You're never fully dressed...
A poem for today
YOU’RE NEVER FULLY DRESSED
They say we’re toxic, we white men.
To blame for all evil that’s thus.
If that’s true, I must ask then,
Why would lesbians dress like us?
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Part of my routine is having conversations with Mike Lester, who is far and away the best cartoonist working in America. I never leave a conversation without new material, and, I think, neither does he. You can figure out whence this poem came.
ABOVE: “Beau Brumell” by Robert Lighton, undated.
Lighton was an English portrait painter and caricaturist. He chronicled the Regency Era in the early 1800s with an eye for class sturcture. It was heady time for Romance lit. Think Jane Austen here.
Far more interesting was George “Beau” Brumell, a young gent who became the best dressed Londoner in the Regency Era. His style was elegant and understated. English Royalty keyed on his look. He is said to have sat by the window at his club so that passersby could enjoy the view.
As a youth, he was hard partier, but, then, weren’t we all?
His name was long associated with being well-dressed, even into the 20th Century. He gets a nod in the song “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” in the Broadway hit, Annie.
An American pop group adopted the name in the 60s. The Beau Brummells had two hits that made the charts – “Laugh, Laugh,” and “Just a Little.” They were produced by Sly Stone.
