I had a ton of Hawaiian-style shirts once, before I checked my privilege as a second-rate copy editor at a third-string newspaper.
Gosh. Another fashion option out the window.
I guess I’ll have to go back to my top hat and tails. Mahalo, pendejos.
Aren’t some of us just kind of stretching a bit to find things that piss us off? I mean, I was a Maoist, f’fucksake, and even we were less easily enraged.
We were also less nattily attired. But god damn it, nobody ever accused us of being “fashionable embodiments of the history of American colonization, imperialism and racism.” ¡Venceremos!
Tags: Hawaiian shirts
Mad Blog Media 
April 13, 2021 at 8:10 am |
I’ve often wondered if, hypothetically, people had nothing to worry about would they find something? If they had nothing to be offended about would they find something? This pretty well answers those questions.
Then again, don’t sweat the small stuff …. and it’s pretty much all small stuff, eh?
April 13, 2021 at 8:49 am |
There are those among us who would gripe about a free beer on a hot day. Appalling. It must sell newspapers, though. Or something.
April 13, 2021 at 10:02 am |
Short answer: yes!
Pretty sure the Montignac cave drawings were someone’s attempt to mock a neighbor’s hunting skills and to complain that Grögg was gathering from Ûhknøtt’s berry path.
April 13, 2021 at 9:47 am |
Isn’t the bugaboo a dance? I’m taking my Luddite ass back to my cave.
April 13, 2021 at 9:59 am |
“Sometimes a Hawaiian shirt is just a Hawaiian shirt.” — Sigmund Fraud
April 13, 2021 at 10:03 am |
“I have a problem!?!? You’re the one with all the dirty pictures!!”
April 13, 2021 at 10:08 am |
Oh, FFS. Having lived in Honolulu for 14 years (1987-2001) I don’t recall this being even a micro-issue. If there are not real issues, folks will invent something. We are inventing micro-aggression issues out of thin air.
Meanwhile, I have a dozen Aloha shirts from my U of H days. Molon Labe….
April 13, 2021 at 10:18 am |
Turn on local Honolulu news and tell me what the 87th generation Hawaiian reporter is wearing. Yep, a brightly colored elaborately patterned short sleeve button up shirt …
April 13, 2021 at 10:37 am |
Can a kamaaina wear them or do you have to be kānaka maoli? Local Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, or Portuguese?
I suspect most of us thought we were just trying to fit in with the local culture, not dominate it as the descendants of colonists.
Interestingly, there used to be this great Italian restaurant in Honolulu called Castagnola’s, run by Cass Castagnola. Then a bunch of knock-offs called Assaggio run by local non-Italians sprang up. We ate at all of them, esp. after Castagnola’s restaurant in Manoa shut down. I guess we need to fight that one out too. Oh, the tragedy of cultural appropriation!
April 13, 2021 at 2:49 pm |
Just FYI, I’m appropriating the shit out of some pork green chile stew right now.
April 13, 2021 at 10:23 am |
Freaking worst part is that an editor decided to run the article.
April 13, 2021 at 10:32 am |
Gotta feed the Beast.
Back in the Day® my man Hal and I would occasionally declare a Parrot Shirt Day on the copy desk at The Pueblo Chieftain. We had no idea we were colonial sympathizers. We just liked Jimmy Buffett. Also, annoying the publisher. The copy desk’s anthem was “We Like It Here,” sung to the tune of “O Tannenbaum.”
“We like it here, we like it here,
You fuckin’ A, we like it here.”
April 13, 2021 at 12:33 pm |
I wish I could have been there.
April 13, 2021 at 2:21 pm |
Once we decided it was Suit Day. I cobbled together a three-piece “suit” that was entirely denim, save for the tie.
Click here for a larger version.
April 13, 2021 at 5:09 pm |
Quite an eclectic group that I would NOT have associated with Pueblo, CO. In today’s woke/cancel environment, I would have thought the pipe smoker embodied rampant colonialism; the denim wearer (whoever that is) embodied the “Manifest Destiny” (God’s Will Be Done!) removal by Levi jeans wearers of indigenous American peoples and animals from west of the Mississippi River; and the two “smug” tie-wearers embodied the ever-changing and resource consuming clothing industry. 🙂
To offer excess to excess and make a mole hill into a mountain, I’d have suggested the Pueblo Chieftain (NOTE THE NOW CONTROVERSIAL AND HIGHLY INFLAMMATORY USE OF CHIEFTAIN … and yes, full disclosure, I’m part Native American) call itself the Colorado Pueblo Green Chile Diario (“All the hot news provided tastefully and daily at your doorstep”).
Of course, Hatch, NM would have challenged that!! 🙂
April 13, 2021 at 1:09 pm |
Since I retired, a pair of Levis combined with weather appropriate shirts, sweatshirts. hoodies, and jackets have been my wardrobe. I still have two suits and two blazers (left over from the old times) for the few weddings and many funerals.
April 13, 2021 at 2:24 pm |
That’s always been my go-to garb. Once, during an annual personnel review, an editor focused on why I insisted on wearing T-shirts and jeans to my anonymous job on the copy desk. This, after a series of long stretches without days off because the newspaper couldn’t find/retain copy editors.
That very day I began looking for another job.
April 13, 2021 at 3:05 pm |
I had a nice light colored linen Italian suit we bought for our honeymoon, which was spent in Northern Italy. I only needed the hat and lupara for a full getup. Wish I could still fit in it, assuming I could find it.
April 13, 2021 at 9:02 pm |
Wranglers are the bomb for skinny ass white boys. Denim si, Levi’s no.
April 14, 2021 at 7:41 am |
Never say never, or so “they” say. Piss on “them.” I will never wear a tie again. I have one left, which I will find and deposit in the trash posthaste A tie is classic example of arrested development of old guys and the power elite. If a turtleneck was good enough for my dear Mom’s funeral, it’s certainly good enough for anyone else.
April 13, 2021 at 2:39 pm |
i find suits offensive.
April 13, 2021 at 8:59 pm |
Agreed. Dress codes are the death knell of any organization.
April 14, 2021 at 1:23 am |
I couldn’t read the link, but FYI the Boogaloo Boys are using Hawaiian shirts as identifiers when they go to have a riot. Which annoys me because I have a selection of Aloha shirts.
April 14, 2021 at 6:32 am |
That was one of the hooks in the story — Boogaloos wear Hawaiian shirts along with the camo, body armor, etc.
I have an old Levi’s jacket with the sleeves cut off. I guess that makes me a Hell’s Angel. I should wear it next time I take the Vespa out, give the citizens a thrill.
April 14, 2021 at 11:51 am |
Put a Mad Dog Media logo on the back of that jacket and start your very own outlaw Vespa club!
April 14, 2021 at 8:01 am |
IIRC, Donald J Trump held up a Bible during his Storming of St. John’s Episcopal Church. I wonder if all the good Christians will start hiding their copy of the Holy Book. The Orange Drut gave it a bad name. Of course, some so-called Christians give it an even worse name.
I get that the Boogalooo Boyz have taken to wearing Aloha shirts. The Unite the Right folks gave tiki torches a bad name. I also read my Reyn Spooners (got a whole closet full of Aloha shirts from 14 years of a faculty/staff gig in Paradise) are good for concealed carry ‘cuz they are so loose they don’t “print” the gun. I wonder if people might see me wearing an Aloha shirt and assume I am packing.
Those associations kinda give the poor shirts a bad name but I see stores still sell shirts in the colors brown and black, Hitler and Mussolini notwithstanding.
Book ’em, Danno. Conspiracy to Soil the Reputation of an Aloha Shirt.