My name is Ren. Over a long life of acquisitions and losses certain objects and ideas have won my admiration for their beauty and craft. People tell their stories and make things to be used in the world. I write about ordinary things that are familiar to me---books and bicycles, rock' n' roll and what it takes to wear it well, like leather, boots, and heavy denim. I’m a shameless sybarite and a spiritual seeker, so I've come to compose these New Essays in Idleness and offer my reviews.
Making the Case for Being a Man
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Welcome to the HFC, have a seat. A very few words of introduction. My favorite biography is that of the great man David Hume, Scottish philosopher who pretty much invented the idea of experience as the best teacher---the dullest emotion is more articulate than the finest rational argument he once said. Hume's biography was half a printed page long in a world in which sentences alone could consume volumes, and he write, "A man cannot speak long of himself without vanity. I shall be short."
I'm going to take Hume's advice so suffice it to say that I've been writing and dare I say teaching about life for a long time now. Sometimes you know things just 'cause you were there. More important are the things you've taken the time to learn, and if you've had experience too then to reflect. No one might care what you think but that shouldn't stop you. You're here to have your say, that's a life that values the liberty is like and it's while it's always best not to make a nuisance of yourself, what I know is that everything I've learned of real value is because I had a good conversation and was lucky enough to meet and ask some very cool people. I'm presently teaching college students not yet born to see even the planes brought down the towers, much less the now far distant fingerposts that form my personal historical references---The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, this being my religious experience of personal conversion, or was it that bastard Nixon waving goodbye and me cheering at the television screaming good riddance to the criminal. Meanings need references. Everyone has their fingerposts. I'm going to plant a few of those here and in future conversations and we can talk about what we're going to do with this life.
Sometimes you know things just 'cause you were there. I'm presently teaching college students not yet born to see even the planes brought down the towers, much less the now far distant fingerposts that form my historical references---The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, this being my religious experience of personal conversion, or Nixon waving goodbye and me cheering at the television screaming good riddance to that criminal. Meanings need references.
Thomas Hobbes said ““Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools.” “The world is governed by opinion.”He also argued in his book Leviathan that,without government, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” I think what he meant by government wasn’t just politics but how we govern ourselves, how we take responsibility for being human.
Malingering here at Le Café Hardflex, reading the news and a sharing a demitasse with the pup is a privilege I get to have only now and then. Like you I work for a living, not doing this, and spend far too much time doing that work and worrying about stuff that would otherwise not make tomorrow less miserable. But when we've got the lucky, we have time to think and love things that sometimes we share and sometimes we don't. We must abet efforts at self-exculpation if we choose a life of solecism and truancy. I've been reading lately about Japanese artist philosophers who spent their days alone, on purpose. This may not be your jam all the time and Dare I speak for all, I suggest most of us need some form of temporary asylum? 'Tis true that life's a walking shadow but if we live long and are lucky enough, we might also know this world is a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
This isn't the first podcast or even the first writing from the Hard Flex Cafe, there's also a blogspot and a few reviews of things that might interest fellas interested. I'm not averse to writing about anything, and that includes even the occasional foray into politics.
It's not my intention to write often about politics here. Politics are divisive but I would say, as they should be. What is life but partisan? Don't you take sides on issues that matter to you? Do you not have what you believe to be hard won opinions? Are you not willing to take a stand, then why not give expression? Why not make a case so that your partisan view wins hearts and minds?
Of course media saturates us with misinformation, disinformation aimed at selling pillows or gold bars and duping people by flooding the zone with fear, anger, and endless grievance. But it is a task of free people to apply themselves, use their heads, learn to think. Everyone's got thoughts, not so many take the time, make the effort to learn how to think. I will care what you think and won't hesitate to offer a reasoned opinion. A reasoned opinion. That is the very definition of the word "argument."
Arguments are not quarrels or fights. An argument might cause controversy, which literally means "turns against" and those sorts of things can cause riffs and feuds and ill-feelings, for sure. But if we can't learn to deliberate, disagree, and exchange views then all we got is a donnybrook, a brannigan, and we'll find ourselves boned by contention. You might protest (this being a good thing) and say, "Do we really have to have arguments about stuff like our boots and jeans?
But I say that when you have real feelings and ideas, you likely have assessments and attitudes to go along with them. The next judgment you have to make, and we're all making judgments all the time, so don't fool yourself with that nonsense about being non-judgmental, is that you're not going to resort to rock'em'sock'em robots, threats, menacing looks, and other stupit [sic, that's sic erat scriptum, meaning I did that on purpose so take the mistake to be not a mistake] shaite. You can be a Sid instead. Urban Dictionary told me this means you're an alright guy, maybe better than that.
That's actually C-i-d, so more like a Castilian knight and warlord of medieval Spain, the veritable honorific well earned as in as-Sayyid ("the Lord" or "the Master"), which evolves into El Cid (Spanish:[elˈθið], Old Spanish:[elˈts̻id]), and the Spanish honorific El Campeador ("the Champion").
Here's some Wiki on El Cid.
Rodrigo Díaz was recognized with the honorary title of "Campeador" during his lifetime, as is evidenced by a document that he signed in 1098, which he signed in the Latinized expression, ego Rudericus Campidoctor. The title "Campeador" thus comes from the Latin Campidoctor, literally meaning "Teacher of the Field", but translatable as "Master of the Battlefield". Arabic sources from the late 11th century and early 12th century call him الكنبيطور (al-Kanbīṭūr), القنبيطور (al-Qanbīṭūr), also preceded by Rudrīq or Ludrīq, which are Arabized forms of his name and title.[4]
The epithet of "El Cid" meant "the Lord", probably from the original Arabic (Arabic: السَّيِّد, romanized: as-Sayyid), and was a title given to other Christian leaders. It has been conjectured that Rodrigo Díaz received the honorific title and respectful treatment of contemporaries in Zaragoza because of his victories in the service of the King of the Taifa of Zaragoza between 1081 and 1086; however, he more likely received the epithet after his conquest of Valencia in 1094. This title appears for the first time, as Meo Çidi, in the Poema de Almería, composed between 1147 and 1149.[5][6]
You get the idea, right? Stand honorably in your opinions, don't make yourself a problem to anyone who disagrees with amicable diffident, never resort to violence or get too mad about stuff unless and until you really really have to.
This should all be obvious and that it's not is a problem men in particular have. Next thing you now their thwarted sexuality, unprocessed envy, and ill-equipped emotional reboubt is out buying guns or saying stupit about a Super Bowl champion tight end who happens to have the most famous girlfriend in the world. You don't, and I'm not asking you to get over the jealous or envy you feel, I'm asking you to think about what you want to do with all that stuff you got locked up in side because you never learned how to express more worthwhile opinions. I'd like to argue you out of lots of ideas that turn too fast into unnecessary, dare I say rather unmanly, disgraceful annoyance and worse. Rage never serves even when you feel outrage. It's hard to stay Zen master calm when something says that your Redwings are not only just average boots but overpriced. Serenity is the best form of retaliation when it is coupled with the actual masculine intention to bring matters to clarity and benefit, even to advantage without desecrating your reputation, identity, your Self. You see Self is not just who you are, it's who you want to be, it's what you could be, and so the idea is to make that aspiration something real right now. That may not be immediately possible but that's why it's worth trying, if not in every moment than in the ones you can possibly spare 'cause as Aubrey says to Maturin time and again, there's not a moment to lose. To be a Self worth having, there really isn't a moment to lose. Trust me on this one, I've lost, wasted, discarded, and neglected at least as much as the worst of us if only because it took so long to realize that an "argument" is the case you make for yourself, not just for the honor of your Redwings to that guy who wonders why you're still loving them when you've got some Role Clubs and Clinch in yer closet too. The world is big enough for differences, for more than one pair of boots, and for more than one opinion, but for f's sake make that opinion worth having and to do that it's a good idea to get better at having them. That's gonna take at least as much work as breaking in a pair of those really hardcore PNW boots that were made for fighting forest fires.
Okay, that's what I got today.
We're going to venture into opinions, and whether or not the stakes are low, like they must be when the world is burning and we're talking about boots or leathers or if Steely Dan is genius or just more old man Yacht rock, we're going to make the case.
It's going to be more pedantic than it should be. That means, donnish, pompous, pretentious, and self-important and we all would like to avoid those kinds of accusations and monikers, but this being Everyman masculine where we either declare our opinions as incontrovertible do or dies followed by I don't care what other people think, well that just will not do. The idea here is that we have to earn our opinions by working out the argument---this may involved considering assumptions and matters we can call facts, and other stuff that matters---and we have stop this nonsense that just because you have had experiences, maybe even bled for the cause, that you are entitled to an opinion that further claims you don't give any fracks about what other people might think. Real men care about other people and that needs to include what they think. Disagree without being too disagreeable, that's where it's at but even more than that, let's not go silent or become boorish clods. WE men have to do better.
More ideas about doing better next time. In the meantime, deal with it, I say, another poem. This is Kipling's If and if you don't know it, it's time to man up, this is required. Flexing is hard, if we want to live with the hard flex of being a man in a world that needs better. So Kipling. Listen to this part again, even if you didn't like the rest.
We'll talk more about the poem next time. And yes, real men read poets, including stuff way harder than this one.
Last fall I left for NYC early enough on a Friday morning to see the sun rise over the City. Always a beautiful thing. I hadn’t anticipated the unusually warm temperatures or the bright, clear skies. The weather was to bless us the entire day. I’d gone to the City for a weekend of work but, lucky me, I can often dress as I please. My plan was to drop off my bag quickly and meet a very good friend for an early lunch. We were then going to amble, take a planfree saunter about our familiar vicinage, without need for much schedule. It was at last post-Covid enough to meander indifferently bemused by the sites of the metropolis. When I travel light I’ll bring only the boots I’m wearing and one jacket, especially if I’m not obliged to assume another persona. Here’s the bluff run down on the kit: selvedge denim from Ooe Yofukuten and Clinch Yeager boots in dark horse butt brown---both via the inimitable purveyance that is Standard & Strange. The short sleeve loop
Nearly all of the cool stuff I had before I was 25 belonged to my father or my elder brother who turned his own 25 in ’72 when I was just 15, which also happens to be the same year that I stole his Schott Perfecto and raided his closet for some well-worn Levi’s 501s. My father had a trunk of khakis and shirts from the War and his later Madman period when I was born. I figured I could make a clean getaway before either of them noticed I'd raided the ark of the covenant. That Schott jacket was later stolen from me in a bar. Karma. What goes ‘round comes ‘round. Those wide chinos that were Pop’s I wore into college in ’75: he never commented on the pilferage but I am sure he noticed. So speaking of which, finally. I noticed this past year mainstream makers like JCrew and Todd Snyder have finally brought sorta’ almost not really yet straight denim and chinos into their current offerings. It’s been all tapered all the time, if you haven’t noticed. You know the tide has
When I was a student living in India I once had a very personal close encounter with a king cobra, an actual Ophiophagus Hannah . It was, I kid you not, under my sink. Lemme tell ya’, this was nothing like knocking on the glass at the San Diego Zoo trying to get the snake’s attention. It obviously looked like a cobra to me and it was certainly big enough and scary enough to warrant the appellation “king.” But I later found out that the King Cobra is monotypic, it is the only one of its species and so not really a cobra but something else . What appeared to me as a snake, a cobra under my sink right before my eyes was something more , even other . Don’t let appearances fool ya’. Enter the Ship John Wills jacket. I got my Ship John Wills when they announced increased production and availability. It took about a year before it arrived. Mine’s a V2, which has gone through some refinements in fit and construction. I can’t compare it to the Version Ones, which I had gaw
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