365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.
(Second Update - 1310.24. First Update - 1306.05 Originally Posted - 1304.25.)

Saturday, June 22, 2013

T-shirt #93: Free Katie

T-shirt #93: Free Katie

This shirt was a gift from my friend Christine Doré given the semester that we worked together, she serving as my teaching assistant in my sections of WMS:100 at Western Michigan University (for that story: GO HERE and dial back).

Often I would give gifts to the TAs and they would give gifts to me, especially after the Fall semester, given the proximity of Christmas.



I feel free to confess this now: I had a crush on Katie Holmes (in so far as anyone can have a crush on someone he has never met and has only seen playing another character in a television show).










I watched DAWSON'S CREEK primarily because Katie Holmes was amazingly smart, cool, and beautiful: in sum, adorable. And DAWSON was clearly an IDIOT, which is the quick summary of that show: "Dawson's Creek: a show about how stupid Dawson is and how not stupid Pacey is (and a few other characters and their stories)." Great show if you like episodic, sudsy-style weekly melodrama for teens with a hip vibe and smart mouthed teensters spouting rapid fire dialogue for which the WB became well known (see my other faves such as Gilmore Girls, Felicity, Veronica Mars, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer).




ANYWAY.............................

So there was this whole Winona Ryder thing in which she had allegedly shop-lifted from a Saks store in Beverly Hills. She was taken into custody and was found to be in possession of  items she had not paid for and addictive narcotics for which she did not have  a prescription. An L.A. gift shop owner started a fun T-shirt campaign with these "Free Winona" T-shirts.

I had been discussing with Christine how I wanted a "Free Winona" T-shirt but had missed out on getting one right around the time that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes started seeing each other (and soon got married). So, Christine got me this "Free Katie" T-shirt (which is around 2005).

Lo and behold, there's a FREE KATIE website.

Yes, I was also surprised. But why should I be?

There was a whole campaign to "free Katie" for the clutches of culty evil and "love." And there's many fan sites and blogs and images and a wealth of material at the touch of the fingertips on the keypad.

There's everything on the Internet. It's a good thing Al Gore invented it.

Funny, also, this:

Awkward! Katie Holmes is left embarrassed after she meets fans wearing 'Free Katie' T-shirts

Apparently, there are other styles of "Free Katie" shirts as seen in that article from 2012.


My crush on Katie Holmes is now just a distant memory as falling in love with my wife and getting married has changed everything. I still think Katie Holmes is attractive, smart, cool, and bad at choosing men for relationships. But the ardent crush on her TV persona (or any of her movie personas)  faded long ago.

Still, the shirt is funny. Or at least, I think it's funny.

RESOURCES ABOUT FREE WINONA

HIP NEW RALLYING CRY: "Free Winona!"

FREE WINONA TUMBLR



I used to keep a top ten list of celebrity women that I found most attractive and with whom I would most like to "spend time" if I had the opportunity (which I never would). I don't really keep this list anymore now that I am married. My wife trumps all such lists. And I am not just saying that because I know I should say it. I actually mean it. But given that this blog is about making lists, I have decided to share the top ten list of women who had most often held places on this list, but in an effort to de-emphasize this list, I will list horizontally rather than vertically: Ashley Judd, Lauren Graham, Katie Holmes, Eliza Dushku, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sadé, Erykah Badu, Susan Sarandon, Morena Baccarin, and Gong Li.

Do you sense a theme here? All these women (except Sarandon) share one common trait. Others had made the list in years past: Diane Sawyer, Tia Carrere, Gillian Anderson, Elizabeth McGovern, Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega, Kate Bush, MIA, Dana Delaney, Polly Draper and others. Winona Ryder made the list at some point. And when Alanis Morrisette sung about being jilted, I wondered if I could be the kind of guy that would make her happy. Going farther back, my attractions are peopled with women such as Julie Newmar and Yvonne Craig (as both will be featured in an upcoming blog post). There were others, such as
Ava Gardner, Jennifer Jones, Susan Dey, Jane Seymour, Barbara Bach, Raquel Welch, Lara Parker, Diana Rigg, and Maureen McCormick.

But I do not actively keep this list anymore. I can acknowledge that Zoe Saldana is super awesome as Uhura; I am not immune. But the passion of the interest has changed since I fell heels over head for my wife and got married. But I can still appreciate beauty in a kind of distanced and abstract way.

On a somewhat unrelated note yet related to this blog: Yesterday, my wife told me it was National T-shirt Day/ I can find no confirmation this using Al Gore's Internet. Puzzling that.

- chris tower - 1306.22 - 8:58





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