100 Days, 100 Ties

If plans go as, um, planned, this will be Unique Tie Wique. As I am coming up with this on Tuesday night, it’ll be something of a stretch to actually come up with reasons why the ties that I wore on Monday and Tuesday were particularly unique, but I’ll do my best. The real reason I want to be unique is that my interview on WCIU’s Uniquely Chicago is scheduled to air on Thursday. I’m sure I’ll post it when it shows up on their website, unless of course I come across as a total gique (I can feel y’all nodding at the distinct possibility).

So, Monday was unique in that I made another Lee Allison tie my Tie du Jour. Well, since it was my 4th or 5th, maybe it wasn’t so unique. But, what did make it unique is that I wore it to dinner with Lee Allison himself! Yes, my friend Lawrence Neisler (not a GWT alum…yet) and I accompanied Lee and Trideep Das, his head of sales and marketing. Of course I didn’t capture this moment on camera. Doy.

Centaurea cyanus

Anydoy, my TdJ is probably my favorite color for a tie, kind of a cornflower blue. Not sure if the flowers on there are actual cornflowers (don’t think so), but…I like it.

Not sure if I mentioned, but my friend Dan’s first shipment of loaner bow ties arrived over the weekend. Soooo, what does that mean for moi and yoi? Bow Tie Week next week! I may even sique to snique one in for Unique Tie Wique.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

Now that my confusion of Wednesday and Thursday is in the rear view mirror, I should get right back down to basics. So, of course, getting back to the basics means taking a flying leap into something incredibly complex. Lately I have been on a rock-n-roll lyrics kick, and now I will jump magnanimously to the rock/soul/funk fusion magic of Sly and the Family Stone. Hit it! Believe me, this is actually one of the more docile pix of Sly. There was a LOT of money spent on his and his crew’s outfits. That would have been an incredible show to experience, back in the day.

But, I digress (which I like doing)…My Tie du Jour was a gift from the night before. We had gathered for the YPE/Kiwanis Charity Poker Tournament, and David “DFish” Fisher (one of the first two members of the Guys With Ties organization) had gotten a tie back from a friend who’d borrowed it a year before. So, of course, DFish passed it onto me.

And here it is, in all its glory. It’s an Italian silk tie, from the house of Frangi. This seems to be the luxury mark of the company, Tie Rack. You can read about Tie Rack’s history here. So compelling. You get nothing but compelling here at 100D100T.

Thanks for being compelled (compulsed?). And thanks for reading…Brooke

There is evidence, hard evidence, of a scam, executed right here in 100 Days, 100 Ties. It truly puts the blah in blog, and stems from my penchant lately (my mom’s saying, “mm-hmm, told you so”) from being over a day late with my posts. Let’s take a look at the facts:

Exhibit A

For the Tie du Wednesday, I described a red, polka-dotted Perry Ellis tie, which I did wear. Here is a photo of it on the right. Here’s a partial transcript of the trial:

Brooke the Attorney: Mr. Saucier, did you describe, in Wednesday’s post, your attendance at the Chamber’s Business After Hours, which did occur on Wednesday, April 20?

Brooke the Accused: Yes, that is correct. I took photos of Guys With Ties. In fact I could get you and your tie if you’ll just stand still for a sec…

Exhibit B

B. Attorney: Your positive response is duly noted, Mr. Saucier, please do not add such comments or triviality, which shall be stricken from the record. But, yes, this is a lovely tie, is it not? Anyway…Your Honor, I would like to enter this photo into evidence as Exhibit B. Mr. Saucier, is that you in the photo?

B. Accused: Yes, it is. Here, I’ve got my camera, hold st…

B. Attorney: Silence! And is that photo depicting your speaking (or is it singing) to those gathered at the Chamber’s Business After Hours hosted by the Rotary Club of Evanston?!

B. Accused: Yes! Say cheese!

B. Attorney: Cheeeeeeese! There, you got the photo. Satisfied? Can I get on with this? Does the tie that you are wearing match that of Exhibit A, which was posted in your blog of the same date?

B. Accused: No! No, it doesn’t! Mercy, your Honor! Mercy! I was tired, it was late, I had two posts to write, and hundreds of pictures at my disposal! I’m a fraud! Mercyyyy!!

B. Attorney: I rest my case.

So, dear readers, I hope that you will forgive me. My Tie du Jour is actually my Tie du Yesterday. The old switcheroo.

The Real McCoy (McCoy = Tie du Wednesday)

It is, however, a lovely tie. It’s a multi-colored piece of magic from Paul Fredrick. Here’s a better shot of it…

Thanks for your understanding, and thanks for your forgiveness. And, if you don’t understand and don’t forgive, thanks for reading…Brooke

This was a pretty easy subject to concoct, for reasons you’ll see in a moment. Pretty amazed I didn’t use this one before.

If you haven’t seen this movie before, you should either spend the 2 hrs, 40 mins to watch it, or spend the next few moments agreeing with me that it should go on your list of stuff to do when you get a bunch of time freed up. Alec Guinness plays Col. Nicholson, who is the lone Jedi who fights Darth Vader and dies but keeps talking solemnly…oh, wait, wrong Sir Alec flick. Col. Nicholson commands a bunch of soldiers in a Japanese prison camp while they build a bridge (if you guessed that it was on the River Kwai, you get a donut) that has strategic value to military supply trains. I was a bit surprised that there aren’t any pictures of him in a tie—he’s a British officer for cripes sake—but then I realized he’s in prison. Prisoners don’t get ties. Bad for morale when morale is bad enough to hang one’s self with it, I guess.

The Bridge to my Tummy

So, on to less depressing topics…my Tie du Jour should lighten the mood! It’s a whimsical depiction of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, from the creative mind/desk of Ralph Marlin. I think the blue color just captures exactly what all of us in Chicagoland wished what our weather could be like on a mid-April day. But, no, we got soot gray with bone-chilling rain and hail on a 38 degree day. Felt like friggin’ February. In Canada.

Anyway, the tie just jumped out at me this morning, and I thought it would go okay with this shirt. The tie’s so unique that it probably doesn’t matter what shirt I put it with. Oh, yeah, it probably did. This could be really ugly with the right/wrong shirt…

So, I’ve figured out my Bow Tie Week, I think. My friend Dan is loaning me some of his bow ties, and I’ll wear one or two thru the end of April, then, starting May 2, I’ll have my first Bow Tie Week. If you’ll recall, I previously had Bow Tie Fortnight. Maybe if he sends me enough, I’ll just plow through and have BTF II.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

Our nation was fooled. Fooled into thinking that Molly Ringwald was a lead actress. Oh, sure, she headlined “Sixteen Candles,” one of my top 10 favorite movies, but didn’t Anthony Michael Hall steal that show? I have mentioned several times, often in the face of dumbfounded looks, that AMH’s turn in that coming-of-age flick is/was the finest performance in acting history. Could Hall have replaced an Olivier, a Brando, a Nicholson, a Burton? Well, perhaps not. But I riposte and say that none of those acteurs could have taken on the role of Farmer Ted.

My role-crush causes me to digress. Molly Ringwald conned an entire country of movie-watching suckers with her turns as a desired teen in “Pretty in Pink” and “The Breakfast Club.” We, and John Hughes, finally figured it out and she was left to pick up the pieces in a world that finally figured out that there were actually cute actresses—and Kathy Bates—ready to take on major roles.

So, my pink Tie du Jour? It’s a simple paisley from Mark Shale, and it was given to me by my friend Paul Giddings, who owns Folk Works Gallery along with his wife Cease. They moved house last year, and they bagged up about 30 or 35 ties, in order to donate them. Well, signals were crossed and the bag made the trek to the new condo; once they found it, they already knew about 100D100T, so they gave the bag to me. I could have a Giddings month! But, seriously, there are some pretty nice ones in there, so I should be okay for a while.

Thanks for reading…Brooke