Style

It must be hard to be a male of a certain age these days. For... what... ten years or so the uniform has been predictable. One pair boxers (CLEAN, plaid preferred, patterns of smiley faces or hearts undertaken at one's own risk - tighty-whities out of the question), one t-shirt sporting a: profanity (see "Rebel, character traits of" for music requirements, palette restrictions and recommendations for disfiguring piercings and tattoos) b: advertising logo (see "Branding: corporate shortcut to personality" for logo suggestions and the Top Ten Companies to Avoid) or c: ironic image and/or text (see "Cultural iconoclast, an insider's guide to being an outsider" for constantly updated lists of hot-button subject matter and Blogs You Must Read!), and one pair of trousers four sizes too big. The only real issues were exactly how much boxer should protrude from the waistband, and just how do you keep your jeans above your knees when you're riding a skateboard.

But now - now darn it some fashionista has introduced skinny jeans for men. Not only does this new style make slim legs look pipe-like and plump ones like over-stuffed bratwurst, there's the terrible problem of where to wear them.

You see, these guys don't feel comfortable unless their jeans are hovering well south of the navel (they haven't had a belt above the pubic bone since they were seven). Or maybe it's that they haven't had to undo the zip to get dressed in so long they've forgotten how to work the darn things. It certainly looks as though they had a long and terrible struggle to become fully clothed but had to give up, exhausted, several inches short of success.

Not to mention that between the low hang of the crotch and the constriction of the fabric the gangsta strut has become a constipated waddle.

Cool is so damn hard.