"costume" is a funny word, right?

like, it sounds funny to say the Chicago Packers have new costumes this year or that the costumes at the latest celebrity awards show looked like the evil bourgeois of "Hunger Games" but both are closer to the truth than the idea that the way I adorn myself on an everyday basis is a "costume."

I do not deny that I am just another monkey under all the bandanas and bombast, but I was also exactly the type of monkey to choose each element.

under that monkey is a mind, one able and inclined to self-conceptualize...it's not a costume, I'm dressing as myself.

what you see when I walk in the door is more a series of introductions and social markers. "semiotics," a polisci/psych textbook might call it. 

I put a good bit of thought into the conversations I have with the world, even before they start. 

one of my shirts is direct product placement for the concept of mutual aid. one band tee tells people I don't love police officers. one I beat up a boy scout for, flipped the flag and wear it as a trophy...he was a future cop anyway.

also freely admit to wearing a lot of stuff I painted/dyed/patched specifically so people will tell me how cool it is.  

in the wider world where I live, shirts with English-language text speak English for you...shirts in other languages do the same, and abstract designs can leave it more open to interpretation...use that information as you will.

so like, real quick, glance again at the header pic: guy with the rainbow armband probably ain't gonna laugh at your gay joke, probably wouldn't be shocked to see an atheist musician in a Bad Religion shirt, spikes signify punk rock attitude or access to a local Hot Topic.

some statements are more subtle...few years back a bandana around the neck was recommended for those who could not obtain a medical-grade mask in the early days of a strange new illness going around the world.

I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT HAPPENED THAT YEAR

hell, the bracelet stacks alone are an anthology of sorts...like, I didn't just buy all eleventeen of 'em off some mannequin in the mall, half of the ones I didn't make myself were given to me as tokens of goodwill like the feathers in a native headdress.

fittingly, the band name started on a bracelet before a single note ever came from under it.

idea works the same even without tunes n tassels...standardized Western dress is its own ritualized attire. a suit is a costume.

it is the one worn by the individuals that have done the most pernicious and enduring damages to post-World War Era society, and yet somehow one that engenders high levels of respect and regard across a wide swath of the population.

like I said, costuming is a funny concept...I am percieved as fundamentally unserious because of my character design, while a Very Serious Person will tell you that people need to die for oil rights in an age of electrification while his necktie and/or pins and lapel give the words gravitas.

so Mama Magica has it right...when I wrap that purple leather kilt around myself to attend an event, it is in an Official Capacity.

what I wear is regalia...stripped of monarchistic connotations, we're left with pure symbology. obviously I'm super into that.

my regalia is also advertisement; a platform for nouns that I believe should appear in more sentences.

that means I had to relinquish a pair of socks celebrating a certain young adult novel series written by a thoroughly unmagical person...they were cool-looking and all, but it's the wrong conversation to start with people.

by the same token I don't wear a lot of major team sports gear either...could definitely name pretty much any national-level sports team logo in North America at a glance but it's just not the kind of thing I need to give much public airtime to...if the game on TV is the only thing we have to talk about then maybe we should talk as little as possible.

also feel like if you're gonna wear any nationalistic stuff--your Big Cup jersey, your souvenir tee--you should probably stick to the country you're in or one far elsewhere (we can leave my personal border beliefs to the side in this segment, you say "Malaysia" or "Greece" and you know it's not exactly on the local bus route).

idk the internal logic is nebulous but we can agree that people look fucking insane walking around a coastal Mexican beach town with stars n stripes spangling all down their shoulders and back, yeah?

wouldn't print a "kick me" sign on my clothing but that's just me.

anyways let's not wander off the runway here...point is the things you wear can say stuff about you. very clearly.

sure there's a sub-20 percentage of pomp and persona attached to the whole thing but the thing is I'm not all that mysterious at all...I'm just coded.

who I am as a person, who I am as an artist, who I am as a member of society...I try my best to put it right there on the wrapper.

if you're the type of individual to be interested, you gotta be the type to understand, dig it?

all power to The People.

--Flor!