Category: Culture

Are You A Pompous Ass?

pompous

Recently, I discovered that I’m actually not a pompous ass.  It was quite a revelation.  I’ve been working under the delusion for years.  Anyway, I took the test, and come to find out, I’m just an ordinary guy.  (Who knew?)  So, if you’re at all concerned about where you fit on the scale of pompous assery — take the test.  (Europeans: don’t worry about question #1 — all your films are “foreign.”  Vegetarians: disregard #4 – it’s for meat eaters.)  Good luck!

1 — Do you prefer movies with subtitles?
Pompous asses believe they are cultural sponges, and they can magically soak up sophistication just by watching foreign films – whether they understand them or not.

2 — Do you automatically think people with English accents are smart?
Seduced by Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones and the many, many productions of Pride and Prejudice, the pompous ass looks at a clipped consonant as if it were an IQ test.  That’s why so many advertisers use it for voiceovers.

3 — Do you eat a lot of food with French names?
Everybody knows that you can put mud through a French kitchen and it will taste good, but only a pompous ass gets fooled by the name.

4 — Do you secretly wish you could figure out how to become a Vegan so you can casually mention it to your friends at dinner parties?
Pompous asses groom their image as if it were an award-winning show dog.  And speaking of dogs:

5 — Do you call the mutt you got from the Animal Shelter a “rescue dog?”
A pompous ass doesn’t understand that you don’t get extra points for giving an ordinary event a special name.

6 — Are you on Instagram instead of Facebook — even though they’re virtually the same and are both owned by that cyber-scoundrel, Mark Zuckerberg?
A pompous ass follows meaningless trends the way a southern bloodhound follows an escaped convict.

7 — Do you used words like “toxic,” “vulnerable” and “inappropriate” as if they mean something?
Pompous asses use buzzwords to camouflage their shallow understanding of the conversation at hand.

8 — Do you say “purchase” instead of “buy,” “communicate” instead of “talk” and “plethora” instead of “lots?”
Pompous asses love using 10-dollar words.  It makes them feel ever-so-clever.

And finally:

9 — Do you drink your coffee out of a paper cup?
The ubiquitous badge of the pompous ass is the paper coffee cup.  Screw the environment: this is about cool!

Scoring:

If you answered yes 3 times or fewer – you’re fine.
If you had 4 to 7 yeses – you need to think about this.
Anything else – go walk your “rescue dog!”

I Love Fashion!

fashion

I love fashion a lot more than most heterosexual men my age.  It’s one of those things that happened early on in life (as a teenager, I was seduced by Coco Chanel’s “little black dress”) and it has continued ever since.  You see, to me, fashion is more than adornment.  It’s the vision and ability to turn a two dimensional material into a three-dimensional piece of art, using only colour and texture — while simultaneously being handcuffed to the standard contours of the human body.  Plus, it’s all about sex!

Anyway, yesterday was the end of Haute Couture Week in Paris.  This is when designers from all over the world gather in the City of Light to eat, drink, pontificate and play silly buggers with the female form.  (There is a Homme Week, but nobody cares.  After all, after Armani, what can you do with a suit?)  The thing is Haute Couture isn’t about clothes.  It’s walking avant-garde: the fringe of fashion that sets the tone for the middle.  It’s the stuff that women don’t actually wear, because it’s outrageously expensive, 90% of it is hideous and you can’t sit down.  Yet the catwalks are full, the streets are alive with fashionistas, the media is having multiple orgasms, and everybody from Marks and Spencer to Emmanuel Macron is taking notice.  This is because (despite what virtuous sophomore millennials will tell you) fashion is a serious component of human society – and always will be.  (Even the hillbilly Neanderthals wore baubles and beads.)

The truth is fashion is our most basic form of communication.  Check it out!  When you walk into a room and someone is standing there, you have no idea who or what they are – zoologist to axe murderer.  You can’t hear, smell, touch or taste them, so you rely on your eyes for social cues, and a suit and tie send a different message from dirty jeans and a torn t-shirt. (FYI We can yip all day about being non-judgemental, but the fact is we all do first impressions — it’s instinctual — and it’s one of the reasons our species dominates this planet.)

Fashion is the shorthand we use to tell the world where we fit.  Whether we shop at Dollarama or Dolce & Gabbana, we choose our clothes to reflect our personality, our status, our mood and, in some cases, our occupation, our sexuality and even our level of self-esteem.  Fashion is our opinion of ourselves and our world without ever saying a word.  That’s why puritanical societies that fear opinion restrict fashion.

There was nothing spectacular about this year’s Haute Couture: a lot of beads and sleeves and Karl Lagerfeld didn’t wave to the crowd (the guy’s 85.)  However, like every year, it set the stage for February, a month of pret a porter (ready to wear) in New York, London, Milan (Berlin and Tokyo are in there somewhere) and finally back to Paris.  This is where the big girls come to play– and I can hardly wait.

Gillette: Ya Screwed Up!

gillette

Gillette has just made a massive mistake that’s going to have consequences all over the world.  This is serious, folks — so you’re going to need a little background.  Gillette recently released an advertising video that, in no uncertain terms, calls their customers (men) a bunch of knuckle-dragging assholes who spend their leisure time teaching their male children to bully each other and harass women.  And then they take the virtuous stance that this has got to stop.  Applause!  Another multi-national corporation has found its soul.

Maybe.

Personally, I don’t think Gillette suddenly developed a social conscience last Tuesday and felt a moral obligation to join the #MeToo conversation.  I think their advertising department took one look at the gigantic numbers generated by the controversial Nike/Kaepernick collaboration last September and said, “Wow!  We need to get in on some of this social justice action!”  So, at a time when traditional advertising is dying, they decided to hitch their corporate brandwagon to the rising star of “toxic masculinity.”  Fair enough.  Unfortunately, there are a bunch of cynics in this world who believe Gillette is just newsjacking.  They think that the reality is Gillette doesn’t much care if its customers punch each other in the face or have pan-fried puppies for breakfast — as long as they buy razorblades.  Here’s the deal: if Gillette were actually serious about social justice, they’d be funding a string of Gillette Centres for Battered Women.  After all, the designated smoking areas in some German airports are sponsored by Camel.  Honestly, if a multi-billion dollar corporation is going to talk the talk, they should walk the walk — every once in a while.

But the real problem is there’s going to be an unintended consequence from Gillette’s global hypocrisy.  Millions of Gillette customers don’t like being told they’re the problem and then being asked to pay for the privilege.  They’re dumping their Gillette products in the trash and finding alternatives – alternatives that have a different chemical composition.  Thus, in the very near future, people all over the world are going to subconsciously discover that their sons, fathers, brothers, husbands, boyfriends and lovers all smell different.  Humans, like all animals, rely on their olfactory sense for any number of social and sexual cues, and when the people closest to us don’t “smell right,” that’s a major problem.

So, now we’re left with a bunch of pissed-off men, a lot of suspicious babies, wary relatives, cautious friends and an army of confused and slightly frustrated women — all because the folks down at Gillette wanted to cash in on the 24-hour Twitter news cycle.  Thanks, Gillette!  If that’s “the best men can be,” don’t do me any more favours.