T-Shirt Pergatory?

I almost decided to take down my links to T-Shirt Hell.

A lot of the shirts are funny, most are ones you could only wear to a college kegger, night club, or other environment where you're not likely to have an eight year old ask, "What does high on life and glue mean?" Or, for that matter, have some matronly old woman say, "You're shirt has a typo on it, it says 'gone fisting.'"

A lot of the shirts are outrageously offensive. Some have even offended me, and the bar is pretty high for that. The worst are segregated off into the 'Worse Than Hell' section, and many of these are so wild I can't even picture a party where I'd wear them. "What About All The Good Things Hitler Did?" one asks, or "Dave Chapelle Went Back To Africa...One Down." I'm pretty sure you'd get your ass kicked wearing those shirts pretty much anywhere but a Klan meeting, and since KKK types tend to be a humorless lot, they might get you in trouble there.

And if I ever see someone wearing the "Autistic Kids Rock" shirt they created, it'll be worth the arrest for assault and battery.

But the T-Shirt Hell guy, he took down the 'Worse Than Hell' section, claiming an attack of conscience. I quote:

My name is Aaron Schwarz and I own T-Shirt Hell. Because of that, I can do whatever the fuck I want. I woke up one morning and decided I didn't want to have a, "Worse Than Hell" section, so I took it down.

We always said there was no line we wouldn't cross, but even then there really was still a line. There were always subjects we wouldn't touch. So now we've moved the line. Sometimes people grow, and change, and gain perspective. There are some shirts we just don't feel comfortable making and we're not going to make them any more. Those are the shirts we took down.

For the record, there were no outside influences. There was no lawsuit. I wasn't visited in the middle of the night by The Nation of Islam, and my girlfriend did not give birth to a gay, black, autistic baby.

Then it comes out on TV that he was poisoned. No kidding, apparently he nearly died after someone laced his drink at a bar. No threat, just a trip to the ER and a near death experience. Sorry, but 'no outside influences?'

He's a self-inflated jerk when he boasts that he's willing to be a 'martyr' for free speech.

But here's why I am keeping the links:

• He has as legitimate a claim to free speech as anyone. Whoever poisoned this punk has more in common with whoever shot Larry Flynt than with Jerry Falwell, who required a Supreme Court ruling to learn that having his feelings hurt was something he just had to deal with.


• As guilty a pleasure as it is, I admit to laughing at some of his most outrageous shirts. Not to buying or wearing them, but laughing. I can't be hypocritical enough to say that it's okay for him to make jokes about the Holocaust, 9/11, rape, and so on, but not about stuff that hurts my feelings.


• The guy is young, I saw him on the news. If he doesn't get himself killed, maybe this will all be a huge growth experience for him. Or not. Larry Flynt is still a dirtbag, and Jerry Falwell's still a humorless bore.


• It irritates me that liberals tend to take the approach that free speech is only protected when commerce is not involved. Linking to T-Shirt Hell must be offensive to liberals, which is a good reason to do it.


• He's still, unless he's lying, going to donate 30% of the proceeds from his outrages to charities related to the tragedies he satirizes. It's a backwards way to raise money for a cause, but it at least shows some sign of a conscience.

Or maybe I'm totally wrong and I should take down the links...