By NADIA PFLAUM
For this one, I need to set the scene:
Ces Cru is on stage at the Riot Room on Saturday night, and the foot of the stage is a blender of bobbing heads, flailing hands and charmingly scruffy college girls dancing. Most of the guys in the crowd are wearing the hip-hopper's uniform of an over-sized printed tee, dark jeans and sneakers. It's chilly outside but steamy and moist inside, in every sense of the reason that people get grossed out by the word "moist."
And then there's this guy, standing safely behind the eye of the dance party, eyes glued to the stage, mouth agape and wondrous:
His name is James Taylor, no kidding, and while his outfit was notable because it was juxtaposed with the totally-different style of everyone else around him, Taylor's style kicks ass by itself.
He was happy that someone noticed. "I put a lot of care into my outfit," he says of the sweater he got at Nordstrom, the Ralph Lauren shirt, his Urban Outfitters jeans and custom Nikes ordered off the 'net.
He rocked a handmade necklace from Chile. I noted that he could get kicked out of the P&L district for the sin of male jewelry. He said he was well aware of the dress code there: once, the security guards made him check his dad's Rolex at the door (which sounds way more like "mugging" than "enforcing"). It's bullshit, he said.
Taylor's getting his master's degree in creative writing, plays guitar for a band called Snuggle Party, and has a pretty great story behind his name. See, his mom was a strict Jehovah's Witness when she had him, and her family did not approve of his father, who was not a Jehovah's Witness. The relationship fell apart briefly while his mother had him. On his birth certificate, his mother named him Pooky. At the hospital, his grandfather secretly erased the "Pooky" and changed the name to "James," thinking the kid would have the last name of Tanner. But in fact, his last name was to be Taylor, so instead of Pooky Clayton Tanner, he became James Tanner Taylor.
"People who aren't old enough to know who James Taylor make fun of me for the JTT thing," he told me.
JTT?
"Jonathan Taylor Thomas," he explained.
Aha. Well it could be worse. He could still be named Pooky.
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