Some roach planted a hickey on my neck, a bolting headache threatens to melt my ear deposit to Cheez Whiz proportions (mental note: hangover is the devil’s advocate and tequila is absolute evil juice), there’s no coffee in the house (I’m every barrista’s friendly neighborhood Dick – it’s easier to spell, but Starbucks is three planets away), the prez is seeking re-election, and Sarah is bursting with the rebirth of "aaaAAAHHH, LET ME BE THE ONE TO LOOOVE YOU MORRREEE!" Ugh. This is portable hell, so don’t you "Good morning" me.
As if a portent of the day to come, my sunny side up wasn’t sunny at all, it’s halfway between a harassed eggwhite and a constipated yolk. My horoscope sez it’s time that my actions mixed with decisive thinking, I never knew it meant scrambled. The egg, the portent. And even Brownie won’t touch it.
As in every morning, I was confronted with the day’s most vital question: what to wear. I’m usually a Levi’s-and-shirt guy (perpetually tee’d in People are People) and a mist of D&G’s Light Blue usually does the trick (it’s not a femme scent, Virginia, translated to a www.face-pic.com account, it would be filed under Try Anything Once or Unsure, and not Male or Female). But today is a particularly dreary day so I’ve opted for my camo cargo, an undie shirt and my battered Chuck Taylors. Complete with a dogtag necklace, I am a feisty lothario on the warpath.
I’ve Q-balled my head a few weeks ago, but now my hair is sprouting to a good inch. My hair has a mind of its own, so I scrunched the defiant splotch and now it’s all pointing north. My trusty Fix Stick is actually an early warning device, and the message was loud and clear: Up yours. And so with Samantha Cox’s Absolutely humming inside my head, I am ready for battle.
My friend Mich Dulce tells me that fashion should not conform to other people’s taste, that it should be a reflection of the person wearing it. Translated to my enraged state of being, my getup could well spell, um, a middle finger in salute.
File me under Defiant. File me under Grunge (how so ’90s!). File me under Che G’s Militia. File me under Bum and Lazy. File me under…baduy. Care ko!
Which brings me to the question – what is baduy? What is not? What makes one baduy? How do you measure one’s baduy quotient?
I don’t fancy to be an authority on fashion and style (I leave that to my good friend Frederick), but I can be an arbiter of good taste (humility lies sparse in my gene pool).
Case in point: Mr. Suave (hoy 6x!) is not baduy. Sadly, Vhong Navarro is.
Not only does his fashion sense make my epidermis itch, Vhong’s unnecessary "h" is a dead giveaway. Not unless your name is Helen or Henri or Hitler, you need not put an additional "h" to your name. This alphabetic extravagance gives you jologs points, and accumulative points sum up to baduy (how do Dhex, Ehddie, Amapolah, and Shusanah sound to you?). Not unless you’re a fledgling starlet doing a dub for a Rico Mambo skinflick, the unnecessary "h" makes you sound 1) lisp-y, 2) asthmatic, and 3) stupid.
Mr. Suave’s brand of dressing is actually equestrian-fashion-gone-awry, but the character is just reeking with seriously hilarious chutzpah (it has an "h" really). The overgrown mustache (you’d swear Forever Living’s Jojova Hair Grower really works!), the F4ish hair (I went skinhead because of F4), and those pantaloons (suggestive of a labakara put into good use to "enhance" the family’s jewels), the combo is nothing short of smoothie.
No, this is not a movie review (who cares a hoot about the movie?), but methinks Mr. Suave is a walking punchline (I watched it and my gums made too many public appearances). The punchlines came so often, they beat me to a pulp.
I like Mr. Suave. I’m baduy, bite me.