Monday, December 10, 2007



The last real overcoat I ever owned was when I was a child. It was a hand-me-down from my rich cousin Robin Tow whose father owned the ritzy Buenos Aires department store, Casa Tow in the late 40s. In Argentina the overcoat was never called an abrigo (Spanish for coat) but a sobretodo which means "over everything". When we moved to Mexico City it never really got cold enough for one. In my 5 years in Austin, Texas it was bitterly cold in winter but I got by with rain jackets.

It was in the Argentine Navy that I was issued something close to a an overcoat. We called it a gabán. It was a poor quality canvas type blue raincoat. It had a cheap removable lining that was made of Argentine wool. It kept me warm even in those humid Buenos Aires winters when you could smell the River Plate as it sent cold winds that would sneak up Calle Corrientes. I would often walk up Corrientes to bars that served submarinos. These were glasses of scalding hot milk held by a metal cup and served with a long spoon and a large bar of bitter chocolate that melted away the cold.

In 1974 Rosemary, my two daughters Ale (6), Hilary (3) and I drove, from Mexico in our VW beetle to a holiday in San Francisco. One afternoon I went to an army surplus store and bought me a US Air Force overcoat that was a middle blue, double breasted with nice metal buttons. The material was like a thick wool blanket. It was heavy and it kept me warm. Because we had been teaching English in Westin Hotels in Mexico City we had a heavy discount at the St Francis Hotel on Union Square. On my way back (wearing my blue overcoat) to the hotel I decided to see a film I had read so much about. It was Deep Throat. This was the first pornographic film I ever saw. I never saw another. In front of me were two black men eating from huge bags of pop corn and exchanging loud comments on what was happening on screen. From then on I always associated my overcoat with that film. I wore it in Vancouver until age finally made me realize I was not going to be thin all my life the way my father had been. The coat felt tight and I got rid of it. Since then I have made do with raincoats over sweaters or simply braved the cold between my parked car and walking with Rosemary to the opera or the ballet at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

In the early 80s I photographed porn star Marilyn Chambers in her Four Season's Hotel room in Vancouver. Nearby was the scary man Chuck Traynor who had been Linda Lovelace's manager when Lovelace filmed Deep Throat. He was Chamber's manager. When writer Les Wiseman and I left Chambers and Traynor we felt a chill go over us.



Sometime in the mid 90s Wiseman and I passed by the Marble Arch and we entered to see a woman who was being billed as the new Marilyn Chambers. Her breasts had been augmented to resemble the engine nacelles of a B-24 Liberator bomber. Wiseman lost interest and beckoned us to leave. I stopped him when I pointed out the man who was taking the Polaroids of patrons posing by the Chambers replacement. "That's Chuck Traynor." It was and we promptly paid our $10 bucks each to have our picture taken. The whole point was not who was in the picture but who had taken it. I looked at Traynor and he never met my eyes. Wiseman told me he owed huge sums to the US tax department. He seemed to be almost another person. But he was still scary. The Polaroid disappeared in my library. Perhaps it is inside a book. Somehow when Traynor took my photograph the "stain" on my US Air Force overcoat disappeared from my memory.

I forgot all about it until this week when I finally bought myself my first real adult overcoat. It is a black, all wool London Fog. It is pristine and warm. I am a happy man.