At last! The shock of the new!

Just today, as my ladyfriend and I passed by an outdoor event where some highly-amplified rap music blared, I said: "The problem isn't that I find this music annoying. At this age, I expect to be annoyed. The problem is that we've had rap music for some 30 years now. I'd really like to be annoyed in a new way. What's wrong with today's young people? Where's the creativity?"

One can make the same observations about youth fashions -- in fact, I've made that very point in previous posts. The first time I saw a full-out punker was in the mid-1970s. Today, you can still see kids in the same regalia, and they still think they are on the cutting edge.

The last new thing was the goth look, which I've always liked. Goth girls are sexy. But let's face it: That look started when Beetlejuice came out in 1988, a quarter-century ago. Goth will, I hope be a perennial. But it isn't new.

And then there are those young men who think that they are being ever-so-daring when they wear the beltline of their pants below their crotch. (I presume that their t-shirts are held in place with safety pins.) This may the most moronic fashion statement ever stated. And I'm cool with that. What bugs the hell out of me is that young guys have been doing that shit for at least twenty years now. It's ancient.

New! New! NEW! I want to see the shock of the NEW, goddammit!

At last...here it is, by way of the Japanese avant-garde. A fashion statement that is utterly stupid, decadent, dangerous and ugly. We are talking about something altogether indefensible. But it's new. Truly new, thank heavens. (Or perhaps, in this case, we should thank the infernal powers.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the bagel head, accomplished via saline injections to forehead.

(I'm also impressed by the mis-matched eye coloring sported by the young lady to your left.)

Yes, it's hideous. That's fine. At my age, I expect young people to do their best to freak me out. What's important is that this look is hideous in a way I have not seen before. The kids are not just annoying -- they are creatively annoying.

Bravo!