Category Archives: fashion

La Eleganza

January 21, 2018 – 9:02 am

La Eleganza said hip without having to spell it in big letters. I had bell bottom trousers with buttons on the split flair, but no one in Boston ever wore these bold threads. Not even in the Sugar Shack, the home of black pimps of the Combat Zone. The house band was George Clinton’s Funkadelics. […]

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Azzadine Alaia Ride The Stars

November 19, 2017 – 7:35 pm

Azzadine Alaia was born in Tunis, Tunisia, an ancient city dating back to Carthage. His family were wheat farmers, but his glamorous older sister nurtured his love of fashion and his mother’s friend gave the young man VOGUE magazine. Elegance extraordinaire. After studying at Tunis’ École des Beaux-Arts Azzadine lied about his age and migrated […]

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The Debt Of A Nation

March 28, 2017 – 6:08 am

In 2011 Madame Ambassador phoned with the offer to be her ‘unofficial writer in residence’ at her posting in Mittel Europa and she asked, “Do you have an evening suit?” “Of course,” I replied without hesitation from my apartment in Fort Greene. “Good, because you’ll be needing it. There will be plenty of balls and […]

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Cleaver Penis Pants

December 9, 2016 – 11:58 am

The 1960s revolutionary Eldridge Cleaver had a troubled youth in LA, but a rape spree earned the 18 year-old a long sentence to San Quentin and Folsom prisons. His book SOUL ON ICE was published by Ramparts Magazine. Controversy followed his stating that he initially raped black women in the ghetto “for practice” and then […]

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Colonel Tarleton’s Boots

September 13, 2016 – 5:16 pm

Banastre Tarleton’s family’s fortune was founded by his paternal grandfather’s dealing in the slave trade. The shipowner’s grandson blew through his inheritance on women, wine, and cards. With his last money Banastre purchased an officer’s commission in the 1st Dragoon Guards. Tarleton served throughout the American Revolution with the notorious British Legion. He spared no […]

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