The Jean Situation

I know how pissed you guys get (NICK!) when I don't update my blog on a regular basis. The reason why is that I'm busy. I have things to do. Like update my twitter. And travel across the country.

At any rate, I got a text yesterday evening from my friend JT. JT is tall and can wear dark jeans. I, however, am short and anytime I try to do the dark jeans look, or the white tennis shoes look (I tried it one time, shut up), or the - God

forbid - sports look (this would be all encompassing of things related to sports: basketball shirts, football jerseys, baseball jerseys, and the ever douchey MMA apparel), I fail. Miserably. And I don't mean like the internet tells you how things fail. I mean for real fail. And failing at wearing wearing MMA style apparel in the vein of Ed Hardy is saying something. I mean, just look at the shirts to the right here. It looks like the walls of a tattoo parlor vomited cotton that informs us that "LOVE KILLS SLOWLY". As a marketing idea to myself, maybe I should inform Ed Hardy that while love may indeed kill slowly, bullets do not, which is what I think of when I think of MMA dudes. "Oh, I'm big and strong and can kick your ass with an ancient Brazilian fighting technique." Yeah but can you stop a bullet? Nope. Didn't think so.

What was I talking about here?

Oh, yeah. Jeans and fashion. That's right.

Now those of you who know me in real life know that if I were to make a list of my passions and interests, fashion would not be on there. I'm sorry. I'm just not very good at it. So imagine my reaction when JT said that there was this super secret bar called The Citizen that he was going and that I should join him. Something I want The Citizen to know: I'm sorry in advance if you guys get a bunch of calls saying "Hey... I wanna be in on this super awesome secret bar" because of my blog. I get dozens (literally DOZENS) of blog readers. And anytime I have to go to a restaurant or bar that requires that I wear pants, I immediately become skeptical. No, you dummy, I'm not gonna show up in my underpants (not like that's an option anyway) but if it's ten hundred degrees outside, you can bet your ass I'm going to want to wear shorts.

So as I was getting ready to leave my home yesterday evening and as I was desperately looking for the one pair of blue jeans that I own (I know, Sara, I know...) which I eventually found somewhere near the bottom of a pile of other stuff, I got to thinking, "Man, I really should buy another pair of jeans." But what kind?

There's the kicker.

- As we've discussed, dark jeans are a no go.

- Similarly, I'd say that white jeans are out. Unless, of course, I went back to The Citizen and Lionel Richie were to be there and then I could be like "Lionel! My man! Nice fuckin' pants!" Apparently, he has been known to hang out there. I'm not kidding about any part of this bullet point.

- Tight jeans are out. I don't want to be re-rackin' all night. Guys, you know what I mean.

As you can clearly see, I have but a few options. A fashion challenged individual who doesn't like fashion very much and is a big fan of comfort. What to do, what to do. Do I end that sentence with a question mark? Actually, that's not really a sentence. No subject.

Crap.

As a result of having worked until almost 7 each night so far this week, which I will not be doing this evening, I haven't had the time to remedy this situation. The jeans situation. Actually, I'm gonna call it The Jean Situation. Throw some capital letters into that sucker. Now it sounds like something that would appear on the nightly news. "Tonight... A young man ignited a furious skirmish in the escalating Jean Situation." Either that or it makesme sound like an idiot from the cast of Jersey Shore who, when you look at them, kinda look like they are a combination of orange, the aforementioned Ed Hardy, and regret. The beauty of having unfettered internet access at work and the boss taking a three-and-a-half day weekend allowed me to make a little headway into The Jean Situation.

And guess what I came across. That's right. The single greatest idea in the history of mankind. This is better than scotch, better than the designated hitter in baseball, better than the time Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopez burned down Andre Rison's house.

It's Pajama Jeans. Seriously. Watch this commercial and then after you stop laughing and start thinking objectively you'll realize what a truly brilliant idea this is:

Stylish? Check.

Comfy? Check.

Fits every figure perfectly? Check.

Two easy payments of $19.95? BIG CHECK.

If they make these for dudes, I am set for life. C'mon, internet... Don't let me down!

Teenage Wizard. *BA-BAH! It's only Teenage Wizard. *BA-BAH!

You know what I'm really good at? Staying ahead of the curve. Think about it. Who took 2 years to get an iPhone (and only because his other phone died)? THIS DUDE. Who thinks the iPad is still a piece of shit? THIS DUDE. Who has been driving around for the past three months with his brights on because his regular beam passenger side headlight is burned out? THIS DUDE.

When people think of me, they immediately think "early adopter". See? Despite my best efforts, I did learn something in Marketing 343 in college. Maybe it was a 200 level class. I forget. I wasn't really paying attention.

In keeping with my lifelong ambition to be the coolest, most badass dude on planet earth, I recently made a promise to a dear friend of mine that I would... Crap... That I would finally get around to reading the first Harry Potter book after years and years and years of saying that these "have GOT to be the biggest pieces of shit ever." That's right, I make judgments of books based on their movies. You do it, too. Don't act like you're some book purist. And after seeing the first four HP (that's what kids call 'em, right?) movies, I vowed never to see any more of the movies. I could never quite figure out what Harry was doing with that yarmulke [spelled that right on the first try, by the way] on his head and I was confused from their on out.

Now before you start breathing fire down my neck, I have two arguments for you. First, The Lord of the Rings books and movies are awesome. Secondly, The Chronicles of Narnia books are awesome and the movies look like Jerry Bruckheimer took a magical shit. There. I said it.

So, after 4 years of people telling me how much better the books were in relation to the movies, and after 4 years of seeing the same shitty-magic-broom-field-hockey-dragon-fight-in-the-sky-and-we-can't-talk-about-this-one-dude films on the screen, I vowed never to see another film in the HP universe. And I haven't since. Everyone kept telling me, though, the movies were crap and the books were so much better. I used the "polish a turd" argument and stuck to my guns. The Harry Potter movie I saw? It was called... Uh... Harry Potter 4. I think. It was back in late 2005. It had an obvious and tremendous impact on my life.

I told people that I needed to borrow the first book to and, as usual, the internet exploded with my relenting to the world of Hogwart's. Then... the comments, text messages, and phone calls started rolling in... All about how things really don't get going until the fourth book.

Wait just a damn minute.

Here I am, hanging out in Nashville all by myself, thinking I'm gonna get off easy on this assignment of only having to read the first TeenageWizard [if you're not singing the hook to "Baba O'Riley" you will be soon] book and then I find out that the first half of the series is "kinda boring". You know how to get me hooked on a book series? By telling me that the first 3 of them are "kinda boring". That's the best thing to do.

See? Soon.

Lo and behold, the world premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 is tomorrow in London. Coupled with the aforementioned promise of reading the first book and how much of an early adopter I am, I decided that now is as good a time as any to read it. So, last night, I sat down. And started reading. And I read the first half of the first TeenageWizard and this is what I've gathered so far:

- Harry's magic parents are dead and he used to live in a closet then went to a lighthouse where a magic giant told him to go magic school and then bought a bunch of magic supplies and then he got on a magic train and ate some magic candy and then wore a magic hat at magic school.

There. I just saved you who haven't read it two long, nudity-free hours.

No dragons, no unicorns, no lightning from fingertips like in Star Wars. This better start getting good soon - I'm gonna try to tough it out for a couple more books. But if it doesn't get better, I'm gonna give you guys a whole heap of "I told you so"s. Is that how you pluralize that? I don't know. And you know what the last thing you guys want from me? Yeah... a whole heap of "I told you so"s. Well, that and you probably don't want nude pictures of me either. But don't worry, 'cause this is Harry Potter and there ain't none of that.

So far...

Also, please don't kill me, Colby Pitts.