&#034All great truths begin as blasphemies.&#034 -George Bernard Shaw

I like reading T-shirts. I like having T-shirts that say something. I once wrote an entire research paper on the prevalence of writing on T-shirts as part of our pop culture as a way for people to express something about themselves without having to actually speak. If I like a particular brand and want to walk around looking like a billboard, paying someone else so I can serve as advertising for them, I&#039ll wear something from Abercrombie & Fitch or Nike. If I want people to know I&#039m a geek from the chemistry or biology department at college, I&#039ll wear a shirt that reads &#034Osmoregulator&#034 and not worry about the many who don&#039t get it and instead laugh with the few who do. I can tell people where I went to high school, where I spend my vacations, and even give people a rough idea as to how old I am–all based on the print found emblazoned across my chest or back.

Many of you (the three or four of you who read this page) know that I like to wear black T-shirts with witty or down-right snide comments on them. &#034I do whatever the voices in my head tell me to do&#034 is the first such shirt I ever owned. Following that came: &#034I hear voices and they don&#039t like you,&#034 &#034The gene pool could use some chlorine,&#034 and &#034If I throw a stick, will you leave?&#034 The husband likewise enjoys the smart-alecky shirts, owning: &#034One by one the penguins are stealing my sanity,&#034 &#034Does not play well with others,&#034 &#034Tact is for people not witty enough to be sarcastic,&#034 and a couple others that elude my memory at the moment. What do these shirts say about us? That we&#039re part of a sarcastic clique that enjoys playing anti-social and backward, and we don&#039t mind letting other people know we&#039re not quite right in the head. At least, that&#039s my take on it. The husband may have other ideas on it, but that&#039s for him to rant about.

So what got me thinking about all these T-shirt shenannigans? Today in the Commons, a group of high schoolers were milling about having lunch, probably part of some summer camp or preview day. I generally try to avoid the larger crowds of them and eat at whatever joint isn&#039t swarmed with them. In passing a large clutch near the Chinese place, I noticed that most of them were wearing some sort of Jesus shirts. You know, those cutsie things with flowers that read cliché stuff like &#034Jesus saves,&#034 &#034Jesus is our lord,&#034 or &#034Jesus is the fucking shit so bow down, heathen.&#034 Well, not the last one, but after reading a half dozen of these supposedly up-lifting little &#034I&#039m so cute because I&#039ve got the word of god stretched across my B-cup&#034 shirts, I start thinking like that, mostly because I&#039m not a big fan of people wearing their religion on their sleeves–or chest, as the case may be.

The thing is, I&#039m all for people expressing themselves. I do. That&#039s why I have a shirt that has a comic book character weilding two large, mean-looking knives on it or wearing my Redwings jersey which both show that I like violence. I guess what was bothering me was that Christianity gets so over-represented while other religions and philosophies get lost in the shuffle because we don&#039t have cutsie little catch-phrases we can emblazon across our tits or back to show we belong to some sort of group or &#034club.&#034 Take Christmas, for example. There are tons of shirts and buttons that read, &#034Jesus is the reason for the season,&#034 but how many pins do you see with something cute like &#034My dreidel spins only for Yhwh&#034?

Okay, so I&#039m not Jewish and can&#039t think of something cute for Hannakah. I can&#039t even remember how to spell &#034Hannakah.&#034 That&#039s not the point. What I&#039m thinking needs to happen is that other groups need to get their beliefs out there and market them like the great big Christian institution does if we&#039re ever going to truly diversify the nation like everyone pretends we are. To that end, I&#039m going to try and find a shirt that reads, &#034Hell is other people&#034 or maybe even just have &#034I have had la Nausée&#034 emblazoned across my back in big letters. I figure if Jesus can grace the chest of some bouncy teenager, why not some poignant existentialist words from Sartre, Camus, or de Beauvoir? The Nietzsche nuts could get their &#034God is dead&#034 slogan in, and I bet I could get my Latin/Greek history bud to help me pick some gems out of the teachings of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Homer, etc. to get those philosophies in that have been around longer than Jesus&#039 teachings. If T-shirts serve as a sly way of getting one&#039s thoughts/opinions/beliefs across to the countless mindless who walk by us every day, we may as well make sure that there&#039s a sufficient spread of thoughts/opnions/beliefs going around to make sure everyone&#039s covered and no one&#039s getting left out.

Right, so that&#039s the rant for the day. I&#039ll work on getting those pics cropped and rotated so I can get a journal of Delaware up soon, but it&#039ll have to wait until after I do laundry tonight. So keep your shirts on.

Posted: July 7, 2004 at a quarter to two in the afternoon or so.