The Summerounds Trilogy: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3!

From the dark hollows of Appalachia to the steamy bayous of Louisiana, Austindale Crocket has spent a lifetime hunting the largest and most ferocious beasts ever to roam the backwoods of his beloved South. Possumzilla (seen above), King Coon, even the dreaded Saber-Toothed Squirrel --they all met their fate at Crocket's mighty hands. Among his fellow outdoorsmen, he is known as a hunter of singular skill and courage, a man who once, bereft of his trusty Winchester rifle, laid low a one-ton, 200-point buck deer with little more than a machete and his own gleaming incisors.

Only last month, the intrepid hunter spent a week in the wilds of the Everglades tracking the Skunk Ape, finally bringing about the creature's demise with a shot from his crossbow, followed by a deathly submission hold that even his mighty, malodorous adversary could not overcome. Soon after that adventure, Crocket returned to Evenfall, his stately manor in the Shanandoah Valley, and it was there on the porch that his traditional Sunday afternoon of whiskey and selected passages from the Iliad was interrupted by a call on his satellite phone.

"Good lawd," he said softly, when he heard the news. The fair city of Pensacola, Florida, was under attack. And this creature would be his greatest challenge yet: More fearsome than Ol' Cerebus, the vicious, three-headed bloodhound, and more vile than the Chewbacabra, the mysterious and grotesque creature of the Okeefenokee Swamp, known for a glandular discharge redolent of rancid chewing tobacco. Crockett quickly packed his hunting implements and a fresh pair of Summerounds and headed south in his hot-air balloon to face off against none other than the Manateedon.

As he floated over Pensacola, Crocket soon caught sight of the horrible abomination as it waddled down the heart of the city, entire families impaled on its gigantic tusks, city buses crushed beneath its mass of blubber. Crocket strapped on his parachute and dove from his balloon, streaking through the humid summer morning until he landed squarely on the back of the megafaunal monster! The Manateedon bellowed terribly and tried to slash at Crocket with its razor-sharp whiskers, but Crocket, nimble in his airy, lightweight Summerounds, easily parried the vile cryptid's blows and then responded by climbing into its mouth and scorching its innards with his trusty flame-thrower.

Well, the beast cried mightily and with its last remaining strength, it made its way to the beach, where it collapsed in Pensacola's powder-white sands. A huge, bikini-clad crowd cheered Crocket as he emerged from the Manateedon's mouth, he and his Summerounds none the worse for wear.

"To all the beasts who walk the Earth, swim in the sea, or fly in the air," Crocket cried, "know that I am your master!" And then, as if to assert his dominion over the world's wildlife once and for all, he snatched a pelican from the air and gobbled the bird whole.

Posted by cordarounds at 06:49 PM | Permalink

A team of scientists from Cordarounds Labs traveled to the famed leisure proving grounds of Worthington P. Chesterfield’s wide and gracious front porch to put our horizontal seersucker pants to the test--the Southern Gentleman test.

Under rigorous analysis, Summerounds scored high marks in all manner of Southern Gentlemanly arts (see findings on right). And why shouldn't they? After all, these pants were sewn in San Francisco's South of Market district by ladies who hail from southern China. And you can acquire a pair for well south of $100. It doesn’t get much more Southern than that, does it? Until our pant scientists figure out how to fabricate them out of sweet tea, we don’t think so.

 Lindland’s Summerounds (see big picture) have been engineered specifically for casual use in hazy, lazy days of summer--on porches, on beaches, on stoops, preferably with an iced beverage in hand. In test after clinical test, Summerounds are precisely 90 degrees cooler than tradition vertical seersucker. A fact not lost on Worthington himself, who declares, “ and I do declare…you’re far cooler in suckers whose puckers go‘round”

VISIT THE CORDAROUNDS STORE TO SEE INCREDIBLE PANTS, SHORTS, AND MORE. 

Posted by cordarounds at 11:03 PM | Permalink

SAN FRANCISCO, April 16 — Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Francisco, but a tourist recently discovered that you can leave your arm there as well. That is, when local fashionistas convince you to stick your arm into a dark and foreboding grotto – a grotto that happens to be occupied by a large and remorseless sea lion, whose insatiable appetite for human flesh is exceeded only by his remarkable capacity to accurately predict the onset of the summer fashion season!

Perpetually shrouded in a thick fog, San Franciscans have for years employed a most unusual method for figuring out if warm, summer weather is in the cards, a time-tested ritual that has drawn comparisons to Punxsutawney Phil, the famous weather-predicting groundhog. Each April, Bay Area designers dupe an unsuspecting visitor to reach into the bone-strewn lair of Frisco Frank, an impossibly ferocious sea lion, and attempt to feed him a crab. If the sea lion takes the crustacean, then chances are the summer swelter will be late. If, however, Frank rips the person’s arm off with his powerful jaws, then – rejoice! – white-pants weather is just around the corner. Indeed, the sight of a horrified tourist stumbling along Fisherman’s Wharf as his or her bloody stump flails in the cool morning breeze means it’s time to start buying the latest summer fashion – like Summerounds horizontal seersucker pants and shorts.

“Clearly, the long, hot summer is upon us,” said Cordarounds founder Chris Lindland, coolly observing Frisco Frank devour tourist Todd Murphy’s left arm. “Time for cold, refreshing beverages and cool, seersucker pants and shorts like these."

This year’s Summerounds come in new colors, with new linen liners and more pucker. They’re stylish and also surprisingly high-tech – reportedly at least 90 degrees cooler than traditional seersucker pants.

Historical note: Few doubt Frisco Frank’s powers of prognostication or sense of style. Legend has it that Levi Strauss, another notable San Francisco pant maker, would con hapless gold prospectors into feeding the sea lion with arms swathed in different fabrics. Frank’s extraordinary appetite for denim inspired Straus to design jeans, particularly in the color blue.

Posted by cordarounds at 10:57 PM | Permalink

The last time riverboat gambler Beauregard P. Delacroix faced the mechanical man in a game of cards, he had lost his money, his home, and his prized Appaloosas. Worse, he had lost his cool – falling for the gambling gadget’s bluff when he could least afford to.

He blamed his pants.

“These pants, these accursed seersucker pants!” he cried after the devastating loss. “They do make my loins sweat so! How may a gentleman stay fresh and tidy during sizzling games of chance when his holy unmentionables do boil like the crawdad in a kettle!” As Delacroix descended the gangplank, he stripped off his heretofore lucky seersucker s and tossed them into the turgid waters of the Mississippi River. “To hell with you, stifling cloth!” he announced.

And then he heard the laughter. Above him, the dastardly iron contraption and its flesh-and-blood masters from the University of Mississippi Engineering Department were taunting him from the poop deck. Delacroix spat in disgust. He vowed they would meet again.

With time, Delacroix rebuilt his fortune to even greater heights than before. By 1879 he had more horses and hogs than any man in the state. He owned turpentine warehouses, a gin distillery and even the Vicksburg Snuffatorium, which he had won in a game of whist. But all of it was meaningless without a rematch against his nemesis.

His chance came one sweltering August, when the heat was so fierce that livestock stood rendering in the fields, beards spontaneously caught on fire, and the streets ran thick with lava-hot molasses. In this hellbroth, Delacroix faced off again against the mechanical monstrosity at the Magnoliaville Annual Poker Tournament, putting on the line everything that he had worked hard to reacquire.

The contest lasted into the wee hours of the morning, until only Delacroix and his metallic opponent remained. They had bet nearly everything they had, then the metal man placed on the table the deed to Farthington Manor. The sweating crowd gasped, and the contraption let loose with a triumphant puff of steam from its exhaust portal.

“If the action is too hot for you,” the machine chirped and whined, “best you stay out of the kitchen!”

Had Delacroix been wearing ordinary pants, the action would have indeed been too hot, but not this time. Not when he was wearing a new pair of light and airy horizontal seersucker Summerounds, which kept him cool despite the furnace-like heat of the moment.

“I see your bet, you despicable mechanical cur!” he ejaculated, laying down the deed to the Snuffatorium. The machine was nervous now, and almost hesitantly it laid down its cards, revealing a full house.
“Oh my stars, how I shall enjoy summering in fair Farthington Manor,” Delacroix said coyly, showing his royal flush.

Unable to process the defeat, the machine overheated and exploded, maiming its devious masters with searing shrapnel. Delacroix, meanwhile, was deluged with winsome young lasses, who begged to make his acquaintance in the most human of ways.

And with that, his Summerounds were removed far more quickly than he had anticipated.

Posted by cordarounds at 10:38 AM | Permalink