A tribute version of the Broadway musical Wicked’s “Popular Song.” Lyrics include:
“You will be popular, the right kind of popular”
“I’ll teach you to zip your fly / You won’t be that guy with a camera down his pants.”
pants
So this is where they store their pants
There’s something lovely about seeing the “backstage” of the festival, the little things that make the celebration possible. Like somewhere to stash your pants.
Are no pants days really over for this year?
My interest in Shinto practice continues to deepen. I love a religion that brings the rice harvest to the city, and instructs men to go pants-less in public. Certainly there are many particularities I am still unfamiliar with. The repetitive flute and metal percussion music puts me in a trance, and opens me to the possibility that these gods inhabit my neighborhood and are responsible for my daily meals. But ideas and concepts would be nothing without the flagrant masochism and exhibitionism central to the rituals.
It’s like the Catholic Easter passion, but better because of its multiplicity. There is more than one suffering man, and more than one god. If this is pagan, I am unable to resist. I will ask the gods this year to decontaminate the rice harvest.
Construction worker fashion
Yesterday was the 3 month anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. No better time than now to look closely again at one of my favorite Japanese male fashions: gatenki (ガテんキ). As J-son noticed immediately on his first visit, gatenki combine making-stuff masculinity with super baggy pants that are vaguely Yoji Yamamoto in styling.
On weekdays I escape the tedium of rote learning for a balcony break overlooking a construction site for a 20-some story office building. It’s fun to watch the cranes, steel, and heavy equipment, but even more sublime when my break time coincides with theirs.
I feel safer and intrigued by daily sightings of these ninja-like male fashion icons.
Bunny head, shirtless & hands-in-pants
Title says it all. Priceless. (Via Shibuya Nights).
President needs pants that fit “where my nuts hang… back to my bunghole.”
Unbelievable audio of President Lyndon B Johnson on the phone with his tailor’s son, belching and talking about his nuts and bunghole. Apparently LBJ was concerned about his change and knife falling out of his pocket, and the crotch was cutting into his jewels like a wire fence.
My advice to the current President Obama: stop wearing those god-awful “Mom Jeans.” What’s with hetero men and their fear of showing their butts or crotches. Might as well wear a burka, no?!
(Thanks to EricTheFez for this item).
Outree male fashion in Tokyo
Wow! I can’t claim credit for this outrageous Tokyo fashion photo. It’s from Twitter’s @slicesofsoup.
I am left with so many questions: what is keeping those 4/5s turquoise pants up? Do the underpants support the mobile phone (or camera) pouch? Is he the father of one or more children?!
Amazing!
Handsome uniform
I love the small details on this handsome conductor uniform: the matching orange band on the cap, the letters on the upper arm, and the stitching around the back pants pockets. I wish I had such a simple yet elegant uniform to wear.
Computer head moe mixes virtual and real
Masks are always moe. Using a computer monitor as mask takes this fetish costume to a new, of-the-times level merging the virtual and the real. When the guy spoke, his voice was distorted with some special effect. Somehow the rolled up over-alls add a layer of physical realness to this mystery man.
Worker fashion is so hot!
Construction workers in Japan (called gatenki) wear the most fashionable work clothes. Often paired with two- toed shoes, they wear these huge balloon pants. My friend J-son thinks they are very Yoji Yamamoto. Many also have colored and fried hair, few eyebrows, and what seems to be copious tattoos. I like how they interact with each other and the city: aloof from outsiders, intimate with one another. I wonder how many are gay.
Spotting gatenki taking a break or walking through the city always cheers me up!
Tokyo Moe 