(I met Abraham Piper last year. If you’re thinking, “wait, the nephew of Bill Piper?” the famous Bluegrass guitar player? I’m not sure, I don’t follow Bluegrass that closely.
Abraham has his own site called twentytwowords, on which he writes 22 word blurbs. He also just started a new project called “down hill both ways.” Recently he asked if he could provide a guest post about Zakk Fouteknote’s brother, the metrosexual worship leader, who helped raise money for Vietnam. I read it and realized it wasn’t typical SCL fare but that it was an important message, almost like one of those NBC Public Service Messages where Blossom tells you not to drink malt liquor and then the rainbow flies across the screen. I’ve said too much. Without further ado I give you …)
Cool, Meet Cold: The Dangers of Metrosexuality in Winter
A few nights ago I saw Zakk Fouteknote’s little brother walking through a park near my house, having come from the nearby Christian college on his way to somewhere where he apparently needed to look cool.
He did look cool. Cold, in fact.
Ordinarily, I ignore how silly I think some folks look for one simple reason: I look pretty dang silly sometimes and you know what? I don’t want to hear about it.
So, given the golden rule and such, I tend to assume that metrosexual worship leaders such as Zakk—or, in this case, his kid brother—would like me to keep my opinions to myself.
But…
I must critique him aloud here from this very public platform, because my judgment of him may be your salvation the next time you’re tempted to undergo a far-north winter evening in what can only be called spring wear (if I must choose a season to associate his attire with).
First, the setting: Mildly put, it was snowy. Even more mildly put, it was cold.
To give some perspective on what cold and snowy mean (in case it’s been awhile since you neared the arctic in January), I was warm and dry only because I was wearing:
• On my hands: Insulated mittens
• On my feet: Hefty snow boots and 2 pairs of wool socks
• On my legs: Long underwear and lined pants
• On my head: A scarf, a stocking cap, and a fur-lined bomber hat
• On my body: A long underwear shirt, a slightly bigger long underwear shirt, a detachable jacket liner, a sweatshirt, a sweater, and a winter coat.
The only parts of my person not at least doubly covered were my eyeballs.
Now, I’ll be honest. I was dressed to be outside for an undetermined, potentially lengthy amount of time, so perhaps for an ordinary excursion, my winter wear was slightly overdone. But overdone or not, it was working: I had been out in 0 degrees Fahrenheit for about two-and-a-half hours when I saw Zakk’s little bro, and actually I was kind of warm, hot even.
Not as hot as him, though, if you know what I’m saying.
Boy, did he look good, God bless him. Here’s what he chose to wear out this lovely winter’s eve:
• Some kind of canvas shoes. They looked like Converses, but I’m not sure whether Converse is cool right now. If not, then his shoes were something else, I’m sure. Suffice it to say they were reminiscent of Converses to my stylistically untrained eye.
• Some really tight, tapery jeans. Skinny jeans, I believe I’ve heard them called.…Yep, just did a Google image search. That’s what they were.
• A threadbare t-shirt with a V in its neck that plummeted even further than Zakk’s.
• A stylishly-too-small autumn jacket, which—you may have deduced from my knowledge of his plunging neckline—he wore completely unzipped.
• Lastly, he wore a stocking cap. “Well, at least that was smart of him,” you might say. But no, he even found away to make a winter hat so cool it was almost pointless. It sat well above his ears, and hung backwards almost off his head as if it held his dreadlocks (which, mind you, did not exist).
He wasn’t even dressed adequately to go stand in a doorway for a 3-minute smoke in this weather. He had no sweater of any kind, no gloves, and no scarf—not even the near-useless variety that Chris Tomlin might wear. He appeared to be wearing no socks, which of course compounded the impotence of his flimsy footwear, and (I can only assume) he wore no long underwear. In short and not to be too morbid, he was simply asking to die.
He also seemed to be only just discovering this as I passed him.
He grimaced like he’d plotted to steal weapon’s-grade uranium and was now at the mercy of Jack Bauer, which, as we all know, is no mercy. He trudged with his left hand in his pocket and his right holding his guitar. He then switched hands, under the illusion that his left hand could take a turn with the guitar while his right hand warmed up in his pocket. Sorry, man, it doesn’t work like that.
(I’m truly sorry to tell you this, little bro, but there is no hope in a moment such as this other than turning back now or quickly arriving at your destination. Otherwise, you will soon be brutally reminded that the winter is far more powerful than you are awesome.)
I learned one main thing, as I walked in that frozen, forsaken park past a young man so bent on being in style that he—despite being alone—wouldn’t even zip up his little coat or pull down his hat.
Of course, I was reminded how to go outside and freeze to death, but besides that, I learned that no matter what accoutrements you dress yourself up in to be fashionable, if your face makes you look like someone is tearing out your toenails or threatening to off your puppy if you wear a cardigan, you don’t look cool. Pitiable, gloomy, and tortured—yes—Zakk’s little brother had that persona down cold. But I’m not sure that’s the look people are going for these days. Maybe so, though—what do I know?
