hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2964.txt

Episode: 2964
Title: HPR2964: Bolos and Bowties: Neckwear for Nerds
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2964/hpr2964.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 13:58:07

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This is HPR Episode 2964, for Thursday the 12th of December 2019.
Today's show is entitled BOLOS and BOTYES, NECWARE FOR NERDS.
It's hosted by John Kolb and it's about 60 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
The summary is, I talk about ties, at least the kind I like to wear when the occasion calls
for it.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
Hey everybody, this is John Kolb and Lafayette Louisiana and today I'm going to talk about
something that I think might be of interest to hackers, assuming hackers are a bunch of nerds
kind of like me.
It has to do with fashion and particularly NECWARE for nerds.
So I've for the longest time I never wanted to wear any kind of NECWARE.
I definitely have always hated the traditional NEC tie.
The thing that ties around your neck and then hangs way down in front.
My history wearing those is very brief and always for very specific reasons.
The first time I remember wearing one was at my high school graduation because my mother made me wear one.
I'm almost certain that my dad tied it for me because I did not know how to tie the tie.
The next time was after high school graduation when I worked as a courtesy clerk at the Kroger grocery store in Nashville, Tennessee.
And that was part of my uniform.
So I had to wear a tie every day all summer long.
And what was funny there is my dad tied the tie for me again and I left it tied the entire summer.
Every night when I got home from work I would just loosen the tie and pull it off over my neck and hang it up.
And then the next day I would put it back on, cinch it back up and wear it again.
So the same knot lasted for roughly 90 days.
So that was interesting I guess.
The first tie that I ever got that I really liked to wear was one that my mom got for me.
It was a polo tie.
And I don't remember exactly how that came to be whether I mentioned to her that I thought they were cool or whether she just picked one up one time and thinking that I might like it better than a regular tie.
But anyway, for whatever reason she got me a very nice looking polo tie with little turquoise stones in it.
And I will have a picture on a flicker album of all of my polo ties.
And one of them among those will be the very first one I got which is it's got the three blue turquoise stones.
And from that point on any time I had an occasion where I wanted to look dressy and wear a tie that's what I wore was that one polo tie.
I got another one in the summer when I was in I had a summer internship at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.
And I was staying with a woman out in Manassas, Virginia.
That's how I rented a room in her house.
And she gave me a polo tie that she had lying around.
She was divorced I think it used to belong to her husband or something anyway.
She gave it to me and it was it was damaged like it was a beautiful mother of pearl thing with a red string.
But the mother of pearl bit had come off.
And so before I was able to wear that one I think I only just started wearing it again maybe in the last two years.
I got some epoxy and epoxy the mother of pearl piece back onto the polo tie mechanism thing.
And so that was my second one.
The third one I got is still one of my favorites and it was one day I was I don't even remember how it happened.
But I came across on Etsy.
I found a woman who at that time was in Rochester, New York.
And I think now she's in Maryland somewhere.
But anyway she makes jewelry out of old circuit boards.
She has a company that she calls circuit breaker labs.
So she makes necklaces and tie pins and what else bracelet kind of things earrings.
All of them out of old circuit boards.
And one of the things she had on her Etsy site was a circuit board polo tie.
And so I bought it.
And I loved it.
I sent her a picture of me wearing it and now if you go and look at her website on the polo ties one of the images is of me wearing this red circuit board polo tie.
And after I got that one from her I liked it so much that I asked her well this is great.
But could you make me one that is not round but oval?
And I would like to have one that is kind of a mosaic of different color circuit boards.
And then another one that is modeled after the one that my mom got me first.
The turquoise stone one.
Could you make me one that's got three little circuit board gems, two small ones and then a large one.
And so she sent me some designs and I said man that looks great.
Yes I will pay for you to make those for me.
And so it cost a little bit more for each one of those because it was custom made.
But now I wear those as well.
And I recently got another one from her when I disassembled a dead Kindle DX.
The Kindle DX was a great big ebook reader, a Kindle.
But it has an enormous screen and it mine died.
It just stopped working.
And so I took it apart of course.
And one of the cool things I discovered about it was that on the circuit board was printed the words joystick ACI.
And for whatever reason I thought that was hilarious.
And so I thought I'm going to send this circuit board to Amanda.
Her name is Amanda Presky.
She runs circuit breaker lab.
So I said Amanda could I, if I send you the circuit board, would you make me a bull tie, including those words right there.
And she said of course.
Yes, send it on.
And so I sent it in a couple of weeks later.
She said it's done.
And so I bought it and now I wear it proudly and it's the envy of all my nerd friends.
So and then I've got a number of other kinds of bull tie novelty things.
I've got one with two guitars crossed.
I've got one that's a Fleur de Lise, which is the, it's part of the logo for this university.
I found that one on Etsy.
And so I'll wear that one on occasions around here where I need to show school pride I guess.
What other ones do I have?
Let me look.
I've got one with the state of Texas on it.
I'm going to have some pictures in the show notes showing all of these bull low ties.
It, by the way, in case I haven't mentioned a bull tie is a string tie that's got kind of a,
like a, like a broach kind of thing that will slide up and down the strings.
And then it's got two metal tips of various kinds to cap off the ends of the strings.
I've got one that's a kind of steampunk one that's a, it's clock works.
And then there is one with the comedy and tragedy masks that my former costumeer gave to me.
Here's one that my daughter gave to me for my birthday, I think.
It's got a guitar headstock on it.
And it says country music.
Then there is, oh, this one is really special to me.
I just, about maybe six months ago, I was going through some old photographs in a photo album.
And I saw a picture of my grandfather.
And I remember the picture very well, but I noticed a detail this time that I had never noticed before.
And I had forgotten about when he was alive.
He died 20 years ago, maybe.
But he was wearing a bull tie in this picture.
And I thought, oh man, I, I forgot that my grandfather wore bull ties.
And so I emailed my uncle who lived very nearby and took care of him and stuff.
And I said, is there any chance that you still have the bull tie that Grandpa wore?
And he said, well, let me look around, I'll see if I can find it.
So he emailed back either later that day of the next day and said, yeah, I found it.
Do you want it? And I said, yes, yeah, I do.
I would love to have that.
I would love to wear that.
You know, it would be a way to remember my grandfather fondly.
And also have another cool bull tie.
This one is of an American bald eagle.
And my grandfather loved eagles.
And so this was his tie.
And so now, every once in a while, I will wear my grandfather's bull tie.
And I like it very much.
Let's see, another one is, I wanted something to represent the state of Hawaii
because we go there at Christmas time to see my in-laws.
And this one is a portrait of King Kamehameha the first of Hawaii.
Let's see, I think there's just one more one that I bought when I was visiting Fort Worth, Texas,
is of an Indian headpinny mounted inside a horseshoe.
And is that all?
I think that's all.
Yep, so that's all the bull tie.
And so bull tie for the longest time was the only kind of tie I would wear.
But I'd always kind of thought, you know, I wouldn't mind trying a bow tie at some point.
But not a clipy on bow tie.
I mean, I have one of those for my tuxedo.
As a professional musician, I had a tuxedo.
I still have it.
And part of that outfit is a bow tie.
But it's a red one that clips on in the back.
And there would be no point in wearing a bow tie if you were clipping it on.
The only way to do it properly is to geek out and learn how to tie it.
And so I started looking for bow ties every time I went to the thrift store.
You know, the thrift stores that I've mentioned in many previous podcasts,
where I found all kinds of cool electronics and things like that.
But incredibly, there were hardly ever any bow ties.
In fact, I must have been looking for six months before I saw my very first bow tie
that was an actual tie and not a clip on thing.
There are copious amounts of long neckties, hundreds of them, boxes full of them.
And you can get them for two dollars a piece.
But many of them will have spots on them, because that's why else would somebody take them to goodwill
unless they had dipped it in their soup or something.
But one day, about two months ago, maybe, I finally saw a bow tie.
It was a beautiful silk bow tie, adjustable neck length.
And so I bought it for $1.99 and then spent the rest of the afternoon watching YouTube videos and practicing how to tie it.
Thankfully, we've got YouTube now, because it's not that easy to find somebody who knows how to tie one.
But I learned how to do it, and I wore it and got all kinds of positive feedback from it.
So one thing you'll find out if you start wearing a bow tie, especially a real one that you tie yourself,
is it's a great conversation piece, and I get lots of comments about it.
So then I ordered a few more off of eBay.
These are not nearly as nice a quality as the one I found at first, but they were brand new.
I think made in China, probably part polyester, part silk.
Then I bought a couple off of eBay that were true vintage silk ones with a very skinny, like a 1950s or 60s skinny kind of bow tie.
And they look great, but they're, if I tie and untie them too many more times, they're probably going to disintegrate.
So I think I might just wait until a really special occasion, and wear them, and then make sure I get a really good photograph of me wearing it,
so that it can kind of be memorialized that way.
Anyway, I really like wearing a bow tie.
There's a certain, I don't know if there's a, I don't know, perverse, non-conformist streak in me, but I've never liked ties,
but the bow tie appeals to me just fine, maybe because it's different, and it stands out.
And it's a conversation piece, and there's this perception that you have a certain life skill that not many people have if you know how to tie one.
In reality, the knot for a bow tie is the same knot that you use to tie your shoes.
Only the thing that you're tying is a lot fatter than a string, and so, and it's a little bit harder to see as well.
But if you have a mirror in front of you, then you can tie it without too much difficulty.
And in fact, I'm going to tie right here, live in front of your rear ears, I'm going to tie my tie.
This morning when I came to work, I just put the bow tie in my pocket instead of tying it, anticipating that I would tie it live on air in this podcast.
So I've just buttoned up my collar.
And what you do is you take the bow tie and drape it around your neck with...
I always use the left side hanging down lower than the right about two inches.
You take the... I should give these names or something like Bob and Jim.
Bob goes over Jim to this side, and then Bob comes up through the little hole neck and then ties...
Was that a simple knot? I don't even know what to call it.
But anyway, once you kind of get it up and through with the beginning of a knot started, you take Bob and put him over your shoulder there.
And then you take Jim over here and fold it in such a way that it makes the shape of the bow tie.
And then kind of hold it in front, pull Bob down across it, and then take Jim's two wings and pinch them together in front.
And then you take Bob and pinch that part of him together in such a way that it makes a bow thing.
And then you've got to jam it through this little hole that has been created behind Jim or Bob.
I can't... I've kind of lost track of who's who now.
Anyway, you push it through there.
And once you've done that, you've essentially got the knot in place.
And it's then just a matter of adjustment.
Right now, I have the bow tie tied, but it's a little bit loose and a little bit uneven.
And so the next few minutes you need to spend are adjusting it to get everything as nice as you can.
It's never going to look perfect.
And even if it does look perfect, that's probably because it's a clip-on and not a real bow tie.
If you see somebody wearing a perfectly tied bow tie, it's almost certainly not one that they tied themselves.
So I'm going to adjust, adjust, try to make the front and the back the same.
The way you tighten it up is you take the two... there's a loop on either side and you've got to kind of stick your fingers in there and pull the back sides of the loop in opposite directions.
And that cinch is up the knot.
And then you just kind of pull the wings back and forth, stick your thumbs under there and shape it until it looks in a way that you can tolerate.
It's a little uneven right now, but I think I'm going to leave it that way.
And then you flap your neck, the collar of the shirt back down, over the band.
Get the wings of the bow tie out in front.
This shirt has some funny things in the collar that are...
This works best with collars that have... the tips go almost straight to the side rather than pointy ones that point straight down or even worse button down collars.
I mean, you can wear a bow tie with a button down collar, but it's not advisable.
It's a little bit harder that way.
Alright, so anyway, I've got the bow ties in place. I'm ready for the day.
And I'm going to put in my photo gallery some pictures of me wearing various bow ties.
You can see what they look like.
But anyway, I like to pair them with a nice collared shirt and sometimes with a pair of nice jeans and a jacket over there.
So it's kind of dressy and maybe a little bit irreverent, but it's not overly formal.
This one is an orange one with a kind of paisley pattern on it.
I've got a couple of more sober ones that are just solid collars or very more sober patterns.
But anyway, I hope you've enjoyed hearing that.
I maybe have encouraged someone to go out and get a real bow tie and learn how to tie it and show your personality.
It's fun.
That's it. Thanks, y'all.
I will talk to you some other time. Bye.
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