Monthly Archives: September 2014

The Sock Garter – Don’t Laugh it Works!

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Last weeks post was about a little unseen accessory that is wonderful, so I thought I would continue with that theme and discuss a little known accessory that nobody will ever see. THE SOCK GARTER!

One of my fashion pet peeves is when a man crosses his legs the way women do (I am not even able to do that and don’t know how men can). The crossing the legs is not the problem it’s looking at their hairy legs because their socks are around the ankles.

Men’s socks come in basically two lengths (1) Mid Calf, & (2) Over the Calf. Yes most over the calf socks will stay up all day long and that was the only type of sock that I ever wore. However as I got older the over the calf socks would start to hurt and my legs would cramp up.

So I bought some mid calf socks and while they didn’t hurt my legs they didn’t stay up. The top of the sock would get stretched out and fall to my ankles. IT DROVE ME NUTS!!!! I wasn’t sure what to do? As time went on it I became more and more self-conscious of my socks around my ankles so I started wearing over the calf again and just dealt with the discomfort.

 

One day back in the summer of 1992, I was at my friend’s house for the weekend in Hampton Bays and we were sitting there in the morning watching the boats go by drinking Irish Coffee and reading the paper and he asked me “Do you know where I can get sock garters?” I replied, “what the hell are sock garters and why do you need them?” He said that he couldn’t wear over the calf socks because they hurt and mid calf never stayed up! I explained I have the same problem but just dealt with the discomfort. He explained that sock garters go below the knee and hold up the sock all day without squeezing your calf.

Now I am on a mission, I need to find SOCK GARTERS! So I headed to Roosevelt Mall. I went to Clappers, Field Brothers, A&S, Macy’s and any other men’s store I could find and NOTHING. Most places never heard of them and those that did haven’t seen them in years. So off to Manhattan and Brooks Brothers, Barney’s, Saks, Bloomingdales, and yes-even Bergdorf Goodman and nothing no sock garters. The salesmen in Bergdorf’s suggested that I go to a tailor and get them made.

I gave up, and then in December 1994 (Yes I was looking everywhere for almost two years) while working at Edward Isaacs & Company I was assigned to observe an inventory in Manhattan. So I was told to report to Paul Stuart on Madison and 45th street. So I show up at 6:30pm to start the inventory and I notice that this store is awesome. The clothes and the accessories were amazing. I thought to myself how did you not ever hear of this place.

The team started counting the clothes and around 11:00pm I walked into the section of the store with socks and I said to myself maybe this place has them? So I asked an employee if they have sock garters? My manager looked at me like I was an idiot and said what are sock garters? The Paul Stuart employee answered the Manager with “Only the best accessory that nobody knows about” then he turned to me and said they are right here.

Paul Stuart has been one of my favorite stores ever since. They still sell them, but now we have an Internet and you can get them on Amazon. I highly recommend this accessory. You will NEVER have to pull up your socks again.

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THE LITTLE ACCESSORY THAT COULD

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If you read the news the past couple of weeks you have beheading’s, NFL Players beating up the girlfriends or spouse. You hear about Cops getting killed and Cops killing people. Is Obamacare good or bad? Does the President know what he is doing? How could Robin Williams kill himself and how could Joan Rivers have died?

It really does make your head spin. It reminds me of a speech I heard by Bill Clinton, he said “Don’t you just want to get off the world?” I can say yes all that is going on is very overwhelming.

That is why today I am not going to discuss any of it! I am going to talk about something so simple its amazing, the Tie Thing! What the heck is The Tie Thing? Let me start by talking about the problem first. You are getting ready to go a very important meeting, job interview, or even just a special event. You are excited and you’re a nervous about the meeting so you put your best suit on, make sure your shoes are shined and you select the perfect shirt, tie, and pocket square combination. You are ready to kick some ass. As you walk into the meeting you notice that you tie is not hanging straight, so you unbutton your jacket and try to fix it without anyone noticing. What about when you are at Starbucks and you are adding milk and sugar and you bend down and your tie gets in the way.

Well if you are like me this happens all the time. So to fix the problem, I bought some tie bars. Tie bars have to problems (1) they fall off all the time, (2) they put pulls in your ties. Then one day I was looking around on Amazon to find a system to hang my ties (which I did and it is awesome, but we can discuss tie storage another time) I found the Tie Thing.   The Tie Thing is a half-inch wide piece of clothe with two buttonholes as far apart as on the common dress shirt. Simple Stupid Right? Well it is, all you do is button the Tie Thing to one of your shirts buttons, put the Tie Thing through the tie loop on the back of the tie and button the second button to your shirt. Your tie will not move the entire day, problem solved. I have been wearing it for weeks and it is Fantastic!

Now here is the bad news, I can’t find them anywhere. Amazon has what they call they call the Tiedown and Tiealign , but they are made of plastic and I don’t know how good they work. I am going to speak with Mr. Kelly and see if he can make me some and I will offer it to my followers for a small price. The accessory is not expensive and if you are anal about the way you look, this tiny inexpensive accessory will help.

BRIONI TIE WITH THE TIE THING

BRIONI TIE WITH THE TIE THING

On The Boardwalk In Atlantic City is No Longer Americas Favorite Playground, but It Can Be Again

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This month The Trump Plaza will close its doors and it will be the fourth Casino to close in 2014. 11 years ago The Borgata open and AC was back on the rise and now it is crumbling at an extremely fast rate. Many people know that I love Atlantic City and have argued for years that I preferred it to Las Vegas.   It was true I preferred going to AC over Las Vegas, but based upon my last three trips to the Boardwalk, I can no longer say that. I was last in AC the weekend before July 4th weekend and frankly it was depressing to see what has happened to my favorite vacation spot on the Planet.

People have been asking me for weeks “Is AC dead”? My answer is NO it’s not dead. The seaside resort has faced trouble before and the city came back and it will come back again. But before I give my theory how to revive the very first pure vacation destination, I thought it would be necessary to give a little history of the great town.

Atlantic City was incorporated on May 1, 1854 (160 years ago). As legend goes some gangsters in Philadelphia wanted to create a resort town for blue-collar workers. Since ocean swimming had started to get popular they took out a map and drew a straight line from Philly to the Atlantic Ocean. On a small Island named Absecon. The gangsters built hotels along the beach and they built a railroad to take passengers back and forth. In a few years a permanent Boardwalk was built (it was built to keep the sand out of the hotel) the very first boardwalk in the United States.

Common people came to AC; it was a family destination, the beach, salt-water taffy and a lot of sideshows. At night dance halls opened and late night there was the casinos and the oldest profession (it just wasn’t legal back then).

Prohibition came and the city boomed. Led by Enoch “Nucky” Johnson (Thompson is just for HBO) who worked hard to bring people to the resort. He turned the City into a major port for illegal booze, he built Boardwalk Hall, and he organized the first organized crime commission, which was held in Atlantic City.

Then came my favorite person of Atlantic City, Mr. Atlantic City Paul “Skinny” D’Amato. Skinny was born in 1908 (nobody knows the exact day); he started running cigar shops, which really doubled as casinos. By the 1940s he owned the famous 500 Club on Missouri Avenue. The 500 Club was one of the countries greatest nightclubs. Move Stars, Professional Athletes would mingle with common folk. Legend has it that Skinny was the person who teamed up Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis to create one of the greatest comedy teams ever. He also was a good friend with Frank Sinatra. Skinny taught Frank how to hold a cigarette and order a drink. When Frank was down on his luck Skinny stood by his side. Frank would perform 5 shows a night every summer until 1974. In 1974 the City took a turn for the worst, the economy was bad and then the 500 Club burned to the ground. Everything was destroyed except one photo of Frank Sinatra performing at the Club.

The City was in decay in the 1970s and everyone thought the City was Dead. But in 1970 they legalized gambling and the city was re-born. The 1980s saw AC take the lead on gambling revenues from Las Vegas. In the 1980s all of the Las Vegas casinos were getting old and people from the east coast didn’t have to fly to Vegas, they could just drive to AC. It wasn’t until the Mirage opened in 1989 that Vegas began to make its big comeback (that is a post for another time). Slowly but surely casino’s started popping up all over the country hurting Atlantic City. In addition Atlantic City’s gambling revenue was so big they never saw the change coming that Vegas did. Vegas was ever changing to attract more guests, but AC said we are okay people love to gamble.   By the time AC figured it out it was too late. Now with casinos in eastern PA and in Delaware, the racino’s in New York, the gamblers stopped coming. Then there came the Revel, the dumbest idea to hit AC since the diving horse. The Revel is way too big a 50-story hotel that doesn’t allow smoking anywhere. In 2013, the Borgata is the only casino in AC whose gambling revenue increased. The Taj is close to being put into bankruptcy and all the other casinos are struggling. It looks real bad and if they don’t fix it the city will die.

So how does Atlantic City revive itself? Its simple, they have to go backwards not forwards. They have to go back to what the city was built on “AN AFFORDABLE VACATION SPOT FOR COMMON PEOPLE”. How do you do that easy COMPS!!! The Comps in Atlantic City just Suck. I have been going for over 35 years and each year they get cheaper and cheaper with comps. I get comps in the mail for a toaster or a chance to win a Hyundai. Give me food and room comps. So here is a list of things AC can do to attract people:

  1. COMP ROOMS – Give rooms away, an occupied room doesn’t cost much more than an empty one. If you don’t want to Comp them charge $25 per night instead of $400
  2. COMP FOOD – buy the player a meal. Give a $25 coupon to any restaurant in the casino. Every trip my wife and I go to Ruth’s Chris for dinner. If the steakhouse in the casino would give me $25 or $50 off I would go there.
  3. Stop Making it impossible to win – Go back to 4 or 6 deck blackjack, play single 0 roulette and give 20x odds on Craps.
  4. The casinos need to become more player friendly. Stop watering down the drinks, hire more waitresses and serve them faster. Treat the minimum player the same as the Max Player, there are more minimum players.
  5. CLUBS and LOUNGES – Get some good clubs and lounges. People love the Clubs. I hate them but I love Lounges. Give me live music along with drink coupons. Open a Cigar Bar and a Whiskey Bar.
  6. Bring in Real Entertainment – Only the Borgata does this and that’s why they are making money

I hope the town will listen because nothing would be worse to see Atlantic City fade away. The town inspired Monopoly, created the post card, the oldest Boardwalk, salt-water taffy, and my favorite vanilla/chocolate twist frozen custard. Summer would not be summer for me if I could go out and walk that Boardwalk with my coffee and cigar, singing my playlist.