Flip-flop McMannis?
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.
.. The flip-flop, the hideous thong footwear once found only on solar-scorched patios and in locker-room showers reputed to harbor the tinea pedis fungus, is much maligned -- and with good reason. They are terrible, tacky accessories, as aesthetically valueless as their retail price suggests, particularly the deluxe models with two-inch platforms and tri-tone racing stripes that belong on the side of a van, beneath the hooves of an airbrushed unicorn. Not to mention the fleshy heel-smacking sound and the truly harrowing degree of foot exposure.
Who wants to see that?
No one, of course, and therein lies the flip-flop's genius. Its wearer sends a message to all around him, and that message is this: "I don't care and look -- look how much."
The wearer has dropped out, given up, cut loose, and donned hated footwear just to give his or her middle finger a rest. He exposes his feet in restaurants and theatres and shopping malls only in lieu of showing his ass. He is off-the-clock, good-for-nothing, and he doesn't care who knows it. It is difficult to do anything useful in flip-flops. You can't exercise, feed the capitalist war machine, or perform alienated labor -- any labor at all for that matter. A true etymology of the vernacular term "flip-flop" would take both these factors into account. "Flip," as in "the bird." "Flop," as in loser self-proclaimed. True, it's not Tiananmen Square, but this isn't China either.
This is America, where it's tough to drop out, if only because fashion and anti-fashion are hopelessly locked in a stumbling, mutually gratifying dance, swapping leads and inventing new steps that always look vaguely like last year's craze. Even most types of tacky are locked into this logic, salvaged again and again, resurrected as camp.
But the flip-flop, by virtue of its evergreen ugly and basic anatomical repulsiveness, says goodbye to all that. There are no ads advocating flip-flops as an essential accoutrement of rebel-chic. And while transparent, weekend pretenders can sometimes be spotted, flip-flops will never go the way of the Birkenstock, a fringe-culture item that has long since become yuppie de rigueur. In America, being poor has a better chance of becoming cool.
And besides, nothing else quite goes with a purple tube-top and cut-offs.
The classic petroleum-based flip-flop sandal, an item surely invented with no other reason in mind than to prevent the spread of foot-rot in public shower-stalls, is symbolic of our disposable society, and the inherent lawlessness that it entails. The sign on the door reads,
"No Shurt, No Shooze, No Survice,"
and to reanimate an expired ox for slaughter and subsequent brutalities, I have known shoes -- and the flip-flop, sir, is no shoe. Allow me to elaborate.
Jim · my - Buf · fett
Armed with aught but these four syllables, I could argue successfully for the criminalization of all footwear thonged and onomatopoetic, against the combined forces of the Devil and Dan'l Webster.
Par · rot · head
Allowed liberal use of this eerily accurate nickname for Buffett's fans (a combined total of seven mighty syllables), I could sway a jury of barefoot Deadheads to choose life -- without parole, that is -- for flagrant public flip-flopping.
In the studio recording of "Margaritaville," Buffett croons, "Blew out my flip-flop, stepped on a pop-top, cut my heel, had to cruise on back home." The verse clearly suggests that flip-flops are cheaply made thingies providing virtually no protection to the foot. They wear out quickly and are prone to just flying off, or, as Buffett so beautifully illustrates, blowing out.
Rather than acting as a deterrent to would-be wearers, "Margaritaville" oddly enough mythologizes the flip-flop, creating in this already overcrowded world a life-sustaining positive role-model for the very people who might otherwise be prone to self-disposal. The verse continues: "But there's booze in the blender, and soon it will render, that frozen concoction that helps me hang on." Any man who needs to chug a blender full of tequila to cope with the loss of 99-cent shoes, and a bad widdle boo-boo on his foot, is, without question, a man on his way out. Naturalist that I am, it hurts to see the good Mother's knowing ways thwarted by popular culture.
With appologies to J. Hanas and, Uh, perhaps I should add, OT, but its raining here. |
