Nurse the Hate: Fashion Prediction

My least favorite people out there currently by group are the "urban" rural white trash. I was in Columbus last weekend with the band filling up at perhaps the greatest morning gas station in the region at the Polaris exit. (It's really a great one-stop.. A Tim Horton's franchise, cigar humidor, college sports merch area, extensive magazine rack, Naked Juice smoothies, and relatively clean bathrooms. Highly recommended.)

As I waited in line to pay for my juice, I stood behind an amazing stereotype of what kind of guy I am talking about here. He had it all. A very short shaved haircut exposed his thin bony face and skull. Eyes set just a little too far apart, like a hammerhead shark. A small goatee with skinny connecting sideburns was clipped out of his beard. A script tattoo of a woman's name was etched boldly on the right side of his neck. Just visible above the collar of his filthy XXL white t-shirt was the top of some demonic creature. The giant t-shirt was offset by ENORMOUS blue denim shorts that ended comically just above the ankle, making it appear like he was a very skinny dwarf of some kind. The shoes? Untied basketball shoes, as he must have left his white socks and shower shoes at home.

When you looked at that guy you immediately knew he had 1) no education 2) a horrible on/off job 3) the worst taste in music imaginable 4) a child from some girl he knocked up in high school 5) poor judgement and 6) a police record involving drunk and disorderly, possession, minor traffic offenses, and domestic disturbance(s). These guys usually freak me out a little bit because they take their social cues from things they have learned in rap videos, straight to video action films, and Insane Clown Posse mob scenes. As Bob Dylan said, when you have got nothing left, you have got nothing left to lose. These dudes are like junkyard dogs.

As I left the store, all my dreams were realized. My guy got his smokes and stepped into the passenger seat of a beat to shit white Ford Tempo. The driver was a guy that looked almost exactly like him, but with a nice wire tattoo on his left arm, cheap Oakley knock-off sunglasses, and white baseball cap tilted to the side with a Target version of a graffiti design all over it. Rap music was blasting out of the car with the particular bass dominant thud of cheap Radio Shack speakers so overdriven as to make it completely unintelligible to anyone within earshot. In the back seat? You guessed it. A pit bull. They had followed the entire "white rap kid playbook".

It's a tough world out there when Central Ohio Farm Boys (or in this case, trailer park boys) have taken the look so long cultivated by the inner city black youth. But as we know, inner city blacks have always led the way when it comes to driving fashion. Let's face it, these farm dork goons aren't coming up with any ideas of their own. It has obviously become time for the inner city youth to update their look. Take it up a notch if you will... So the question becomes, where does the inner city black/Hispanic kid go from here?

The way I see it, the look has to have a few elements. It has to exhibit a toughness. Young men like to look like badasses. It also has to be affordable. We're not talking about wealthy folks here. They have to be able to buy the look. But it also has to be difficult enough to find that the "product laggards" can't just skip down to Kohl's and jump on board. Lastly, it has to have some kind of tie back into something culturally. For example, the baggy pants look ties directly into the look of cons at prison.

This is why I am making the first prediction that the new look taking over this whole dipshit tough guy underground will be the "Child Soldier of Darfur" look. It's been out there for awhile, and it is ripe for the picking. Imagine it. How awesome would those same guys have looked at that gas station if they had been in shorts, thrift store t-shirt, rubber sandals, aviator sunglasses, and holding an AK-47 machine gun at their hip? Throw in a beret, and you've got yourself a guy that can have an illegitimate retarded kid in several trailers, not just his Mom's!

Oh sure, the older generations will complain. "Hey man, back in my day we would toss some Faygos at Tia Tequila and smoke some weed. Now these kids have barricades set up in my neighborhood with human small intestines stretched across the road as blockades. You think my wife likes seeing disemboweled neighbors? Plus, I go out to get my mail, and I've got a head on a stake in my lawn. I'm all for fun, but it's not like it was back in the day!"

Try to stand in the way of progress if you want. It's a lost cause. This look is coming, and I can't wait. Even now, I have arranged to have 15 palates of rubber sandals with ICP logos on 'em shipped in to sell at Dollar Stores in rural Ohio. Next Thursday I've got machetes with Violent J clown faces on the handle coming in from China (made by confused political prisoners no doubt). Laugh now, but we'll see who's laughing later. Me? I'm down with the clown!