Madison Regatta!

NAME: John [with Alexis]
LOCATION: house party, Avondale

Are you from Madison?

Uh, my folks live there. Yeah, Madison, Indiana.

Oh! Okay.

Yeah, Indiana. The other Madison.

And were you in a regatta?

Nah, it's this, this big thing they do every year around the Fourth of July, yeah? It's this speedboat race, it's, uh, right on the Ohio River. Right on the Kentucky-Indiana border. So, they do it there, and I picked it up at a thrift store. My parents, they work for the Salvation Army, yeah? And, they run the thrift store - that's part of it - so I got a family discount. It worked out pretty good.

How much of a discount do you get at the Salvation Army?

It's like fifty percent, man, it's pretty good.

So how much did this shirt cost?

About a dollar fifty.

And you've never been in the regatta.

No, never been in the regatta. Never actually even been in the same state as the regatta was going on. So it's not quite legitimate. But I like the shirt, right? So what are you gonna do.

DISMANTLE

NAME: Erin
LOCATION: Parrots Bar and Grill, Wellington and Halstead

I didn't know what to do with my life and I was graduating from college and my sister bought me a ticket to see my favorite band for my birthday. So I came here to visit for the first time in a lotta years and we went to the concert and I bought this t-shirt and it's kinda embarrassing because it's a U2 concert t-shirt but it means more to me because it's the color it is and it says "dismantle" and it appeals to my, like, leftist politics, but - and it's, you know, protest-y.


But it also has this really great memory that like my sister and I connected for the first time in a really long time and I came here for the first time in a really long time and it was that weekend that I decided that when I graduated from college I would move here. And I graduated from college and I had no job and I had nothing and I moved here and I'm still here three years later, so. Every time I wear this t-shirt I feel a little, like, liberated, and I believe in myself a little bit more.

So, normally I ask a lot of questions, but I'm tempted to just write down everything you just said and leave it at that.

It sounded completely geeky!

No, no, it sounded really good.

In Good Company

NAME: Ben
LOCATION: The Firkin & Pheasant, Orchard and Diversey

They gave it to us for free at the video store I worked at. So, I stole it. We were supposed to wear it in the store, but I never wore it in the store, I wore it everywhere else. And it's comfy!

Are you a fan of the film?

I don't hate it. Any movie where Topher Grace gets to bang Scarlett Johansson, I'm all for.

Do you wear it, though, as an advertisement for the film?

No. I wear it as an advertisement for comfortable maroon shirts. And Topher Grace. And Dennis Quaid and Scarlett Johansson, but not the movie itself.


But you told me that it's your favorite shirt.

It is my favorite shirt.

What makes this your favorite, as opposed to a shirt advertising a movie you actually like?

I got it for free. Um, it's the most comfortable shirt I wear. It doesn't wear out no matter how many times you wash it. I've probably washed it ... at least more than once, hopefully. It doesn't fade. When it's hot out, it feels cool, when it's cool it feels warm. And it's ironic enough not to be hipstery, but it's also not a hipster shirt because I actually got it where I worked, I didn't buy it in a second-hand store or anything.

Is there irony in your wearing it because you don't think it's a very good movie?

No, I don't hate it. I mean, I think I have a burned copy of it somewhere, from the video store. But I don't watch it a lot. If it was on TBS when I go home right now I would probably watch it. They order Domino's because their dinner gets ruined and then Topher Grace hits on her by playing ping pong in the garage then the lovable little sister comes in and it ends - well, I'm not gonna say how it ends because it's really cool. And then she goes to school and lives in a dorm even though she's like 29 or something. And then Topher Grace bangs her... I haven't watched it a lot, I swear to god.

Iquitos, Peru

NAME: Samantha
LOCATION: Starbucks, Lakeview

Well, I got it at, um, in Peru when we went on a cruise down the Amazon River. We stopped at this village and, um, it was - they didn't take money so we bartered our stuff. My mom brought a bunch of things and I traded one of my old dolls for this beautiful shirt.

You traded a doll for this shirt.

Yeah. Isn't it cool? It has like cool little birds on it. And we went down this river right here - well, the Amazon - and then this is like ... [Samantha is pointing out the geography of Peru's rivers on the map on her shirt] ... other little rivers and then we went to Peru. Iquitos, Peru.

And it was in Iquitos where you bartered-

It's not in this actual town. It was in a little village. I don't know what it was called but it was tiny.

What kind of doll was it?

It was like a barbie and then I also gave them one of my old Mickey Mouse shirts.

And do you feel now that it was a fair trade?

Yeah, because my Mickey Mouse shirt had a hole in it.

How old were you?

Eleven? Twelve? Eleven, probably. I also got to touch this really cool frog that's poisonous. It's red, and if you boil its skin that's when it gets poisonous and people would put 'em on their arrows in the old time to shoot stuff with.