Preshrunk

I’m just going to come out and say that I’m not quite sure that Joey Ramone would really approve of a couture reproduction of a cheeky tee that he used to rock. I mean, forty dollars?! Really? For that sort of scratch, it better be printed on a really nice blank. And I’m not talking about American Apparel, either. I was thinking about something more along the lines of an organic cotton and bamboo blend, hand sewn by a very peaceful vegan co-op outside of Austin.

Worn Free doesn’t actually say what blanks they use tho. There’s no mention of if they’re fitted or not either. If there’s some magical page or FAQ that I missed, I’d love to see it. Not knowing that information makes me really leery of even buying one to check it out.

Despite my complaints about cost, these shirts are pretty rad. To the point where I’ve actually had dreams of owning them. You might think that’s pretty common for someone as obsessed with tees as I am — but the fact that I even remember one of my dreams is actually pretty remarkable.

All they need to do is drop the price point to something a bit more reasonable. Even at $25.00, I’d buy half a dozen of them in a heartbeat. Until then, I’ll look on from afar and wait for a sale…

$40.00 | Credit | URL | M: XS - 2XL , F: S - L

Okay, it’s time to stop pretending that I’m too good for Urban Outfitters. So what if it’s pretty much a glorified Old Navy for the hipster set? I’m getting too old to put up that whole “this is beneath me” front when it comes to shopping places.

Besides, they have really rad stuff there sometimes. Like the pair of Onitsuka Tigers I picked up last week. Normally I’m a Mexico 66 type, but for some reason the Ultimate 81’s were calling to me.

And you can count this tee amongst the awesome things at UO. I very well could be biased seeing as how I’m a pretty big a Joy Division fan — and this is a take on the album art for Unknown Pleasures — but it’s pretty well executed nonetheless. It’s a pity that the largest size would fit my rotund gut like an overstuffed sausage casing, but I’m working on fixing that. Maybe I’ll be able to pick one of these puppies up off eBay in a few months after I drop a few dozen pounds. *crosses fingers*

Update: Denver pointed out in the comments that this can be found for $12.00 less at Karmaloop with a much cooler name — The Joy of Sound. Thanks, yo!

$34.00 | Credit | URL | M: S - XL

To help promote her new book “The Whuffie Factor” — which I’m actually really looking forward to reading — Tara Hunt has posted a collection of video interviews over at Viddler. How is this of interest to the t-shirt set, you ask? Well, one of said interviews is a nice five minute chat with Jake Nickell and Jeffrey Kalmikoff from Threadless.

In the interview, they offer a pretty quick rundown of how Threadless came to be. And while that might fall under “old news” for some of y’all, I’m sure that at least a few of you might find it interesting. Besides, it makes for pretty compelling filler until I can cut time out of my schedule to post another shirt… ;)

Yeah, this is yet another Experimental Jetset riff. No, I don’t really care. When it comes down to it, I love these tees — and as long as folks keep making rad ones, I’ll keep running them.

Besides, a tee listing off the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is pretty fucking metal. And seeing as how the world can start folding in on itself any minute now, who isn’t ready for a little fire and blood raining from the sky? I know I am.

It’s not like it’s something I want to happen — but I wouldn’t be surprised if some crazy shit started going down, y’know. Might as well try to save myself from those biblical cowboys by playing like a fan. Maybe the horsemen will spare me. Or perhaps they’ll be merciful and kill me before they drop a ton of shit on the rest of the world. *shrug* I’m not really picky…

$20.00 | PayPal | URL | M: S - 2XL

Man, I totally feel for Clinton from Head Hoods. While the cost of living in Los Angeles isn’t quite as expensive as New York, living here can still put the hurt on a brother’s wallet.

But while all I do is piss and moan about how expensive everything is, Clinton actually managed to do something to try and increase his cash flow. And it’s sort of genius. By creating a tee that broadcasts the fact that he can’t afford to love New York and selling it to the standard Willamsburg hipster types — who might not be able to afford it either, but for still have the disposable income for yet another clever t-shirt — he’s making the scratch he needs to be able to do so.

Well, I’m hoping that he is at the very least — because I love this shirt.

$14.99 | PayPal | URL | M: XS - XL

I’m actually really psyched that Sandwich agreed to do this. For those of you that don’t know him, Adam is one third of the podcasting super team at You Look Nice Today. Along with Merlin Mann and Scott Simpson, Adam takes part in an almost weekly “journal of emotional hygiene” that is often so hilarious that I start crying because I’m laughing so hard.

No, seriously. If I reviewed podcasts instead of t-shirts, I’d go on about YLNT all the time. So go listen already! You won’t be sorry, I promise.

Adam’s also keeps a pretty rad tumblelog, starts dance crazes and drops gems on the Twitter every now and then.

Okay, enough of my yammering. Let’s let the guy do a little show and tell…

I’m a simple man. I like a shirt that fits. Form takes precedence over content on almost any day. I’m also a beefy man. This means, as many of my beefy brothers can attest to, most of the t-shirts out there, having been printed on American Apparel stock for the starving orphan, do horrendous things to my self-esteem. It’s rare to find a shirt that doesn’t either hug the shoulders, upper arms, pits and belly for dear life or drape half way down the arm to the elbows and obliterate the crotchal region. But when it happens, I’ll wear that shirt until someone tells me not to (which happens).

It wasn’t until after I started wearing my KUBRICK t-shirt a lot that people started to comment on how I resembled him. Having decided that removing my beard would never be a good idea, I had no choice but to own the resemblance. Once, somebody asked in earnest why I had a picture of myself on my t-shirt.

My friend Raza once remarked that he’d like to see a similar t-shirt printed in honor of a more marginal, lesser known or respected filmmaker, somebody obscure and without any discernable following. So for his next birthday, I went to zazzle.com and had a shirt printed up in tribute to the unheralded Ed Zwick. Why Zwick? I don’t know.

When I guest posted at kottke.org last December, I linked to a new energy drink called Brawndo, based on a fictional drink from the movie ‘Idiocracy’, and the post ended up starting a little discussion of what we came to call Defictionalized Goods. But strangely, it wasn’t the first time kottke.org had connected me with a Defictionalized Good in the form of a t-shirt. He and I have a shared worship of the David Foster Wallace novel Infinite Jest, so when he linked to an online shop selling a t-shirt for the Enfield Tennis Academy, the academy of the novel’s hero Hal Incandenza, I absolutely had to have it. It’s printed on American Apparel stock, but it’s a rare instance where the fit doesn’t make me want to cut myself.

This one’s off the beaten path for a t-shirt blog, but my go-to shirt for form over content will always be the Fruit of the Loom crew neck in white, which I buy in packs of three at Target. They’re best once they’ve been allowed to ferment for a while and begin to develop a delicate patina of yellowy pit stain. And they bring out the Stanley Kowalski in any man. That is to say, you’ll drink too much and method act all over the place. But God, you’ll look good doing it. I mean, look at me! (Pictured.)

Alternate to the white Fruit of the Loom is my other favorite, the black crew neck t-shirt from Banana Republic, which can be had for a little more money in economy packs of one, but they’re Banana, so you know the workmanship is quality. At one point, I figured I’d simplify my life and go all Steve Jobs by wearing one of these every day. Problem is, they are not kind to a dry scalp, my friend.

This last one is a one-off I did for my private collection. It’s intention is to convey the excitement and anticipation I get in the brief moment before a movie trailer starts. And the trailer, itself is a brief moment of anticipation, so really the MPAA certificate is metamoment of metaanticipation, which is, you know, pretty deep stuff. Film school. I designed versions for Red Band and DVD certificates, but never printed any. It was a pet project from another time.

You can see that none of my favorites are particularly design-oriented. I’ve never been much of a connoisseur of design. The period of men’s apparel where it was impossible to find a shirt or coat without shit scribbled all over it, that was a difficult time for me. I was one of those fuddy-duddies complaining that you can’t find a plain t-shirt anymore.

Design oriented or not, that Enfield shirt is pretty sweet. Considering the recent news about David Foster Wallace tho, I really wish I’d ran this feature on Friday as I’d originally intended. *sigh*

Thanks for playing along, Adam!

Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise has sort of spoiled my opinion of hippos. For those of you that have never been, there’s a section of the ride where a pool of them are wiggling their ears and blowing bubbles. This is supposed to signal their intent to charge the boat and fuck some shit up.

To keep everybody “safe” tho, the skipper fires a gun into the air hoping he (or she) will end up spooking the angry beasts. And they always do. Even if it would be more fun to have the boat get shaken a little bit. You know, sort of like it was getting bumped by a hippo who is getting ready to attack. Seriously, that would be rad. On top of that, it’d freak out the tourists a bit — which is always fun as far as I’m concerned. You listening, Imagineering?

This experience has taught me two things that are possibly incorrect about these fair creatures tho:

1. Hippos are always PMS’ing. Because of this they’ll attack anything that gets close.
2. Wave a gun around — even a starter pistol full of blanks — and they’ll back right down.

Wikipedia says they’re pretty cranky by nature, so that much is true. But if you flash a piece, it sounds like they’ll still run up on you. Like the Suge Knight of the animal kingdom.

So don’t buy the Disney hype. If you see a hippo and aren’t on safari or in a zoo, put as much space between you and it as possible. More so if you’re wearing any sort of zebra print.

$22.50 | PayPal | URL | M: S - 2XL, F: XS - L

I’m Soy Vegan (for the third day in a row), originally uploaded by 摩根.

Perhaps it’s because I live in California — but I’ve recently realized that I’ve kind of got a lot of vegan friends. Like to the point where they ready to overtake the carnivores and omnivores in the numbers. Since they’re the awesome sort of vegans that don’t fret over me loving bacon and have rants about not being able to locate really good fake cheese tho, I really don’t mind so much. Actually, they’re some of the raddest people I know. And they’ve got kick ass food to boot.

Case in point, one of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles is a vegan place by the name of Pure Luck. If you read that Yelp review, you might see why. Faux pulled pork and carnitas. Sweet potato fries. Plantain tacos. One of the best rotations of microbrewed beer on-tap. Just thinking about it is making me hungry.

Anyhow, pretty much everything there is absolutely fucking delicious. In fact, if I could always have one within 10 minutes of me, I’d probably end up going vegan. But until that day comes, I’ll settle for being an omnivore.

So to all my peeps who don’t do the dairy or carne, this one off tee (made by the wearer, if I understand correctly) is for you. Shine on you crazy diamonds!

Want to share a rad one-off or ultra rare tee with us? We’d love to hear about it!

By no stretch of the imagination is this shirt the hands down best one that I’ve run since I’ve been back. The design is just sorta okay more than anything. I don’t want to knock it too much tho. I mean, it’s still better than anything I could have done.

Also, this shirt isn’t even printed on something that resembles a lightweight, fitted tee. In fact, it’s on a boxy Gildan blank. And while I hate to sound like a snob, I should point out that 80% of the t-shirts I wear now are printed on American Apparel 2001’s. It comes down to comfort more than anything.

But this is a Lebowski shirt. So that means that I have to run it. That’s right — I’m doing an entry on this tee merely because it contains a callback to my favorite movie on the entire planet. I hope that’s cool with y’all.

And even tho I came off a little insulting in the first part of this entry, I’ve gotta say that I appreciate this design quite a bit more than some of the other ham fisted ones I’ve seen around the internets. At the very least, the kids on the shirt are holding hands with a wheelchair bound Jeffrey Lebowski. They didn’t have to bother with digging up or creating that artwork, but they did. Actually, that’s a pretty nice touch.

Okay, so maybe I was sort of a dick. But everything is cool now that I’ve seen the error of my ways. Well, at least I think it is. *shrug* Fuck it. Let’s go bowling.

$19.00 | PayPal | URL | M: S - 2XL

Olga over at Fabulist has pointed us at this really clever limited-edition embroidered toast tee with a whole grip of customization options. Not only do you get to pick the doneness level of your toast by picking the color of your shirt, but you also get a fancy cinnamon swirl and a glow-in-the-dark pat of butter.

Why the butter is glow-in-the-dark, I’ll never know — but I appreciate the fact that it is. In fact, I sort of see it as an added bonus. I mean, they didn’t have to do that. A bit of white plastisol would have been just fine. It wasn’t good enough for Tiny Run tho. And honestly, I kind of appreciate that.

If you’re digging on this shirt as much as I am, you have until September 21st to scoop one up. After that, they go bye bye. So hurry, won’t you?

$20.00 | PayPal | URL | M: XS - 2XL, F: XS - 2XL