My Sartorial Splendor, Such As It Is
Fashion experts say that we do not dress to make ourselves look good; we dress to remind ourselves of the times we felt sexiest. Sadly, this is more difficult for me, as my sexiest time was when I was in fishnets and high heels, doing Frank-n-Furter at the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And that outfit’s a little exhausting to pull off in the Midwest.
But I do like walking around in heels. It improves my posture. It makes my ass look better. And, as Gini noted, when I have heels on, I strut everywhere.
Problem was, finding the appropriate boots. I didn’t want stripper boots because, well, midwest. I didn’t want cowboy boots because I think cowboy boots imply a certain rest of a look that I wasn’t going to pull off. So what I really wanted, after some research, was Cuban-heeled boots, a.k.a. “Beatle Boots,” with a subtle heel that wasn’t too bad.
Ordered a pair.
Those Cubans have narrow feet, man.
So I was heartbroken for quite some time at these misfit shoes, begging my shoe-happy friends to find me links – and eventually, Nex0s shot me a link to a wide version of the Cuban heels! I waited at the door like a kid about to get his Red Ryder BB Gun, and eventually the shoes arrived! And they fit!
The pictures, sadly, don’t do the boots justice. It’s not the boots themselves; you have to know my slump-shouldered posture by heart, and then see the difference as I stand taller, forced into better posture by differing pedal physics.
I’ve worn the heels a couple of times (working at home, it seems a bit ridiculous to lounge around in them), and I have to say it’s quite the adjustment. While I got used to running up and down toilet-paper-slicked aisles in my heels, I never actually navigated stairs. So I look good until I get to a staircase, and then suddenly I’m a trembling foal.
Also, I have but one speed in these suckers: strut. It’s a sedate military pace, which means if I’m caught in the rain I will march, looking good, to the car, while everyone else flees. It’s causing some problems. But hey, as Frank Zappa said, beauty knows no pain.
In other news, yes, I did my nails as a glittery whore-red, and my nails, I forgot to show you them:
My manicurist – I have one now – loves this shade. She told me, “I am not painting your nails blue any longer!” And these do get compliments. You can’t really see how glittery my nails are in this shot, but trust me, they’re like little disco balls at the ends of my fingers. At some point, I’ll discuss why I paint my nails and the privilege wrapped therein, but that’s for a different day. Now, just admire the pretty.
Also admire the pretty of my pedicure and my amazing pajama pants. Yekaterina says that my pedicure should match my pants. I’m not a guy who matches with anything, Yekaterina.
Because You're EMBARRASSING Me, Man
So today’s PVP has a strip that makes me wonder whether I was partially responsible for Scott Kurtz’s latest character:
That’s right – it’s the White Knight, Defender Of Women’s Rights! (And the middle panel is suspiciously similar to my widely-linked coffee essay… though then again, being vexed by guys hitting on girls isn’t exactly a unique idea.) It’s amusing, and I’m curious to see where (if anywhere) Kurtz goes with it.
But lemme discuss why I’m big on women’s rights. It’s not because I hope to get laid. It’s because I think that ultimately, we’re all responsible for our nutballs.
Which is to say that when Muslim terrorists assault an embassy or the Christian right blows up an abortion clinic or a nerd talks about how fake nerds are a matter of great concern or a Texan wants to secede from the Union or furries are dry-humping a stuffed yak down at the mall in front of the kids, it’s generally not the mainstream of that organization talking. Most Muslims and Christians are peaceful, most nerds and furries are cool, most Texans would rather handle their differences in another way.
But every organization has a few fuckheads who ruin it for everyone.
Now, if you’re a member of that particular club, the problem is that these fuckheads call themselves by your name. Worse, they’re probably the most visible members of your society. You can have a million people praying for peace and it’ll never make the nightly news, but one bomb and wham. That’s all people know you for. Left unchecked, the nutbags become your PR wing, because the nutbags go out of their way to irritate other people.
And I’m of the opinion that if the only time you meet a [MEMBER_OF_GROUP_X], they’re fucking with you, it’s not unreasonable to form the opinion that [MEMBERS_OF_GROUP_X] are assholes.
There are those who will cry, “But Ferrett, that’s not fair! People shouldn’t judge based on their personal experiences! They should get online and read about [GROUP_X], and get to know the good members of [GROUP_X], and form their opinions based on what [GROUP_X] says they are!”
To me, that’s a fool’s errand that goes against everything we know of human experiences. Asking people to not form a negative opinion about your group because people who identify themselves as members of [GROUP_X] keep picking on them is to ignore the fact that [GROUP_X] are going out of their way to make some people’s lives miserable. It’s a way of saying, “Yeah, maybe you got hurt by these people, but your pain is kind of trivial, isn’t it?” And frankly, “No, we’re better than that, go read up on our many accomplishments!” is not an approach that’s worked well, ever.
So what do you do? In many cases, though, you can’t control the nutbags. While I identify as a geek and a male, I can’t really control what other geeks and/or males do.
But I can talk louder. So if anyone’s listening, they’ll have a positive voice to associate with my [GROUP_X]. So they know that not all members of [GROUP_X] feel that way. So they know that people in [GROUP_X] are actively ashamed at these assholes passing themselves off as us.
I write about women’s rights, but you’ll note most of my essays on women’s rights are an arched eyebrow that says, “Really, guys? You think this is a valid stratagem?” Because as a dude, it’s deeply embarrassing to hear the tales of OKCupid from my female friends, and the shared IM messages that go, “ur hot wanna fuk”. It’s painful for me to see guys whistling at women on the street, as if that approach ever worked.* It’s a constant facepalm extravaganza, watching nerds slip into the friend zone and try to emerge as a surprise fuck, rather than being honest about their sexual intentions.
I like fucking. I like getting laid. I actually get a fair amount of sex.
What often motivates me is not that I need to defend women, but that these guys are so fucking bad at fucking.
Seriously. It’s not hard to get laid. I have a gut like a tub of suet, buggly eyes, and a hairline receding so fast you’d think it was France in World War II. Yet I manage. Why? Because I think of women as people, and not as mysterious vending machines for sex. When I talk to a woman, it’s because I would actually like to get to know her, and not because I’m wondering, “How do I crack this safe? What act should I put on to woo her?” My conversations arise because I’d still be here chatting with her, even if sex wasn’t a possibility, ever.
And that. Fucking. Works.
Not all the time, of course. Or even a majority of the times. But there’s a lot of men who would only talk to a girl if he thought there was a chance of sex involved. They treat 51% of the population like they were some bizarre alien overlords we live underneath the rule of, lashing us with promises of sex instead of whips. (Or, you know, sometimes both, depending on your kink.) Without the Cracker Jack prize contained in a girl’s panties, these men would never talk to a woman if they could help it, and it shows in every discussion: they talk about women like they’re irrational masses of needs that could not be fathomed by rational humans. They discuss women in alternating tones of fear and worship, needing a virgin to find the whore. They rob women of their humanity, and leave in place a tainted mystery.
So here I am, with lovers and haters, yelling as loud as I can as a guy, to tell anyone listening that, Hey, those oafs over there? Not all men are like that. And maybe some women like the clumsy approach, and see me as the nutbag of mankind. I’m fine with that. I can’t stop them, they can’t stop me. I’ll be the turd in their peanut butter. Because I like women and men, I like people, and I don’t see the value in segregating the two like they’re salt and pepper.
But when I talk about women’s rights, it’s because I’m trying to provide a positive experience to offset the negative nutbag experience. I want my voice ringing far and loud, saying I am not them. They wear my name, but don’t think we are all like that.
I’m not trying to defend women. I’m trying to defend me.
* – Yes, I’m aware that for many it’s a shaming call. I get that.
"My Knowledge Is Superior To Your Enthusiasm"
The latest tragic geekstorm is this: fake nerd girls. Women are pretending to be nerdy, because it’s trendy! How dare they?!
In other breaking news, my eighteen year-old self is has just flown through the time barrier to punch every one of these complainers in the nuts.
Seriously, guys? Your complaint is that comic books have become so popular that cute girls are emulating you? I feel an attack of Condescending Wonka coming on:
“But Ferrett, you don’t understand!” the haters complain. “These girls? They’re not real fans. They just watched, like, the Justice League cartoon and the only Green Lantern they know is Kyle Rayner! They don’t deserve to wear the T-shirt!”
Really, dipweed? Who decided what level of knowledge someone had to possess before they could become a fan?
The thing that constantly amazes me about minority groups is how, after being beaten up by the outside world for not fitting in, they retreat to a hidden locale where they’re accepted among others like themselves… and then manufacture reasons why other people can’t fit in with their group. Hey, we’re gay – but those creepy bisexuals are playing at their gaydom, kissing women for male approval! Hey, we’re a bunch of dominants and submissives, inflicting pain for pleasure – but those switches, the ones who alternate between dispensing pain and receiving it, well, they’re not really committed to the scene!
One of the Great Nerd Dysfunctions is that we confuse “depth of knowledge” for “depth of love.” It’s a given in many nerd communities that you can’t be a True Doctor Who Fan until you’ve watched all fifty years of the show, seen every episode from every Doctor, and can discuss the differences between the BBC audio dramas and the novelizations. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do, if you’re a nerd: consume relentlessly. Become an authority. Acquire the mantle of respectability, so when those Doctor Who Dick Wars come a-knockin’, you know exactly what happened to the footage from lost Shada, and which episode it was later reused in, and the embarrassing reason why.
And if someone doesn’t know all of that stuff and yet they claim to be a fan, well, they haven’t put in the same work as you. Therefore, they cannot love as deeply as you do.
Read: they are not as good as you.
But the truth is, knowledge does not equal enthusiasm. I’ve known Star Wars “fans” who had counted the number of shots were fired in the hallway battle in A New Hope, and they treated their fandom with a grim, possessive bullishness: I have invested my life in this, and even though I hate this new book series and this new set of toys is crap, I must have all the things or it doesn’t count. They often speak bitterly about the crappy novels they’ve read, the way Lucas is fucking things up, the way Disney will now fuck things up, showing not a love of Star Wars but a constant disappointment that it does not match up with the imaginary construct in their head.
Whereas there are people who have never heard of the novelizations, but love the fucking fuck out of the six hours they’ve invested in the movies.
So who’s better? Trick question: the answer is, “neither.” They both express love in their own way.
Point is that the real complaint of a lot of these disgruntled fanboys is, “They don’t know as much as I do!” Which is true. But that doesn’t make these fans fakers. It means they love a small part of a much vaster whole, but that love is deep and real. Maybe they’ll choose to explore more, when they get the chance. Maybe they don’t get pleasure from tracking down every last scrap of continuity. Who the hell cares? Fandom is large. I do not have to have read every last Star Wars novel to call myself a Star Wars fan. That girl does not have to know about every being who’s taken on the mantle of the Green Lantern ring to have the heroic adventures of that incarnation of Kyle Rayner resonate with her.
What you’re upset about is that they’re not respecting your hierarchy. And in that, you can fuck off. You tried to escape hierarchies when you were on the bottom, and now you’re trying to manufacture one where you’re on the top? That makes you a petty, shallow sonuvabitch.
Plus, there’s a hidden misogyny in there, in that you hardly ever see this sort of kerfluffle about guys wearing Green Lantern shirts and not meaning it. The geek refuge is all too often the He-Man’s Woman-Haters Club meeting, where any guy who wears the clothes is accepted without question, but any woman has to pass the secret test.
Why? For fuck’s sake, I’ve been playing Magic since The Dark, which puts me in the old grognard club of Magic players. I’ve edited a Magic site. I’ve been a Magic celebrity, such as it was. And when I talk to some some twenty-something college kid and discover we both play and he tells me, “I love Magic! I’m totally into it. I have, like, all the cards,” I don’t think, oh, you ignorant fuck, let me show you how it’s done. I think, boy, I’m glad he’s getting such pleasure out of it, and he’s gonna learn soon how many cards he doesn’t have, and I hope that encourages him to get all the ones he wants. It’s okay that he doesn’t have all the dual lands like I do, or that he’s never played Rochester Draft, or that he’s probably not really understanding of what Standard is or how it works.
I think he has a love. A love that may lead him down the same paths as me, or it may not. But the joy he gets in slinging cards, incompetently, with his buddies over the lunchroom table is no less true.
And that’s why yes. You can wear the T-shirt.
What Would Happen If The South Seceded?
There’s a petition being circulated in Texas by nutballs, wanting to secede from the Union. These are a minority of nutballs, rest assured. I’m pretty sure if Texas voted to secede from the Union, it wouldn’t pass.
But what if the South did secede?
I’ve been pondering that idea over the past couple of days, as angry conservative Southerners have been all like, “Let’s secede!” and angry liberal Northerners have been all, “Let ’em go! They’re a drag on our economy anyway!” And as such, I’ve been intensely curious as to what happened if there was a peaceful Southern secession.
I mean, because I’ve been reading (and enjoying!) Daniel Abraham’s The Dragon’s Path series, which looks at a big ol’ fantasy world from the perspective of a banker. And one of the recurring themes in the book is the necessity of trade between nations, and how that affects politics. The plains don’t have mines for steel, the coastlines don’t have enough wood, nobody has enough spice. So we have to ship those things back and forth, and come up with trade routes and protect them from bandits and set taxes on them, which creates a very complex admixture of cultures.
I mean, it’s all fine and well to say, “All right, South, secede!” But Texas has the oil, and the South has a lot of the farmland, and probably a hundred other things we don’t think of as scarce now but would be if we suddenly had to trade at increased costs for them. And I wish some economist would do a big study to find out what actually would cost more, and try to map out the first-level effects of those causes to both sides, if suddenly we were split into two.
I mean, Coke is headquartered in Atlanta. Would there be a literal split, with extra taxes from a foreign corporation, where suddenly Pepsi became the drink of the North?
I don’t know. Probably not, but I want someone smarter than me to figure this out, because it would be fascinating reading.
A Plea To Liberals: Hurt 'Em In A Good Way. Overall.
There’s been a lot of talk about “the Republican Bubble” lately, and rightfully so. But a lot of my liberal pals have been discussing the Republicans high-handedly, as though liberals have a one-to-one correlation with thoughts and reality.
I sort of mentioned this yesterday, when I said, “One of the problems that liberals have is that they often think that businesses are magic money-making machines.” To flesh that thought out further, while conservatives generally think of the market as a continual force for good, liberals think of the market as an unkillable Golden Goose. Doesn’t matter how many regulations you force companies to jump through, or how many taxes you lay on them – they’re business! They’ll be all right. What matters is the people who work for those businesses!
But every new regulation has a very real cost. Every new tax puts some poor bastard out of business because he can’t compete any more. Every new nice thing that businesses are forced to do via legislation for their employees means that someone can’t afford to hire a new worker – or may have to lay people off to make his quotas.
And these are not evil. Because the other liberal bias is to think that any decision based on cash is evil. Any layoff, any cut in benefits, any restructuring is just a greedy jerk trying to stick his nose in the trough. But there are also good businessmen, people who care, people who get fucking ulcers because they’ve looked at their books and they can’t afford to keep ten people on-board any more, they have to let two go.
There are hard limits in business. And whenever you make it harder for someone to do business, you’re hurting someone’s livelihood. And that’s not cool. A guy’s sunk his entire life into making his own business, investing his life savings to try to make it in America… and suddenly thanks to a flurry of paperwork and incremental taxes nibbling him to death like ducks, he has to go to my wife and declare bankruptcy.
That’s a bad situation for anyone to be in.
Which is not to say that regulation is bad. You need it to keep businesses in check, because otherwise we’re back to child labor and sawdust in our bread.
But liberals, think of regulation and taxes as surgery – you’re going to be doing some initial damage, and risking doing more permanent injury, in order to rectify a problem. It’s something that may do more harm than good, if you’re not careful. A poorly written law can bury someone in useless paperwork, increasing costs across the board and not actually fixing what you wanted to.
With every new law you’re affecting people’s lives just as surely as you are cutting welfare benefits or cutting back on libraries – you’re making it harder for these businesses to get by. And they will not automatically just get by. Some of them may go under. Some people may lose their jobs. Some people may be heartbroken.
I’m not saying not to do it. I’m saying not to do it lightly.
Papa Johns and the Insurance Dilemma
(EDIT RIGHT UP FRONT: Within minutes of posting this, Andrew Ducker pointed out that what John said was actually riotously misquoted by the media in a ridiculous game of telephone. His actual statements are much more defensible, as he’s not enacting the consequences, but rather pointing out what his franchisees – who he has limited control over – are likely to do. It’s still an attempt to interject himself into the political scene, but he’s not the one threatening to swing the hammer. That said, I wrote a whole essay here and I’m not going to delete it, in the hopes that other people might be enlightened instead of passing along misinformation as I did.
(…but I had a link and everything! Bleah.)
So the CEO and founder of Papa Johns has said that he’s going to have to cut people’s hours to account for the rise of costs in the wake of Obamacare. And I’m of several minds about this.
You’ve got a lot of people saying, “Oh, you say you’d have to raise costs by fifteen cents a pizza to keep your employees insurance? Shut up and take my quarter.” But having to raise prices on pizza, which seems to me to be a pretty interchangeable thing, probably is damaging to their business. And the new laws of having to provide insurance to employees at locations with fifty or more employees probably hits their bottom line more than they’d like. Unlike many liberals, who view the costs as trivial, I see it as a significant expense in a business that probably doesn’t have a ton of margin.
I’m actually sympathetic. You’re in a tough market, here’s some added expenses that’s going to make it harder for you to stay afloat. One of the problems that liberals have is that they often think that businesses are magic money-making machines: shut up and suck up the taxes and the extra costs and the expenses of paying the regulations, you whiner. You’ll be all right. Because if you own a business, then you just have the money automagically. It’s not like people ever go out of business because they can’t afford to keep up with expenses.
Even if it’s a multi-million dollar corporation, you can still go under. And you still have to answer to stockholders, who are effectively psychotic robbers who only care if you made more money this quarter. You’re kind of held hostage by Wall Street.
Still. I’m sure other expenses have created places where Papa Johns would lose money, and John Schnatter didn’t make public speeches about them. So what’s he doing? Basically, campaigning against Obamacare. He says it’s not political; bullshit. He’s calling out Obamacare to say, “If we lay you off, blame Obama.”
Which is fine. It’s his business. If he wants to go that route to save on expenses, so he shall. But in doing so, what he’s telling the entire world is, “I would rather these people suffer than we lose fifteen cents on a pizza. Or, you know, we come in a little lower on profits for the quarter.” And that’s the cold businessman speaking, the kind of guy who says, “Okay, well, your kids’ teeth are rotting because all you can afford is Ramen, but I couldn’t let my profit margin dip a tenth of a point!”
And at that point, it becomes battling PR. Yeah, you’ve got a right to complain. You’ve got a right to reallocate resources as you see fit to keep your business alive. But you’ve also got a right for people to look at you as some serpentine-blooded sonuvabitch, the kind of guy who actually goes, “Can you believe that you’d have to pay fifteen cents extra to keep a guy’s family insured? Christ, what a pain.”
So yeah. You can do it, buddy. But it makes you look like a callous douche. Which a lot of businessmen are, but don’t be surprised when there’s pushback on that logic.