Friday, July 18, 2008

Apollo's Creed, or: One ignorant egomaniac deserves another

I'm not really much of a news junkie, but I read this article yesterday about a girl suing a man because she got attacked while wearing a t-shirt with a stupid slogan that he made. Only in my imagination and cheesy superhero movies did I think such greed and idiocy existed on such a common-day level. I shouldn't find this surprising by now.

First off, when I saw "Obama Slave Shirt Sparks Lawsuit Threat," I thought it was some lame hipster being dimwittedly "ironic," by putting the cover of the New Yorker or something on a t-shirt to show how retro-yet-handy he could be by using an iron-on transfer. When I read the slogan on the t-shirt, though, "Obama Is My Slave" interpreted immediately in my mind as "Obama Is My (Sex) Slave." Like something a young female collegiate liberal would display upon her bosom to flaunt her passion to the candidate and yet still remain edgy. Then a few girls saw "slave" and "Obama" in the same sentence, got pissed, overreacted, whatever.

Then I read that she reportedly "threatened to sue" for "all he's got." What, did she not have her contacts in when she purchased it? Did the shirt, possibly intended for pajama use only, fall in a convenient spot on Laundry Day? Was she a Hilary fan? Did she spot a future trend and think it was a secret DaVinci code when she couldn't read anything offensive on it when looking in the mirror? There's a good blonde joke floating somewhere in our midst. Or, when viewing it in conjunction with his other work in his one location, was there any doubt at all what point his designs were trying to make? Especially in light of his childish pretension?

Perhaps she honestly didn't realize how offensive it could be to others; maybe she herself was an edgy collegiate liberal who wanted to make a bold statement at that night's Young Democrat meeting by broadcasting her political lust for the dashing nominee. That being said, I doubt that any clear-thinking human being, after making any of the aforementioned excusable lapses in intelligence or judgment, would then return to the store and threaten to sue his ass for a purchse that she made of her own free will.

At least Apollo Braun is unabashed about what an egocentric prick he is. He's protected by the First Amendment, and hot damn, is he going to make the most of it. All sardonicism aside, this girl agreed with a controversial statement enough to buy it on a t-shirt and wear it in a massively public environment. But she wimps out when it receives the bad end of the controversy that it was, for all purposes, intended to garner--then has the audacity to retreat further into cowardice by saying that Moron McHack is now responsible and owes her money and ass-kissing. I'll give credit where credit's due, but I think she just maxxed out her victim card. You make your statement and you stand by it--or else the First Amendment isn't worth gravel.

I am not saying the other girls were right or even justified in attacking her. Nor am I discounting the shock and fear that she probably went through. It could have turned into a nasty, nasty situation very quickly. But you know what? She was "cursed at...for her shirt," "pushed," one girl "pull(ed) the earphones out of her ears, another spit in her face." No permanent injuries, no damage to property, nothing but an unfortunate confrontation. Every citydweller has one. Hell, I bet they have at least five or six.

Not so fast, Apollo Braun. You may not be at legal fault, but you're still guilty of being a douchebag. I couldn't care less which candidate he supports, but the least he could do is make his reasoning make sense. Braun is Jewish, and says the only thing he likes about Obama is that he is black, which "opens the door for other minorities," yet says Obama "reminds (him) of Adolf Hitler," a man who organized the systematic intentional extermination of everyone who did not fit into the Aryan status quo. And then, in the same breath as that argument, right when he's flashing his own Victim Card about being Jewish and subject to discrimination, BAM! He "does not like Obama because 'he is a Muslim.'" Go ahead, Apollo. Use it as an insult. Don't worry about it being completely incorrect. If it's in large enough font, that makes it true. It'll be ironic, right?

Oh, so the views expressed on your t-shirts aren't yours? Not even with BOTH of your names obnoxiously immortalized in the lower right corner? I'm sure your SoHo market demographic is full to the brim of "ordinary WASPs" who staunchly believe that America is not ready for a black president. It's ok, though. I have a few designs that I whipped up myself that I think would suit both you and them:

I realize that I'm giving him exactly what he wants when I pay this story the least bit heed, him being the attention-whoring cartoon of a person he is. The joke may be on him, since I doubt anyone reads this anymore after I stopped writing for two months, and any kind of traffic I could bring him is ghostly in comparison to this story being on the front page of Metro yesterday. But you know what, I'll take the high road. I hope that he gets a ton of myspace friends that he'd never even heard of before. I hope that people drop $69-$250 when they're desperately seeking to be edgy like everyone else. I hope people follow in his lead and puts everything that comes out their mouth, ear, or ass onto a t-shirt so that everyone who didn't get sprinkles on their ice cream when they were a kid can finally feel like they've contributed to society in some fashion while they're waiting for their lawsuit settlement checks to roll in.

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