I'm Your Girlfriend's Pimp
Syd Barrett died today. Reports say he was suffering from diabetes,
which probably means heroin.
Atari Teenage Riot - Deutschland (has got to die)
And on the subject of outsider art, or, to get wordy, the Art of
Unintentional Beauty, this past weekend I was reminded of a favorite
pasttime of mine, a sort of mind-hobby, wherein I make a wish whenever
I see a person wearing a T-shirt with text or symbolism they obviously
misunderstood or simply didn't understand when they donned it. It's
the kind of thing that helps me cease straining to find some meaning
to it all, cause there isn't any.
Sufjan Stevens - Saul Bellow
On Saturday, in Prospect Park, I spied a woman working a
probably-unlicensed icee cart, and while dishing out cold treats to
kids, she rocked a purple shirt with sequined text spelling out
Hustler, which could be innocent enough if it weren't in the same font
as that found on the masthead of Larry Flynt's infamous stroke
book/treehouse companion.
So I made a wish.
The subway has awlays been perfect terrain for such wish-making. There
was a time, due to construction, when Chinatown-Manhattan and
Chinatown-Brooklyn were only connected by the N/R/Q/W, and therefore
the non-English speaking ridership rose higher than usual; on a
wonderful, spring evening in 2001, I witnessed possibly the greatest
Unintentional Beauty of all. An obviously septu-or octogenarian Asian
man, sporting brown highwater slacks and white orthopaedic shoes,
trucker cap in hand (way before they were co-opted by fashion victims)
and looking into space exhausted from his probably three jobs ... was
wearing ... wait for it ....
... a Butthole Surfers' Locust Abortion Technician t-shirt.
I bit my tongue to avoid other riders thinking I was crazy, a Subway
Laugher, but then I also scanned the other riders to see if anyone
else noticed -- someone else had to have noticed -- but no one shared
my glee. No one. Bastards.
Although maybe I didn't really see it. I made a wish anyway. It was a
good wish. It concernced buffaloes and thunderclaps.
Butthole Surfers - Sweet Loaf (no, that's not a typo)
Friend of mine here at the job states he once saw a guy who "looked
like he'd had a lobotomy; he was practically drooling" who was wearing
a shirt that said I'm your girlfriend's pimp. (Which is a funny shirt
whether you know what it means or not.)
I hope he made a wish.
East River Pipe - Shiny Shiny Pimp-mobile
No comments:
Post a Comment