If you are here from the 1st newsletter email I just sent out, welcome!
I’m using Mailchimp to establish an email list for shows and whatnot. It’s my goal to send emails sparingly, like every couple months at most Unless I become wildly successful, in which case I plan on NEVER SHUTTING UP.
Anyway if you would like to be subjected to that hit me up at ty@sunnydaystshirts.com and I’ll put you on the list.
And now an ode to Dude’s barber shop in the wretched city of Hookset, dudesbarbershop.us
Oh Dude’s barber shop, oh Dude’s barber shop, why the heck are you in Hookset? Hookset is acres and acres of franchises and car dealerships, all branding and no art. There are a ton of small business and I love a small businessman as much as the next guy but small businesses have to work so hard just to get by that anything cultural is jettisoned for lack of time or optimism. Hookset is like the great vast majority of American towns, miles and miles of nothing aesthetic or non-utilitarian. Fancy gun shops and lovely dive bars… but the rest of the city is designed by the kinds of bosses who squeeze every cent out of every bit of bandwidth, the kinds of businesses who can’t let their cashiers have a human exchange of pleasantries without forced to say “Would you like to sign up for our rewards card?”
Ah, but Dudes barber shop, what an oasis of counter-culture. Bikers and older hipsters in their funky cultural lair having genuinely interesting conversations and being pleasantly gruff about it, and they oh so gently and politely manage your random ear hair, wild rebel eyebrows or scruffy asymmetrical monster beard at no extra $$, which makes you tip them the title to your car. And then, then! They break out the straight-razor and do the detail work while this snarly happy bulldog storms around the shop crashing into the backs of their legs it’s awesome.
So now that I’m armed to trick people into believing I’m a respectable artist and not a basement-dwelling troglodyte screenprinter, I’m ready for the opening on Saturday. Bring on the light banter and boxed wine.
Okay, off to print print print