One thing almost immediately noticeable about me is my appearance. Aside from being tubby and sporting my pompadour, my style of clothing is an indicator as to what to expect when talking to me. A lot of people assume that my clothing choices are simply to imitate Charlie Sheen on the hit CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men,” but in reality, it goes much deeper than this.
The Shirts. This is the most recognizable thing about me clothing-wise. In my humble beginnings, I wore a lot of turtle-necks and striped shirts: obviously chosen by my mother. At a young age, I don’t think you have that much choice in the clothes you wear, or even have a “style” of your own at that point. In middle school, my gaining of weight became more apparent to myself and everyone around me; my father bribing me with pizza and soda to keep me from telling my mother about his latest love-interest, her sister, was taking a horrible toll on my health. This lead to the look I dawn today.
Almost. At first, I simply wore over-shirts; button-ups, mostly. I’d get them for Christmas, birthdays, and would ask for them instead of other school shirts. One year my father’s sister bought him a very nice looking shirt for Christmas that he never wore; it was made of silk, was brilliantly made, and had many vibrant colors. My interest was piqued. I tried it on, and loved how it fit. I’d eventually take that shirt and all his other shirts like it, and after people told me how they liked how it looked on me, it became my new style: the bowling shirt.
These were unconventional bowling shirts though, made of silk, and pure cotton; not very convincing. So in my high school career, I invested a lot of money into real and nice looking shirts of my own. Each bowling shirt, roughly $70-$80 each, set me back when it came to other things I really wanted, but I think appearance is the best way to make an impression on people.
Side Note: The point I made earlier about bowling shirts going deeper than “Two and a Half Men.” I hadn’t even noticed it, but in my life, I was surrounded by people I looked up to that wore bowling shirts. “Looked up to” is a broad term to me, since I don’t have heroes that I know personally, so I instead inflict heroics on people I wish to emulate. Michael Richards, who played Cosmo Kramer on “Seinfeld” wore bowling shirts and lounge shirts on almost every episode in the shows long run. Christopher Titus, the closest thing I have to a hero, wore bowling shirts and club shirts on his television show “Titus”, and his stand-up special “Norman Rockwell is Bleeding,” the first uncensored comedy special I’d ever seen. Then of course there’s Charlie Sheen, who wears bowling shirts and lounge shirts on his television show “Two and a Half Men.”
The pants I’ve wore over the past years have changed juristically as well. I used to wear jeans like it was nobody’s business. I used to do everything in jeans; play, work, frolic, hell, I used to sleep in my jeans on some nights. Eventually I switched to shorts, because pants became too constricting and such. Shortly after the switch to shorts, khakis became worn by me more and more, simply because they were lighter than jeans. The year after, I bought khaki pants to completely replace the jeans I used to wear exclusively. Ever since, I’ve worn only khaki pants, simply because I enjoy them much more.
Shoes; I love your shoes! My shoes, unlike the rest of my wardrobe, are completely irrelevant to the rest of my tastes. Because of school, I’d have to buy a pair of sneakers no matter what, and with wide feet, doing this is a terribly hard thing to do. For me, I couldn’t get a nice looking pair of shoes, and it always brought me down, though shoes were the least of my worries when it came to my apparel. Junior year though, I was able to get one pair of sneakers, and one pair of awesome shoes. They were Adidas replication bowling shoes, meaning they were to be worn like regular shoes, but looked identical to shoes you’d wear bowling. Senior year I, instead of recreating the bowler look, went to look more mature instead, and bought boat shoes. Mr. Petti would always comment on how I’d begun to look more and more like Charlie Sheen on “Two and a Half Men,” but always said the one thing I lacked was a good pair of convincing shoes. The shoes I have now are the closest things I could get when it came to convincing shoes, so I think Mr. Petti would be satisfied with my wardrobe now.
Glasses: I use these to see.
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