Me & Orson

Peter Bogdanovich published a bio of Orson Welles in the early '90s. I was married and living in Lake Bluff when the Echo Xray gave me the book for Christmas in 1992 or '93. The bio came with four hours of recorded interviews at numerous locations to include the set of Catch 22 and a NYC taxi where Welles offers the driver a gold doubloon if he'll step on it.

Last year I unsuccessfully looked for the interviews on line since my own tapes have resided in a storage locker somewhere in Northeast Florida for the last seven years. But the internet finally caught up and here  they finally are with the first half hour above.

I remember hearing these the first time and being overwhelmed...Not just by the technical insight and gossip...but just hearing Orson fire up another Partagas, hearing ice being swirled in a drink and feeling like I was in the room with him.

Welles, who was from Kenosha, was all over the the north shore of Chicago. Acting as a 13 year old at Ravinia and attending the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, IL --  I'd drive around listening to these tapes and couldn't stop thinking what a great film they'd inspire. For me, they were so visual -- Maybe they'll be for you as well.

Brownie Points

My first brown suit sighting was in 1990. In that sea of navy and gray that was the underwriting room at Lloyd's of London, it looked refreshing and anachronistic all at the same time. Like a first meeting with someone who is intrusive and aloof. It's jarring. The suit was double breasted, chalk stripe with side vents. Suede shoes, a cornflower blue shirt, and a green print Hermes tie completed the look. So did the testicles this guy was swinging. He was standing on the City's sartorial cliff edge and he knew it.

Afterwards, I looked on and off for a brown suit of my own but, unless you had custom tailor money, they were impossible to find. In 1992, I had a new client who wore a brown chalk stripe, double breasted suit with side vents. I know it was custom. I'm guessing it was Pucci of Chicago. The chalk stripes were too wide and gangsterish. His shoes were alligator horsebit Gucci with the green and red webbing. The shirt collars were long and pink and the tie was Countess Maria.



Furnishings, I prefer the term over accessories, are key to doing brown in town. Shoes can be suede or a brown brogue or wingtip. Blue, pink, ecru or even pale yellow shirting is richer than the stark contrast of white. I saw a blue, brown and pink rep tie that knocked a brown suit outta the park. In a good way. Keep the branded-Tom Ford- Gucci-whatever to a minimum. You're gonna get enough attention as it is.



The client ate at an upscale Loop restaurant every day of the week. At our first lunch, he was seated at his regular table and served the largest glass of iced tea I have ever seen. He leaned toward me, "You gotta start with the lobster bisque." and returned to sucking through his straw. "Is it good?" I asked. He broke away from the straw shaking his head wildly and in a swallowing- guttural growl said, "Everything here is good!"

Brown has made a comeback. If the Wall Street Journal is onto it, then brown may well have come and gone. But like a Rolex Sub or Ray Ban Aviators, that's no excuse to avoid a classic. The fad will move on and years from now you'll have something of enduring value. As long as you stay away from carbs. Alan Flusser recommends it for the sandy haired, blond or red head. My brownie is a alternating double and single track stripe. I'd avoid solid brown if I were you. If brown ever made anyone look like shit it was Ronald Regan. Tan with jet black Jerry Lewis hair -- he lost the contrast. He should'a gone gray...and stayed in California.


Brown has to be rich. Something like a 70% Valrhona would work. Pleated trousers are not only allowed but I think required. This isn't so much Trad as it's Apparel Arts circa 1936. Today's narrow lapels and tightly buttoned jackets are too hard and forced for brown. Look for pleats, wide lapels, deep rises and comfort. Red braces with tan fuzzy bears let everyone know just how relaxed you are.

And this isn't a suit for a sales call. I've said it before, you don't want a prospect to remember you by what you wore in a meeting. This is what to wear when you're the prospect. I moved on to another agency and heard that the client had sold his business. I ran into him years later at R.L. He bought me a drink and I asked him how it felt to make all that money. He looked at me and smiled, "It's like watching some stranger take what you love and screw it up the ass." I shook my head, looked down at his alligator Guccis and smiled.

Chicago with Tom

This year Mr. Waits was inaugurated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he told the black-tie music-business crowd, “They say I have no hits and I’m difficult to work with, and they say that like it’s a bad thing.” New York Times




Tom's private party. Would you be okay with that? Try the album out here.

Steve McQueen's Porsche

UK Classic Cars Magazine - 1993

The guy who insured pig farms came up with the idea over lunch. Get a syndicate together and buy Steve McQueen's Porsche 911. The marketing guy, who dreamed up porn movie plots, was in for $10,000. His best, a bizarre "I Dream of Jeannie" plot device where Major Nelson's penis size increased with each Jeannie "blink" while being boinked.

The pig farm guy was in for $20,000. He wasn't married, came from money and was boinking the agency owner's secretary. A courageous and ultimately foolish decision. I was married, poor and boinking no one so $10,000 to me was a stretch but not impossible since bonus time was fast approaching.

But January turned into February and rumors of the big day spread across the 20th floor of the Hancock like wild fire on the Serengeti. B-Day finally came in April -- Never under estimate the power of keeping people economically off balance. Account executives sneaked calculators into bathrooms where they would attempt to make sense of numbers in symbolic privacy.

Vice presidents closed office doors and, whether in defeat or celebration, called wives. Celebrants somehow managed to find each other after 5:01 PM and proceeded to drink, smoke cigars, fall off bar stools and show each other their bonus checks.

By midnight, the celebrants stumbled into homes where wives called them beer smelling ashtrays. The tirades cut short only by showing a crumpled piece of paper that turned into a new kitchen, car, bathroom or house. It did not turn into a 69 Porsche. I never did like Steve McQueen.

Green Bay - A Road to Regret

Whenever anyone tells me they're getting divorced...I always say, "Is there any way you could stay together?"

We talked it out, and talked it out, and talked it out.  I was leaving on a business trip for London.  I was not coming back.  Instead, I was being transferred to Philadelphia and that was as far west as I was going.

A car from Amm's would pick me up for O'Hare.  After 13 years of marriage, it all was over except for, "What airline, what hotel, where do I send the divorce papers?" The car was on time and pulled onto the driveway I had blown snow off of for 11 years.  We said good bye, I turned to the door and quickly walked to the black town car.

Less than a mile later, at 176 and Green Bay Road, I realized my cell phone was in the living room.  I asked the driver to turn back.  When I walked into the house - I could hear her washing dishes and crying in the kitchen. At the sound of the door, she poked her head out of the kitchen, looked at me and smiled. I said, "I forgot my phone,"  picked it up and walked out to the black town car.  Today would've been our 25th anniversary.

I've always been envious of those who have no regrets.

On A Road: Panty Hose for Men

North Michigan Avenue, 1993

Walsh and I cut through Henri Bendel on our way to a little Vietnamese place where you could get two entrees, soup and a drink for just under six bucks with tax. We were stopped dead in our lunch break by a display of panty hose. Black, white, red...all of it in wild designs and patterns on forms standing tall on a glass display counter. We stared wordless at the legs until Walsh broke the silence, "How much?" I looked down at a package and saw a sticker, "Fifty bucks." Walsh blew a respectful whistle.

We stared at the display for another wordless minute until Walsh said, "We should buy a pair for Stacy." Stacy worked in our Fine Art division and had great legs. "We could split it," I said as my neck started to tense up. Walsh said, "Shit, she'd probably sue us," and with that, we turned from the panty hose and walked to lunch. I had the double calamari.

The Zombies Be Dancin' Tonight

by M. Shannon Johns (click images to read)

There was a story in the NY Observer years ago about a young photographer who took street pictures in NYC and hand crafted a little book with an orange cover and sold them on the street and in a few retailers.  The story is mostly about how she offered the book to Andy Spade to sell in his Jack Spade shop.

Shortly after I married, I moved to my wife's hometown of Chicago and worked for an insurance company down in the loop and around the corner from the Berghoff.  We'd made plans to have dinner there one Friday night.  It was my first visit to the Berghoff.   She was running late so I stood at the bar, ordered a pitcher of dark beer and waited.  The guy standing next to me asked the bartender for a cigar and I watched as the doors of an old humidor were opened and a massive cigar, eight or nine inches, was handed to the customer who promptly lit up.

This was too good to be true --  As a fan of cigars since the Army, I was well aware that 'bars and cigars' were few and far between… so, I struck while the iron was hot.  I asked the bartender for a cigar but requested something smaller. "This is all we got," he said,  holding up what looked like a black ruler.  I tell him I'll take it and the king size double maduro is handed to me.

The guy next to me smiles with his cigar and passes down a box of matches.  I torch the thing up and it's not bad -- Perfect with the dark draft beer.  I take in the Berghoff and fall in love with the honest history and charm of the place.

My wife had told me The Berghoff opened in 1898 and, until 1969, the bar was for men only.  That night, it was a pretty Yuppie crowd.  A young woman walked by, looked at my cigar and said, "You look pretty stupid with that." As she walked past, I shouted out to her, "Now I know why they kept women outta here for so long!"  She turns back and laughs and walks on.  The guy next to me applauds.

I remember he was in his early to mid - forties and black. He had a soft face and he was quick to smile.   We talked about cigars and beer and women and the Berghoff.  He asked what I did and I asked what he did and he said he was a writer.  Well, not really a writer…more a poet.  He pulled a rubber banded bunch of little books out of a canvas bag and offered me one.

I flipped thru it and was taken by the dancing zombies with the Chicago skyline.  He asked if I wanted it and I said sure.  "They're $5 a piece," he said.  A little thrown off, I reach in my pocket and hand him a five.  He puts his cigar in his mouth and stuffs the bill in his pocket.

He tells me he makes a living doing this and I shake my head.  He says he really does and he's not bullshitting me.  I tell him I believe him…I just wish I had the balls to do what he's doing.  My wife of four months comes in and I introduce her to M. Shannon Johns.

We chat for a bit and Mr. Johns moves on with his cigar and glass of beer to meet some friends.  I've kept this little book for many reasons.  Some as shallow as thinking the illustration would make a great T-shirt but knowing I'd never do that.  Not without asking Mr. Johns.

That photographer who offered her book to Andy Spade was Carla Gahr.  She showed him the little orange book in late Spring. He said he loved it and would see what he could do but she never heard back from him.

In July, Miss Gahr opened the NY Post and was surprised to see a book similar to hers entitled, "Honesty" being sold by Jack Spade.  You can read the story here.  It's buried but scroll down and you'll see it under the headline, "When is a Spade Not a Spade."

Inspiration is a tricky thing.  I still think about Mr. Johns selling his books on the street.  The nobility of that is what's inspiring to me.  I guess, in many ways, I'm doing what Mr. Johns did... except he got  five bucks a book. I'd kill for five bucks a post.  Anyway,  lest you think of being inspired by this little book of Mr. Johns,  I'll leave you with a thought for your conscience from Tobias Wolff,

"The plagiarist has already been punished; the very act of plagiarizing means that you have confessed an inability to do something on your own, which is a pretty harsh verdict to bring on yourself. No one else can condemn you more than you have already condemned yourself."