  Long Live the Career Smoker My father was in futures trading. He was a lawyer who dealt exclusively with commodities—oranges, pork bellies, gold—representing, from a paper-choked office on Chicago's Wacker Drive, people who had been beguiled by brokers out of their money. It was simple stuff for him; he knew the applicable laws inside and out, it was fairly easy to prove who was at fault, and he was, particularly when he started in the sixties, one of a handful of lawyers in the country practicing such law. Thus, without ever really having to go to court, he never lost.
As children, the three of us (and, much later, four of us) would, in most cases to fulfill this or that homework assignment, ask him to explain his work; we were yearning for details with which to piece something together, to get an idea of what he did with his days. What was a future? How could you trade one? We knew of some of his clients. There was the Cuban, who insisted on being met in Miami. There was the Widow, who had been bilked for half a million or so by her young broker, the Weasel. But we were hungry for more detail, a better understanding. Did he pace back and forth before juries, full of righteous indignation? We had seen TV, movies—Inherit the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird. Was it like that? Did he pound his fist, make impassioned demands of the jurors? Look at this wretched man, this ruined man! I urge you to look deep into your heart and find a verdict of not guilty! We knew nothing except what he said, vaguely and occasionally, about his legal successes. He would come home after a case had wrapped and, after changing into his khakis and claiming his spot on the couch, would, with a flourish, clasp his hands together behind his head and say, cocky smile spread wide, "All right, everybody, come here and congratulate your brilliant dad, who's never lost a case!" We would ever so briefly turn away from the television and toward him and would roll our eyes. Jesus. Dork.
We pretended he was not cool, because on weekends he wore madras pants and leather sandals and because, though he was a sometime athlete (a better-than-most golfer, if that qualifies), he nevertheless threw like a girl. Still, he seemed so satisfied with his achievements, the fruits of his labors, that we couldn't help bask in it, too. He would sit there with his hands behind his head, his legs stretched out on the coffee table, and that grin of his was sort of contagious. He had a bright-eyed, crooked kind of grin that made him—well, it made him look like an imbecile. Happy, though: a perfectly self-satisfied imbecile, wholly unburdened by self-doubt, largely free from everyday demons of worry—the world, or some nice, pillowy piece of it, his.   The Massive Mr Porter Sale Is Back to Save Your Summer Wardrobe For a certain type of shopper—savvy, style-minded, extremely online—there is an extra holiday on the calendar, one that's not recognized by banks because it's a day off but because they keep getting calls from desperate menswear heads who need to verify that yes, they really did go that big on that purchase that just got flagged. It's the kickoff of the Mr Porter sale, and today is the day, folks. The much-beloved retailer of everything from your go-to Nikes to hyper-luxe high fashion has marked down nearly 12,000 (count 'em!) pieces, and the discounts are up to 50% off.
 Clarks Originals' Desert Trek Is the Cult Classic That'll Make Your Summer 146% Funkier Let's do this with reggae songs, considering how deeply Clarks shoes are embedded in Jamaican culture. If throwing on a pair of Desert Boots is like cueing up "No Woman, No Cry" and lacing up your Wallabees is like dropping the needle on "Stepping Razor," opting for a pair of Desert Treks is like tossing a few coins in the jukebox and putting on "54-46 (That's My Number)" by Toots and the Maytals. Unknown? By no means. But maybe not the first thing you'd think of, if only because a couple other iconic entries in the genre spring to mind in its place. But "54-46" is a jam, and life without it would be a bit worse. So even if you've already got your DBs and your Wallees on deck, you'd be well served to consider the Desert Trek, too. Low-slung and a little off-kilter in its own distinctive way, it's exactly the sort of shoe you should add to your rotation this summer.  The 40 Best Father's Day Gifts You Can Dig Up on Amazon You buy your multivitamins and socks on Amazon. Why not a thoughtful, actually good present for dad? Of course, the site is rich with Father's Day gag gifts, but you can absolutely find cool stuff tailored to his interests as well. Here are 40 gift ideas for dads—from award-winning tech to cheap (but great!) finds—we recommend you throw into your digital shopping cart. It certainly doesn't hurt that most of them will arrive before it's too late. You'll sure as hell brighten his Father's Day when you arrive bearing one of the following.
 The Rise and Fall of Planet Hollywood At the opening night of the Planet Hollywood on Rodeo Drive, every celebrity you could imagine was there. It was the hottest ticket in town. ABC aired a special event, Planet Hollywood Comes Home. The cops shut down the street. All this for a chain restaurant that served chicken coated in Cap'n Crunch. And not just a chain restaurant but a theme restaurant. A Rainforest Cafe with celebrities. It seems unfathomable now that stars would go along with this. But they appeared to be having a ball. For a few years in the nineties, these stars dropped any pretense of hauteur, while everyone else succumbed to their love of celebrity by paying ten dollars to eat a burger under the Terminator's leather jacket. Cheesy? Yes. A massive—but fleeting—success unlike anything before it? A resounding yes.  The Rise of Elevated Stupidity Appropriately, the moment that defines America in 2021 took place on The Real World Homecoming: New York. In a reboot of their 1992 conversations about race, the reunited loftmates agree that everything Kevin Powell said back then about his lived experience, the words that got him labeled an Angry Black Man, is now the accepted truth of Black life in America. Even Kevin's old sparring partner Becky Blasband seems to admit systemic racism is real. But here's where things stop being polite and start getting culturally significant: Becky quickly adds that she does not contribute to systemic racism because she was involved in an Afro- Brazilian dance class, wherein she "lost her skin color." In other words, Becky—who by now has spent full episodes talking about her NYU education, her brilliant psychotherapist father, and her decades studying under a Russian theoretical physicist and healer—declares herself exempt from racism because she really crushed Cardio Capoeira at the Soho Equinox. She says this out loud, into a microphone, in front of cameras that are capturing footage. Yes, it is hilarious. But the incident is also revealing: A person can present their ideas with such eloquence and erudition that they fool themselves into thinking those ideas are not dumb. This is a kind of smart that is indistinguishable from stupid. It is Elevated Stupidity, and Dave Holmes believes we're soaking in it.
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Sunday, June 13, 2021
Long Live the Career Smoker
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