If the suit fits

I was young when I first heard the phrase “The clothes make the man.” Even then, as a kid, I didn’t buy it. The man makes the man, I thought; the clothes merely prevent him from being naked.

Clearly not everyone shares this opinion. My workplace has an extremely lax dress code -- the only articles that are outright forbidden consist of t-shirts with swear words and slinky lingerie -- but some of the men still wear ties, the women fancy dress suits. There’s certainly nothing wrong with classic business attire, and it looks good and all, but unless you’re dealing with people face-to-face it doesn’t seem strictly necessary. Personally I’d feel more comfortable, and get more work done, if I were wearing sweatpants and a mustard-stained Red Sox hoodie.

On rare occasions I’m forced to dress up, and I’ll admit that I do walk with a certain swagger in such instances. I was sent to a conference in Orlando this summer and rocked my single three-piece suit, feeling very Wolf-of-Wall-Street-ish. But that’s because I was essentially playing make-believe. It was the same sort of swagger I get when I dress up as a Batman villain for Halloween. During the conference I was playing the role of Jeff Rockjaw III, finance expert and world traveler, and this fantasy took me out of myself, allowed me the novelty of wearing someone else’s skin for a while. When I got back to the hotel room it was right back to my typical summer uniform: cargo shorts and a t-shirt so old it’s practically a vapor.

To be sure, there are certain clothing items that should never be considered acceptable, under any circumstances, ever. Fishnet shirts, for example. Or suit jackets with shoulder pads. Or pretty much anything worn in the 1980s.

Think of how much more relaxed we’d all be if “work attire” was a thing of the past, though. There’s a law firm in the building where I work, and oftentimes I see well-suited men and women walking the halls with a kind of self-important air, a detectable aura that screams, “I am a very big deal.” And look, there’s no doubt that their jobs are, indeed, important. Without lawyers, who would blast us with an $80 charge for a five-minute phone consultation? And to think I could have bought food with that money.

The problem with look-at-me-I’m-a-big-shot suits is that they do nothing to help these lawyers actually do their jobs. Sure, they’d struggle to maintain credibility if they showed up in court wearing tracksuit pants and a Pokemon t-shirt, but that’s only because business attire is the norm in that situation. If all of the nation’s courtrooms issued a new proclamation tomorrow -- “Suits optional everyone, just wear what you want” -- I can guarantee you things would be a lot looser. The atmosphere would be less clenched, and there’d be a lot more smiles on a lot more prosecutor’s faces. “Hey, your honor, what’s up? So yeah, this guy right here? He totally did it. Like, not even a question. See this evidence? Boom, in your face, public defendant!”

School principals would be more approachable. Accountants would have more fun. CEOs could put their gamesmanship aside and focus on the things that are truly important, like lowering their golf handicap. This is the nirvana I envision: a suitless world in which people can finally breathe.

Things are slowly moving that direction, with the definition of “formal” becoming more and more relaxed through the centuries. The Victorian era was marked by stark formality; a poorly-worn necktie or an ill-fitting waistcoat could earn a man a reputation for being an outright ragamuffin (a word that should make a comeback, in my opinion). In the Edwardian era, things got a little simpler. Post-World War I, the scene was simpler still, with long coats giving way to the previously informal lounge coat. If the trend continues it’ll soon be acceptable to conduct business in a pajama onesie meant to look like a cartoon bunny.

If men are better off this way -- and they are -- I can only imagine the relief felt by women, who a few short lifetimes ago were expected to squeeze themselves into apparatuses more complicated than the inner workings of a Japanese motorcycle. Bras with hard wires, girdles, frilly dresses with more layers than a Russian nesting doll … all a little overkill. I’ve never been curious enough to wear, say, a ladies’ outfit from the Victorian era, but the complexity seems prohibitive. I’d have to start getting dressed at four in the morning to be ready for lunch, and removing the outfit would probably involve a set of industrial-strength scissors, possibly even the jaws of life. Pantsuits get a bad rap nowadays, but at least you can change in and out of one before your roommate is done slow-roasting her Butterball turkey.

In our relaxed new era, I walk into my office wearing an untucked polo shirt and feel perfectly at home. In another 20 years, who knows? I may be wearing sandals, gym shorts and an Anthrax hoodie. Socially conservative members of older generations may be lowering their heads, pinching the bridges of their noses and muttering things about the depravity and loosy-goosy dress standards of modern life, but bring it on, I say. I find it hard to get work done while wearing a suit because I’m constantly aware of its essential suitness. I adjust my tie and tug at my shirt incessantly, petrified that any loose knot or bunched island of fabric will undermine my professional veneer and spell doom. Frumpy clothes don’t make me feel this way. They just make me feel comfortable, and in the winter they disguise the belly I obtained by nibbling on vegetable chips and cheese-stuffed pretzels.

And I feel no hit to my core maleness in the bargain. Because it turns out, after all, that clothes don’t make the man. They just make it a little less drafty.

Caught in a mosh

One more time won’t hurt, I thought. And it didn’t. At least for a little while.

Honestly, if there had been seats at the venue, like there are in an arena or theater, buying the concert tickets would have been an easy choice. There are only a few things more pleasing to me than sitting and watching a good band perform live, and most of those things involve being naked.

Remove seats from the equation, and you’re talking about a lot of standing around … at best. At worst, you’re talking about a mosh pit.

For a longtime metalhead such as myself, it’s amusing to note how many non-metal fans aren’t sure what a mosh pit is, exactly. They vaguely associate mosh pits with the music they warned their children not to listen to, so they assume it’s something evil -- a goat-sacrificing ritual, perhaps, or some kind of stadium-wide satanic pact made in blood. They’re nothing of the sort, although admittedly it would be kinda cool to see a goat at a concert. Not to harm it in any way -- I’m not into that stuff -- but because goats are cute. In fact, they should be mandatory for all concerts. Wouldn’t you love to see a random goat at the Kenny Chesney show? Of course you would.

No goats in the mosh pit, though. Too brutal, as I rediscovered only recently.

Mosh pits typically begin during the speediest, heaviest songs in a band’s set, the ones with breakneck rhythms and fretwork that could blow the quills off a porcupine. In the standing-room-only section, on the floor in front of the stage, a churning begins to happen, a brewing cyclone of young drunkards and over-pierced malcontents. After a while the cyclone becomes a full-blown tornado and a circle opens up amidst the standing masses, a rapidly rotating maelstrom of bodies and pumping limbs. It’s like the heavy metal version of a country line dance, only way more chaotic, and someone usually ends up eating concrete.

Sounds violent, and it can be … but not maliciously so, if that makes sense. There’s a certain mosh pit etiquette: You can shove and jostle and ram into people, but it’s a faux pas to outright hit anyone. If someone hits the ground, the action halts and someone helps the fallen regain their feet. And if someone doesn’t want to participate, they don’t have to -- although the more passive concert goers in the crowd may be intermittently pinballed around by the pit’s rhythmic undulations. It’s like a raucous rally for a rabble-rousing dictator, only instead of Mussolini on the stage it’s four long-haired musicians who look like the cast of “Designing Women.”

Pits were sort of fun when I was 21, 22. They were a way to channel the band’s energy, to blow off steam. Now that I’m older, calmer and more prone to lower back pain, I prefer the seats. I sip a beer, I enjoy the music, I watch the tattooed freaks stomp around and froth at the mouth. Fun stuff.

Only, when I went to see Megadeth in New Hampshire a couple weekends ago, there were no seats at all. Standing room only. Gulp.

Which I knew going in, of course. When considering whether to go, the lack of seating arrangements was a consideration. Ultimately my love of the band won out. After 30-plus years of recording and touring, Megadeth is in the mid-to-late autumn of its career, so when they come to within shouting distance I’m usually right there with my faded tour shirt and a fist raised high in the air. I have to seize every opportunity to see them before they drink themselves out of the music business and into retail jobs putting price stickers on juice blenders.

Strategically, I knew I had to come up with some sort of plan to avoid unwanted physical entanglements. Standing in one place for two-and-a-half hours is bad enough, but it’s worse when you’ve got a sweaty, drunken lout pinwheeling his arms in the general vicinity of your face.

It’s my luck, I guess, that my favorite musicians tend to be old farts. Older bands typically draw older crowds, and while there are still a good amount of under-30 animals who show up to these shows looking for a cathartic bruising, many are people like me, nearing middle age and in no damn mood to be swatting away half-crazed hellhounds. Rock and metal fans in my age range want a simple concert experience. They want to play air guitar to their favorite solos, swing their arms to all the good drum fills, shout along to whatever cheesy lyrics are on offer, and go home happy. That’s it. We’ll save the bruises for when we fall down the cellar stairs with a load of laundry.

Looking around the venue, it was clear there were plenty of greybeards like myself. This made the strategy simple: Find the point in the crowd where the silver whiskers and receding hairlines began, and plant myself there. So I did. And it was great. Another show under my belt, and I escaped it without some rum-swilling idiot taking me out at the kneecaps.

Regardless, the excessive standing did a number on my beleaguered glutes, which made me ask myself the question: How long can I keep doing this? The floor in front of the stage belongs to the animals, and I left that group forever the minute I started playing Scrabble on the computer. But one day soon my geezer bands will fade into the night; part of me feels obligated to see them whenever I can, seats or no seats. It’s part of an unspoken pact between band and fan: They give me joy, and I give them my body.

A quote from Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part III” sums it up nicely:

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

Streak condition

Author's note: This column originally ran in the Journal Tribune and was meant to reference the fact that my column switched from a weekly format to every other week. Just to give you some context. 'Cause without it, it may not make much sense. Hell, it may not make much sense anyway. You be the judge!

 

So hey. You may have noticed I wasn’t around last week.

I’ll be spewing my nonsense every other week for the foreseeable future, which will allow me time to pursue other interests, like glaring at motorists who don’t use their turn signals. It’s a workable arrangement, but it also breaks a streak: Five straight years of sucking up space on this page without missing a week.

What? A standing ovation? Please, people! Take your seats, take your seats. I’m very flattered.

Whenever a streak comes to an end it serves as a kind of demarcation point, a way for us to make sense of a certain period of time. Sports fans in particular seem obsessed with streaks: winning streaks, losing streaks, hitting streaks. They’re a statistical anomaly, and such anomalies are enticing because they invite analysis as to what engendered the streak to begin with. It’s a way to start a discussion without getting all political and alienating half your social media friends with long rants about the nascent rise of fascism.

And if sports are indeed your bag, then you probably know the name Cal Ripken Jr. Of all the streaks in Major League Baseball, his is perhaps the streakiest. At one point during his 20-year career, the shortstop and third baseman played in 2,632 straight games, earning him the nickname “Iron Man.” (These were the days before the moniker invoked images of a red-and-yellow combat suit.) His accomplishment makes a grade schooler’s perfect attendance certificate look positively pathetic in comparison. It’s easy to go to class every day when you don’t have line drives constantly rocketing toward your face.

When his streak was still active I was at the height of my baseball obsession, so I was lucky enough to see him play. Streak aside, he racked up some impressive stats in his career, but it wasn’t as though he glowed with some god-like inner fire, or performed nutty Cirque Du Soleil-type feats every night. He was just a workhorse. Nothing fancy; he just showed up. Being consistent and doing his job well made him a pretty good role model -- much better than my other role models at the time, who were mostly mutant turtles and spandex-wearing vigilantes. When Cal’s streak ended, it felt like a whole era had come to a close. And it had. During his streak I graduated from two different schools and learned how to properly kick a hacky sack.I may have also started losing my hair around this time, but let’s not rip open <SET ITALICS>that</SET ITALICS> old wound.

Because there are so many freakin’ games during the course of a season, baseball is littered with streaks. The other notable historical streak that comes to mind took place in 1941 when Yankees center fielder Joe DiMaggio hit safely in 56 straight games. Since not all of you are baseball nuts, let me put that in terms you can relate to: It’s like hitting three sevens on the slot machine 10 times in a row. It’s like flipping a quarter and getting heads 100 times straight. It’s like hitting a penny with a pistol at 500 paces. It’s rare. I’m saying it’s rare.

It’s so statistically improbable, in fact, that in the entire history of Major League Baseball, DiMaggio is the only player to hit safely in more than 50 straight games; Orioles right fielder Willie Keeler is in second place on the all-time list with a 44-game streak in -- get this -- 1897! I’m not a huge fan of non-ironic exclamation points … but wow! Pro baseball has been around long enough to see two World Wars, the rise of automobiles, the invention of the Oreo cookie and about 17 Friday the 13th movies. One dude hit the 50 mark. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a motherfucking streak.

Nobody but DiMaggio would know what it’s like to have a streak like that come to an end. But some of us have personal streaks to serve as a rough comparison.

Maybe it’s only the most neurotic among us who mentally keep their own record books, but if anyone qualifies as a victim of near-debilitating neuroses, it’s this guy. When I was a boy of about 12, I realized I had a hard time walking on snow and ice. I’d have at least one bad spill every winter, one of those bone-rattling falls that bruises both your ego and your butt. Hindsight being 20/20 this was most assuredly due to the fact that I’m flat-footed and never wear boots. So basically I kept hitting the asphalt because I was physically awkward and dumb.

Until one winter. At 13 -- a lucky age, apparently -- I survived the colder months without any unwanted trips to the sidewalk. Thus began a small streak: Six straight years of remaining upright.

It came crashing down, literally, one icy January on a small residential street in Lewiston. At first it was devastating. Six years down the tubes. Then I realized a weight had been lifted. When a streak reaches superhuman proportions, it takes on a distorted meaning in the mind, imbued with an outsized mystique, and the streak-bearer starts walking on eggshells. So much mental energy is devoted to keeping the streak alive that it becomes a weight on the psyche, and when the streak ends, so does the pressure. Bruised fanny or no, at least I didn’t have to live up to the strange mythology I’d built for myself.

Hard to know if that same mythological thinking applies to this space. Too early to tell. But I will admit to some modicum of relief. Sometimes you have to leave a place and come back to it before it truly feels like home.

Childish things

“Pinocchio” is one heck of a good Disney movie. I know because I sat down to watch it just recently, the grease from a giant bowl of popcorn dribbling from one corner of my mouth. There were no children present, no wide-eyed squeals of delight as the titular character became a real boy. Just me. This is what it’s come to: Watching kids’ films alone and eating myself into a nostalgia-tinged stupor.

Some people might consider this a low of sorts, the act of a depressed man, but I knew better. The way I see it -- or at least the way I’ve rationalized it to myself -- is that I’m simply a guy who’s retained a sense of what made his childhood fun and memorable. The movie brought me comfort when I was a boy, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t bring me some comfort now. It’s a blankie I can cling to while I contentedly suck my thumb.

What’s remarkable is the lack of shame or embarrassment I feel in admitting this. Part of this is personality; I don’t particularly care what people think of me. If I did, I wouldn’t wear Megadeth t-shirts to the supermarket and fart brazenly in front of my mother.

Partly, though, I’m emboldened by a certain trend gaining traction among people of my generation. See, it used to be fashionable to act all grown-up and mature. What’s that line from the Bible? The one about becoming an adult and leaving childish things behind? That used to be the overriding philosophy of anyone on the downslope of adolescence. For men of generations past in particular, it was expected that once you hit a certain age, you put your boyhood obsessions aside, strapped on a tie and stoically went about your grown-up life, dutifully coveting grown-up things like lawnmowers and ratchet sets. Do ratchets come in sets? I don’t even know.

Today we live in a world in which nobody grows up, or has to. Twenty- and thirtysomethings have the same responsibilities, of course. We go to work and bring home the bacon, and sometimes we cash that in for literal bacon, which in turn gives us a very adult case of heart disease. We pay our bills and have homes and families, and occasionally we’ll even go and buy some ratchets, which Google assures me do indeed come in sets. We trudge through life and meet its demands. We keep our farts to ourselves.

But we also sleep on Iron Man bedsheets. We watch cartoons and eat cereal for dinner and proudly adorn our mantles with collectible Justice League action figures. The new adulthood is a strange amalgam of past and present, our pacifiers still clutched tight into our later decades. My grandfather, who passed away last year, would likely have been very confused to discover that the dominant piece of art in my living room is a giant poster of Batman.

He may have chalked it all up to proof of generational degradation. Yet I’m not so convinced it’s entirely a bad thing.

Being a nerd, I was reading a 2010 study in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science which claimed that our core personalities, the set of traits that make us us, are set for life by the time we’re in 1st grade. That means we are who we are, more or less, when we reach the age of 8 or 9. Tender years, those. When I was 9 I was shy and tentative and enjoyed solitude, all characteristics that have survived to the present day. I can’t shed these things. They’re embedded in me, the way your brashness is embedded in you, and the proclivity for laughing at pies in the face is embedded in your uncle Mortimer. (The one with the hook nose who everyone avoids at parties. You know the guy.) Nobody would ask us to jettison our personalities when we grew up, and we couldn’t if we tried.

Yet we’re expected to jettison everything else we liked when we were 9. If grandfathers ruled the world, I’d be forced to scrap all my Ninja Turtles video games, toss my New Kids on the Block tapes and burn a giant pile of X-Men comics. They would be replaced, respectively, with computer solitaire, big band records and the collected works of Charles Dickens. Those are all good things, but when do I get to drop the seriousness and read junk and watch trash? The mind needs a good palate cleanser now and then, and few things are better for that sort of thing than the stories and characters that appealed to us in our formative years -- back when our idea of a balanced diet was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and birthday cake. Occasional frivolity is healthy.

Not everything survives from those early years, of course, and not everything should. Long gone are the sippy cups and belching contests. The scooter is ancient history. The glitter pens are too, and none too soon. But a lot of those core interests, the Disney flicks and collectible figurines and whatnot, are pretty foundational; letting go of these childish things would seem like some sort of betrayal, a repudiation of my younger self. And I think a lot of Gen Xers and older Millennials feel the same way. Every adult knows life is hard, and every adult deals with it in his or her own way. Ours is to cling fast to the things that brought us comfort, because they’ve never stopped bringing us comfort, and that’s OK. If that makes us nerds, well, that’s OK too. At least we’re nerds with some sort of orientation, a compass in labyrinthine times. More people could use that, frankly.

Which is why, on a random Wednesday night in August, I sat below a Batman poster and watched “Pinocchio” for the first time in 30 years. It felt good. In fact, in another 30 years, I just might do it again.