Fashion Faux Pas

I am not a fashion expert. I did not go to F.I.T., I am not a perfect size 2, and I do not have the incredible influx of cash required to obtain the latest in designer attire; however, there are just a few things I have got to say about today’s fashion.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I do not care for Rap music. I am a singer. I like to have a beautiful melody to sing along with. In fact, I do not classify Rap as “music” at all, because the majority of these rappers have no real musical ability. They “steal” songs from other real musicians, and then add their “lyric talking” above it. All that is required is good timing and rhythm. I also do not care for the use of the “N” word by anyone, including African Americans, because I feel it degrades them as a culture and promotes racism. I do not care to hear curse words slung at me in my music, nor do I “enjoyably” listen to the female degrading, violent, or sexual nature of the lyrics in general. I say all this knowing that I am not a prude and that I do, in fact, use curse words in my vocabulary on a fairly regular basis. I choose subtlety over these things being thrown in my face. This is my personal preference. But there is one thing above all else in particular that this “gangsta” mentality has forced upon me that I just cannot stand, and that is their fashion sense.

I love men. I also appreciate looking at them. And there are certain attributes to a man that I “check out” on a regular basis when one happens to walk by – one thing being his “bootie”. Nonetheless, I prefer to see a man’s ass IN HIS PANTS rather than above them. Leave something to the imagination for crying out loud! First of all, it must be so incredibly uncomfortable walking with your pants halfway down your legs! One day, I imagine these people will come down with the “gansta-pants” infliction, or Rappantalitis, where because they had to walk with their legs so far apart to keep their pants up, their bodies have morphed into bow-legged beings that suffer from some freakish arthritic or musculature pain that cripples them later in life. Secondly, the only other thing besides their legs holding up their pants, is their penis, and why on earth would they want to risk possible injury or deformation to this organ which could deny them experiencing incredible amounts of pleasure in the future? Not to mention the fact that the only thing covering the actual groin area is a thin layer of boxer shorts, incredibly cold in the winter months, causing shrinkage, which makes the pants fall down even more and could in turn lead to frost bite. Also, if they frequently ride the subway and sit in the germ infested seats, the only protection to the anal region from those bacteria is a thin layer of breathable underwear fabric, hardly enough to protect one from the hazards of infection. Why chance it? Not only do you look like an idiot, you risk bodily harm.

On the other hand, women are not immune to this type of poor fashion sense either. These “brainiacs” Britney Spears and Paris Hilton have contributed to our little female preteens turning into slutty looking schoolgirls that pedophiles must be going nuts over. Thankfully, women’s fashion evolves much faster than it does for men, so the low-rise pants craze will be going out of style much sooner than our male counterparts. These low-rise pants only seem to look good on you if you are a preteen, right after you’ve gone through an incredible growth spurt and haven’t hit puberty yet to begin acquiring belly fat or a “muffin-top”. Unfortunately, this style only looks good on supermodels in catalogs. Older women should NOT be wearing these pants. I cannot tell you how many times one of these unsuspecting women has sat at a table in the restaurant, only to have these pants ride halfway down her bum, colorful thong tackily sticking out a good 2 inches above the top of her pants, “plumbers-crack” hanging out for the world to see. This can stop traffic in a bad, whore-y type way. It is not pretty!

One more thing…flip-flops. I’m from Colorado, a clean, nature conscious land of fresh mountain air, with a ton of hippies, or “Granolas” as we call them, that love to live in their Birkenstocks. Here, I think it is perfectly fine to wear flip-flops on a regular basis. I’ve also lived in Florida, and in these warm beach towns where it is spring break all the time and people live in their bathing suits, I also find it perfectly acceptable to wear flip-flops out and about. New York is a different story. In New York, wearing flip-flops grosses me out. New York is an amazing city, but it is filthy. There is a huge amount of people crammed into an incredibly small amount of space. We produce a lot of garbage. Unlike other big cities like Chicago for example, there just seems to be more disgusting mystery crap on our sidewalks. Chicago has back alleyways, so they haul their garbage out behind their buildings and their sidewalks remain fairly clean. New York does not have back alleyways, so all of our garbage is hauled out onto the sidewalks in front of our buildings. All of this disgusting, germ infested, oozy crap is laid out in front of our buildings for us to walk through. Any New Yorker has experienced at different times, in various areas throughout the city, on a hot but humid summer day, the stench that sometimes emanates from our city streets, which comes closest to a combination of rotting garbage, vomit, and urine. Just being able to identify the components of this smell should give one pause when deciding which shoes to wear when walking out into it. Speaking of, the myth that every woman in New York wears fabulous Manolo Blahnik shoes like Sarah Jessica Parker in “Sex And The City” is just that – a myth! No woman can actually wear amazing, gorgeous shoes here. New Yorkers walk everywhere and fabulous shoes not only rip your feet apart, but also wear the heels down to the nub walking down our city streets, plus the amount of grates, potholes and cracks in our sidewalks are extremely dangerous! You wear your sneakers and when you get to your destination, you change. It’s either that, or you hire a car service to drive you everywhere so you don’t actually have to walk at all. Being on your feet all the time, comfortable shoes are very important. And hey - I may not be the best dressed in this town, but I do care about hygiene!