If you know me, you know I dig old stuff.  And I mean OOOOOLLLLLDDDD stuff.  Sure, I have a brand new grey felt Fedora on the way (thanks, ma!) and am a certifiable Dapper Dan man.  I don’t want “Fop” goddammit!.  This led me to a realization the other day.  People stopped wearing hats for a while.  I don’t mean “caps” like the ones worn by baseball players and hip-hop DJ’s.  I mean “hats.”  Fedoras, Bowlers, the odd Fez…hats, boys, hats! The kinds worn by men!  Real men who fought Nazis and stopped the spread of Communism!  Hats, I say! Anyway, recently the trend has started reversing itself.  Thanks in large part to Justin Timberlake and the P. Diddy set, stingy-brimmed fedoras and pork pies have moved from the fringes of hipsterdom into the mainstream.   Hell, you can get a decent lid at Wal Mart, fer gawd’s sake.  For too long Indiana Jones and Mythbusters’ Adam Savage were the only dudes you regularly saw sporting a hat with any sort of brim.  And frankly, that ain’t enough.

Feast your eyes, ladies!

And there’s a very simple reason for this trend:  hair.  Rather, hair care products.  See, Don Draper got guys interested in the side-part again.  AXE even makes a variety of pomades for the gentlemen among us to slick or comb their hair like, well…gentlemen.  Who wants to go to all the trouble of either spiking up their ‘do like it’s 1998 or crafting a painstakingly messy look out of putty and wax only to either REALLY mess it all up or even worse…GASP…cover it up with a hat?!?  Madness!

"Sorry, I can't talk right now. I've got douchebag stuff to do."

And suits…boy, do I love suits! Of course, I work as a retarded morning show rock radio DJ, so I rarely have to wear them.  That’s why I like playing dress-up.  Remembering how to tie a tie is always a great adventure!  It usually ends with me standing in front of a mirror for fifteen minutes trying to get the skinny back portion of the tie to not be eight inches longer than the front before I say “fuck it…I’m wearing a vest anyway.”  Yes, the suit is awesome.  It makes you look smart, older, respectable, classy…all the things my old Rancid t-shirt or Edmonton Oilers jersey fail to convey.  Why, with my tattoos all covered up I look a proper gentlemen!  Like a dad or something!  And let’s be honest…if you’re going to drink a martini (Bombay Sapphire for me, please) or scotch on the rocks,  a suit makes it so much better.  The inverse of this is also true:  if you have a three-piece suit and fedora, I’d best not catch you drinking draft Bud Light out of a goddam plastic cup.  I’ll box your ears, young man!

So, Mr. Bond! We meet again!

Jesus…it’s finally happened.  I am my grandpa.  Also, I haven’t even mentioned any movies.  I tend to get distracted, you see.  So let’s call this “Part One” and I’ll get back atcha later this week with the flicks, mmm-kay?  Swell!