Essentials: The Cocktail Party Anecdote Cocktail parties are the pinnacle of entertainment.  With booze and good banter making up the majority of the Bootstrap Gentleman’s diet, he is never more sufficed than when regaling eager listeners with a gimlet-induced tale of saving one of Hemingway’s cats from a burning house in Key West. This, my humble students, is what I like to call the gentleman’s cocktail party anecdote. It is the narrative that you use to endear yourself to the crowd, and in essence become the most coveted conversationalist at any event. I like to tell a story about casually calling the screenwriter of On the Waterfront to discuss the origin of the famous line “I could have been a contender.”  Who knew Brando wasn’t a great boxer?  Apparently I did, and that makes me infinitely more interesting than the guy discussing the Asian commodities markets.  Your signature epic should be like Kim Kardashian: nicely rounded but devoid of substance. Never, ever discuss politics, religion or scotch preference.  The last thing you want to do is appear uninformed or dimwitted.  Worse yet, you could get your drunken ass beat to an ascot-wearing pulp.  If you are like me, chances are you already socialize with people that are elitist, conceited and shallow, so these traits are usually overlooked or even welcomed. Be sure to save your inappropriate tales for more intimate, postprandial conversation once the rest of the guests are a bit soused.  Let’s be honest, you already like to talk about yourself, so make your linguacious tendencies work to your advantage.  Like the cocktail shaker you keep at your bedside, the success of your verbal intercourse will be essential for nighttime mixing. Conversationally, Bootstrap

Essentials: The Cocktail Party Anecdote

Cocktail parties are the pinnacle of entertainment.  With booze and good banter making up the majority of the Bootstrap Gentleman’s diet, he is never more sufficed than when regaling eager listeners with a gimlet-induced tale of saving one of Hemingway’s cats from a burning house in Key West.

This, my humble students, is what I like to call the gentleman’s cocktail party anecdote. It is the narrative that you use to endear yourself to the crowd, and in essence become the most coveted conversationalist at any event.

I like to tell a story about casually calling the screenwriter of On the Waterfront to discuss the origin of the famous line “I could have been a contender.”  Who knew Brando wasn’t a great boxer?  Apparently I did, and that makes me infinitely more interesting than the guy discussing the Asian commodities markets. 

Your signature epic should be like Kim Kardashian: nicely rounded but devoid of substance. Never, ever discuss politics, religion or scotch preference.  The last thing you want to do is appear uninformed or dimwitted.  Worse yet, you could get your drunken ass beat to an ascot-wearing pulp.  If you are like me, chances are you already socialize with people that are elitist, conceited and shallow, so these traits are usually overlooked or even welcomed.

Be sure to save your inappropriate tales for more intimate, postprandial conversation once the rest of the guests are a bit soused.  Let’s be honest, you already like to talk about yourself, so make your linguacious tendencies work to your advantage.  Like the cocktail shaker you keep at your bedside, the success of your verbal intercourse will be essential for nighttime mixing.

Conversationally,

Bootstrap


Essentials: A Gentleman Turns One Year Older Today is my, Bootstrap’s, birthday.  Another year closer to being able to wear ascots in public without being beaten to death, and I am taking it in stride.  A gentleman does not worry about getting older because seemliness, dignity and respectability are ageless.  Vast amounts of scotch also help in the preservation process. Whoever said that a gentleman does not celebrate his own birthday clearly has no friends.  A true liver of the good life likes to entertain, and birthdays are no exception. Of course there is a right and wrong way to go about celebrating oneself.  You should not invite 650 of your nearest and dearest to give you gifts, have some boxed wine and be on their way. Instead a birthday celebration should be about enjoying the company of those who enjoy yours.   To be sure, having a notorious birthday such as the Ides of March helps your confidantes remember the special occasion.  If your birthday falls on a nondescript day, I would suggest changing it to something more fitting to your stature.  The beginning of fox hunting season or international tweed appreciation day perhaps.  A built in theme certainly helps with the party planning.   For evidence see the photo of my “E tu Brute?” theme party above.  Looks like we lost another one.  That happens every year… Bootstrap (Photo courtesy of the Life Photo Archive, linked above)

Essentials: A Gentleman Turns One Year Older

Today is my, Bootstrap’s, birthday.  Another year closer to being able to wear ascots in public without being beaten to death, and I am taking it in stride.  A gentleman does not worry about getting older because seemliness, dignity and respectability are ageless.  Vast amounts of scotch also help in the preservation process.

Whoever said that a gentleman does not celebrate his own birthday clearly has no friends.  A true liver of the good life likes to entertain, and birthdays are no exception. Of course there is a right and wrong way to go about celebrating oneself.  You should not invite 650 of your nearest and dearest to give you gifts, have some boxed wine and be on their way. Instead a birthday celebration should be about enjoying the company of those who enjoy yours.  

To be sure, having a notorious birthday such as the Ides of March helps your confidantes remember the special occasion.  If your birthday falls on a nondescript day, I would suggest changing it to something more fitting to your stature.  The beginning of fox hunting season or international tweed appreciation day perhaps.  A built in theme certainly helps with the party planning.  

For evidence see the photo of my “E tu Brute?” theme party above.  Looks like we lost another one.  That happens every year…

Bootstrap

(Photo courtesy of the Life Photo Archive, linked above)


Essentials: A Gentleman Walks with Purpose Every day a gentleman is faced with bothersome blockades that could keep him from going about his business.  Nosy doormen, “Keep Out” signs, Secret Service agents, all in the way of the productive passage of time, are the bane of the bon vivant’s existence. Yet, there is a simple way to leapfrog these obstacles, simply ignore them.  A gentleman who carries himself with good posture, a determined yet insouciant gaze and an air of refinement can get anywhere he wants to be. Walking with purpose works for two reasons.  First, if you pretend you belong, and seem confident in your direction, those who are there to patrol for interlopers assume that you are not an outsider.  Secondly, looking busy and important (B&I in Bootstrap lingo) will dissuade people from interrupting you for fear that you actually are B&I and Hellfire will rain down upon them for their brazen impertinence. For example, the Bootstrap Gentleman may not be able to afford a membership at an exclusive private club, but he can look like it is within his budget.  Take my recent visit to the Royal Automobile Club in London.  I do not have a membership to the RAC, nor do I have the connections to be offered one, but I do have a paisley bow tie and an icy glare.  That was more than enough to get me into the bar without a word of admonishment from the ancient porters at the front desk.  After a pleasant Brandy Alexander I went happily on my way, no harm, no foul. Now, as a member of another, similar institution I am well aware of this behavior in my own clubhouse.  Yet, this is not a problem.  A true gentleman will not let on that he is somewhere he shouldn’t be, and whilst there he will comport himself with dignity. The ability to walk with purpose is a gift, and it should not be abused. Remember no one can keep a gentleman down, and if it looks like you are about to get arrested…run, run like the wind. Bootstrap (Photo courtesy of the Life Photo Archive, linked above)

Essentials: A Gentleman Walks with Purpose

Every day a gentleman is faced with bothersome blockades that could keep him from going about his business.  Nosy doormen, “Keep Out” signs, Secret Service agents, all in the way of the productive passage of time, are the bane of the bon vivant’s existence.

Yet, there is a simple way to leapfrog these obstacles, simply ignore them.  A gentleman who carries himself with good posture, a determined yet insouciant gaze and an air of refinement can get anywhere he wants to be.

Walking with purpose works for two reasons.  First, if you pretend you belong, and seem confident in your direction, those who are there to patrol for interlopers assume that you are not an outsider.  Secondly, looking busy and important (B&I in Bootstrap lingo) will dissuade people from interrupting you for fear that you actually are B&I and Hellfire will rain down upon them for their brazen impertinence.

For example, the Bootstrap Gentleman may not be able to afford a membership at an exclusive private club, but he can look like it is within his budget.  Take my recent visit to the Royal Automobile Club in London.  I do not have a membership to the RAC, nor do I have the connections to be offered one, but I do have a paisley bow tie and an icy glare.  That was more than enough to get me into the bar without a word of admonishment from the ancient porters at the front desk.  After a pleasant Brandy Alexander I went happily on my way, no harm, no foul.

Now, as a member of another, similar institution I am well aware of this behavior in my own clubhouse.  Yet, this is not a problem.  A true gentleman will not let on that he is somewhere he shouldn’t be, and whilst there he will comport himself with dignity. The ability to walk with purpose is a gift, and it should not be abused.

Remember no one can keep a gentleman down, and if it looks like you are about to get arrested…run, run like the wind.

Bootstrap

(Photo courtesy of the Life Photo Archive, linked above)


Essentials: Martini Melodies

Jay-Z may win Grammys, but that doesn’t mean he goes with an artfully mixed Tanqueray masterpiece.  Just as you wouldn’t combine Glenn Miller with cans of PBR, a classic cocktail deserves a sophisticated soundtrack.

Like your alcohol, your nightcap accompaniment should be smooth and well-aged with a bit of a kick.  I am not talking Yanni or something that you hear in an Upper East Side elevator. Cocktail culture flourished in the late 1930s and the music of the era still sits well with a cold bracer or two.

Nothing says class to your guests like a bit of big band or some faintly scratchy, undulating vocals issuing from your Bose speakers.  If you have the original records the authenticity only multiplies.  Unfortunately I ditched my record player to make a bar so the unending collection of rare favorites available on iTunes has to suffice.

Some people like to belt out Don’t Stop Believin’ while getting tight, but in my not-so-humble and authoritative opinion, The Continental, as played above, is one of the greatest drinking songs of all time.  This snappy 1930s classic, when combined with the right beverage, will take you back to a time when Fred and Ginger ruled the floor and money could still buy class.

And you thought you needed Ke$ha to get crunk.

Are you continental?

Bootstrap


Essentials: A Shiny Coach As the old song goes “Come away with me, Lucille, in my merry Oldsmobile…” News Flash: Lucille isn’t going anywhere in your filthy rent-a-wreck. A gentleman keeps a clean car.  Whether it is a hunchback shaped hybrid (I shudder to think) or a luxury sedan, the physical condition of a man’s car is a reflection of his persona.  Do you really want people to think you are disorganized, covered in grime and hiding old fast food in your pockets?  I think not. Your car should be clean, inside and out, and free from the remnants of daily life.  The last thing a passenger wants to hear is “I just have to move a few things…”  Clearly these “things” belong in another location, they didn’t come with the car, did they? Lastly, a gentleman’s automobile should not smell like anything.  Air fresheners are sensorially offensive on many levels, and no one wants to think about what they are covering up. Want to go “automobubbling” with Lucille, keep it clean. Motoring off Bootstrap

Essentials: A Shiny Coach

As the old song goes “Come away with me, Lucille, in my merry Oldsmobile…”

News Flash: Lucille isn’t going anywhere in your filthy rent-a-wreck.

A gentleman keeps a clean car.  Whether it is a hunchback shaped hybrid (I shudder to think) or a luxury sedan, the physical condition of a man’s car is a reflection of his persona.  Do you really want people to think you are disorganized, covered in grime and hiding old fast food in your pockets?  I think not.

Your car should be clean, inside and out, and free from the remnants of daily life.  The last thing a passenger wants to hear is “I just have to move a few things…”  Clearly these “things” belong in another location, they didn’t come with the car, did they?

Lastly, a gentleman’s automobile should not smell like anything.  Air fresheners are sensorially offensive on many levels, and no one wants to think about what they are covering up.

Want to go “automobubbling” with Lucille, keep it clean.

Motoring off

Bootstrap


Essentials: Don’t be a Social (Paper) Deviant Have you ever received an email from a friend and thought to yourself “he writes like a teenage girl”?  With text acronym language proliferating our culture, the availability of caps lock and gratuitous use of exclamation points the whole world is forgetting how to communicate.  Without punctuation, messages can easily be misconstrued, but commas and periods have also disappeared from daily dispatches.  It was a bad idea when James Joyce did it, it was worse when Cormac McCarthy did it, and it is intolerable now.  Although, unlike James Joyce, no one will give you critical praise for an unintelligible email because they are too embarrassed to admit that they didn’t understand it. Part of the problem is that we have become so conditioned to instant communication that it is a throwaway endeavor.  If you didn’t get your meaning across the first time, you will just do it again.  Sending a message to a friend or colleague used to be an event.  It required forethought, penmanship and grammatical knowhow. A gentleman should take time and care with everything he writes from a Post-It note to an autobiography of his favorite captain of industry.  This rule should also be applied to emails, memos and text messages. With the way that the world works today using electronic messaging of some type is inescapable, unless you are one of those “I don’t use the Internet” people.  (From my experience such individuals do not use the Internet because they spend all of their time telling people that they don’t use the Internet to get some kind of high out of shock and horror). Regardless of how much you use email to communicate, a true gentleman owns monogrammed social paper.  Whether in the form of note cards or full sheets, men of distinction only put quill to vellum with their name or initials engraved at the top. All personal communications of a social nature such as thank you notes, regrets, get well thoughts, notes of congratulations (and so on and so forth) should be written on your social paper.  Personalized stationary has always carried with it the distinct whiff of decorum, and that has never changed.  Recipients of personalized letters take notice of the time and effort, not to mention expense, that you put into such a missive. If you are out of town, without your travel desk or personal secretary, the stationary of a hotel or private club is a good substitute.  If you are staying somewhere that you would rather not be public I suggest going to a better hotel and asking the front desk for a piece of paper and an envelope.  You would be surprised how well written correspondence passes the time while away on a boring merger/acquisition mission or somesuch.  A jotted note also scores points with wealthy childless relatives and prospective love interests. When purchasing your stationary always choose ecru over white, keep borders to a minimum, have your name printed in a bold, manly script, and spring for the lined envelopes. Don’t forget the watermark. Bootstrap

Essentials: Don’t be a Social (Paper) Deviant

Have you ever received an email from a friend and thought to yourself “he writes like a teenage girl”?  With text acronym language proliferating our culture, the availability of caps lock and gratuitous use of exclamation points the whole world is forgetting how to communicate.  Without punctuation, messages can easily be misconstrued, but commas and periods have also disappeared from daily dispatches.  It was a bad idea when James Joyce did it, it was worse when Cormac McCarthy did it, and it is intolerable now.  Although, unlike James Joyce, no one will give you critical praise for an unintelligible email because they are too embarrassed to admit that they didn’t understand it.

Part of the problem is that we have become so conditioned to instant communication that it is a throwaway endeavor.  If you didn’t get your meaning across the first time, you will just do it again.  Sending a message to a friend or colleague used to be an event.  It required forethought, penmanship and grammatical knowhow.

A gentleman should take time and care with everything he writes from a Post-It note to an autobiography of his favorite captain of industry.  This rule should also be applied to emails, memos and text messages.

With the way that the world works today using electronic messaging of some type is inescapable, unless you are one of those “I don’t use the Internet” people.  (From my experience such individuals do not use the Internet because they spend all of their time telling people that they don’t use the Internet to get some kind of high out of shock and horror).

Regardless of how much you use email to communicate, a true gentleman owns monogrammed social paper.  Whether in the form of note cards or full sheets, men of distinction only put quill to vellum with their name or initials engraved at the top.

All personal communications of a social nature such as thank you notes, regrets, get well thoughts, notes of congratulations (and so on and so forth) should be written on your social paper.  Personalized stationary has always carried with it the distinct whiff of decorum, and that has never changed.  Recipients of personalized letters take notice of the time and effort, not to mention expense, that you put into such a missive.

If you are out of town, without your travel desk or personal secretary, the stationary of a hotel or private club is a good substitute.  If you are staying somewhere that you would rather not be public I suggest going to a better hotel and asking the front desk for a piece of paper and an envelope.  You would be surprised how well written correspondence passes the time while away on a boring merger/acquisition mission or somesuch.  A jotted note also scores points with wealthy childless relatives and prospective love interests.

When purchasing your stationary always choose ecru over white, keep borders to a minimum, have your name printed in a bold, manly script, and spring for the lined envelopes.

Don’t forget the watermark.

Bootstrap


Essentials: The Gentleman’s Library Sale In twelve short days the holiest of high holidays for gentlemen will occur, Bonham’s of London’s much-lauded Gentleman’s Library Sale (full catalogue linked above). Because colonization and elephant hunting are now frowned upon, modern gentlemen are often relegated to recycling the spoils of our gentlemanly forefathers for outfitting the studies in our townhouses and country estates (or studio apartments and double-wide mobile mansions).  In order to help in this process, Bonham’s has put together several complementary collections under the Gentleman’s Library Sale banner.  Because the British are notoriously cheap and are more used to stealing objects of antiquity than buying them, you will find that the price estimates do not break the bank in most cases. Although we have not previously discussed living quarters, when using dark wood, sterling silver and taxidermy in the proper proportions you can rarely go wrong.  Also, always devise an exotic provenance for the objects in your home.  The cut crystal decanter set did not come from an antique store, it was a gift from a foreign diplomat, and the small garage sale oil painting is a family heirloom smuggled out of Austria in your great grandmother’s bodice.  Finally, remember that any nouveau riche poseur can have the silver-plated horn inkwell pictured above… but a real gentleman will actually use it. Happy bidding. p.s. Hands off the 1920’s stuffed crocodile card tray holder, that one’s mine. Bootstrap

Essentials: The Gentleman’s Library Sale

In twelve short days the holiest of high holidays for gentlemen will occur, Bonham’s of London’s much-lauded Gentleman’s Library Sale (full catalogue linked above).

Because colonization and elephant hunting are now frowned upon, modern gentlemen are often relegated to recycling the spoils of our gentlemanly forefathers for outfitting the studies in our townhouses and country estates (or studio apartments and double-wide mobile mansions).  In order to help in this process, Bonham’s has put together several complementary collections under the Gentleman’s Library Sale banner.  Because the British are notoriously cheap and are more used to stealing objects of antiquity than buying them, you will find that the price estimates do not break the bank in most cases.

Although we have not previously discussed living quarters, when using dark wood, sterling silver and taxidermy in the proper proportions you can rarely go wrong.  Also, always devise an exotic provenance for the objects in your home.  The cut crystal decanter set did not come from an antique store, it was a gift from a foreign diplomat, and the small garage sale oil painting is a family heirloom smuggled out of Austria in your great grandmother’s bodice.  Finally, remember that any nouveau riche poseur can have the silver-plated horn inkwell pictured above… but a real gentleman will actually use it.

Happy bidding.

p.s. Hands off the 1920’s stuffed crocodile card tray holder, that one’s mine.

Bootstrap


Essentials: Always carry a pen

They say that the pen is mightier than the sword, but you won’t be doing any swashbuckling if you don’t have a writing utensil. Whether it’s a Montblanc or a Bic a gentleman always carries a pen with him. A pen used to be a status symbol, in an era when most were of the fountain variety, and having one to hand still carries the connotation of preparedness and reliability.

Having a pen in your pocket is handy for writing down fleeting thoughts of genius, eloquently phrased pick-up lines and all manner of lists (shopping, chores for your estate staff, supporters in a potential hostile corporate takeover etc.). Not to mention that you will never have to touch the filthy swine-flu covered pens that appear on checkout counters and in restaurant checks.

No pocket protector required.

Bootstrap


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Themed by: Hunson