T-Shirts

Some months ago I began noticing some brilliant t-shirts. Some were political, some were just funny. I have a list of some of my favorites. This is in no particular order.

My friend Ben has a gorgeous t-shirt featuring a clown vomitting a rainbow into a toilet. I saw a black man sporting a shirt that read, "Hey Lady, I don't want your purse". Then there was the skinny guy in Alphabet City wearing a shirt with a big sandwich on it. Underneath the sandwich it said "SILF". I've had to explain that one to a surprising number of people. Which makes me a little embarrassed to have found it so funny. But I did. I found it very funny.

As I was watching my usual Sunday morning political talk shows I couldn't help but think about yet another brilliant t-shirt that I saw on the back of a man that looked an awful lot like Jerry Garcia. His shirt read, "I Never Thought I'd Miss Nixon".

Me either. But W can sure make you nostalgic for the good ol' days. I just can't fathom, for the life of me, how Richard Nixon could get nailed so completely due to runaway paranoia while this guy gets away with such amazing incompetence! A few years ago, Nixon was the demon who slipped a ruphie in America's Pepsi and stole our collective innocence. Watergate traumatized us. Now that we've got Bush, Nixon seems like that goofy uncle that drank too much at weddings and annoyed everyone but once his liver failed and he was gone forever the family started to miss his antics. I miss the days when politicians simply lied to us about break-ins and blow jobs.

I know. I can't idealize Nixon. What he did was wrong, and crazy. But the big difference here is that Nixon got called on it. Bush is going to ride out his term like a petulant debutant with "senioritis". How is that humanly possible? Is it all because of Cheney? Are we that much more frightened of Cheney? Gulp.

On the back of a Spiderman comic that I bought for my 6 year old son is an ad for some mail-order t-shirts. One of the designs features a vampiric George W. Bush going for Lady Liberty's jugular. I gave an involuntary laugh when I saw it. My son said, "Mom? Who's that guy and why is he sucking on Lady Liverby?". Sigh. How do you explain to a six year old that the president the adults in his country elected is a guy who would sanction torture, keep sick kids from receiving health care, attack the wrong country, spy on his constituency, leave American citizens stranded in putrid water and squalid conditions with no relief, and trample on the Constitution... among other things? And most of all, how do I explain all that without infecting his mind with the liberal bullshit that is so prevelant in my neck of the woods?

"Son, that's George W. Bush. He's the President of the United States and some people don't like him."

"So, they make t-shirts like this. Is he a real vampire?"

"No. Some people think that he is not living up to the promise of America and this is the way someone chose to express that. In some countries an artist might go to jail for drawing a picture like that."

"Did the guy who drew that picture go to jail?"

Pause.

"Is he in jail, Mom?"

"Probably not."

"Do you like the President?"

"I don't like the way he is being President. No."

"But do you like him?"

"I can't say whether I'd like him as a person, sweetie. He might be an okay guy to chat with at a barbeque."

"If he wanted to be friends, would you be friends with him?"

"I wish I could say that I would, but I probably wouldn't."

"Why?"

"He doesn't seem to be very sensitive to other people's problems so I can't imagine he would be that good of a friend. I want to have good friends in my life."

"Do you hate him?"

"No. I try not to hate anyone."

"Even when they hurt you?"

From my kitchen fire escape I can see the hole in the sky where two towers used to stand. I can look across my courtyard and see people who lost loved ones. People who saw unimaginable horrors. People who had to stay inside, pull their shades and lock their doors in fear of vigilante reprisals for something that they took no part in. My son is six. He has no knowledge, no reference point for these things. I know that some day he will need to understand the events that have shaped our nation over the first years of his life. I want him to understand, not to parrot his mother's position. But it is abundantly clear, with each scandal, each self-important press conference, each defiant sneer that this arrogant, condescending, cocksure jackass is America's number one security threat sitting in the White House. His refusal to listen to facts or draw rational conclusions from those facts makes me want to rip my hair out. But I've heard neighborhood children repeat the political views of their parents and even though I might agree with some views I find their inclusion in the discussion as distasteful as watching the young'uns in the Fred Phelps clan spewing their parents' hateful views.

"Even when they hurt you. Sometimes you have to work a little harder, but hate hurts no one more than the person who does the hating. Best to avoid it, son. Best to avoid it. Do those t-shirts come in extra large?"