The Sport Jacket (or: "The Nigerian Ambassador Composed His Features")

I was headed for an awesome trip via frequent flyer miles to Spain and Morocco (I've started recounting the food side of the trip here). Spain to play some jazz gigs (a nostalgic return; up until the mid-1990's, I used to tour all the jazz clubs there two or three times per year) and Morocco because an old bass player friend had been appointed as the Belgian ambassador, and had invited me to come hang out at the residence...and also play a couple of gigs (including one where we'd literally rock the casbah in the old part of Tangiers).

I'm not really a dresser-to-impresser, but I needed at least one good, hip sports coat to wear on stage in Spain and during my stay in the embassy in Rabat. So I went shopping, starting at Nordstrum's Outlet, which I'd heard offered Nordstrum's quality at deeply discounted prices. The place was indistinguishable from other low-end retailers, ala Marshall's and TJ Maxx, and so was the clothing. None of this stuff had ever been anywhere near an actual Nordstrum's; the whole operation's a sham. Sure, I could buy a $72 blazer, but it was the cheapest crap imaginable.

I've now invested 45 minutes in this quest, and my trip is one week away.

So I hit up Macy's, where I found a bunch of $150 blazers, all of them so unhip that my own hipness was sucked out of me just by standing near them. This is what assistant branch managers wear for prime rib night at the second best steakhouse in some suburban hell. Not quite navy blue blazers with nautical buttons, but close to it.

Now I'm ninety minutes into the quest, and my trip's five days away.

So I headed to SOHO, where I tried Uniqlo (imagine Ikea - and Ikea quality - for clothes) and Original Penguin (Uniqlo quality at thrice the price). At those shops and others, the XL size jackets were so skimpy I was ready to hightail it out to a Big & Tall Man shop (I'm 6 feet and 200 lbs....not slender, but, geez, no Chris Christie). Shiny and skinny, these jackets were apparently designed for European pimps.

Ted Baker is for people who blithely shrug at paying $650 for a jacket. Such people can go to Ted Baker, and, yep, they've got lots of $650 jackets there. Nice, and nicely tailored. But for that price, I'd expect "wow", and this is not a place for "wow", it's just a place to blithely drop big money on merely okay jackets. Except: everything has a horrible obtrusive Ted Baker logo sewn in. Jesus.

I'm now at the four hour mark, and the trip's four days away. And, again, I really need a nice sports jacket. I can't show up at the embassy looking like something the cat dragged in. Effort is required. One peril of being fifty is that you need to try twice as hard for half the result.

In search of a genuinely great brand at serious discount, I tried Ina Men, an upscale consignment shop, where I fell in love with a $130 Prada cotton jacket exactly one size too small for me. With only 3 or 4 jackets of any given size, it's suit roulette, and I lost.

Five hours, four days from departure.

Figuring that Prada was my thing, I innocently headed into their shop, where I threw off the room's suave vibe for the ten minutes I spent wandering around, disoriented by the absence of inventory and posted prices. I grubbily rooted around a couple jacket linings for price tags (I'd never before realized that I move Jewishly), and, reading all those digits, nearly fell over dead on the floor.

Six hours, three days.

Someone suggested I try the sales rack at Sak's Fifth Avenue. I knew the name, of course, but didn't know where the store was or what it was about. But I ascended six or seven escalator levels to be greeted by a men's department saleswoman whom I regaled with my tale of jazz gigs, homecomings, embassies, and casbahs. She agreed I needed the perfect jacket, and snatched from some unseen corner a radiant, creamy hunk of fabric which she glided onto my body in a single buttery-smooth motion. Woosh. I stood there, blinking into a mirror, realizing that I was wearing exactly That Jacket. Saleswoman grinned approvingly. She'd nailed it.

All that remained was the trivial matter of cost. I asked, she answered, and I wormed my way out of That Jacket with distinctly ethnic haste. I asked to be shown the sales rack, and was obliged. But after That Jacket, everything else seemed like remainders. My memory may be distorted, but I recall one jacket missing a left arm, and another being made out of sandpaper.

"You know," the saleswoman confided in her low voice - suddenly just a tad more ethnic (Puerto Rican in her case), "if you buy That Jacket, it will serve you well for many, many years. It will save you from needing to buy a succession of cheaper jackets, none a shadow of the quality of this one. And you'll look sharp as a tack at your performances, which means one less thing to worry about."

I had, at this point, spent seven hours on this frustrating quest during the busy lead-up to my big trip, and didn't have an acceptable jacket anywhere near my sights...aside from That Jacket, in its radiant creamy perfection. That Jacket was quite obviously the jacket. And while I'd be spending more on this garment than any member of my family had ever spent on a single item of clothing since the dawn of the Leff line, the saleswoman had a point. Buying once and right is better than consecutive half-assed struggles. And I needed a goddam jacket for this trip and was completely out of time.

All the blood drained from my face as all the money was drained from my bank account. My stupor was interrupted with a follow-up question: Would I like a pocket square? Uh, sure. Yes! What do I look like, a farmer?



I was shown a gorgeous $150 pocket square, and instantly understood the trap I'd set for myself. That Jacket could never really fit into my life, because I don't have That Shirt, Those Pants, Those Shoes, Those Socks, That Belt, and That friggin' Pocket Square. Gathering all those items together would amount to a mortgageable undertaking. And even if I managed it, then what would I wear on, like, Tuesday?

I decided to stop the train right then and there. I spoke a few sentences never before uttered in Saks Fifth Avenue. I said it a bit too loudly, and everything around me froze into shocked tense silence:

I can't buy this. I've spent all my money on the jacket. I have nothing left.

Hushed astonishment all around. Another salesmen who'd been standing nearby murmured something into my saleswoman's ear. The charade over, the spell broken, she spoke to me in full-out Puerto Rican, with coarsely borough-ish body gestures, telling me, with genuine warmth, not to worry. They had one for fifteen bucks in a drawer somewhere which they could iron up and make look nice for me. She actually said the phrase "make look nice for you". Also a Saks first, I believe.

In a state of deep sticker shock and buyer's remorse (really more like buyer's crippled nauseated paralysis), I left the store, having left That Jacket for sleeve adjustment with the oily, aloof, patronizing tailor who'd taken one look at my sneaker/shoes and decided he abhorred everything I stood for.

So I got to Spain and found out that the gigs hadn't materialized. No problem, I'd play around informally and build back my reputation; that's how I did it the first time, plus I had a great time with my many friends there. I did show up to sit in on my bassist friend Nono's gig in That Jacket, and as soon as he spotted me, he started laughing uproariously. "Leff, what the fuck are you wearing?" he asked between peals of hysterical giggling. I snarled at him, figuring I'd fit right in when I got to Morocco.

A few days later, I found myself encamped at the Belgian ambassador's residence in the Moroccan capital, a glamorous, sprawling villa with indoor palm tree terrariums, designed by a fellow who'd clearly been instructed to whip up something resembling a Bond villain lair. That first night, there'd be a diplomatic reception, and I'd be supplying the music (with my ambassador buddy on bass). I had no intention of glad-handing diplomats; my plan was to stick with the musicians. So as the hour rolled near, and I was finishing preparations - kicking equipment cables out of sight and adjusting music stands - I took one last walk across the residence to grab my horn, moving swiftly to avoid the influx soon to arrive.

As I passed through the main hallway, the first guest was arriving. The Nigerian ambassador was a bit early, still slightly discombobulated from the process of coming out of his car, snapping shut his cell phone, and adjusting his tie. It was an unguarded moment; he figured he had three or four footsteps before he'd need to get fully into character. But then I crossed, some twenty feet in front of him. He didn't have time to fully survey me, but, on sheer instinct, the Nigerian ambassador composed his features.

The Nigerian ambassador composed his features.

I'm not normally a person who inspires much in the way of feature composing. I'm more the guy you mistakenly hand off your overcoat or car keys to, or, at least, go have a beer with after the caviar tasting. So having the Nigerian ambassador bloom radiantly into solicitously smiling "show time" in my presence was just about the strangest possible thing. It was, of course, That Jacket. I instantly understood why people buy such jackets, why they spend those sums. And I saw what an idiot I'd been to walk that road, because I'm not one of those people. I don't yearn to be someone for whom features are composed. More than that, I didn't like it. So I just kept walking. You're mistaken, excellency. This may be That Jacket, but I'm not That Guy.

I played well, but it goes without saying that I spilled some food on the jacket that night. Not a big conspicuous splotch, just a deeply demoralizing and world-crushing little dab of color on the sleeve (a few weeks later the Mexican kid at my local dry cleaners took a Brillo to it and got it out, no prob). It's safely in my closet, to which I've considered adding a lock. And I think I probably won't ever take That Jacket out again. The lesson cost dearly, but it was a hell of an interesting insight I never would have otherwise received.

The "Dessert" Memorization Trick

This works whenever you need to memorize something just a bit too long to remember in one swoop. For example, I had to copy the following password into an app on my iPhone: vze179wnv. I could have easily memorized any six digits of that, but the whole thing? No way. So here's what I did:

As I said, six digits seemed memorable. So I mentally separated the overflow - the final three digits. I stared at them for a couple of moments and told myself I wouldn't need to memorize them. The "wnv" portion I'd just know. The rest, I'd memorize. This part would simply come, without effort.

Then I used my familiar memorization technique to remember "vze179": repeating it over and over aloud and typing it in an agitated rush - all while completely disregarding "wnv". Then, relaxed and blithe, I pecked in the characters "wnv", which seemed to come from a very different part of my brain.

You know how dessert goes to a different part of the stomach? Like, even after a cripplingly filling meal, dessert somehow seems like another thing? It's exactly like that!

"Social Media"

Spotted in a suburban storefront:

So that's over. Time for something new...

"There's a Soldier in All of Us"

TV commercials aren't supposed to inspire deep thoughts, but this one threw my mind into overdrive, contemplating issues of violence, masculinity, repression and sublimation of primal instincts, the fragility of modern civilization and the viability of human survival. I doubt even Solzhenitsyn could inspire all that in a 60 second TV spot!

What's more, do I dare confess that it strikes me as a really cool game?



Previous Slog articles about violence:

The Better Angels of Our Nature`
"...It strikes me as obvious that evolution favors the most violently competitive (which explains why there aren't indications of intelligent life in the universe). That said, a subtle evolutionary process does work the other way..."

Does Peace Have a Chance?
"...The development of the notion of an "us" relies upon the contrasting presence of a "them". From primitive societies to American anti-Muslim bigots, one hallmark of provincialism is the dehumanization of the barbaric tribe across the river..."

Give Carnage a Chance
"...Aggression drives everything, even evolution. In a pasture full of blissfully moo-ing cows and a few angry bulls, who's going to run the show?..."

Brazilian Bus Driver Syndrome
"...Bus drivers there have an unwritten but firm agreement with gangs and drug lords: they do not interfere with or testify against crimes and violence perpetrated on their buses, and, in exchange, they themselves are spared. The question is: what does this situation do, psychologically, to those drivers? ..."

A Case For More, Not Less, Calling of "Nazi!"
"....Isn't that the supreme lesson to be drawn from the horrors of the twentieth century? That humanity is capable of heinous evil, and it may recur in any era with a führer du jour? That we need to remember how low we can go, and try to stanch situations before they devolve to the ghastly point?..."

Rye Whiskey Tasting

My favorite rye - which I like so much that it's become a category killer for me - is Riverboat. It's something of a fluke. The makers were aiming to create a cheap bottom-shelf product for bartenders to use in cocktails, so it's young, unfiltered, unrefined, and, quite by accident, incredibly delicious. Persuaded to market it as a consumer product, it costs around $20/bottle and everyone I serve it to goes crazy for it. Which makes it awfully hard to justify paying much more for rye.

But most of the others do cost more - some way more. The most expensive, WhistlePig at $65, was among my least-favorite. And a brand I'd always regarded as near-rotgut, Old Overholt, though flawed, beat the competition in one respect (its long, long finish). With spirits, you don't necessarily get what you pay for!

We sampled everything blind, which led to some surprises, none more startling than the positive reaction to Old Overholt. And High West, though an old favorite of mine, was even better than expected (their double rye blends an intense 2-year-old rye with a smooth 16-year-old. As they put it, "the older rye has a 'barely legal' rye mashbill of 53% rye and 37% corn. The extra age and corn provides some extra sweetness to calm the "bite" of the younger rye"). I was certainly taken aback by the poor showing of the Rittenhouse, but suspect this might have been an off bottle.

Here's the upshot:

Most friendly rye: Riverboat
Most fun rye: High West
Most stately/deep rye: Willett


Here are the tasting notes, in the order in which we tasted:

Riverboat, $21
Lots of rye character, but it's all the high mid-range flavors - no deeper/darker flavors. This makes for a friendly character and easy/breezy drinking. Sweetness is exactly, precisely what it needs to be. Aftertaste is well-baked cookies. This would work incredibly well with a wide range of foods.

Old Overholt, $15
Very little aroma, and the flavor itself starts out confined and chintzy, tasting like tongue depressor sticks. But then it all opens up into a beautifully long, deep, round finish which hardly seems like it belongs to the same drink.

WhistlePig, $65
An intense, concentrated, in-your-face wallop of flavor, including some off notes (I suspect they're not careful with their grain bill - the important procedure of inspecting the grain delivered to the distillery). No structure, just that big vulgar hit, and, unsurprisingly, the finish is muddled, finally leaving a sticky candy-ish aftertaste in the mouth.

Willett, $35
Nice spicy aroma. Flavor is as intense as WhistlePig - rich, broad, and bracing - but it's also meticulously clean and refined and multi-layered. So much deeper, and light years more elegant. This one's a ride, a tad bombastic but classy all the way. A Wagnerian opera in a glass!

Rittenhouse, $25
Turkish taffy aroma. Just not much here; can't really find much to observe, much less appreciate. No elegance or depth, just gestures of rye flavor.

High West Double Rye, $35
Smells like Chanel perfume, but not in a bad way. Lots of flavor drama (nearly as operatic as the Willett, though nowhere near as deep), all against a unified background structure which I compared to a string section holding a long note while the brass and woodwinds blast. A wild and delicious ride.

Catoctin Creek Organic Roundstone Rye, $40
I get skeptical whenever I see the term "organic" appearing where it doesn't belong. And, indeed, I found myself missing all the yummy toxins and pesticides. Or something. This one's lackluster and unworthy.

Off-Radar/On-Radar

Here's how it always works: I find something great, fall in love, and quickly discover that no one else is paying the least attention to the obscure thing that's been captivating me. I'm forced to drive to the ends of the earth for my fixes, and everyone thinks I'm nuts for my devotion to something no one else cares about (as I wrote last month, "we're only supposed to go apeshit for the things we've previously been told to go apeshit about. Independent, uncorroborated apeshit-going is the mark of a crazy person").

Then, after a few years, the mainstream latches on, and for a brief moment, I enjoy easy availability and a profusion of kindred spirits. But soon after - right around the time the money and attention have begun to subvert things - it becomes yesterday's thing, and I'm left feeling ridiculous once again - this time for being one of those unfortunate people who cling cluelessly to stale trends.

Check out Triumph the Insult Comedy Dog ranking on the annoying legions of craft beer freaks, just as I was beginning to celebrate the mainstreaming of beer appreciation (ironically, I was a Robert Smigel fan long before he became popular):



I had a fantastic idea for a reality TV food show in 1994, before there was reality TV. By the time I was in a position to pitch it, I was perceived as just another sad wannabe trying to scratch his way onto the receding tail of a big trend.

Hey, it even happened with chowhounding!

Who Elected Rob Ford?

With all the press coverage of Toronto mayor Rob Ford, no one has taken time to explain how this clown was elected in the first place. He clearly has his supporters...lots of them.

Here's an explanation from a knowledgable local. Amid the over-written trolling comparison lies this nugget:

[Ford's constituency is] the Ontario equivalent of the Tea Party. Peel back the veneer, and you find someone who truly, deeply feels that "Toronto The Good" doesn't work. Who feels that it works for someone else. For downtowners, or liberals, or cyclists, or unionized employees, or something else.

Ford Nation thinks Toronto is all about "someone else," not about them. To Ford Nation, Toronto looks down upon the suburbs and taxpayers, and Ford Nation is angry about that

Anarchism exploded in America at the turn of the last century. The movement's little-remembered now, though it terrorized the nation for a few years, and even led to the assasination of President McKinley. And it all stemmed from an economic crisis, the Panic of 1893.

The financial crisis of 2007–08 brought its own anarchistic reaction, from the Tea Party (launched in 2009) to the angry nihilistic mobs who put Rob Ford in office in 2010.

Writers both liberal and mainstream conservative have always warned of the gruesomeness lurking in the right wing fringe. Yet conservative politicians have long pandered to that fringe, stoking it to a critical mass where it's now able to elect its own candidates who, in turn, consume the panderers.

Of course, the explosive combination of the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960's empowered a left-wing fringe with equally harsh "tear it all down" objectives. But neither fringe has ever held real power until now. And those who pine for the days of moderate conservatives ought to temper their nostalgia with an awareness that those were the guys who stoked and empowered these loonies in the first place.*

Republicans who cynically pretended to believe that evolution's just a theory and that the president was born in Kenya, etc. etc., have been violently replaced by kooks and morons who actually buy all that. Is crack-smoking really so far beyond?


* For that matter, bear in mind who inflamed and armed radical Islam in the first place (hint: it was a country that really really wanted to see the Soviets pushed out of Afghanistan).

Never Sad Time

I hadn't planned to share this, but what the heck. A friend lost a hard-fought election yesterday, and here, for whatever it's worth, is what I sent him:

The world says we're supposed to be sad when we don't get what we want. But if what you want is to fully immerse in the ride - to exuberantly learn stuff and gain experience - there's never reason to ever be less than 100% gleeful, even when the world tells you it's a "sad time".

Because there's no such thing as Sad Time. Life's short and you've just experienced a whole lot of cool stuff.

More on "Tips For Art Critics"

Re: my previous posting, I was asked:

"I'm not sure I buy the part about ignoring motivation. Certainly your best chowhounding was all about understanding who made the thing and why, no?"

Yes, but I always kept my eye on the ball. I'd broach that stuff in order to try to heighten a diligently fleshed-out story which hopefully conveyed a vicarious experience of the thing.

But that stuff would never be the sole focus, or serve as an easy way to get me off the hook of doing the hard work of doing justice to the thing.

Think of movie or book reviews that talk almost entirely about the topic of the movie/book, rather than the work itself. It's self-indulgence. Film critics tire of the narrow confines of discussing direction, acting, lighting, etc. all the time. This guy's saying: too freaking bad. Critics ought to invest 1% of the creativity and resourcefulness of the folks they're judging into finding fresh ways to work within those confines.

It's absolutely a fair point, and it alludes to the higher indignity of creative people being criticized by uncreative hacks. That's the point I'd stress, but I admire Zak Smith for keeping his criticisms so sharply pragmatic. Much food for thought therein, though.

Zak Smith’s Tips For Art Critics

Arts criticism (including film, music, food, etc.) is almost universally lazy, superficial, wrong-headed, lazy, and hackneyed ("lazy" intentionally listed twice). I know a lot of those guys. Shoot, I was one of those guys. The notion of an obligation to truly do justice to the person or thing one is writing about barely exists.

It's tough to articulate the many ways in which critics fail to do even a reasonably competent job, but Zak Smith has (for the most part) nailed it, and with great economy. It's always revelatory to see journalism viewed through the eyes of its subjects. If only critics had the keen and penetrating eye for their subjects that he focuses on them.

Obviously, most of his tips apply to critics beyond the realm of visual art.