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The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
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Jewish World Review
Dressed for excess
By
Jim Mullen
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Sue and I stopped at an interstate rest stop last week and -- no surprise in the middle of the summer -- it was packed with travelers. Very badly dressed travelers. Let's think about this -- you're traveling on the interstate, which means you have to have enough money to have a car, gas and insurance, yet you don't have enough money to buy a decent pair of pants? I'm pretty sure we were the only people in the whole place wearing long pants. We were also the only people wearing clothes that did not have some kind of (usually rude) message on it. When did clothes turn into bumper stickers for our bodies? I'm sorry that you're with stupid and I'm happy you are pregnant, but I deduced those things without your T-shirts. I could tell from the mullet the guy in front of me at the coffee bar had that he was a fan of Lynyrd Skynyrd long before I saw the band's tour schedule on his t-shirt. Are you really trying to impress me with that XXXXL Ivy League T-shirt? Were you a first-stringer on the competitive pancake-eating team?
It felt like I was crashing a convention of people with excessive shoulder and back hair. And the men were even worse. When you can braid the hair on your back, it's time for some personal grooming, guys. If you can afford the tattoo of the dogs playing poker where your bicep used to be, you can afford electrolysis. Or at least buy a flea collar. What surprised me most was that Sue and I were the best-dressed people in the place, which is something I don't think I've ever been able to say before. The two of us set a low bar for fashion. Models for Sam's Club, maybe. But models nonetheless.
I am not a snob. I am all for being comfortable. If you want to watch TV at home in your underwear looking like a Nick Nolte mug shot, be my guest. If you want to wear the most tattered and torn things you own while you are out in the backyard gardening, go to it. If you're planning to make a surprise appearance on "Cops," that food and beer-stained tank top actually makes loads of fashion sense. But if you're taking the kids to Six Flags or Disney World in an air-conditioned mini-van with back seat DVRs, you could wear some decent clothes.
There should be some basic fashion rules. Unless your son is playing basketball in the van or on his way to a basketball game, he shouldn't be wearing long, baggy, hugely ugly basketball shorts. Unless your 12-year-old daughter has a full-time job at Hooters or Victoria's Secret, she shouldn't be wearing crotch-high shorts and a Dale Evans vest with no shirt on underneath it. If you never exercise, never wear warm-up togs. Showing lots of skin is sexy if you've got the body of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. That goes for men, too. Unless you're competing for the gold in some swimming competition, no one wants to see you in a Speedo. Absolutely no one. I'm not kidding, you offend God and nature.
People complain all the time that they don't make anything good in this country anymore. Now I know why -- because if they did make good, tasteful clothes in this country, no one would buy them. Why would you spend money on clothes when you can travel coast to coast in a sleeveless tee that you slept in the last four nights with the logo of the beer you just puked up printed on the front?
"Hey, I'm comfortable," you might say. Yes, you are. But I'm not.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Jim Mullen is the author of "It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life" and "Baby's First Tattoo."
Previously:
Expert tease
The mysteries of Jersey
You are a toilet, where am I?
Don't we all cheat at the game of life?
What happens when I forget where Google is?
Don't let the doorman hit you on the way out
Picasso fiasco
Purple (hair) Daze
Let me hear your body talk
Working from work
Babies deserve clean restrooms, too
3-year-old bear-killers are a thing of the past
Money-making ideas on the fly
Collecting and hoarding
Chain of fools
Please come pick up your acting awards, ESPN commentators, you've earned them
You've been superpoked by the U.S. gov't
e-Readin', e-Writin' and e-Rithmatic
A pose by any other name
Warning: Column contains 2010 spoilers
He loves only gold, only gold
Think about direction, wonder why …
Flushing your money down a diamond-studded toilet
More like wack Friday
The good, the ad and the ugly
The desert of the real
Let books be large and in charge
I was insulting people way before the Internet
GPS drill sergeant: Left, right, left!
Butterfly in the sky, you make winds go twice as high
Music to my ears it's not
You don't light up my life
Fair or not: Country living is far from Little House
A parable for the ages
Top 100 Cable news stories of the century
Green dumb
A developing story
Thinking outside the lunch box
What's good for the goose is good for the scanner
Newspapers will survive, but network TV?
A really big show of generation gaps
When pigs flu
The reports of our decline have been greatly exaggerated
Mergers and admonitions
Invest in gold: little, yellow, different
Stuck in Folsom Penthouse
Collecting karma
Setting loose the creative juice
It's all in the numbers
You're damaging your brain with practical skills
The real rat pack
The unspeakable luxury of the Park-O-Matic
Gross-ery shopping
© 2009, NEA
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