Last Days of Linen

…and Seersucker too while we’re at it.

I’m known and prone to bend break the rules and and amidst these remaining shards of  post-Labor Day heat, I’ll be extending my use of linen till probably Halloween. Your Seersucker (yes, I capitalize Seersucker. I’m from the South. South and Seersucker deserve to be capitalized and I don’t have to explain it. Shut up.) however, must now be gone. At least around these parts.

I have a buddy in South Carolina—we coulda been blood brothers…our proclivities-quirks and other idiodamnsyncrasies are almost identical…kinda like me and LFG’s Uncle Toad…butcept I still have abs and those guys don’t—who uses the “85 Degree Rule” and it makes sense for South Carolina. According to my Sandlapper cousin, it makes no difference what month it happens to be, if it’s 85 degrees, everything in the closet, including Seersucker remains fair game. I’ll go with that—but only in climes like the Carolinas or that tropical place where I lived for a couple of years—New Orleans. (The punctuation in this paragraph has the makings for a Goat Rodeo. Shut up.)

My cadet blue linen togs barely arrived in time for any 2013 use but they managed to eke their way to me a week ago. And I’m still all about frog mouth-top pockets and flat fronts on my casual trousers. I don’t wear navy blue trousers. They just don’t seem to go with any of my jackets and even if they did, the stark contrast is too much for me. So the cadet blues offered an alternative to a twelfth pair of tan linen trousers and enough contrast that I can pull these off with a navy blazer.

Figured I’d get ‘em in Seersucker while I was at it. And for winter 2013? Light gray flannel—top pockets—flat front—BUT with belt loops. I need a canvas from which my Orange Fuzzy Coffman’s Crocodile belt will preen. You laugh now. You’ll be jonesin’ later. Be quiet.

Two inch cuffs, too…and a dress extension front closure on flat fronts. These are enough of a folly, design-wise, to keep me interested and others curious. If only I could manage that in my romantic endeavors. Where’s that neighbor lady this morning. I've suddenly got a cravin’ flung on me.

My other quirky-fuzzy trouser experiment over these recent years was thanks to Bookster (R.I.P.) and my ideation of a flat-front, dress extension, split back—fishtail waistband tog—reminiscent of cavalry officer trews. Dark green corduroy above.

Got ‘em in grey flannel, Seafield tweed, and tan linen too.I wonder if Bookster will rise again. Anybody know?

Ok, I digress…back to linen and seersucker. Of all my potential follies in 2013, my M. Dumas—Vineyard Vines seersucker jeans…aren’t one of ‘em. Home run. Period. And for some crazy reason, I can make ‘em work. Shut up.

Light as a feather yet substantial enough to keep all the bits secure when going commando. Seersucker Commando. Now that’s something.

Since I’m down to writing two stories a month, let me really digress and offer an update on my move and LFG and everything else. I drug dragged  my feet for months on end regarding pulling the trigger on a place in Bethesda. I’ve got great excuses but they are excuses nonetheless. One of my business partners had a second heart surgery in January so we were all doing extra duty, my mother’s high drama health saga began in March and has kept me pretty much consumed during every bit of free time I’ve had to break away and go to South Carolina and assist. But I promised LFG that I’d be in Bethesda when the new school year started—and I barely made the deadline.

And when she and I found this quaint little cottage we both knew that this would be a great nest for me/us. As I explained to her; even though I’d only be five minutes away, I would still be spending more time in my Bethesda nest without her than not. Therefore it was crucial that the place felt right and good for me. I signed a two-year lease on this house and my hope is that I’ll be inclined to stay here till LFG graduates from high school.

It’s been humbling to learn how much sh_t one person can accumulate in ten years. My marriage ended a decade ago and I’ve happily added more books and toy soldiers and caricatures and clothes and other irreleventia to my holdings during this epoch. And I swear that I’ve given tons of stuff to Goodwill and have shed at least two hundred books.

But this move has shed light on the fact that I’m a borderline hoarder. Tasty hoards but hoards none the damn less. And to exacerbate the issue I closed my office in Old Town and now all of the caricatures and other goodies that swathed those walls are here in Bethesda too. It’s all good but I’ve gotta have a purge of sorts rather soon.

So it is all good, right? You bet. Moving is one of the top stressors in life…right up there with divorce, marriage, loss of a loved one etc. But some stress can be good and I’d define this move as positive tension. I’m going to be very happy here and can even co-parent the pooch now. However.

The renovation of my Old Town digs is another story. I’m on the record admitting that I’m a terrible investor but my saving grace has been the rental properties that I’ve owned in Old Town. I moved back into one when I divorced and began to half-ass evolve it into my own little Anglophilic Redneck Ass Deliverance Meets Sir John Soan with a splash of Hollister Hovey while babysitting Honey Boo Boo  pad.

And unbeknownst to me, it was a hot mess when I began to create the punch list of stuff that needed to be done to revert it back to the updated neutrality that rental properties need to convey. To say that I bit off more than I could chew…to say that there have been moments when I was teetering on being in over my head is an understatement.

But when the quotes started to roll in I declared that I could save ten grand by handling everything myself. And I will ultimately save the ten grand but methinks I’ve at least vanquished two of my years. I’ve been working twelve-hour backbreaking days and until yesterday, I couldn’t see that I’d made any progress. 

Never say never…but I’m pretty sure the next time around I’ll at least hire someone to do a few of the more aggravating jobs.

Aggravating? Ten years’ worth of half-ass do it yourself endeavors creates a pile of onerous revisions and I wasn’t gonna let someone else discover my previous “hell, it looks good enough for me” shortcomings while I was standing there. 

Drywall that came off in chunks when I removed prefab wainscoting…chair rail moulding nails that hadn’t been properly countersunk with a nail punch and had three different coats of paint slopped on them…

Crown moulding that needed recaulking but only after the old, cheap silicone caulk had been stripped. Bathroom fixtures, carpet and appliances that were installed in 1989. Damn.

And dark colors? Barney Purple LFG bedroom with Day-Glo orange outlet covers and lime green doors? I’ve used ten gallons of primer on one door. Never. Again.

Here's the Barney Purple bedroom after a zillion hours of .....

I did remove and replace the door facing with LFG's measurements on it.

And the new appliances are installed in the kitchen but I still can't muster the juice to erase LFG's chalk scribbles just yet. And no, I won't have the drywall cut out and replaced. I just need to suck it up and...erase it.

Bold striped walls with black and white photos in the half-bath. Brilliant, right?

I'll have all of that particular brilliance vanquished this weekend.

Ok. I’m gonna close this drivel and roll the refuse carts to the street. I live in the suburbs now and that’s what we do. And since I'm still getting to know my neighbors and first impressions are so important, I'm gettin' dolled up in linen before I step out.

Onward. With Aleve and Icy Hot--I've got Paint Roller Elbow.

ADG II--Bethesda

Trad-Ivy Tuesday…

…will probably be Trad-Ivy Thursday this week. I still haven’t caught up with my post Puerto Rico and post business travel last week, world. I feel like I’ve caught the last rung of the ADG fire truck ladder as it exited the station to reengage in the post LFG vacation world and I’m just kinda holding on, flapping in the wind, trying to inch my way back up to the driver’s seat. I think I just characterized my life in general. So how 'bout some randomanalia in the guise of reader questions?

Carolina Style asked…"Hope all is well, I come to you with more questions all mightysartorial one. Where about did you acquire your linen cowboy shirt, how much does it cost to have a d-ring made up by Flusser, and where can I acquire horse hair bracelets at a decent price?"

Ok. I can’t remember how much the Flusser belts are and there prices might have inched a little higher over the years. I bought these three over about a three year interval. Once you buy the hardware—or not—if you have D or O rings that you are happy with, the price for the strap is a little bit less. The Brethren and others sell alligator straps without buckles for north of $350 bucks so you can expect these tastier straps to be north of $500 bucks I suspect. And the ostrich goods are no less expensive. Poor birds.

The linen cowboy shirt is from J. Crew. They offered it about five summers ago and it was/is a unique animal. Like all linen, by the afternoon of its wearing, the desired bags—sags—wrinkles and linenesque nuances are in full form and for some reason, even more so with this shirt. Some of the J.Crew/Banana Republic linen shirts are made from cheap linen and it becomes apparent after a few hours of wearing. The bag—sag—wrinkle trifecta looks more like a wadded up paper bag as opposed to the hoped for nuanceticated undulationesque characteristics of better linen. That’s fancy talk for the fact that I loved this shirt so much that I bought two of them. After they went on sale I grabbed a backup for half price, knowing that I wouldn’t see something this fuzzy anytime soon. It’s kinda giddy-up meets Noel Coward and Ian Fleming in Jamaica. Yep, I’ve had coffee and chocolate this morning.

So where can you get one? You can’t. But if you want to spend a few hundred bucks, find someone who offers made to measure shirtings from Individualized Shirts and I bet they’ll make one up for you.

Horse hair bracelets…Of all the wrist junk…and historically, most of it has come from LFG…that I wear, this one is the most meaningful to me. Mark “Puerto” Rykken and his family travelled several years ago to the Galapagos as well as a few countries in South America. He and his sons picked up a few of these from local women who make and sell them and he was kind enough to give me one. I’ve had this one on my wrist for about five years. Last time I was handcuffed I told the officer to watch the horse hair bracelet or I’d have to use my pimp hand on him. I get attached to things in sentimental ways. Shut up. Oh, and where can you find them? Try eBay.

Someone also asked about the source of my shoddings. The cheap scuffs/slippers/espadrillians came from Urban Outfitters and they are about $25 bucks. Like espadrilles, these things for me end up being one or two season throwaways so why pay real money for them? And these things, with their rubber soles, seem to stay on my foot better than those ropey soled espadrille things that sag and bag in ways not are not as complementary as a linen shirt.

And another question about my watches came up. I’m on the record for not spending big bucks on watches. My favorite is a quartz—modern version of the Hamilton Seckron Duo Dial Doctors watch. Hamilton resurrected it about fifteen years ago but it's not on display here. I'm too lazy to find a decent photo of it. I'm intrigued by Doctor's watches and as I shared in a post a few years ago, I think it goes back to my undergrad days when I thrived as a freelance gynecologist.

My other favorites, of which I own three, are from Barrie Law at Waterman’s Watches in England. Go here and tell him I sent you. I’m wearing one of his watches in the photo above.

Ok, this is all I have the juice for right now. Thank you and have a lovely day.

ADG II 

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: Madras Miscellany and ADG Randomanalia…

I think this once per week Trad-Ivy Tuesday yoke is gonna become too heavy too fast.  The idea that I would settle into one decent post per week and have it waft up from the ADG cauldron of randomanalia in an aromatically focused, cogent and vaguely erudite fashion now seems onerous. That’s verbose code for “I’ve got an endless list of Trad-Ivy Tuesday stories but am too lazy and unfocused to write them.”

Bottom line is that it’s just easier for me to do those verbal stream of semi-conscious run on thangs than it is to write more responsibly. I could for example, be working on a more focused and responsible Trad-Ivy Tuesday story right now. But I don’t want to. What I want to do is just drop off some junk. The random stream of ADD whateverishness writing is easy as 1-2-3.Which brings me to Madras Miscellany. A tumblr reader asked…

“Heya D. I imagine this question is probably going to be met with "I haven't decreed that it's patch madras season or decided if there's a general moratorium in effect against the wearing thereof, so you deserve it," but I'm gonna ask anyway. Cookout: Torrential downpour, as in completely soaked (in more ways than one) wearing a pair of bleeding patch madras pants from Banks that are dry clean only. What do I do? Stick them in a tub of water until the dye no longer comes off? Say screwit?”

I’m giving up on trying to govern Madras. Now I know how Mountbatten felt when he turned the Colonial light switch off in India. Or how Charles de Gaulle felt when he said… “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”

And my answer is I don’t care anymore. I’m finished with the burden of trying to extricate madras from the Trailer Trash Honkey Tonk zip code that it seems to go back to, even after we find examples of classic and appropriate madras modulation. It ain’t worth it. You wear your madras the way you want and I’ll wear mine—sparingly—the way I choose. For every appropriately revisionist resurrectionated madras example I see at the Brethren or J. Press or courtesy of O’Connell’s new-old stock, I see three instances of bad tattoos and madras mottled together.

So I am officially relinquishing all of my self-anointed and arrogantly appointed Madras Authority. LFG and I have now spent one week at the beach in Delaware and a week in Puerto Rico (which by the way, is Ocean City Maryland, Myrtle Beach South Carolina and Daytona all rolled up into an island with prettier water and better drinks. Oh, and a four hundred year old fort that’s pretty cool) and I’ve seen enough visual affirmation that this is the right time for me and my Madras Governance hallucinations to let it go. Let it go. Let it go. But not before I popped for the O’Connell’s Madras Swim Baby above. I’m digging the hell out of my Birdwell reacquaintance but I had to pounce on these classics. I’ll leave them in the sun to let some of the new bake out of them and then BAM, much to LFG’s consternation; I’ll be sporting these during our last vacation week in August.

Ok, so what else y’all wanna talk about? Will at a Suitable Wardrobe has some things on sale and no, he didn’t ask me to shill on his behalf. I enjoy going to Will’s from time to time and getting a pocket square or socks or just something to look forward to in the mail. I bought the green paisley linen number above way back before summer and I’ve worn the hell out of it. Get it if he still has one left.

And my latest on sale arrival rolled in tandemoneously with an “on sale at Paul Stuart” package. Tumblr readers were quick to ask about the contents of both packages and I’m sure that the revelation is gonna be underwhelming.

My GTH summer trousers aren’t legendary and don’t deserve such status but their identity, through this blog is known. My 2012 GTH addition above, from J. Mc. is a stellar complement to an already strong GTH line up.  However, when I work in the summer (and yes, I work…and not in GTH trousers) I tend to wear solid color tan linen trousers. Creature of habit? You bet. Toned down trousers to accommodate colorful bespoke shirtings and horizontal chemise stripings? Could be. At any rate, a few of my decade-plus years old tan linen babies have seen much better days.  And trust me, if they could talk, I’d let them write this freakin’ blog.

What was in the box? Flat front linen and cotton blend British tan trousers from Paul Stuart and an in your face oedematously polka dotted pocket square from Will. I cracked down on the inordinate use by bloggers of British spellings while admitting that I like to use the word colour from time to time because the spelling looks elegant. 

And now I must break my new rule again. I mean come on, oedematous vs. edematous? The British spelling is the bomb. Hell, the spelling itself oedematous. That word freakin’ waddles with tumescenticated rotundity. So yes, the dots on my Will square are oedematous. Shut the….

More on the square in a moment but back to the trousers for a bit. As soon as saw them I deemed the fabric a poor man’s dupioni. Years ago Flusser offered a bulletproof dupioni silk in three colors for summer suiting. I was too timid, thinking it would make-up in a shiny sharkskin way. It didn't. The dupioni clothing that I saw come out of the fabric run was bulletproof. It won’t convey in the photos here but there’s a similar hand to these trousers and I like it.  I like the pic stitching that’s noteworthy too. I’ll pick these up from Suh …replete with their two-inch cuffs and we’ll be sporting them in Jacksonville on Tuesday...today. Stay tuned.

Polka dots a bit too fuzzy for you? Pink a little too garish? Scared of the square? Don’t be. Well perhaps you should be if you remain one of those p_ssies who takes more than thirty seconds to stuff a square in your breast pocket. Treat the thing capriciously…wad the varmint up and thow it in. Then pull a couple of the tips out from the wreckage and so that they peek out—prairie doggie style. Any questions? Don’t ask.

Other updates? I feel like I’m trying to carry the conversation at a toy soldier swap meet…the nerdiest aggregation of poor conversationalists in the world. And speaking of toy soldiers and my collecting theme of Colonial Oppression, I picked up a few real old, beat to hell Turcos and Tirailleurs. I like quirky...and these foppish skirmishers bang high numbers on the killin’ quirk scale.

But this is my latest Holy Grail find. I’ve been looking for this Britains Naval Landing Party set for a decade.  

And yes it’s worn and yes the box is beat to hell. What are you gonna look like at ninety? It was a kid’s toy so it’s a miracle that any of it survived.

It’s rare to find a set intact and complete with original, albeit shoddy box. My ten year quest is testimony. Sorry, I should start an antique lead soldier blog, right? Wrong.

And finally, an update on my Casa Minimus decampment and move to Bethesda. It’s all good and it’s the right thing to do...LFG wise. It’s just that I’ve been busy and I’ve not found a suitable place out of the finalists I’ve seen in the Chevy Chase Bethesda corridor. My goal is to be fifteen minutes from LFG and I’ve gotta like the place immensely because I’ll still be there more often without LFG than not.

The next step in my place is the removal of all artwork from the walls and the commissioning of rental property neutral painting.

After that, it’s wall to wall rental grade carpeting and relegating Casa Minimus back over to the folks who’ve managed my rental properties before. It’s all good. Pass me the hash pipe.

Ok, it’s time for me to roll off of this drivel pile. I will say in closing that LFG is still hideously infatuated with her superstar father. Photo evidence above suggests that she was nothing short of smitten during every moment of our recent vacation.

Onward.

ADG II

Oh and PS...1-2-3 was another favorite of mine on the KA jukebox at three in the morning. And I could sing it as good as Len Barry. At three in the morning.