One must be very careful of rules.  You can easily become a slave to them.  Knowing when to obey is just as important as knowing when to break.   And one should, occasionally, break the rules just to remember that there are no real rules.  Like religion, these things are mainly guideposts for the masses.

The rule I am breaking in that photo is not the seasonal one.  Madras pants are summer pants but I couldn’t give a shit about that.  What do the seasons have to do with me?  It is, rather, a personal one.

I do my best to remain unswayed by fashion.  I don’t act in favor of it, I don’t act against it.  I don’t follow nor do I rebel, I simply go my own way, wear what I please and what pleases me.  I make my own money and pay my own bills.  It’s no one’s business what I do with my money, my person or my time.

Having said all that, a couple of things have conspired to create a mild stirring of rebellion in me.    One is the show “Madmen” which I have only seen half of one episode of while vacationing in Huntsville.   For those of you who, like me, have not seen it, the show has a strong sense of early sixties style.

It’s a bit somber.

I’ve been fielding quite a few questions about this show and quite a few comparisons to it.  This is fine.  Suits often inspire this sort of thing.  I’ve endured every trend from mod to Sickboy to American Psycho and so forth and so on.  It stopped bothering me ages ago.

But this interest in early 60s style has been occurred at the same time as the bleak Toronto autumn and the collapse of the financial markets.  Somber is in the air.

Should one have the misfortune to walk down Queen West and should they fail to avert their eyes from the boutiques, they will notice that the vast majority of dresses are black, the suits sedate and the once cheerful shops now seem like they’re dressing for a funeral.  Perhaps they are. Their own.

Yet, for a fellow like me, the collapse of revered financial institutions is not a cause for morning but one for celebration.  When America, against all sense, morality and law, first invaded Iraq I found myself -always pro-American until that point– wishing that their empire would die there.  That this war would eat and destroy their country.  I wanted and still want to see them lose.

In the course of my life — in the past five years even — America has changed, in my mind, from an occasionally mistaken but well-intentioned force for freedom to an evil tyranny that kills brown people for no reason, advocates torture, has concentration camps, outsources slavery and is poised to become the single most dangerous nation on this planet; not only to other nations but to its own people.

And I’m supposed to mourn that it’s running out of money?

Well, I don’t.

Their banks have collapsed, their credit system going, going, gone, they can’t afford the gas for their SUVs and they certainly cannot finance any more wars of terror and imperialism.  They’ve broken their face smashing it against the walls of greed and stupidity.  Good.  I want to see more of that.

I want to watch it culminate in the burning of the White House by the American people.  They’re a good people.  They deserve better than what they’re getting.  We all do.

Other people may want to dress for a funeral but not me.  I want bright colors.  I’m dressing for a party.  The good guys are winning.  And that calls for Madras pants.  No matter what season it is.