Wednesday, September 29, 2010

I'm NOT back

Frank Toes in Kilt
 OK.  So.  I spent two years wearing kilts and I did not blog at the time.  Bad phenomenology.

What happened?  I've been wearing pants for almost a year (man time flies in midlife).  First, the politics:  The economic crash has made me more conservative (not politically...duh), but I've been wearing cool pants with sharp, bat-toed shoes and boots, lots of heavy jewelry, vests and jackets... a goth meets rock musician meets himself (while wearing pants) ... at work.  Oh, and I gained some weight and most of my kilts were hand tailored by UTILIKILT (one of the two two best companies in the world; the other is WOODS violins; Roger Linn designs is quickly becoming the third company I endorse).

And I don't "work" THIS blog (I have several) because I think I have to always write about important insights (when I should just be describing experience).  But not tonight:  I have the flu, and that buys me some latitude.  Trent Resnor's new soundtrack for The Social Network is playing (I'm digging it) and I'm surfing the web, multitasking, and pretty much all over the place.

Here's something that irks me (like Zim;  Zim's from planet Irken...get it?).  Why DO women get all the cool clothes?  I mean really, I can make a mean argument about how seasonal buying undermines women's abilities to get ahead in the world, but come on.  We get little real choice.  My blog is called the kilt guy because if you wear a skirt that becomes the focus of your life, and the attention put on you.  I'm not talking about drag (that's an art form in itself and not what I am discussing here).  I am talking about having lots of options made for men.

And the nonsense:  One night we were at a mall (I mean you cannot get lower) and my wife skipped one entrance and went to another.  Why?  She thought the guys hanging out might beat me up because I was wearing a kilt!  Another night, I went to dinner with a "so-called" real punk rocker (that pissed me off because I was a musician throughout the whole punk scene and many punks...not the real punks... had the same sense of entitlement the hicks have (you know, "I'm better because I'm from the country and not the city").  Wow.  I grew up ON a farm.  I HAD to break frozen water buckets at 5 am every morning, every winter for the horses, pigs, chickens and steer.  I've actually done things that people feel their are better for because THEY listen to Country Music.  Man.  So here I am, I played the music, I grew from the farms of NJ to CBGB in NYC.  I don't feel entitled to anything.  And I can't be a member of any club; nobody let's me in because while they talk I'm busy doing it.  Oh yeah, the "punk" just though kilts were gay.  What kind of punk is that?  Mall Punk?

OK.  So, pants, kilts, whatever.  The point here is that men have little choice.  Even if you grab a theme, an idea, a vision, and try to work it you will find that women have more options.  I just want options.  And I just think pants are stupid for guys.  They're designed for women, not men.