A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Head Facebook guy Mark Zuckerberg was recently asked why he wears the same clothes all the time. He responded, "I feel like I'm not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life."

Tech dorks, bums, and business writers/CEO flatterers across the nation applauded this bold statement which reminded me of a phrase I heard a lot in college: "I dress for function, not fashion."

Bullshit. You know who dresses for function? Old-school monks. Circus pinheads. That might be about it.

And even their functional dresses had some flowers or polka dots on them.

If you really dressed for function, you'd wear a bedsheet or a diaper. Come to think of it, you'd dress like you were in Funkadelic, which would be a much more styling look for our dorky tech overlords. You would think that with the piles of money, influence and chance to wear whatever they wanted, those dudes would ditch their nerd uniforms and influence a generation to dress with more flash and flair, as seen in this photo of 1980s outer space dandies, Jonzun Crew:

If Apple CEOs dressed like this, I would buy everything they sold.

But no, each morning as they pick out another boring grey t-shirt, they think, "Puny hu-mans with your vanity and foolishness. While you wasted two minutes picking out a shirt, I have already figured out ways to sell your private information to advertisers or perfected an app that will destroy your ridiculous job or sweep away your frivolous real-world interpersonal interactions."

And it's not like they're curing cancer or designing rockets or anything. Zuckerberg's big contribution to the world was a way to waste time at work and stalk exes. And if I remember that movie correctly, those creepy rowing twins had a lot to do with it anyway.

I have a closet full of shirts that basically look the same, but I don't pretend that that's some noble act. I also don't act like it's a chore to pick one out to wear to work in the morning. No, I let my freak flag fly proudly, and when our tech overlords try to fit me in the grey shirt uniform, I'll blow some minds by puffing out my chest and showing my shocking plaids or confounding stripes. And that's not even getting into the dazzling mustard yellows or scandalous guayaberas that will bring about the revolution.

Who's with me? Down with our tech overlords! Reject the lame grey shirts, brothers and sisters! Waste up to two whole minutes each morning and let your freak flag fly!

Star Warrior

Some of you know how hard it can be to get me out of my house once I get settled. I have a comfortable routine (some might call it a rut), and why go messing with that in the scary outside world?

But many of you also know that I'm susceptible to peer pressure, and if given enough time and a semi-persuasive argument (usually something like, "Aw, come on.") I'll flip-flop and decide to venture outside my compound in search of excitement.

Which is what happened Sunday. The night before a friend texted asking what I was doing and saying that I should go to this Star Wars convention in Orlando the next day. Responsible me realized that I had just spent a lot of money getting my brakes fixed a week ago, and I was heading back to Atlanta soon, so I probably shouldn't spend the money. Besides, I had stuff I needed to finish up around the house on Sunday.

A few hours later I realized I had completed most of my responsible weekend stuff already, and while I was broke, I did have a credit card, and I wasn't really doing anything Sunday anyway, so why not?

Which is how I found myself in Orlando the next day in a convention center full of Star Wars nerds. We got there late, so we missed a lot of stuff, but I did get to pose for some funny pictures, something I couldn't do at home, apparently.

But on the other hand, if I stayed at home Sunday, I wouldn't have been coughed on and jabbed with light sabers in a herd of people every third step.

There were tons of these. Yep, lots of bearded dudes wandering around. But yeah, there was this whole parade of R2s that people made and customized that would roll around and beep and do magic and grant wishes and stuff. That was pretty awesome.

Here's another blurry photo.

Many people went in costume. Apparently I went as either "Stunted Man-Child" or "Florida Retiree." Here I am trying to eat one of the frogs from Jabba's bong. It didn't exactly come out right.

Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak.

As you can probably tell by now, I had definite ideas behind the photos, but the execution didn't always work out. These (since they were taken by someone else) look a lot better than the pictures I took of my friend. Here's an excerpt of a conversation on the ride home:

"This one's blurry, too! And..Hey, this one, too. What the hell's wrong with you?"

"No, no, it's fine. You're looking at it on your phone. Wait til you see it all blown up on the computer. It's gonna look awesome."

"Did you take this one in a hurricane?"

"Aw, it's gonna be great. Just wait and see."

"You need to go to a doctor or something and get your shaky hands checked out."

"It's an action photo. Its supposed to look blurry."

So yeah, uh. Sorry about that. And while we're at it, sorry that my terrible sense of direction made us wander around the convention center for about 30 miles looking for the parking lot and - Hey! Let's see some more pictures!

WHOOO! SPACE SPRING BREAK! I'M DRINKIN' WITH HAMMERHEAD!!

 

Chewie made from Legos. I don't know why that made me grab my pee-pee.

When in doubt, the double thumbs up is always a picture classic.

The crappiest robot.

Like most kids that grew up in the '70s, I was obsessed with Star Wars, even eclipsing my dinosaur mania. I begged for or bought anything that had that logo on it, and it was pretty amazing to see a whole convention hall full of everything I had ever owned or lusted for as a child.

Other than the hefty admission fee, I didn't buy anything, mostly because I really couldn't. I did see a copy of the first issue of the Star Wars fan club magazine my parents got me as my first magazine subscription, but I couldn't justify spending money on it since all my back issues will probably turn up at their house someday.

So was it worth driving forever and spending money I didn't have to wander around in a convention hall for three  hours taking blurry pictures? You do see that picture of me hanging out with Hammerhead, right (a figure I never had, by the way - get on that Mom and Dad)? Of course it was worth it.

NEERRDS!!

I don't want to shock anyone, but I've spent some time in comic book stores. I was always more of a tourist than a resident, but I went enough to have a familiarity with the clientele and workers there. I would always have the same reaction after being in there for a while:

"Look at all these fucking nerds."

But wait, I'd think. I'm in here, too. So am I one of them? Well, no, I mean, they probably thought James Bond just walked in here. Hell, yeah. Nerds better recognize.

Then I'd go to Target or somewhere where normal people congregated and realize I was a hideous, socially retarded nerd myself, only my subset of nerddom, record store guy/movie nerd was a step or two more socially acceptable. But my musings about how I'd give my firstborn to get a copy of the complete Big Boys discography or how a full stack of Rudy Ray Moore party records on vinyl was the only thing stopping me from having a full, complete life were equally as incomprehensible to normal people.

There was a comic book store a couple blocks away from our first apartment in Jacksonville. I'd get bored on a Sunday and walk down there to play Golden Axe, a pretty boss '80s video game that I think only got played when I walked up there. The guy who worked there was always cool to me, especially since I was basically taking up space and not buying anything.

Others were not so lucky. A friend of mine would go in there weekly, dropping some serious coin. You'd think that as a regular, he'd get some special treatment. One day he walks in and the guy's watching TV.
"Oh cool, Arrested Development," my friend exclaims.
Click!
The guy turns the TV off immediately and goes back to looking at pictures of She-Hulk.

My ex-wife would go there every once in a while to buy old kids comic books to use in projects. You'd think the guy would be happy to unload of all his old Archie and Casper books dusty-ing up the place, but he'd always drop her change into her hand from like two feet up with a sneer on his face.

You know, I'm always instinctively going to side with the nerds, the freaks and the misfits, but do they have to make it so hard all the time?