The Skirt: 7 Boring Things That Need To Be Cool Again

Image via Complex Original

The New York Post

Can you believe people used to read the New York Post like it was some famous artist’s grocery list or something? In fact, Page Six used to be as relevant as releasing doves at ceremonies. It used to be feared! Revered! Hated! Loathed! And it used to be fantastic. Look at this, for God’s sake. People used to lap up this gooey smut with pride. Now they ingest it at a second-rate tampon-themed masquerade ball we call Gawker, because Rupert Murdoch’s long roll of horoscope toilet paper is nada. It’s boring, cheesy and never met a bogus play on words it didn’t like. Somewhere it forgot that if you’re going to be cheap, it should come to you at great expense. But picture denizens of New York—no, Greater New York—eating at Cafe Habana behind a Post whose cover screeches: “GREAT GATSBY - Bootlegger who wooed society gal is murdered at Soho House pool.” And SoulCycle adding reading stands so gals can read about how Page Six hacked Suzy Menkes’s computer and found out what blogs she actually reads (“We can exclusively reveal that Menkes is Spike Lee's son’s top Instagram commenter.”) And a Brelin-esque columnist taking on real estate and soda bans and the supermodel crime beat. Also, Lil B would have an investment advice column for which he would also write all the questions.

Jazz

Last week, The New Yorker published a zippy little feuilleton on Bryan Ferry, the former frontman for Roxy Music, which made dance tunes for women who looked like Picasso paintings and wore smocks to bars. Ferry whisks the writer to a jazz performance at a hotel, where he laments that there are no dancers in feathers and says, “It’s a shame there isn’t more of a cool young crowd watching.” HI B FERRY, IT IS A SHAME. Imagine this, forgoing rock/pop concert venues packed with people like cows in warehouses in those videos your weird vegan friend sends you, and going to a jazz concert in a basement. Maybe you’d even snap your fingers and order a gin martini. Maybe you’d wear a suit! Maybe you’d bring a date and you’d both wear sunglasses and nod at each other like, “Uh huh.” I don’t know what jazz people do, but that sounds really great!

Socialites

Socialites used to run away from home in cupid’s bow lips. Socialites used to party with Mick Jagger and hang out with artists and have black tie spaghetti dinners at their houses and tell all their secrets to Truman Capote. Socialites used to rob fucking banks. And the socialite of yore did all this looking like a glamourpuss. Now socialites are slumming it. They are like, “I mix an uptown-downtown sensibility” and, “Every day I count down to Art Basel!” Socialites should woman up and reclaim their thrones. Socialites should be like, “I’m all about connecting artists with museums and new audiences,” and host a rad party that doesn’t have a lame theme and an Absolut sponsorship and write a chilling murder mystery that is Agatha Christie meets Robert Coover. And then they should have us over for dinner.

Bank Branches

99% of the lollipops you consumed as a child came from a bank branch, but when’s the last time you went, huh? They're boring and cold and there’s always a long line and you can do everything at the ATM and you're broke anyways. But what if that branch were transformed into a rad meeting place, where minds and ideas collided, like a Roman forum! Ice sculptures that rotate bi-weekly (Swan Tuesdays, Dinosaur Thursdays) and those giant bean bag chairs can a the bank branch the place to be. Suddenly, when the bill comes at dinner, you and your friends are whipping out your CHECKBOOKS to pay. You discontinue your direct deposit so you can go to the branch and watch a large poodle named Steve bring your check to the teller, whose only job is to imitate the cover of Drake's Take Care.

Expensive Food That Isn't A Sandwich

You know that $12 sandwich that is basically your mom’s Sloppy Joe mixed with some glorified shredded Kraft cheese? That $18 grilled cheese with weird cheese and that snake oil we call black truffles? That $38 plate of fried chicken and mashed potatoes you want to eat tonight at that glossy nightclub of a restaurant? It’s time for the grand return of haute cuisine! Butter! Cream sauces! Giant steaks! Stuff like that illegal little bird you have to put a napkin on your head to eat! Think of the house special at the Quilted Giraffe: Gleaming black beads of beluga caviar stuffed into a tissue of tender crepe with chives as purse strings and a touch of gold leaf on top, for $50 a piece. They called it a beggar’s purse. Drop the mic.

The Upper East Side

Hi you guys, from all the way up here! Nothing that’s cool is up here—I get it. Except I don’t! Because this place used to be the Paris of neighborhoods or something and it still is. Dig on this: Every day, elegant old folks in fur coats and totally demented hats are rolling down streets that are clean enough to smooch, holding hands and walking a dachshund en route to the Carlyle Cafe for a late afternoon coffee. They’re hanging out in the nooks of the Met you’ve never had enough time to find and calling each other “Chippy”. And they want to tell you how cute and well-dressed you are. Really! So come on in, kiddos, the water’s warm—even if that's because some geezer had an accident in their pants.

Vague Platitudes

In a new, post-irony landscape, platitudes will become raditudes (with attitudes?). You’ll be all jealous of some guy’s cool blogging gig (you saw him wearing sneakers with a suit like five months ago—the kid knows nothing) and your friend will be like, “The grass is always greener on the other side.” And it will illuminate everything for you. You’ll lose the capacity for envy and even malice and caprice. You will decide to work harder on your own stuff, and then you will harness the power of social media to make your dreams finally come true!!!