"Audiences like nicely dressed characters. They also enjoy nudity."

"Split the difference by putting your character in a pair of cut-offs and call him a Never-Nude. Advanced: feel free to dip him in a vat of blue paint. That's a real turn-off."



ADDED: You can buy the complete "Arrested Development" series — all 3 seasons — for only $38.50.

"The Best and Worst of the London Menswear Shows."

Not a joke. Or... tell me it's a joke....



I've complained a lot over the years about men in shorts, but this takes the cake:

Althouse-approved short pants for men.

These shorts have the guts. Do you? No? Buy the book.

"The Lakers have just pooped their big-boy pants..."

"It would be weird to keep a man around to fetch things!"

Something I said in the comments to an October 2008 post titled "So, I've been thinking of getting a dog...." Note that I met Meade in January 2009 and married him later that year. Here's the context of the highlighted quote. I'd said I was thinking of getting a poodle and somebody said "Ann, women with poodles are like men in shorts." My response was:

Eh, if I was just trying to get men to like me, I would have kept my mouth shut about not liking them in shorts. But it's an interesting issue: What dog should a woman get if what she wants is to make herself as attractive as possible to men?

Somebody else, recommending boxers, said "they sleep a lot, and especially love to sleep with you," and I said:

Is that considered a plus? There is no way on earth I want to sleep with a dog (unless it's some sort of emergency freezing survival situation).

Meade spoke up, responding to "What dog should a woman get if what she wants is to make herself as attractive as possible to men?"

That would be no dog. Men are not attracted to women with dogs. We want to BE your dog, not be WITH your dog.

And to "There is no way on earth I want to sleep with a dog":

At least you don't want to share your bed with a dog. So there is hope.

And then:

Here's what you'll have if you get a Lab:

A shadow. He will follow you from room to room. It will drive you out of your beautiful mind. When you get up, he stands up. When you sit down, he will lie at your feet. Probably ON your feet. When you go to the kitchen for something to nibble on, he is right there with hangdog eyes saying, "Come ta thinkuvit, I'm hungry again too. May I have what you're having."

He will bring you anything and everything to pathetically try to please you - your slippers, your bra, your panties, your laptop. Sure, you say, wouldn't that be convenient? And it would be. IF you are the sort of ill-natured bad sport drag to have around mean and unfriendly person who likes her slippers, bra, panties, and laptop soaked in drool.

Believe me - a man can do all the things a Lab can do without bankrupting you with vet bills.

Which made me say:

It would be weird to keep a man around to fetch things!

And Meade said:

Exactly. That's my point. A fetch-crazy Lab, you will be stuck with for a good ten or twelve years. An obsessed-to-please will-do-anything-just-to-hear-the-music-of-your-laughter man, you just show to the door when you can't take any more.

And that's exactly what happened (except the part about not letting the "dog" sleep with me).

3 Scenes from the Obama Rally in Madison.

Meade did all the filming and editing on this one. (All I did was the text.)

Michael Moore thinks people should start to practice the words 'President Romney.'"

Interesting, not really intended so much a prediction as a cynical remark about campaign finance. But that's not why somebody emailed me that link. Somebody emailed me that link because of the thing that made me scream at 0:21.

Live-blogging Day 2 of the GOP Convention.

6:03: Ayla Brown — the erstwhile "American Idol" contestant and daughter of Senator Scott Brown — sings the National Anthem.

6:07: "Please release each one of us from ego"... part of the invocation, given by a Sikh.

6:08: The color guard are amputee veterans, which we see because they're wearing shorts, earning a new, immediate exception to my "men in shorts" rule.

6:10: A bombastic tribute to Ron Paul. "No, no, I'm not going to be elected," he said to his wife. "To be elected, you've got to be like Santa Claus." Rand Paul says one thing he likes about his father is the lobbyists don't even bother to come by his office.

6:29: I found it hard to watch Mitch McConnell. I almost got out my sketchbook and pen, though, because his face says "Caricature me!" So I moved from C-SPAN over to CNN. (I'm recording both, and also Fox News.) They had an interview with Paul Ryan, in which Gloria Borger prodded him about how he felt when, as a 16-year-old boy, he discovered his father dead. Ryan moved on to how you have to live knowing you could die at any time, so Gloria asked why he didn't live fast and run right away for President. He said there were others who could do that job, but he was the only one would could father his young children. Gloria did not proceed to ask why then is he taking on the VP slot, but I guess that's a very short campaign period and, frankly, once you get it, it's a lot less work than chairing the House Finance Committee. Then Piers Morgan was interviewing Michele Bachmann, and the 2 of them agreed that Ann Romney was just lovely and then enthused about the "miracle" of the 2 of them agreeing, which Wolf Blitzer then echoed, sending me back to C-SPAN which was showing the on-stage entertainer, a horrifying aging rock singer who was belting the line "I'm back in the game" over and over.

6:30: Rand Paul: "You know when the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, the first words out of my mouth were 'I still think it's unconstitutional.'" Pushed to reflect, he reflected, and he still thinks it's unconstitutional. "The whole damned thing is unconstitutional." Meade says, "He said 'damned.'" And then, more seriously: "What we have here is crazy old Ron Paul" — and Meade makes a Ron Paul face — "morphing into Rand Paul."

6:50: Video of the Bushes, 41 and 43, and their wives, Barbara and Laura. So they weren't entirely banished from this place. They are circumspect, yet charming, claiming their place in history without seeming the slightest bit arrogant. Old Bush even does his Dana Carvey imitation imitation: "Not gon' do it. Wouldn't be prudent."

7:00: John McCain. Why is he here and not George Bush? McCain lost. Bush won twice. Meade says: "Because Bush is through with politics." McCain gives a paean to foreign wars in the cause of freedom, and the crowd's response is tepid.

7:50: Danny Gokey — another "American Idol" person. Another Wisconsin person.

8:00: Rob Portman, the short-list guy who came up short. "We need Romney/Ryan and we need them now." He seems perfectly fine, but I am glad he was not Romney's choice. There's some insurmountable dullness about him, no matter what he says, no matter how enthusiastically.

8:31: Another VP also-ran, Tim Pawlenty. He's reading jokes. For example: Obama is "the tattoo President" — it seemed cool at the time, but you look at it and say "What was I thinking?"

9:15: Huckabee and Rice both gave very long speeches that were neither bad nor good. Here's some text from Rice's speech.

9:19: Biggest cheer of the night comes when Gov. Susana Martinez says: "I carried at 357 Smith & Wesson Magnum" (referring to her experience, as an 18-year-old, working for her parents security guard business, protecting the Catholic church at bingo times). She's a good speaker. A nice edge of passion in her voice. With toughness.

9:29: Both Meade and I thought: We may be looking at the first woman President of the United States.

9:30: Paul Ryan. Meade says: "He looks like a young JFK only healthy." I'm struck by this quote, directly attacking Obama: "I have never seen opponents so silent about their record and so desperate to keep their power. They've run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division is all they've got left."

9:40: As Paul Ryan expresses his love for the state of Wisconsin, the C-SPAN camera closes in on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and we see there's a tear rolling down his cheek.



That was pointed out by Meade, who confesses to a tear of his own.

9:55: Paul Ryan gives a moving tribute to his mother, who, as a new widow, commuted 40 miles a day to Madison — to my school, the University of Wisconsin — to learn the skills she used to build a new business and a new life in which her happiness was not just in the past and to become his role model. After a long ovation from the crowd, Ryan moves into what will be the greatest iteration of what has been the convention's them: You did build that. He says:

Behind every small business, there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salon, hardware stores — these didn't come out of nowhere. A lot of heart goes into each one. And if small business people say they made it on their own, all they are saying is that nobody else worked 7 days a week in their place, nobody showed up in their place to open the door at 5 in the morning, nobody did their thinking and worrying and sweating for them. After all that work and in a bad economy, it sure doesn't help to hear from their President that government gets the credit. What they deserve to hear is the truth: Yes, you did build that!

11:10: Ryan did a brilliant job. It was much more than a fine speech and an excellent delivery. He embodied that speech. We saw a brilliant candidate.

"Please quit posting pictures of your debit cards, people."

Twitpix nitwits.

Utilikilts.

Instapundit brings up the topic this morning, pointing to Manolo, who says he gets the idea:

You are the unconventional, free-spirited, manly-dude, who wishes to show the world that you march to the beat of your own Iron John drum circle, even as you not-so-surreptitiously air your junk out in public.

However...

Real Scottish kilt, worn properly = The Sexy.
Utilikilt, worn by you = The Dorky....

I learned the word "Utilikilt" on October 18, 2010, when Meade and I were "very politely accosted" on State Street (Madison, Wisconsin) by a young man with a spiral notebook who was getting people to write the answer to his question "What is your American dream?" I didn't write in his book, but while Meade was writing — "To live in freedom" — I interviewed him about his project and his attire:

I said I was especially interested in the subject of men in skirts...

Because I saw the potential for getting men out of shorts (which really are The Dorky)...

.... and he agreed to be photographed...

Photographs at the link...

... and introduced me to the term Utilikilt. There was some talk about its usefulness to, for example, a carpenter.

I observed that it would be a useful defense against plumber's crack (since the back isn't attached to the front beneath the legs, so there's no downward pull when you crouch), and he made the less subtle point that it wasn't good if you had to use a ladder.  

We talked to him about his project, and he said he was hitchhiking all over the country — would you pick up a man in a Utilikilt? — getting answers to his question, and naturally he had a website, which I linked to. The website was americandreamorbust.com, but I guess it went bust, because it's not there anymore.

Now, you might say, well, that's part of the American Dream. No safety net. You can win or lose. Free markets! Capitalism! He just lost. And hitchhiker in a Utilikilt soliciting entries to a spiral notebook turned out to be a loser. But he took his shot, and had his day in the sun. There's nothing to cry about.

But here's the mistake I see: He shouldn't have bought his own domain. If he'd gone with americandreamorbust.blogspot.com that website would still be there, and whatever the project was, it would be preserved. He paid to get a more-ambitious-looking URL, but then, he didn't keep it up, and the links that he got now go nowhere.

This is why I stay on Blogger. It seems weaker, perhaps, not to have one's own domain. But I think it's stronger. It's stable. It's a floor of permanence under your project. It's not vulnerable to the winds of change.

Beware the winds of change.



Especially if you're wearing a skirt.

2 photographs from this week in Wisconsin politics.

(The first photo, by me, is from the People's Brat Fest. The second photo, by Meade, is from an equal pay press conference.)

It's the People's Brat Fest...

On the Library Mall, here in Madison, Wisconsin, today. It's "brat" as in "bratwurst." Please spare me your sausage-based wisecracks.

The Industrial Workers of the World were there, with their "Abolition of the Wage System" flag, under the "God" banner:



You could "Stand with Women"...



... and listen to the "Mighty Wind"-ish band, with the iconic Wisconsin Blue Fist image on the back of the stand-up bass:



You can run, but you can't escape the politics:

"I want to have your child. With my looks and your brains, it will be a perfect child!"

"But what if it has my looks and your brains?"

Freaky pic:



Stand back or squint to achieve the best effect.

And here's Einstein in shorts:



Bonus:

P.J. O'Rouke tells you guys to stop wearing shorts.

I've been saying it for years. (Click the "men in shorts" tag.) But here's P.J.:

Comfortable means “easy.” So: Nothing’s easier than matching a pair of pants and a jacket that look exactly alike. I’ve got a closet full of blue suits and black wing tips. Any tie goes with a white shirt. I can get dressed in the dark. And—what with blinding hangovers from drinking on airplanes to soften the shock of first-class seats filled with graying, jowly urchins—I often do.

The kid-who-stayed-40-years-too-long-on-the-playground look doesn’t inspire trust. If dressing up as a third grader is your idea of how to treat yourself, what’s your idea of how to treat me?

"When someone walks down the street in a button-down and khakis, the bad guy gets a glimmer of fear, wondering: are they packing or not?"

A spokeman for Woolrich (a company that makes relatively stylish pants that have compartments for carrying a gun) is quoted in a NYT article about fashion and concealed carry.

This might be the least anti-gun article I've ever seen in the NYT. I was trying to read between the lines to find the anti-gun message. Maybe the idea is that omission of negativity will itself freak out the NYT readers. Maybe there are some subtle signals that the people who buy pants like this are not our kind. The first person quoted in the article is "Shawn Thompson, 35, who works at an auto dealership in eastern Kentucky, bought two shirts last month from the Woolrich Elite Concealed Carry line." Even before you see the quote, you've got Kentucky and auto dealership. And here's the quote:

“Most of the clothes I used in the past to hide my sidearm looked pretty sloppy and had my girlfriend complaining about my looks,” he wrote [on his blog], adding in an interview, “I’m not James Bond or nothing, but these look pretty nice.”

Not... nothing. I suspect that opens up the channels of aversion for the typical NYT reader.

But maybe I'm being too hard on the NYT. This is a news-you-can-use article for concealed carriers. You might just want to buy something from the Woolrich Concealed Carry line— and if you do, please use that link. And maybe you're thinking, are there any concealed carry shorts? The answer is: Yes!

When someone walks down the street in shorts, the bad guy gets a glimmer of fear, wondering: are they packing or not?

"Bought a pair of men's Dockers cargo shorts through the Althouse Amazon portal."

Email from a reader strikes a perfectly dissonant chord. He knows how I feel about men in shorts... and people who are nice enough to use my Amazon portal.

So: get your Dockers cargo shorts: here.

Yesterday, we drove past the new "Occupy Madison" encampment...

... which you can see in the first 10 seconds of this 14-minute video...



... and you can hang out with Meade and me for the rest of the drive if you want. You'll see some more of Madison and the University of Wisconsin and eavesdrop on us. It's not all politics, I assure you, at 2 p.m. on a beautiful Saturday.

ADDED: A couple extra videos for reference. Here's the awesome song "United We Stand" by Brotherhood of Man:



And here's one of the wonderful "I'm a Pepper" commercials from the 1970s:



Of course, you must know the Herman Cain "smoking man" commercial, and here's the take-off by the Huntsman daughters.

AND: 2 more references. Donald Rumsfeld:



And Little Edie:

Kandour, the magnificent police horse.

This video was recorded on June 12th, during the Walkerville protest on the Capitol Square here in Madison. The reason for posting it today is revealed in this edited version, and you can read more here.

SPOILER ALERT: Watch the video before reading any comments.

The ultimate men in shorts picture.

John Currin's "Hot Pants."

From "Post-Darwinian Experiments in Consciousness and Other Stories" by Wells Tower and John Currin.

Man not in shorts.

And still he is criticized!