Jeans

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I swear that ninety percent of the young people I see are wearing torn, ripped and distressed jeans. Some ripped jeans look as if they’d lost an argument with a giant cheese grater. Others look like the wearer was going to turn their jeans into shorts and got bored with the project. There are the people who look like they had been dressed by Edward Scissorhands and some of them have what looks like mud painted on the jeans.

Levi Strauss is founder of the first factory in the United States for the manufacture of blue jeans in the 1880s. They were called “waist overalls” back then. He died on September 26, 1902 in San Francisco at the age of 73. He is probably rolling over in his grave.

Jeans are made of a tough fabric and it takes a lot to wear them out. This is why they have always been working apparel favored by manual laborers, farmers, and factory workers. They got worn, torn and beat up through overuse and were often associated with blue collar employees. I used to wear jeans at work and every pair was riddled full of holes from welding and being splashed with caustic soda. When I was attending welding school, my worn, frayed jeans actually started on fire.

Then in the mid-1970s, the Ramones burst on the scene wearing torn jeans. We just thought they were broke and couldn’t afford new jeans. But it turned out it was the uniform of the punk movement and later, grunge. A defiant, anti-establishment statement, torn jeans were seen as a sign of rebellion, but today, when everyone and his grandad are wearing them, it’s more a sign of sheep-like conformity.

“He’s really ripped,” used to be a compliment when applied to a taut six-pack upper body. Now, it just means he’s wearing damaged trousers. I’ve been living in jeans since the 1960s when we used to call then dungarees so I suppose it’s not unexpected that we looked for new ways to wear them. And it’s not often you see 1960s bell bottoms any more, unless you are a deadhead. Sensible folk would say, OK, if you want ripped jeans, why not buy an ordinary pair of jeans and cut them up? At least that’s creative.

GQ, the men’s magazine, published a satirical guide on how to rip your jeans yourself. It described three “effects”. Holes, which should not be more than an inch wide. Shreds, where the fabric is torn but threads remain and finally, scrapes, fabric that is lightly grazed like you hit it with sandpaper. But all that is done for you now for a price. You can now buy shredded jeans but twenty percent of them are air.

The designer labels love boldly shredded legs. Balmain has a pair for $1144.59, Dolce & Gabbana’s are a steal at $555.85 and Gucci, instead of confessing it has battered them to oblivion, calls them “pre-loved, with a vintage feel”, all for a paltry $1124.75. (Prices from express.co.uk).

However, unless you’re an anorexic, celery-eating carb-phobic, bits of flesh will bulge through the gaps and some of it should not be seen in public. Often you can see a person’s underwear or worse through the holes. It’s not very flattering. (I apologize if you’re eating.)

Unless you’re in a hip-hop band from Detroit, you have probably progressed from the low-slung jeans that revealed your Calvin Klein boxers to jeans missing some of their fabric. At least we aren’t seeing someone’s butt. If you can afford Calvin Klein boxers maybe you could afford pants that fit or at least a belt. This is another fad I don’t understand. I suppose that this distressed jean fad is just a tad better than that.

I think the clothing fads in my day were much better, like tie dye, miniskirts, bikinis, and girls without bras. God I miss girls without bras. I used to tie dye everything, in fact when I was discharged from the Navy, I tie dyed my dress white uniforms. Another fad of my day was bell bottoms. The Navy also provided me a good supply of bell bottom jeans.

Ripped jeans are popular with both men and women today and it is leaving its mark on wardrobes around the country. Those comfortable shorts and jeans that I own that need a “haircut” every time I wear them are now fashionable to my wife’s chagrin. Fashion is always changing and improving. Just because something wasn’t popular in the past, does not make it trashy in the present.

Granted, there is a time and a place for all fashion trends. Knowing this, it would be not wise to wear ripped jeans to a job interview. Although you may believe that ripped jeans make you look hip and stylish, your prospective employer may have another point of view.

In the name of all that’s holey, (pun intended) haven’t we had enough of this trend? I think the time that we dress like we are wearing worn out or oversized clothes has passed.

Halloween

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One of my favorite times growing up in Buffalo during the 60’s occurred in late October every year. It was the Halloween season. I always enjoyed the cooler days and nights around this time of the year. Fall represented to me a warm cup of fresh pressed apple cider with a cinnamon stick, homemade pumpkin pie, carving jack o lanterns, caramel apples and the smell of burning leaves.

But best of all was the night we would go trick or treating. Growing up in Buffalo, we went trick-or-treating on October 30th, what we called Beggar’s Night. There was a very good reason they called it “Beggar’s Night.” I would go out knocking on doors and ringing doorbells collecting sweets along the way.

I would hastily eat my dinner that evening and get into my costume that I would have laid out on my bed in anticipation of the night to come. We didn’t have the readily available costumes or a fancy dancy Halloween store in those days so I had to improvise. I had a total of two different costumes back then. The first costume was a ghost. All this outfit took was an old bed sheet that I would cut eye holes in with a pair of scissors.

My other costume was a hobo. This took a bit more effort. I would get one of my father’s old work shirts and roll up the sleeves. I would also wear my worst, worn out pair of jeans. Ones that were frayed on the bottom and had a few holes in them. Sometimes they would have to be rescued from the rag bag. I would bunch up a ball of newspaper, tie it in a bandana and would carry this on a stick thrown over one shoulder. To complete the look, I would char a cork and draw a three day shadow on my chin and face. I thought I looked good.

While my parents were busy partying with their friends, I would go out on my night time candy raids. My treasure collection bag consisted of either an old pillow case or a paper shopping bag with handles that my mother had gotten when she shopped at an upscale store. I didn’t have one of those ornate, preprinted bags designed just for trick or treat or the plastic “T shirt” bags that we all know, the ones you see blowing around on a windy day.

I would return to my house several times during the night when my “loot” bag was getting heavy, pour it out on a newspaper on the dining room floor and head out in a different direction to gather even more swag. It was not uncommon to go five blocks in any direction and collect at least one large shopping bag full of candy and goodies that night.

One night two teenagers (gods to a pre-teen) approached me and said they were participating in a scavenger hunt and asked if I knew where they could find some of the items on their list. The one thing that sticks out in my mind was a burned out light bulb. They came to the right person because I had just acquired one I was going to experiment with.

They followed me to my home on Berkshire Avenue where I helped them fill their list as much as I could. They thanked me, gave me their address and told me to tell the lady who answered the door that I had helped them out and that she should “take care” of me.

It was getting late when I got there as it was about 4 blocks away. I think she gave me all the candy she had left because she turned off her porch light as I was leaving. She was probably happy to get rid of all the extra candy she had.

When I was done collecting my yearly booty, I would start the job of sorting out my loot. My parents would have me throw out all unwrapped candy, the small bags of homemade popcorn and the apples I had collected lest they were tampered with by the insertion of pins, needles or razor blades. Why someone would do this to a kid is beyond me. I was only permitted to keep the factory sealed items.

I would then start trading things with my brother and sister, swapping what I didn’t want for something I wanted from them.

Ah, those were the good old days, a period of better times. A time that I believe was better, simpler and more wholesome than the current period. But then I think my memory of them is a bit rosier than it actually was.

Times have changed, gone are the days you could let your children run around the neighborhood, unsupervised, late at night. Gone are the days that we used to have a hundred or more children visiting our front door. We now have maybe thirty five or forty kids that come on our porch, dressed in store bought costumes carrying store bought bags gathering their annual spoils. But I still enjoy watching the kids come on my porch and hearing the gleeful sounds of “Trick or Treat”.

Norb is a writer and blogger from Lockport, New York. You can write him at nrug@juno.com or follow his blog at whywny.home.blog

Cheap Junk

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No matter what anybody says, the decline of American manufacturing won’t be reversed by tariffs on steel and aluminum. I think there is more to this issue than just industrial metals. Possibly the largest economic problem America faces is the decades long onslaught of cheap crap. The reason we don’t have nice things in America in 2018 is that we don’t buy them. We want whatever we want for the cheapest price possible, quality be dammed.

Consider the last pair of socks you bought. They were most likely made overseas. Getting them on your feet was a difficult as it is to grasp a shadow and then you couldn’t get over the sensation that your socks were painted on. They most likely got a hole in them after being worn a few times. But who could refuse a deal like 12 pairs of socks for $12 with free shipping?

It is almost impossible to buy a pair of jeans made in this country, and the ones that are made in the United States are made with foreign made denim. The last American denim mill, Cone Mills’s White Oak Plant in Greensboro, North Carolina shut down in December 31, 2017. This was the last denim mill in the United States.

Most $30 jeans won’t last very long. It is ridiculous that this happens in the country that produced blue jeans for the world. Levi Strauss is rolling over in his grave. Denim jeans were invented when a woman asked Jacob W. Davis, a tailor from Nevada for a pair of durable and strong pants for her husband to chop wood. When Davis was finishing up making the denim jeans, he spied some small copper rivets that were lying on a table He used the rivets to attach the pockets.

In Michigan a small business that was building guitars according to old-fashioned methods, by hand was recently bought by a group of venture capitalists. The new owners fired most of the workers and instructed that their “handmade” guitars were to be built with computer controlled machinery. They spent several million dollars converting the factory into a tourist “experience” and connected with Rolling Stone LLC to, and I quote, “incorporate a wealth of music and pop culture into the renovation,” whatever that means. Heritage Guitar used to be a place where skilled tradesmen made beautiful objects. Now it’s going to be one more destination where tourists can watch screen exhibits, eat bad overpriced meals and buy officially licensed T-shirts.

Examples like this are all over. Appliances can now do 100 different things. They tell you what time it is, glow a luminous blue, allow you to write downloadable shopping lists into them, everything except what they are meant to do. Try to figure out how to make coffee after the LED screen goes out on an expensive coffee maker and you will be glad you own an old-fashioned percolator. Yes, it does not play music or give you the current sports scores but it makes a damn good cup of coffee. It will serve for as long as I need.

Most Americans seem to prefer to have junk. When they are given a choice between buying a few slightly expensive items and buying replaceable crap and getting free shipping, people frequently go the free shipping route. Spending a bit more money initially the only way to avoid the cheap stuff problem. I always advise people to buy the most expensive things they can. Buying cheap stuff over and over that breaks ultimately costs more than buying quality products.

It might be hard to buy jeans that will last very long, but you can get five of them today for about the same percentage of your wages that one pair would have cost in 1950. Just because cheap goods are constructed of inexpensive material by people in Southeast Asia who are paid slave wages is none of your concern.

I think the initial step to resolve this problem is to discontinue the agreements where it’s easy for companies to utilize cheap foreign labor. This doesn’t automatically mean tariffs. If legislation was written that required American corporations doing business overseas adhere to the exact same labor standards they have to if they were manufacturing things here, companies could decide that having a unionized workforce in Ohio is not really a bad thing after all.

But by increasing labor costs, prices would go up, people will buy fewer things. If you’re purchasing fewer socks that will last longer, or you’re buying a toaster that costs slightly more, you’re going to insist on quality. Companies will have to deliver.

Finally, I feel it’s absolutely necessary to boycott corporations whose business model depends on a strategy of planned obsolescence. There is no reason that a telephone could not be manufactured to last 15 or 20 years. The corded landline in my house works fine. Our great-grandchildren will say thank you when they do not inhabit a world that looks like Pixar’s Wall-E because we felt the need to throw our “outdated” gadgets in the landfills every other year.