While happily munching on my egg white omelet wrap this morning I came across an article titled “Men in Shorts” and written by someone named P.J. O’Rourke (National Lampoon’s! Libertarian! says everyone!) in a compendium to Forbes magazine jauntily called ForbesLife. Now I don’t know what O’Rourke has against grown men in shorts but it’s patently hilarious his quite reasonable takedown of the phenomenon — if not a little histrionic.
He’s quite upset, you see, by the rise of middle aged men who wear shorts, well, basically out in public. I would assume wearing them hidden under a tarp and in a bomb shelter that’s encased with five tons of lead would be a more preferable choice, but short of that, these things are worn all over the damn place, like on airplanes, in business offices, teachers’ lounges, and churches, not to mention in the workplace, and I don’t know — while riding on the back of a donkey while taking Communion? Needless to say, the shorts, they’re rampant, and this strikes him as not only impractical, “Where do you put your things?” but also not something an adult man should be doing, “When I board an airplane these days, all the middle-aged men are dressed like me–when I was an 8-year-old.”
One of his points is to rail against the expansion of “Casual Fridays,” which in his view, have become so far reaching that nearly every day is “dressed down day”, which well, that all depends on how you look at it. Does the job you perform necessitate that you dress in your best Brooks Brothers? Are you constantly meeting clients? Meeting them after work for drinks and such? Or are you mostly onsite bound, and with the exception of the occasional meeting, no one sees you outside your office or cubicle, and certainly there’s no one who’ll make commentary about your khakis and polo shirt uniform that you’ve perfected, mustard stains notwithstanding? According to P.J., it doesn’t matter, he says:
I can’t leave the house without wallet, car keys, house keys, lighter, cigar case, cigar cutter, nicotine gum–because I’m giving up cigars–clean handkerchief, spare clean handkerchief for ladies in distress, and a fountain pen in case business correspondence starts being conducted on paper again. I have ten pockets in my suit and need them all, including the little one inside the jacket flap to ensure that I forget where the theater tickets are.
Nothing’s easier than matching a pair of pants and a jacket that look exactly alike. I’ve got a closet full of blue suits and black wing tips. Any tie goes with a white shirt. I can get dressed in the dark.
Yeah, he sounds like a bit of a throwback from another generation, one of those “Kings of the World” where two martini lunches, and eyeballing the ladies in the secretarial pool, were commonplace. But does he have a point? Have men gotten altogether sloppy and have turned leisure wear into everyday wear to their professional detriment? P.J. — who I’ll add that I haven’t heard of anyone going by the name P.J. since grade school, and that kid brought hard boiled eggs for lunch everyday, and smelled like sour milk — firmly believes that wearing shorts, especially the kind that resemble “flabby laundry on a clothesline” or wearing jeans of which he has determined there are only two types for men of a certain age, “Hindenburg or Goodyear blimp” somehow chip away at one’s authority, and means that you won’t be taken as seriously, and when you suddenly need to wear a suit, no one will know how to respond.
With the overgrown-brat image, we also shed our adult authority. The only advantage to being a middle-aged man is that when you put on a jacket and tie you’re the Scary Dad. Never mind that no one has had an actually scary dad since 1966. The visceral fear remains. When I set my jaw and stare over the top of my tortoiseshell half-glasses, everyone under 50–from waiter to law-firm partner–thinks, “Grounded for life.” This doesn’t work when you’re wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
And I suppose this is something that one should aspire to, eh? Well, I get what he’s saying, but I think there’s room for error in his assessment. For instance, take my dad, while a sensitive, loving, caring man, no one has ever doubted for a second his formidable nature, his ability to put someone in his or her place with a deft look, and it doesn’t matter if he’s wearing a suit and tie, or if he’s in swim trunks. It’s undeniably the man, and I’d dare say that even to strangers he still calls forth the same regard, all things being equal. So, Peeg, what do you say about that?
(we’re not getting younger) you can’t go to the grave wearing shorts and a T-shirt, either.
He’s so maudlin, that P.J. But possibly there is something to be said for dressing appropriately for your age. There are just some things that would be strange to see on some men. We can go down the list from backwards baseball caps, to fanny packs, and jeans with a front pleat, to blinking Hawaiian dancer ties, but some of these things are style choices. Where does the line cross from style or trend into a horrible choice that’s representative of more than needing a Simon Doonan to show you the ropes, and into the realm of a large man-baby who’s unaware of what his look is telling the world? For O’Rourke it’s ostensibly this guy.
Those who work and travel in what’s basically their underwear require the giant Boy Scout backpacks that you see grown men huffing under in airplane aisles every time you turn around. And when they turn around, you get smacked right in the Scotch and rocks.
The kid-who-stayed-40-years-too-long-on-the-playground look doesn’t inspire trust. If dressing up as a third grader is your idea of how to treat yourself, what’s your idea of how to treat me?
Well, again, I’d say it’s surely got to be about more than just what one looks like. Our cues should really come from more than that, granted first impressions still mean a lot in our world, but that doesn’t mean that we have to constantly conform to one stagnant rule or another. So, I ask you gents and ladies, is P.J. right? Does he make a valid point about today’s man, or is he living in some Mad Men-esque fantasy world with only black and white lines, and the notion that since more than likely you’ll be wearing a suit when you’re dead — let’s get the Joseph A. Bank party started now, right? — or has the actual world really expanded to include the need for Dad-shorts as I call them, and Peeg can basically shut it?
