On The Street

Remember my blog(s) about people on the street: girls in flip flops, and guys in khakis? Ugly. Well, I think I might (at least temporarily) have changed my mind about that generica shock.

After another one of those sporadic sleepless nights, I had to walk across to my deli for some sustenance.

I just put on my Thomas Pink Blue pinstripe spread collar shirt, faded grey/black Emporio Armani skinny jeans w/ my Versace silver buckled belt (the last one they had of this kind in Manhattan when I bought it a year ago (I know this because it was a size too long so the clerk had to tap the Versace database and the only other one they had was in Beverly Hills so I just took the long one)), and my bone white Fratelli Rosetti yacht shoes (they look like something a geriatric ex-mob guy who had been relocated to Des Moine, Iowa under witness protection program would wear and my Michael Bastian light navy blue seer sucker jacket with side vent and working cuffs (2 out of the 4 buttons on each side undone as usual), Robert Marc shades on (the one that looks like the regular eye glasses YSL wore in the 70s) and walked across and back to my apt. in 4 mins. and it felt great. I felt like a leopard slicing through a herd of cattle.

So, in a perverse but in a comforting way, I felt great. Peacock! (Ok. too many mixed metaphors! Fck it. As God said to Moses, "I am that I am"... but not Popeye the Sailor man :).

Ironically, when I walk on Madison Ave. in mid-day after my hair cut(s) or shopping, and usually for relaxation, head to the Bemelmann's Bar at the Carlyle, back bar at the Four Seasons, the Penntop roof at the Peninsula, or the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis-- depending on my mood (btw, I'm going to check out the Rose Club at the renovated Plaza), I feel great for a different reason... people are dressed and groomed very nicely. They look like people, not like cattle. So, I feel great. In good company.

Btw, this kind of metaphor harkens me back to my college days when the question for my first philosophy essay was proposed as follows: "Would you rather be a satified pig or a dissatisfied Socrates?" Of course, being young and naive (note: "Youth is wasted on the young!"-- Wilde), I wrote 3 pages on why it's better to be a dissatisfied Socrates (knowledge, wisdom, etc. crap). But I realized after a few years that it is possible to be a satisfied Socrates... a principle that the Buddha subscribed to that later resonated with me, and that is, the perspective of joyful sorrow in the sufferings of the world. Basically, don't get your panties in knots because the world is hard, harsh, and ugly (or more succinctly put: "life is short and brutish"- Hobbes), just observe it and exercise compassion. Now, I have come to realize that compassion for me may not be possible in my current incarnation. But I can dispense 'amnesty.' So, my heuristic now is observe and forgive (or better yet, avoid whenever possible). In other words, I CAN be a satsified Socrates.

So, in a way, having acute aesthetic sensibilities (at least at a sartorial level) can be a blessing in my life. For when I see the cattle, my pride and vanity berths my glory, and conversely, when I see others who are well put together, I'm inspired and feel a sense of family. It's all 'good'! Satisfied Socrates. Yo yo yo, bro.

I wonder if I just had a Road to Domascus moment right here on Park Avenue?

[Albeit, I will still probably have my 'I came, I saw, I LEFT' moments :)]