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I Kan't Spell



Thursday, May 13, 2004

 
Observations from Turners

I found a bar in Federal Hill that I enjoy going to. It's called Turners and you can usually find me there on Friday and Saturday night. Why do I enjoy this bar? Well...it has the coolest 6'2" Russian bartender named Yanna and a little dude named Jeff that is cool with me and loves what I play on the jukebox. The main reason, is that it's never crowded. The other reason is that it's a martini bar. Now I'm not a martini bar kind of person. But any aspect of a bar in Federal Hill that keeps the meat away from the market is good to me. I mean you are usually outnumbered 1.5 - 1 girls to boys. And the girls are hotter and more dressed up. You don't see a lot of mass bud light orders going out to a section of guys in the latest Banana Republic gear. It's more like a couples bar I guess. They have Jameson there so I'm good.

So last night after the strippers (read below) I went to Turner's. Now Yanna wasn't working and neither was the other hot girl that works there, Christine. The only reason I know Christine is that I almost got into a fight with her boyfriend...but we're cool now I guess. Anyway...I was there and a bartender that I had never seen, Tori was there with some other dude. Tori is a bombshell. I mean...she looks like she could be an ice sculpture of the hottest porn star in the world. She was wearing a huge orchid in her ear and had a self made shirt on that barely kept her 44 Double D's in there. Anyway..she was talking to some guy who's a radio station manager at 95.9. And we started talking a little about music and he told me he was a (now what was it?) a....a....something like a musical sociological historian. He was talking about how African Americans have been getting ripped off forever and how music is so vital and trivial at the same time. It sounded good, but you could tell from his delivery that he had given that speech about 50 times...so it didn't seem quite as fresh...and when someone give a speech for the 50th time there's no way the audience is getting a word in edge-wise. This sort of got me thinking about the appeal of hip hop to white suburbia. It sort of got me thinking about how passive music is, but at the same time, there may be no bigger piece of media that can segregate a culture like music can.

I started thinking about how we dress and whom we interact with. I started thinking about that, and could really only take myself as my first test sample, but for most urban/suburban youths, music plays a pretty big role in choosing groups of people. It also plays a big role in your costume. It plays a big role in your habits and ability to accept certain habits as ok, or denounce them as evil. It plays a role in your nightlife. I mean obviously, if you do something or like something it helps to define you. But I like steak, and steak doesn't really affect the way I dress or who I hang out with. I like the TV show West Wing, but again, I don't feel the need to dress like Toby or Josh as an extension of my being able to enjoy the show. But I do like Britpop, and I do like me some suburb punk. And I own, and search for witty t-shirts. I look for ways to look aloof and unbothered by trite things like jobs or money. I order scotch and water while wearing a scarf in doors. I pride myself in being able to talk in movie lines that correlate back to the same type of music found on their soundtrack. any who...

Another observation I had was the hot girl and her breeding ritual. The bartender Christina rolled into the bar. She was dressed to absolutely kill. I mean her ass was hanging out of her skirt and her huge titties were just mashed together enough to pop out of a turtleneck. It was quite impressive. But you know what that outfit does?

It says two things, and I commend her on one. The first thing it does is make people look at her.

The second thing it does, and this is commendable, is that it wards away potential male suitors unable to mate with her. Now that may seem animalistic but let's face facts. The average man sees a strong dominant female, with a body that is obviously quite adept at breeding, all her plumage is showing, and she is unstoppable. The average man sees these dominant traits, looks, desires, and then is thwarted by his own conscious, or a more suitable male. He basically sees this and instinctively covets and then cowers. He knows he does not have the ability to breed with her. He does not have the nerve or the fortitude to approach. That's a sad thing about our culture but it's true. And what is commendable is that she will go home with a man who is suited to breed with her. She will create a more dominant human being simply by having selected an appropiate-mating outfit. Girls who wear bullshit ass baggy pants or dress like they don't want to be impressed and shit like that, those are people that have diseased children that grow up to be weak and odd. The person that the breeeder copulates with will probably churn out a healthy offspring that will carry these dominant traits with it to once again super breed.

The last thing I noticed, and this is one that I've been hearing for a while, is the bullshit ass way people say they don't care about the way they look. Now I take huge offense to this when it pertains to one sect of people, the "punk" or "emo" people are usually the one to utter the "I don't care" phrase. And when they do I can't help but chuckle and think that the mohawk they are wearing is the way their hair looked when they woke up. Or the vintage McGyver t-shirt that so aptly fits their svelt torso is merely something that they found on their floor. In order to realy punch holes in them, I want to first look at their opposite. Let's look at the people that "punks" and "emo's" seemingly think do care what they look like. Let's look at the rich.

I'm going to define rich people by their superficialities. In this case, one who has to wear a uniform for all occasions. One who has to have a robe for the bathroom, a pair of bluchers for yachting and monogrammed towels for their indoor pool. Rich is not living in a nice suburban community and driving a Lexus. That's nice, but it's not really rich. The real rich people have costumes. They wear clothes whose maker can be identified by a certain cut, fabric, or emblem. They wear either traditional or current conservative, yet changing hairstyles. They engage in activities suited for their ilk. Activities such as polo, yachting, extreme world travel. They enjoy purchasing things like Persian rugs and crystal vases that house fake flowers by Faberge'. They live a life surrounded by items and events that one can easily identify them by.

Now let's define the "punk" and "emo" crew. The crew that so apparently doesn't "care" about how they dress. In this case one who has to wear a uniform for all occasions. One who has not one, but at least 7 concert t-shirts of varying levels of obscure bands that have strategic if not "planted" holes and rips. They wear trendy shoes, whether it be the light fitting Clarks, old Nike's with the waffle iron tread, or doc martins. They take comfort in knowing that their jeans are old, and that their hairstyle is one that is current and being mocked by the up and coming bands that they go to see. They engage in activities with their fellow "slackers" such as cheap Irish bars with good juke boxes, seeing bands at dive clubs on the weekend, or simply passing out on the floor at a flop house. They live a life surrounded by items and events that one can easily identify them by.


Both of these people have costumes, it's just that the "rich" group understands their costume as being a chain, and the other group thinks their costume gives them freedom. One group has money to buy crazy shit like $10,000 class eggs. And the other prides themselves in knowing the cook at the local Sip n' Bite who can give them free pancakes at 5 am. We all wear costumes people. Hey, you want to see some people that really don't give a shit about what they wear, go to a corporation and visit the mid-level programmers. They couldn't care less. Now that's punk...

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