Gospel. Just substitute the words God/Jesus with Baby and you’ve got one or the other. I’m thinking the Rev. Al was hollerin’ for God not Baby when that pot of hot grits hit him upside the head.

Onward…throwin’ no stones…till Thursday…ADG