The Island on the Web has been in existence in some form or another since 1994 and has undergone many… MANY incarnations. It has been a site devoted to one person, the works of a few, poetry, art, blogs both video and written, and has served as an expression of one person’s deep seeded need to play and experiment with new technologies and various art forms. After 18 years, the island is going to change again both in name and location. No longer will it be the Island on the Web, a lonely outpost in the midst of the vastness that is the sea of information we call the Internet, but a collaboration and union of ideas.

In the beginning, I coded the Island in simple HTML. There was an all black page with a few black and white images and animated gifs stolen from a dozen sites and it was a true expression of both my innermost thoughts and my web design ineptitude. There were no links within the site, no different pages. It just kind of stretched and continued stretching down one long page.

The second Island was moved from it’s original Angelfire home to Geocities’ Soho. It drifted more into the realm of real websites with interior and external links, multiple pages, and was a haven for design website links and my poetry which, as we all know, was both horrible and cathartic to write. This version lasted quite a while. I would update the graphics pretty regularly and I started storing files there that I didn’t want to loose.

When I left school, the Island fell into disrepair. I didn’t update it, I let the links die, and the information on the page became out of date. It was a couple of years in Limbo before I decided to revive it. I bought a domain, Islandontheweb.net, and revamped the entire site. I picked up flash and animated the entire thing. At first, I was pleased with the turn the Island had taken, but it started to grow stale quickly and I revamped again and again. I turned it into a “Submit your own poetry” site, I held contests, uploaded artwork and photos. I’ve gone minimalist, artsy, intricate, and at times the site was incredibly convoluted.

The most recent incarnation was linked to Boompoet.com, PalmerAttaway.com, and Islandontheweb.com, all of which were redirect links to Islandontheweb.net. I started playing with CSS and redesigned it only three more times before I met Lindsay. At that point… I ignored the Island and began to simply keep up with my Blog which is a small part of the Island’s former glory. I realized, I have Facebook and Google + to keep up with people, Deviant art to keep up with my artwork, Stumble and Digg to keep up with my links of interest, and so on. If I wanted to blog or vlog, I’ve got sites for that too, all of which are interconnected. I came to realize, the era of the personal web site… unless you’re selling something…. is dead.

My wife and I have purchased “Attaway.me” and there you will find the new version of the Island. It’s not really an island now, but more a larger landmass with interconnected websites dotting the landscape like domed utopian cities housed on servers around the web. Lindsay has Lindsay.Attaway.me and I have Palmer.Attaway.me which is the blog site from the old Island on the web. I am only keeping the Island domain as a forwarder for a year. At the end of that year, I will decide to keep the Island domain in the interest of nostalgia, or I’ll let it slide into the swirling mists of nowhere out there on the Internet. I have some time to decide.

I tend to follow in my wife’s foot steps picking up the fiction she discards like a starving bird collecting breadcrumbs dropped by a couple of fat kids on their way through the woods so they can find their way home. I take these crumbs and devour them eagerly and sometimes… they’re juicy morsels indeed. In this case, this particular crumb… erm, book… hearkened back to my childhood in a way that it did not for her. Check out her review and you’ll see what I mean.

The story of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is about Wade Watts, a video game nerd living in a dystopian future made bearable only by a fantastic virtual world called the Oasis, an immersive MMORPG / Internet combination. The world Cline creates is kind of a mixture of Mad Max and the Matrix in that the world is gone to hell, everyone is poor and there’s no gasoline, but most of humanity is plugged into a simulated world better than the one outside. Peppered with a bit of the cyberpunk genre with huge multi-national corporations running the world and doing evil, evil things, Cline paints a picture of a “real world” I would probably want to escape from too.

The game’s designer, James Halliday, was the typical uber-geek who lived in seclusion and worked technomiraculious wonders in the real world and the Oasis until his demise. Halliday coded an “Easter Egg” into the simulation that he posthumously announced to the entire online community and the media via his online avatar and a fancy music video. For years afterwards, people hopped to find the egg and had to research Halliday’s life and obsessions including his fascination with the 80′s and vintage video games. There are tons of references to 80′s pop culture and various defunct companies, discontinued products, and so on that jostled me back to my youth.

During the course of the search, Wade goes through some serious changes and trials in the real world and in the game universe. Ultimately, the story is not about the egg or his search for it, but the story of a man and his obsessions, friends who realize there are no limits to what friends can accomplish, and love… not just creepy cyber-stalking love, but actual love… unrequited and otherwise. I was thrilled to read that Warner Brothers bought the rights to the movie in 2010. This flick should rock… though I am concerned about all the Rush on the soundtrack.

Lindsay wrote that the references in the book were ubiquitous to the point of becoming annoying, even infuriating. I found them to be… I don’t know… touching? I was five in 1980, a teen by the time the decade ended. These are the formative years in a young geek’s life and while I understand what she is talking about, I have to disagree. Lindsay is 30 and I am 36. It’s not much of a gap now, but at the time, I was living through first jobs, Space Invaders, and the Safety Dance, Lindsay was just becoming aware of popular culture and the scope was limited some what by what was available to her age group. At fifteen when I was coming fully into geekdom, Lindsay was 9 and starting her journey into pop culture, nearly missing the 80′s and moving full throttle into the 90′s… one of the best new music decades in history. I have several friends who are six or more years older than I and in the story, the programmer Halliday was a teen in the 80′s which means they would get even more out of this book that I did.

That, I think, is the draw back here. It’s a story that I think most could enjoy just because it’s a well written and expressive one, but those who will get the most out of it are a narrow margin of people born between 1970 and 1976. While geeks into classic arcade and console games will also enjoy and relate, It’s going to mean the most to those people in the 30 to 40 age bracket who lived and were fully aware of the decade that built computers and started the cyberage.

There are milestones in life that are typical and expected, but exciting none the less. Your first step, your first driver’s license, moving out of your parent’s home and starting your own life, going off to college… all of these move one further from dependence and closer to “freedom”. After getting free, what do you do then? In my case, I have willingly bound myself to another person. Yes, friends, I am married and for all my hopes and dreams of dying alone, I will not be facing this perilous world by myself as planned.

Lindsay and I have traveled in circles not dissimilar for some time. She knew, or at least new of, many people I’ve known and had almost lost track of. We’d probably bumped into one another a thousand times but never noticed until the time was right. We’ve been together for eleven months tomorrow and instead of waiting until June as planned and wading through the minutia of an over blown wedding ceremony, we decided to fast track the beginning of our hopefully long life together and get hitched. We’ve been engaged for a little while and since we live together, there was no real reason to wait. Couple that with the fact that we’d like to buy a house and two incomes are better than one, we though, “What the hell? Let’s do it.” and we did.

Lindsay was so excited. I was a little stressed, but mainly about logistics and not about the wedding proper or it’s consequence. I felt like we were already married and I already knew I wouldn’t spend my life with anyone other than Lindsay. I was ready. She, on the other hand, was giddy and giggling. It was like nothing I’d seen of her since we’ve been together. Her dress was understated, elegant, and simple while with her trademarked (well they should be) Tom’s shoes… white with blue stitching. I wore gray slacks, checked sport coat and purple accouterments.

We streamed the feed live online for those who couldn’t make the ceremony due to it’s impromptu nature and even my boss was able to watch. All the people who were close that mattered were there, though I’m sure she would have like her father there as well as her intended maid of honor, Sneha, and I would have liked to have my sister around and my buddy Joe for moral support. Otherwise, most of the people we care about the most… our family… were there.

What now? Well, in the immortal words of Marcellus Wallace, “I’ll tell you what now.” Now we buy a house. Now we continue forward building something self sustaining that will grow and blossom. Who knows; Maybe we’ll have kids, maybe we’ll just have more cats. Perhaps we’ll still be debt free save a mortgage by 2017 as was my plan. The point is, we have each other and will always. So the “What now?” is to enjoy the “now” and make a plan for the “what” so we can pick up the “then” when it becomes “now” and still be prepared. If any of that made sense, then you need to seek medical attention.

Finally, I’m considering a new blog. I thought about “Husband number one… The Life and Times of Lindsay’s First Husband” but I thought that might be tempting fate and a joke in poor taste. I have decided when we do buy whatever house we’re getting, I’m going to chronicle the long uphill battle with Lindsay on decorating it. I went to school for design. I could create a show piece house…. but Lindsay has her opinions. It should be interesting to see how things unfold. Don’t worry, I’ll still maintain this one for the usual content… you know, zombies, robots, clothes, and the occasional truly inspired rant about how much I hate people who hate other people for no good reason.

Keep tuned.

I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago and asking him some questions about a place he once lived and my current working location, Houston Texas. I have been working here for the last few weeks and my sister lives here. The difference between my sister and me, besides everything that is, is that she won’t be going back to Shreveport at the end of the week. She loves living here and has for years now while I’ve been content to live in the comparatively small city of Shreveport. I’ve visited large cities like Houston (third or fourth largest in the USA) and Los Angeles (the second most populous city after New York) and I’ve worked in small towns. I grew up in Stonewall, Louisiana which was a village until shortly before my family lived there. I never noticed the extremes, though. I mean, sure… people complain about Houston traffic until they’ve driven in LA. People in LA complain there’s nothing to do until they visit Shreveport. It’s not about where you are… it’s about who you are. I’ve always said that.

Ten or more years ago, I was in Bellevue Washington just outside Seattle. Up until that point, I’d never even been on an airplane… this was before I gained traveler extrodinaire status and got my first hotel platinum member’s club card. I was in Bellevue for three months training for a position with a tech company and I loved it despite the cold. I also found it to be unusually sunny, expecting dreary Seattle from the television or movies I’d seen. I enjoyed my time there and then… came home. I was not tortured by the banality of Shreveport afterwards. I didn’t long for the coffee places, the artistic vibe, or the romance that was Washington State. It was just a place I had been and was there no longer. I was still me, after all.

It is not the place you live, the friends you have, the stuff you own, but the “who” you are that matters and that brings you satisfaction or happiness or contentment. There are benefits and drawbacks to living anywhere you might choose. There are easier to find jobs in most larger cities. In small towns, you’re limited when it comes to avenues of income. There are interesting places to go in big cities, sure, but they are distractions from what really matters most of the time. Seclusion in small towns is nice, but interaction with other people, while something I mostly find annoying, teaches us something about ourselves as well. I see the ins and outs, the pluses and minuses of living in different communities and honestly, I am unaffected by these considerations. I live in my own little bubble and I am happy there with me… well, not JUST me. I’ve invited someone else.

I had made a deal with my soon-to-be-wife that if she’d finish her thesis and get her Library science degree, we could move to Houston if there was a job there for her. I have offices here so I wouldn’t have to worry about changing jobs or finding a new career. Alas, on a visit she realized that there were no homes in our price range where she wanted to live in Houston. I wouldn’t mind living on the out-skirts, but she would want to live in the Heights, an area a lot like Highland in Shreveport where we live now only with the odd shop, restaurant, gallery, or bar mixed in for good measure. I can’t say that I am surprised, but she seemed so unhappy that we couldn’t move where she wanted. Shreveport, though, is not “that bad”.

I am comfortable in Shreveport because I am generally comfortable. I can be comfortable in Chicago, Houston, Seattle or Saint Louis. If I lived in a big city, I’m sure I’d go camping or hiking more, but otherwise, it would have little impact on my life. I am really only home for a week out of the month anyway, so who cares where I sleep, right? Lindsay, on the other hand, likes to be distracted and having gotten a taste of New Orleans in her formative years, loves “big cities”. New Orleans compared to Houston is a small town but extending the comparison to Shreveport, we currently live in the country. Things are different when the population rises and I can see the draw for anyone who liked night life or culture. There are more interesting things to get involved with in a larger city than the one in which we live. While I question the need for distraction, I can understand the better opportunities. This is one of the areas in which Lindsay and I differ… entertainment is not all that important to me. If we could have afforded a $300,000 house we’d probably be moving fairly soon. We are, however, looking for a home in Shreveport… in Highland.

]]> http://islandontheweb.net/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=317 0 http://islandontheweb.net/wordpress/?p=314&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=real-life-superheroes-or-how-to-get-yourself-killed-for-a-good-cause http://islandontheweb.net/wordpress/?p=314#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:21:10 +0000 Boompoet http://islandontheweb.net/wordpress/?p=314

RLSHs or Real Life Superheroes are here to help us all… by wearing silly costumes and pepper spraying kids “dancing” on street corners or by visiting k-marts. You may be wondering what the hell I’m talking about and, you know what, I really kind of wish I was right there with you. Through a quirk of the internet’s sense of humor I was directed to a sight talking about real life super heroes and how much their costumes did or did not suck, ranking them on a scale from 1 to 10.  I’ll get back to that.

There are superheroes amongst us donning ebay purchased flack jackets and bullet proof vests or having armor custom made, even. Some are highly trained martial artists and others are… well… not. InSeattleWashington, there is a group known as the Rain City Superhero Movement and they do actually patrol looking for crime.  Phoenix Jones has actually been arrested for stopping said crime though the last couple of times he was released and no charges were pressed.

In Indianapolis there’s a group called the Justice Society of Justice… seriously. They have Myspace pages and everything! It looks like most of their friends are superheroes as well. Many are ridiculous children playing at dress up and making up goofy names like green scorpion, Mr. Silent, and Night Fox… probably idiotic back stories as well. Here’s the “about” blurb from Night Fox’s site:

I fight crime in the state of Washington back and forth betweenSeattle,TacomaandPuyallup. I am willing to travel to other states to fight crime. Being a masked crime fighter is difficult but this country has nearly drowned itself in criminal activity, I am here to save this country and, to save everyone in it. I am Night-Fox, and Im going to do everything in my power to stop crime from destroying my country and if possible, this world.

All of that is beside the point, though… think Occupy! If you were to take this to an activist level, keeping the streets clean and safe from criminals, what could be accomplished? How about if one were to hire a well trained paramilitary force and put them in costumes and sent them out to fight crime, what good would be done? Sure some drug dealers might die in the process, but what’s the harm in that? As far as I can tell, this “RLSH” thing isn’t going to come to that and there’s nothing SUPER about these people. Lots of them are just young people trying to make a difference or older people who’ve had enough. A member of the Black Monday Society in Utah called Asylum used to collect money for a drug dealer and is trying to make up for his past. Phoenix Jones, for instance, believes in what he’s doing and I applaud that. If more people were to take up arms against the ills of our society, namely the criminal underbelly, we’d have a lot fewer ills….. in our… underbelly.

You know what I mean.

For what does one require space? How about storage in your home? While it is true enough that Americans like to spread out, it has been proven that we can dwell in the tiniest of domiciles with only a modicum of discomfort. It has also been proven that, after spending a number of years in a small confined area, we tend to get used to it and crave the closeness of those walls. It’s not just we adaptable Americans or the undaunted pioneer spirit, but human nature. What is also part of the afore mentioned pioneer spirit is the need to push boundaries and that is something one does not think of typically when talking about small scale architecture.

My sister posted an article on Facebook that I found very interesting. Since I’m contemplating a move in a couple of years and since I am also looking at enhancing my storage space in my current home imminently, I found the article of particular interest. Mark Schatz and Anne Eamon are architects that own a thee lot compound north of the loop in Houston. They have been toying with smaller and smaller spaces in which to live and each time they build a smaller home, the usable space feels larger to them. Mark is quoted as saying “If it’s well-designed, a small space can come off seeming twice as big as a poorly laid-out larger space…” and he’s right. I have a ton of space, but each room was designed with singular purpose and no thought to the technological or social developments leading up to the 21^st century.

My living room should be a dining room. My “entry way” as I call it should be the living room but has no place for an entertainment center, my office is a bedroom and Lindsay’s library is a sun room addition that really gets very little sun and has been both a bedroom and an office off and on over the years. When I first moved in, I used it as a bed room… not the best one in the house given the lack of a closet. On top of these misuses, there are now two people with two people’s worth of accumulated junk in the house. The word “junk” is uncharitable. Lindsay has some very nice culinary items… pots and pans that rival those found in fine restaurants and many of mine are from Walmart or even Brookshires (Never buy cookware from the grocery store). We have a love seat and a couch but we should probably only have a love seat and a couple of small chairs for the scale of the house and we have two dining tables; One in the library for cataloging books, and the other is in the entry way. All of this stuff just clogs up out lives and serves only to stump toes and cramp a space that was already misused and poorly thought out.

The article about the tiny house made me think. I’ve got at least a fifteen hundred square foot home, probably more like eighteen-hundred and I feel cramped. There is something wrong with that, right? I have been looking at homes on Zillow and the square footage I’m looking for is larger… by a lot. I was upping the size to accommodate the crap we own but I don’t want to take all of this to a new city. I don’t want to have to move it all. Besides, if you have the right items, you don’t need as many of them. I decided to think of what appliances are actually required, what utensils, what technology, what things I actually need and I’m going to get rid of everything else. I know Lindsay won’t want to get rid of anything else of hers as she paired down quite a bit before moving in with me. It is time, however, to do away with more of my junk. Anything I wouldn’t want to take with me or that I could replace if I really couldn’t live without is going in the trash or to Goodwill.

I’m also taking a cue from Mark and Anne… If I don’t use it, I don’t need it… if it won’t fit in a five hundred square foot apartment or house, it’s out.

Wikipedia defines the Beat Generation as “…a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired.” Experiencing life in all it’s myriad forms, journeys of self discovery, and a “devil may care” attitude set these individuals apart from the Betty Crocker suburbanite robots of the day. The things is, they were still part of the times and they changed things. They built something important and they freed many, many people from the ho-hum hum-drum lives that they were resigned to living. Wikipedia goes on to say, “Central elements of ‘Beat’ culture included experimentation with drugs, alternative forms of sexuality, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, and the idealizing of exuberant, unexpurgated means of expression and being.” Now that’s a mouth full.

Hipsters, on the other hand, are none of these things. They are not innovative. They are not a “cultural phenomena”. While looking at a photo in black and white of a hipster and one of Kerouac, one might have difficulty in telling the difference. It’s a matter of attitude and how they perceive their individual worlds. These hipsters are, in fact, the antithesis of the Beat generation. Beatniks shunned materialism while there are whole stores in our consumer society niche marketed to hipsters and products tailored to be ironically worn or used by them. They’re a mass of consumer sheep and they stand for nothing more than the Mr. Snaffleburgers of the world; Conform, Consume, Obey!

I was in one such store with my fiancée in Houston, Urban Outfitters, and there were so many horridly ugly sweaters I thought I’d be sick. I recall asking, “When did this get cool?”. If I’d kept the sweater with the cowboy on it I got in high school as a present (or terrible joke) then I’d be the coolest dorky looking kid on the block. I was embarrassed to wear the damn thing in public and now, sweaters with kittens, snow flakes, and so on are all the rage. They’re worn as though they’re cool though they are plainly not… that’s ironic clothing. Body mods and piercings like guages or snake bites once only sported by the punks or skins are ridiculous looking on anyone else but it’s because they’re ridiculous that they become cool… ironic body mods. A mustache is just a mustache but an anachronistic handlebar mustache… ironic facial hair. It’s hot out but they wear scarves and beanies. Holy crap people! An article on Psychologytoday.com said, “Hipsters, though, follow a different paradigm. Their problem is that their purchases tend to place them within a category whose mythology they despise. That’s right: Nobody likes hipsters, not even hipsters.”

Let’s not get them confused, however, with the Hipsters in the 40′s like Bing Crosby, Django Reinhardt, Buddy Rich and Artie Shaw. These cats were the fathers of beat in my opinion…. well, if not they at least paved the way for it. These were the “hep cats” who knew how to swing and they knew what a good time was. They were style and class personified and, again, they stood for something. Today’s hipster (little h) and they’re ever present need to consume and have “cool” things… not to embody cool. The old phrase “…what you own owns you…” comes to mind.

The subculture of hipster (or scenester) is a hodgepodge of styles from beatnik and punk, to grunge and folk and exists on the fringes of all of these particular subcultures exhibiting a collection of traits from each. That’s the reason some might consider themselves or be mislabeled as a hipster. In the Journal of Consumer Research paper, “Demythologizing Consumption Practices: How Consumers Protect Their Field-Dependent Identity Investments from Devaluing Marketplace Myth” (mouthful), characterize hipsters as a “mass-media stereo type” and “unauthentic”. Very true statements in my opinion. *

All that being said, I don’t mind my mentors and icons of adoration being emulated by a group of people such as these. My Hipsters and my Beatniks have a defined history and intent. They didn’t mean to be cool… they meant to effect the world which means I have to stand for something whatever that might be, cool or not. Though hipsters usurp bits and pieces from other subcultures and form a giggling mas of consumerist jello, I have to say I’m not all that bothered by them any more. I mean, they don’t want to be hipsters either and no matter how many of their friends are hipsters, they don’t self identify as such. If they believe that they are hipsters, they probably are not.

* I thought about it while reviewing the post… Might they apear to be similar to Beatniks because Beatniks influenced all of the subcultures who donate bits and pieces to hipsters? Hmmmmmmmm.

Also, this - Not entirely unrelated.

And further – This too

I don’t do enough book reviews so here’s one. I finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on Monday and while I was happy with the ending and the story in general, I find I wish it had been written by someone else. Stieg Larsson (1954-2004) was not the best writer in the world and I’m sure he was probably not the best writer in Sweeden. To be honest, he was probably not even the best writer in his home town of Skelleftehamn, Sweden. His writing style was jumpy, hacked apart and sewn together. As I was reading I remarked to Lindsay that it was so jumbled between his two main characters, I thought the reporter was raping the private investigator with a sausage before I realized that these were two different events happening within days of one another… the report ate a sausage and the P.I. was raped but the two were unrelated and happened miles apart.

This is the story of a socialist investigative financial journalist called Mikael (note: the author was a socialist journalist), a young woman working for a private investigation firm who’s suffered numerous sexual assaults named Lisbeth (note: Larsson witnessed the gang rape of a girl named Lisbeth when he was 15) and the mystery of a young woman presumably murdered in the sixties. It’s a “locked room” mystery with a hand full of suspects. The killer is suspected to be one of the rich industrialist family and corporate entity, the Vanger family some members of which had been members of the Nazi party in WWII.

It is obvious the author hates capitalism and capitalists. He despises the greedy and the corporate machine. I know many an author has their agenda when writing a story, but a good writer does not beat the reader about the head and neck with their point. They lead the reader. Larsson was too heavy handed with his approach and his execution to the point that the book became cacophonous, a jumble of locations and happenings punctuated with a message you’re never allowed to forget for an instant. It makes the story hard to enjoy.

All that being said, it was not a bad story. I had a hard time reconciling why I liked the story but not the book and then it hit me… it’s a story worth telling, but not worth reading the way it was written. A skillful editor could improve the book a hundred fold in a matter of hours. With a snip here, a slice there, and some rearranging and transitional statements, it would flow better and the novel would be well worth the price. Some readers are able to overlook flow issues and that’s great. You’ll love the book. There are well written characters one can identify with. Lisbeth comes off a bit mannish, but I presume that is what the author intended… trying to make her sound “strong” for the sake of plot.

While I am hesitant to recommend this book but I will say it’s not terrible and it is enjoyable if you can get past the continuity problems.

People are loosing sight of the issue of this whole 99% V 1% thing. I’m reading blog posts that talk about it being unfair that the rich are rich and the poor are poor and while I agree that the poor shouldn’t be in as dire straights as they are and I agree that the rich should have a moral obligation to help out, I’m not angry with them for not doing so. The fact is people, all people, are greedy and selfish. It’s human nature to be protective of what you have while wanting more. I am middle to lower middle class with a similar income. Do I want fancy things? Yes. Am I content with what I have? Yes. That content meant will keep me from going after more and the desire to remain content would keep me working for what I have.

This is not to say that the poor are poor because they are lazy. I’m not saying the rich are rich because they are hard workers, either. I’m saying that the rich have more strive to be rich and more desire for fancy things. They’re desires have gone beyond the wish for comfort and stability and have gotten a little out of hand. The poor aren’t being held down by the fact that they’re poor unless you count the education systems high operating costs a hold back technique put in place by the rich. Why, pray tell, would the rich want to keep anyone down when they could have a better educated work force to keep them rich or make them richer? They wouldn’t.

My friend Debbie quotes St Basil,“If one had taken what is necessary to cover one’s needs and had left the rest to those who are in need, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, no one would be in need” and I say no one would be happy and a natural balance would be struck unbalancing things again. History is full of examples of the rich at the top and the poor at the bottom and what is being described and wished for is communist. Don’t get me wrong, the concept of a commune is great. Everyone helps everyone else out and everyone is happy. The problem lies in large scale implementation. When communes become communist and communism becomes Marxist, We’re all screwed by a poor government making the masses poor. Corruption unlike anything we’ve seen in a democratic society is unavoidable. The people have no rights to their labor’s fruits and everything is chopped up and dolled out unequally by a government who misuses the rest.

Debbie goes on to quote, “Isn’t it true, that you fell off the womb naked? Isn’t it true, that naked you shall return to the earth?” Sure it’s true, I had nothing at the time of my birth…. it was cold. It was damp, and I am pretty sure I was crying. Since then, I had a roof over my head, clothes on my back, entertainment in the form of books, television, and movies, and the company of my family and my friends around me. I worked for it. I like being comfortable and I’m thankful for my blessings no less and no more than some suit in an office on Wall Street. I think it’s pretty judgmental and harsh to think that these evil rich people have a dagger for the back of each and every poor person below them. Granted, some do, but I’m sure most are just like us… greedy and afraid for their comfortable lives they’ve worked to achieve.

None of this “Occupy” crap is going to do any good. I say to the Occupy this and that folks; All people are doing is poking bee hives with sticks and eventually, you’re going to make things worse for the lot of us down here near the bottom. Work with the system. If the system is flawed, work on fixing it. Don’t jump up and slap the people who sign your paycheck because you feel disenfranchised. If you want to really shake things up, give half of everything you own to the poor so we create a new, but more comfortable, middle class that is even further removed from the top but that’s in a better position to help it’s self instead of whining about making rich people do something about the “poor problem”. You can’t equalize a democratic society without destroying it.

I have been considering suits a lot lately. To be honest, I don’t own a “Suit” any more. I have a few sport coats and I have slacks in a spectrum of colors but slacks and a sport coat do not a suit make. In the deep south, no one really cares. Older gentlemen who come from affluent backgrounds will own a suit and most of the time resort to sport coats and trousers for official or dressy functions. The younger and less astute amongst us will wear black trousers with a black sport coat and call it a suit but the blacks don’t match and neither does the fabric so, no suit. What’s a man to do?

Suit separates are widely available. It’s an industry standard now and it’s owed to men of differing body types. Big on top and small on the bottom or vice verse is common these days and the “size drop” gap that used to hold for the industry is no more. You can no longer assume that a man with a 36 jacket wears 34 pants or that a 56 in chest will equate to a 52 inch waist. I myself wear a 56 jacket with a 46 pant…. classic “V” I ain’t but closer than many. The suit separate concept makes buying suits doable… so why don’t I own one? It’s a matter of occasion. There are none.

I read an article (sadly I don’t have the link) about what clothing a man should own. A man should have the following in his closet:

• 3 sport coats in brown (or tweed), gray, and navy
• 3 suits (including matching trousers) in gray, navy, and black (for funerals)
• 2 blazers in navy and black (or dark gray)
• 3 pair dark slacks
• 3 pair light slacks
• 2 pair chinos (or jeans)
• 7 dress shirts (point collar)
• 4 sport shirts (button down collars, blue and white)
• 2 pair brown casual / dress shoes (saddle oxfords and wingtips)
• 2 pair black casual / dress shoes (as above)
• 2 pair loafers (one black and one brown)
• 1 pair casual / sneaker (optional)
• 1 pair boots (work shoe)
• 9 crew or v neck undershirts
• 9 pair underwear (boxers or briefs)
• 4 pair black socks 4 pair brown socks
• 2 pair white socks

These are the basic essentials of a man’s wardrobe. If I were to analyze what we have here in this list and determine what I have or don’t have and what I would or would not own, I’d need to spend about two grand to round out my own wardrobe.

I have the gray and blue sport coats, most of the pants though I would like to restock, none of the suits, three pair of the shoes and what we’re left with is a shopping spree. Not mentioned are my colorful socks… my way of thumbing my nose at convention. Also left out are the seersucker pieces… well, piece. My one pair of seersucker pants that are ever so comfortable. I have more jeans than I should, cargo pants that didn’t make the cut, and so on. For a stylish adult man’s wardrobe, I’m no slouch but it’s not this basic list.

I would like a suit or two. I would like some blazers though in my youth I disliked them for their metal buttons and nautical styling. I’ve matured into the idea, however. I wouldn’t mind owning a couple of suits and the basics would be fine, but the money might be an issue as well as the ability to find nice off the rack suits to fit my ample frame. There is also the question of personal style. Sure, you could get a pale orange, peach, or even pink sport shirt, maybe your dress shirts could be contrasting collar or patterned, or your could add in patterned suits like the checked or window pain varieties. You could add in my loud socks or your could throw in some flair with monk strap shoes instead of wing tips. There are ways to supplement this basic man’s wardrobe but it all begs the question; Who’s this basic man with all these clothes? While my line of work is a little dressier and office bound than many, I still have to get dirty from time to time and I have to be prepared to do so at any time.

Another question is that of jeans. In the list there are two pair but in the south (and I’m sure everywhere else), jeans are a staple. The GQ Style Guy says you shouldn’t wear jeans to a club and I agree to an extent but I see so many men wearing jeans that I sometimes seem out of place in slacks. The goal is to look nice for my woman, gain confidence with my outfit, and blend in to some extent… not stand out like a sore thumb. Would wearing a suit make one stand out in today’s night life scene? If so, why own suits in the first place?

The answer is simple, respect. You must respect yourself, believe you look good when you’re putting in the effort, and respect those around you by not making them feel out of place or under dressed. In my neck of the woods, a sport coat or blazer is fine for just about any occasion. If I owned one gray suit, that would be plenty. With the sport coats I have, one navy blazer to round out the mix would be tops. I’m still not wearing the jeans to a club but they’re fine for my normal haunt or Lindsay’s second favorite night spot. The old adage holds true, however, dress for the job you want, not the job you have.