Personal Fashion and Vices

Personal Fashion

I'm not a fashion buff obviously. Most of my shirts and pants are wrinkled, stained (mostly mustard and coffee stains), covered in cat hair, missing zippers or buttons, and are probably home to undiscovered biological life while my shoes have many holes to prominently show everyone that my socks don't match. This slop fest is then enclosed in a giant black tortilla called a trench coat. In general, I pretty much have had the same wardrobe since high school with a few tweaks. For instance, I wear less shirts with funny phases on it like "Don't let me get my flying monkeys", and I've also thrown away most of my iconic fast food branded t-shirts after realizing that nobody goes to bed with someone labeled Taco Bell. Furthermore, I completely removed myself from the Crocs line of shoes which might be one of the smartest decisions in my life. Not that I don't think they are comfortable, but the fact that no style of that shoe is attractive - yeah, definitely not the ones with fur on it. Actually, if I ever discover a volcano, I'm dedicating it to all the UGG boots and Crocs of the world. It will have a sign on the bottom that reads "Step up to the volcano edge, take off your shoes, throw them in and start increasing your chances of getting laid." The volcano would also be named Helga and have a Dippin Dots ice cream stand because your future life without those feet dwellers should start with futuristic ice cream.

Vices

I got to start remembering that a glass of wine is not a bottle. There's something to this; everything seems simple and usually leads to something more complex. A heartbeat leads to a stroke, or more simply life leads to death. A perfect example of chaos. Vices temporarily remove us from this conclusion or maybe guides us to some kind of compromise. Its job is two-fold: to keep us from fully understanding the fucked up situations we take on or maybe make sense of them. But how many cigarettes do we have to smoke till life comes into full focus? How many drugs are needed to produce something we can accept? Everything manifests into a form that is unique to us and it is our job to interpret it. Narcotics, alcohol, and promiscuous sex can only take us down so many paths, with each road engaging new ideas or fables while truth slowly reveals itself, whispering around every bend. Consequently, you know deep-down that a fire starts from a spark, burns with a hot heat, and ends in embers. Each story a drawing board that illustrates nothing significant and is easily erasable. Divination might be the answer. Knowing that the feelings or words we want to say have no future. Maybe, it's drowning thoughts that make the most sense sometimes, and it's vices that keeps them from floating to the surface.

The Worst DJ and The Result of Too Many Rom-Coms

The Worst DJ

It’s easy to be a good DJ, but it’s even easier to be a bad one. I’m talking about playing all the right songs at all the wrong times. Spinnin’ the Thong Song at Little Timmy’s communion or droppin’ the 1998 hit single from Will Smith, Miami in Miami. This is the road to being a bad DJ, but why stop there when you can be so much worse. Yep, it’s finally time to bust out that wolf coat and dad cologne to dress the part. Maybe become a dread head or get a perm; hair-do or don’t. It’s all part of your funk and it smells so bad. Similarly, it’s time to work on those moves. Yeah, you’ve got the wave, but what about the tsunami? Take a splash with a quick dip and plug your nose, or throw callbacks to all your favorite movie bust-a-moves (Pee Wee tequila dance ya’ll). Don’t spin records, spin CDs and hit on every girl you see. You're doing great, but don’t forget to keep asking the crowd to bring you a jagerbomb.

The Result of Too Many Rom-Coms

How does it happen? A random bump, some snuggling, and then living with the ones we think are right. Is it trial and error or just giving up? Finally settling and giving into mediocrity with the mindset that it’s better than being alone. We stitch the patterns we hate. It could be better, but we compromise on the one thing that we have all the say in - love. It doesn't have to be like that. Romance is not dead; it’s still breathing. It’s reaching out for your hand with its trembling one, but it’s exhausted and tired. Not from waiting, but from trying.

Cleaning and The Reuben

Cleaning

Cleaning is less about sanitation, and more about self education. Everybody has doubts; everybody has that existential moment at the tail end of a wine glass where they ask themselves “who am I” or “what have I become.” Don’t answer these questions with a thumb up your ass and a self-delusional fantasy; get up and start cleaning. It’s opening a dusty drawer and finding that sad, expired box of condoms that really capitalizes on your state of loneliness. It’s locating a pack of unopened, thawed corn dogs wedged between a broadsword and a spare tire which truly emphasizes your laziness and love of nerd culture. Rummage through old love letters to understand your incompetence at dating or calculate your manliness by counting the number of hot sauces in your fridge. The evidence of your life is sprawled out in an unorganized fashion, hiding among clothes, camouflaged as a bookmark, or lost in a shoebox. It’s time to start playing your own, personal game of Clue where each character is another one of your characteristics and each item or setting adding support for why you portray it. It’s time to put on your detective hat, start picking up the pieces you’ve left behind and cracking the case of who you really are.

The Reuben

I don’t think it’s a secret, I love reuben sandwiches. In my opinion, they are up there with the Mona Lisa and Egyptian Pyramids as one of man’s greatest achievements with the additional advantage of being edible. In a city of sandwiches, they are a castle among clay houses. For this reason, it is tattooed to my body and eating them has become part of my lifestyle. The reuben is a simple, but complex sandwich containing an awesome combination of bitter, sour, and sweet with a huge hint of salty beef. These features are placed between two slices of lightly toasted rye bread and served hot and kinda sloppy where the cross-section resembles a Mike Myers’ victim after several months of decomposing. Sadly, the description I entail to you now is one rarely seen in the wild. Restaurants today have gotten the gall to place this darling on their menu only to deliver something that wouldn't even be accepted in a small-town beauty pageant. It’s disgusting with many faults including not enough beef, sogginess, and the worse, complete dryness. This monstrous act not only discourages the average reuben-goer from ordering them anymore, but also gives a false impression to newcomers. If you’re going to represent, represent the real deal dawg. If not, don’t half-ass it and stick to hot dogs.

Top Tens and Winter

Top Tens

This year has been a pretty busy one with the first half being a juggling act of four jobs and the second half getting knee deep into some fairly new science.   It's been a great, challenging year with a lot of long-term goals finally being realized, but not without the sacrifice of some closely held loves (e.g. music festivals, cinema, traveling, and late-night karaoke).  I'm ready to embrace the new year and replay some of the mistakes from last year.  Yes, I believe that you can learn from past mistakes, but I'd hate to go through life without them. Cheers.

Top Ten Albums

1. The National: Trouble Will Find Me
2. My Bloody Valentine: mbv
3. RVIVR: The Beauty Between
4. Flyying Colours: Flyying Colours EP
5. Disclosure: Settle
6. Iron Chic: The Constant One
7. Daft Punk: Random Access Memories
8. Postiljonen: Skyler
9. No Joy: Wait To Pleasure
10. Let it Go: Modern Atlas

Top Nine Movies (I could probably make a better Top Ten Worst Movies list)

1. Before Midnight
2. Spring Breakers
3. Gravity
4. Wolf of Wall Street
5. Blue Jasmine
6. The Way Way Back
7. Upstream Color
8. Much Ado About Nothing (Whedon)
9. This is the End

Haven't seen a lot this year (these all have potential): Her, 12 Years of Slave, The Spectacular Now, American Hussle, Nymphomaniac: Volume 1, Nebraska, Blue is the warmest color, the great beauty, Francis Ha, Monsters University, Inside Llewyn Davis, About Time, Rush, The Lone Ranger.

Winter

Winter has struck with summer love's residual heat quickly fading, leading to warmth and comfort presenting itself with the bold, helpless word WANTED.  This may come in the form of food, whisky, movies or a warm body.  If winter fantasies exist, mine would be under the cover sharing a handle of bourbon or watching The Twilight Zone with a french dip sandwich.  It's strange; winter brings the worst out of me.  I get so lost in its solace or lack of that I start thinking dating might be a good idea.  That spending some quality time with someone who is not a cat might be worthwhile.  I imagine making pillow talk about subjects with short answers or long stories with no purpose but to keep talking.  Like popping bubbles, these thoughts materialize as quickly as they fall apart, and I'm back to thinking its near-sighted and stupid.  Sitting alone in my apartment, I fight back winter's cool breeze by forecasting a storm.  It's an annual battle in an ongoing war where both sides deserve to win.