Just when you think you've paid you're dues you find out you've been dumped. That's the modern web. You can't count on anything. Par example, I have been printing this Frankie say Relax shirt, which has haunted me from the Eighties. The style is Garrish, Large block letters, the design is ubiquitous, in fact the word Ubiquitous came from this shirt. We wrote about it, sold it cheap ( to keep it real ). Then some television advertisement comes out with the shirt featured in it and it starts selling rather well online. All of a sudden I can't even find my links on the web in Google (I haven't bothered to check Bing yet). WTF. How does Google go about dropping people and juggling content and more importantly this reinforces the idea that real-world information is completely edited by strange coincidences.
It really doesn't make sense when I know I have the best printed t-shirt for this in the most colors, the cheapest price and all and all the most authentic version of this item around (I even hated it in the eighties, which is why I like it now). Overall I'm not super upset for this pariticular instance, but it is a good example since it is Halloween and I think a bunch a people want this item. I'm more upset at the unpredicatable nature of the beast within. Here is the write up we gave this item years and years ago:
"Set the dial in the wayback machine to the summer of 1984 and listen closely. That sound you hear is Frankie Goes to Hollywood's one and only hit "Relax". And associated somehow with the song are these shirts. Frankie say relax-- what the hell does that mean? Listening closely to the lyrics, we get the impression that it has something to do with what the Romans called "coitus interruptus", which translates in to english as something like "extremely frustrating". Why would you want to wear a shirt that encouraged such a thing? Beats the hell out of us, but they sure were popular, and if like us you weren't very well dressed that particular summer, this is your chance to make up for it. Buy several and take 1984 with you wherever you go."
A rather nice piece by our now deceased staff writer. Even the photo shot in our store is a real customer in a real store, not pretencious or overbearing at all. Nonetheless, this CafePress, Zazzle, Amazon, Ebay Bullshit dominates the web and keeps giving people crap. I know we aren't the best at everything, but I know we are the best at somethings and most importantly culturally relevant historically correct kitschy low-brow humor is our thing. This Frankie Say Relax shirt is essentially that and the fact that I can't find any reference to this item just goes to say that there is something wrong.
Is Y-Que banned for adult content? It really doesn't matter because there is no answer to this type of problem in a complex world of linking. I just have to go back and decide if it is worth it to rebuild from scratch something that should just be there in the mix, but that has disappeared, like Robert Dinero as Tuttle in the Movie Brazil. Not much difference. Just don't try to fix anything and your life should be fine.
If I have to keep rebuilding web pages just to stay in the mix for a public service type message like Frankie Say Relax then it makes the web seem like too much work to keep things "live". Balloon Boy is a big deal, but how many people are looking to dress up like him on Halloween (maybe I will), but he's so non-descript. Darn. The bigger issue is Frankie was a good Halloween costume, but now I've got to push on to Xmas since my main design has been mysteriously vanquished. Maybe it was a Mystery Shopper (whatever that is) and the Mystery of Shopping for a t-shirt that was soooo obvious confused them and it was edited from existence.
By the way, I spent an hour the other night trying to find an original version or image of the "Touch of Class" transfer that was famous in the 70's as a transfer. Can't be found. No where. If you have an image of this please send it over for historical purposes. On the plus side, I was researching the origin of the Mudflap girl and actually discover that Whiz Enterprises in Long Beach created this icon of our Modern World. I consider it the only true American female Madonna representing Sex versus Virginity. To think that being placed on Mudflaps, the dirtiest place on a truck, made that image famous is even more amazing. But the internet did lead me to an answer of an otherwise missing link in the world of Graphic Art. God Bless the Mudflap Girl.
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