Fresh cut daisies, indeed

I vowed that when gas nibbled near the $3-a-gallon mark, I’d find something more pleasant to write about. For once, big media is obliging us, and we can now contemplate pop fashion developments, where Daisy Duke II meets the Garapan Strut.

You may recall that I coined the term “Garapan Strut” in this column in 1998, a reference to the alluring gaits of vacationing office ladies who wear their skirts short, and their shoe heels, high.

But before the Garapan Strut was known as such, America was treated to its own version of strutting, leggy femininity, courtesy of the cut-off blue jean short-shorts known as Daisy Dukes, so named for a character in a TV show called the Dukes of Hazzard that ran from 1979 through 1985.

Recently, for reasons no sane man can contemplate, they’ve made a movie based on the TV show, and a repressed middle-America, none too comfortable with anything even mildly sexual (at least if it’s heterosexual) is collectively agog at the sight of actress Jessica Simpson in the role of, you guessed it: Daisy Duke. Now, this would all be a matter confined to the vulgarity of mass entertainment, except that The Associated Press has picked up on the story and has published a how-to article on how one can create her own Daisy Duke shorts at home.

Yes, courtesy of “Fresh Cut Daisies,” author Samantha Critchell explains, and even diagrams, the most alluring way for women to pare a pair of blue jeans into leg showing, bootie highlighting Daisy Dukeness.

Now THAT is news, folks. Finally, a how-to story with some legs!

Example of the jean cutting instructions: “For a more flattering fit, arc line over the thigh, then down and behind, following the shape of your derriere.” You go, girl!

“Derriere,” I shall note for Tribune readers, is French for butt.

Anyway, the AP article, being…er…journalism and all, also includes some historical and contemporary perspective on, respectively, Daisy Duke of old (television) and Daisy Duke of new (the movie).

The AP is going to catch all sorts of flak about this from the Prozac Nation’s feminist Taliban. But, that’s not my battle to fight, I don’t have to look at them, so I’ll just follow the battle from the sidelines. But I will note this: This is the one and only story I’ve seen in the big, American press lately that is entirely politically incorrect.

So you see, Garapan has its trademark strut, and the Dukes of Hazzard’s White Trash Chic Redux is inspiring roughly analogous fashion developments in places where bowling alleys, chicken fried steak, and dog races are considered high culture. Hey, why not? It’s all good, baby.

Though the Garapan strut is here to stay, the Dukes trend is, no doubt, a flash in the pan, though some degree of fleshy showiness will always exist with the fit and the young, though that is a pure subculture gig.

Which means it’s time for a stroll through Garapan to survey the tourism scene…maybe snarf a beer or two at Bud’s first… if only there were any tourists to survey! Well, barring that, maybe MCV will spark up some Dukes of Hazzard reruns…

…and even if they don’t, if you’ve just had visions of something more cheerful than $3-a-gallon gas, no matter how briefly, then my work for the day is done.

(Ed Stephens Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. E-mail him at Ed4Saipan@yahoo.com.)