A View So Cruel.

Looking back now it seems odd to contemplate the day ending any other way. Like an ill-fitted pair of shoes the associated permutations just seem to rub and chaff in all the wrong ways.

Which is to say Water Buffalo and Big Sad Girl decided to end the day in a loud sneering 'Which one of us knows more about Napa Valley' caterwauling death spiral. It was as captivating as much as it was jarring. The self-appointed snobbishness was teetering close to hysteria by the time I excused myself, not from the room, but from the very building and neighborhood where this was all happening. I'm halfway down Fig when I almost physically slap myself for not recording what had just transpired on the Jesus Phone. No one would ever believe what they are reading. It would be impossible. Picturing the way Water Buffalo clinically recited names of obscure townships and villages in hopes Big Sad Girl would trip up, and then BSG's indistinct yet seemingly amusing anecdotes, her shrill laughter at her own staggering wit, then another missive only vaguely dissimilar from the first.

The material is rich, textured and varied. I haven't even mentioned the Bahamian lady who insists she knows more than anyone younger than her, and is about as patronizing and helpful as a menopausal librarian. And there's an entirely different team somewhere else I know nothing about, and then the room with the folks that only read shit in Urdu. Whatever. I always take another hall to the elevators and can pretty well avoid that wasp's nest altogether.

 

It Will Not Be Removed For You

This shit is real, and I'm not sure how long I'm going to be stuck here far too close to the new Brooks Brothers for comfort, but it's seriously starting to bug.

There's the territorial water buffalo. Plopped his bag in the chair next to my desk, and then rustled up the courtesy to ask me if I mind. Like at that point I'm actually going to tell the guy to remove his junk? No, mama raised me with some manners, and so now this obnoxious cretin periodically shuffles a bit too near my workspace for his periodic feelings. This business ends tomorrow. I got bags. Nice ones. And they deserve a chair just as much as this ass clown's dumb ass Tumi bullshit.

The big girl who commutes from Riverside has an opinion on absolutely everything. Sneering, nasal & loud, she will not let many precious moments of unmolested conversation  pass without letting the team know her thoughts on whatever subject we're discussing. The opinions are absolute, shrill & unequivocal. I almost want to remind her that only 'Siths deal in absolutes', but she just isn't rad enough for a smack down like that. She laughs at her own comments. The insecurity could drown you. It's sad. Maybe even sadderthan taking the train in from Riverside every day, and deluding yourself into thinking thinking anyone would care about anything you have to say. On any subject. So sad.

Actually, they all do that laughing at their own comments shit. Except the Korean guy. I have an order of roses standing by the moment he makes it through a sentence without descending into self-reflective murmurings. The project may end before we ever get there, but if I am around for his big moment I really want to be a part of it.

Planning Is Just Another Form Of Cheating

I may have gotten just slightly out of my depth with this fantasy baseball league business. I mean perhaps only slightly. There are daily rosters, add and drops. I personally have always thought it was indecent to consider a trade before Mothers Day, but that's just small little sentimental me. It's all a bit much. I receive emails, no fewer than a dozen, daily, updating me on the comings, and goings, and the fickle fleeting appetites of my fellow co-owners. Only one of which I have ever met before. Some, I understand, may be Canadian.

I'm sure I don't have to explain myself any further. It's a mess. I refuse to look at the rankings The last time I checked I was tenuously clinging to second from the bottom. Nonetheless, the fruits of my "research" couldn't be more plain.

Jason! Mercy!

The Inner-Monologue Becomes Corrupted.

 

Oh my days did I ever miss this! Obviously I missed it, it was on Gilt, but had had I seen it I would have flown up personally to hand them their MVP for 'Buying Into One's Own Hype.'

It almost overwhelms one where to start with this article. Thinking that anyone would be interested in anything this sneering windbag has to say about men's fashion has to be put simply to the side, because two years on the article reads like genius satire.

Hindsight is never kind, and it certainly isn't kind here. First saying you're ahead of the curve in fashion is like saying you're a celebrity in LA. The only one you're trying, and the only one you may possibly convince or rather delude, is yourself. Applause for the effort.

Stocking Rick Owens at the very same moment as Neiman Marcus (not usually accused of being a bastion of the avant guard) isn't convincing evidence either. Still trying to unload that handful of eyesore 2 years on, and doing it in public is a nail in the coffin. That's what I believe a warehouse sale is for. It's where the less affluent fashion victims sop up all the buyer's mistakes.

The rest of the article is just a bunch of overblown statements which have not only been undermined by natural causes, namely they were indefensibly pompous to begin with, they are also now all largely self-contradicting. After reading the article which bags on New York (I'm not even a fan), and denounces uninspired design at the expense of 'innovation' such as stretching out one season of Ann Demeulemeester into 4 years and calling it something like Odyn Vovk or Diet Butcher Who Cares, all that really needs to be said is the following:

1. They just barely opened up a pop-up shop in New York on top of a shitty barber, and tweeted about it no fewer than six times. To their earlier, 'It would never even occur to me to open a shop there.'

2. Developed their very own brand of chinos, but with a good cut. To their earlier observations on New York Fashion Week.  'There was absolutely zero innovation. Like, “Oh, here’s a chino, it fits really well. Here’s a button-up.”' (Note: They've been unsuccessfully trying to unload these, would it be 3 years behind the curve, chinos for months)

3. Developed their very own brand of oxford shirts, but with a good cut. You get the point. The Skinny on these monumentally arrogant fuckwits is that with very few exceptions, they invest heavily in shit that people just don't care about, oops oh so just stopped caring about, or will never care about.  Which is well within their right, but don't piss on my leg and then tell me it's because you think you might be a rockstar.

Fucking Ballard. Unbelievable.

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Photo Credit: The now mercifully and quite fucking obviously defunct aforementioned Odyn Vovk. Note: You can still acquire shedloads of that black, drapey,  fuggly shit at your's truly, and probably will be able to do so for the foreseeable future. But probably at a discount.