Ricardo Montalbán is unimpressed with your efforts.

At risk of sounding like a pompous ass, I have style. I believe this because I get a lot of compliments on my choices in dress. Walking down the street I get asked for my advice a lot, or asked where I buy things, and do I always look this way? I’ve been caught on the street a handful of times by Asheville Street Style, interviewed by the Urban News, and regularly advise my friends on what to wear to meet Fortune 500 executives in China or on a first date. Fine, I surrender already — I have style.

And I’m into that, I’m into what is stylish. But — I’m not into fashion. I don’t have a well thumbed copy of the September Vogue on my night stand, and though I subscribe to the Sunday edition of the New York times, I don’t luridly gaze at the latest offerings of the major designers in the Style Magazine. I don’t care what’s in or what’s out, if it’s past Labor Day or if it was recently seen being worn by Lady Gaga at Occupy Wall Street. Those are useless ways to think about what will make you look awesome.

What’s the difference between style and fashion? Style is forever, fashion is for today. Style is accessible for everyone, fashion is passé by the time everyone identifies it. Style belongs to you, fashion belongs to wealthy hairless eccentrics in Milan that feed caviar to tiny inbred dogs.

I’m not a racist or a sexist, but I do believe in judging people by their appearance because I expect to be judged on mine. And by appearance, I mean the things people have a choice about, namely one’s choices in clothing and grooming. So I’ve written up five things to help you make choices in your clothing that will better represent you the person, rather than you the guy who hates doing laundry and ends up looking like laundry. Why five things? Because it’s my favorite number.

1. It should fit you. It should fit you almost perfectly. If it doesn’t fit you perfectly, it should be damn close. If the sleeves aren’t the right length on a shirt, roll them up. If the pants are a little too short, get a tailor to let them out. If you haven’t used a tailor or seamstress before, it’s not that expensive. If you got a good deal on something that almost fit you, it’s probably worth another $10 to take it from “meh” to “oh meh god.” Seriously, you can see some ridiculous shirt, all sorts of weird colors, patterns, stains and tears but if it fits you like it was made exactly your size by some strangely psychic exploited Indonesian child, wear it.
2. Brand means nothing. Brand is something invented by people who produce garments to make their product more valuable. You don’t need to showcase the brand you’re wearing. You’re not a Hollister billboard. You’re a person with style that’s advertising yourself, not the Gap. People with logos on their shirts are Nascar drivers. Bottom line is if it looks good and it’s well made from quality material it’s a nice garment. However, some brands are usually well made. Levi’s, for instance, is almost always a safe bet. And I’ve got some pants from Express that are nearly bulletproof after years of abuse. Anything that’s military issue will also stand up over time, and usually has a very handsome masculine cut that will bring out your inner Rambo. Or at least your inner Bradley Manning.
3. Don’t demand to be comfortable. Shorts are for the beach, the gym and the tennis court. If you’re not at the Y sweating away the carbs you just crammed into your body at your fifth visit to Mamacita’s this week, wear long pants, jeans or trousers. And flip flops are right out. Your feet are hideous five headed creatures that smell like something a dog wants to roll in. Anybody who disagrees is a fetishist. Wear shoes or boots unless you’re at the beach. At least in the Asheville climate. When you’re sipping piña coladas in Havana and it’s 110 in the shade, there are other rules which don’t apply here. May we all be so lucky to explore what’s stylin’ in Havana, but so far that’s beyond the scope of my experience. Ask Ricardo Montalbán. He’s still alive, right? Oh, Wikipedia says no. Womp womp.
4. A good outfit makes you more confident. If you get ready and look in the mirror and you say DAAMN I’d ask for my number, then you’re doing it right. Even if you’re mis-matching patterns and colors, if you do it with purpose and like you mean and it makes you feel like a rockstar, then you’re doing it right. You should feel like the clothes are wearing you, like the whole purpose of this shirt was to find you and be worn and thus fulfill it’s destiny.
5. Overdressing is ok; underdressing is not. Always err on the side of overdressing. As Mark Twain said, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” The other adage to keep in mind is “dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” It’s true. Trust me. Not that I have a job or anything.

So please fellas, dress nice. It matters to those who matter, like yourself, your boss, and that cute girl over there. Or dude. If that’s what you’re into. But if you’re gay you already knew all of this anyway, so what are you doing, get off the internet and go be fabulous.

A few months ago I was playing piano at a house party in West Asheville (the notorious Montana House) with Reese. We were trading places at the piano bench and mixing it up with some four-handed stuff and really just having a blast playing and entertaining the folks that crowded around the swaying, rocking old upright. We beat that piano to a pulp for five hours, and my old friends Mike Belleme and his girlfriend Kristen were there for much of it.

A few weeks later, Mike asked me to be a part of a skate video featuring the skaters of Asheville’s PUSH Skate Shop that he was going to be in. He’d filmed all his parts and there was a rough edit but no music yet. Inspired by the music that he had heard Reese and I play, he asked me to play the soundtrack. So we met over at World Coffee, where they have a beat up old Wurlitzer spinet in the back, RJ Hess (the filmmaker) set up some recording equipment and I improvised some music while I watched the rough cut. I treated it like I was playing to a silent film, trying to accentuate action. After about six takes and some great ideas from Mike, the above is what we got. Damn it was fun. Mike said we made history — he didn’t think any skater had ever had a live piano track before.

In exchange for musicking his video, Mike took some professional head-shots of me. Here they are:

I even got a shout out in the MountainX. Kind of weird seeing my name listed next to the Rolling Stones. I love a good collaboration, and though the output is unique, what made it work was not. Can’t wait til the next project.

There’s a new club opening up in Asheville, the Arcade Asheville, in the location of the old and much mourned Joli Rouge and they are planning to have raging dance parties every Friday night. For a dance party to rage, you need the right DJs and they landed the best in town. By best, I mean with the best taste and widest appeal. They got Marley and my good friend Par. I’ve worked for Par’s former project, Under One Beat Productions, and designed lots of posters and other documents for them. So he called me up and said he found the best image ever to use as the basis for a poster. And he’s right, this photograph is dope. Super dope. It inspired this design.

Been trying to beef up the ol’ portfolio lately, and this was just the sort of project I was looking for.

Speaking of that, you should check out my portfolio.

Sometimes you’re just in the right place at the right time.

I was sitting over at Izzy’s several days ago laptopping away, occasionally taking my pulse to see if I needed further espressos when my old friend Mike McBride of Sonmi Suite walked in. Mike was there meeting a local group of electronic producers, beat makers and DJs that had just collaborated on Asheville Beat Tape, a project he was involved with through Skew Records. There was about 15 of these guys that had gotten together and somehow all made time out of their busy schedules for a photo-op, but there were two problems. 1) No camera. 2) No photographer. “Well, I’ve got my Canon Rebel with me,” says I, “I’ll take the photo, though I’m far from a pro.” Twenty minutes later we’re on the roof of a parking deck shooting photos. The light was poor, so I herded them into a stairwell and got onto the landing above and that’s where the above shot came from.

Photography is a new hobby of mine, but early results are promising. It was really fun to do, and I didn’t mind doing a favor for a friend and helping to make something cool happen for everyone. I’m going to keep it up.

You should listen to the music they made. 100% local and organic. Plus, it’s a free download.

UPDATED: Mountain Xpress, the Asheville Citizen-Times and Ashvegas all covered this as well. I feel special.

For the complete podcast series, check this post: http://blog.afletcher.net/2010/01/humanities-324-lecture-podcast/

As promised, the recordings of the the Humanities 324 lecture’s have been podcasted and were just accepted into the iTunes store. Here are all the links.

• Subscribe in RSS reader
• View and stream on the web
• Subscribe in iTunes
• New episodes should post Friday afternoons.
• I’m using an iPod Touch 2nd gen. with headphones and included mic. The recording quality will get better as I experiment with where to sit and where to set the mic (I’m trying to be unobtrusive).
• Also, somebody told me that UNC-A did or perhaps still does offer a podcast of these lectures. I couldn’t find it on their website, can anyone confirm or deny?

I really think that these lectures are valuable and informative and should be available to the public. Many of the top tier colleges like MIT, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, et cetera offer podcasts of their classes to the public. After all, schools are in the business of selling degrees, not information. Let’s emancipate the information from the lecture hall. Enjoy!

Oh, and while you’re at it, if you use this, add me on the bookFace.

Yes, I’m bootlegging academia and podcasting it. ZOMG! Technology FTW!

Good friends Screaming Js, the house band at MoDaddy’s, needed a poster to help with some promotion. So they asked me to put something together, and this is what I did. I tweaked the type (I used Blackmoor) and stole the piano from the 1902 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue. They liked it, I liked it and I think it represents their music pretty well.

You can catch them, and often me, tonight at MoDaddy’s and every Wednesday. They put on a kickin good show, and you owe it to yourself to catch these guys. And it’s free. See you there!

After months of hoping to find myself on MountainX’s StreetStyle, I finally caught up with Ally outside the Flat Iron building a few weeks ago. She even said I was her new favorite model. Any time! It was fun. Here are the results.

Boots are some battered old US Army combat boots that I’ve worm almost everyday for 5 years. Pants are straight leg slim fit Express Rocco, shirt is Express 1MX Modern Fit (last year’s). Generic reversible black/brown belt. Tie is a black on black paisley that I found at my house after a party. Shades are Ray-Ban knock offs that I bought at a stand on Main Street in Hickory during their Oktoberfest. Jacket is a non-labeled find from Madame Butterfly on Lexington Ave (they have a small but excellent men’s section). Watch is a Citizen Eco-Drive 200 Meter BM6400-00E that my grandparent’s gave me as a graduation present.

P.S. I am a heterosexual male.

Michael Sanacore, Chris Riddle and I made these one-of-a-kind invitations to an after-party earlier this year. Something about the flexibility and the limitations of the typewriter was really inspiring. It made me think of the typewriter in a whole new way. It’s really a miniature printing press, that can only use one font, one style, one size, one color and one weight. But other than that — you can use almost any size paper, any orientation. It’s really marvelous, and lots of fun. They turned out very well I think. My favorite one:

“Don’t listen to her.            Come to the after-party.”