Unlike the rest of our family, who wear hats they bought at Pottery Barn, we've always had good taste in clothes. We were a sartorial Wunderkind, the first kid in our third-grade class to sport a paisley dicky. True, we had a dark period in the mid-seventies when we took to wearing bib overalls and a biker beard in imitation of our pig farmer friends, the Harrisons. We loved pot and placidyl but the combination turned us into a sloven. We no longer wore a flower in our buttonhole, so to speak. But we repented of our ways when we met our first wife, who was from that fashion citadel of the world, New Jersey.
We say all this because lately we have been suffering a relapse into poor fashion. Lately our idea of a happening outfit for walking the dogs is a pair of track suit pants and a sweater. We look like a Bulgarian black marketeer in Marlboros. Mrs. UF (ex) has commented on this decline in our usually dapper appearance, but the fact is we like looking like a Bulgarian black marketeer, it makes us feel dangerous. We're even growing sideburns, and thinking of dying our hair jet black and then slicking it straight back with the kind of pomade that comes in a tin, and is usually purchased only by old black guys named Early.
We know we're headed downhill, but we also know that there are bottoms beneath bottoms we hope never to reach. For example, we ask you, loyal reader, to shoot us in the head should we ever be seen going about town in a rugby shirt. Or a pair of fucking flip flops.
Sideburns are dapper as hell, the acme of coiffure - for men, that is, females rather stay with the hairless face-look.
And this pomade-tin looks fantastic!
Posted by: Jan Martin Löhndorf | January 10, 2012 at 11:39 AM
Most of the ones around nowadays aren't quite that cool. But they come close!
Posted by: UF MIKE | January 10, 2012 at 11:42 AM
It is a cool tin!
I found this doing an image search:
http://bobbypinblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/pomade-review-schmiere-by-rumble-59.html
Posted by: AnitaNH | January 10, 2012 at 12:19 PM
What a treasure find, Anita!
And "Schmiere" means "grease, goo, gunk " and so on in german.
Posted by: Jan Martin Löhndorf | January 10, 2012 at 12:55 PM
Schmiere's a great name for a pomade. I thought it might be Yiddish, so thank you, Jan Martin, for the elucidation!
Posted by: UF MIKE | January 10, 2012 at 01:14 PM
In Holland 'schmiere' does still exists as the, yes, Yiddish word for elaborate improvising on stage. When an (comic) actor goes nuts and starts doing unpredictable stuff Dany Kaye or Jim Carrey style it's calle schmiering, or 'to schmiere'.
Posted by: Martijn | January 10, 2012 at 01:56 PM
Thanks, Martijn! Never knew it was a yiddish word as well, although in this case of pomade, I think it's rather about grease and not a comical improvisation in one's hair. Although, come to think of it ...
Posted by: Jan Martin Löhndorf | January 10, 2012 at 02:05 PM
I've seen some hair that I can only hope is comic improvisation. All this talk makes me really want to learn German, and/or Yiddish, is there a Rosetta Stone product for Yiddish does anybody know?
Posted by: UF MIKE | January 10, 2012 at 04:45 PM
Perhaps it's just the Dutch-German-Yiddish line, but for me it is perfectly clear, the link between greasy and schmiering. When someone is overacting, in Dutch one says he is 'greasing it' (het vet aanzetten). Perhaps there is the same thing in Eglish or French (we're not very innovative). I assume the Jews in my country just used their Yiddish-German words and they stuck. A great lot of Yiddish stuck! Aggenebbish! God, I love languages!
A Yiddish Rosetta Stone? If only... would be good for pickup lines.
Posted by: Martijn | January 10, 2012 at 04:58 PM
I was on a flight one time when the pilot really greased the landing. We were all looking at each other as if to ask whether we were on the ground or not because none of us felt the contact. Then we cheered!
Posted by: Dave Mows Grass | January 10, 2012 at 09:45 PM
Ha! - and I now remember a german word "Schmierentheater", which means cheap pathos, overacting, I haven't heard it in a while. But I like the word "Schmiere" with the meaning of "overacting". I shall use it from now on. A politician's speech? Bah! Schmiere!
I think I will try and learn a few yiddish words, just for occasional use,
Posted by: Jan Martin Löhndorf | January 11, 2012 at 04:07 AM
Spiritually, I'm a Jew, although I don't have the paperwork or bar mitzvah to show it. Jesus ruined everything with his philosophy which only one person in a million can even approach. Turn the other cheek? You have to be a saint or a masochist. And there simmply aren't that many saints around.
Posted by: UF MIKE | January 11, 2012 at 08:07 AM