Why is the Bum Look Popular? (formally the unemployed look)

[John in Covina]

Sleepwear = tracksuit underwear = semi-formal wear

 

[vitanola]

The modern standard of jeans and a T-shirt were ridiculed as outerwear, too. T-shirts are for sleeping and under your shirt, and jeans are for yardwork. Not for walking around town.

Sounds ridiculous, yes?

bk

Absolutely! At least for those over twenty-five or thirty years of age.

 

[mister7]

As a Matter of Fact, I DO live in the Desert!

I don't know how a suit is any more uncomfortable than a pair of jeans. In fact, suit trousers are far more comfortable than all but the softest-material jeans.

Sure a t-shirt would be lighter than a dress shirt, but really what you are saying comes more from being judgemental.

I don't think dressing in this fashion is uncomfortable at all. Maybe if you were in the *desert*, where even victorians dressed down, I can see the necessity of casual wear.

It's just like I never got guys that talked about how oppressive ties were and how they cut off the circulation to your head blah blah blah. F&^%ing pansies if you ask me, trying to eliminate the only flipping article of mens' clothing that isn't entirely functional

I think, in summation, all I'm trying to say is things were just different, no better no worse. Oh, they did look better though. It's like that scene from Pulp Fiction where John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson's characters got blood and guts all over their gangster outfits and had to change into average-Joe outfits of T-shirts and shorts and everyone is making fun of them for looking so silly.

I live in Albuquerque and walk roughly two miles back and forth to work, so I spend about forty minutes walking. That is long enough to soak your clothes completely through with sweat on a warm day. We have days that warm for more than half of the year. In mid-summer full sun conditions you will be be exposed to 110 - 120 degrees.

My title is a falsehood, this is not the true Sonoran Desert like Phoenix or Las Cruces. It is as much as 20 - 30 degrees warmer. Last year some poor lady came out of a store in Phoenix, fainted and fell on the sidewalk. She got severely burned on every part of her that touched the ground, very nearly died. If she had not been swiftly rescued she would not have survived the experience.

I enjoy dressing more nicely from roughly Haloween until Easter, but the rest of year is just too hot if you engage in any physical exertion like walking or working in a hot building.


As to the original intent of the thread, where does trying to exude, or more likely, recapture some of your lost youth fit in? If only being a sloppy dresser really was just such an elixer! I'd have it made!

 

[Doug C]

Let's not forget too that some people are just hot natured. I certainly fit into that catagory. You can't tell me that when it's 100* in August that it's just as comfortable to be wearing a buttoned up shirt and tie with a sport coat on - as it is to lose the tie and loosen the top button, and I'm talking about just driving to work, getting gas, etc. Sure I'll concede that it makes for a more put together look but comfortable it isn't (JMHO). Besides it could also be considered uncomfortable when you're the only person through out the entire day that you come across in such a proper outfit because the majority of the world loath that put together look you're sportin'. I say loosen up just a bit if nothing else then to just fit in a little better. There will always be opportunities to go more formal if that's your thing. Now, that wouldn't hold true if your daily life made it appropriate to "dress up", again in my opinion. BTW, I agree too that jeans are just as hot for the summer time but even when they are used in a more dressy situation, the rest of the outfit is almost always lighter and looser than the suit, making the onsamble cooler by comparison.

Doug C

 

[Widebrim]

I live in Albuquerque and walk roughly two miles back and forth to work, so I spend about forty minutes walking. That is long enough to soak your clothes completely through with sweat on a warm day. We have days that warm for more than half of the year. In mid-summer full sun conditions you will be be exposed to 110 - 120 degrees.

My title is a falsehood, this is not the true Sonoran Desert like Phoenix or Las Cruces. It is as much as 20 - 30 degrees warmer. Last year some poor lady came out of a store in Phoenix, fainted and fell on the sidewalk. She got severely burned on every part of her that touched the ground, very nearly died. If she had not been swiftly rescued she would not have survived the experience.

I enjoy dressing more nicely from roughly Haloween until Easter, but the rest of year is just too hot if you engage in any physical exertion like walking or working in a hot building.

Yes, there should be a sane limit when it comes to how one dresses in hot climates. But as a side note, when I was with the Cavalry in Iraq, we had to wear a helmet, (DCUs) summer-weight long trousers and long-sleeve shirts (could not roll them up), and I.B.C. (modern equivalent of a flak vest) every time we went outside our base. The summer day temps were routinely 100-115, and sometimes up to 125. Granted, this was our work uniform, and had to be worn, but I never heard of anyone passing out or getting sun stroke (although we got close). Although the "outfit" was uncomfortable as all get out most of the time, wearing shorts and rolling up our sleeves would have been detrimental. While some modern Iraqi men wear short sleeves, many still wear "man dresses" that effectively protect them from the intense exposure to sun. And their people have been living in the environment for thousands of years...

 

[MisterGrey]

I live roughly an hour outside of Houston, and for a good portion of the year the heat here makes anything involving a jacket, let alone layers, miserable. Even the ten minute jaunt between buildings on campus can render an individual looking as though they've just crawled out of the swamp. This time of year-- starting about the first of November and lasting until early March-- has intermittent days, sometimes even weeks, when it gets very cold or just cool and a "classic" look is both practical and comfortable. However, any other time of year and you're apt to see me in shirtsleeves and a tie at most, with polo shirts and khakis being the default and shirtsleeves without a tie the happy medium. Likewise, you're only going to see me in a hat containing even a smidgen of wool during those months. Otherwise it's some kind of straw or a summer golf cap.

 

[Son_of_Atropos]

I recant all my prior statements.

I didn't think the problem was this bad until I started browsing msn.com lifestyle section for the well dressed man.

They even have a section from gq.com titled, the Well dressed rebel....




Good god.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-look/well-groomed-male/staticslideshowgq.aspx?cp-documentid=12396010

 

[bonnieprince]

To be honest: Yes, that's exactly what i'd love to see. Everyone free to wear what they want, free to wear as little or as much as they wish, without fear of ridicule or arrest.

I have as many opinions as others about modes of dress, but i'm not so pretentious as to think my opinions matter very much, and nor should they.

bk

If you carefully read my post again, I speak of the majority opinion (read masses/mob) as to what is acceptable by society. Democracy (where I live for now) equals majority opinion rules. All laws began as opinions. So, by your logic, all of our lawmakers and founding fathers were apparently pretentious? ? Do you not see the magnanimity in these gestures? Your opinions do matter my friend, and they should. Once enough people are influenced, your ideas can shape the world. This is how entire countries can be brainwashed by madmen like Napoleon, Mao Tse-Tung, Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Che Guevara and other mass murderers. It is also how great ideas have been shared by Jesus, Ghandi, Suddhartha Gautama, Martin Luther King, Jr. to spread peace and love.

In reference to your entire comment...I don't know where to begin. Your words speak of either naivete or complete disregard for the rest of humanity. For the sake of your inner peace and our comfort, I hope the former applies.

Lets begin with the most benign part of your comment: being able to wear as little as one wants without being arrested or ridiculed. I expect, along with everyone else I've ever met, that nude is not a look. It is not a type of fashion, because fashion includes clothing. It is also not appropriate for children, nor anyone outside of a nudist camp, to have carnal knowledge of passers-by. Children cannot comprehend the complexities of adulthood. That said, you should, and will be arrested for exposing yourself because it is offensive to the majority. Even sumo wrestlers find the time to apply a simple loincloth, or mawashi. Here is a simple analogy. Imagine walking in New York City during rush hour among a sea of naked people. Also, remember what it is like to be walking behind, or riding behind Equus caballus. Clothes contain, so to speak, more than your loins. Enough said in that area.

Here's the real meat of my response. I think lines should be drawn when clothing becomes offensive to a majority of the populace or is worn with the intention of instilling fear in others. Adorning a Nazi swastika, or any Nazi regalia for that matter, through a Jewish neighborhood (say Israel, for example) is offensive (please don't bring up the pagan origination of the swastika, because it was differently shaped and didn't include the white and red background). Wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit is always wrong. Wearing a picture of a noose on a t-shirt is offensive to African-Americans. These articles of clothing instill fear in the masses and should be banned. There is no other purpose to wear them. The individual pursuit of happiness ends when you deny the pursuit of happiness for the many by your actions. Forcing fear in others to satisfy your sartorial desires is more along the lines of pretentious rather than thinking that thoughts and opinions matter. Also, just for self-preservation, you should avoid the above.

It is simplistic to categorically deny or accept all clothing. Better for each article of clothing to be individually judged in terms of where it is to be worn, what is to be worn, and by whom it is to be worn. I understand the spirit of your post, but there is a reason for limits to what we wear. An easy example is uniforms should only be worn by those we are trying to identify with the uniform. How would you like it if I showed up in fireman’s clothing while your house is burning down, but I’m not a fireman? I’m just some pedestrian catching a glimpse of your tragedy. Maybe I should dress as a police officer and walk the streets although unable to help the countless people that would unwittingly ask for my help? Clothes are certainly more than they appear.

All of this used to be common sense to any adult, but in the rapidly developing world of moral relativism, adults of today are the apparent children of yesterday...Of course, in a world of moral relativism I can justify being pretentious enough to say all of this and have you accept it for fear of rebuking me would be offensive to me. So, why should I care what you think? I'm not morally relative. I care about your thoughts and about the reactions my actions invoke in others because I believe in a basic right and wrong. I believe in more than swirling electrons. It takes belief in more than what my eyes perceive to have this sense/foundation. Without this belief, the deterioration and moral decay of society will continue unless, that is, people become knowingly deluded, or forced into thinking otherwise within their own construct.

Let's follow the path further. If we are all just swirling electrons, then emotions, feelings, etc. don't really exist. They are just signals sent through the central nervous system. It's just something that evolution created to keep matter in its present form (fear enables self-preservation). War and the destruction of what we perceive around us would not be reprehensible, but simply the re-assortment of matter. This is how atheist despots justify all of their actions. The triumph of their ideas means more to them than the millions that die as a result of their quest for glory/legacy since there is no right and wrong. I always wondered why they don't consider the futility of this in their own paradigm, since their joy/happiness in attaining said result is just as much the re-assortment of matter, and just as inherently meaningless.

After mulling over this and many other ideas for decades, I chose faith to have a sense of reality containing right and wrong and infinite meaning. Without faith, life is really just a depressing, boring re-assortment of matter/swirling electrons. Unfortunately for those that think they can do anything they choose at any given time, I and others like me will say some clothing choices need to be...wait for it...censored. Uh oh, did I say the C word? Yes, censorship is not always bad, especially, in terms of self-censorship. People need to grow up, be an adult in the traditional sense of the word, and take responsibility for their actions. All we ask is that they wear some clothes, and wear something that doesn't cause a riot in every corner of the world.

A great example for those of you on the fence in terms of faith (as I was for years), here is a great story that might help you decide one way or the other. My buddy at work reads medical journals to reinforce his own faith because there are so many re-affirming stories. One journal wrote about a man who was born blind. This man ended up on an operating table as an adult where he had a near death experience. He said he could suddenly see around him and floated out of his body. He remembers floating above the operating table and seeing the doctor operating on his body below. He saw the doctor drop his eyeglasses which slid across to the far corner of the room. Mind you, the patient was born blind. As the doctor apparently was successful with the operation, the man recalls re-entering his body where he regained some semblance of consciousness. Unfortunately, he was blind again. (Apparently we are limited by our bodies in this terrestrial existence). He heard the doctor complain that he dropped his glasses to the nurse and that he would appreciate it if the nurse could find them. The patient blurted out that the glasses were in the far corner. The doctor smirked and asked the nurse to take a look as a polite gesture, but to his surprise the glasses were in the exact spot the patient stated. The nurse returned the glasses to the doctor, who proceeded to ask the patient how he knew that. The doctor was stunned by the patients response as was I after hearing this story.

Regards,
BP

 

[Doug C]

oh man, I pass on reading all that.
Doug C

 

[Creeping Past]

If...BP

But were any of these people — the patient, the doctor, Ghandi, Stalin or Hitler — dressed like a bum? And would you mind if they were?

 

[shortbow]

I submit that the Mahatma is a rather poor example for your argument. He eschewed his three piece for a diaper, changed a country and became a model for tolerance, non-judgment and peace.

 

[Lefty]

Here's the real meat of my response. I think lines should be drawn when clothing becomes offensive to a majority of the populace or is worn with the intention of instilling fear in others. Adorning a Nazi swastika, or any Nazi regalia for that matter, through a Jewish neighborhood (say Israel, for example) is offensive (please don't bring up the pagan origination of the swastika, because it was differently shaped and didn't include the white and red background). Wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit is always wrong. Wearing a picture of a noose on a t-shirt is offensive to African-Americans.

I also have no intention of reading your entire post, but the above paragraph began with a sentence that caught my eye. If that is the basis of your argument, then good luck with it. Is a noose is offensive to enough African-Americans to make it always wrong? What about a shirt with the "N" word, and does your answer change depending upon the race of the wearer? How about a shirt with a gun on it? That would offend quite a few. Confederate flags? Pot leaves? "Jesus is my homeboy"?

Have fun finding your line. "Always" doesn't tend to work out so well.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

So, it seems this one has run its course.