Of men and stupid hats

I was at the Rocking the Daisies festival in Darling this past weekend, and I couldn’t help noticing how many men in stupid hats were strolling around without any semblance of shame.

Tell me, menfolk of South Africa, is this some kind of latent desire that only creeps out in places of loud music and general pigswillery? Are you secretly walking around every day longing to wear an obscenely ugly hat? Or is it just when you’ve been drinking beer in the sun all day that the little voice inside makes itself heard?

I’m not even talking Pretty Ugly Hats here. You know, those brightly coloured foam ones that look like they’re out of Alice in Wonderland. No, I’m willing to let men get away with those, if only because it links, in my mind, somehow, to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Parties. No, I’m talking glittery witch’s hats. I’m talking large voluminous (luminous) padded things. I’m talking wigs. They were everywhere (or maybe it just seemed that they were everywhere because they reflected the light so violently). And the men wearing them seemed proud. Foolishly so.

Perhaps it was just the chance to break free. Free from suits and jobs and Blackberries and responsibilities thrust into the hands of these guys who just want to drink beer and listen to rock’n’roll and maybe get lucky (if the wind blows right). There is a certain beautiful debauchery to the music festival, a gleeful abandon that I haven’t tasted anywhere else. As the sun sets and the wind howls and the liquor flows and the bands play there’s a wildness on the wind.

A wildness that might even forgive a few wayward individuals their Extremely Stupid Hats.

But there is nothing, nay, not a thing to explain away the man I saw at 11am the next morning, totally sober and trying on a silver-and-black pointed wizard’s hat in front of the hippy hat stand.

That’s just bad form.

I’m just not OK with that.