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05.13.01 Blue Blazer Regular #666 reporting for duty by Jon Worley One of the great movies of the 1980s is The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Perhaps you know it simply as Buckaroo Banzai. As played by Peter Weller, Buckaroo Banzai was a neurosurgeon who moonlighted as a theoretical physicist and leader of a rock band, the Hong Kong Cavaliers. He was also a crime-fighting superhero, and the Cavaliers served not only as his musical sidemen but also his sidekicks in many adventures against the evil elements of the universe. Oh, by the way, Buckaroo Banzai also had a comic book which fictionalized his already vast legend. Fans could sign up, through the comic book, to become members of the Buckaroo Banzai secret society, the Blue Blazer Regulars. If you were lucky and listening to your handy-dandy ham radio at the right time, you might be called into action in a real-live Buckaroo Banzai adventure. All that information, by the way, is background that must be surmised by multiple viewings of the movie. The extraordinarily densely-constructed film doesn't bother to explain much of that at all and simply dives headfirst (fans of the film might appreciate that particular pun) into a plot concerning the newly discovered twin of Buckaroo's dead girlfriend, precisely what happened on that day in 1938 when Orson Welles broadcast "War of the Worlds," a race war on Planet 10 and a potential nuclear showdown between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Let me amend my earlier statement. Buckaroo Banzai is one of the great movies of all time. Last month, I attended a wedding. I own one vaguely formal coat, and it really doesn't fit in my current wardrobe. So I wore a nice shirt and tie and some nice pants. I even wore the same dress shoes which graced my feet at my own wedding. This wasn't good enough for my father-in-law, who was simply aghast that his son and I (27 and 30-year-old men) didn't own a good blue blazer between us and thus attended a Southern wedding sans coats. "A blue blazer is the one essential part of man's wardrobe," he expounded. "You can wear it anywhere, from a funeral to a baseball game. If you decide you're overdressed, you can simply take off the coat." To emphasize his point, he slid a good-sized stack of cash my way for my birthday, for the express purpose of purchasing a "good, solid, worsted wool blue blazer." I don't like jackets of any kind, particularly ones with buttons on them. One of the reasons I gave up on broadcast journalism while I was in college was that I'd have to wear suits on a regular basis. There was also the matter of my hair. Nonetheless, the aversion to suits was at the top of my list. I come by this disdain for formal wear naturally. My dad owns a few absurd polyester suits from the 70s. My mom made most of them. While that's kinda impressive, and I seem to remember that while they looked alright back when everyone else was wearing that sorta thing, they don't exactly work well now. He avoids them like the plague, referring to them as "monkey suits." This isn't to deride my mom's work, but simply an honest wish to remain unrestrained in clothing. I will say that I try to avoid polyester and suits (not to mention the confluence of the two) as much as possible. No matter. An order is an order, and as long as the mandate is funded, the least I can do is spend my father-in-law's money. So my wife and I wandered down to the men's wear section of our local Hecht's department store. I headed straight to what I figured my father-in-law was talking about, stiff-looking jackets with buttons on the sleeves. The sign reading "blue blazers" right above the rack also tipped me off. My wife pulled me away, commenting that those jackets looked horrible and that I should pick something more fashionable. Sounded good to me. She dragged me over to a rack of astonishingly professorial tweed jackets. Just for confirmation, when a salesman walked over she explained what we were looking for. The salesman took us back to the rack I'd been perusing. "Aren't these more formal?" she asked. "Heavens no," he replied. "A blue blazer is the one essential part of a man's wardrobe. You can wear it anywhere, from a funeral to a baseball game. You can even wear it with jeans." I might mention that hadn't dressed up for this shopping and was wearing my usual t-shirt and jeans. I might also mention that the jacket (Oscar de la Renta: Men Are Back!) looked exceedingly silly on me. No matter. It fit, we had ready cash and in the space of five minutes I'd complied with the express wishes of my father-in-law. More importantly, I now get one more joke from that brilliant comedy, Buckaroo Banzai, a statement on the silliness of the fashion of a regimented society. What's the one item any man has in his closet? A blue blazer. Thus, the Blue Blazer Regulars. Which reminds me. I haven't watched Buckaroo Banzai in a couple months. About time to screen it again. Maybe this time I'll wear my blue blazer.
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