Kudos to Kerouac. I like the way you're branching out with your multimedia projects.

'find it hard to believe that anyone would be so crass as to wear a t-shirt and jeans to a restaurant like Gotham Bar & Grill.'

but is batman allowed to wear his mask, cloak and undies on the outside ?

Well, yes, if you are dropping $200 or $500 on a meal, you have every right to wear a Bart Simpson t-shirt if you want. Who's the client, after all? It's absurd to take orders from someone you are paying. If orders must be given, they come from the person footing the bill.

Actually, the same is true even if you are spending only $20 on a meal. As long as your attire is not a safety or health hazard, there's no grounds for anyone to object to it.

Ironically, some people seem to think that the more they pay for a product or service, the more subservient they must be to the provider of the product or service. They seem to think that it's a privilege to spend money, and that the more money one spends, the more of a privilege it is. Folks, it's actually the other way around.

"They seem to think that it's a privilege to spend money, and that the more money one spends, the more of a privilege it is."

This strange but apparently rampant psychology could also explain some of the most hideous bags and shoes some women so proudly parade.

It does explain quite a lot of behaviour.
I wonder why some people must take their personal comfort zone to such extremes.
There must be some middle ground between running around like an Ivana Trump look-a-like or like a cartoon character.
Even if your allmighty wallet gives you the financial freedom to look like a dork on either edge of the range.

One of the advantages of having a fat wallet is that you can look any way you want. Actually, you can do that with a thin wallet, too, but people seem to have more backbone when they have money.

This is the reason why the best stores do not have dress codes. There's absolutely no way of knowing how much that guy in the jeans and t-shirt plans to spend until he pulls out his wallet, and if you shoo him out before he does that, you might lose $100,000 in sales.

<i>There's absolutely no way of knowing how much that guy in the jeans and t-shirt plans to spend until he pulls out his wallet, and if you shoo him out before he does that, you might lose $100,000 in sales.</i>


My husband likes to tell a local Silicon Valley story about the young Steve Jobs. Supposedly, Steve and his girlfriend were eyeing a Mercedes-Benz at the Smythe-European dealership. Fresh-faced and very casually dressed, they were ignored until Jobs waved someone down and indicated that he wanted to buy a car. The salesman took one look at them and basically said, "Kid, don't waste my time." Jobs walked out; went directly to a rival dealer and bought two Mercedes-Benz. He and his girlfriend then drove the new cars back to Smythe, where he handed the manager his Apple business card and told him what had transpired. The salesman was fired on the spot.

This is a stitch because yesterday over on AskMetafilter, there was huge thread in response to the query: "Someone told me that it is condiered rude to keep your hat on indoors. Is it?"

The opinion was overwhelmingly against hats indoors, particularly if "it is part of your image", with particular vitriol directed toward those little geek fedoras.

What was funny is that most of the people on that forum are techie geek hipsters who ask about computer support, how many sexual partners a nice girl can have, and what to do about their aging parents.

It is ironic that the hip crowd over there thought clothing matters enormously and sends incredible messages about how you see yourself and how you want to be seen, whereas here, an apparently older, more settled, and probably way less hip (no offence) crowd says, "Go Ahead On! Do Yo' Thing!"

Okay, let's go ahead and admit it: appearance is EVERYTHING and one's inner self is of no importance.

Please, everybody, adjust your lives accordingly and dress up at all times.

If you can't pack one suit and tie, you don't deserve to eat in fine restaurants. Americans are slobs, keep up the good work!

>how many sexual partners a nice girl can have,<

Not more than 2 at a time.

I note that the societies that dress up the most tend to be lowest in standard of living and development. Everyone has seen the officials of banana republics wearing a thousand medals and metric tons of gold braid, even though the GDP of their country wouldn't suffice to buy a lawnmower, while the heads of state of the world's most powerful countries get by with a simple business suit, or sometimes something even less formal.

Likewise, you see people dressing poorly in a very affluent country like the U.S., but you see them dressing up nicely in an economic basket case like Italy. Coincidence? Maybe not.

<i>AnthonyGA on Jun 1, 11 at 4:13pm
I note that the societies that dress up the most tend to be lowest in standard of living and development.</i>

I remember back in the 70s when the gents cleaning the sludge out of the canals wore a black suit, white shirt, and tie while they slopped that stuff onto the barges. Our chimney sweeper in Germany in the 90s also wore a black suit. He was a sight right out of Dickens.

I forgot to mention that the canals were in Haarlem, NL.

<i>Likewise, you see people dressing poorly in a very affluent country like the U.S., but you see them dressing up nicely in an economic basket case like Italy. Coincidence? Maybe not.</i>

True. No coincidence. America got Wal-Mart. Italy does not. :-))

But, in fact, societies do have different tastes what to spend money on.
Electronic gadgets, another iPod, iPad, iPid, iPud, flat-screen TVs, a new car every year or two, houses too expensive to pay back in five lives,.. everybody finds his way to show off -- either with his designer suit, or the car keys of the new Lexus. (Fodorites exempt.)

Topping this thread for future pleasure. I've scanned some of the posts. Hilarious!

Cowboy1968,
Spot on. You are the pundit of Fodor Land.

Not everyone shows off. Some people just don't care what other people think.

<i>America got Wal-Mart. Italy does not.</i>

So... You are saying that Italians have to overpay for the truly dreadful fashion choices you see in much of Italy?

I would also note that Wal-Mart/Sam's Club holds just less than 10% market share in the US. Italian Hyper/Supermarkets have somewhere between 12 and 15% market share. Street markets, which I would say offer an even lower quality product than Wal-Mart or other discount stores, contribute another 6% or so in Italian market share.

Certainly, with Target being a large presence in the US, I would think the share held by hyper/supermarket-type retailers is likely a bit higher in the US than in Italy, but it doesn't appear, from the relatively limited information publicly available, to be that much higher than the share of the Italian market held by hyper/supermarket-type retailers + street markets. And this is even considering that the Italian retail market favors independent retailers more than other European countries. If we were to look at Germany, for example, we would likely find that C&A and H&M (neither being especially good quality) have market shares that would equal those held by Target and Wal-Mart.

AnthonyGA wrote: "Not everyone shows off. Some people just don't care what other people think."

Some people simply don't care at all about other people. I am a social person: I try to behave in such a way as not to cause undue bother to others.