t-shirt tales

In 1996 my brother, a few friends and I had a day off together and were looking for something to do. Thanks to my Gateway 2000, a 14.4 modem and AOL we came across a listing for a Godflesh show later that night in West Virginia. We all lived in Virginia Beach. The show was a 9 hour drive and all of us had to be back the next day. Nobody was really familiar with Godflesh at that point aside from my copy of “Selfless” which, at the time, I didn’t really even like that much. Still, this was Va. Beach and driving 18 hours in a day to see a band we all knew little about play for an hour was better than the day of oppressive boredom that our home town offered. So, after some deliberation, we all piled in the car and left.

1996 was a pre-”GPS/cell phone/Google/technology will guide us every step of the way” existence and what we had to get from point A to point B was a device made from mulched wood pulp and ink called a map. We may have also had a compass and a sextant but those details are foggy. At some point during the drive I got tired and my brother took over the controls, my friend was navigating and I went to sleep. Now, it’s entirely possible that I gave poor directions to the two of them. It’s also possible that I didn’t and they just made a mistake. This is something that is still up for debate depending upon who you ask. What happened for certain may forever be a mystery but what isn’t a mystery is that when I woke up and started checking roads I had no idea where we were. When we finally pulled over at a gas station and discovered we were an additional 2 hours away from where we needed to be I more or less snapped. I had a horrible temper back then  and what followed was some yelling and some name calling and a general malaise that seemed far more intense then than when read here. Pissed off, I jumped into the driver seat, hellbent on not missing the show after driving as far as we already had, and my brother/lost/road/rage fueled blitzkrieg to the show commenced. In addition to sporting a finely developed temper I also drove like a murderous asshole back then with absolutely no care for any possible consequence. Fortunately I never killed anyone but I sure as hell would have never wanted to be my own passenger back then. Sorry guys.  

When we finally arrived at the venue, Godflesh was *just* getting on stage. Maybe it was the argument... maybe it was the long drive, maybe it was the brewing road rage... I don’t know what it was for sure but Godflesh’s pounding and screaming was exactly what all of us needed. The show was bombastic and loud and fucking amazing. All of us left that show fans of the band. We also left the show in far better spirits than we arrived. “Songs of Love and Hate” right?

I’ve loved Godzilla my entire life. The functioning principles behind the original film by Ishirō Honda are something I’ve taken to heart when creating my own art. On the surface, a fun movie with a giant monster smashing a bunch of buildings. Beneath the surface, an allegory for the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The idea of being able to create something fun and entertaining that also had a ton of meat and potatoes to chew on was super appealing for me when I was younger. When the 1998 Roland Emmerich remake of Godzilla was announced I was excited to see another Godzilla movie in the theaters, even if it was just a remake. My friends and I drove out of Chicago to find the theater with the largest screen to make sure the event was even more fun.... because like the shirt says, “size does matter”. Right? Well, not to shock any of you reading this but the 1998 Roland Emmerich Godzilla was a big heaping pile of shit. I should have known better but my love for Big G surpassed my ability to reason and I left the theater incredibly bummed. I swore to never watch this travesty of a movie ever again.

So why the hell do I have this t-shirt?

Years later I’d moved from Chicago, IL.  to Brooklyn, NY. One afternoon while walking home from the subway I kept seeing a young boy, maybe 8 or 10 or something,  running up beside me, looking at me and then retreating back again. Then I heard him shout, “Mommy... that IS Godzilla on his arm!”. The kid was talking about the Godzilla tattoo occupying a sizeable portion of my left arm. I turned around and his mother told me that he was in love with Godzilla movies, saw the tattoo, got excited and had to double check that he saw what he thought he saw. So we chatted a bit and for the next few years, Godzilla Kid would frequently say hi when he saw me walking down the street. I’d say hi back and at some point I burned him a bunch of Godzilla DVD’s and kept them in my backpack as a surprise for him. I’m pretty sure I made Godzilla Kid’s day when I finally caught up with them again. I could appreciate his enthusiasm. I WISH someone had given me a stack of Godzilla bootlegs when I was his age! A little while later Godzilla Kid’s exceptionally cool Mom took him all the way to Chicago to go to the best ever Godzilla festival, G-Fest. Great mom right? When they came back they arrived with a care package for me from the festival. Magazines, stickers, flyers and a Godzilla t-shirt! How fucking cool is that? Who cares if it was the t-shirt for that shitty Roland Emmerich Godzilla remake? He had a huge smile on his face when he gave me that package. I loved that neighborhood. The people there were cool like Godzilla Kid. So cool that they compensate for the shittiest movie ever. Thanks again Godzilla Kid.

I got this shirt while going to school at O.D.U. sometime between 1991 and 1997. My photography professor David Johnson wrote this and it always stuck with me. Not sure who did the printing but the shirt lasted a good while until dog teeth and associated "dog teeth related hole-type casualties" played a big part in retiring the shirt. David and I have talked about this definition of art off and on since then and like most discussions about art… we don't manage to make anything more concrete but I always love the conversation.

A little bit about David... he helped save me. Not in the "I'm an addict help me" or the "Jesus has found me" kind of way but very much in a "your endeavor matters" kind of way. I was always creative when younger but high school and other factors growing up really went a long way to help extinguish the creative drive in me. Going into college I extremely directionless and frustrated. I was there because I was supposed to be there. On a whim I took a photography class taught by David and without exaggerating, that decision changed the rest of my life. For the first time someone got the idea into my head that what I created mattered.

ZZ Top Tour 2005