Things We'll Never See Again

Ronald Reagan often wore a brown suit while president, sometimes even an ugly sportcoat a la Johnny Carson. I'm pretty sure we'll never see that again. Now it's only blue or black, regardless of party affiliation (maybe a charcoal pinstripe every once in a while but don't hold your breath). Just stick to blue or black and don't forget the flag pin.

There's something sad, and vaguely sinister, about that turn of events. It speaks to me of paths not taken--not only not taken, but dynamited over so that nobody can ever go down that path again. 

And I know that dynamite came courtesy of some slick asshole--plucked from an endless pool of slick assholes--with a PowerPoint presentation and a shitload of focus-group studies that explain exactly why it's just got to be black or blue. We've been on that particular path for a long, long time, so it's no surprise we can't get even this little bit of sartorial leadership from our leaders.

I can hear you saying "How absolutely pimp would it be for somebody to bust out a brown suit? And St. Ronnie wore brown, so some brave soul could hang his hat on that, right? " Yeah, but no. Trying to think about that is like trying to think about the square root of -1 or what's on the other side of the edge of the universe. You just can't do it because it's actually impossible--the known rules of the universe prevent you from even contemplating it. 

That dope-as-hell alternate future no longer exists and I'll just have to learn to live with it.