Monday, January 31, 2011

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

Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Dog Days of Winter…

…are here.
And no domicile should navigate the winter without Bag Balm. If forced to make a list of the Top Ten Survival Essentials, I’d  include baume du hootaire. Dermal unguentosity is obvious but Bag Balm could stand-in for bearing grease if you find yourself repacking the wheel bearings on your Range Rover somewhere between Coward and Lake City.  This stuff just stomps Vaseline’s as_.
Onward. Pasty, Balmed and Bagged. All two inches of me/my cuffs.

ADG II 
And speaking of pale...

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Bad Kiltie Bad Kiltie

You can have these damn kiltie shoes. Recent circumstances ‘round them have pert near kilt me. If anyone out there is an 8-D …that is an EIGHT-DELTA…come and get these bad juju kicks from around me. I slept last night; for the first time since flying at least three times per month over the last fifteen years, on the hard-ass indoor/outdoor carpeting of the baggage claim area at Charlotte Douglas Airport. That’s right. I slept on the ground with no covers and no pillow and…and… and let me just stop right here because I’m already lying. I didn’t sleep. I dozed and napped. Intermittent flirtations with REM while worrying that someone was gonna come along and try to steal my shoes or abscond with my idamnPhone and my Earth Wind and Fire Tapes. 
I’m tired today and I’m also still reeling from being throwed out into the wilds of Charlotte North Carolina by U.S. Airways. A hotel you say? Oh no. By the time my connection rolled in from San Antonio, enough flights to DC and beyond had already been cancelled to assure that there was no room…none…Z-E-R-O room at the inn for little ADG. My best childhood buddy lives in Charlotte but it was too late in the night to roust him and disturb his family. Folks, I don’t “camp” well.
Couldn’t get no hooch. All the whiskey holes were shut so I just found a corner and tried to get situated. Ever tried turning on your side to snooze when your carcass is one eighth of an inch away from concrete? That floor was harder than ninety dollars worth of jaw breakers. And for a fleeting moment I thought I’d found a sanctuary. You see that area beyond my feet? Where that gray paint bucket sits? That’s a dark and safe and warm area under the escalator. So why I am not curled up back in there you axk? Because I got chased back out of it by a grizzly bear when I scooched back in there to take a look. (I know I've overused the word "back" in the previous sentences. Don't mess with me. I'm tired today and you don't want none of what's festering over here) Somebody beat me to it. And people I kid you not, it was a woman who was about as big and about as courteous as Rosanne Barr. Butcept this grizzly had gray hair…to match her paint bucket. And don't EVEN post a comment asking me why I didn't take off my camel hair coat and make a nice, soft pillow for my head. That concrete was chilly. 
So I gave up on the sideways curled up option and just stretched out supinely for my butt bone fellowship with concrete. I've got very little body fat butt last evening I'd a not minded a bit more. I mean, what good are washboard abs when you are flanked by Roseanne Barr and cold-ass concrete. Give me four layers of belly fat and a Stoli. Up-Dry-Olives.
I dozed for a while and when I opened my eyes I hollered a little bit. An albino Shrek looking kid…head shaved naked mole rat noggin looking fella was at my feet. I learned later that there were other United States Marine kids around my perimeter. They too had been displaced. The onliest difference though, is that Marines can sleep standing on their heads. Are you kidding me? Indoors on industrial grade carpeted concrete? That’s the WaldamndorfAstoria to those fellas.

So I jumped the seven a.m. flight to DCA and have been back in snowy Alexandria all day…feeling kinda like I rode a concrete red-eye home last night. I blame the shoes. I blame the shoes.
Ok, time to stretch my soleus’ (solei?) and then loofah. I’ve got a non-LFG weekend coming up. I sure wish it was warm enough to pop the collar on a white shirt and enjoy some sun. LFG started popping collars at six months old. Dig her little collar and her high and tight Marine haircut. One comment about her high waisted soccer mom jeans and I'll hunt you down and kill you.


And finally...check out my favorite new weather gal Megan McGlover as she expounds on the recent snow in Atlanta and how her fellow citizens dealt.

Onward. In flannel. Don’t be stupid.

ADG II

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Kiltie--Not Just For Golf Shoes

Most often associated with golf shoes, the kiltie adds jaunty layer of intrigue to any pair of kicks. Arguments for the kiltie’s functional value versus preening decorative adornment would probably end in a draw. It’s a fancy mud flap…usually punched-patterned with some brogueing adornment and finished with walrus mustache looking ends.
Here’s a classic kiltie from Church’s archives. Jaunty…yes. Borderline fuzzy…perhaps.

And of course there are shoe makers who take the kiltie strategy to another level of elegance. I’m seeing a granddaddy long legs spider manifest in these babies. But I started drinking early this morning.
It must have been "come to work high and experiment with prototypes day" at Grenson recently.
Suede longwings kiltiefied and sporting a lug sole. Bobby Jones meets Paul Damn Bunyan. Shut up.
Certainly not a dress shoe but nothing but a sturdy casual foundation for your pedal wheel houses...bofe of ‘em. Stylish in an ADG fuzzy kind of way.
Tobacco cords seem to knock these out of the park. Orange polka dot Flusser socks just add sartorial insult to injury.
And best of all…new old stock. Never worn…bought ‘em on eBay for sixty five bucks.
Onward. Staring at the same old DCA/Reagan National Airport carpet.
Blessed to be busy. And probably stuck in San Antonio because of snow back home this afternoon.

Shut up. ADG II

Monday, January 24, 2011

Colonial Conscripts on Pink Oxford Cloth

The little Red Box. Little boys came to recognize the Red Box. For over one hundred years, a little red box meant one thing to American and European little boys. Toy soldiers! More specifically, little hand painted lead ones.
And toy shop windows were certain to whet the desire for another troop surge.
Sometimes the presenter would simply pen a Christmas or Birthday greeting right on the label of the box…Labels that have become in their own right, collectible for their 19th century graphic and illustrative qualities.
But a little kid could give two hoots and damn about graphics when granddaddy presented him with another lineup of agents purveying death and destruction…or Colonial Oppression. He just wanted to play with them…contort them…knock ‘em over with whatever ordnance was around…maybe a marble or a projectile from an unrelated toy…a cork firing pop gun.
One thing was for sure…these fragile lead things didn’t remain intact forever.
Sometimes granddaddy and father would commandeer Junior’s new toys…much to the dismay of the little tike.
Adults began to accumulate them for I’m sure, a plethora of deeply closeted reasons.  
Officers in mess dress would sometimes assemble a grouping of lead soldiers over cocktails and debate, as in this case, the American Civil War.
LFG has a source for antique lead soldiers. She knows what her dad enjoys collecting and she always makes stellar pics when it’s gift time for daddy. Last night she rounded the corner with a little Red Box.
Even though she’s entering the cool stage way too early to suit me, she still gets as much delight in presenting me with a little Red Box as I get in receiving it.
Indian conscripts. French made by a firm in Paris…still in business. They began in the Marais over one hundred and fifty years ago. I love how the German and French soldier makers would sloppily or with benign neglect, use incorrect colors for British flags or create uniforms that were a bit askew. Mission accomplished on these old Mignot troops.
Nothing like a Brethren pink oxford cloth shirt as a staging area before billeting the new/old troops with some comrades. Secured now amidst incongruous peers including Highland troops, Mexicans, Hussars and some Japanese infantry guys in the cheap seats.

Happy Birthday to me.

Onward. Older and blessed to be so.
ADG II

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Greetings from Athens

Not that one.
The one where these fine ladies serve up paper plates of nirvana.
This stuff will kill you and I can’t think of too many better ways to go. Photo evidence of my lunch last Wednesday with a consulting colleague. It was sublime. My buddy/colleague grew up in Macon and graduated from Georgia forty years ago. Amidst the Varsity cardiovascular death-trap lunch, he regaled me with stories of college life in Athens...life in the fratty house and all. We both agreed that we could have been destined for greater things had we not lived in the fraternity house. But mostly we talked about the music on the juke boxes of his SAE and my KA house. Even with a decade between us, the standard auditory fare of our college years was almost identical. Not sure what that says but it obviously says enough for me to put it down in a story. My hot dog is becoming overwrought. Let me just end this paragraph now.
And they gave me a hat too.

Onward.

ADG, II… Chapter President—Cholesterolics Anonymous


Ps...Here's a few songs that we agreed were on both our fratty house juke boxes...


William Turbington aka Willie Tee: Thank You John and Walking Up A One Way Street
Tony Clark: The Entertainer
Jr. Walker and The All Stars: What Does It Take?




Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Mouse Fart Chronicles…And Cordovan

It still seems like a good idea…a reasonable compromise. Then there’s always theory versus practice…a twain within which I actually earn my living so you would think I’d know better. But my loden green cordovan shod self practiced it a moment ago and my first pass at actualization didn't go well. In my haste to embrace—my hurry to scriven (scriven probably was but definitely is a word now. Shut up) the old fashioned way…pen to paper…I ordered a Five Year Journal.
Butcept I didn’t take the time to assess the dimensions. It’s a tiny little book and there’s about enough room to write half an ADG’s thumb worth of profundity at best. My handwriting is kinda reflective of the ADD man I am…I can’t write tiny. I don’t think, feel or imagine tiny so this ain’t gonna cut it. I can’t chronicle a mouse fart on the lines provided much less anything else. I suppose an upside to this little vehicle is that I’d never be able to write anything with enough flourish to worry about my mama reading it and then vapor locking on me.
Here’s proof. But I’m not gonna give up on the Five Year Journal idea…It suits me. I just ordered a larger one and we’ll see if its spatialosity is such that I can profundicate suitably. Stay tuned.
Oh, and someone reminded me that this used to be a blog about clothes and shit. So here. Have another take on cordovan…cigar and corduroy.
Patinating nicely I'd say. LFG patinated at nine months. We remain astonished.
And the trousers here aren't just any corduroy swathing. Here's horizontality’s maiden debut for 2011. Rumble strips I imagine them…since they are going sideways. Speed bumps for my britches. And if anyone’s britches needed slowing down, courtesy of a horizonticated vibratory prod, it would be me.
Oh. And there’s cowboy boots here too.

Onwardish. 

ADG II