|
The Purple Shirt before/after The poetry reading went well. Lots of comments about my shirt. I wore a purple shirt. I've had it since college. Its a purple t-shirt. It fits me snugly. I call it my "man-whore" t-shirt. Audrey likes it, so I wore it with a pair of pristine double-knit black polyester bell bottoms that I got at the Salvation Army store. And when I say pristine, I mean pris-TINE. They still had the original tags on them from the seventies. Unworn. I got them for two dollars. So I paired that with my normal leather black and white leather sneakers, and my purple "man-whore" t-shirt. It started with a kid coming into the reading, smart-ass guy that I like, who really likes my music. He leaned in and said, "Nice eggplant. Very masculine." Which, frankly, I had no idea what eggplant was. And to tell me I'm 'very masculine', what the fuck was that? I looked confusedly at him. "Your shirt. I dig it." he said. Then later on, his girl remarked on it, trying to draw me into conversation. She's one of those people who are smart and observant, who really haven't met their match yet in life. Such things happen, life will kick the fuck out of us all at some point. It stops being an adventure and becomes something to be survived. Anyway, she babbled to me about the fucker. I pretty much ignored it. I'm sure there's some group dynamics at some point that I should pay attention to, and perhaps if I neglect her, or certain other pivotal parts, the crowds that come to see me play may dwindle, but I havent put a finger on that yet so much. I was just nice. And then some guy across from her, a drummer I had jammed with chimed in about the fuckin' shirt. The man-whore shirt. "Yeah, its like you wear it saying 'yeah, its a purple shirt. I'm wearing it. And if you say anything about it, I'll kick the fuck out of ya''" I hadnt thought I was putting out that vibe. Honestly, I came home, did some shit, and changed rather quickly. Audrey likes the shirt. I wore it. Then later on at the bar, another girl was commenting about it. The barmaid, thankfully, did not. She was, however, the girl who had to drop out of eighth grade because she got pregnant. And strange, strange, strange that I remember it, AND the things she said to me as she sat in front of me in shop class. Needless to say, I didnt bring it up, because, really, how weird would it have made her feel, to be quoted verbatim from the eighth grade? And I didnt care so much to do so anyway. I think I must have looked good in the man-whore shirt. Either that, or there is some seriously warped karma surrounding that shirt. I wore it once going out clubbing in Denver. To a bar down by the old Union station, which was called A-Bar then, then became Citrus, and now, likely has changed names many, many times, if it still exists. We pulled up in a silver 97 porsche' super-sport, got out, parked on the sidewalk in front of the bar with no complaints from anyone. My the girls did hum. At the time, I wrote it off to the splashy arrival. BUT... MAYBE... No, it was the f'n car. I mean, some of it was the shirt. Sure. But, most likely, a lot of it was the f'n car. The car and the shirt. It was the car/shirt combo. Yeah.
|
