Even John Wayne Wore Loafers
My text piece shirts are snippets from my own writings…
You can purchase the shirt here—-https://www.sams.fyi/made-to-measure/p/light-dancing-on-the-water-like-bob-fosse-in-organic-cotton-hemp-and-recycled-poly
My shirt, Light Dancing on The water like Bob Fosse, comes from my writing, Even John Wayne Wore Loafers. Read it Below.
Even John Wayne Wore Loafers.
Aaron Michael Skolnick. 2026
Even John Wayne wore loafers is all I can think about as I make my way to the stream in the back of my property for my daily dip. That thought, Even John Wayne wore loafers crosses my mind several times a week. I guess that’s not really a thought as much as it is a sentence. In this moment, walking back to my stream, that sentence has become a thought as it’s expanded and I am now responding to the initial sentence in my head, Even John Wayne wore loafers.
The water is getting louder and there is great evidence of the heavy rains recently, last years leaves, shades of brown and grey are mushy and though I am wearing shoes, that sound gives me goose pimples, it always has. I imagine that whatever item(s) are squishing are touching my bare skin.
Light flickers between the trees, the sun is now all the way on the western side of the property. I should probably stop staring at the dead leaves mixed with the young foliage growing around it and pay attention.
Oh no, I loved that tree, one of my favorite trees fell.
I love putting my tote bag down with all of its contents on the little rocky ‘beach’; tarot cards, a canvas towel, water bottle, something to crochet or knit, oh and my notebook to record my daily tarot pull. I don’t know why I feel compelled to bring all of this down here. After all I usually just get in the water and walk back and forth.
Stripping down to my underwear in the back of the property always make me feel so vulnerable, I start rehearsing what I would say to a passerby or a neighbor who decided to go for a dip at the same time, but the reality is in the four years of me coming back here I have seen four people and in all very different circumstances. Also I don’t mind being seen in my underwear, but the anticipation of someone else’s reaction always gets me. I guess there is also something to being surrounded by giant trees that cross over the stream and create a wall to trap all of the sounds being made in the water that adds to that vulnerability of stripping down to my underwear.
As I step out into the water in my non-slip water shoes, Even John Wayne wore loafers re-enters my brain. This time with an air of humor, looking down at my water shoes that make me think of lesbians I used to hangout with. I often associate practical shoe wear with lesbians of a certain era, good ol’ fashion dykes, a Subaru outback with stickers from Lilithfair and Bonaroo, and a debate on the new Tegan and Sarah album.
The water is fast and quite deep today, it’s coldness shocks my system as it grazes my upper thigh, there is something softly erotic about it that couldn’t exist if someone else were out here with me. Even if that someone was a person I was having sex with, maybe even more if it were someone I was having sex with. The water touches the spot where hair doesn’t grow caused by my pants rubbing it over the years. I decide to crouch the tiniest bit to let the water cup the bottom of my ass, my balls, and my cock head. Not so erotic now.
In the middle of the stream; I don’t quite remember making my way to this spot, I must have been lost in thought again.
I think about wearing my penny loafers back here all of the time, and sadly thats true. I never know when I want to pretend to be Fred Astaire, what an athlete. Michael Jackson got the idea of dancing in loafers from Fred Astaire, he also learned to break in those loafers before performances from Astaire.
The light dancing on the water cuts like a knife across my retina, making my spastic blinking in response to lose my thought on Michael Jackson and Fred Astaire. The rocks are causing the fast moving water to act out more than usual.
The Light dancing on the water like Bob Fosse, angular movements that make one aware of ones own body. Awkward gestures that simply make you go why? Sometimes thats all we need, is why, to help us make a whole new world. I love Bob Fosse, especially the moments where all of the dancers bodies seem to be drawn together by a magnet and only at the last moment, right before contact an invisible force causes them to repel and go to their own worlds dancing. An elegance that can only created outside of nature when a schism in the timeline of life and culture create someone who’s eyes digest all of the information in front of them at a rate no one can comprehend, to spit back at us moments that lead us into the future.