#43 The War on WFTs

“Well, it’s no mystery that ass has always been tits’ greatest enemy. It’s almost like a Muslim-Jewish thing, but with tits and ass. It’s the choice in life.” - Kenny Powers

“Important things are inevitably cliche, but nobody wants to admit that.” - Chuck Klosterman

Let’s clarify from the outset: in this post you shall be moved in progression from glib superficiality to deep and self-reflective profundity. A playful comment or two will segue into a provocative yet indulgent and probably pointless examination which will segue into something honest and decent and a little wistful. It will be like life that way, in terms of emotional arc. So be prepared to get f*cked up with some truth, my beautiful b*tches.

In the last few weeks Autumn has descended upon San Francisco not simply as a matter of the Gregorian calendar but as a bona fide weather phenomenon, with heaps of rain and arctic gales. A big time brumal blow-out. None of that soft-dying light and twittering sparrows crap from Keats. Any sense of summer and hope you’ve been clinging to was collared and defenestrated through and out the tenth floor windows of your soul. The optionality and incentive to lay out at Stinson or Southwest it down to San Diego on a Friday, the mojitos, the glory, the jewelry, the cash, being coked out on a boat - it’s f*cking over. Dead. Crushed and mangled on the dented hood of a parked car below.

As a matter of consolation and bereavement we’ve brought out the fall fashion collection. As per unspoken collective agreement the ladies are showing boutique-y boots, wool coats and black tights/jeans and the dudes sport jeans and black J Crew jackets. Although the average temperature difference between SF summer and winter is about 4 degrees, we all kind of agree to dress like it’s snowing.

Now the dirty little secret of winter fashion is that, in the underground and fiercely fought battle between ass and tits, it gives ass the advantage. Put a sweater or a jacket upon a fine set of boobs and they drown in a sea of fabric. They disappear like buoys in a storm. Moreover, absent some really fine tailoring the whole package can create a mistaken impression of dumpiness across the middle. For tits and Nazi Germany’s 6th Army, winter is a bad situation.

The ass, meanwhile, loves the holidays. It loves ice-skating outfits and patterned tights and jouncing back from the gym in Lululemon Athletica. It feels radiant and fabulous, like the brightest bulb on a decorated tree.

But let’s get serious: it’s really never not winter in San Francisco. Season in and season out, ass is constantly getting the attention and the glory. In a free market economy equally divided between two embattled factions - women with fine asses (“WFAs”) and women with fine tits (“WFTs”) - this has ramifications. A social credit is imposed in one case and a tax in other. And hence, in the absence of any countervailing controls or regulation, over the years WFAs have been allocated to SF by disproportionate number. They are everywhere. Triathletes and Marathon runners. Flat chested vegans and A cup, type A MBAs. This is the spontaneous SF order. This is non-linear and this is fact. But it’s beyond competition. It’s beyond conflict. It’s open war. A war on WFTs.

The modern condition is such that most of us don’t have any experience with actual, non-metaphorical war. But we understand war. We get the gist: awesome shoulder-rolls, intrigue, and megalomania, on one hand, and beautiful bare-chested men and saucy vixens on the other. Troy, Avatar, Gone with the Wind and Star Wars - it’s all there. The lesson, as a movie critic once so deftly put it, is that war is a story about ambition and commerce, because life is about ambition and commerce, but every war eventually transmutes into a love story because life is often that, too. We get it. Explosion, light-saber duel, another explosion. And Bam! Pregnant.

And thus we know: the singular conflict in life is not between tits and ass. That is an absurd reductionism.* Tits v. ass is just one conflict out of many, and like most conflicts over status (like those in religion, professional sports, cola choice, etc.) it is mostly determined and motivated by ignorance, instinct or some coincidence (by family connection, geography, etc.) of cultural association. And further, if you alter the context, inform the instinct, or reverse engineer the cultural association, then one’s loyalties are influenced. The significance of certain variables gets reconsidered. New feelings are stirred. Sides are switched. Jews are baptized. Wolves are danced with. Because life isn’t just about motor-boating fun bags. It’s also about finding spiritual connection. As Forest Gump says about destiny versus randomness, it’s about both. Both are happening at the same time.

And so it goes that SF guys who live long enough in SF learn to love WFAs. Many of us deep down don’t want to do it. For a time we resist. But eventually we surrender. Because we are vulnerable. Because deep down the human spirit is generous. Sooner or later the sweet tailpipe of SF women puts a spell on us. We get charmed.

But, understand, we will never be complete. We will always feel hollow and wanting in the most intimate of things. That is the tragedy. All the ass-magic in the Marina can't change a man from his core beliefs**. And so many a good man in San Francisco will have his day of reckoning and on the day he will self confess: “I’m not an ass man. I’m a tit man. And this is WTANGISF.”***


*Unless you’re a sultan, Hugh Hefner or otherwise carry on a highly unusual way of life.
**To paraphrase a man with a mind like a f*cking scientist.
***"The fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance." - David Foster Wallace