LBJ orders a pair of pants.
July 22, 2018 9:33 AM   Subscribe

Please listen to President Lyndon B. Johnson order a pair of slacks. SLYT
posted by Grandysaur (29 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
Is this the one with the bunghole? Tags say it's the one with the bunghole.
posted by each day we work at 9:38 AM on July 22, 2018 [7 favorites]


Mod note: This did pass through seven years ago, but we can see it again.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 9:41 AM on July 22, 2018 [7 favorites]


My favorite president guy's take on it, and some others.
posted by es_de_bah at 9:42 AM on July 22, 2018


"Another thing the crotch - down where your nuts hang..." - LBJ
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:43 AM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


There is a poetic note to engage here, I think. Our previous presidents were not above the realization that their office afforded them privileges and social standing that made them virtually super-human. As such, folks like JFK enjoyed their boning and LBJ enjoyed his pranks and Reagan and Obama enjoyed shaping culture like pop stars (see also: Dubya?).

But every modern president appreciated the gravity of their situation, and worked to keep their official business in line with deliberate decency, decorum, and diplomacy. Fucking Trump wings it every time. He doesn't have a fun hobby or private game where he blows off steam, because he was born on top of the world and has never had to consider the consequences of his actions outside of his own wealth. His relief valve is the USA.
posted by es_de_bah at 9:55 AM on July 22, 2018 [15 favorites]


If I were LBJ's tailor I wouldn't be able to decide if I should make each successive pair of pants slightly smaller to irritate him or slightly larger to make him think he was shrinking.

Granted, if I was a Presidential-level tailor I could probably do both at once, perhaps by shrinking the back to irritate his bunghole and subtly expanding the front to mess with his confidence.

But I think we'd all know what to do with Trump, and that'd be invisible pants. wait no this is a horrible idea help
posted by loquacious at 10:14 AM on July 22, 2018 [12 favorites]


Bunghole. huh-huhhuhuhuh.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 10:30 AM on July 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


loquacious, I think you'd just give every other pair of trousers a wonky, troublesome zipper, and call it a day.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:31 AM on July 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


That's hilarious. It's great because you can hear a little of the classic LBJ treatment coming in, with buttering up (throwing in that these are the best pants in the whole USA, etc.) mixed with a bit of pushiness and exasperating longwindedness. That random belch thrown in is perfect.

As for the current commander-in-creep, though much about him seems unique in the annals of the presidency, I do think that the common theme of self-absorption mixed with a desperate inner lack of some sort - love, or confidence, or something - is a recurring theme with some of these guys, LBJ included...
posted by tarshish bound at 10:59 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


That random belch thrown in is perfect.
That's from all the Fresca!
posted by newper at 11:01 AM on July 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


Overlooked among the nuts and bungholes is the small detail that he needs more pocket space for "my knife, my money." The man had the pocket-consciousness of a late-medieval peasant. A true legend.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:03 AM on July 22, 2018 [16 favorites]


I absolutely love how the President thought his pants didn't fit very well, so his solution is to call the head of the company that makes them and lay out just how he thought they should fit. Screw all your red tape, I'm calling him directly. Love it.
posted by Sphinx at 11:19 AM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


Now that's real men's conversation.
posted by carter at 11:31 AM on July 22, 2018


For some reason the animators illustrated most of the dialog, but declined to depict LBJ's nuts getting cut by barbed wire.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 11:41 AM on July 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


Dressing left.
posted by pracowity at 11:58 AM on July 22, 2018


> This did pass through seven years ago, but we can see it again

First posted in 2004 actually, then again in 2011. Let's hope we're all still here to enjoy it again in 2025.

> every modern president appreciated the gravity of their situation, and worked to keep their official business in line with deliberate decency, decorum, and diplomacy

That's not necessarily how it appeared at the time. Robert Caro argues in his biography of LBJ that the Johnson presidency marked a tipping-point:
"It is difficult today to remember, much less to understand, the extent to which 'the President' -- any President -- was then revered, respected, feared," Tom Wicker, who covered the White House for the New York Times, recalled in 1983. With a note of sadness, Wicker wrote that "the reverence, the childlike dependence, the willingness to follow where the President leads, the trust, are long gone -- gone, surely, with Watergate, but gone before that .. After Lyndon Johnson, trust in 'the President' was tarnished forever."

That tarnishing revolutionized politics and government in the United States. The shredding of the delicate yet crucial fabric of credence and faith between the people of the United States and the man they had placed in the White House occurred during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. Until the day of Kennedy's death -- until, in other words, the day Johnson took office -- the fabric was whole. By the time Johnson left office, the fabric was in shreds, destroyed by lies and duplicity that went beyond permissible political license.

[Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent, pp xxv-xxvi]
Plus ça change ..
posted by verstegan at 12:26 PM on July 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


“...so we can let it out...”????

What does that mean? An inch to the crotch so we can let it out? Is he planning to re-tailor them once they are made?
posted by amanda at 12:41 PM on July 22, 2018


He says his weight swings 10-15 lbs, if there’s extra fabric at the seams a tailor can give him more room if needed.
posted by Jobst at 12:45 PM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Mod note is right, I remember that link. Won't search for it but I remember a story about Lyndon getting ticked during the war, pulled out his private exclaiming: " Does Ho Chi Minh got anything like this!
posted by clavdivs at 1:06 PM on July 22, 2018


When I first heard this years ago I found it obnoxious and clumsy. Now, I find it charming and humorous. Times have changed... I’m also older and less serious about everything.
posted by johnxlibris at 1:12 PM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


So this is the third thread the Ho Chi Minh story has been told...7 YEARS APART.
posted by clavdivs at 1:14 PM on July 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


It’s dicks all the way down.
posted by Dip Flash at 1:43 PM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


LBJ also had a line to Coors so he get cases of their preservative-free "champagne" beer (it was hard to get back then). The belch confirms to me that he cracked some of that magnificent Coors before making this call.
posted by Brocktoon at 1:54 PM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


When I first heard this years ago I found it obnoxious and clumsy.

And I still find this obnoxious and clumsy. I'll bet most women listening to this think it's tacky, at best. Definitely the man should have his pants tailored to fit him impeccability. But why doesn't he use adult vocabulary and common decency to describe his wants in an adult manner? Sure, if he were talking with a close friend and untaped, I would have no problem with him going on like a 12 year old, but he's talking to a stranger. His lack of respect for another person is what bothers me.

Of course, LBJ had the idea that he was above all the peons that existed to serve him.
And then there's Trump.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:26 PM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


[Trump] was born on top of the world and has never had to consider the consequences of his actions outside of his own wealth.

I'm not sure. I think he kited checks just long enough to realize he could probably keep doing it forever. And since he's like 72 now... I guess he was right.
posted by rokusan at 9:04 PM on July 22, 2018


First posted in 2004 actually, then again in 2011. Let's hope we're all still here to enjoy it again in 2025.

It’s like cats and scanners, but with a longer interval. As we gather more data, we will begin building models of MetaCelestialMechanics, either moving towards science or asort of dismal astrology.

“Your FPP was posted during a Bunghole Return; that’s why it got no comments except a mod note.”
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:10 AM on July 23, 2018


But why doesn't he use adult vocabulary and common decency to describe his wants in an adult manner?

Can you even imagine Jackie Kennedy requesting tailoring or a special service this way?
posted by amanda at 6:42 AM on July 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


LBJ also had a line to Coors so he get cases of their preservative-free "champagne" beer (it was hard to get back then).
Coors' scarcity east of the Mississippi drives the plot in Smokey and the Bandit.

posted by kirkaracha at 10:12 AM on July 23, 2018


It's weird now to think about it, but for a good while there "Big American Beer" controlled so much of the market that people really fetishized regional brews from other parts of the country. Not only could you not get Coors in the east back then, but you probably had to be kinda in-the-know to even be AWARE that Coors existed.

There was a lesser example of this with Texas-based Shiner Bock as late as the mid-1990s.

Now, obviously, every city/state has its own local brewing culture, plus a plethora of nationally distributed beer above and beyond the sex-in-a-canoe default brews from ABI & etc, so the idea of going far out of your way to acquire a beer that, really, is only minimally different from Bud is kind of hilarious, but that's how we all lived back then, kids.
posted by uberchet at 1:34 PM on July 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


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