Redux:Trad Travels and Observations

I know that y'all are getting tired of my reruns but it's gonna be this or nothing for a few more days. Blessed to be swamped. Here's one from back when the weather was still warm. How I wish that it was warm today and I was in Newport. The GREAT news is that we are getting more snow this week. Is this Buffalo or D.C.? Just shoot me now.

Greetings from Newport Rhode Island. I’m here on business-speaking to a group of Biotech executives tomorrow so I won’t even try to equal Tintins great posts on his leisure time here. I don’t have the playtime to offer in depth observations of this great destination. I have fond memories of previous visits-none of which were as hot-humid as today. It is unbearable back in the DC area and I was looking forward to-almost bragging about the two day reprieve that this keynote speech offered. It’s almost as hot here as it was in Charleston and now DC.

This will be a bit of superficial trad observations-all courtesy of the shitty camera on my iPhone. I’m diggin’ the phone but the camera is really a dud. So, stay tuned for some random pictorial observations and comments.Eclectic bohemian trad man....last Friday night. Jazz in the Garden in DC....great outdoor jazz in the Sculpture Garden...free...thanks to your federal tax dollars. I caught a glimpse of this guy...probably in his seventies....duende. As I've said with Belgians and Slippers and other sartorially edgy manifestations....you've gotta have a healthy dose of don't give a shitake. You've gotta revel in people viewing you as an oddity. This goes for summer neck handkerchiefs/scarves as well. I don't have the stones for it. This guy does.

This was my rig on one of my consulting days in NJ last week. The corporate casual-hygiene holiday climate is killing me. This is as casual as I'm gonna go. I've got VP/C level clients that wear Dockers. Drives me nuts. Conor's pocket square is the standard these days.

Black Belgians...one of only two pairs of black shoes I own. Not real keen on black shoes of any kind. The only other pair is an old standard...black Gucci bit loafers...in suede.Herringbone socks...courtesy of Ralph. You know Ralph.

This contorted ass picture is from my room here in Newport. Had to hold the iPhone high in the air to make my visual point. This is how I travel in the summer so that I don't have to accomodate a piece of luggage for coats. I'll wear this navy blazer and linen trou for my riveting talk tomorrow..."Biotech Business Models of the Future"...what with healthcare changing and everything...these future/speculative talks are in demand. Do I know what the business model of the future should be? I've got an opinion or two but nobody knows for sure. Pay me my day rate and I'll come to your house and tell you all about it. After I finish this post, I've gotta pull a PowerPoint presentation on tomorrow's talk...outta my butt...'cause it doesn't exist yet.

I travel in shorts-a blazer and a baseball cap. People avoid me and pull their kids closer when I walk by. Shut up.

I was initially skeered, as Mark Twain would say, to walk into this shop today in Newport. I was skeered that there might be somebody in there that I mighta dated at one point. The coast ended up being crystal clear. 

I told you that the South Carolina state flag brand was overexposed. Here it is on a belt in Newport. Courtesy of my bad camera. 

Ditto the bad camera shot. Great ties in the same shop.The rude people in this shop are real proud of their British goods. I'm not worried about them going out of business though. If they sell one freakin' sweater at retail, they've covered their expenses for a month.

And finally, a shot of the memorial mug that held my coffee this morning before I departed for Newport. The mug commemorates my late twin brother Stinky. It was forty three years ago today that he was eaten by hogs on my grandfather's farm in South Carolina. We miss you Stinky.

Onward...sans Stinky