Brands

As a testament to my laziness, I finally fixed my watch that hasn't worked for over a month - it merely needed a battery. But in doing so, I was forced to the mall - and found myself neck deep in consumer pleasure - those returning their xmas gifts for credit and huge sales. I looked around a little bit and found myself judging stores and brands. I am hostile towards several brands - Polo is the number one right now. I hate Polo and their shirts - overpriced, shitty colors, poorly tailored, and poorly made. I hate how the short arms taper. For a few dollars more, one can purchase shirts with far superior quality - my personal favorite is Faconnable, but I also like Le Tigre and LaCoste for their colors.

I also find myself particularly hating Bananna Republic. To me, this store represents corporate complacency. It is nice enough to look "nice" and professional and expensive, but underneath, it feels oddly desparate - that feeling of trying really hard to be or maintain your status as upper middle class. It costs enough to be respectful - but respectful of what? It is the wardrobe of middle managers in sad professions whose ultimate goal is to own a house in a rich suburbs. Fuck that shit.

I also am oddly attracted to other brands. I like Lucky these days, although I am reluctant to buy anything in their store because I feel like I could get the same thing at an army surplus place for like 1/4 of the price. But I like the style. Levi's are my pants of choice. French Connection, for being somewhat similar to Bananna Republic, is maybe my favorite store. Whoever is behind FCUK had me in mind, because for some reason, the clothes always fit me well - something about my body type doesn't go well with normal men's clothes. I'm too skinny, basically, and don't fill things out well. But FCUK shit always fits me perfectly and has this cool, Euro-soccery thing going, which I'm a sucka for. Kenneth Cole is an old standby, but I rarely buy any stuff from them anymore, even shoes. I actually have a slight affection for GAP - most of their stuff is crap, but every once in awhile GAP busts out some quality item that is a good value....I think that is what I appreciate about GAP - it is a good value, usually even more durable than Bananna.

But the newest brand which I'm falling for is Macintosh. Every time I pass a Mac store, I go in, and sit in front of the dual processer G5 with a 30 inch HD screen and drool over Final Cut Pro. The new IMAC is pretty sweet, too - you could, for 2 G's get a computer with 160 GB of memory, with Final Cut Express, 20 inch screen and a G5 processor. Pretty fucking cool.