This fall, the hottest back-to-school gear ain't no books-it' ironic, nostalgic T-shirts! But schools are flooded with the same boring "vintage" designs: old-school bands, "distressed" classic logos, messages about making love to ninjas. Here are some designs that really get a jump on things by looking back at a more recent time that we all remember fondly: August 2006.
Can you believe we used to listen to this guy? America sure had some shitty taste in music back then, huh? Hall and Oates tees are hilarious, but even they didn't have anything as shitty as that "Bad Day" song. It' like back in August '06, we'd listen to ANYTHING, even if it sounded like a castrated, bi-polar, really, really untalented Billy Joel. Nowadays, you'd have to be a total moron to believe that being a hugely successful white recording artist in the richest country in the history of the planet facilitates a lot of "bad days."
Enigmatic. Misunderstood. Hero. Who do these three words call to mind? You guessed it-the falsely confessed killer of JonBenet Ramsey, John Mark Karr. Like Che Guevara-the sexy mercenary who personally ordered hundreds of executions-Karr was a revolutionary in more ways than one. Besides single-handedly bringing back the fully buttoned polo shirt look, he also made it cool again to be a terrifyingly creepy, globe-hopping, sex-changing pedophile.
All that bloodshed and no discernable reward-if that' not hilarious, what is? Hell, you probably left Lebanon with 5 or 10 confirmed kills before the UN mandated ceasefire prevented you from avenging the deaths of more of your countrymen. And what better way to commemorate your participation in that hellish cycle of violence than a zany, 100 percent cotton tee?
Like most people, you probably drank extremely, extremely heavily at your family' Labor Day cookout, because that' normal. And why not commemorate that day with a snazzy shirt? Especially the part when you vomited up a case of Miller High Life Light and seven hot dogs in your backyard in front of Grandma? It' ironic because you weren't always like that. Plus, you've changed a lot since then. You swear. Thanksgiving' going to be different. They'll see.
In August 2006, M. Night Shyamalan released his fifth film, Lady in The Water. And like The Sixth Sense (in which the main character was-gasp-actually dead), Unbreakable (in which the main character was-gasp-actually immortal) and Signs (in which a dying character' apparent hallucination was-gasp-actually a clairvoyant warning), this film also included a spooky, chilling twist: that Ron Howard' daughter is-gasp-actually smoking hot. Sadly, that disturbing revelation wasn't enough to carry the tremendously shitty film and now the only way we can give a shit about M. Night is in hindsight.
Hey, remember when Lindsay Lohan showed everyone her genitals and then did something else with her genitals after that? Those were the days! But that was a long time ago, and now she ranks about even with eating your own stool on the list of the average American' priorities. Combine that with the first rule of nostalgic T-shirt making (that it' cool to say you like something that used to suck, like Pabst Blue Ribbon or the 3/5 Clause), and you've got yourself one bitchin' tee.
Hey, look at how old this random logo from pop culture looks! Buy it!
In hindsight, a lot of really hilarious things happened back in August of '06. But none was more gut busting than Fidel Castro' trip to the hospital for what the Cuban government described as an acute intestinal crisis, with sustained bleeding. The unthinkable suffering that he had inflicted on his countrymen for almost 50 years was now back to plague him in the form of what many speculated was intestinal cancer. Now that is hilariously ironic, especially in the context of this wacky, familiar saying.
Speaking of insane bearded foreign presidents, remember Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What a turkey! Back in August he was all, "I'm gonna develop nuclear technology." Then he was like, "The Holocaust never happened." And then he goes, " I challenge George W. Bush to a fair, televised debate." Man, all that is pretty funny now that he' stopped enriching urani-what? Oh. Fuck. Gotta go.
