What kind of a person are you? Not like, “good” or “bad” or “stupid” or “smart”,.. more like “Batman Fan” or “Spam Eater” or “Weezer Fan” or “Avid as Fuck Pure Lard Reader” or what have you. Yeah, yeah, this isn’t a new idea: People can be defined by what they like. Very High Fidelity (book and/or movie—both terrific), I know, but it’s not a crazy way of thinking by my crazy way of thinking. Most times, when two people are talking, they’re both just waiting for the other to shut up so they can give out opinions or tidbits so as to show who they are/what they’re like. No? Just me? Bull horse’s ass.
So, what about the busy 21st century person? We’ve got jobs and Internet and TV and video games! What time do we have to tactfully bring up in conversation upon conversation our likes and dislikes? Poop, maybe you do, but I sure as hell don’t. Smallville is on tonight, and I ain’t got time to actually talk about my favorite band because I gotta plop my ass down in front of the TV. If I were wearing a Smallville shirt, you’d know this.
Ah HAH!!!
Too subtle? Try this:
AH HAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What if, instead of letting a conversation flow naturally from, say, work, to oatmeal to sandwiches to music to Weezer, I, oh say,.. wore a Weezer tee shirt? Maybe I wouldn’t have to go through all that other boring crap to flat out tell you Pinkerton is their best album or how they’re even better in concert! Maybe you’d just see that picture of Rivers and his group of nerds on my chesty tee shirted chest and know that if I’m wearing the shirt I must dig the band. You’d think, “This fat fool is a Weezer fan!” Then you’d decide “cool” or “not cool”, and all I had to do was wear a getting-too-tight-need-to-stop-eating-so-many-Qdoba-burritos tee shirt.
My family caught onto this idea years ago. “D.J. likes Superman, does he? Still hasn’t outgrown that? Well, well, well, here’s a Superman tee shirt! Birthday present dilemma solved! Oh wait, here’s another one in a different color! Let’s just tuck that away until Jesus’s B-day!” At last count I’d received eight different Superman tee shirts: the classic blue with red and yellow “S”, a black one with a gold “S”, a yellow one with a blue and white “S”, a gray and white cammo “S” -- even a super-patriotic American flag “S” to name more than a few! After seeing me wear a Superman tee shirt everyday of the week, people know, without asking, that the “big, doughy guy with lock jaw and sad, tired eyes” has a strange obsession with men in tights; Superman in particular!
Good God, man, I cannot stress enough how much easier it is just to advertise your likes on a price inflated tee shirt than to have to somehow bring up, oh, saaaaay, Ben Folds Five or Clerks in a conversation at work about,.. uh, work crap, you know? You see the shirt, you know person wearing said shirt is down. (The opposite can be done with the ironically worn tee. Take Jack Black in “High Fidelity”--that flick again-- wearing a Yanni shirt. IRONY! He was making fun of that mustached creep by wearing his shirt in an “ironically”!)
Hey, I’m not advocating or condoning being a walking advertisement. I don’t believe I’m qualified to advocate or condone anything, but if I can get someone to ask me about my Madman Comics shirt or, heaven forbid, my “Pure Lard” shirt, I can either find a kindred spirit, or turn someone on to something I like. Entrap them in my web of good time geekiness. Sure, I’ll be a living ad for shit I like. Helps the shit I like. Helps me find other like-minded people. Covers my womanly chest. Good for everybody.
So bust out your novelty tees because sometimes you CAN judge a book by its cover! (Books??? You thought we were talking tee shirts and all of the sudden I start writing about books and their covers or some such. Off subject? Noooo,.. THINK about it, duder. Okay, okay, try this: The “book” being judged by its “cover” is a person and the “cover” of said “book” that is really a person is the novelty tee shirt! Get it now? No? Shite, man. I don’t know how else to ‘splain it. Read it again, doofus. Damn.) |
