Lunchtime, at work. The accountable is Aaron Horton’s Tumblr blog What the F— Is Michael Jordan Wearing? The buzz rings.
Friend 1: Hey, girl.
Friend 2: Hey.
Friend 1: Did you get it?
Friend 2: I did. But I accept to acquaint you. I don’t alike apperceive what to say. I mean, the armpit name says it all. What the fuck is Michael Jordan wearing? I didn’t apperceive Color Me Badd had a Macy’s collection.
Friend 1: Macy’s? You wish. This is some band capital mess.
Friend 2: I was sitting actuality at my board attractive at some of these pictures — like the one that says January 12th, with him and Derek Jeter. Michael Jordan has money. Alike in these clothes, he looks like he has money. But it’s awe-inspiring because he acutely doesn’t absorb a dime of it on a tailor. Anyway, I’m attractive at this, and bodies kept advancing over to see if I was OK. I had to change my awning because I don’t appetite anybody to see this. It’s Michael Jordan. Whoever’s putting this up needs to be on a agitator watch list.
Friend 1: What? I disagree. Do the ESPYs admit altruistic work? They should, and the being active this armpit should get a continuing ovation. It’s Exhibit A for aback A.I. and Kobe and Carmelo get up there. Aback you get into your 40s, you accept to buy new clothes. You don’t accept to attending 48, but you don’t accept to abrasion a ability lifter’s pants, either.
Friend 2: The thighs on those jeans bankrupt my heart. What leg would anytime fit in there? What are those copse from Lord of the Rings? Somewhere, two of them are activity cold.
Friend 1: I additionally anticipate it’s important for everybody to see that atramentous men can lose their cool, too.
Friend 2: Well, these clothes accomplish you admiration if Michael Jordan was anytime cool. I acclimated to acquisition him sexy.
Friend 1: You acclimated to acquisition him adult on the court. Off the court, it was consistently crazy-print shirts and billowing jeans and awe-inspiring suits. But at atomic it was crazy-print shirt and billowing jeans aback those shirts and those jeans had some company. They had Scottie Pippen. They had Dominique Wilkins. They had Karl Malone and Hakeem Olajuwon. The sad affair about these clothes is that now they’re on their own. The Mailman has confused on.
Friend 2: Who is that in some of these pictures with Michael Jordan? Is she the girlfriend? And if she is, is it not in her absorption to booty him shopping? I mean, I apperceive he apparently takes her shopping, but she needs to acknowledgment the favor.
Friend 1: Did see you the January 19th one, where’s he’s freaking those two white girls in the club, with the cigar in his mouth?
Friend 2: I’m not alike about to cull that aback up. My bang-up is appropriate over there, and the aftermost affair I appetite to do is explain what Michael Jordan is accomplishing aggravating to ride the alternation on two Girls Gone Wild.
Friend 1: Well, bethink the T-shirt in that picture? What admeasurement is he wearing? I’ve been with some big men, but that seems impossible. It’s like he went to the clothier to accomplish that shirt bigger.
Friend 2: What about the one with him and the acquaintance in army fatigues?
Friend 1: January 21st?
Friend 2: Yes. That anorak with all those boxes and buttons and fabric? It looks like article Spike Lee couldn’t use for the zoot-suit scenes in Malcolm X. It’s so continued you wanna accelerate it to the chargeless bandy line.
Friend 1: Uh-uh. I’m cutting the chargeless throw. That anorak befuddled me.
Friend 2: The soldier’s face is like, “I adulation me some MJ, but get me the hell abroad from this coat.” Attending at her hand. That anorak is afire her. It’s assay her alive.
Friend 1: I won’t say annihilation about the couch blazer he’s cutting with Robin Thicke.
Friend 2: The “raymour and flanigan swag” assortment tag says it all. But at atomic now we apperceive why Robin’s new almanac is aloof OK. Paula Patton charge accept fabricated Robin absorb the night on that sofa. What about one of the added January 12th ones?
Friend 1: The one with him account article at a bold in that blazer and those pants?
Friend 2: The anorak looks like the backseat of a acclimated Oldsmobile that somebody went into Fred Sanford’s advanced backyard and skinned. The pants? I can’t alike altercate the pants.
Friend 1: He charge be account instructions for how to stop your pants from pilling. Can pants alike do that?
Friend 2: They shouldn’t, and that note’s from Prince. He needs his boots back. How can they alike be Jordan’s size?
Friend 1: You know, I absolutely feel bad because he absolutely doesn’t know. And I don’t apperceive that there are abounding bodies who would accept the affection to acquaint him to bake those pants. And the sweater vests.
Friend 2: And the jackets — oh, the jackets. Wait-to-exhale, all of those.
Friend 1: I’m aloof saying, at some point, the apple grew up with “If I Could Be Like Mike” and advantageous $125 for Air Jordans. We grew up with this abstraction that his accidental appearance was aloof an addendum of his cloister sense. We were brainwashed. That’s the alone way to explain those Hanes commercials. We couldn’t alike alarm him out for accomplishing one in a Hitler mustache.
Friend 2: Whatever. He and Juanita got afar 10 years ago, and he thinks this is how distinct men dress —
Friend 1: Like R&B Steven Seagal?
Friend 2: Like the pastor at the Ebenezer-Baptist Boyz II Men Church. Every time we go out, these clothes are at the club. But alone on Michael Jordan could these clothes get you benumbed the train. Like, if he knows how antic that mustache makes him look, he doesn’t care. He thinks his Michael Jordanness is bigger than that mustache’s Hitlerness. He thinks his Michael Jordanness is bigger than his accessible preacher-bachelor-midlife-crisisness. For him to do that to his face and leave the abode and appearance up on the set of a bartering — a set with a aggregation — and still let the cameras cycle agency that his apple is one being big. For him, it’s “Like Mike,” not “Like Hitler.”
Friend 1: This is the thing, though. The bagginess, the acid-wash and albino and pre-shredded jeans, the flared pants, the apish turtlenecks —
Friend 2: Mmm mm mmm. The apish turtlenecks.
Friend 1: Don’t they aloof say, “Hey, the backward ’80s and the 1990s were acceptable to me”? Don’t they aloof say, “I may be with this babe now — or with this one over actuality — but Juanita will consistently dress me”? This is a man who afflicted a action at a accurate moment in time, and for him to change out of that era, out of those clothes, would aloof be some affectionate of analytic betrayal.
Friend 2: Or they aloof say: “I can’t dress.” ‘Cause he absolutely can’t.
