I bought a T-shirt about two years ago. I should have realized the shirt’s significance immediately, given how it came into my possession. A friend had tipped me off about a Latino march and rally in a community near me. It corresponded with the time when large marches were happening in Chicago and Los Angeles. It was my opportunity to experience the power of the people writ on a smaller scale. The population of my community is measured in the hundreds of thousands. The protests had hundreds of people. Latinos. African-Americans. Whites. And as an activist, I could appreciate what a great turn out it was. It was good–just to share the space and the energy.
The organizers asked participants to wear white. So on the morning of the protest, I went to the coolest shop I could find to get a shirt (no Delilah, I did not have a plain white tee in the dresser, if you can imagine that). I chose a local store. One that sells stoner paraphernalia to the college kids. It smells nice there. A comfortable place to be a consumer. I finally settled on a white shirt with an orange-ish rendition of Bob Marley on the front. It is a transformative shirt. It makes me talk in a Jamaican accent and sing “One Love.”
Around the same time, I received another T-shirt as a gift. My brother is a wrestling coach. He trains high-level amateur athletes. And he gave me one of his club shirts. As one might imagine, when one wants to advertise wrestling, the shirt is made to look tough. Manly. It has a graphic of a freakishly muscled demonic wrestler on the front. And a tough-guy tag line. This shirt is also transformative. The shirt makes me less talkative. A little icy. It reminds me of the plain grey T-shirts my brother and I wore for practice, as we knocked the snot out of one another. Competing for the illusive affection of our father.
I am not a student of clothing psychology. Generally, I dress like a bum so long as I can get away with it. And it was only after many months of wearing these shirts, that I came to understand the emotional impact each shirt can have on me–and on those who I meet in the world.
The difference between the two shirts was most starkly contrasted for me on a recent trip to Mexico. I spent as much time as I could letting the sun and the salt-water of the Gulf soak into my old bones. And I only brought those two T-shirts along to cover me. I was a beach bum. And that was good.
After soaking in the ocean I would spend mornings and evenings walking away from the falseto resort space. To the masses of people who had been pushed off the coast; whose paradise had clearly been expropriated by some rich fucking corporations and their rich fucking corporate clientele. I would slip into one of the T-shirts. Let my hair dry naturally, like I was trying to grow instant dreadlocks. And I’d walk.
My memory of the Mexican people is that they were lovely to me. I didn’t speak a lick of Spanish. And yet I felt very much at home. Not so much on the beach, with the rich bastards and their plastic surgery. But with the fucking poor people. My people.
And still, despite this general memory of kindness–I became quite aware of distinct differences that were shown to me depending on which shirt I was wearing.
People love Bob Marley. He was a unifying force in the world. People loved his music. His message. His energy. And still. Decades later. They are still in love. And just putting him on your shirt. It makes you smile to see the adulation in their faces. Wearing Bob Marley on my shirt made me a better human being. I talked freely about music. About injustice. About love. About world unity. If we would have dressed George W. Bush in a Bob Marley shirt in January of 2001–well, he probably would have fucked it up–but you never know.
Hardcore John Wayne wrestling T-shirt. Not so cuddly. I mean, I’m not maligning my host country. I didn’t get mugged or anything (though I did take a wrong turn in an alley one night, looking for a fucking bookstore of all things, and a mugging wasn’t out of the question). But I didn’t feel the love. Quite the opposite. I became the American male embodiment of our stupid fucking empirical foreign policy. Rule by the fist. Not such a good idea. And the vibe I received. Completely negative.
Anyway.
I’m the same guy. Either way. Whatever color I’m wearing. But the psychology matters. It makes a real difference.
Which leads me to Obama versus Billary.
Let’s just be honest. Let’s stop the triangulation for just a moment. Stop the primary squabbling. In terms of their substance. There isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between them. The policies they will pursue are very nearly identical. And from the perspective of someone sick to death of the center-right direction of this country. It is flatly fucking appalling.
But.
The psychology matters. It makes a real difference.
Billary. Yes. I use it derogatorily. Seriously. This is about the egos of two people. I said it about Hillary in a comment yesterday at the Booman Tribune. And I was deemed to have been a petulant child, pissing on the opportunity for a serious consideration of the Hillary Clinton alternative. But I’ll say it again here. More plainly. If you cannot look at her television persona and understand that her run for the White House is purely egotistical crap, then you and I are not living on the same planet–not sharing the same reality. She cried once in this campaign that I can recall. And that cry had everything to do with the fact that she had just understood, after Obama cleaned her clock in Iowa, that her ego was about to be fatally spanked.
She has become the Boomer icon. A last hurrah. Bill’s third term. For what? So they can go on to collect social security checks while occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I can’t see another reason. Personal. Ego. Satisfaction. Sickening.
And McCain is going to knock her and Bill across a bridge to the 22nd century. Her campaign is whining this week about an Obama flyer which graphically recalls the catastrophic setback she handed to the issue of universal health care in the U.S. It has been a decade and a half. And Harry and Louise still clings to her like the stench of death. Hillarycare. She is dead weight. She is a tumor which must be excised from your fucking party. From our fucking country.
To listen to her try to co-opt the “change” theme. The clear pulse that Obama has identified in this country. It makes me want to vomit. She cannot be change. Anymore than New Coke can be Change. She and Bill. They are messengers of a generation that will fight to suffocate us all–until they are put down. Left in the forest. Put out on an ice float. Pick your metaphor of cutting them loose. (And I don’t say this as a metaphor for killing all baby Boomers– not to all the poor Boomers who are decent human beings–individuals all–beautiful individuals–but I intend the metaphor for what the Boomer generation has been co-opted to be, by leaders like the Clintons and the modern Bush dynasty).
Obama has tapped into the country. His policy. It may be for shit. Honestly. But of the last straws that are available to us all. He is a Bob Marley T-shirt. His message. It is smiling. It is unifying. It is hopeful. They are all just cotton T-shirts now. But the feeling matters.
