OK, after an extended break from blogging (short vacation followed by a return to 4,652 or so e-mails), I’m now back to my real love – thinking about the big issues in life. So what issue preoccupied me during my recent vacation. Why, fashion trends, of course. And by fashion trends I don’t mean just the stuff we wear but the entire issue of how we look and carry ourselves. Our behaviour and speech can be just as much a fashion statement as the way we cut our hair.
The other day I saw two kids walking down the street. They both had their oversized baseball caps turned slightly to one side and one of them was doing the Gangsta Rapper walk. You know the walk, the one where kids walk with that little shoulder shrug forward with each step.
Later that day I had my oil changed at Costco and was served by a guy with one of those giant rings in his earlobe. I could read the specials on the wall behind him RIGHT THROUGH HIS ACTUAL EARLOBE. I had an overwhelming urge to see if my finger could pass through his earlobe without touching the side just like a modern version of the game Operation.
So, as you can imagine, armed with a lot of free time and my keen observational skills, I turned my attention to another fashion trend that seems to have taken over the TV universe. The number one TV behavioural fashion trend seems to be this whole tilted-head guy look. What’s up with that?
You all know what I’m talking about. Here are the four tilted-head horsemen of the apocalypse as I see it.
David Caruso: The most tilted of all tilted-head guys.
The guy from Fringe: Giving David Caruso a run for his money.
The guy from the last season of 24 (Mikelti Williamson: aka, Bubba from Forrest Gump): Actually more of a tilted-body guy than a tilted-head guy.
The guy from Lie to Me: Is it me or is this guy just plain irritating?
There you have it; my list of the fab four. Of course no list of world leaders and trend setters would be complete without paying homage to those who blazed the trail, the giants, if you will, on whose shoulders our modern tilted-head greats stand. Yes, I’m talking about the two founders of the tilted-head guy look.
The guy from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jonathan Frakes, and John Wayne, the grand Poobah and grandfather of them all.
Some of you may be wondering why the heck I’m going on about this whole tilted-head look, especially those who expect quality mental health info from this blog. Well, first of all it’s important for all of you to understand that this is the kind of crap that fills my head. I regularly find myself way out in left field (not really news, by the way, to anyone who knows me).
But it is also important to understand that the tilted-head look, just like all fashion trends, be they in our language, our dress or our gait, at some point go out of style. And do they ever! Just take a look at these pictures:
Need I say more. I mean who were we kidding? This is actually what looked good when I was growing up. (My yellow pants are still in storage waiting for the look to come back. It may still be a while yet.)
Fashion statements involving hair, clothing, speech and behaviour, are bad enough but at least they are not permanent. No one is going to make anyone wear this stuff today and eventually people will start walking upright again. But what the hell are we going to think of people with giant holes in their earlobes when they are sixty…or someone with a tattoo of a dragon on his arm? Tattoos of anchors were pretty cool in the Popeye days but they do seem a tad dated these days.
So there you have it. I don’t really have much more to add. The pictures say it all. I for one will never do anything permanent to my body. It’s bad enough as it is.
I’ll get back to mental health next time.
Cheers
Tagged as David Caruso, fashion, fashion trends, Fringe, gangsta rapper, John Wayne, Jonathan Frakes, Lie to Me, Mykelti Williamson.
Posted in Humour, Random thoughts.
Posted on 13 Sep 2010
