I like caps...baseball caps too. You can be pretty much certain that if you see me sporting one around Old Town on the weekends, or during the week for that matter, I've deferred my shower till later in the day. Too much information for sure but it’s true. A baseball cap is a stellar component for bed-head mitigation pre-shower.
And I like people. This wasn’t a lie when I said it in a blog post ages ago… “I’d like to think that I reserve judgment of someone’s character until I get to know who they are and what they’re made of. I’ll give a guy or gal with a bolt in their nose a break before I rush to judge them and I like to challenge others to offer me the same latitude.”
But the backwards ball cap drives me crazy and for some reason I can’t seem to let it go. And I know that my judgment of the wearers-offenders runs counter to what I posited in that previous blog story. I’m human. Leastways I think so.
I took a few hours yesterday and replenished my spirit and right-brain reservoirs with a visit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. There's nothing more restorative for me than spending a few hours in one of our many National Galleries here in DC. And I like doing so during weekdays and at odd hours that allow me to selfishly drink-in the visual nourishment without jockeying and queuing amongst the weekend throngs. My visit yesterday was blog post worthy and I’ll get to it this weekend.
As I finished my right-brain recharge and headed to procure an exhibition catalogue in the shop, I spotted this cat. And I’m glad I crossed paths with sixty-something homeboy after my art dose. Otherwise, the certain to be enjoyable journey would have had a smidge, just a smidge, of taint.
This guy may indeed be one of the greatest, most moral and principled pillars of his community. He might be the father that I’ll never be, despite my efforts on that front. He may be the exemplary husband. I’ll never know.
All I know is that when I see this on anyone, it makes me crazy. And when I see it on a fella like this, who otherwise might be a decent looking chap, I just get spastic. Ok, I’m done. I told you this was a rant…certainly not any kind of discourse or first step in establishing a backwards cap dialogue with blogland. Let's move on...to...love.
I've a baseball cap on as I type this drivel. But it’s turned forward. The same way it’s always been turned…even when I was amidst bottle feeding bliss with a certain young lady one Sunday afternoon in Old Town. She in khakis sans hair and I in a cap, 501s and heaven. This certain young lady and I have now swapped hair volume status. This certain young lady is also... the love of my life. I found this photo last Sunday night just moments after reading this…one of LPC’s stories over at Privilege. So here's my feeble segue into something less critical and more hopeful...or at least hopefully pragmatic...when it comes to defining love.
I've lifted two, admittedly out of context quotes from LPC’s story. First … "I believe that these days we have two dominant models for love." (Read the LPC post to learn about these two models) ... And then...“There is another model I think we can look to, the archetype for how the human creature loves, the love of a parent for their newborn baby. We love to take care of our babies. We don’t think of our love as a burden. In fact, we feel privileged to be given the gift of caring for that new person. When our baby does well, we take that as our own success. I believe it’s so easy to love a baby because their new life from the universe is so closely with them. Hovering, almost. So come to your loved one newly born, if we can call it that. See your loved one as newborn.”
Onward. In my flawed and humble attempt at loving kindness…but still hive-breaking-out; when amongst backwards caps.
ADG II
28 comments:
NICE post ADG. Just the way I like my men. Short and sweet and "forward". Bill and all. I haven't commented in awhile. This post stirred me to pick at my keyboard again. Thanks and thanks to LPC. I need to go visit her Privileged space more often.
SFBayArea
SFBayOne...better not stay away so long...you might miss the upcoming wringer.
One of my favorite lines from "Are You Being Served?" - "the sites you see when you don't have your gun". That's what I said to myself when I saw the picture of sixty something homeboy.
The picture of the guy shielding his eyes from the sun while his hat bill is backward, seems to say it all.
Oh Maxxxx. You messin up my mascara again.
LPC has a reader who left the comment that she herself did not have children, but that LPC's beautifully expressed feelings of motherhood made her more aware of what her own mother felt. That's how I feel about both of you, you express motherhood and fatherhood so beautifully, poignantly, like I'm there on the ground, in reverse if you will. I've only been a stepmother in this life [that's a blog unto itself, I suppose] but I've loved reading both of your intimate perspectives.
I just want to know how much it cost to get that perfect craquelure on the turquoise and red jeep paint in the photo just below here. And how many times they sent it back...
Haze Motes
Unless you are a catcher or a sniper (and in either case only when doing your job) then there is no excuse for the backward baseball cap thang. It is most difficult not to pre-judge such folks. I sometimes wonder who was the first person who donned his cap In such manner and why anyone else thought it was a fashion worth repeating. Don't get me started on the 45 degree cocked baseball cap with the ironed flat brim and paper/metallic hologram labels still on or for that matter the "housing" that seems to go with it, what are these people thinking.
I had a comment in mind, but got completely distracted by another one. Dear Anonymous Sarah, that's a knot on the slob's windbreaker sleeves, not a hat-hangable penis.
PS: Great ADG/LFG baby pic. Because I worked there, we got to visit our Guate love-child, but she did not arrive here until she was 10 months old. So we kinda missed the baby sling phase. Love the love!
Sometimes, if I've had a bad morning with my daughter (she's 4 and has absolutely no sense of what being in hurry means), I read one of your LFG posts later in the day, and suddenly I get an urge to go pick her up from day care and tell her I love her.
I often forget how lucky I am, being able to spend every day with her, but posts like these reminds me.
Keep it up...and keep fighting the good fight against backwards turned ballcaps.
Sarah M. ... "You look more of a twat than you imagine..."
I've been called a lot of names over the last half century but never a "twat". So thanks for the first. I've never sought to "look credible" and if I did, the vehicle for doing so wouldn't be a baseball cap.
TNN...I hear you. I'm about to begin a two-week stretch without seeing LFG. There are a few things less pleasant than that but not many.
Yoga...looking at the pictures is sometimes a lot more rewarding than being amidst sling phase days after 2-3 hours of sleep.
AnonCatcherSniper...you forgot one...Welder.
HazeMotes...they sent it back 29 times. And the prototype/failures ended up in the Outlet. Where I bought mine.
Flomotion...dry it up. This ain't nothin.
CeceliaMc-hat...I stole that picture from James.
Tammy B. Are You Being Served was a classic. I met Molly Sugden in London one time.
Good sir,
Good post, good blog, love is noble.
Perhaps I, who is of another generation than yours, can shed some light on the backwards cap. I ask that you open your mind, not implying you are closed, but I venture into this conversation after the troops have obviously already been riled.
It is a matter of STYLE.
Why do you wear a tie? How do you choose your socks? Why cuff-links? Why cuffed pant legs?And why, honestly why, would you pop your collar?
All of these affects, details, once had a utilitarian purpose but remain now mostly due to taste and style.
You wear a tie because you like the look. It conveys a message you want to communicate. You choose yours socks to match the outfit, maybe keep the feet from smelling or possibly freezing, but thats not the only reason.
And that is well and good. I'm on your team.
But the hate of the hat...
Its not your style, that is all, or at least that should be all.
applicable example:
I am playing some rough touch football. I do not like sweat or hair in my eyes and think headbands look ridiculous. not my style. I do not like the reduced field of vision created by the brim, negligable I'm sure but its in my head... I turn the hat backwards. I enjoy the utility and convey a message to the other team that I mean business. It is appropriate.
When I go to the office I wear a tie. It is appropriate.
On a weekend I amy or may not wear a hat, it may or may not be forward, I go with th elook I want at the time... just as I may decide to wear a polo or a pullover, its the weekend, I get to choose.
Then there is this...
The Mrs and I, living in the south, go out to eat. I am wearing khaki shorts, braided belt, button down oxford, and I've turned my hat to the back. I'm young, I like it.
We are seated to eat and a large man with SECURITY written on his shirt approaches and bruskly tells me I cant have my hat backwards in here. I apolageticaly inquired if there was a dress code, to which he replied, yeah it just says you have to turn your hat around.
Perplexed I looked around the room.
T-shirts, ripped jeans, sweat pants, flip-flops, girls in belly shirts... all white kids.
It quickly became obvious this was not a matter of taste and style. It was something else. To these fine folks, a backward hat was a symbol of a "type" of people. The sort they did not want.
I realized it was not the direction of the bill, it was those who wore it they were against.
We left, went to get some sould food, where I sat down and respectfully took of my hat while in doors.
I do not suggest you have the same issue as these folks. I do however ask that some introspection take place on the idea that we not confuse our own personal taste with superiority.
Two weeks without LFG - oh no! That's preparing you for the college years (and more) a bit early.
But you and she will have sooo much fun when she's back!
Brohammas...thanks. I get it and I appreciate you saying it. I kinda hedged and copped on the front end of my post... re: being unfair to the guy in the museum shop and inconsistent with how I try to filter my observations of people.
While I completely believe your story about the backwards hat/restaurant situation, it's important to me that you realize that there isn't (I don't think) a racial antecedent to my lack of backwards cap tolerance. And trust me, there are places that I go when I'm back in the Deep South that if I wore some of the stuff I wear here inside the Beltway, I'd get my ass beat. And I'm about as whitey white as they come.
Thanks for your insight. BTW, I just spent a few minutes reading your notebook.
LimeGreen...College? I've already been to three. I ain't going back.
I wasn't accusing. I have no grounds to do so (obviously not liking backward hats is not an overt racially charged aesthetic). I do not know you, have met one who has met you, he said you were the best, I have no reason to think ill... even if I disagree with you on appropriate headwear.
But some cultural norms bear deeper consideration.
I hope you liked the notebook. It gives me something to do while the MRs. watches (or is occassionaly on) the television.
Brohammas...yes...re cultural norms and deeper consideration. I'm reminded of Malcolm Gladwell's admittedly biased, but subliminal racial orientation during an experiment he participated in. And I didn't think you were accusing. Also, I did like the notebook. So much so that I added you to my blog roll.
I'm honored, thank you.
back to artorial questions and in the spirit of backwards hats; I forward the youthful idea that tucking a t-shirt into jeans is 100% innapropriate. [raising fists, ready to fight]
I love your blog. Whnever possible, I imitate your style...round glasses, sockless, Belgians, Del Toro...and everything you write about your daughter tugs at my heart ...BUT
lose the porkpie...OMG... I wear hats all the time and the people who wear porkpies are the same people who are showing the crack in their...
it just doesn't fit you in my opinion.
Don...thanks. Really. And I know that I bought the criticisms upon myself in this blog posting. No biggie. But I'd never been called a twat before last night and now you are telling me to lose the Porkpie. Fred Astaire wore Porkpies Don. And I enjoy showing, especially this time of year when the weather moderates...a little crack.
But I'll wear the Porkpie forward and limit the crackage to an inch or so!
No, you're right. They're douche-bags, which admittedly is overplayed, but seems to fit the bill here. Get it? Bill? Never mind. People like the older gent deserve to be corrected. Correcting the younger ones might ruffle feathers and culminate in fisticuffs.
Where you lost me was here: "I've a baseball cap on as I type this drivel."
Please tell me you at least were out on the porch when you were typing said drivel, and not inside. Then, and only then might you rate "twat."
"And I know that I brought the criticisms upon myself in this blog posting."
VOMIT onTO.
Baloney.
The blog heading doesn't read Egalitarianomaxminimus, -a, -um.
Your house, your sartorial ballcap rules stand without justification or apology. Unless your running for office.
At the risk of sounding like a sycophant, I believe that a ball cap is a good look for you. One of the reasons that I find your blog interesting is that you do not paint yourself into a tight sartorial corner. You aren't walking around playing dress up in clothes that wear you. You wear the clothes. And, you appear to be quite comfortable in what you wear and in who you are.
Confidence is always the best look. And, it tells its own story.
AnonNonsycophant...if I didn't have an element of not giving a sh_t, 80% of everything I'd own would never leave the house. Just wait till you see proof of it in a post this weekend.
Flo...settle down there now. Vomitonto? Wasn't he a designer?
T...listen...there's only one ding-dong hanging endeavour that's worthy of note. The proverbial "wet beach towel test". When you can no longer hang one on it, then it's time to see the doctor and prolly time for some of them pills. And what's wrong with wearing a baseball cap in ones own home? How does that land me in the twat bucket?
"Unless your running for office."
Whatdidyousay? "Your"?
That's my equivalent of a backwards ballcap, I can't tolerate it.
I die.
I recently barred the door to the high school prom to two young chaps wearing backwards baseball caps with their formal wear (such that it was). Power is a wonderful thing...
"what's wrong with wearing a baseball cap in ones own home?"
Dunno...I was taught that you always removed hats or caps when indoors. In fact, I recall the slap upside the head I received to back that lesson up. My dad's dad, I think...
As for the whole junk-wearing-a-hat thing, I was trying to figure out how the hell that would work...how DOES one look more credible than a guy wearing a hat on his nether-regions? How is that possible?
Reading Brohammas' comment makes me realize why his blog is worth ten of yours.
Anonymous-Ten-Fold...you are a bit late to this post. What took you so long? And I totally disagree with your assertion. Brohammas' blog is worth ELEVEN of mine. Now saunter off and please, don't waste your time here.
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