Shirt the Thirteenth: Tendance Groucho

I got this at Comics and Collectibles one of the first few years it was open in the 1980s. Wore it til it fell apart. Got it again later from Northern Sun.

It became fun again when the Obama Presidential campaign cranked up.

Shirt the Twelfth: I Told You Never Trust a Monkey

Today's shirt is a tee from Engrish on why not to trust a monkey: They never take responsibility.

...the HORRID HORRID HORRID CREATURES.

Shirt The Eleventh: You're Hearing

this music in your head right now:

courtesy of this awesome shirt.

Thanks, Stephen!

Shirt the Tenth: Live From Memphis

I got this shirt at the 2009 Live From Memphis Music Video Showcase.

It's an Alex Warble.

Shirt the Ninth: Gesundheit.

I got this dashiki from Freewheelin Frank's in the early 1990s. No other item of clothing I've ever owned has retained its colors like this, by which I mean better than this, because the photo doesn't do it justice.

The tag reads "GLOBAL IMPORTS Made In Thailand." Tres multiculti.

Shirt the Eighth: The Order of the Triad

GO TEAM VENTURE!

This is an official VB T-Shirt of the Week Club shirt. It illustrates perfectly the relationship between a shirt's belovedness/irreplacability and its propensity for getting torn, stained, or washed in the wrong temperature.

It went through in warm ONCE and it's two shades lighter, damnit.

When I wear this shirt, I am a Triad member. Despite being a white woman, I am Jefferson Twilight, and any Blaculas out there better keep it in mind when they see me coming.

"There is NEVER a 'Triad emergency.'"

Shirt the Seventh: Second Mona Mohawk

Once I had an original (?) Mona Mohawk shirt. This isn't it. This is a shirt I bought over a decade later via online charity auction and my second most expensive T-shirt ever. Worth every penny.

Say, I got thirty shirts. I'm'a NaBloPoMo!

Shirt the Sixth: Damn Right

it's better than yours. I could teach you, but I'd have to not charge, because knowledge belongs to the people.

Ironically, this one cost me more that any other T-shirt I own.

Shirt the Fifth: Ugly Tiger

Front

"Well, that's a lovely shirt and a lovely tiger. I don't know why you'd name it "Ugly" anyth--"

Back

 "O-o-o-h, no, god! Oh dear god in heaven! Hoban Washburne wouldn't even wear that!"

I'm the biggest Wash fan I know, but let's face it...the man's color palette was limited. Had he been a "winter," like me, he'd've been able to get away with this sort of thing.

Color scheme aside, that is one ugly tiger. Thanks, Aloha Shirtman!

Shirt the Fourth: OOPSKI DAYZKI

Actual T Shirt #1:

The Eggman

(no not that one, this one)

from 

's award-winnin' short BOHATER PIES.

T-shirt blog's first actual T-shirt is too obscure? 

SILENCE YOU TONGUE! Watch movie!

You can't have a shirt like this, because I had it first, and my hipster cred is sorry and tenuous. But you can order something very similar here:


CordWed Eggman Variation

Shirt The Third: Cocks Of Fire!

One more shirt and then I really must go get batteries for the camera.

This awesome shirt belonged to a friend of my ex-hub's. One day someone told him it "look[ed] N-wordy" and the silly racist ass refused to wear it again. Score one shirt for me!

Fun fact: When I wear this shirt, I AM THE PHOENIX KING. 

Shirt the second: Happi Hanten

I got this Happi coat

from the amazing wonderful Shibui Kimono in Memphis.

No, it isn't really a shirt, I just wanted an excuse to post it. I swear there will be actual T-shirts any day now.

Shirt The First: Spinal Tap Loud

I bought the blog background shirt in the late 1990s or early this century. I got it from the Aloha Shirtman, a white-haired old gent who lived in a house a few doors down from my apartment. Whenever he needed money or the spirit moved him, he'd tape a cardboard sign reading "BIG sale"to the pole at the end of the block and put his wares out on the lawn. He had a box piled full of identical 1971 Poppin' Fresh figurines (he was very specific about the 1971 part) and a bigger box of hardback copies of Scarlett.


He also had two pink bicycles and a few VCR tapes of old Westerns, but mainly he had shirts on a clothesline he strung between trees. He must have had a helluva collection, because the shirts in the sale were duplicates and/or not good enough to keep. He charged five dollars each for the shirts at first, but later they went up to six. This is a six-dollar shirt.

A few years later, in a creative writing graduate course, the hungover student across the seminar table looked at me, bleary-eyed, and groaned "Damn, Laurel, that shirt is loud. That shirt is Spinal Tap loud."

The photo doesn't do it justice--the colors really go to eleven. The tag reads "An Original Hawaiian Togs Made In Hawaii."