The Metro Column

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Here’s the latest. I think it’s kinda funny.
P.S. It reads a little choppy on the Metro site, so I am also posting it below.


One can hardly walk through Rittenhouse Square without seeing evidence of a problem that, if we really want to be considered “America’s Next Great City,” needs to be eradicated immediately: the popped collar. I have always considered the popped (or “flipped-up”) collar the fashion equivalent of wearing one’s underwear outside one’s pants and have considered a person who wears a popped collar to be every bit as refined as a person who tattoos a swastika on their neck. But was I alone in these thoughts? I decided to ask around.

While conducting my impromptu survey, the word I heard most often when referring to people who wore popped collars cannot be stated in a family paper but sounds like perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche getting a sweet new British car: a LaRouche Jag. Says Jake “The Snake” Roberts*, “Popped collars are good if your name is Biff but bad if you want to get laid.” The Ultimate Warrior makes a claim of questionable veracity: “Popped collars make puppies cry and get rabies.” The P.C. made some people hostile, such as George “The Animal” Steele, who says, “Everyone with a popped collar should be stabbed in nonfatal areas until they bleed to death, then fed to wild dogs, then boiled.”

To see what the pros thought, I contacted Joy Manning**, senior editor at Philadelphia Style magazine. Her take? “Under the age of 21, it can be chalked up to age-appropriate goofiness. Afterward, it’s more of a fashion emergency.”

Only three people in history successfully pulled off the popped-collar look: Count Dracula, Edgar Allen Poe and The Fonz. Everybody else who has done it since is a LaRouche Jag. Fortunately, the courts agree, and a recent law put on the books makes it legal to, if a person is wearing two popped collars, punch them in the mouth with a roll of quarters. This has led to a decline in this behavior, but further legislation will hopefully eradicate it completely. “Philadelphia will never be a truly great city,” says “Nature Boy” Ric Flair at a recent rally, “until all those caught wearing popped collars are forced into a devastating figure-four leg lock. Wooo!”

*To protect the innocent, the names of the people I interviewed have been replaced with names of my favorite ’80s wrestlers.

**Her real name, not her wrestler name. Her wrestler name is “Macho” P. Styles.