CitizenTed

Jew-Jitsu is super-fly!

As some of you know, I’m the Catholic son of Catholic parents. I went to catechism and received all the sacraments that were available. If I got married in the Church, then my wife died and I became a priest, then I luckily received Last Rites on my deathbed, I’d be the proud recipient of all 7 available sacraments! It’s like making Eagle Scout, but you’re dead and you don’t get any patches.

My paternal grandfather was Jewish, so I have a Jewish last name. I like my last name; it’s kinda cool. Rosen. “Keeper of the roses”. It was probably Rosenzweig or Rosenkrantz or some other awful central European appellation prior to my ancestors moving to the US. It may have been sourced from Rozen or Roosen from Polish Silesia. I dunno. But Rosen is alright. I don’t mind having a “Jewish-sounding” last name.

Yet I know almost nothing of Jewish culture and tradition. When I was a little kid, I attended my great-aunt’s Jewish funeral, and I also attended my buddy Mike’s bar mitzvah. That’s the extent of my experience with Judaism. I know it involves yarmulkes, bad singing and a level of boredom that easily rivals Roman Catholicism.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

Despite my ignorance of Jewish life, I am vividly aware of the history of the Jewish people: Roman occupation, the diaspora, the awkward integration throughout Europe, the discrimination, the Holocaust, the founding of the new Israeli state, etc etc. But when it comes down to Jewishness itself, I have no fucking clue.

And this is where it gets weird.

You see, lots of people think I’m Jewish. I have a receding hairline, a big nose, gapped teeth and a general look of unathletic nerdiness. You can dump the “zwieg”, but you can’t jettison the DNA. If I was standing in line in Nazi Germany to  get a government job, my rosary beads wouldn’t count for shit and I’d be laughed out of the building.

According to the Nuremberg Laws of 1936-1938, one’s Jewiness was very carefully measured. Even if you were a blond-haired, swastika-waving party member, if you were found to have three or more Jewish grandparents, you were a Jew – even if your parents were observant Lutherans. If you had two Jewish grandparents, you were considered a “Mischling”, which sort of means “half-breed”.  If you had one Jewish grandparent (like me), you were considered a “Mischling of the second degree”. Whether or not this “second degree” of Jewiness affected you came down to the fickleness of the Nazi bureaucrat making the decision. Sometimes, you’d get a full pass – especially if you looked Aryan enough. Otherwise, you’d be deemed a “Geltungsjude”, or “considered to be a Jew”.

If you need a chart to figure out who you hate, it's time to re-think your ethics.

If you were a Mischling or a Geltungsjude, you were typically stripped of citizenship and the right to vote. However, if you avoided marrying a Jew, Mischling, Geltungsjude or quarter-Jew, you were usually not deported to a concentration camp. The Nazis figured your latent Jewiness would be pretty much diluted if you married a fully Aryan person, thus ending the despicable lineage of Jewy Jewiness. This would have been good news for me had I grown up in Nazi Germany, but it may not have lasted because I think Jewish chicks are pretty hot.

Nazi eugenics laws aside, this subtle streak of inherent Jewiness has followed me my entire life. When I lived in New Jersey, it wasn’t a big deal. The place was crawling with Jews. My friends knew I was Catholic, and everyone else just didn’t care if I was Jewish or not. Well, there were some neighbor kids whose parents told them that my family were “dirty Jews”, but these people were Irish; they didn’t have much of a perch from which to judge. Fuck ‘em.

Everything was hunky-jewy until I was about 16. My friends had gotten jobs at the Route 9 Car Wash and I wanted in. This job was a glorious vocation. You could siphon change out of people’s ashtrays, find hidden treasures beneath car mats and get stoned on lunch break. I really wanted this job.

The owner was Mr. Goldstein. He wore gold rings and puffed cigars and didn’t take shit from anybody. But he was Jewish, and rumor was he had a soft spot for Jewish kids. Few ever applied to work for him, though. Jewish kids in New Jersey don’t wash cars. They prep for Princeton.

An artist's rendering of what Mr. Goldstein may have looked like.

So my pals told me to play up the Jew thing. This was no easy feat; I didn’t know the name of my local synagogue and I couldn’t distinguish the Torah from British wallpaper. I went to the car wash and shook Mr. Goldstein’s hand. “Hi, I’m Thaddeus,” I told him.

“What kinda name is that, kid?”

Oh my God! I blew it already! My full name – Thaddeus – is about as goyim as it gets. I was named after the apostle Jude Thaddeus, a follower of Christ, a writer of the most polemic chapter of the New Testament and a bona-fide denier of the Jewish faith. I continued: “My last name’s Rosen!”

Goldstein’s face beamed. “Oh, you don’t say! You’re hired, kid. Here. Take a rag and a punch card and go talk to that fat kid in the back.”

I was in! I had Jewed my way into a peachy minimum wage job! And I didn’t have to quote Exodus or anything! I was free to frolic with my burnout buddies, scam stuff from cars and earn a princely paycheck. The whole global Jewish conspiracy thing was really working out for me.

Unfortunately, scrubbing 500 cars a day throughout the brutal New Jersey winter isn’t a particularly joyful experience. One warm spring day I had had enough. I handed in my rag and punch card to Mr. Goldstein, thanked him for his generosity and walked home, whistling a happy tune.

Years went by, and my depressing life in New Jersey was taking its toll. My family had moved to Bakersfield (my mother’s home town – she met my father there after the war and they moved to NJ to find work). My parents wanted me to join them in California, and New Jersey had me hating life, so I moved West.

After a few years of cushy work, I was laid off and took a job at a pro audio shop in a dusty, barren tumbleweed town out in the county, Pumpkin Center. There were two other techs there, very smart and capable guys. They warned me about the boss, who was a classic right-wing Republican shit-kicker. I didn’t like him either, but he had hired me and gave me run of the entire back half of the Quonset hut where I could conduct my electronic experiments and feats of troubleshooting genius. It was a good gig, I thought.

An alarming facsimile of the shitkicker boss.

After a few months, things were going well. I was working faster and making them some money. Then, without warning, I was fired. No reason was given. I was bummed, but I still qualified for unemployment insurance. I took my pink slip without complaint and left.

The next day, one of my fellow techs called me up. He had overhead the shitkicker boss talking with his wife in the office the day I was fired. She informed the shitkicker that I was almost surely Jewish, and this made the shitkicker boss enraged. I guess if I was Rosenzweig or Solomonkraussteinowitz, he’d have sniffed me out more easily and never hired me. Instead, his raging anti-Semitism had to be applied post-facto. That’s why I was fired.

My buddy asked me to consider suing the bastard for what amounted to workplace discrimination. But I just couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t want to win my job back – the guy was a fucking asshole. Why would I want to go back? And yes, maybe I could have won some money and made him look like the racist jackass he was. But that would entail a lengthy civil trial, a lawyer I couldn’t afford and months of scrutiny and headlines. Fuck that.

The only thing that bugged me about it was that I WASN’T JEWISH.

So, it seems my inferred Jewishness had scored me a plum job and cost me a plum job. Karma was satisfied; the universe was once again at rest.Nowadays, some acquaintances still think I’m Jewish. When I eventually correct their mistake, they take it with carefully hidden surprise. Their blank expression says “Oh, so he’s not Jewish. NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.”

I actually find this more disturbing than blatant bigots who slap me on the back and say “Hot damn! I thought you was a Jew Boy! Well, Catholic ain’t much better, but we can’t all be perfect! Hyuk hyuk!”

I never bother to tell either of them I’m actually an atheist.

.

Can you fucking hear me now?

Put the goddamn phone away. Seriously.

Day and night, you’re cramped over the thing, neurotically hammering out  yet another worthless text message or just futzing with the goddamn thing. You’ve just GOT to have your fingers wrapped around it, like a four-year-old boy who grips his penis incessantly.

God forbid you find yourself with more than 25 straight seconds of inactivity. You’ll have to reach for that phone. Is there a new text? Maybe it chimed and you didn’t hear it. No message? Hmm. Maybe you can go in and change one of the 8,000 possible parameters, like the one that lets you set your wallpaper to sequentially display the last 10 photos you took. Oh, look! You can even add some cool wipe transitions. Alright!

This is what you look like.

No message, no incoming calls, no cell phone activity at all? No problem! Just fire up any number of tiny-screen games or “apps” that help make your 3-inch life so much better. Why don’t you fire up Happy Dangy Diggy and blow someone a virtual kiss. How cool would that be?

Better yet: let’s get on the 3G network (the one’s that setting you back $110 a month) and try to look at some website that requires endless zooming and scrolling and paging and futzing. Anything to keep your face buried in that goddamn phone.

"Hey! Guess what I'm doing? What? Can you hear me now?"

Most of all, it’s critically important that you are talking to somebody about whatever, whenever. Solitude is for losers who don’t have a crystal-clear network, right? Nowadays, the concept of rudely ignoring those in your presence is known as “get over it”.

Making a purchase? The cashier can go fuck herself because you are within your rights to yap on the phone to your bestest friend about how much it cost to get your car fixed last week.

On a date at a nice restaurant? Whatever. That will.i.am ringtone means it’s Kayden and she just got botox! OMG! Touch touch TOUCH THE PHONE! That guy will get over it. Fuck him anyway. As long as he pays the bill and and settles for a blow job later on, he’ll be fine.

Speeding down the highway? That’s the best time to pick up a call from Jared. It’s really important: Jared just got home and he was wondering what you were up to. Like, not right now now, but, like, what you’re up to later. Yeah, so you weaved a little. Nobody got hurt, right?

Concentrating on what's important.

I’ve fucking had it. You people are crazy. Yeah, I have a cell phone. But its most powerful feature is the “ignore call” button that shuttles people to voice mail when I’m doing things like – you know – interacting with my fellow human beings, driving a car or just enjoying a bit of quiet time.

Texting? Fuck that. Not in a million years. I can understand why children like it; they can send each other messages like “Ur a FAG LOL!” and nobody’s the wiser. But if you’re an adult and you have something to tell me, you can call me if its urgent or email me if it’s not. Texting me is like saying “I can’t be bothered to talk to you, and your precious few hours away from a computer screen don’t deserve freedom from interruptions, so here’s a goddamn text message.”

At this point, I’m probably losing friends, but I don’t care. I refuse to become one of the dual-thumb craned-neck masses. Instead, I like to use my mobile phone as if it were (get this!) a telephone. I like to talk to my friends and family on it. I like to confirm times and dates and just chat about our lives. I love all of you. I really do. When we’re apart, it’s important to me that we can talk.

0110 1000 0010 0001!...............1101 0011 0010 1110!

What I won’t do, however, is join you in this mobile phone madness. When I’m out and about, I want to see, hear, smell and experience that hi-resolution interactive experience known as “outside”. No iPod, no ear buds, no tiny screens, no ads. We can talk, though. Just don’t be surprised and hurt if you go to voice mail. It’s not that I hate you; I’m just busy with real life at the moment and I’ll get back to you later, I swear.

Remember before cell phones? When we had a telephone in the house and if you weren’t home, people left messages? Was that life really so bad? Did thousands of horrible deaths occur because you couldn’t get a hold of Lori to tell her that “Pretty in Pink” sucked and Kathy Jenkins puked up buttered popcorn in the lobby?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a Luddite. Having a portable personal telephone was a futuristic dream that has come true. It’s easier to coordinate with people and share information. But do we really have to be buried in the things all day and night?

Hot or twat?

I was biking home a few weeks ago. Some assmunch with one of those kiddie trailers got in the bike lane in front of me. He reached into his pocket and started fiddling with his phone, swerving into the road a bit. He corrected himself and slipped the phone back into his pocket. Then, not 30 seconds later, he pulled the phone back out and started futzing with it again. He swerved once more, this time causing traffic to avoid him. Rather than put the phone away for good, he simply darted his gaze between the phone and the road more frequently. For safety.

It has gotten to the point where attending to our cell phones is more important than the health and safety of our children. Furthermore, we’re willing to pay hundreds of dollars a month for the sheer joy of being an oblivious asshole.

You’ll never hear me say this on any other subject, but in this case I believe innovation should be halted. Mobile phones should be re-purposed to be…telephones.

You may now commence with the hateful denunciations. I can hear you now.

The agony of de-feet.

With the World Cup in full swing, I feel compelled to include some commentary. I’m not a big sports fan, so I can remain objective discussing such an emotional subject.

On this day, America was defeated by Ghana. This is the second time in as many World Cups that Ghana sent America packing, which speaks volumes about the value of this truly international competition. Unlike the Olympics, where huge sums of money can make a national team superstars, in association football any group of wiry little bastards can destroy the richest and most powerful nation on Earth.

The next generation of Goliath slayers.

Association football isn’t very popular in America. We love it for our children, but if you’re post-pubescent and still playing soccer, you’re gay or weird or both. Parents giveth the soccer ball, then they taketh away. This seems mighty strange when one considers that the vast bulk of Earth adores the sport and holds it in the highest regard imaginable.

The reason for America’s tepid interest is simple: the nature of the gameplay precludes extensive commercial breaks during broadcast. There isn’t enough TV money in soccer to satiate the voracious appetites of the American media machine. Without broadcasts, there is no national interest. Without national interest, there is no television audience. It’s a positive feedback loop that keeps soccer in schoolyards and civic fields and out of stadiums and networks.

45 minutes without ad time? Forget it. What's next on the agenda?

For the rest of the world, it’s a passion. Their broadcasters will show all the games simply because it draws viewers. They have that old-fashioned belief that currying viewership builds long-term interest in the rest of the offerings. This quaint approach to business is anathema to American business practice, which dictates that anything that threatens the next quarter’s numbers is a stupid folly that must be avoided.

What a passionate market segment may look like.

Meanwhile, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and Pacifica are exploding with football madness. Supporters go to horrifying extremes to demonstrate their loyalty to the local side. In Britain, this passion makes worldwide news as the hooligans perform public outrage after public outrage.  This is the kind of passion that marketing executives dream about, but America has yet to comprehend the possibilities. It’s her loss.

As for me? Even if America became soccer-mad I wouldn’t be very interested in the game itself. Maybe if soccer matches became ultra-bloody spectacles of crowd violence I’d watch on TV and even attend matches now and then. It’s the psycho-social aspects of the game that interest me, not the game itself. Why? Let me tell you  a story…

Eng-LUNDDDD!

It was 2004. I was touring the south of England during the UEFA Euro Cup games and ended up alone in Bournemouth during the quarterfinal against Portugal. I debated leaving my hotel to join the locals; my previous match night in a tiny Wiltshire village pub was a bit stressful. Being the “bloody Yank” in a sea of painted English faces isn’t exactly comforting.

But I wanted to see the spectacle. I wanted to observe this cultural phenomena firsthand. English football hooligans make American football tough-guys look like a bunch of fat girlies. I wanted to understand this fury; I wanted to smell the beer and the sweat and hear the screams of joy and anger. I was not disappointed.

I went to the biggest, busiest pub full of the most painted, caped and be-draped England fans I could find. The place was a riot of beer and noise. The crowd overflowed to the outdoors, where numerous TV sets were hurriedly installed maximize the punter volume. It was to this garden I went and, to my surprise, was befriended immediately.

'E's a fookin' Yank, 'e is!

I met a lovely young college-age couple and their buddy, a hardcore supporter. We talked about England and America and how idiotic Bush is and all that stuff. The game against Portugal started well enough: Michael Owen scores in minute 3 and the place explodes with joy. I felt much more at ease, cheering on the English side without actually speaking too much and giving away my ethnicity. I wanted to blend in and observe, not come across as a johnny-come-lately interloper.

The game progressed through waves of beer and liquor. I was quite intoxicated when regulation time expired. In extra time, Portugal scored and the whole place erupted in hatred and frustration. What now, England? To universal relief, Frank Lampard scored the equalizing goal at minute 115. A miracle! But as extra time expired, the place became hushed.

I didn’t take any of these photos, but it this one demonstrates the mood of that moment perfectly:

Why so sad?

I didn’t understand it. The game is a draw and will go to a shoot-out. England still has a fighting chance! Why is everyone so despondent? I stupidly inquired with my hooligan host what the problem was.

“Cunt!” exclaimed the hooligan, “England ALWAYS loses these FOOKING shoot-out’s! FOOK! Oi ‘ate this shite! Oi fookin’ ‘ate it! FOOK! ENG-LUNDDD!”

And he toddled off, beer in hand, a man destroyed. The whole pub felt similarly. they knew that the English side, despite its numerous merits, are world-renown for screwing it up in the clutch. England, mighty England, is a goat team. And everyone knew it.

You could hear a pin drop in the pub. First up for England: Beckham. The man. The legend. He sets the ball, steps back, hand in the air, and proceeds to puff the ball miles wide of the goal. It was the kind of shot on goal I would make, and I suck donkey ass.

That was it. The place was in an uproar. As the shoot-out continued point-for-point, there was absolutely no hope. Portugal was one point up and that was all the room anyone needed to beat the goat-losers of England. Fate inexorably closed in on the hopes and dreams of the Sceptr’d Isle. Portugal wins, 6-5.

The pins-and-needles were swept away by torrents of dark, beaming anger. Screams of anguish filled the hall. Glasses smashed on the floor. Men were tearing at their hair and faces. As they say in hooligan lore, it was about to “go off”.

Not a place for drunk Americans.

The crowd spilled out into the street. Men were stripping off their shirts and flexing their muscles. Women walked quickly along, arms tight their men-folk. I must admit, I was feeling like them. I wanted to put my head down, grab someone’s arm and hope to Christ they could guide me out of that mess. The incipient violence was palpable.

Social scientists have studied crowd violence for decades. Freud supposed that crowd anonymity begets unwarranted exuberance and truncated personal reasoning skills. “Convergence Theory” holds that crowds self-organize: while it’s possible for a few individuals to whip up a crowd, the crowd must want to be whipped up.

What I witnessed that night paid homage to both theories. The core of extreme hooligans clearly infected others, but as the crowd swarmed into the street and started marching uphill, it was apparent that the horde had decided for itself to vent anger and do damage.

There was them. And there was me. And then, there was the police.

It's goin' off!

At the top of the hill was a wide police cordon. The coppers had lined up their vehicles at the crest of the hill and formed a cordon in front. As we marched up the hill toward them, they stood ready, tapping their batons in their palms, ready to crack some drunk-ass skulls without a moment’s hesitation.

At this point, I was ripe for escape. I looked to the left. I looked to the right. No alleys, no arcades. Only two directions existed: forward with the crowd or back against it. I was infected; I couldn’t turn back. It was like surfing into shore. The wave carries you and you don’t head back out to sea even if you want to.

The hooligans were screaming at the police, tearing at their bald heads and itching for a fight. The bigger, the bloodier, the better.

As the first wave of rioters met the police cordon, something amazing happened: the crowd backed down. It wasn’t just one person and it wasn’t discussed among the hooligans. It was just felt. Despite its vehemence, the crowd had decided for itself that this was not the occasion. Skinhead England supporters meekly ducked past the police, wringing their football shirts in their grubby, drunken hands. “Relief” could hardly describe my feelings.

We all winnowed our way through the police cordon. There was a bit of yelling and shoving, but in the grand scheme of things peace had been restored. I bustled past the cops with my head down, silent. God forbid they picked out a fucking American in this crowd. It would be like finding a Tibetan monk at a Texas hootenanny. Like, what the fuck are you doing here?

I walked back to my hotel, exhausted yet unharmed.

My back-handed appreciation for the Beautiful Game coalesced that night. I had never seen anything like it. Sure, angry crowds in Detroit and Los Angeles sometimes riot after a big win, but their chaotic vandalism can’t hold a candle to the focused, shimmering fire of the heightened association football fan.

Not every man shines in a suit and tie.

There’s something compelling about a guy who looks great in a suit and tie. It’s not how they look, necessarily. It’s not the custom tailoring or the square jaw. It’s their comportment that makes them look good. It’s they way they move, their mannerisms, their confidence and their comfort.

I just can’t pull it off. I don’t have “it”. I own a few suits and a bunch of ties, but I always look like “a guy in a suit and tie”. I don’t emit an air of ease and confidence like I was born to wear this stuff. That is the domain of the truly great suit-and-tie guys.

The following list leans heavily towards the classic French and Italian looks of the 1960′s and away from the idiotic wide lapels and dinner napkin ties of the 1970′s. This is because the former is brilliant and captivating and the latter is laughable, ugly and stupid.

Here we go…

10. Gordon Gekko

Greed is good - and so is the tailoring of this jacket!

Michael Douglas isn’t a great suit-and-tie guy, but when he portrayed Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, he apparently took a crash course in being smooth and commanding. Despite the handicap of having to wear some truly awful designs and cuts, he exuded the granite charm of a wealthy egotist brilliantly. You could almost smell the cologne when he enters a room.

9. Christian Bale

Come closer; I have something for you...

Sometimes a man is so goddamn magnetic that he defines his clothes. Christian Bale is like that. He’s not a natural suit-and-tie guy, but give him a nicely tailored suit and a pneumatic bolt gun and watch out!  Bale defines the “too sexy for my shirt” kind of presence that almost precludes him from this list. No one wants to concede that a handsome face is necessary for a great suit-and-tie guy, but Bale is proof that winsomeness is part of the deal when it comes to owning a look.

8. David Bowie

You will never be this cool, so give up.

While best known for dressing like an androgynous freak, Bowie has pulled off the suit-and-tie for four fucking decades and done it with casual ease. This chameleon has walked across stages and hotel lobbies in skinny ties and wide ties, skinny pants and parachute pants and has never shuffled even one step. The man glides effortlessly like PG Wodehouses’s Jeeves. I would even say that his command of the suit-and-tie is even more outrageous than his skin-tight spaceman suits. Bowie is totally cool. You aren’t, so pay the man some respect.

7. Peter Sellers

Some men are born to it.

The greatest comedic actor of all time, period. But unlike most jokers, Sellers wore a suit like it was his own skin. From the British checks in the image above to the silly getups of Jaques Clouseau to the prim fastidiousness of Chance in the film Being There, the man of a thousand characters could portray them all smartly in a suit that looked like he’d been wearing it all his life. There will never be another like him.

6. Bryan Ferry

Only one man can pull off this suit.

You may argue that Bryan Ferry wears suits and ties as a gimmicky adjunct to his persona as front man for Roxy Music, but you’d be ignoring the fact that he does it brilliantly, both on stage and off. Furthermore, his ability to explode value out of a shimmery tuxedo jacket without looking like a total jackass says more about the man than any rock reviewer can hope to understand. Suaveness can be created from whole cloth and Bryan Ferry is living proof.

5. Sean Connery

There is no other Bond, so STFU.

This list would be useless without James Bond and no one portrayed Bond with such impeccable style and ease. Whether wearing a trim tuxedo or a period Savile Row suit and skinny tie, Sean Connery wore it like a real man. His every move was calm and pedestrian; he could have been wearing jeans and a pullover. That he didn’t have to change his gait or comportment in order to utterly shine in a tuxedo indicates how some men are truly born to it while others have to work at it (Roger Moore, this means YOU!).

4. George Clooney

Looking good is only half the battle.

How can George Clooney out-rank Sean Connery? Because Clooney is modern and forced to abide the comparatively abysmal state of modern men’s fashion. Both men are handsome devils, but Clooney is working with a handicap that Connery never dealt with. Clooney is refined and confident and willing to let small imperfections show in order to produce a look that is simultaneously crisp and human. Hats off, George.

3. Donald Draper

Fuck YEAH this guy's cool!

In third place is not the actor Jon Hamm but his character Don Draper in TV’s Mad Men. The product of a research team, a bunch of brilliant costume designers and Hamm’s steely eyes and tough chin, Don Draper defines the very reason the suit and tie was invented in the first place. Trading in shining armor for perfectly pressed lapels, this warrior conquers Madison Avenue with sharp wit and a leather briefcase. If you don’t find Don Draper to be a completely captivating character then you must be dead inside.

2. Marcello Mastroianni

This is how it's done, bitches!

Maybe he has unfair advantage being slim, Italian and debonair, but Marcello Mastroianni OWNS the suit and tie. He stole away the garb’s reputation for stuffiness and showed the whole world how cool is DONE. His look is so timeless that Quentin Tarantino couldn’t help himself when creating Reservoir Dogs. Long after mankind has disappeared, aliens will visit our planet, look through our archives, find Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and say “Holy SHIT that guy is fucking COOL!” . It is a sad indictment of our culture that this look ever faded from prominence. It simply cannot be topped.

1. Sidney Poitier

Believe it or not, our #1 spot goes to a black guy! Wearing a suit well is more than being sharp or being handsome. A brilliantly worn suit and tie is greater than the sum of its parts, and in the film To Sir, With Love, Sidney Poitier showed how a commanding presence is part and parcel of your look, your words and your comportment.

This (rather dated) film is well worth a second look in order to see how a confident, smart, elegant man uses the suit and tie to express greatness. Poitier took a tool and made a masterpiece. His Mark Thackery is tough, yet sensitive. Commanding, yet reassuring. Dominant, yet accessible. This is the heart and soul of the suit and tie.

Who's a sex machine to all the chicks?

Even when forced to act stilted during the school dance scene, Sidney Poitier was poised and smooth and lovable. I would trade all the square jaws in Hollywood for 1/10th of the elegance Sidney Poitier exudes when he’s in a suit. It’s the perfect meld of man and machine. It’s what we intend when we wear these clothes. And nobody does it like Poitier. Nobody.

Honorable Mention: Reservoir Dogs

The costume of cool.

I wanted to include a short salute to this film. Tarantino used the outfits as a visual shtick knowing full well the power of the black suit, white shirt and skinny black tie. After all, if one Macello Mastroianni is stunning, how about SIX of them? It was a smart move and made the film (and Tarantino’s career) explode. It reminded audiences that the classic look shames our modern fashions and that sometimes it’s best to leave things alone. I, for one, would welcome the permanent return of this look.

After all, what’s cooler than this?