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The Coolest T-Shirts Ever The t-shirt. Everyone loves 'em. Sure, there are some little preppy guys out there who *claim* they don't want to wear 'em and only trashy people would ever think about buying them -- but they're just a bunch of little pretty boys into self loathing...because they secretly love t-shirts too.
And I'm not exactly sure why
other people love them so much. I know why I like MY shirts,
though. And that's why I'm writing this -- so you can see the stories behind the COOLEST T-SHIRTS EVER. When I started thinking about writing this, I figured I'd only find about five or six shirts that I really liked. The selections below should tell you how often I actually look inside my closet...this is only about 10% of the shirts I actually own. I wasn't going to write about my Jewel shirt because it's just too goddamn embarrassing to admit I like her. OK, so I just mentioned it, but just forget I said that. Forgotten? OK. Let's start this off. Here's the first shirt I love.
OK, so maybe there's really not a story behind this particular shirt, but you can't really go wrong wearing a black t-shirt anywhere. Sure, the super frickin' long white t-shirts are pretty much the style with white boy rapper bitches out there, but the black t-shirt is still the standard in my closet. And along with those plain black shirts are black shirts with stuff on them. See, we buy shirts with stuff on them because...well, I don't know. It's free advertising for whomever is on the damn thing. Nothing says, "Hey, I like this band right here and their new/old album is the shit. Quit looking at me like that. I know there's blood on it," like a band t-shirt. So let's start with the Nirvana collection.
I used to love the hell out of Nirvana. I still kinda do, but it's one of those bands that you can only listen to at certain times. Anyway, I got this shirt from my buddy, Mark Simon. I went to his house one day, saw he'd bought it and I'm all like, DUDE, YOU GOTTA LET ME BORROW IT. Not to mention that's kinda gross -- guys borrowing each other's clothes -- but we were sorta OK with that, at least with t-shirts. So, I took the shirt, got in my car...and somehow, it just ended up in my t-shirt collection. Don't ask why I haven't gotten rid of it yet...I really don't know. It's got a million holes in it and the graphics on it are all cracked and fucked up. It doesn't even have that nice, worn-out t-shirt feel. It SMELLS old. Oh well. That's what makes it cool. I never wear it.
Back in the day, I lived in Japan for a couple of years. Yes, of COURSE I was there to hone my ninja skills, why the hell ELSE would I live there? Unless it was for work. Anyway, that's where I lived. I had this brand spankin' new Green Day shirt that I wore just about every chance I got, clean or dirty. One night, I was wearing it at a Japanese music bar thing -- I can't quite remember what it was called, but they played '80s music. Anyway, I've got my Black Flag ball cap and a Green Day shirt on. Some guy was in there dancing...long hair, greasy, dirty and just positively weird looking -- probably how I looked at the time without the hair. Nirvana was still my favorite band EVER at the time and my pals and I rocked out to 'em all the time. Green Day had just released "Longview" off the Dookie CD and I loved the hell outta that CD too. Well...anyway, this greasy guy was wearing the Nirvana -- Incesticide shirt. Yes, the one pictured above. I flipped out because I'd never seen the shirt before. Yelling over the music -- playing was "Come On Eileen" by Dexy and the Midnight Riders -- that I'd trade him shirts. No doubt, he saw mine was quite a bit newer (but not nearly as cool), so we switched shirts. And I spent the rest of the night -- and the weekend, for that matter -- in some other guy's greasy funk. I didn't mind. I had Nirvana. And when you had Nirvana, nothing else really came close. Except a good shower. Above, I wrote about my Black Flag cap...so I guess that leads us to:
I've been a Black Flag fan ever since I heard my brother playing the Damaged album years and years and years ago. Repo Man used to be one of my favorite movies just because they had the song T.V. Party in it. Holy crap, what a great song. Anyway, I bought this shirt from some store in Japan. It quickly became one of my favorite shirts because no one except the cool mother fuckers knew what it was. Four bars. Damn. I also got the four bars logo tattooed on my right arm in Korea, but that's another story and we're not talking about tattoos. We're talking about shirts I love. Henry Rollins was the last and longest frontman for Black Flag. He spent 1981 - 1986 with the guys until they broke up. Why's that matter? Well, besides forming part of a transition from the last paragraph, it'll lead to the NEXT series I like to call:
What a great shirt. What a great guy. I got this shirt as one of his spoken word shows. The guy reminds me too much of myself...at least the talking part. He can get up on stage and talk for three hours at a time. I don't know anyone else who can do that except me. Anyway, 40 years of service was meant to denote his birthday. He'd made a big deal about it over the past several years, so it was a big deal to the fans when he finally hit 40.
Ahhh...the song that brought Rollins Band more into the mainstream. When Liar hit the scenes, everyone loved it. Well, except the music wussies who don't like good music. For the people who just never heard the damn song, they were completely clueless, even if "Rollins Band" was written on the sleeve. OK, so let's get away from stupid Rollins Band stuff. I actually cut three shirts like the Rollins shirts above because...well, it's just overkill to write THAT much about what amounts to the same shirt.
< I picked up this classy thing when they played with Rocket from the Crypt in San Diego. What a great show. The great thing about this shirt is the wear and tear on it. OBSERVE:
See the greatness?! There's no way a shirt like this CAN'T possibly be cool. I remember I wore this shirt unintentionally on Easter Sunday, 1998...whatever day that was. Anyway, I was outside waiting for a friend of mine to pick me up and these two old ladies walked by. Because it's got Jesus on the shirt, one of them said, "You know, I think it's so great that the youth today are getting into Jesus so much. That's a great shirt to wear today." Yeah, she thought it was some kinda Jesus freak t-shirt FOR DA YOUF. And I wasn't about to get into telling her what the shirt was actually for. It probably would've ruined her whole day. Maybe I should have since she called me "the youth." I think I was 23 at the time.
See, Slayer can't get enough of themselves. That's why the band's name is written on the shirt FOUR TIMES. Anyway, I picked up this shirt in Japan a while back. I was walking down a street shortly before everything started closing up and saw it hanging up in the window. I had to have it...even though $35 is way too damn much to pay for a long-sleeved shirt. It's still one of my favorite shirts to wear in the winter because it's so warm -- WITH THE FIRES OF HELL. Slayer was my introduction into SUPER heavy music back when most of you were listening to your moms sing to you in your cribs. Slayer was great. Slayer took no shit from anyone. I still think stuff like Slipknot and Mudvayne PALE in comparison to these guys. Remember how I wrote earlier all my shirts were black? Well, that's not exactly true. Keep reading.
I really dig this shirt even though it's white. This was the first clothing item I ever bought on Ebay. I thought it was just damn cool to wear a straightedge shirt, mostly because I thought straightedge kids were cool ever since I first heard about them. I wear it all the time. I just keep an eye out for real straightedge kids because I smoke like a chimney. I'm pretty sure one of these days, I'll be out wearing the shirt and smoking...and I'll get my ass beat by a bunch of pipe-wielding 15-year-old kids who really know what straightedge is.
Ah...my first foray into online writing. Back before I seriously started writing online, I submitted a story to Chris over at Crunchable.net. I really liked their site and the way it was configured, so I figured I'd write in and see if I could write for them also. He dug it (I guess) because he posted it a couple of weeks later. I love the site and still read it every chance I get. I think I was linked from there by the great and now-defunct Whatever-Dude. Unfortunately, I haven't written anything for them since that submission...so if you're reading this, Chris -- sorry, bro. I'll turn something in SOMEtime. Anyway, I figured if I was going to write for 'em, I should probably buy one of the shirts and advertise...so I did. It's one of my favorite shirts because it reminds me that someone actually thought what I wrote was pretty decent. That's as opposed to ugly decent. I wear this shirt all the time with the LAST SHIRT:
OK, so this isn't a t-shirt, technicallly. It's more of a "t-shirt accessory," if you ask me. Together with the Crunchable shirt, I am an unmatched FORCE IN THIS WORLD. I actually do wear this at stuff where I'm supposed to "dress up"...you know, Christmas and holidays and crap like that. I think it's funny. I don't like dressing up anyway, so screw 'em. Yep...so now you know which shirts are my favorite. I do have to say this column didn't turn out nearly as well as I thought it would. It actually took me four days to write all this because I've been sleeping and dicking around. Dedicated to Chris at Crunchable.net for being so...................crunchable. And cool. R note: This column was first written for www.HtotheP.com, which is apparently in the works of being reinstated. Go on over there and show Smokey and Capt. Jack some love and affection like Nelson. |
