New 'Essays in Idleness' & Other Reviews from The Hard Flex Cafe

The OCBD is my first and last word in shirting.  Shirting is a great word, isn't it?  When the world is coming to an end (looks sooner than later, doesn’t it?)  or my house is burning down (this has actually happened), I want to be wearing a True OCBD.    A True OCBD has criteria that must be met in fabric, form, and details.  The fabric must be true Oxford and anything else makes the shirt a button down Oxford- like  shirt.  Brooks Brothers calls lots of shirts Oxford buttondowns that are not OCBD---and let's not even discuss what has happened the quality of their actual OCBDs.  That said, if the fabric is not Oxford, neither is the shirt.  Nothing wrong with them but not to be confused with the True OCBD.  It's fabric definition is crucial. (Not all buttondowns are OCBD anymore than Derbys are Oxfords.)  First, a True Oxford cloth is too informal a fabric and look to be worn with a proper suit. Yo...

I don't like sounding the curmudgeon.  It's insulting enough to have a body changing in ways that makes doing things you used to do that much harder, but it's never a good idea to take it out on anyone else.  You might start out looking for your humanity by pushing your boundaries and pressing your limits.  You might begin with the notion that no detail is too small, no effort too great to arrive at your goals.  But I tell you this turns around when you're ready for socialized medicine and the experiences of conditionality and limitation are far more important ways to reach honest self-assessments. One of the best take-aways of the great Bhagavadgita is Krishna's nearly-Jersey-esque admonition that we need to pay attention and stop complaining. If you are doing the former with any seriousness then you don't have time to be doing much of the latter.  So I hope this is not registered a complaint.  Rather, it is a rumin...

I am at my worst when filled with passionate intensity.  Aren't we all?  The world is afire, it burns---literally.  And what of all the other ways we can imagine? I say keep this cool, it's hot enough out here.  But then I can't help myself. This past weekend a rather proper woman whom I barely know asked me about my children. She said, "You have two daughters, is that right?" To which I replied, "Two. That I know of." While she considered my impertinence I cast eyes downward to take note of the fine Goodyear welt on my boots and enjoy, as any malapert would, her mild discomfort. *** For me a fit is a story I'm telling myself, it's not a certain look I'm trying to achieve.  I'm not often thinking about what other people will think of my appearance 'cause I'm blessed that way---I rarely need to follow attire-appropriate imperatives.  But I notice that some guys have a look or look to be aiming for their style. It's as if their ...

I got into the closets this week long overdue, a pursuit worthy of an Indy Jones archeological expedition replete with poison darts, justifiably angry natives, and misplaced pythons.     I also found my original pair of Alden Indys, albeit now too small.     Once they were not.     I swear.     I remember.     But you change even when the things you love continue to survive unscathed.     Collecting the Good Stuff is about stuff that it is so good that it really is going to outlast you. You do this because life invites you to love things that matter to you.  This is Take Away Ground Zero.   I’ve been at this almost as long as you   can   be.     I started when I was 15 with my first leather Schott Perfecto (stolen from my brother, stolen later from me) and I got my Medicare card in the mail this past week.     What’s   The Good Stuff  ?     Everyone has their own versi...

Artisans and craftspeople may describe their work but we know when their work speaks to us.  The things in life that win our attentions will define us whether or not we admit how that also plays into our larger self equation.  Just what the artisan's work is saying depends on us--- as observers, users, critics, consumers, dare I say, freaks, buffs, connoisseurs? Our desires project in the ways we express ourselves and that invariably includes how we choose to look, all that what we say and do.  Our distrust of appearances is not unfounded---books, covers, judging, you know---but how we invest in appearance is too often consigned to vice,  as if vanity were the only message.  It's important to offer others a view of how we construct our values, though we cannot control their reactions.  There are good reasons to dress well enough to make your point. We also now that the good stuff will cost ya'.  Those costs are as emotional as they are material.  ...

Nothing about my relationship to leather jackets makes any sense.     I’ve long come to grips with that.     I’m going to have the next one, another one, and the reason I want   that  one is that I have spent my   entire life , at least since 8:13pm on February 9 th   1964---when The Beatles came on The Ed Sullivan Show---wanting to be cool.     Granted a leather jacket is more Stones than Beatles but you get the idea.     Whatever purpose a leather jacket serves, it’s got to be cool.  Cool may not be the only point but it’s never not the point.  And just when is cool anything other than the point?  That question I answered on that fateful February night when I was but seven years old.  There is more than one Coolest Leather Jacket but there is none cooler than the Café Racer.  (Now do take this entire diatribe with tongue planted firmly in cheek.  Where else do you keep yours? ...

“Everybody. We right back here doing the same thing. And I hope y’all enjoy what we doin’. Cause I’m gonna play it’s gonna be good to me. I have little opening piece…and I told you I don’t play no rock n’ roll but it kinda’ sound like…I don't try to out play nobody.  I got my own way of playing.” —Mississippi Fred McDowell [Parenthetical to the Fugue: This one isn't about boots or denim or leather. Instead it's asking about why we do this? Why do we offer up our personal style to each other? What do we think we are doing? I don't presume to speak for you, not in the least. But I do offer a few thoughts about why I get dressed everyday and sometimes take a picture and don't mind sharing it with you. We're working stuff out. But what?] Nowadays workwear is also style. I wish style on everyone because it means you care about the story you are telling yourself. I hear there’s a dime to be made on being an “influencer.” I don’t resent that and certainly don’t envy...