If President Biden insists on wearing old-man comfort shoes, he could at least wear the all-black kind that would at least simulate the black leather Presidential footwear tradition that has been in place since the days of Abraham Lincoln if not before.

Biden’s wearing of whitesides is appalling — a symbolic degradation of the dignity of the office.

I bought these Bruno Magli lace-ups roughly 15 or 16 months ago. Online, marked down, size 13. But they felt too small. I’d been wearing 12 all my life (or since I was 13 or 14), but I shifted into 13 about a decade ago. For well over a year I’ve been reminding myself to have them stretched out by a local Armenian shoe-repair guy. Tatyana says if I was smart or practical-minded I’d send them back to the online seller and ask for size 14 replacements. But I’ve waited too long to do that. (Plus I almost always throw away boxes and receipts — I can’t stand to have that clutter lying around.) Plus I can’t abide the idea of wearing 14s. I can’t do it. Only big galumphs wear 14s. I am not a grizzly bear or a three-toed sloth or Richard Kiel — I am a deer, a fleet fox, a thoroughbred racehorse.

HE to Gavin O’Connor, emailed last night around 10 pm: “Gavin — I’ve just come from a screening of The Accountant 2, and I fucking loved it! It made me feel like I was 15 or 16 and hanging with friends.

“The brotherly rapport, which is to say the low-key, contentious, character-driven humor….the disciplined brainy vibe, the wonderful Juarez prison camp finale, the tabby cat, that icy blonde assassin (Daniella Pineda), the extra-wonderful country-bar dance scene….escapism par excellence!

“I wasn’t sure at first (the presence of J.K. Simmons‘ Raymond King threw me off at first) and to be fully honest I never fully put together every last plot strand (looking forward to reading a synopsis before seeing it again), but once Bernthal arrived and the humor kicked in, I was in heaven.

“The original Accountant was better than reasonably decent, and I was naturally hoping the sequel would be as good. But it’s five times better! Magnificent job! Had a great time! — Jeffrey Wells, HE (we haven’t seen each other since that party at Brett Ratner‘s a dozen or so years ago).”

Roughly five years after the release of The Accountant (’16) O’Connor announced that there would not only be an Accountant sequel but a trilogy.

“I’ve always wanted to do three because…we’re going to integrate Jon Bernthal‘s brother into the story,” O’Connor said. “So there’ll be more screen time for Bernthal in the second one. And then the third movie’s going to be, I call it, ‘Rain Man on steroids.’ The third movie is going to be the two brothers, this odd couple. The third one is going be a buddy picture.”

Well, O’Connor lied! Or at the very least he misdirected or jumped the gun or whatever. Because The Accountant 2 is, without a doubt, Rain Man on steroids itself…obviously….a brothers-in-jeopardy buddy comedy with lots of wit and persuasive atmosphere and beat-downs and thousands of whizzing bullets and dust and bald bad guys and crash-boom-bang, but always with the dry humor and a wonderful feeling of assurance that neither Ben Affleck nor Bernthal will get killed…pure fantasy bullshit but a total blast.

I felt vaguely miserable after seeing Sinners and then even more miserable after reading all those deranged Sinners raves, but The Accountant 2 put the roses back in my cheeks. Partly because it’s just a fucking good-guys-vs.-bad-guys movie without a political agenda…no instruction!…no fucking gay guys-because-every-movie-needs-to-fulfill-a-gay-guy quota or lesbians or transies…no quota casting at all, no POCs (unless you count Mexicans) and no bold-as-brass, agenda-driven #MeToo Amazons with glaring eyes and flaring nostrils (although Cynthia Addai-Robinson‘s government agent is terrific)…no woke bullshit…thank you!

I was scared when I saw Affleck’s horrific mint-green-and-orange-creamsicle whitesides, and then I realized “oh, okay, he’s wearing ugly nerd sneakers because autistic guys don’t think about looking good…they wear what they wear compulsively” so I let it go, but my blood ran cold when I first saw them.

I loved, loved, loved a dialogue scene shot in a car lot filled with nothing but silver Airstreams…the total banishing of ugly-ass Winnebagos with those awful, blue-collar color patterns…bliss!

I’m not actually “serious” about trying to launch any of these therapeutic or advice concepts into actual going concerns, but I could easily dispense HE-styled wisdom and insight along these lines if so required. I have the ability to bullshit people and convey meaningless-but-harmless insights in a kindly, thoughtful, considerate way…as much of an ability of any licensed therapist or psychologist or social counselor.

1. HE Dating Academy, an HE-related, interactive dating advice website: “How to attract top-tier women if you’re a socially primitive shut-in…an under-educated 20something or 30something flatliner who’s generally un-travelled, spends most of his time online and who’s either unemployed or has a relatively low-paying, going-nowhere job. And who drives an older, starting-to-feel-shitty car.”

2. HE Advice to the Lovelorn (self-explanatory): A lifetime of experience and gathered wisdom offered to young men & women whose prospects of finding someone really special to fall in love and partner with in the mid 2020s are, let’s face it, pretty close to zilch. How to look good (get in shape & lose weight, avoid shitty foods, don’t wear whitesides or collared flannel shirts), how to smell good and wear interesting hair (no shaved heads or tennis-ball coifs) and how to speak intelligently about…well, many things.

3. HE Philosophical Counselling (self-explanatory): What does it all mean & where are most of us headed? Don’t ask. A been-around, seen-it-all veteran of hard-knocks living and the proverbial, turbulent romantic trenches is offering improvisational but serious, solemn but freewheeling therapy. Unlicensed or Mumford-styled counselling. (It goes without saying that Mumford sessions are not synonymous with the lessons of Roger Dodger.) Less costly than what licensed therapists charge but just as good in terms of exploring the vagaries of life and discovering various eternal / mystical truths and possibly even attaining tangible, take-it-to-the-bank results, and which will certainly be more entertaining than traditional therapy.

In all my years on this planet I spoke to Sean Connery only once, during a roundtable at a 1982 New York press junket for Richard Brooks‘ Wrong Is Right.

I wasn’t much of a fan of the film (nobody was) but it was thrilling to absorb the vibe and smell the aroma of the manly, bigger-than-life Connery.

He wasn’t much of a kidder but he had an engaging smile. Every answer he gave was straight from the shoulder, bordering on blunt.

The word around the campfire at the time was that Connery had made a successful advance upon a female journalist during a hotel-room interview, although not necessarily during his Wrong Is Right activities.

We all have impulses, of course, but we control them for the sake of decency and our careers and reputations. But if you were Sean Connery back in the day, perhaps not each and every time.

Restrained but affirming machismo will always be cool. The calm, sensible mindset of a guy who wields a certain kind of rugged glamour and a certain amount of entertainment industry dominance…it was good for the soul to sense that, and even taste it through close proximity.

Connery was clearly a gentleman and imbued with a certain diplomatic finesse, and he was very handsomely-dressed in that hotel room, and he smelled good (soap, subtle musk cologne) and wore newish, polished, well-crafted footwear**.

When I was sitting three or four feet away from the then-52-year-old Connery I felt the right kind of vibes. This is a good place to be, I said to myself.

The world was a whole different place during the early Reagan era. Urban gay culture had begun to flourish (the Studio 54 heyday had happened only three or four years earlier) while AIDS was only beginning to be whispered about, but notions of abundant diversity had yet to manifest (the Central Park Five injustice was only a year old at the time) and white hetero straight guys like Connery were, unlike today, not regarded as inherently problematic or regressive or morally arrested — they held a certain sway. And fine sexual opportunities for young heteros like myself were rather wonderful, I don’t mind saying.

Merit ruled over equity (what’s equity?), transitioned biomales weren’t competing in women’s sports, Oscar handicappers didn’t know from identity campaigns, woke merely referred to not being asleep, etc. E.T., The Verdict, Blade Runner, Tootsie, First Blood, Five Days One Summer, The Year of Living Dangerously, etc. I would have that time again.

** Nobody wore whitesides in 1982 — civilization had been spared as they hadn’t been invented yet — but if by some bizarre quirk of time-shifting style or fashion Connery had somehow been wearing whitesides that day, the whole subdued machismo thing would have been shattered.

Daniel Craig’s floppy blonde mane, the pink wristband, the black leather jacket, the ruffian black jeans, the dangling shades, the forest of short white whiskers…exquisite. And in precisely the right way, director Luca Guadagnino offers his cultured professorial outfit with just a touch of flare. (A world of difference between white sneakers and whitesides.) But Drew Starkey, whose supporting Queer performance perfectly complements the Oscar-worthy Craig, needs to re-think the aqua blue. Too much of a young man’s statement…turn it down.

But not so much the shorts and especially the greenish-gray whitesides…no offense. This is a New York Film Festival ticket-buying line for Average Joes.

One of HE’s all-time favorite Manhattan greasy-spoon, mid-20th-Century diners.

Never, ever wear whitesides to an Oval Office meeting. Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries is a good hombre and a skilled operator, but in this instance he should be ashamed of himself. If you’re sporting whitesides you might as well wear knee-length beach shorts or a silky floral print shirt. We’re speaking of plaster cracks in the once-great wall of traditional civilization here. Certain sartorial instincts should be suppressed at all costs.