The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:40:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 Public Enemy Started Scaring White People 25 Years Ago Today http://www.theawl.com/2012/01/the-ultimate-homeboy-car http://www.theawl.com/2012/01/the-ultimate-homeboy-car#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:40:19 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2012/01/the-ultimate-homeboy-car
"Rap History: This Day in 1987 Public Enemy release Yo! Bum Rush The Show."

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"Rap History: This Day in 1987 Public Enemy release Yo! Bum Rush The Show."

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2012/01/the-ultimate-homeboy-car/feed 3 You've Been Shot http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/youve-been-shot http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/youve-been-shot#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:00:02 +0000 Erik Martz http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/youve-been-shot In October of 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was about to give a speech in Milwaukee in support of his reelection campaign under the newly created Progressive “Bull Moose” Party when a bartender named John Flammang Schrank walked up and shot him in the chest. Roosevelt of course was not killed, but neither his survival nor Schrank’s claim that he was instructed by the ghost of William McKinley to prevent a third term for the two-term former president were the most extraordinary parts of the whole affair. It was the fact that Roosevelt decided to deliver his speech in the Milwaukee Auditorium anyway, for an hour and a half, with blood seeping through his clothes. “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible,” he began, “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

Reading a transcript of the speech is probably more comical than it should be, or than it would have been at the time. Having concluded from the fact that he wasn’t dead that the bullet had not penetrated any vital organs, Roosevelt spent the better part of the first half of his prepared remarks assuring the alarmed crowd and the various dignitaries and medical personnel pleading with him to leave the stage that he was not dying and in fact not much affected by the bullet wound. “Don’t pity me,” he said, “I am all right. I am all right, and you cannot escape listening to the speech either.”

The character named Teddy Roosevelt—the blustering, mustachioed bull moose caricature that posterity has given us—tends to shine through here. Only Teddy Bear the Rough Rider, the red-blooded man’s man, would have endured a gunshot wound to deliver a speech in which he somehow tied the attempt on his life to the Taft/Wilson Republican regime’s attempt to disavow worker’s rights and assassinate the former president’s character. Only the notoriously long-winded Teddy Bear would have been saved from death partially by the thickness of his speech manuscript, which was folded into his jacket pocket over his right breast where the bullet struck him. Only Teddy Bear, fiery activist and intimidating orator, would never let a bullet’s progress inhibit the chance for real social progress.

The image is a dream, of course, but it’s always been a compelling one, more so now because one can hardly imagine such a person existing, or such a thing occurring, in modern politics. There are no Roosevelts in either the Republican or Democratic party of today, even among those who invoke him. Such booming candor would hardly be appreciated on the eggshell-laced floors of Congress, where integrity has been been traded out the market door like so much speculation on rotting fish. Is there a man or woman in our assembly of politics who one could see standing next to Teddy on that platform, crippled from relentless attack, but spurred on by the sheer volume of their ideas and their will to push the country forward? Gabrielle Giffords comes to mind, but her story has already been wrapped, neatly bowed, and forgotten at the department of public inattention.

Everyone plays the game the same old way, not applying the lessons of history, but admiring them in a china display of fragile, pretty ornaments to be used when campaign funds dry up. Yet in the back of the cupboard on some glazed filigree of the past, a scene is illuminated in which a bespectacled man reads out to a gathered assembly of concerned American laborers a plan for labor rights and fair economic play, in the state where almost a century later, concerned laborers would again gather in protest against the belligerence of Republican authority—the authority which the bespectacled man had abandoned a century earlier for a now oxymoronic progressive-conservative tandem agenda.

Roosevelt excoriated the party which he had abandoned, and which he felt had abandoned him. “But while they don’t like me,” he said, “they dread you. You are the people they dread. They dread the people themselves, and those bosses and the big special interests behind them made up their mind that they would rather see the Republican party wrecked than see it come under the control of the people themselves.” He probably didn’t even need the bullet-shattered notes in his bloodied coat pocket. The bull had steam, and the hunt was on. “There are only two ways you can vote this year,” he said. “You can be progressive or reactionary. Whether you vote Republican or Democratic, it does not make a difference, you are voting reactionary.”

The cycles of economic crisis precipitated by political ineptitude, followed by the typical blind swing at the nothing of reactionary politics, are well chronicled, to the point that we can look into the reflection of “I have just been shot” and witness the faint outline of our own moment a century later. Republicans, it turns out, haven’t changed that much. The Perrys and Romneys might as well be the Tafts and Wilsons, as beholden to oil and other special interests near the end of their influence as their predecessors were at the beginning (Perry in particular is a bath tub away from infamy). Their voices are interchangeable, monotone, and more those of David and Charles Koch than the otherwise well-meaning Tea Party stooges, who unwittingly voted more money out of their own bank accounts and into those of the wealthiest because they were scared into believing that “progressive,” a word that essentially describes the course of human events that led to their existence, is wrong. In response to this insult, the Democrats have once again disappeared to wherever it is they go, leaving a would-be progressive president to weather a reactionary battery of frantically backward-receding minds (think not of 1912, but of 912). Meanwhile, as winter comes on, Occupy Wall Street, a genuinely progressive movement, struggles with how to proceed or communicate its complaints against a conservative business class whose impaired empathy and endemic contempt for the poor have finally been stripped naked in the public square.

All around us in politics and business, we witness the reactionary—the dread by those in power that the people of this country might not actually like things as they stand. This is as it should be. But where is the voice of reason, haggard from wounding, that nevertheless rings out? Roosevelt the Republican was no perfect president. His jingoistic bravado and imperialistic tendencies softened the bite of his more democratic beliefs. For all his trust-busting, he was at base a conservative with a mind toward expanding American commerce by any means necessary. Likewise, though he loved nature, his enthusiasm was somewhat undercut by his penchant for hunting endangered species.

Still, it was his belief in commerce that pushed him to improve the lot of the average American. It was that same zeal that caused him, an environmentalist Republican, to take the advice of noted hippie scientist John Muir in the matter of conserving natural resources and preserving national park lands. It was Bull Moose Teddy who finally broke away from the establishment, pushing the phantom third party platform that still has no foothold to this day, campaigning tirelessly for the “square deal” he planned to make with all Americans. And then he was shot.

Many of us have been shot, too, many, many times, again and again, in the same exact place. But like Roosevelt, we stagger to our feet after each blow, mindful that we are still alive, though the wound gapes ever wider. Our own speeches have changed over the years, shrunken down now to fit the economy of social media and the various factions which claim pieces of it. One version says, “We are the 99%,” while another cries, “Don’t tread on me.” One’s enemy is big business, the other’s is government. Both decry corruption. Our collective sighing is the echo of one weakened voice nevertheless booming out over the heads of a Milwaukee crowd 99 years ago. “I do not care a rap about being shot,” it says, “not a rap.” Let the hunt begin.



Erik Martz is a writer living in Minnesota, where a famous president once implored state fair attendees to “speak softly and carry a deep-fried candy bar on a stick.”

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]]> In October of 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was about to give a speech in Milwaukee in support of his reelection campaign under the newly created Progressive “Bull Moose” Party when a bartender named John Flammang Schrank walked up and shot him in the chest. Roosevelt of course was not killed, but neither his survival nor Schrank’s claim that he was instructed by the ghost of William McKinley to prevent a third term for the two-term former president were the most extraordinary parts of the whole affair. It was the fact that Roosevelt decided to deliver his speech in the Milwaukee Auditorium anyway, for an hour and a half, with blood seeping through his clothes. “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible,” he began, “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

Reading a transcript of the speech is probably more comical than it should be, or than it would have been at the time. Having concluded from the fact that he wasn’t dead that the bullet had not penetrated any vital organs, Roosevelt spent the better part of the first half of his prepared remarks assuring the alarmed crowd and the various dignitaries and medical personnel pleading with him to leave the stage that he was not dying and in fact not much affected by the bullet wound. “Don’t pity me,” he said, “I am all right. I am all right, and you cannot escape listening to the speech either.”

The character named Teddy Roosevelt—the blustering, mustachioed bull moose caricature that posterity has given us—tends to shine through here. Only Teddy Bear the Rough Rider, the red-blooded man’s man, would have endured a gunshot wound to deliver a speech in which he somehow tied the attempt on his life to the Taft/Wilson Republican regime’s attempt to disavow worker’s rights and assassinate the former president’s character. Only the notoriously long-winded Teddy Bear would have been saved from death partially by the thickness of his speech manuscript, which was folded into his jacket pocket over his right breast where the bullet struck him. Only Teddy Bear, fiery activist and intimidating orator, would never let a bullet’s progress inhibit the chance for real social progress.

The image is a dream, of course, but it’s always been a compelling one, more so now because one can hardly imagine such a person existing, or such a thing occurring, in modern politics. There are no Roosevelts in either the Republican or Democratic party of today, even among those who invoke him. Such booming candor would hardly be appreciated on the eggshell-laced floors of Congress, where integrity has been been traded out the market door like so much speculation on rotting fish. Is there a man or woman in our assembly of politics who one could see standing next to Teddy on that platform, crippled from relentless attack, but spurred on by the sheer volume of their ideas and their will to push the country forward? Gabrielle Giffords comes to mind, but her story has already been wrapped, neatly bowed, and forgotten at the department of public inattention.

Everyone plays the game the same old way, not applying the lessons of history, but admiring them in a china display of fragile, pretty ornaments to be used when campaign funds dry up. Yet in the back of the cupboard on some glazed filigree of the past, a scene is illuminated in which a bespectacled man reads out to a gathered assembly of concerned American laborers a plan for labor rights and fair economic play, in the state where almost a century later, concerned laborers would again gather in protest against the belligerence of Republican authority—the authority which the bespectacled man had abandoned a century earlier for a now oxymoronic progressive-conservative tandem agenda.

Roosevelt excoriated the party which he had abandoned, and which he felt had abandoned him. “But while they don’t like me,” he said, “they dread you. You are the people they dread. They dread the people themselves, and those bosses and the big special interests behind them made up their mind that they would rather see the Republican party wrecked than see it come under the control of the people themselves.” He probably didn’t even need the bullet-shattered notes in his bloodied coat pocket. The bull had steam, and the hunt was on. “There are only two ways you can vote this year,” he said. “You can be progressive or reactionary. Whether you vote Republican or Democratic, it does not make a difference, you are voting reactionary.”

The cycles of economic crisis precipitated by political ineptitude, followed by the typical blind swing at the nothing of reactionary politics, are well chronicled, to the point that we can look into the reflection of “I have just been shot” and witness the faint outline of our own moment a century later. Republicans, it turns out, haven’t changed that much. The Perrys and Romneys might as well be the Tafts and Wilsons, as beholden to oil and other special interests near the end of their influence as their predecessors were at the beginning (Perry in particular is a bath tub away from infamy). Their voices are interchangeable, monotone, and more those of David and Charles Koch than the otherwise well-meaning Tea Party stooges, who unwittingly voted more money out of their own bank accounts and into those of the wealthiest because they were scared into believing that “progressive,” a word that essentially describes the course of human events that led to their existence, is wrong. In response to this insult, the Democrats have once again disappeared to wherever it is they go, leaving a would-be progressive president to weather a reactionary battery of frantically backward-receding minds (think not of 1912, but of 912). Meanwhile, as winter comes on, Occupy Wall Street, a genuinely progressive movement, struggles with how to proceed or communicate its complaints against a conservative business class whose impaired empathy and endemic contempt for the poor have finally been stripped naked in the public square.

All around us in politics and business, we witness the reactionary—the dread by those in power that the people of this country might not actually like things as they stand. This is as it should be. But where is the voice of reason, haggard from wounding, that nevertheless rings out? Roosevelt the Republican was no perfect president. His jingoistic bravado and imperialistic tendencies softened the bite of his more democratic beliefs. For all his trust-busting, he was at base a conservative with a mind toward expanding American commerce by any means necessary. Likewise, though he loved nature, his enthusiasm was somewhat undercut by his penchant for hunting endangered species.

Still, it was his belief in commerce that pushed him to improve the lot of the average American. It was that same zeal that caused him, an environmentalist Republican, to take the advice of noted hippie scientist John Muir in the matter of conserving natural resources and preserving national park lands. It was Bull Moose Teddy who finally broke away from the establishment, pushing the phantom third party platform that still has no foothold to this day, campaigning tirelessly for the “square deal” he planned to make with all Americans. And then he was shot.

Many of us have been shot, too, many, many times, again and again, in the same exact place. But like Roosevelt, we stagger to our feet after each blow, mindful that we are still alive, though the wound gapes ever wider. Our own speeches have changed over the years, shrunken down now to fit the economy of social media and the various factions which claim pieces of it. One version says, “We are the 99%,” while another cries, “Don’t tread on me.” One’s enemy is big business, the other’s is government. Both decry corruption. Our collective sighing is the echo of one weakened voice nevertheless booming out over the heads of a Milwaukee crowd 99 years ago. “I do not care a rap about being shot,” it says, “not a rap.” Let the hunt begin.



Erik Martz is a writer living in Minnesota, where a famous president once implored state fair attendees to “speak softly and carry a deep-fried candy bar on a stick.”

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5 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/youve-been-shot/feed 5 Winona Ryder's Forever Sweater http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/winona-ryders-forever-sweater http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/winona-ryders-forever-sweater#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:20:35 +0000 Sarah Miller http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/winona-ryders-forever-sweater Ten years ago today Winona Ryder stole several thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue. I reacted to the news of the incident the way I react to most celebrity scandals—with unmitigated delight—and prepared myself to follow subsequent action with mild interest.

Then, on the day of her arraignment, a friend called me. He was very excited. (The last time I had heard him like this was during the 1994 Oscars when I called him to make fun of Susan Sarandon’s dress and he picked up the phone, having no idea who was calling or for what reason, and wailed, “I know, it’s hideous.”) His excitement was more buoyant today, less despairing. “She stole a thermal,” he said. “Winona Ryder stole a thermal.”

I knew immediately what he meant—a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal. “No way,” I said. Weirdly, I was living just a few miles from the incident, and he was in New York.

“How do you know?”

“How do you not know? Bye.”

I had been with this friend when I saw my first Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal T-shirt, at the Barneys on 61st Street. He is a very good dresser, and not just in that generic gay way of like, “Girl, how cute do I look in this!” He’s more Brideshead Revisited gay than Chelsea gay. The fucker has taste. Anyway, we were in the men’s department at Barneys and he paused at a display and held up what appeared to be a soft brown shirt. “Behold this masterpiece,” he said somberly.

I gathered the thing in my hands and held it like a baby. It was so soft. It was silky. It was a sweater, not a shirt, but you could wear it like a shirt. It could be slipped on with nonchalant elegance, and was so beautiful it made you think marrying someone fat and stupid and rich would be ok, if you could just wear one of these all the time. Each delicate square of waffling was its own tiny island of sumptuous luxury. It cost a fortune—over $500. “This is a forever sweater,” I said. A clerk at Charivari—the now-defunct boutique where, coincidentally, a young Marc Jacobs worked—had once referred to a sweater I purchased there as 'a forever sweater,' and we found this phrase ridiculous, but not without meaning. I so wanted this object. “Why is it so perfect?” I moaned.

In the exact same tone Tom Cruise in Risky Business says, “Porsche, there is no substitute,” my friend said, “It’s perfect because it’s a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal T-shirt, and Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermals T-shirt are just perfect.”

We stepped out onto Madison Avenue, dizzy with desire, overcome by that experience unique to extreme youth where the humiliation of being underpaid and the belief that greatness and luxury goods are just around the corner merge into one sensation of sweet yearning. We made a pact: The first one of us to get rich would buy the other one a Marc Jacobs Thermal T-shirt.

I think this was the late mid '90s. It might have been 2000. I do remember that at the time my favorite joke (stolen) involved looking downtown, pointing to the World Trade Center, and saying, “Hey! I thought somebody blew those things up.”

Part of me thinks I should forget about telling the next part of the story, that a big frowny face followed by an ellipse would be sufficient. At one point I thought I was rich but by the time I got around to getting us our thermals, I realized I owed the IRS so much money that my accountant, an Orthodox Jewish woman in her 70s, stood up from her desk one afternoon and shouted at me, “Your freewheeling days are over, missy.” Then my friend seemed like he may have been about to enter Thermal Country, but he got laid off. The towers fell, for real. I actually read in the paper (in addition to being stylish my friend is very discreet, funny how those go together) that he had a fancy new job and I wrote him an email, not congratulations—never congratulations—but “Where’s my thermal?”

He wrote back, “This is a good job but it’s not Thermal good.”

Not terribly long after Winona’s incident I had my brush with success. I promised my friend as soon as I got a house, I’d get us thermals. I bought my house in 2004. Needless to say a. I no longer live there and b. if you care to go through my things at the more modest place I live now you will not find a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal T-shirt.

About two years ago my friend and I were sitting in a bar, making the stupid jokes we make to avoid actually talking about our lives. Halfway through drink two I made a weak foray beyond senseless, apocalypse-driven repartee and said wistfully, “Someday we’ll get our thermals.”

“You actually think one day one of us is going to buy the other a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal T-shirt?” His eyes were large and indignant behind his Robert Marc glasses. “Are you insane? Personally, I’ll consider myself lucky if I don’t have to eat you when you die.”

I called the LA Saks Fifth Avenue the other day. Just to see if they had any. After all, what did it mean to not be able to afford something? I mean, I do have $700 dollars. So I could afford a thermal. Sure, it would be idiotic of me to buy one, but I’d been wasting money on stupid things for years, and really, why should I stop now?

“Saks Beverly Hills, can I help you?”

“The Marc Jacobs boutique, please.”

“Marc Jacobs or Marc by Marc Jacobs?”

Ma’am, I just want a thermal, I wanted to whine. But I said, “Marc Jacobs, I guess.”

“Hello, Marc Jacobs.”

“Yes, I’m wondering if you have any cashmere thermals?”

“Do you want Marc Jacobs or Marc by Marc Jacobs?”

“I’m looking for the cashmere thermals,” I said.

“I think you want Marc by Marc Jacobs.”

Before I had a chance to refute this I was transferred.

“Marc by Marc Jacobs.”

“Do you have any cashmere thermals?”

“Do you want Marc by Marc Jacobs or Marc Jacobs?”

“Either.” I said. ”I’m looking for the cashmere thermal, I guess it’s a T shirt, but then, maybe there’s another version?” Honestly, wasn’t the cashmere thermal a classic? And hadn’t it earned some kind of dark cache, like, if not exactly like, John Hinckley’s Catcher in the Rye or O.J. Simpson’s Bruno Magli suede lace-ups?

“Let me try the lingerie department.”

This seemed like an odd choice. The woman said, “Cashmere thermal? Marc Jacobs? No. Did you try Marc Jacobs or Marc for Marc Jacobs?”

I called the New York Barneys.

“Hello, Barneys New York, how may I direct your call?”

“Marc Jacobs boutique, please.”

“Marc by Marc Jacobs or Marc Jacobs?”

“How about…Marc Jacobs?”

“Hello, Marc Jacobs.”

“Hi, I’m looking for a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal.”

“Marc by Marc Jacobs or Marc Jacobs?”

“I believe, uh…Marc,” I said, suddenly exhausted. “But possibly, uh…Marc for Marc Jacobs.”

“It’s not Marc and Marc for Marc Jacobs. It’s Marc Jacobs and Marc for Marc Jacobs.”

“I know what it is,” I snapped. “I could write the words in calligraphy on a grain of rice with my eyes closed. And I have to tell you I feel like I’m calling the Quicken Arena in Cleveland looking for LeBron James and everyone’s like, have you tried Concessions? What about Ticket Sales? What about the Gift Shop?”

“Call Bergdorf’s,” she said.

When you call the main number for Bergdorf’s you get a salon. (Does anyone know why?) As the phone rang and rang I had the following insight: If I, like the designer in question, were a 48-year-old extremely good looking and muscular gay man who was one day at a time never ever getting wasted again, I may also have decided that the best chance I had left for thrills in this life was to ensure that everyone who ever said my name would be forced to say it two and a half times.

I hung up. I called an actual Marc Jacobs store.

“Oh, we don’t really make those anymore. I mean, we might have like, a few of them in the men’s store, but…”

Why hadn’t I thought of this first? I don’t know.

“You don’t make them anymore?”

“The last time I saw them was like, in 2008, maybe 2009?”

“But… how could they just stop making them? They were amazing! I thought those were… are you familiar with the term 'forever sweater'?”

“Could you hang on a moment?” She put me on hold and left me there.

It almost made me feel better for not having any money anymore. Clothes are so ugly now. Everything has a ruffle or a bow. It makes you wonder if maybe Leona Helmsley’s Maltese, Trouble, used all that money she left her to go to FIT and open a boutique. Of course Marc Jacobs doesn’t make cashmere thermals anymore, because they were useful, and nice, and flattering.

On the Internet I found a Marc for Marc Jacobs thermal shirt, but it’s not cashmere, it’s not a T-shirt, and it has a stupid ass bow on it. (Curse you, Carrie Bradshaw!) If Jessica Simpson’s first event after giving birth happens to be a bar mitzvah it’s what she’ll wear.

Winona Ryder wore a Marc Jacobs dress to her trial, and she looked so good in it that he subsequently asked her to model for him. (She wrote him a note saying she was “honored.”) In 2006 she appeared “nude” in some public service ads Jacobs did around skin cancer awareness. She went from criminal to muse, but the damage had been done. Within a few seconds of seeing her, everyone still thinks “shoplifter,” and the slightly unhinged look in her dark eyes is her signature not just as an actress, but as a defendant. What she did is mystifying and particularly so considering that it was that dark holiday season following September 11. No one really knows why someone who can buy a hundred Marc Jacobs cashmere thermals will risk everything to steal one. I guess it’s not that much crazier than risking everything to try and buy one. At least Winona had hers for a few minutes.



Sarah Miller is the author of Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn and The Other Girl, which are for teens but adults can read on the beach. She lives in Nevada City, CA.

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]]> Ten years ago today Winona Ryder stole several thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue. I reacted to the news of the incident the way I react to most celebrity scandals—with unmitigated delight—and prepared myself to follow subsequent action with mild interest.

Then, on the day of her arraignment, a friend called me. He was very excited. (The last time I had heard him like this was during the 1994 Oscars when I called him to make fun of Susan Sarandon’s dress and he picked up the phone, having no idea who was calling or for what reason, and wailed, “I know, it’s hideous.”) His excitement was more buoyant today, less despairing. “She stole a thermal,” he said. “Winona Ryder stole a thermal.”

I knew immediately what he meant—a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal. “No way,” I said. Weirdly, I was living just a few miles from the incident, and he was in New York.

“How do you know?”

“How do you not know? Bye.”

I had been with this friend when I saw my first Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal T-shirt, at the Barneys on 61st Street. He is a very good dresser, and not just in that generic gay way of like, “Girl, how cute do I look in this!” He’s more Brideshead Revisited gay than Chelsea gay. The fucker has taste. Anyway, we were in the men’s department at Barneys and he paused at a display and held up what appeared to be a soft brown shirt. “Behold this masterpiece,” he said somberly.

I gathered the thing in my hands and held it like a baby. It was so soft. It was silky. It was a sweater, not a shirt, but you could wear it like a shirt. It could be slipped on with nonchalant elegance, and was so beautiful it made you think marrying someone fat and stupid and rich would be ok, if you could just wear one of these all the time. Each delicate square of waffling was its own tiny island of sumptuous luxury. It cost a fortune—over $500. “This is a forever sweater,” I said. A clerk at Charivari—the now-defunct boutique where, coincidentally, a young Marc Jacobs worked—had once referred to a sweater I purchased there as 'a forever sweater,' and we found this phrase ridiculous, but not without meaning. I so wanted this object. “Why is it so perfect?” I moaned.

In the exact same tone Tom Cruise in Risky Business says, “Porsche, there is no substitute,” my friend said, “It’s perfect because it’s a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal T-shirt, and Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermals T-shirt are just perfect.”

We stepped out onto Madison Avenue, dizzy with desire, overcome by that experience unique to extreme youth where the humiliation of being underpaid and the belief that greatness and luxury goods are just around the corner merge into one sensation of sweet yearning. We made a pact: The first one of us to get rich would buy the other one a Marc Jacobs Thermal T-shirt.

I think this was the late mid '90s. It might have been 2000. I do remember that at the time my favorite joke (stolen) involved looking downtown, pointing to the World Trade Center, and saying, “Hey! I thought somebody blew those things up.”

Part of me thinks I should forget about telling the next part of the story, that a big frowny face followed by an ellipse would be sufficient. At one point I thought I was rich but by the time I got around to getting us our thermals, I realized I owed the IRS so much money that my accountant, an Orthodox Jewish woman in her 70s, stood up from her desk one afternoon and shouted at me, “Your freewheeling days are over, missy.” Then my friend seemed like he may have been about to enter Thermal Country, but he got laid off. The towers fell, for real. I actually read in the paper (in addition to being stylish my friend is very discreet, funny how those go together) that he had a fancy new job and I wrote him an email, not congratulations—never congratulations—but “Where’s my thermal?”

He wrote back, “This is a good job but it’s not Thermal good.”

Not terribly long after Winona’s incident I had my brush with success. I promised my friend as soon as I got a house, I’d get us thermals. I bought my house in 2004. Needless to say a. I no longer live there and b. if you care to go through my things at the more modest place I live now you will not find a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal T-shirt.

About two years ago my friend and I were sitting in a bar, making the stupid jokes we make to avoid actually talking about our lives. Halfway through drink two I made a weak foray beyond senseless, apocalypse-driven repartee and said wistfully, “Someday we’ll get our thermals.”

“You actually think one day one of us is going to buy the other a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal T-shirt?” His eyes were large and indignant behind his Robert Marc glasses. “Are you insane? Personally, I’ll consider myself lucky if I don’t have to eat you when you die.”

I called the LA Saks Fifth Avenue the other day. Just to see if they had any. After all, what did it mean to not be able to afford something? I mean, I do have $700 dollars. So I could afford a thermal. Sure, it would be idiotic of me to buy one, but I’d been wasting money on stupid things for years, and really, why should I stop now?

“Saks Beverly Hills, can I help you?”

“The Marc Jacobs boutique, please.”

“Marc Jacobs or Marc by Marc Jacobs?”

Ma’am, I just want a thermal, I wanted to whine. But I said, “Marc Jacobs, I guess.”

“Hello, Marc Jacobs.”

“Yes, I’m wondering if you have any cashmere thermals?”

“Do you want Marc Jacobs or Marc by Marc Jacobs?”

“I’m looking for the cashmere thermals,” I said.

“I think you want Marc by Marc Jacobs.”

Before I had a chance to refute this I was transferred.

“Marc by Marc Jacobs.”

“Do you have any cashmere thermals?”

“Do you want Marc by Marc Jacobs or Marc Jacobs?”

“Either.” I said. ”I’m looking for the cashmere thermal, I guess it’s a T shirt, but then, maybe there’s another version?” Honestly, wasn’t the cashmere thermal a classic? And hadn’t it earned some kind of dark cache, like, if not exactly like, John Hinckley’s Catcher in the Rye or O.J. Simpson’s Bruno Magli suede lace-ups?

“Let me try the lingerie department.”

This seemed like an odd choice. The woman said, “Cashmere thermal? Marc Jacobs? No. Did you try Marc Jacobs or Marc for Marc Jacobs?”

I called the New York Barneys.

“Hello, Barneys New York, how may I direct your call?”

“Marc Jacobs boutique, please.”

“Marc by Marc Jacobs or Marc Jacobs?”

“How about…Marc Jacobs?”

“Hello, Marc Jacobs.”

“Hi, I’m looking for a Marc Jacobs Cashmere Thermal.”

“Marc by Marc Jacobs or Marc Jacobs?”

“I believe, uh…Marc,” I said, suddenly exhausted. “But possibly, uh…Marc for Marc Jacobs.”

“It’s not Marc and Marc for Marc Jacobs. It’s Marc Jacobs and Marc for Marc Jacobs.”

“I know what it is,” I snapped. “I could write the words in calligraphy on a grain of rice with my eyes closed. And I have to tell you I feel like I’m calling the Quicken Arena in Cleveland looking for LeBron James and everyone’s like, have you tried Concessions? What about Ticket Sales? What about the Gift Shop?”

“Call Bergdorf’s,” she said.

When you call the main number for Bergdorf’s you get a salon. (Does anyone know why?) As the phone rang and rang I had the following insight: If I, like the designer in question, were a 48-year-old extremely good looking and muscular gay man who was one day at a time never ever getting wasted again, I may also have decided that the best chance I had left for thrills in this life was to ensure that everyone who ever said my name would be forced to say it two and a half times.

I hung up. I called an actual Marc Jacobs store.

“Oh, we don’t really make those anymore. I mean, we might have like, a few of them in the men’s store, but…”

Why hadn’t I thought of this first? I don’t know.

“You don’t make them anymore?”

“The last time I saw them was like, in 2008, maybe 2009?”

“But… how could they just stop making them? They were amazing! I thought those were… are you familiar with the term 'forever sweater'?”

“Could you hang on a moment?” She put me on hold and left me there.

It almost made me feel better for not having any money anymore. Clothes are so ugly now. Everything has a ruffle or a bow. It makes you wonder if maybe Leona Helmsley’s Maltese, Trouble, used all that money she left her to go to FIT and open a boutique. Of course Marc Jacobs doesn’t make cashmere thermals anymore, because they were useful, and nice, and flattering.

On the Internet I found a Marc for Marc Jacobs thermal shirt, but it’s not cashmere, it’s not a T-shirt, and it has a stupid ass bow on it. (Curse you, Carrie Bradshaw!) If Jessica Simpson’s first event after giving birth happens to be a bar mitzvah it’s what she’ll wear.

Winona Ryder wore a Marc Jacobs dress to her trial, and she looked so good in it that he subsequently asked her to model for him. (She wrote him a note saying she was “honored.”) In 2006 she appeared “nude” in some public service ads Jacobs did around skin cancer awareness. She went from criminal to muse, but the damage had been done. Within a few seconds of seeing her, everyone still thinks “shoplifter,” and the slightly unhinged look in her dark eyes is her signature not just as an actress, but as a defendant. What she did is mystifying and particularly so considering that it was that dark holiday season following September 11. No one really knows why someone who can buy a hundred Marc Jacobs cashmere thermals will risk everything to steal one. I guess it’s not that much crazier than risking everything to try and buy one. At least Winona had hers for a few minutes.



Sarah Miller is the author of Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn and The Other Girl, which are for teens but adults can read on the beach. She lives in Nevada City, CA.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/winona-ryders-forever-sweater/feed 53 Happy First Commercial Central Processing Unit Day! http://www.theawl.com/2011/11/happy-first-commercial-central-processing-unit-day http://www.theawl.com/2011/11/happy-first-commercial-central-processing-unit-day#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:00:11 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2011/11/happy-first-commercial-central-processing-unit-day It was 40 years ago today (more or less): "The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. It was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor. Such a feat of integration was made possible by the use of then new silicon gate technology allowing a higher number of transistors and a faster speed than was possible before." And think of all the joys it's brought us! Seriously, think about it.

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]]> It was 40 years ago today (more or less): "The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. It was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor. Such a feat of integration was made possible by the use of then new silicon gate technology allowing a higher number of transistors and a faster speed than was possible before." And think of all the joys it's brought us! Seriously, think about it.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/11/happy-first-commercial-central-processing-unit-day/feed 6 America Keeps On Loving Rock Song Thirty Years Since It Topped The Charts http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/america-keeps-on-loving-rock-song-thirty-years-since-it-topped-the-charts http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/america-keeps-on-loving-rock-song-thirty-years-since-it-topped-the-charts#comments Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:10:15 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/america-keeps-on-loving-rock-song-thirty-years-since-it-topped-the-charts Don’t try to tell me you don’t like this song. Don’t try to say that it’s too earnest and simplistic or that the big dumb chord progression is too big and dumb or that Kevin Cronin sounds too much like a dweeb or that his clothes or his acting in this video are too ridiculous for you to take anything he’s ever done seriously ever. Don’t try to tell me that you never wrote this song’s lyrics into a love note to an old ex-girlfriend you were trying to win back. Don’t try to tell me that you don’t turn up the volume and sing along aloud every time it comes on the radio when you’re driving in a car by yourself. I won’t believe you. Because it’s just too perfect, this song. It's just too good at what it's trying to do to make you do anything but give in and swear your allegiance. And because you’re an American, and you lied about having lost your virginity before you actually lost it. 30 years ago this week, REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Loving You” was the number one song in the country. And when you really think about, if you’re honest with yourself, it’s pretty much stayed that way since.

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]]> Don’t try to tell me you don’t like this song. Don’t try to say that it’s too earnest and simplistic or that the big dumb chord progression is too big and dumb or that Kevin Cronin sounds too much like a dweeb or that his clothes or his acting in this video are too ridiculous for you to take anything he’s ever done seriously ever. Don’t try to tell me that you never wrote this song’s lyrics into a love note to an old ex-girlfriend you were trying to win back. Don’t try to tell me that you don’t turn up the volume and sing along aloud every time it comes on the radio when you’re driving in a car by yourself. I won’t believe you. Because it’s just too perfect, this song. It's just too good at what it's trying to do to make you do anything but give in and swear your allegiance. And because you’re an American, and you lied about having lost your virginity before you actually lost it. 30 years ago this week, REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Loving You” was the number one song in the country. And when you really think about, if you’re honest with yourself, it’s pretty much stayed that way since.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/america-keeps-on-loving-rock-song-thirty-years-since-it-topped-the-charts/feed 25 The Flintstones At 50 http://www.theawl.com/2010/09/the-flintstones-at-50 http://www.theawl.com/2010/09/the-flintstones-at-50#comments Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:10:52 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2010/09/the-flintstones-at-50
It is the 50th anniversary of "The Flintstones," which actually seems kind of low, since it feels like it has always been around. Anyway, celebrate with this list of the show's ten craziest inventions or skip to the 1:23 mark on this video to watch Branford Marsalis force Sting to sing the theme song. Either way, have a gay old time.

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]]>
It is the 50th anniversary of "The Flintstones," which actually seems kind of low, since it feels like it has always been around. Anyway, celebrate with this list of the show's ten craziest inventions or skip to the 1:23 mark on this video to watch Branford Marsalis force Sting to sing the theme song. Either way, have a gay old time.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/09/the-flintstones-at-50/feed 10 Actual Names of Actual People Who Plan to Attend the Dorrian's 50th Anniversary Festivities http://www.theawl.com/2010/07/listicle-without-commentary-actual-names-of-actual-people-who-plan-to-attend-the-dorrian%e2%80%99s-50th-anniversary-festivities http://www.theawl.com/2010/07/listicle-without-commentary-actual-names-of-actual-people-who-plan-to-attend-the-dorrian%e2%80%99s-50th-anniversary-festivities#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:23:55 +0000 Jolie Kerr http://www.theawl.com/2010/07/listicle-without-commentary-actual-names-of-actual-people-who-plan-to-attend-the-dorrian%e2%80%99s-50th-anniversary-festivities RED HAND 50. Kingsley Crawford
49. Harry William Cyphers IV
48. Leckie Roberts
47. Madison Calvert
46. Victoria Alfred-Smythe
45. Chase Rowan
44. Taylor Alexandra Karns
43. Brynne Ashton
42. Jaxon Reilly
41. Ashton Abbot
40. Zachary Logan Gould
39. Devon Claire
38. Wynn Smith
37. Olivia Thacher
36. Thomas Burroughs Babcock
35. Bradford S Beckerman
34. Zachary James Fraser
33. Hunter Merghart
32. Jordan Winters Brock
31. Nils Vanderlip
30. Packy Burke
29. Thorson Rockwell
28. Blake T. Davis
27. Anne de la Mothe Karoubi
26. Emery Holton
25. Lisa Pilkington Brown
24. Craig Bradley Gibson Jr.
23. Jack Fennebresque
22. Welyn Craig
21. Megan Thumper Glynn
20. Townsend Ambrecht
19. Frances Browning Cain
18. Keeley Weir
17. Tyler Johnson Brock
16. Margaux Rogers
15. Alexandra Hancock
14. Wetherly Collins
13. Lindsay Torpey-Cross
12. Oliver Ames
11. Morgan DeChiel Glasebrook
10. Reeve Ballard
9. Briggs Elwell
8. Peer Pedersen
7. Missie B. Walker
6. Bodhi Ryan
5. David Archibald Sparrows
4. Kiely Turgeon
3. Trip Todd
2. Parker William Brickley
1. Devon Worthington



Jolie Kerr is not an actual name, but she encourages you to save the date now.

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]]> RED HAND 50. Kingsley Crawford
49. Harry William Cyphers IV
48. Leckie Roberts
47. Madison Calvert
46. Victoria Alfred-Smythe
45. Chase Rowan
44. Taylor Alexandra Karns
43. Brynne Ashton
42. Jaxon Reilly
41. Ashton Abbot
40. Zachary Logan Gould
39. Devon Claire
38. Wynn Smith
37. Olivia Thacher
36. Thomas Burroughs Babcock
35. Bradford S Beckerman
34. Zachary James Fraser
33. Hunter Merghart
32. Jordan Winters Brock
31. Nils Vanderlip
30. Packy Burke
29. Thorson Rockwell
28. Blake T. Davis
27. Anne de la Mothe Karoubi
26. Emery Holton
25. Lisa Pilkington Brown
24. Craig Bradley Gibson Jr.
23. Jack Fennebresque
22. Welyn Craig
21. Megan Thumper Glynn
20. Townsend Ambrecht
19. Frances Browning Cain
18. Keeley Weir
17. Tyler Johnson Brock
16. Margaux Rogers
15. Alexandra Hancock
14. Wetherly Collins
13. Lindsay Torpey-Cross
12. Oliver Ames
11. Morgan DeChiel Glasebrook
10. Reeve Ballard
9. Briggs Elwell
8. Peer Pedersen
7. Missie B. Walker
6. Bodhi Ryan
5. David Archibald Sparrows
4. Kiely Turgeon
3. Trip Todd
2. Parker William Brickley
1. Devon Worthington



Jolie Kerr is not an actual name, but she encourages you to save the date now.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/07/listicle-without-commentary-actual-names-of-actual-people-who-plan-to-attend-the-dorrian%e2%80%99s-50th-anniversary-festivities/feed 68 "Airplane!" At 30 http://www.theawl.com/2010/06/airplane-at-30 http://www.theawl.com/2010/06/airplane-at-30#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:00:18 +0000 Maura Johnston http://www.theawl.com/2010/06/airplane-at-30
The skyborne-disaster comedy Airplane! turns 30 years old next month, and Matt Zoller Seitz's look back on the flick and its influences way down the lines of comedy is quite a good read. (The revelation that the movie is partially responsible for the movie career of the not-funny-just-sorta-gross Farrelly brothers isn't going to dim my enthusiasm for it!)

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The skyborne-disaster comedy Airplane! turns 30 years old next month, and Matt Zoller Seitz's look back on the flick and its influences way down the lines of comedy is quite a good read. (The revelation that the movie is partially responsible for the movie career of the not-funny-just-sorta-gross Farrelly brothers isn't going to dim my enthusiasm for it!)

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/06/airplane-at-30/feed 47 It's Been 30 Years Since The Release Of The Only Album That Matters http://www.theawl.com/2009/12/its-been-30-years-since-the-release-of-the-only-album-that-matters http://www.theawl.com/2009/12/its-been-30-years-since-the-release-of-the-only-album-that-matters#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:00:49 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2009/12/its-been-30-years-since-the-release-of-the-only-album-that-matters
The Clash's London Calling came out thirty years ago today. It still stands as punk rock's crowning achievement. In fact, it's probably as responsible as any other work for the fact that the term "punk rock" seems kind of silly now. The Clash were a punk band, coming out of England with the Sex Pistols in the late '70s. But the music on London Calling ranges from reggae to rockabilly to snazzy pop tunes. It's thoughtful and refined, even gentle at times, and delivered with as much subtlety as spit. It rages and sneers, too, to be sure, but even in that, it proves the futility of thin definition and sub-categorization. It's all just rock n' roll, really, right? London Calling is just some of the very best of the stuff ever recorded. (Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go do a tango about the use of flying buttresses in gothic cathedrals.) Oh, and for perspective, 30 years before London Calling's release, it was December 14th, 1949, Elvis Presley hadn't recorded any songs and no one knew what "rock n' roll" was. So now rock has been dead and reborn for longer than it was alive in the first place. Or something.

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The Clash's London Calling came out thirty years ago today. It still stands as punk rock's crowning achievement. In fact, it's probably as responsible as any other work for the fact that the term "punk rock" seems kind of silly now. The Clash were a punk band, coming out of England with the Sex Pistols in the late '70s. But the music on London Calling ranges from reggae to rockabilly to snazzy pop tunes. It's thoughtful and refined, even gentle at times, and delivered with as much subtlety as spit. It rages and sneers, too, to be sure, but even in that, it proves the futility of thin definition and sub-categorization. It's all just rock n' roll, really, right? London Calling is just some of the very best of the stuff ever recorded. (Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go do a tango about the use of flying buttresses in gothic cathedrals.) Oh, and for perspective, 30 years before London Calling's release, it was December 14th, 1949, Elvis Presley hadn't recorded any songs and no one knew what "rock n' roll" was. So now rock has been dead and reborn for longer than it was alive in the first place. Or something.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/12/its-been-30-years-since-the-release-of-the-only-album-that-matters/feed 70 London Cabbies' Least-Favorite Photograph Turns 40 http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/london-cabbies-least-favorite-photograph-turns-40 http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/london-cabbies-least-favorite-photograph-turns-40#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:09:59 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/london-cabbies-least-favorite-photograph-turns-40 Why don't you do each other in the road?It was 40 years ago tomorrow that photographer Iain MacMillan took the picture of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road outside Abbey Road studios that would be used for the cover of their final studio album, called, uh, Abbey Road. It has since become one of the most enduring images in rock-music history. Am I Right has collected 63 covers from other artists parodying the original, and the BBC is running a nice little segment about the endless stream of tourists who stop traffic to take their own pictures on the very crosswalk trod upon by Paul's bare feet-a place that now has a webcam monitoring the scene 24 hours a day.

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]]> Why don't you do each other in the road?It was 40 years ago tomorrow that photographer Iain MacMillan took the picture of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road outside Abbey Road studios that would be used for the cover of their final studio album, called, uh, Abbey Road. It has since become one of the most enduring images in rock-music history. Am I Right has collected 63 covers from other artists parodying the original, and the BBC is running a nice little segment about the endless stream of tourists who stop traffic to take their own pictures on the very crosswalk trod upon by Paul's bare feet-a place that now has a webcam monitoring the scene 24 hours a day.

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