You Have Been Warned

There aren't a lot of things I miss about working the streets as an EMT. There are a few, though.

I miss my old partner. Sure, he had psoriasis all over the back of his neck and on his arms and knuckles and, when his flare-ups were really bad it kind of turned my stomach, and he was cheating on his wife with another employee of our company, and that kind of turned my stomach, too, but he was exceedingly nice to me. And, really, when you're in an ambulance with someone for forty hours a week, that's pretty much what counts.

I miss wearing a uniform and a badge. I remember the first time I ever walked into a Krispy Kreme establishment, ordered a coffee, and had my money refused with a smile and a wave-off from the clerk. "Holy shit," I thought, "now I see how the badge'd class can abuse their power-- it's so damn easy. And sometimes power tastes like coffee with cream and six sugars." I enjoyed the authority and the gravitas that a clean, pressed, professional-looking set of blues with a couple shoulder-patches and a badge can carry. It felt good walking around like you owned a hospital-- who was going to stop you from going anywhere you wanted?

And I'd be peeing on your face and calling it a sex-act if I told you that I didn't miss those red lights and that fucking siren. The first time I ever ran hot I thought I was going to get washed away from the massive swamp-ass I was incurring, and the black, plastic steering wheel was positively soaked with palm sweat by the time we reached the E.R., but, after a while, even I learned to relax a little bit during emergency runs and just... enjoy the ride.

The siren is a powerful tool inside an emergency vehicle. It has the power to instantly turn the brains of motorists in front of you into absolute clam chowder. They mean well, but they don't do the right thing. They slam on their brakes. They veer off to the left. They speed up. They turn in front of you. They freak. And I get it. I've done it. You panic and you want desperately to do the procedurally correct thing, the thing that you learned by reading your Driver's Ed manual on the toilet when you were fifteen years and eleven months old, and you inevitably end up fucking up. The siren warns you that something big and potentially dangerous is happening, right behind you, and you'd better get the hell out of the way.

My wife and I were fortunate enough to be in the car to hear another warning intonation yesterday. We were at the bank, about to deposit a check to stimulate our horny bank account, and a very leathery gentleman entered his Mercedes and put it in reverse. A back-up alarm, sounding very much like a child's bicycle horn, or the horn on Harpo's walking stick, sounded. And what warning did it send out to the masses? That an octogenarian was reversing in a 2009 Mercedes E-Class Sedan, thus creating a threatening situation in which a 3,740 pound mass of German engineering may very well injure you, cripple you, and/or terminate your existence had you the misfortune of perambulating across the Bank of America parking lot at that very moment.

And then it occurred to us: cars piloted by old fuckers ought to have alarms that sound, not just when they're backing up, but all the time.

I mean, sure, you can pretty much bet good cash money on the fact that a 1998 Toyota Camry (gray with gray interior) is being driven by someone whose varicose veins resemble the Tigris and Euphrates rivers on a full-zoom image from Google Earth, but why not just cut through the guess-work, save seconds and potentially save human life by forcing elderly drivers to drive cars that produce a high-pitched wail of warning as they barrel down the boulevard or meander across the double yellow line at seven miles-per-hour. That way, you wouldn't have to waste time looking for the pork pie hat or the teased-up blue hair peeking out from behind the driver's side headrest. You'd just know, because of the OFS (Old Fuck Siren).

The best part about the O.F.S. is that it does so much more than just warn you, the unsuspecting, fully-functional public, that some sag-ass named Milton is headed your way in a 1987 Lincoln Continental, its continual whine would actually remind the elderly sonofabitch that s/he is actually driving. You know how old people are-- they forget things, even whilst they're doing them. Sure, one moment they could be cognizant that they're driving a car, but the very next moment they could be convinced that they're on safari or at a burlesque show. The mind wanders. They get CVAs. The O.F.S. would pierce through their consciousness at all times with the unmistakable message: YOU ARE DRIVING A CAR. FO-CUS.

Because, let's face it: this is America. You can't take away a toothless hick's right to own a gun, you can't make nicotine-addicted blowhole necks stop smoking cigarettes, and you sure as shit can't stop guys from Altoona from fornicating with their sisters, so, in spite of all the research about brain atrophy and delayed motor responses, you're not going to take the keys to the Oldsmobile away from Cloris or Gaylord, so we might as well do all we can do to throw the rest of us a fucking bone, so we don't end up as the hood ornament on some old daddy Caddy.

Who's with me?

Formality Is a Little Less Formal These Days

Uh-oh... I can feel it coming on.

Far more telling than a few gray hairs, or a few burgeoning nostril-hairs, or a few more crow's feet, or that twinge in my back or that crick in my neck-- I can feel aging approaching in a far more palpable, far less tangible manner.

I'm pining for days of yore.

I'm becoming one of those fuckers who says, "Well, in the old days..."

Pray for me, kids: this is the beginning of the end. I can practically feel the prickly scrape of Grape Nuts against my deteriorating gullet.

I've been thinking, though, as I warm my pre-arthritic knuckles and my pre-diabetic feet in the flickering, halcyon glow of days of yore, that formality is becoming a little less formal these days.

And I'm not talking about firm handshakes or calling your boss "Sir" (or *gasp* "Ma'am") or about standing when a woman enters the room-- that shit is long dead and decaying. I'm talking about what passes as "formal" these days in the sense of tarting oneself up for a night on the town in the lap of luxury.

Tastes change, no doubt, and I realize and I accept that. But, what happens when changes in taste become a complete lack of understanding of taste? Even people who possess taste now are simply unable to locate goods and services that charm their discerning palates. Unsure of where I'm going with this?

Maybe some subcategories and pictures will help illustrate my point.

THE FORMAL AUTOMOBILE

When it's time to tool around 5th Avenue on an uber-special occasion, what kind of car do you think of? You think of a limousine, of course. Long, luxurious, and swathed from carpet to headliner in sumptuous burled wood and leather-wrapped yumminess.

Well, "in the old days" this is what a limousine looked like:

This, children, is a 1933 Rolls Royce Silver Phantom II. It's probably somewhat unlike the limousine in which you got drunkenly fingerbanged on the way to the beach after your prom. That choice vehicle probably looked something like this:

Familiar? That this lousy hunk of shit passes for a limousine is a shocking and depressing statement about modern culture, and I don't care if that makes me sound like a man named Morton who wears his pants with the elastic waistband hiked up over his nipples.

I just don't care.

If you're still not convinced that limousines aren't what they once were from these two startingly disparate exterior photographs, let's open up those rear doors and take a look inside, shall we?

Here's the interior of an antique Rolls limousine:

I mean-- for real? Those are seats a Queen would feel proud to fart on. And she probably has. And, do you see those beautifully hand-crafted wooden things on the backs of the front seats? Those are picnic tables, friends.

Now, my wife likes to complain about the fact that she's never been inside a "real limo." Well, honey, if you're talking about a modern limo, you ain't missing much:


I mean, seriously-- this looks like a nightclub. And not a nice nightclub either. One in which people get high on coke and then get anally violated in the bathroom by the bouncer. And forget about the Queen farting on these seats. No way. Crackhead hoochies sit on these things without underwear on, for Christ's sake.

THE FORMAL MALE

Once upon a time, men cared about what they looked like in public. Getting gussied up in formalwear was a way to show your impeccable taste, to show off your elegantly-engraved man-jewelry (an 18-K gold pocketwatch, handed down from your great-grandfather on down perhaps-- draped lovingly from your waistcoat pocket). If you can believe it, there was a time when men concerned themselves with looking presentable to go out to dinner or the theatre.

Don't believe me?

We heart Sir Arthur Sullivan here at My Masonic Apron. Even though he was a corpulent little cuss, Sir Arthur could get hisself tarted up with the best of the Victorians. Check out the gold-capped walking stick, leather gloves, and silk top-hat with grosgrain ribbon, clutched deftly in his big-boned left hand. Christ-- check out the fucking monocle! I mean, seriously-- that's a class act. The rest of the ensemble speaks for itself. Elegant, refined, dignified and expertly hand-tailored.

Doesn't look like anybody you ever went to the opera with, does it? When I think of modern formalwear, I definitely start to break out into hives, and my ass starts to sweat prodigiously. Wanna know why? Of course you do:

See what I mean? This is not formalwear. This... this is a fashion tragedy. Congrats on the wedding, though, fellas.


THE FORMAL FEMALE


You feminists can say whatever you want about male oppression and the inhumanity and physically grotesque torture inflicted on a woman's bone-structure, lungs and stomach by the corset, but I don't think women ever looked hotter or better than they did in the Victorian and pre-Victorian era. Trim waists, billowing puffery and neverending trains, breasts on display as if we were at the open-air market, graceful, swanlike necks protruding gallantly from mounds of lace and frill and mountains of curls bedecking freshly-puffed faces.

Yum.


Apron likey.

Well, these days are long gone. But we'll always have Merchant-Ivory films and "Amadeus." These days, women who want to look their best for a special occasion are, well, left to the devices of Jessica McClintock and, well, whoever the fuck designed this all this shit:

Wait a minute-- did I just write a fashion blog?

Jesus....

Well, at least there were cars, too.