IF YOU MISSED THE LAST EIGHT OF THESE HERE’S THE QUICK PITCH:

Even though the only thing Che ever put on his shirt was blood, sweat and little bits of traitor brains,

Andre the Giant doesn’t have a posse,

and by the time anybody got around to defending Brooklyn it was just another Alamo,

the revolutionary bent of the modern T-shirt fad suggested that, despite years of anger management classes, behavior medication and lack of decent education Americans can still get mad enough to shell out twenty something dollars to be rebellious. Which means a lot, considering votes are free.

Young people sporting the shadow of the AK 47, cameos of violent revolutionaries and whatever Shepherd Fairey decided to steal that week did so in order to appear dangerous, which is often all that is needed to keep predators in check.

In short, the T-shirt kings of the last century had misunderestimated azimuth in the vacuum of pop, overshot fashion and ended up in politics.

It was with these fads that I rediscovered hope in the generation with the X hung on it. I wasn’t the only one. Spike Lee contacted me and asked if he could use the T-shirt in a movie called “Inside Man.” We met and I gave him permission, hoping that it would be a “Defend Brooklyn” commercial when it came out.

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