Steal This T-Shirt Idea!
Steal this t-shirt idea, NFL edition:
I hated Tom Brady before it was cool.
Best Cyber Monday T-shirt Sales 2014
Did you miss Cyber Monday or get lost in a morass of websites with little hope of escape? Have no fear. Several websites have extended their best Cyber Monday t-shirt sales through today, December 2nd or even Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014. Jump on deals so great you could outfit yourself for a lifetime. (Not really. You can never have enough tees.)
All tees on Threadless cost only $12 through 11:59 PM Central Time tonight. (Except for the tees that are only $7, that is. Bonus!) Use code THREADHOLIDAY14 for sale and free domestic shipping on all orders $40 and up. For international orders, the minimum order required is $75.
Headline Shirts extends Cyborg Monday until 12:00 AM Pacific Time tonight, if you’re noshing on leftover Turkey and get a tryptophan-fueled shopping urge. No code is necessary. The deal is $10 off $40 purchase, $20 off $60 and $40 off $100.
Enter code TEES20 to receive 20% off on t-shirts at Redbubble. But be prepared: it is a mecca of creative artistry. You may not be able to resist the other offerings such as wall art, stationery, phone case, etc. etc. etc. Plan on spending some time. Better yet, allocate your evening. Just remember to order before midnight.
Fright-Rags has over 75 kick-ass horror tees for 25-35% off through Wednesday, in addition to its $7 Tee of Mystery, if you dare. With everything from Leatherface to Garbage Pail Kids, there’s something for every slightly gonzo recipient on your list. (If you’re reading this Thursday, don’t despair. New customers who sign up for email will get 10% off their first order.)
Design By Humans is offering 15% off regularly priced merchandise with code FREESHIP15. As the code suggests, it is also offering free shipping with no minimum purchase required–on apparel only. And you don’t need the code for the free shipping. Trust us, the myriad, gorgeous designs are well worth 5 seconds of confusion when toting up your haul.
With Christmas fast approaching, be sure to check your list twice and figure in plenty of shipping time, especially when ordering tees that are made to order. (Paying an extra few dollars may be less costly to you than having to scramble to buy a backup gift.) Then sit back and enjoy the holidays secure in the knowledge that no one is going to get the same gift from anyone else.
Go Go Godzilla!
Godzilla’s getting another reboot. Hopefully this one will achieve the perfect balance between great CGI monster and guy in a rubber suit. Nostalgia is a funny thing. Your taste has grown much more sophisticated since you first watched Godzilla tromping on a Tokyo festooned with power lines and elevated train tracks. You probably saw the dubbed version with Raymond Burr spliced in to make it “better” for English-speaking audiences. It’s been in heavy rotation on Saturday TV monster movie matinees ever since.
You may have seen the “director’s cut”–how we love those!–with Burr and dubbing removed. “It’s a classic! It’s been restored and it’s really deep and meaningful,” you may have been told by a loved one who did not want to watch it alone. Said loved one may have taken an impromptu nap during the viewing. Perhaps subtitles make him or her sleepy. No matter. It’s not quite better, just different–but not in a way that makes you want to re-watch the dubbed version to better appreciate the subtleties of Toho’s original 1954 Gojira.
If you so desire, you can pick up a DVD that includes the 1955 sequel, Gojira Raids Again, and the 1959 American version, heavily edited and dubbed, featuring the voice of George Takei. If you do, I would recommend that you lie down and consult your doctor for any desire lasting longer than 4 minutes.
Here’s the thing. There are 29 Godzilla movies–30 if you include the one opening tomorrow. That is a lot of Godzilla! Have you seen all of them or have you gradually lost track of them over the years? Maybe it happened after you saw Star Wars or just about anything else with decent special effects. When Toho Studios made its last Godzilla movie in 2004 to celebrate its 50th anniversary, it was still using a guy in a rubber suit. So if you saw it, I’m guessing you were wishing a giant foot would flatten the theater and end your misery.
So why did Roland Emmerich’s 1998 Godzilla redux get excoriated by fans? Because it didn’t look like the old Godzilla. It was designed to be more “realistic.” As in, if a huge lizard/dinosaur-type hell beast did, in fact, exist, it would probably look a lot more like this than the guy sweating it out in Barney’s Angry Cousin costume. But it wasn’t faithful enough to the original. Why does it matter? It’s like our memories don beer goggles when we reflect on “the classics.”
The ads for the new flick look great. Bryan Cranston classes up the proceedings and the effects look tremendous. At the same time, Godzilla looks similar to the original, save a slightly elongated muzzle and a protracted roar that’s plenty creepy but lacks the distorted feedback exhaust note at the end. We have high expectations of our monster movies. Let’s leave our goggles at home and have fun.
Price: What’s a tee worth?
Tim Gunn, on Kanye West’s APC collaboration:
The only thing dumber than a plain $300 t-shirt is someone who would buy it.
West is hardly the first, ahem, designer to charge a small fortune for a basic tee. I once spent $60 for a James Perse tank top and castigated myself for paying that at the time. That was at least 9 years ago and it’s still in perfect condition. So if you go in for the whole amortization rationalization, the cost per wear is infinitesimal. If value is relative then how much is too much and how good can a tee be? Does it caress your body like an angel’s wings? Will it stop bullets? Can it do your taxes?
Should Greatest Tees on Earth list t-shirts that are aesthetically outstanding even if they are high-priced? Well, you will not see a $1,500 ripped tee from Balenciaga here anytime soon. However, some artist collaborations (with Opening Ceremony, for example) yield inventive, beautiful results. This site’s function is to find the most creative, quirky, cool, silly, smart-assed and gorgeous designs on the Internet, bring them to you and let you decide what you must have and what you’re happy just to look at in our offbeat art gallery.
(To be fair, it looks like Kanye x APC charged $120 for a plain t-shirt and $280 for a plain hoodie, no zipper. So Mr. Gunn’s facts may be uncoordinated. Still, West’s explanation of his vision for the 2014 line makes me wonder if his head might be filled with a swarm of bees. And the prices are still high for what look like rejects from a Hanes factory outlet store. Game, set and match to Mr. Gunn.)
So what’s the highest price you’ve ever paid for a t-shirt?
Give Your Old Tees New Life
It’s hard to let go of a t-shirt. It’s a slice of life, a reminder of who you were and what you found important or funny or cool at a particular moment in time. That tee you got for being the prompter for the high school musical probably didn’t survive the culling when you moved out of your parents’ house. Maybe it made it through a few purges. If by the time you move in with someone else and negotiate for space you still have it, that’s great. Sometimes a tee is so beloved, you don’t wear it for fear of destroying it with pit stains or ketchup. Then again, your favorite ones may show your love in the wear and tear you’ve put them through. And, let’s face it, there are some you are never going to fit into again. In any case, these objects of affection remain in a dresser drawer or a box in the closet, never to be seen again. You could turn them into pillows but somehow that cheapens them, making them fit only for a dorm room futon or the bedroom where you got dressed for the prom. (And they take up more space.) But ethreads RePurpose will turn your favorite tee (or just about anything else printed on fabric) into a useful item such as a pouch, a clutch, a wristlet, a tote bag or even an iPad cover. Here’s a bag a guy had made from one of his girl’s treasured t-shirts.
She will never pass another woman carrying one of these. You’re limited only by your imagination–and your budget. I’m sure you’ve seen some hideously expensive iPad covers. But ethread’s prices start at only $25.00 for an iPad or tablet sleeve–lined in waterproof nylon to protect your tech, of course. That’s incredibly reasonable for a custom-made product. Theoretically, you could wear, carry and display your entire collection of t-shirts, all at the same time. Or at least the ones that are too small, too wrecked or just too damn great to hide in a drawer.
Everyone has a first….
I have a dim recollection of my friend Peggy’s house: mustard-colored furniture, macramé galore and the whish-and-slap of corduroy bell bottoms on shag carpeting. Typical of the late 70s. But two of the most important lessons of my formative years were learned there.
First, there was never any bologna to make us sandwiches because Peggy’s dad would eat the whole package every time her mom bought it. I thought, how great it must be to be a grown up and stand in front of your fridge wolfing down as much lunchmeat as you want, whenever you want, and not get into trouble for it. (As an adult I’ve achieved that dream many times over, though I can’t say it’s been entirely without consequence.)
Second, they had cool magazines like Mad and Cracked. (At my house, we had Reader’s Digest and Grit.) One ad in particular in the back of Rolling Stone made it worth every sandwich-free visit. It was an ad for a t-shirt emblazoned with The Last Great Act of Defiance and featured a line drawing of a mouse flipping the bird at a swooping hawk. I’ve been unable to find the artwork as I remember it so this image will have to do.
The image I saw back then was spare yet kinetic. The mouse was facing the hawk in 3/4 profile, its “finger” more obvious and aggressive. It suggested to me both the inevitability of being crushed by life and the joyous freedom of rebellion in the face of it. Plus, it had a cartoon middle finger on it! It was the height of transgressive art. (And bird flipping.)
It may sound silly, but that simple image sent me a powerful message, like the one I got from the knights who say Ni or the one I got from watching the Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime video on MTV’s progenitor, the Blue Jean Network. “We’re out here. We get you. You’re not alone. There’s something more.”
Maybe that’s why I have hundreds of t-shirts and wear them as other people wear religious items. They show my faith in humor, absurdity, art and offbeat self-expression. I try to laugh as much as possible. Can you have a bad thought while you’re laughing at something funny? In my experience, no. Throw in a few slices of bologna and I’m in heaven.