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Andrew McGinn backstage at Kuss Auditorium last year with soul legend Percy Sledge. One of these men is either horribly underdressed or horribly overdressed.
McGinn: Should I be proud that I have the fashion sense of a 3-year-old?
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By Andrew McGinn,
Staff Writer
3:56 PM Thursday, October 27, 2011
We’ve all seen ’em — those adult women who swap clothes with a teenage daughter.
Pointing it out usually comes with negative connotations, as if to imply that, once a woman becomes a mother, she should only have a closet full of embroidered snowman sweater vests from Christopher & Banks.
I personally try not to judge — mainly because it recently dawned on me that I soon could be swapping clothes with my son.
I suppose I should just be thankful I have a boy.
I’ve never looked all that great in booty shorts — even less so in stretchy workout pants with “Pink” stitched across the butt.
However, I’d gladly wear my son’s Superman T-shirt.
That is, if I didn’t already have two of my own.
I’m not so sure I should be all that proud of the fact that I’m a 34-year-old man with the style of a 3-year-old.
At first I thought it was kinda cute that we left the house the other morning both wearing Captain America T-shirts and slip-on shoes without laces.
The thing is, though, one of us is supposed to be a professional.
And that’s why I also wear a Mickey Mouse watch.
That way I can look down during a meeting and think, “When Mickey’s hands get to this spot, I get to go home and put on my Iron Man pajama pants.”
I have what probably would be considered a white-collar job — except I don’t actually have any shirts with white collars.
I do, however, have a shirt purchased at a gas station somewhere in the Nevada desert emblazoned with the words “Viva Area 51” over an illustration of an alien in an Elvis jumpsuit.
I have one with Frank Zappa’s “Hot Rats” album cover on it.
Another has the “Ghost of Frankenstein” movie poster on it.
And let’s not forget the Batman emblem shirts — the emblem from the late ’60s and the emblem with the Japanese writing on it.
Basically, the ratio in my wardrobe of shirts that probably shouldn’t be worn to the office or by anyone past their freshman year of college vs. shirts with buttons on them is easily 16-to-1.
My sense of fashion is definitely less “Mad Men” and more “Big Bang Theory.”
But as the kids say, I’d like to think I’m keeping it real.
I’m a newspaper writer who’s been pictured in the paper on the brink of barfing after seeing how long I could ride a certain ride at the Clark County Fair, and flying across the Veterans Park stage like the cast of “Peter Pan” at the Summer Arts Fest.
It’s hard to picture a man in a suit and tie subjecting himself to such juvenile activities.
So for the former, I wore a shirt featuring Daredevil, the Man Without Fear.
For the latter, I sported my Superman shirt with the emblem from the 1940s Fleischer cartoons.
I guess I’m fortunate that, because I have no real professional credibility, I’m able to get away with this “homeless hipster” look I have going on.
But what’s a tie, anyway?
It’s a little strip of cloth that extends down a gentleman’s torso.
Why is that considered nice?
I once went through a phase where I did, in fact, wear ties — ties with the X-Men, Spider-Man, Elvis and the Three Stooges printed on them.
So how is a tie with the X-Men on it any different than a shirt with the X-Men on it?
I couldn’t figure that one out myself, so I gave away all my ties to Goodwill.
Of course, it’s my worst fear that my son will one day grow up and want to become a real-life Alex P. Keaton.
That really scares me — mainly because I can’t remember for the life of me how to tie a tie.
Contact this reporter at amcginn@coxohio.com.
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