What the hell are people wearing nowdays?

I was standing in a department store in Tyson's corner today, looking at the selection of ties, when I noticed something amazing.
Ed Hardy makes ties!
Now for those of you who aren't aware of this new fashion trend, Ed Hardy is a brand which markets "vintage tattoo" inspired clothing and accessories. Imagine, all the tackiness of visible tattoos, now screen printed onto your favorite T-shirt or hooded sweatshirt! Many of the clothes available even have sequins or rhinestones as accents. Be the envy of your friends by wearing this bullshit!
Now the designs center on things like skulls and roses, with weighty terms like "love" and "death" written prominently on the graphics. Now, when my grandfather's navy buddies were getting that inked into their flesh, it was innovative. The permanence of the artwork justified its subject, as arguably "love" should be lasting, and death is anything but temporary. These are weighty concepts with deep philosophical connotations. When you wear a screen print of them on a T-shirt, you look like an ass. An ass with a skull on his shirt.
Ed Hardy markets a cologne, which I assume, in the vein of vintage tatoo-ery, smells like the bowels of a Word War II battleship stationed in the pacific. Eau de man-sweat and diesel, mmm.
But the ties are what really got me. Not only are they horrifically ugly, but the casual nature of tattoos conflicts directly with the purpose of a tie, which is to dress up a bit. These ties make not a lick of sense.
So in conclusion: Christian Audigier please stop. Come on. I said please.

New York

I don't know what it was that brought me here in the first place.
It certainly wasn't the scenery. Skyscrapers are pretty and all, but I saw all that back in 4th grade on a field trip.
It wasn't the city's excellent and various forms of public transport.
I like art, but it wasn't the Met or the Moma, or the Frick, or galleries that drew me in.
I like music, but even so, there are perfectly good jazz clubs in Georgetown.
No, I buzzed up to New York City because of the bright lights and loud sounds.
Because it wasn't DC.
Because it was large, it stood to reason that I could find anything I wanted here.
It also might have been all the pretty women.

So here it is, four years later. I've gotten settled in, I suppose.
I decorated, and re-decorated. This is easy for a college kid, as all it involves is tacking posters in a new arrangement.
I've seen some things. I've had bottle service at a big expensive club, I've drank Absolut Citron on a friends rooftop in Williamsburg, looking out over the river at Manhattan.
I've stood on another rooftop in the west village, talking about life with a good friend.

There's late night train rides back to the Bronx. Sitting alone on the 4 train as it creeps uptown at 3:30 am. Shows and concerts, window shopping on Fifth Ave, dinner with girls way out of my league. I guess New York hasn't been a total loss.

Come summer, my current obligations to reside in this fair city will cease. I'll have done it, made it through school. Pushing the throttle down with my right foot, speeding across the George Washington Bridge in a car packed with all my earthly belongings, seems pretty appealing.

The only thing that makes me want to stay is the possibility of a future with this girl. But this isn't a livejournal, and I'm not emo enough to pour my soul out to strangers on the internet.
Besides, the way things look now, I'll be shifting gears on the turnpike sometime this July, smiling behind my Costa Del Mar sunglasses, the skyline of this place disappearing over the horizon in my review mirror.

Northbound Traffic

I've just been looking at cars for the past eight hours.
Well, thats not exactly a fair statement. I've mostly been looking at brake lights, all sorts of different brake lights.
Raise your hand if you drive a car.
Now, raise your hand if you have ever thought about your brake lights.
If you haven't, I really cannot stress hard enough my recommendation that you take a minute out of your routine to do so.
Maybe you don't know this, but the 3rd brake light is a more recent innovation in auto design. Wikkipedia confirms this, calling this light a "Centre High Mount Stop Lamp", which just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?
So these third brake lights, well from what I can glean from the article, are required by law in huge sections of the planet because they reduce accidents. Hurrah! We've figured out one way as a society to stop killing ourselves.
Thomas Edison is credited with inventing the light bulb. Light bulb. Think about it. You've probably got at least two in your home. I bet there's one on near you right now. Every few weeks though, when you reach for your trusty light switch, and the lamp refuses to cooperate.
No biggie, right? New light bulb.
So, how many of you have thought about your brake lights? Eight hours on the road, and I can point out at least ten drivers whose brake lights have given out on them. I can only assume that these people have worn out the poor bulbs by following too closely on an interstate, and been that driver forever on the brakes because he has to avoid becoming one with the lead cars rear bumper. A certain beige Volvo C70 on the turnpike today jumps to mind for exhibiting perfectly this driving style, where by one constantly flashes the brake lights in an asinine and amateur fashion.
Whether or not you have such a driver following you through the rain at highway speeds, not having a third brake light increases the chances that you'll get into a crash. If you do indeed have a death wish, I hope very much that you have the consideration to off yourself in a way which is less detrimental to others. And no, don't go jump off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, because the investigation will only mean they close down lanes, and the resulting million of us in traffic jams will hate you just as much as we feel sorry for you.

Cliff's Notes: Check your brake lights, don't be a dick.

Traffic

Look, ladies and gents, you cannot complain about traffic jams if you drive like a moron.
Now, everybody is entitled to get lost now and then, and this means you'll make a wrong turn, or drive 5 mph under the posted limit looking for a street sign. (Unfortunately, if you are lost in the District of Columbia, you'll find that street signs have been almost completely abolished, and the remaining ones have been camouflaged behind foliage.) This is life, and I can't fault anybody for being human. I recently drove from New York down to DC, along the turnpike and generally following I-95, and from what I've seen, drivers have reverted to inexcusable levels of general buffoonery.
Lets start with New York City traffic. The first problem here is that the majority of this traffic consists of New York City drivers. I could write volumes on this particular breed of jackass alone, but lets keep it to bullet points so I don't bore you all cross-eyed. A large percentage of back-ups in the five boroughs is caused simply whenever the roadway requires drivers to merge lanes.
New Yorkers are completely incapable of doing so in a civilized manner, but instead operate on the principal that the more macho driver always has right-of-way.
This results in a great deal of nut-flexing, often between balding Italian men in their Cadillacs and equally balding stockbrokers in BMWs. Between shouts of "ay yo, whats the matter wit ya?" and "Are you serious? This is clearly superior german sports sedan!" there exist drivers like me, young men in low slung Japanese imports, whose car is faster than both the assholes rides in question, but who never get to use this potential speed because nobody will ever fucking merge.
Here's how it works. Remember kindergarten, when we were collectively told all about sharing, and how it made the world go round? Well, that wasn't bullshit. In order to get everybody home faster, we're just going to have to share. This means: Take turns.
For example, you go. Then I go. Then the next car in your lane goes, then the next car in my lane goes. In this manner, the two lanes of traffic seamlessly join into one. Do this properly, and we don't even have to slow down. Which brings me to my next point: How to slow down on a highway.
O.k., so you're pacing the car in front of you allowing for a proper distance based on speed. (How much following distance should I allow? Well, take Drivers Ed., but this time don't sneak off between classes to smoke pot behind the school building.) The car in front of the car in front of the car in front of you slows down. Immediately every car in the line slams on the brakes, dropping speed quickly. But the first car in line will, inevitably, speed up again, leaving all of us other jackasses 15 miles under the speed limit now wasting fuel accelerating again. Clearly, Al Gore would frown on this. I'm with him, but there is a solution: Cover the brake.
Yes, take your foot OFF the accelerator (the right most pedal, its skinny). Move this foot over the brake pedal but, here's the key, don't push down on it until you KNOW you're going to have to stop. By avoiding flashing your brake lights at everyone behind you, you're simultaneously saving the environment and keeping traffic from coming to an unnecessary halt.
Lastly, I would like to comment on the difference between a yield sign and a stop sign. A stop sign is octagonal in shape, red in color, and clearly says "stop" in bold capital letters across its center. It means apply the brakes until the car ceases forward motion. A yield sign means that you are coming into a space where you will be required to merge (see above). Comparing the two last sentences I've written, we can clearly deduce that a yield sign does not equal a stop sign. One particular driver got these two confused on the last leg of my recent trip, so I figured everybody could benefit from a refresher. Do not, under any circumstances, come to a complete and unnecessary stop in the middle of an empty road when yielding is required. All too often, you will wind up with someones Toyota Corolla halfway up your trunk.
I'll just leave off with this: I have installed on my car a set of Hella Supertones, which generate one hundred and eighteen decibels of sound at my command, which this particular driver found out. I refer to these as the "horns of justice." If you can't drive, and fail at it in front of me, I will, with little or no remorse, deafen your dumb ass.

Does Nobody Have Any Class Anymore?

O.k., so I was riding the subway back after having dinner in the city with one of the most beautiful girls I've ever laid eyes on. I'm contented, after a few glasses of wine, to sit on the 4 train until it reached my final stop at bumfuck "way farther north than anything cool happens" in the Bronx. There was a couple sitting across from me, and I won't mention their race, because it has nothing to do with my point. They were cuddling.
Objection 1) PDA.
I am of the opinion that publicly displaying your affection means either you lack the means to ensure that such actions are private, or the class to, I don't know, erect a tent?
Most of you cretins are, I'm sure, still giggling at the word erect. Don't worry, I had a laugh or two myself.
If Objection 1 were my only problem with the situation, I could probably be dismissed as an uptight prick. And admittedly, if that was the case, I might be. The problem is much greater than that though, because of my second objection to their behavior.
The female of the couple took out some nail-clippers, and began to clip the gentleman's fingernails...on the train....across from me.
Lets make it formal, shall we?
OBJECTION #2: PUBLIC NAIL CLIPPING
I was taught, from a young age, that clipping ones nails was an activity to be conducted only over a trash can. This makes sense, as you don't want to be treading all over shed human cells, since that is just gross. What was assumed during my youth, though, is that I would be clipping my own nails and that it would be in the privacy of my own house.
So, these two blew my mind.
Not only was the gentleman content to display his public grooming habits to the world, but the lady was more than obliging to trim him up, and cast the remnants all over the floor of the train.
Yes, it is New York City. I'm sure at some point, someone who was lacking in options relieved themselves in the very train car i was sitting in. And, you know what? That's ok. It only mildly smells like piss now, and the two bucks was cheaper than a cab. The old saying of beggars and choosers. But, couple sitting across from me, you are moderately well dressed. Your shoes are fairly new. I assume you are going somewhere on this train. (Probably to attempt to procreate, God knows it's easy enough) What in the hell makes you think its alright to trim your nails on the train? Who raised you? Honestly, I want to know. They deserve to be bitch slapped.

If anyone reads this continually, they may notice a recurring theme. Namely, the fact that class has become an alien concept to the majority of the people I'm stuck on this planet with. No no, not class as in the amount of money one makes. Class as in dignity, modesty, and politeness simply for the sake of compassion for your common man.
We seem to have lost it, and frankly, some of you people just disgust me.

Spotlight on Fashion!

So you're probably thinking "This guy has the balls to make a blog which says its going to talk about fashion, he must know what he's talking about!!"
You'd be wrong. Yes, I've had a subscription to GQ and I read the style section in the Washington Post or the Times, depending on what city I wake up in. However, I am, and I want to be perfectly clear here, NOT cool. I don't own a single item of clothing from American Apparel, my Chuck Taylors are not some neon color, and my pants adequately hide the shape of my legs. Additionally, I don't own a pair of aviator sunglasses, I don't pay attention to indie rock, and I DO NOT use a macbook. My ipod is a few generations old and (great job apple!) is broken.
I don't go to trendy clubs, I'm not always surrounded by a group of friends practicing their graphitti, in fact, I would not describe myself as an artist.
However, I've seen the way all you people are dressing yourselves, and let's be honest. I can do it better.
A) FACIAL HAIR

This is directed at the gentlemen out there, ladies with facial hair will probably be covered in a subsequent post. So guys, lets talk.
Raise your hand if you think mutton chops look good.
Those of you that raised your hands, you're wrong. I know its quite retro to bring back a style from the Civil War era, but your facial hair looks better with a waistcoat and top hat than your slim-fit hooded sweatshirt. Pretend your sideburns are your children who are failing in college: cut them off.
B) T-shirts
It is my learned opinion that V-neck T shirts serve a purpose: to keep people from seeing the collar of your undershirt when the dress shirt you're wearing is casually unbuttoned. This seems self explanatory, but in recent days I've seen more people opting for a V-neck T as their outer garment layer. The intended effect is probably along the lines of "i'm so cool I don't need a proper T shirt" The percieved effect; however, is "I couldn't afford a proper shirt."
If you honestly can't, don't be offended. If your checking account has more than, say, 8.50 in it right now, you should be pissed. I'm insulting you.
C)Neon Colored Shoes.
Gosh, if I were only like you, owner of the day-glo Nike Dunks, my life would be awesome. People would look at me on the subway and think "wow is he ever urban!" Girls would walk up to me in bars and ask me where I had got those shoes, or if they could come back to my apartment to, ahem, "inspect the rest of my wardrobe." (Wink motherfucking wink)
Unfortunately, I am a grade A cracker. Day-glo colors on my feet don't scream "in with it" as much as they scream "clown shoes." I'll stick to my traditionally colored Doc Martens, thank you very much.
Incidentally, when the fuck did Nike become a skateboarding brand? And snowboarding? I'll probably get lumped in with the people chucking bits of brick at the IMF buildings, but globalization sucks and so does Nike. The end.
D) Studded Belts.
I lost a very dear friend earlier this semester when my trusted 3 row pyramid stud belt suffered a leather failure due to tension. This belt had been obtained in high school at Commander Salamander in Georgetown DC, and has come with me to many shows, the top of several mountains in Vermont, and generally appeared anytime I was in a punker mood. Studded belts are cool, they just are. Hipsters, go ahead and wear them. At least THAT isn't what makes me hate your fashion sense.
The caveat here is the painted ones. These are sometimes painted day glo to match your nikes. You're spitting on punk fashion, and while it was cool for punks back in the late 70's to spit on each other at shows: that was then, this is now. Now your studded belt looks cheap and tacky.
Buy some mineral spirits and go back to regular old black leather and silver studs.
E) Skin tight jeans.
< I seem to have found a picture which illustrates the new fashion in pants as well as the phenomenon I have just mentioned regarding undershirts. Bonus!!

Please note, I grew up in the suburbs, and I skateboarded. As such, I will wear jeans that "hang off my ass" or otherwise prominently display my underwear. This is for two reasons. First, I did it growing up as a way of separating myself from other cliques of people my age. In the words of Abe Simpson, it was "the style at the time." Secondly, this is a really good way to make sure you are always wearing fresh underwear. Basically, you don't want to be airing your dirty laundry.
A second note, I like(d) punk rock. This included obtaining and subsequently altering and wearing a pair of red plaid Lip Service brand bondage pants. If you don't know what bondage pants are, you probably won't like them. The important thing to note here is that I have seen places where skin-tight pants were acceptable. Namely, at a punk rock show, or shortly before or after.
The pants everyone is wearing now though, have the close cut of bondage pants, but without the shock value of zippers and plaids. Watered down rock and roll? I think so. Bondage pants were not very comfortable, as they pinned down the wedding tackle. How are these jeans now days comfortable? They seem to fit the same, and people are wearing them everyday to class, work, and I can only assume social functions as well. At least when all these people suffer from lower sperm counts thanks to their pants, they might have less of a chance of passing on their lack of taste to a future generation.

Day One

Alright, here we are.
I always used to make fun of people who blogged, because well, they seemed to have this idea that their opinion matters. Now then, why should I choose to make one of my own? Well lets see:
First off- There is a general lack of style that seems to have invaded the culture I regretfully must label as "my generation." As you will find out eventually, "hipsters" are to me, a dirty word. Even though there are already many websites, such as "die-hipster.com" devoted to this cause, I feel like I have to add my voice to the fray. Some posts will cover the topic of fashion, and how all of you (yes, you) manage to get it wrong.
Second- Cars. I'm a boy. Y chromosome. So that means I have an unnatural obsession with the automobile and its enthusiasts. Right now, there are many problems with the domestic auto industry and apparently, with the eyes of the people who are in charge of designing the cars automakers will produce. So you, the reader, will get a run down of what exactly I think needs to be done. And remember, I'm on the internet, so I'm an expert.
Third- Bitching. If something in my life sucks and I bitch about it to all my friends, well they'd get tired of me. Somehow, there might be people out there to whom this bitching would be entertainment. I've been told I'm funny when I'm mad, so maybe you'll get some good laughs out of my rantings and ravings.