Black Tie Optional, Excessive Etiquette Discouraged
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 28, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, March 28th, 2010Has America’s sense of style and manners eroded to the point that black tie optional really just means no-one will laugh if you drink the finger bowl?
 Sure. Have Fun. Just don’t drink the finger bowl, okay? |
What does “black tie optional” mean? Well, there was a time when it meant a bunch of rich jerks standing around in tuxes they actually owned, pointing fingers behind their hand at the inept doofus who was wearing a rental. As I learned recently though, it now means “we have delusional pretensions of class and style from another era, and think you should too“. Attending a few formal events over the past month or two, I was surprised by the range of interpretations of what the terms Black Tie and variants of Black Tie Optional mean in today’s style and social continuum. Although part of me recoils at the idea of people wearing uniforms to identify their social standing, another part of me recoils even more at the idea of maintaining a tradition of that sort and then failing to enforce it properly. The biggest distinction I noticed between “black tie” and “black tie optional” events was a higher incidence of people at the black tie functions who knew how to hold their fork and not drink the finger bowl. The “black tie optional” events were more complicated in their interpretation of style, but easy to break down: you could tell a man was over 50 if he actually wore a tux, and under 50 if he was wearing anything from a Nehru jacket to Dockers and a sport coat with a turtle-neck. With a high likelihood that whoever wasn’t wearing a tie was wearing a Rolex, playing with his iPhone, and drinking the finger bowl. Not that I’m laying claim to being part of some elite old money crowd (although I love things like country clubs that keep garish ties on hand for guests that arrive under-dressed), in fact one of my early major fashion failures was when I was in my twenties and dating a graduating law student*, and she asked me to be her date at a black tie event in Chicago. At the time I didn’t own a tux and was still in the depths of my occasionally rather debilitating alternative style addiction. I thought I’d be clever and jar convention a bit by wearing a Spencer-cut tux. It looked kind of hip in a “White Prince on the Purple Rain Tour” kind of way, but it took me awhile to figure out why all the arrogant little lawyers-to-be kept asking me to get them another drink. Which I think highlights a pet theory of mine, which is that the lack of class and style that seems so prevalent the last few decades is a result of the perversion of an older class structure, driven by the rapid acquisition of wealth by the former underclasses. Which I think has contributed to a sense of a slowly crumbling sense of order and comfort in our culture, something I reference a lot. What do you think? Do a sense of class and style matter as much as affluence and personal expression?
Wealth Care For All
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on March 22, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Monday, March 22nd, 2010If America were one hundred people, one would have forty-two bucks while eighty others shared seven dollars.
Now that they seem to have that “health care for all” thing fixed, maybe America should get to work on WEALTH care for all. I mean, somebody besides the Billionaires For Wealth Care that is, whose motto is “if we’re not broke, don’t fix it”. Yeah, it’s nice that Ben Bernanke is all outraged now that the money has changed hands and he still has a job. But I bet he’s still against the idea of wealth redistribution otherwise, even though he was behind one of the most epic examples of it. But seriously, what is wrong with redistribution of wealth? And when did so many working stiffs start thinking it’s a horrible idea? Let’s ponder for a moment the concepts of “fairness” as it pertains to wealth distribution. If, because of our God-given right to explore our Darwinian right to survival of the fittest in our laissez-faire capitalist society, I guess it’s fair that if you can horde a few billion dollars for yourself, well, more power to ya. At the point where you have 6 or 7 houses and as many cars, as well as virtually no worries in terms of food, clothing, shelter, and FU luxury items, still we might say well, go ahead. You’re a selfish ass, but go ahead. But when you reach this level of surplus and the citizens of the country that got you there are literally starving, I think any reasonable person would say maybe it’s time for you to cut a few bucks loose simply out of human decency. I mean really, you can’t drive seven cars at once, can you? In my opinion, if by this point you haven’t decided on a little serious philanthropy, that’s still your choice. But in the interest of maintaining the “survival of the fittest, every man for himself” theories that you justify your behavior with, I think that’s when it becomes fair for the rest of us to kill you and eat you. Because science shows that money only makes you happy when you know that you have more than others, and you can’t see us anymore through your smoked-glass limo windows. And we just want you to be happy. So once we’ve wrecked your life and you’re unemployed (we weren’t really gonna eat you, you probably taste like crap) you can rediscover that giving even feels good when you’re jobless. On a serious note: you always hear statements like “one percent of Americans have ninety-nine percent of the wealth”, but no-one ever gets the infographic right. They always use plot lines and pie charts. We have a better example below, feel free to share it. Read the rest of this entry »
Can’t You See I’m Busy?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 10, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010It’s interesting that in both boom AND bust times LOOKING like you’re doing work is more important than actually DOING it.
 This woman understood the importance of fake spreadsheets on the computer screen, but lost her job shortly after this photo was taken. Why? She forgot to generate fake desktop clutter. |
We used to have a weekly feature called Monday Demotivators in which we featured Flash-based games and puzzles to help you avoid actually (gasp) doing work on Monday morning. During the boom economy of a few years ago, I couldn’t help noticing that – as an aspiring entrepeneurial type – I often worked 60-70 hours a week, while my friends with “real” jobs spent an awful lot of time calling me during the day to fill time while they shopped on line or sent friends stupid links they found on Fark, or doing just about anything but their actual job. This not only had a big impact on my understanding of things like the 20-60-20 rule and the logic of overseas outsourcing, but eventually led to my amusement with spending time working to find ways to help others avoid working. Given the unemployment figures of the last year however, we decided to discontinue our little Monday feature. I mean, if you don’t have a job, you don’t have any work to avoid, right? The other day though, I received an e-mail in which the visitor said “I know this sounds crazy, but I miss your Monday Demotivators. Not because I’m trying to avoid work, but because of force reductions, I’m afraid I’ll get cut because I don’t look busy enough.” Yes, in the bizarre world of corporate employment, if you’re not the CEO that gets a bonus for running your company into the ground, you’re just a commodity that risks being shipped overseas if you’re not perceived as an asset as the ship sinks. And one of the best ways to be perceived as an asset is to not actually be an asset, but to look like one. So we’re here to help. It’s funny that “looking busy” was a valuable skill during boom times because your employer was oblivious to the same inefficiency that led to the staff cuts that now make “looking busy” a crucial skill again. Your Guide to Looking Busy at Work from 2003 is a slightly humorous piece that’s all about frittering away your surplus work hours with high-tech approaches, but last month’s NYT piece Working Hard to Look Busy was all about the new busywork, the kind that helps you keep the job that you were always avoiding. Decent management is hip to the more obvious “furrowing of the brow while clacking on your keyboard and faking a phone call” methods, so you have to get clever. This article gets down to the finer points like “abusing the interoffice envelope system” and “propping out your desk”. Following the simple suggestions in that peice should have you looking Busier than a one-legged man in a butt kickin’ contest in no time. Once you’ve successfully created the illusion of busy-ness, it still may be hard to get back to the more obvious nonsense like first-person shooter games, so you might want to try the games over at CantYouSeeImBusy.com, which are all designed to look like common office programs. Like Leadership, which appears to be a quarterly progress report, but is in fact a “navigate your rocket through the alien terrain” game. You could also resort to things like creating a fake desktop with lots of programs open (see below). Just remember that it IS fake if the boss wanders in; you’ll look pretty stupid if you start trying to drag around fake program windows. Got any tips of your own for looking busy? I have to get back to work now. Read the rest of this entry »
Virtual Realty Inchvestments & Sovereign Citizenship
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 6, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Saturday, March 6th, 2010Homeless? Jobless? No worries. Become a real estate mogul for a buck an inch. Or secede and start your own darn COUNTRY.
 I think Inchvesting is kind of like FarmVille except it’s no fun and costs real money. |
Arthur Miller said “Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s no one to live in it“. Well, these are hard times; an estimated 15 million Americans can’t get work so they can even try to work their butt off to own a house, and later find themselves overextended and joining the ranks of millions nationwide who already blew it and defaulted on their mortgages. This probably has contributed to the estimated million or so homeless people already in America, the only upside being that it may have improved tent sales considerably. Heck. Even Iceland seems to be defaulting on its loans these days. I always laugh when an advertising-kludged pseudo-liberal site like Huffington Post asks stupid questions like Should Congress Take a Pay Cut?, because the fact that they’ll take a democratic legislator’s bandstanding seriously highlights in a convoluted way just how deep the problem really runs. Of COURSE they should take a pay cut. They should also think about spending less than 60 bucks on lunch each day. So. If you don’t have the job security of the guys who get paid out of the taxes they always say they don’t want to charge you, and you’ve lost your job and your home, is there still any chance you’ll ever live the American dream and have your own piece of land? Well, while you’re still homeless, you might want to get creative with your signage like these guys or abuse celebrities like this guy. And once you panhandle a few bucks, you could think about inchvesting it. Yes, for a dollar an inch you can have a little piece of Detroit. Another option would be to disregard social order altogether, secede, and claim any land you like. Think those teabaggers are crazy? You obviously haven’t heard about America’s new sovereign citizens.
You Can’t Always Get What You Want. So Maybe You Should Want Less.
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on February 28, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, February 28th, 2010Half of you think you’ll be rich someday, but one third of the world is content with two dollars a day. Could you be?
 From need to want less. Some images are also available as prints here. |
Could you live on two dollars a day? Well, according to the book Portfolios of the Poor