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Every few months or so it seems that I read about some venerable hat shop going under.
Outside of baseball caps, younger American men do not wear hats like their fathers or their grandfathers did.
I?m no hat historian but I remember going to Red Sox games as a kid and you rarely spotted an adult man who was not wear some proper topper.
It is a minor shame that ball caps are about the only headwear (hoodies do not count) you see on most American men and boys under oh I dont know, under the age of deceased.
When I was a teenager, I used to rock a pimp hat, the wide brimmed, diamond in the back, digging the scene with the gangster lean type hat when I was not wearing my trust Kangol cap.
The Kangol has come back into stylish fashion through the movies but idiots today wear it the wrong way. They wear it backwards to show the kangaroo logo, I guess. Let?s blame Quentin Tarantino and Samuel Z. Jackson for that, I suppose.
For my money, nobody ever rocked the Borsalino like OG Al Capone. This booking photo proves that.
He was a curious cat, Alphone. They say he attended Mass daily and, on the foot of the stairs as he left the church, a henchman would be waiting to get the bossman?s list as to who had to get whacked that particular day.
Moving to the current generation, I have to say that Kid Rock really knows how to rock a variety of hats. The Motown screamer moves with panache between hats of many sorts.
Which brings me to a hat wearing individual named Dapper Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao.
Pacman truly knows how to rock a hat in his own right.
I dont know where Pacquiao got this tropical number he is seen sporting as he moves through an adoring crowd in the Philippines but the hat fits him in more ways than one.
On the other hand a guy whose family name is Hatton, specifically Ricky, needs to get rid of those idiotic bucket hats he even tries to peddle on his web site.
Maybe Hatton has been snoozing since May 2 but I do have a news flash for you, Tricky Ricky.
That bucket hat style? It is considered bad form in America unless you are on the golf driving range hitting a bucket of balls. A bucket hat for a bucket of balls, got it?
As for Floyd Mayweather, give the man this much.
Usually he is seen with a Yankees cap which is stupid in itself, a fashion sin to begin with that. That dumb interlocking NY logo used to get on my nerves but since the Red Sox dominate the pinstripers so much that feeling has been numbed.
But Mayweather did rock the Mexican sombrero pretty nicely. It is hard not to be a gringo with a sombrero on and to not look like a pinche devo fool but PBF did it.
I am not really buying his Mayweather Loves Mexico sales pitch because we all know that Mayweathers only love themselves but Floyd Jr. did look the part of the bad hombre who refuses to show you any stinking badges.
Look at pictures of old time fighters, including the superstars like Brown Bomber Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey and Ray Robinson, and you often see them wearing some classy hat or another.
Keep in mind that, in their eras, an American man was not fully dressed if he went out without some appropriate head covering.
The first president to popularize going hatless was John F. Kennedy.
Which brings me around, in the same era, to Malcolm X.
The man who was Muhammad Ali?s handler for the Nation of Islam was an all time great when it comes to rocking a hat.
There was a time when he and Ali had an older brother-younger brother type of close relationship. Like so many, Ali was mesmerized by Malcolm both the man and the message.
But, when Malcolm fell out with the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, Ali remained loyal to the head of the religion/organization.
Emissaries of the Nation then assassinated Malcolm at the Audubon Ballroom in upper Manhattan.
It wasn?t too hard to know that when all the guys arrested had names like Thomas 37X Whatever.
It was a policy to reject your so called slave name when you became part of the Nation.
Enough with the political and social history because our topic today is limited to hats and the men who really know how to rock them.
I think you would agree with me that Brother Malcolm would look undressed without the hat.
Notice also the only other guy in the photo on what looks to be a stroll through Harlem who is not wearing a hat is The Greatest.
I suppose when you call yourself The Greatest you really don?t require a hat.
But I’m glad that Pacman wears hats and I am sure that hat salespeople the world over are also.
The Hatton Bucket Hat must go.
Maybe some imaginative hat peddler will christen that white hat Good Guy Manny is seen wearing here the Pacman model.
I wish someone would.
My only problem then would be getting a tiny one for my Pacquiao Bobblehead Doll.
(And never refer to my Pacbobble unit as a doll to his small face. He is mucho macho about things like that).
So hats off for Hatton and hats on for Pacman.
While he?s saving the world and shutting down Abu Sayyaf maybe Pacman can also save the hat industry.
If he does, Manny will also become the hero of the men?s millinery world.
Manny Pacquiao, saving the world…one hat at a time.
