Hurt Yourself: In Executive Pursuit of Action, Danger, and a Decent-Looking Pair of Swim Trunks

by Harry Hurt III

Overview

Hurt Yourself presents a collection of Harry Hurt III's Executive Pursuits columns from the New York Times, in which he volunteers for one wild activity after another, from playing professional football to driving high-performance sports cars to dancing with the ballet.

Harry Hurt III is a journalist and professional dilettante who puts it all on the line in the search for freedom and joy in the most unlikely of places. And the likely ones, too.

Whether he's flying a vintage Mustang, risking his neck at polo, or risking his dignity dancing with the New York City Ballet, Hurt gives the readers of his "Executive Pursuits" columns in The New York Times a Plimpton-esque glimpse of the adventures hidden just around the corner.

Hurt writes about hedonism, but the columns collected for the first time here in Hurt Yourself are really about finding fulfillment as a man in the second half of his life. He writes about marriage, as he gets into, and out of, trouble with wife; fatherhood, as he struggles to connect with his son; and manhood, as he battles the demons of vanity, insecurity, and fear.

Through it all, Hurt tackles each premise—from playing quarterback for the New York Jets to finding a swim suit a middle-aged man can actually wear—with self-deprecating humor and an unfailingly honest journalist's eye.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429986250
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/30/2008
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Harry Hurt III is an award-winning journalist and the author of several nonfiction books, including Hurt Yourself. He lives in Sag Harbor, New York.

Read an Excerpt

Hurt Yourself

In Executive Pursuit of Action, Danger, and a Decent-Looking Pair of Swim Trunks

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By Harry Hurt III

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2008 Harry Hurt III
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-8625-0

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CHAPTER 1

I'm Here to See a Man About a Suit

I went looking for a custom suit like some wiseacre detective named Jake in a film noir, only to wind up in Chinatown on the hottest damn day of the summer so far. The sidewalks were packed tighter than subway cars at rush hour; the air smelled like pork fried rust. Vendors were hawking $5 soap bubble guns, and the red and gold Chinese characters plastered on the banks, the Buddhist temple, the fish market, and the retail stores looked like they were about to melt into candle wax.

I stumbled down the pavement, toting a tall kitchen garbage bag that contained a threadbare Armani suit my wife had bought me off the rack at Bergdorf's more than a decade ago. Every few feet, I'd get stuck behind this little old lady, who'd poke me in the kisser with the tips of her parasol and then holler at me in a voice that sounded like a tunnel full of wind chimes.

I was determined to track down the proprietor of an outfit called the International Tailor Company. I had never laid eyes on the gentleman before; I didn't even know his proper name. All I knew was my wife called him Tom the Tailor and swore he could make a perfect copy of any type garment, including my Armani suit, for a fraction of the price most uptown tailors demand for a custom job.

Maybe you can give me a better reason to go to Chinatown at high noon during a heat wave? If so, I'll bet you haven't priced suits lately. Department store designer suits start around $1,200, and soar toward $3,500 for the fancier labels. Custom suits start around $4,400 at Savile Row–style tailor shops like Leonard Logsdail or Bruce Cameron Clark. Of course, if you really want to shoot the moon, Alan Katzman of Alan Couture can put you in a vicuña and silk custom suit softer than cotton candy for a hefty $30,000.

And yet, the question is — why would anybody even want a suit in this postformal age of dress-down chic and casual Fridays? As G. Bruce Boyer, a respected sartorial scribe and author of Fred AstaireStyle (Assouline, 2005), pointed out in an interview, "Suits reached their high point around 1920, and have been going down in popularity ever since."

But then again, as Mr. Boyer hastened to add, with the bursting of the dot-com bubble, custom suits are enjoying a renaissance among both dyed-in-the-wool corporate types and newly minted hip-hop stars who want to dress like grown-ups instead of teenage computer geeks.

"I think guys want individuality in their clothes because they can get it in all other areas of their lives simply by shopping on the Internet," Mr. Boyer said. "They want custom suits in part because they don't have to buy that kind of tailored clothing for the office anymore."

By definition, few things in life can be more individual than a custom suit. Together with your tailor, you pick everything from the fabric to the width of the lapels. You can pad your shoulders, taper your middle, and do whatever else you desire to accommodate your unique physique. The man in the mirror is no longer just another bare naked human, but a knight in white satin linings dressed for success as conqueror of the universe!

Apart from price, there's only one endemic problem with custom suits — the wait. Even allowing for alterations, a department store suit is usually on your back within a week. Custom suits are typically promised in a minimum of six weeks, but often delivered on or around the six-month mark, Mr. Boyer reminded. "Guys are used to getting instant gratification," he noted.

As my wife can attest, I fit that pattern. On the day we marched into Bergdorf's, I had tried on — and taken — the first double-breasted blue Armani size 44 long suit the salesman pulled off the rack. My wife shrieked in dismay. She evidently felt that I had not spent sufficient time examining other blue double- breasted Armani suits in size 44 long. "Women go shopping," I'd informed her with macho pride. "Men go buying."

A decade later, I began to think I might be better off settling for department store threads again because of the unexpected challenges presented by going the custom route, not least the language barrier.

International Tailor had recently moved to a new location at 98 Mott Street. But save for the suite numbers and a sign for "Kenny's Driving School," the building directory was almost entirely in Chinese.

I nodded at two men standing out front. I tugged on the sleeves and the breast pockets of my shirt. I made a scissors clipping gesture with my fingers. Then I stood at attention as if in front of a fitting room mirror, saying over and over again, "Clothes, suit, tailor." The men shook their heads and answered in Chinese that probably translated into something like, "This guy must be looking for a sex change operation or a prostitute. Let's pretend we don't understand him and maybe he'll go away."

I ventured up the stairs of the building and repeated my pleading pantomimes in vain at a beauty shop, an acupuncturist, and an herbalist reeking with pungent odors. The herbalist closed the door in my face; then he reached for the phone like he was going to call the police or maybe some local "tong" protection gang.

Upon fleeing to the third floor, I breathed a sigh of joy luck relief. There was a sign at the top of the stair that read INTERNATIONAL TAILOR CO. I entered a tiny cubicle crammed with clothes racks and bolts of cloth. A Chinese woman who turned out to be the proprietor's wife sat at a sewing machine in front of a bulletin board stapled with a photo of two handsome young male models in fancy suits standing beside a Mercedes convertible. A short, lean Chinese man in his early sixties entered on my heels.

"Tom the Tailor!" I cried out.

"No, no, Tim!" he exclaimed "Tim Yan! Tim the Tailor!"

My wife surely would have shrieked at the speed with which Mr. Yan and I attended to business. He asked me what kind of fabric I wanted. I pointed to one of the male models in the bulletin board photo who was wearing a tan summer suit. Mr. Yan pulled out a swatch book and flipped to a tan fabric sample labeled "100 percent worsted wool, Made in Italy."

I asked Mr. Yan if he could cut and sew the fabric right there on the premises. He nodded emphatically, then pointed to a framed certificate he had earned from a Hong Kong tailoring organization before coming to New York in the early 1970s. "Nobody study tailor no more," he lamented.

I tried on the Armani suit I wanted Mr. Yan to copy. He made a few quick measurements and suggested some modifications to the pocket flaps and the buttonholes.

"Six hundred twenty dollars," Mr. Yan informed me.

That seemed like a bargain at twice the price. I quickly wrote out a deposit check for $300.

"I have ready in three weeks," Mr. Yan said, frowning at the check. "Next time you come, you bring cash."

I felt like asking why he wanted cash, wondering if maybe he didn't trust a guy like me. But then I figured it was none of my business either way. Besides, I was already imagining that I'd look as cool and crisp, if not as young and handsome, as the male model in the photo when I got my new $620 custom-tailored double-breasted tan suit.

So I just nodded my head at Mr. Yan, a.k.a Tim the Tailor, and slogged back out into the sweltering heat, muttering, "Forget it, Jake — it's Chinatown."

CHAPTER 2

How the King of Bling Saved My Marriage

Five days before my twelfth wedding anniversary, I raced down Park Avenue, gawking at well-heeled passersby and talking to myself out loud like a lunatic. I desperately needed to find a present for my wife, Alison, before it was too late. "Good thing she's no math wizard," I muttered in the direction of a duly startled woman in Manolo pumps, cutoff jeans, and a cowboy hat.

Alison had been telling people that we had been married for thirteen years. I was sure to her it must have seemed at least that long, if not far longer; after all, she'd been married to me the whole time. But she'd also been saying our anniversary was on Saturday, when it was actually on Sunday. As any heartbroken fool who's ever listened to country music knows all too well, twenty-four hours can spell the difference between life and death, marriage and D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

I was hoping against hope that the "King of Bling," Jacob Arabo, might come to my rescue. Mr. Arabo, a.k.a. Jacob the Jeweler, is renowned for selling some of the world's gaudiest and most expensive jewelry to pop, rap, and hip-hop artists like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Sean Combs, Kanye West, Elton John, Madonna, Mariah Carey, and Ozzy Osbourne — just the crowd my wife keeps begging me to bring home for potluck supper.

I slipped past a pair of muscular men in dark suits and earphones who looked like Secret Service agents, and entered Jacob & Company, a converted brown-stone at 48 East 57th Street. Designed to resemble the inside of a diamond mine, the interior walls were covered with sheets of channeled white Corian.

The publicist for Jacob & Company, Thayer Whipple, escorted me to a VIP room in the back of the store equipped with leather armchairs, a bar stocked with adult beverages, and one of the forty-eight flat-screen TVs that have been installed throughout the premises.

Presently, Mr. Arabo, forty, emerged from an adjacent office that featured a see-through aquarium window. With his short curly black hair, sallow complexion, square jaw, and chalk-striped suit, he looked more like a Greek shipping magnate than a Russian Jewish diamond cutter born in Tashkent. But his biography suggested he was always predestined to become the King of Bling.

At age fourteen, Mr. Arabo immigrated to America with his parents and four sisters. Two years later, he enrolled in a jewelry design class; he showed such prodigious skill his teachers urged him to strike out on his own after only four months of formal instruction. In 1981, he opened a jewelry design business in a modest booth in the Diamond Exchange on 47th Street.

In the mid-1990s, Mr. Arabo was discovered by Faith Evans, the R&B singer wife of the late rap star Notorious B.I.G. As Ms. Whipple's press materials noted, "Faith and her husband spawned a sizable buzz throughout the music industry, which resulted in Jacob becoming the go-to guy for jewels." Prior to relocating to 57th Street last December, he had purchased a 75 percent stake in a Swiss watch factory, and formed a partnership with DDM, one of the world's largest diamond suppliers.

I told Mr. Arabo the purpose of my visit. "Don't bring your wife in here," he warned with a wry smile. "It's very dangerous."

Mr. Arabo led me back out to one of the glasspaneled display cases in the front of the store. With the flourish of a character in a James Bond movie, he swiped a magnetic card in front of the panel; the glass lowered. He reached in and grabbed a 22-karat diamond watch with a face measuring 57 millimeters in diameter that featured a multicolored map of the world and separate sets of hands indicating the hour and minute in five different time zones.

"We call this 'The World Is Yours,'" Mr. Arabo said, handing me the watch. "It costs one million dollars. Other jewelers thought I was losing my mind making it, that I'm going to get stuck with it. But already we have sold four of them."

The "World Is Yours" watch was so heavy it almost sprained my wrist. I handed it back, and asked Mr. Arabo if he had something a little less costly in his cases. "Our least expensive watch is $5,600," he informed me.

Mr. Arabo went on to confide that his penchant for designing high-priced, flamboyantly colorful jewelry was inspired by his youthful distaste for the merchandise available back in the Soviet Union. "All the stores sold the same jewelry; it was boring," he said. "That's why I started making my own pieces." Then he added with another wry smile: "Of course, I also like designing simple, elegant jewelry for simple, elegant people."

Back in the VIP room, Mr. Arabo held up a pair of 6-karat diamond earrings, dangling them in front of my eyes. "They look like floating waterdrops, don't they?" he said. I nodded, and asked how much. "Two hundred twenty thousand dollars," he replied.

I confessed that the pieces I'd seen so far were light-years beyond my means. "Just give me a budget then," Mr. Arabo offered. "I will make your wife something you can afford."

"Sure you will," I muttered to myself.

I traipsed out the door and down 57th Street to keep shopping. The moment I entered Tiffany's, I realized that my brief experience with the King of Bling had already spoiled me. The layout of the famous store reminded me of an airport concourse lined with tacky designer boutiques. The craftsmanship of the jewelry seemed downright shoddy compared to Mr. Arabo's. I frowned at a display of Elsa Peretti gold-wire bangles ranging in price from $800 to $1,200. I turned up my nose at Paloma Picasso's "Tanzanite Suite" featuring $17,000 earrings and a $45,000 ring.

I hustled across Fifth Avenue to Van Cleef & Arpels, where I found myself gasping for air inside a dainty little carpeted space furnished like my late great-aunt's living room. A very nice woman in a tan suit showed me a swarm of dragonflies and butterflies made of diamonds, gold, and mother-of-pearl. The prices ranged from $10,000 to $27,500. I politely passed on the bugs and hurried back outside.

Still reeling from seismic sticker shock, I placed a frantic cell phone call to Ms. Whipple, and told her I would take Mr. Arabo up on his offer to design a present for my wife with two stipulations: (1) I needed the merchandise within the next four days, and (2) my budget was $2,000. In effect, I was asking Picasso — in this case, Pablo, not Paloma — to create a masterpiece with a Magic Marker and a bar napkin.

Ms. Whipple hesitated just long enough to make my heart sink. She advised that Mr. Arabo would be happy to work within my modest budget, but he and his wife were flying to Monaco the next evening to attend the annual Red Cross charity ball. "I'll ask if there's something he can do for you before he leaves," she promised.

As it turned out, the King of Bling produced a series of unique creations that spawned both a happy ending — and a potentially expensive new beginning — to my anniversary present pursuit. On the following Sunday morning, Alison awoke to find a white envelope with a gold ribbon lying on her pillow. Inside were two pages of Jacob & Company stationery with pencil drawings of seven different styles of earrings sketched and signed by Mr. Arabo. A note from Ms. Whipple advised that my wife could choose whichever style she wanted. Mr. Arabo would make the earrings upon his return to New York.

"Oh, Bigger, they're beautiful!" Alison exclaimed. "I want all of them."

I told her that would not be possible, at least not this year.

"That's okay," she said with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. "I'll pick one, and then I'll frame Jacob's drawings and hang them on the wall so you'll know what to get me next year."

CHAPTER 3

This Suit Requires a Certain Amount of Finesse

Sometimes you get what's coming to you on this beat. Other times, you've got to go out and get it for yourself. But anytime you catch me humping it back down to Chinatown salivating like a rabid sharpei on a dog day in August just to pick up a custom suit, you can bet it's because some higher power has got me on a short leash with a choke collar.

Sure, I had my own personal reasons for returning to Chinatown. Everybody does. For one thing, I was itching to try on the redesigned Armani knockoff I'd ordered from Tim Yan, a.k.a. Tim the Tailor, exactly four weeks earlier for the almost unbelievably low price of $620.

I was also itching for a variety of ostensibly unrelated reasons I'll try to put my scratching finger on as we go along. This custom suit caper had already gotten way bigger than me and my size 44 long. Word had come from headquarters that the Boss himself wanted to see how my new threads turned out. Call it good news or bad news. For me, it all boiled down to the same news — my inseams, my street cred, and my wiseacre film noir detective alter ego Jake were on the line once again.

But hey, I got a BlackBerry — was I supposed to text message somebody who cared? Cyber-whining was not in the program. All summer long, the Boss had been sticking up for a pal of mine who's been doing time in the slammer on behalf of the whole organization. I figured the least I could do was give him a first look at my brand-new bespoke. I didn't figure on all the other baggage that would come with it.

I scrambled out of the Canal Street subway under a mess of dark clouds pregnant with rain and existential angst. The air around the Chinese banks, the Buddhist temple, the fish market, and the retail stores steamed with the dank scents of weak tea and wet nylon, but the sidewalks were almost passable. I figured the soap bubble gun vendors and the little old lady who'd kept poking me in the kisser with her parasol the last time around must have fled for shelter from the impending storm.

Armed only with a golf umbrella, I reminded myself that the language barrier had not changed. When I reached 98 Mott Street, the address of Mr. Yan's International Tailor Company, I duly refrained from pulling on the breast pockets of my shirt, making scissors-clipping gestures with my fingers, and standing at attention as if in front of a fitting room mirror, repeatedly saying, "Clothes, suit, tailor."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Hurt Yourself by Harry Hurt III. Copyright © 2008 Harry Hurt III. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Preface,
Act One: Chinatown Quartet,
I'm Here to See a Man About a Suit,
How the King of Bling Saved My Marriage,
This Suit Requires a Certain Amount of Finesse,
The Bliss and the Bling Delivered in a Bespoke Suit,
Act Two: Close Shaves, Clay Pigeons, and Château Bow-Wow,
$1,300 Shoes Beckon and an Unexpected Man Answers,
The Night That Never Happened,
In Search of the Perfect Shave,
Stalking the Ferocious Clay Pigeon,
Act Three: Yin, Yang, Bucking, and Brandy,
Is Anybody Necessary? Dr. Ying and the Four Noble Truths,
A Career, Briefly, in Polo,
Yin, Yang, and Back Relief at 105 Degrees,
No Stranger to Fine Cognacs,
Act Four: Flights of Fancy and Fatherhood,
Gaining Altitude, Doubts in Tow,
A Novice Pilot Soars, and His Doubts Fall,
Man, Middle-Aged, Seeks Swimsuit,
A Boy of Summer Who Prefers Melee,
Act Five: Ready for Some Football? Then How About Ballet?,
A Paper Jet Recalls Plimpton, If Not Namath,
A Paper Jet Seizes the Moment with a Quick Ace Right,
The Man Who Traded His Jets Uniform for Woolen Leg Warmers,
Paper Balanchine,
Act Six: Hollywood, Hot Dogs, Fire-Eating, and White Water,
A Day in the Life of an Extra, Er, Background Artist,
Hawking Hot Dogs: Some Are All-Stars and Then There's…,
Where the School Lunch Menu Includes Fire and Swords,
Tuck Forward, Chill Out, and Wait for the Hands of God,
Acknowledgments,