Tuck in your shirt and wear a belt, Christopher Ford cares.

First off, I understand that if I accidentally stumble upon a website devoted to fashion, all news stories and tidbits of info will generally revolve around fashion. Same with music, travel, medicine, midget tossing, salad tossing, or knock-knock jokes. Here is the article that grabbed my attention while I perused through CNN morning news, as this was linked just after radiation updates in Japan (obviously closely related).


http://manofthehouse.com/style-grooming/fashion/tuck-in-shirt-6a?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Outloud-Outbrain


There is not much that I feel I can add to this, and certainly not from his perspective. While I appreciate taking fashion and style tips from another man, his logic and devotion to such an asinine topic actually irritated me enough to inspire me to comment.


I quote Christopher "A man should ALWAYS wear a belt. If your pants (or shorts, or whatever you're wearing) have belt loops, then you should be wearing a belt. Always. If your pants have waist adjusters or are made for suspenders then you are off the hook, but otherwise put a belt on. Even if your shirt is out and covering your belt loops, you should be wearing a belt. Trust me. Not wearing a belt makes you look like you don't care about your appearance and like maybe you should go back to exclusively wearing drawstring sweatpants like you did in college."


Wow, what an astute observation sir. By your Gentlemen's Quarterly logic, if you are wearing a shirt with pockets and a sewn in eyelet for a pen within that pocket, you better have a notepad, calculator, and pen inside that pocket. It's there for a reason, just like belt loops. Some cars manufactured today have ash trays strategically placed in multiple spots throughout the car, you better light up a cigarette, they serve a purpose and they MUST be used to avoid looking like a "slob" or "classless".


I quote again. "Generally speaking, a shirt is supposed to be tucked into your pants, and in fact the majority of shirts are designed to be tucked in. Every time a man doesn't tuck in his shirt it's a choice--a deliberate choice--and is usually made by someone younger than the average Man of the House reader. It's OK, and sometimes appropriate, to not tuck in your shirt, but know that by doing so you're making a choice."


Boy, that sounds ominous. Yes men, we are making a choice, like the one that Chris never made: to move out of his parents basement and focus on not being grossly obese instead of shaping his tuck/untuck theory around ways to make him look presentable in public when he goes on his Taco Bell run.


Here's what I think. Dress how you want to dress. If you want to wear a Fedora with sweatpants and a tube top, feel free. If you would like to wear a wife beater with some fancy slacks, have at it. If you are overly concerned with appearance, it's better to focus on your crappy personality and general unpleasantness before worrying about your belt and tuck or not tucked appearance. I mean for real, look at Mickey Rourke, he appears homeless and looks like he smells like feet, and people pay money to see him. 

Carving scars from stone

Long time, no post. Maybe this can be attributed to lack of motivation, ideas, passion, money, a keyboard.......all pretty awful excuses if you ask the right person, so I'm honestly going to make an effort to take time at least once a week to just put ideas in binary code again.

This stems from an idea I had during the week, regarding who we choose to surround ourselves with in the course of our daily shenanigans, both business and personal. I think we've all felt that feeling of "I wonder if the grass is really greener on the other side" from time to time, and that's absolutely normal for anyone who doesn't just settle for what's laid out in front of them. For me personally, it's ideas of traveling the world or writing for a publication of any sort, moving somewhere exotic and working as a bartender on a beach, elephant trainer, etc. It's the idea of self identification and the strive for always being a little bit more exhilarating, even to yourself, not just how we are perceived by anyone else. In thinking about this, I realized that surrounding myself with creative and forward thinking people is just as important as being surrounded by people who have reached the pinnacle of their pleasure centers by receiving a coupon for Old Country Buffet or took a sweet picture of their accomplishments in Farm Ville. I seem to draw a crazy amount of inspiration from both sides of the coin, and beyond my passion for music I'm brainstorming other facets of creating something out of nothing.

So my realization is this. Creating something from nothing is fundamentally the idea behind everything around us, from the start of the Universe to coming up with an idea, no matter how ridiculous, out of absolutely nowhere. With that I want to personally strive to force focus everything in my life that sucks the soul out of me and use it as inspiration to create something that will not only appease me personally, but give some sort of comfort or entertainment to others. I fully believe this will be a great year for progression and contributing to an already amazing cast of misfit idealists, like a traveling band of gypsies who despise snow and abandoned tradition by taking showers and paying taxes.