Current generations flaunt. While past generations fret. I am pretty blasé about effusive body art and cock-eyed ballcaps. Each generation creates its own identity thru its clothing, its music, and its slang among other ways.
There was a moment in the mid 70s – at Bagnall Dam at Lake of The Ozarks – when I almost got a single pierced ear. The moment passed. I retained my lifetime membership in WASPs-R-Us. Long live Ward Cleaver …. sort of.
The SINGLE GREATEST EVOLUTION in sports in the new millennium has been the removal of those dangling price tags from the winners caps in post-big-game victory celebrations. THAT single bit of adolescent sartorial self-expression DID p*ss me off.
What does fascinate me is the genus of these generational expressions. Like searching for the headwaters of The Nile or the first AIDs victim, every large-scale trend starts with some eclectic goober getting dressed in the dark or so drunk he shaves his head to win a bar bet.
I was certain that a kid named George Tennille started the baby boomer trend of “weejuns without socks” back in the 60s. Then I learned that teenagers in Tucson were doing it and George had never been west of Flat Rock. If not George, who?
And profanity ? Someone was the first to utter %$^# as well as *&^% and #$@%. Did they give it a lot of pre-thought or was it more a spontaneous “speaking in tongues” thing? Is there a Global Clearinghouse for profanity? Maybe each language has its own Cussin’ Committee that decides?
Iconic celebrities are responsible for certain trends. I blame Michael Jordan for those infernal baggy not-shorts that now permeate basketball. There will be a trend reversal at some point at the whim of a future iconic role model. I favor slightly over the kneecap in case anyone cares. NO ONE advocates a return to the Larry Bird / Richard Simmons itty bittys !! Not even Larry or Richard.
Those long “softball pants” taking over baseball ?? There are quite detailed uniform regulations in professional sports. The NFL continually fines players for violating those regulations. If Sparky Anderson had been MLB commissioner when those “long pants” were introduced, they would not have been. Manufacturers of stirrup socks and “sanitaries” immediately joined “buggy whip” guys in bankruptcy. I never heard Clyde King’s opinion, but I’m pretty sure I know how he felt about it.
I’m obviously in favor of facial hair as Official Spokesman For Weak-chin Guys. I loved the Oakland A’s of the 70s. I’ve had a beard for 25 years excepting one 3-day period in the early 90s when I had another “get a pierced ear” moment. I wanted to see if my facial structure had markedly changed. It had not. I quickly returned to my roguish ways content that I would never work for Hyatt Hotels or IBM (in those days).
The cock-eyed / backward ballcap thing perplexes me. If Kid showed up with
…ho-daddy in a cock-eyed cap …
some ho-daddy sporting a cock-eyed ballcap, I might winch a bit but I could get passed it. Those straight brim ballcaps don’t do anything for me either, but I’m not a Blood or a Crip and I don’t have Snoop Daddy on my iPod.
One can straighten a ballcap as easy as one can throw away a pair of bellbottoms and a tie-dyed t-shirt. Cleaning up of a tatt- covered torso festooned in Chinese folk art is another matter.
Re: Body Art. My standing deal with Kid is that if she gets a tatt, I will get a tatt. That threat keeps her clean of tatts. A butterfly on a well-turned ankle, I’m OK with. An Eagle, Globe & Anchor on a jarhead’s biceps or “I heart Mom” on a stevedore seems OK.
Best line I heard the past few weeks: “I refuse to watch a sport where the participants are too illiterate to read their own tattoos”.
EVERY power forward in the Big East HAS to have one deltoid / bicep covered in some elaborate scrolling. Is it some secret code or just the result of a drunk tatt artist working under bad lighting?
In 2046, the first senior citizen gal will enter an assisted-living center sporting “a tramp stamp” just above her butt-crack. Good Lord willing I’ll be playing a celestial harp by that time. Do NOT send me that YouTube. Speaking of which …. don’t send me those “Wal-Mart People” pictures anymore either. Just because.
I am pulling for Butler this weekend. I’ll be fine if it’s VCU but Butler’s Matt Howard is the poster-boy for every Caucasian kid with a 4” vertical jump and unruly hair. Matt Howard is Tyler Hansbrough if Tyler only got one haircut per year.
Butler coach Brad Stevens is “an inspiration”. If Brad can succeed at the highest level then there’s hope for very smart, very polite, clean-cut guys WITHOUT a monster ego, an expletive-laced vocabulary and enough situational ethics to choke an AAU street agent. If Norman Rockwell was painting Sports Illustrated covers, Brad would be his model.
Vegas announces the “over-under” for how long Calipari gets to count this Final Four appearance is seven months. “Cal” is two-for-two on “wiped outs” so far.
The BB Coaches Convention is held in conjunction with The Final Four. You can bet that Frau Yow will be working the hotel lobby “like a hooker on commission” …
I’ve haven’t discussed it here … but in the big NFL labor brouhaha, I’m on the side of the old guys from the 50s-60s-70s. Getting a monthly pension check for a measley $125 is bad enough but not being able to walk to the mailbox to get it is even worse. Maybe it’s a good thing that dozens of undiagnosed concussions have rendered many of them virtually comatose.
MAJOR scandal breaking with Auburn Football …. Shocked ? Is nothing sacred – Auburn Football Dirty ??? Head Coach Gene Chizik says “I had no idea any of this was going on …..” – bwahahahahaha! Butch shoulda copyrighted that phrase.
“…. involvement in big time college football is a hazardous undertaking.” – Holden Thorp – Fall 2010
