The Great Library

It’s a little-known fact that the fabled Library of Alexandria had an annex for a small but select collection of t-shirts.

Sarajevo ParkTees were an integral part of Graeco-Roman culture. When Caesar led his army to Gaul, his vanguard of muscular young Legionnaires wore the message VENI VIDI VICI block-printed on oversized tees (to accomodate their armor).

No visitor to ancient Greece would ever return home without WHAT HAPPENS IN ATHENS STAYS IN ATHENS written across his back on a fine tee of Egyptian cotton: beige for the masses, purple-dyed for the upper classes. Or the ever-popular PLATO DID IT WITH LOGIC.

Clutch Couriers PhillipsThen as now, people wore t-shirts to make a statement.  Roman t-shirt shops were busy printing tees with the cultural and political statements of the day.  Woe on the man wearing a POMPEY THE GREATEST tee shirt in an alley full of Crassus’ supporters. But a VISIT BEAUTIFUL VESUVIUS tourist tee would get no one in trouble.

Tragically, the fabled tee shirt archive vanished with the rest of the Alexandrian Library collection.  And the tee itself vanished from western civilization for 1500 years.

But it’s back.  And I’ve taken it upon myself to rebuild the Library.  In my garage.

Sanford Marial Arts Savage BuddhaFor years now I’ve been chasing this mutant white whale: the meaning behind t-shirts.  Not the ones that people sell to make money, but the ones that people make to represent themselves: tees for business, sports, causes, personal events, hopes, fears, and particular times and places where — something happened.  Or was supposed to.

Tees are powerful. If you don a tee with a message on it, you become the message.   Everyone around you will see you that way. There’s almost no other medium that makes people into walking memes  with their full cooperation.

Ride 4 Life on Bone MotorcycleWhy do people make these tees? What are they saying? What’s the word they want to get out? And why do people happily slip a meme-on-cotton over their heads and wear it off to the Olive Garden?  Or, and this is the kicker, even pay for the privilege of doing it by actually buying the tee shirt?

I’ve been chasing meaning ever since I picked up a tee at Goodwill for a Minneapolis beer ba, one that read FEAR THE CHEESE across the back in dire block letters. What the hell did that mean? It was like a secret message. You had to be there, to know.

Unnamed CA Gang Task Force 2009 Tee 1I took it home and found out over the Internet.  And I’ve been taking them home to find out ever since.  Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.  Sometimes there’s little to know.  Sometimes there’s a lot. And sometimes it’s a trip to Oz, only — and here’s the important part — the people who made the shirt think they live in no such place.  They might wonder, doesn’t _everyone_ live in a place nicknamed HogSkin County? What’s there to be curious about?

Eel River Organic Brewing Drink Naked 1I’ve got tees from the Guantanamo Bay prison guard detachment. From the poor devils who spent years in Iraq looking for the weapons of mass destruction.  From some tiny town in the Carolinas that held a Collard Greens Festival because they had nothing else to boast about.  I got a tee from a bunch of musicians who gathered in a quake-ravaged city to set a world record for the most people to play “Shake, Rattle, and Roll!” at one time. Outside, among the ruins.

Justice for Janitors 1And more: surfing carpenters, apes in hard hats swinging drywall hammers, Sarah Palin in a dirndl serving beer (for “Sarah Pale Ale,” and yes, it’s real). I’ve got tees from the godfsaken base where  death drones launch themselves to terrorize Yemen, and from the bar with the only decent margaritas on the Persian Gulf. Heartfelt memorial tees for teenagers who died young, or for firefighters who died in 9/11 — standing with one foot on the bar rail while Jesus mixes their drinks.

Asleigh Swain Funeral Shirt, 2011And many more that I can’t remember.  See, that’s the problem.  Most of these shirts are stuck in the Catacombs, a shack out back filled with  towering stacks of silver-brown 30-gallon plastic storage tubs (available from Target at the low everyday price of five dollars plus tax). Every one of those tubs is stuffed with tees.  Some of them have been sealed for years.

What good is a collection you can’t see and search? Can barely even remember? For all I know, the concentrated presence of all those message tees ripped the fabric of the universe, so that alien tees from strange dimensions are spilling into the Catacombs even as you read this.   Peek  inside one of those tubs, and you can’t say it’s not true.

Master of Cloning 1So over the last few months, a plan has materialized.  The garage walls have been painted and patched.  Racks sufficient for a thousand tees have been constructed on one wall.  Hundreds of hangers have been purchased, and protective plastic sheathing. A database has been created, and a system of color-coding by which each particular shirt can be located. There’s even a heat pump in the garage now to keep things from getting too cold, too hot, or too damp.

Kong 1Now all I have to do is unpack, photograph catalog, color-code, and hang 1000 tee shirts.   It’s slow going. Talk to me in six months.    At which point the Great Library will stretch out before me, and I will be able to find for you an Italian restaurant tee shirt illustrated in the low-art style of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth with the flick of a key or a sharp eye for the right color code on a clothes hanger.  Or a U.S. Army basic training tee with homoerotic themes. Or a tee commemorating Sarah Pale Ale  Or a tee memorializing the life and death of a local tee-shirt artist.  How meta can you get?

Greenway Santa Cruz Marijuana Dispensary 1Why dot this? Why not? I want to show off.  I love this stuff.  I love the stories behind the tees.  So many things in this world come, go, and leave nothing behind but a tee to say that they were even there.  Tees are a small thing, but I like to find the big in the small.  It’s in there, somewhere.

And after the Library is in order, I’ll write up the history of every single tee, as best I can.  It’ll be, practically, a book.  And then, who knows? Put it all up online and let the world have a shot, I’m thinking; I could call it “The Tees of Mystery.”  Californians will get the joke.

Hillary 2016 Bayside 1Because four out of five people hear about what I’m doing and go cross-eyed with puzzlement and boredom.  But the fifth smiles oddly and wants to know more.  Here’s to the lucky fifth, and I’ll see you on the Internet someday. In the meantime — stop in for a tour if you’re ever in the ‘hood.

4 thoughts on “The Great Library

  1. lk

    Jim,

    You know what’s going to happen once you get your T-shirt museum going and you get some publicity, hmmmmm? People are going to start sending you T-shirts, that’s what. If you think you have a storage and organization problem now, just wait. What? You didn’t want to devote the rest of your life to T-shirts. Like greatness, I think you’re going to have T-shirts thrust upon you. Also, people who send them to you will feel better because they didn’t have to throw them away. Just do it, and accept your fate.

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      Well, LK, I’ve been in nonprofit fundraising and about the only people I expect to hear from are people who want to make money — “Hey, here’s this incredibly valuable collection, just sign this paper taking full future responsibility and certifying its value at $20K for tax purpoes, thanks, GOTTA RUN!” When it’s a pile of unused shirts from the Mudflap Elementary School “Little Mudhens” Skoool Carnival and Fundraiser.

      When they figure out that you’re not tax deductible, that crowd clears out pretty fast. I’m probably cynical, but in this town everybody knows they’re special, and so is their stuff. Or they want you to think so. Hungry people.

      Reply
  2. Kristin

    hey, i know this is the longest shot imaginable, but this is one of 3 pages that come up with a reverse image search. the master of cloning shirts is my white whale of shirts. as a biology student studying genetics, and a lover of metallica, i’m sure you can understand why. i’m not exaggerating when i say i’d give a limb for this shirt. I doubt you’ll even see this, but if you ever (for any reason) would consider parting ways with this shirt, please let me know. (AND IM SORRY FOR DOING THIS ON YOUR POST, i had few options) thank you! and i hope your organizing is going well 🙂

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      Thanks for writing. I get an automatic email notice about every comment that comes in, so I did see your message promptly. That said, I am hanging onto the t-shirt; I love science humor on tees, especially when it’s a little weird. If I ever find another one I’ll contact you,and I’d probably just send you the thing. This isn’t about money. But it’s going to be awhile before I head back into grungy thrift stored like the one that this came from.

      Sadly, the “Great Library” was not to be, as there were humidity issues in the garage that in the end I couldn’t control. So all the tees are back in storage tubs again: but numbered tubs, with a database recording what tees are in what tub (among other things). They’ve also all been washed or aired and then packed tight with dessicant, and the tubs are now living in their own storage space in our dry-ish house.

      Thanks again, and come back sometime when I’ve finished remodeling the site into an online t-shirt museum. Jim Jones

      Reply

Leave a Reply to admin Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *