Disturbing Trend: NASCARTrack season used to conjure up images of men in morning coats and women in ostentatious hats. Now as NASCAR is hailed as the most popular “sport” in America with over 75 million reported fans, the term has a very different meaning.When you think about it, why wouldn’t NASCAR be America’s pastime? You never have to get off your couch, leaving your busy schedule of getting fat uninterrupted, and there are no rules to master. To be an avid fan all one needs to be able to do is watch a car circle the same track over and over again. Inactivity of mind and body. Pure genius. NASCAR is just another example of how American society is moving further away from top hats and juleps down the dangerous road toward mullets and sweatpants. Seeing the throngs of enthusiasts gathered across the country to watch today’s Daytona 500 makes one wonder if those of us with full sets of teeth and library cards are going to have to retreat into a Galt’s Gulch-like society just to preserve culture for future generations. All I know is that I am ready to flee at a moment’s notice with a packed bag, flashlight and a bottle of gin. I suggest you do the same. Bootstrap

Disturbing Trend: NASCAR

Track season used to conjure up images of men in morning coats and women in ostentatious hats. Now as NASCAR is hailed as the most popular “sport” in America with over 75 million reported fans, the term has a very different meaning.

When you think about it, why wouldn’t NASCAR be America’s pastime? You never have to get off your couch, leaving your busy schedule of getting fat uninterrupted, and there are no rules to master. To be an avid fan all one needs to be able to do is watch a car circle the same track over and over again. Inactivity of mind and body. Pure genius.

NASCAR is just another example of how American society is moving further away from top hats and juleps down the dangerous road toward mullets and sweatpants. Seeing the throngs of enthusiasts gathered across the country to watch today’s Daytona 500 makes one wonder if those of us with full sets of teeth and library cards are going to have to retreat into a Galt’s Gulch-like society just to preserve culture for future generations.

All I know is that I am ready to flee at a moment’s notice with a packed bag, flashlight and a bottle of gin. I suggest you do the same.

Bootstrap


Disturbing Trend: Dirty Ditties, the degradation of popular music A Bootstrap Gentleman is neither prude nor naïve, but it takes all one has to hide his embarrassment upon hearing most of the Billboard Top 40.  Even the most seasoned rake turned respectable dandy would be loath not to blush at some of the song lyrics being broadcast to America’s youth. It was just over 40 years ago that Ed Sullivan forbade the Rolling Stones from singing Let’s Spend the Night Together on his popular variety show for fear that America would be scandalized.  An annoyed Mick Jagger may have rolled his eyes to sing “Let’s spend some time together” but the innocence of the American populous was preserved. Today we not only have to hear about spending the night together but everything that is going to happen during that period.  I frankly don’t care if “the way that booty movin’ [you] can’t take no more”, as David Guetta tells us in his song Sexy Bitch (seriously?), keep it in your pants and remember that there are some conversations that were meant for inner monologue.  A gentleman does not kiss and tell and that maxim counts just the same for telling over some tawdry synthesized drumbeat with your cortege howling unintelligibly in the background. In all seriousness, the lyrics of modern songs, and the even more descriptive videos that go with them border on the pornographic.  American musical culture has degenerated to the point where anyone with half a brain and a shred of common decency finds it downright degrading.  What ever happened to songs like Mr. Sandman and The Chattanooga Choo Choo.  I can hardly imagine the melodic trio of the Andrews Sisters singing about getting low, and no one is breaking out their evening clothes to foxtrot to Timbaland.  Rihanna’s new song Rude Boy, which is so sordid it can’t be quoted, would make Carmen Miranda’s bananas peel. The debasement of American popular music is a palpable problem.  It teaches immorality, glorifies crime, butchers vocabulary and, if I may say, promotes some very undignified fashion choices with pocket squares nowhere to be seen (entirely ignoble). The Bootstrap Gentleman usually avoids even remotely political statements at all costs, but the last embankment of refined civilization is cracking and it is time for the gentlemen of America to go to war (as officers of course). If you agree, I implore you to reblog this post and speak out for the return of musical modesty. Tuning out Bootstrap

Disturbing Trend: Dirty Ditties, the degradation of popular music

A Bootstrap Gentleman is neither prude nor naïve, but it takes all one has to hide his embarrassment upon hearing most of the Billboard Top 40.  Even the most seasoned rake turned respectable dandy would be loath not to blush at some of the song lyrics being broadcast to America’s youth.

It was just over 40 years ago that Ed Sullivan forbade the Rolling Stones from singing Let’s Spend the Night Together on his popular variety show for fear that America would be scandalized.  An annoyed Mick Jagger may have rolled his eyes to sing “Let’s spend some time together” but the innocence of the American populous was preserved.

Today we not only have to hear about spending the night together but everything that is going to happen during that period.  I frankly don’t care if “the way that booty movin’ [you] can’t take no more”, as David Guetta tells us in his song Sexy Bitch (seriously?), keep it in your pants and remember that there are some conversations that were meant for inner monologue.  A gentleman does not kiss and tell and that maxim counts just the same for telling over some tawdry synthesized drumbeat with your cortege howling unintelligibly in the background.

In all seriousness, the lyrics of modern songs, and the even more descriptive videos that go with them border on the pornographic.  American musical culture has degenerated to the point where anyone with half a brain and a shred of common decency finds it downright degrading.  What ever happened to songs like Mr. Sandman and The Chattanooga Choo Choo.  I can hardly imagine the melodic trio of the Andrews Sisters singing about getting low, and no one is breaking out their evening clothes to foxtrot to Timbaland.  Rihanna’s new song Rude Boy, which is so sordid it can’t be quoted, would make Carmen Miranda’s bananas peel.

The debasement of American popular music is a palpable problem.  It teaches immorality, glorifies crime, butchers vocabulary and, if I may say, promotes some very undignified fashion choices with pocket squares nowhere to be seen (entirely ignoble).

The Bootstrap Gentleman usually avoids even remotely political statements at all costs, but the last embankment of refined civilization is cracking and it is time for the gentlemen of America to go to war (as officers of course).

If you agree, I implore you to reblog this post and speak out for the return of musical modesty.

Tuning out

Bootstrap


Disturbing Trend: The Sorry State of Men’s Magazines Periodicals for gentlemen no longer exist in the classic sense.  Certainly they are still printed, but the content is more mediocre than an Ivy League sports program.  Just look at the magazine above.  Articles by Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, photography by Margaret Bourke-White and no doubt countless classic fashion illustrations that Esquire was known for. Today?  Most men think John Dos Passos is a chain of Mexican Restaurants. These magazines were written for men of style and education.  Unfortunately, when the rest of the population learned to read, they had to adjust.  Don’t get me wrong, GQ, originally called Apparel Arts, still knows how to put together a sharp suit. Alas they also profile the latest in hooded sweatshirts (only for hooligans) and dimwitted actors.  The result is a magazine conflicted with itself.  Just look at the title. In its latest incarnation GQ is neither gentlemanly nor quarterly. Where is a gentleman to turn?  Of course you can get your fiction from The New Yorker, and The Economist should always be strategically strewn around your den (even though no one can finish a complete article without falling asleep), but there is no one profiling what real gentlemen of style and substance are doing or wearing. I wonder if I could ask Esquire to start my subscription with 1933? Bootstrap

Disturbing Trend: The Sorry State of Men’s Magazines

Periodicals for gentlemen no longer exist in the classic sense.  Certainly they are still printed, but the content is more mediocre than an Ivy League sports program.  Just look at the magazine above.  Articles by Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, photography by Margaret Bourke-White and no doubt countless classic fashion illustrations that Esquire was known for.

Today?  Most men think John Dos Passos is a chain of Mexican Restaurants.

These magazines were written for men of style and education.  Unfortunately, when the rest of the population learned to read, they had to adjust.  Don’t get me wrong, GQ, originally called Apparel Arts, still knows how to put together a sharp suit. Alas they also profile the latest in hooded sweatshirts (only for hooligans) and dimwitted actors.  The result is a magazine conflicted with itself.  Just look at the title. In its latest incarnation GQ is neither gentlemanly nor quarterly.

Where is a gentleman to turn?  Of course you can get your fiction from The New Yorker, and The Economist should always be strategically strewn around your den (even though no one can finish a complete article without falling asleep), but there is no one profiling what real gentlemen of style and substance are doing or wearing.

I wonder if I could ask Esquire to start my subscription with 1933?

Bootstrap


Disturbing Trend: Cracked Out Couture A short article in the March edition of GQ lauded the new men’s line from French fashion label Balmain.  Apparently the good people at GQ feel that the collection of tatty rags that was recently released “deserves the hype”. Emperor’s New Clothes anyone? For all of the fashion bloggers drooling over the clothes pictured above, and the Russian oligarchs that can actually afford to purchase them (the model can neither afford food or the clothing he is wearing), I am going to break it down.  That $300 number you see is actually, get this, a disgusting, torn, stained out of a WalMart 5-pack T-Shirt that I wouldn’t even use to polish the chrome on one of my classic cars because I would be afraid the car would catch a disease and die. The jeans, which are equally objectionable, can be purchased for a mere $1,440. Gentlemen, I implore you to use common sense.  If something is expensive, it should look expensive (but not flashy).  The Bootstrap Gentleman does not necessarily have the funds to spend excessively on wardrobe, so all purchases should be made with care. If you are spending over $1,000 on any piece of clothing it should be made of fine fabrics with even better construction.  Like bespoke suits, handmade shoes or vicuna overcoats, the piece should be something that is timeless and meant to last for decades. Don’t be sucked in by couture culture, or you could end up like the poor fashion victim above: dirty and broke. Unless of course you do want to look like the love child of Amy Winehouse and Sid Vicious.  In which case, you have bigger issues than a stained t-shirt. Bootstrap

Disturbing Trend: Cracked Out Couture

A short article in the March edition of GQ lauded the new men’s line from French fashion label Balmain.  Apparently the good people at GQ feel that the collection of tatty rags that was recently released “deserves the hype”.

Emperor’s New Clothes anyone?

For all of the fashion bloggers drooling over the clothes pictured above, and the Russian oligarchs that can actually afford to purchase them (the model can neither afford food or the clothing he is wearing), I am going to break it down.  That $300 number you see is actually, get this, a disgusting, torn, stained out of a WalMart 5-pack T-Shirt that I wouldn’t even use to polish the chrome on one of my classic cars because I would be afraid the car would catch a disease and die.

The jeans, which are equally objectionable, can be purchased for a mere $1,440. Gentlemen, I implore you to use common sense.  If something is expensive, it should look expensive (but not flashy).  The Bootstrap Gentleman does not necessarily have the funds to spend excessively on wardrobe, so all purchases should be made with care. If you are spending over $1,000 on any piece of clothing it should be made of fine fabrics with even better construction.  Like bespoke suits, handmade shoes or vicuna overcoats, the piece should be something that is timeless and meant to last for decades.

Don’t be sucked in by couture culture, or you could end up like the poor fashion victim above: dirty and broke.

Unless of course you do want to look like the love child of Amy Winehouse and Sid Vicious.  In which case, you have bigger issues than a stained t-shirt.

Bootstrap


Disturbing Trend: Crocs, a Crime Against Humanity It is bad enough to be described as the type of man who wears rubber-soled shoes (a comment to which you should take particular offense), but to wear shoes made entirely of rubber is unforgivable. Like a cross between a Tupperware party and a cheese grater these odious clodhoppers have done as much for the human race as anthrax. Crocs do not keep you warm or dry, although it looks as if they allow you to sweat freely into the open air.  ”They are comfortable”, you say? Feet that hurt enough to warrant a pair of these contemptible things merit a visit to a doctor right away. If you are caught in any other croc than Lacoste just give your man card back now. Bootstrap

Disturbing Trend: Crocs, a Crime Against Humanity

It is bad enough to be described as the type of man who wears rubber-soled shoes (a comment to which you should take particular offense), but to wear shoes made entirely of rubber is unforgivable. Like a cross between a Tupperware party and a cheese grater these odious clodhoppers have done as much for the human race as anthrax.

Crocs do not keep you warm or dry, although it looks as if they allow you to sweat freely into the open air.  ”They are comfortable”, you say? Feet that hurt enough to warrant a pair of these contemptible things merit a visit to a doctor right away.

If you are caught in any other croc than Lacoste just give your man card back now.

Bootstrap


Disturbing Trend: Casual Friday Today is Tuesday, that time of week when all gentlemen start looking toward Friday with trepidation.  Although our Thursday night dreams might look like the Shangri-La above, the appalling scene found in the office on Friday is closer to a rodeo populated with Nascar fans. After careful consideration, it isn’t the concept of casual that it is the problem, it is the interpretation.  The gentleman’s casual is slacks, a blazer and a swell pocket square. For most men though, the definition is wide open.  Since starting work in an office with a casual Friday, or as I like to call it “let’s promote the downfall of society”, policy I have seen everything from Hawaiian shirts to sneakers.  If you are over 21 and not in the NBA you should not be wearing sneakers anywhere but the gym (and if you sweat profusely the gym should be at home, hence you should never wear sneakers in public). As is illustrated everywhere you look the majority of men do not attire themselves like gentlemen when left to their own devices, that is why dress codes exist.  When the word “casual” is introduced people automatically think comfortable.  No one cares about your comfort, leave it at home. Casual Friday leads to a wide-range looks, inconsistency in the office environment and ultimately unprofessionalism.  If you don’t respect yourself enough to dress like a man in the morning, how can you be expected to take your job seriously. The solution?  Treat people how they are dressed.  That Managing Director in the cowboy boots, ask him to bring your horse around because you have a meeting uptown.  The auditor in the parakeet shirt, does the “cocoanut shrimp come with dipping sauce?” Ok, that might not be realistic, but at least you’ll be thinking it… Bootstrap (cartoon originally from The New Yorker)

Disturbing Trend: Casual Friday

Today is Tuesday, that time of week when all gentlemen start looking toward Friday with trepidation.  Although our Thursday night dreams might look like the Shangri-La above, the appalling scene found in the office on Friday is closer to a rodeo populated with Nascar fans.

After careful consideration, it isn’t the concept of casual that it is the problem, it is the interpretation.  The gentleman’s casual is slacks, a blazer and a swell pocket square. For most men though, the definition is wide open.  Since starting work in an office with a casual Friday, or as I like to call it “let’s promote the downfall of society”, policy I have seen everything from Hawaiian shirts to sneakers.  If you are over 21 and not in the NBA you should not be wearing sneakers anywhere but the gym (and if you sweat profusely the gym should be at home, hence you should never wear sneakers in public).

As is illustrated everywhere you look the majority of men do not attire themselves like gentlemen when left to their own devices, that is why dress codes exist.  When the word “casual” is introduced people automatically think comfortable.  No one cares about your comfort, leave it at home.

Casual Friday leads to a wide-range looks, inconsistency in the office environment and ultimately unprofessionalism.  If you don’t respect yourself enough to dress like a man in the morning, how can you be expected to take your job seriously.

The solution?  Treat people how they are dressed.  That Managing Director in the cowboy boots, ask him to bring your horse around because you have a meeting uptown.  The auditor in the parakeet shirt, does the “cocoanut shrimp come with dipping sauce?”

Ok, that might not be realistic, but at least you’ll be thinking it…

Bootstrap

(cartoon originally from The New Yorker)


Good Breeding/Disturbing Trend Double Feature: Bad Behattitude Although the Bootstrap Gentleman’s feelings on baseball caps are no secret, regardless of the chapeau, if you choose to outfit your head, do so with manners.  At the theatre Saturday evening I was all set to enjoy a solid three hours of deeply depressing Arthur Miller dialogue when I came face to brim with the shameful scene above.  Only gentlemanly composure saved that ridiculous hat from being flipped down into the cheap seats. Wearing a hat in public carries with it certain rules of conduct.  You should, for example, always remove or respectfully tip your hat when greeting a lady.  Hats should also be taken off in elevators.  (In an episode of Mad Men, Don Draper took it upon himself to remove the hat of an insolent ruffian in a moving elevator-need I say more?) Also, the type of hat should be dictated by the occasion and worn as it was designed to be worn, never backwards or more than 20 degrees askance.  The theatre is no longer a top hat event (because society has degenerated to one step above apedom) but it is certainly not yet a baseball cap venue. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, hats should never be worn anywhere indoors unless you are entering, leaving or required by religious edict to do so.  To be behatted inside a public space is considered to be most rude by anyone who matters and a clear sign of poor breeding. To supplement the cap it looks like this man got dressed in an equipment room for his big cultural night out. Get the hook. Bootstrap

Good Breeding/Disturbing Trend Double Feature: Bad Behattitude

Although the Bootstrap Gentleman’s feelings on baseball caps are no secret, regardless of the chapeau, if you choose to outfit your head, do so with manners.  At the theatre Saturday evening I was all set to enjoy a solid three hours of deeply depressing Arthur Miller dialogue when I came face to brim with the shameful scene above.  Only gentlemanly composure saved that ridiculous hat from being flipped down into the cheap seats.

Wearing a hat in public carries with it certain rules of conduct.  You should, for example, always remove or respectfully tip your hat when greeting a lady.  Hats should also be taken off in elevators.  (In an episode of Mad Men, Don Draper took it upon himself to remove the hat of an insolent ruffian in a moving elevator-need I say more?) Also, the type of hat should be dictated by the occasion and worn as it was designed to be worn, never backwards or more than 20 degrees askance.  The theatre is no longer a top hat event (because society has degenerated to one step above apedom) but it is certainly not yet a baseball cap venue.

In addition, and perhaps most importantly, hats should never be worn anywhere indoors unless you are entering, leaving or required by religious edict to do so.  To be behatted inside a public space is considered to be most rude by anyone who matters and a clear sign of poor breeding.

To supplement the cap it looks like this man got dressed in an equipment room for his big cultural night out.

Get the hook.

Bootstrap


Disturbing Trend: Public Pyjamas When my grandparents were young, people who went out in public in their pyjamas were considered to be mentally ill.  In fact, the famous gangster Vincent “the Chin” Gigante predicated his entire insanity defense on the fact that he walked the streets of New York in his bathrobe. Today it is apparently perfectly acceptable, even desirable, to wear your pyjamas while going about public business.  I am not sure what is worse, the moronic notion that there is nothing wrong with this or the scores of people that are too lazy to even dress themselves in the morning. Or do they dress themselves?  What goes through the mind of such a person?- “should I wear the blue flannel with eggs and bacon or the cotton camouflage?”  Brother-why not try the gray flannel with the matching two button jacket and the white oxford, maybe then you can get a job that doesn’t involve sending spam emails for knockoff Viagra. The Bootstrap Gentleman does not advocate public displays of disdain, but would not object to asking one of these public pyjama wearers where the slumber party is. Maybe then they will stay in bed where they belong. Sleep well Bootstrap (Photo via Flickr courtesy of Mr. Thomas)

Disturbing Trend: Public Pyjamas

When my grandparents were young, people who went out in public in their pyjamas were considered to be mentally ill.  In fact, the famous gangster Vincent “the Chin” Gigante predicated his entire insanity defense on the fact that he walked the streets of New York in his bathrobe.

Today it is apparently perfectly acceptable, even desirable, to wear your pyjamas while going about public business.  I am not sure what is worse, the moronic notion that there is nothing wrong with this or the scores of people that are too lazy to even dress themselves in the morning.

Or do they dress themselves?  What goes through the mind of such a person?- “should I wear the blue flannel with eggs and bacon or the cotton camouflage?”  Brother-why not try the gray flannel with the matching two button jacket and the white oxford, maybe then you can get a job that doesn’t involve sending spam emails for knockoff Viagra.

The Bootstrap Gentleman does not advocate public displays of disdain, but would not object to asking one of these public pyjama wearers where the slumber party is. Maybe then they will stay in bed where they belong.

Sleep well

Bootstrap

(Photo via Flickr courtesy of Mr. Thomas)


Disturbing Trend: Heavage In a recent Wall Street Journal article, linked above, Ray A. Smith declared that male cleavage, dubbed “heavage” is back in a big way.  Since Mr. Smith’s declaration is not punishable by any law that we have heard of (and we have looked) it falls to the Bootstrap Gentleman to clear the air.  Male cleavage, other than a single open button on an oxford or polo shirt is beyond the realm of common decency. Oftentimes decisions about what to wear and how much of your body should be exposed fall to common sense.  If you don’t want to see someone else’s chest hair chances are they don’t want to see yours. Well-tailored clothing that shows off your time spent in the gym is one thing, but if you spend the majority of your day away from the pool, heavage shouldn’t be in your vocabulary. Mr. Smith romanticizes his argument by calling to mind images of leading men from the classic era of Hollywood: “Male cleavage, particularly on the silver screen, has long played a prominent role in popular culture. Douglas Fairbanks Sr. had his chest on display throughout the 1920s in films like 1924’s ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ and ‘The Iron Mask’ in 1929. A dashing Errol Flynn showed man cleavage in the 1930s, most memorably in 1938’s ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood.’ These actors made skin-flashing practically de rigueur for certain swashbuckling roles.” What the author seems to forget is that these men were portraying bandits, gypsies and medieval musketeers, not bankers, lawyers and citizens of the world.  So unless you are stealing from the rich and giving the poor, in which case you are most likely not reading this blog, keep the forest under wraps. Bootstrap

Disturbing Trend: Heavage

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, linked above, Ray A. Smith declared that male cleavage, dubbed “heavage” is back in a big way.  Since Mr. Smith’s declaration is not punishable by any law that we have heard of (and we have looked) it falls to the Bootstrap Gentleman to clear the air.  Male cleavage, other than a single open button on an oxford or polo shirt is beyond the realm of common decency.

Oftentimes decisions about what to wear and how much of your body should be exposed fall to common sense.  If you don’t want to see someone else’s chest hair chances are they don’t want to see yours. Well-tailored clothing that shows off your time spent in the gym is one thing, but if you spend the majority of your day away from the pool, heavage shouldn’t be in your vocabulary.

Mr. Smith romanticizes his argument by calling to mind images of leading men from the classic era of Hollywood:

“Male cleavage, particularly on the silver screen, has long played a prominent role in popular culture. Douglas Fairbanks Sr. had his chest on display throughout the 1920s in films like 1924’s ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ and ‘The Iron Mask’ in 1929. A dashing Errol Flynn showed man cleavage in the 1930s, most memorably in 1938’s ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood.’ These actors made skin-flashing practically de rigueur for certain swashbuckling roles.”

What the author seems to forget is that these men were portraying bandits, gypsies and medieval musketeers, not bankers, lawyers and citizens of the world.  So unless you are stealing from the rich and giving the poor, in which case you are most likely not reading this blog, keep the forest under wraps.

Bootstrap


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Themed by: Hunson