To receive this shirt. Read everything down below and answer the prompt. Good luck.

INTRODUCTION:

I moved to Boston in August 2018. Two months after I graduated from school.

Eleven hours away from home.

Didn’t have a job, slept on my best friend’s couch, I had enough money to where I could live there for maybe 2 months before I had to figure it out. I had no backup plan.

This isn’t one of those stories where my parents are secretly funding my post-grad bullshit, this one was all me. When I graduated from college in May, I was walking out from our basketball stadium where the graduation was held with my parents.. My mom asked me when I was going to start paying my student loans.

When I moved, I printed out resumes at my buddy’s place and bought plastic folders at the CVS next to his apartment.

The first few weeks, I went into the city and walked all day until my legs cramped up. I felt overwhelmed and lonely. For the first time in my life, I felt homesick. I handed out my resume to like 60 different places. Just cold calling, not knowing anybody.

I found that every day I went walking around, I always ended up at Quincy Market. A place where I went as a kid when I visited Boston with my family. I grabbed chicken teriyaki - the cheapest meal there and ate on the steps of the building that housed the market on multiple occasions.

One day, I walked from a suburb of Boston to the edge of the city. Without saying a word to a single person.

In the city, I people watched and discreetly took pictures of them. My favorite one was of this mother and daughter who were carrying a bag. One strap in the daughter’s hand, one strap in the mother’s hand.

The other was of two arrows pointing opposite directions that a kid drew with chalk on a sidewalk. I was listening to John Coltrane’s “Both Directions at Once” at the time and it made me draw an analogy to the album.

I took all these photos on my iPhone 6. My busted phone that ran out of charge in an hour and a half.

On my way home one day from wandering around the city, my Uber Driver was playing Branford Marsalis. He was in a pretty kick-ass group called Buckshot LeFonque in the 1990s with DJ Premier. I mentioned that I loved Buckshot to him and the driver revealed that he had been a DJ in the 1980s. He talked to me about OG hip-hop, soul, jazz.. In that 40 minute conversation, he taught me some fucking game.

He also said he had seen Marsalis’ brother, Wynton in concert at the Lincoln Center and he quote, “Wouldn’t just shut up and play.”

Wynton is the lead at the Lincoln Center in New York. Wynton has some pretty controversial views on jazz. Wynton Marsalis believes that jazz post-Duke Ellington is a bunch of noise which cuts off some key developments within the genre.

Basically, it is like saying anything that took place in the genre post-1930s is void.

The largest thing I took out of that conversation was that the Uber driver said his favorite musician had always been Nina Simone.

Coincidentally, a few months before, my buddy, Noah had turned me onto her album, “Pastel Blues.”

I think my favorite joint off that one was “Sinnerman.” The first time I listened to it, I wasn’t really into the song but then midway through the track, there was a beat switch that blew my mind.

ONE:

I feel like I had a pretty granola upbringing to begin with, but that changed at a certain point. Kind of a typical trope was that I was bullied alot in school. I remember from like 5th to 7th grade, I had no friends.

In the 6th grade, I remember I had this choir teacher who I loved, I always looked forward to his class. He was one of the only people who was kind to me, you know how those years go. Everyone is really insecure about themselves, kids are dicks.

I transferred schools in the 8th grade, and it came out that the choir teacher had showed this kid porn and jerked off in front of him. Then he blew his brains out in his garage.

Before he did it, he called the police to pick his body up.. That audio clip from the police was broadcasted all over the local news.. I don’t think at that age, I was able to comprehend what was going on. But, it was something that I internalized for a long time and eventually led to depression. I think that loss of innocence really shaped how I started to view things as I got older.. Especially artistically.

For most of my life, I felt alone.. Alot of the things I was truly interested in - I couldn’t articulate it to people, I couldn’t talk about how I felt, my frustrations.

At the end of middle school, high school, and college.. I had pretty solid friend groups. I played lacrosse in high school, never really liked actually playing, was never any good - but it was fun to kick it with the homies.

We could bullshit around. I just remember especially in high school, trying so fucking hard to relate to people. I had alot of friends, but inside I was just bummed, like I felt an emptiness that I couldn’t put a finger on. I think my sophomore year of college - that started to change..

And that’s why I started making clothing. It kind of saved my life.

A few months before my move to Boston, my aunt got re-married and the entire extended family came to her wedding from all over the country. From New Jersey, California, Ohio, Texas, Thailand.. some who I met for the first time. One of the people I met was my cousin Mat who owns a fine art horticultural business and was the first store manager at Supreme New York.

Mat worked for Supreme New York for the first year and then got written out of its history.

Mat took me under his wing that weekend and so did his brother, Dennis.

They dropped knowledge on me - gave me suggestions for documentaries, music, how to live life fruitfully. They blitzkrieged me in my car when I was driving them back to their hotel and at other points throughout the weekend with that kind of stuff. The conversations with them - were the most interesting and intelligent conversations I have had in my entire life.

It was really the first time I felt like I had something in common with somebody.

One of the things I noticed about them was that whenever we went somewhere.. They weren’t afraid to say that they liked or absolutely fucking hated something. They didn’t just say things to say them either, they explained why they felt that way. Went into detail. I really admired that. Not everything you see you are going to like, think is fantastic. It’s human to just not fuck with certain things.

After they left, Mat reached out to me.. Gave me a list of things to check out. It was the first time I had an OG. Someone I could talk to about the things I was actually interested in.. The things I had kept internalized for my entire life. He wanted my thoughts on all this stuff - I decided to go into depth about them.

When they were there, I showed Mat and Dennis a shirt by Takahiro Miyashita of Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg was a poet in the Beat Generation who traveled to India and was at the forefront of that literary movement along with people like Ken Kesey, Gary Snyder, and Neal Cassady.

An incredible article regarding the Beat Generation was written by Jeff Weiss a few years back.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-beat-generation/

Mat sent me this book that he said changed his life called: Ringolevio, a Life Played for Keeps by Emmett Grogan who was a prominent figure in the Beat Generation.

It changed mine too.

Ringolevio is about a man named Emmett Grogan who founded the Diggers -
a radical theatre troupe in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury back in the 1960s that shortly became famous around the country.

They stole from stores and gave out their bag for free, had free food stores, free clinics, free shelter.

When they gave things away, they said “free because it’s yours.” They distributed free artistically driven fliers called, “The Digger Papers.”

The book starts with a game of Ringolevio played between Grogan and his friends when they were kids in the streets of New York City. Ringolevio is a game of tag which implements military tactics.

The game abruptly ends when one of the kids gets capped by a police officer.

After that event, Ringolevio follows Grogan’s life growing up in New York City, getting addicted to heroin and getting thrown into jail as a minor.

After convincing his parents he was reformed, he attended private high school and robbed his classmate’s rich parent’s apartments while they were on vacation.

He then took a ship to Europe to explore Italy, afterwards moving back to New York and eventually to San Francisco while bumming around Haight-Ashbury and inspiring a movement.

Perhaps the apex of the book was hunting with a Native American in New Mexico, a euphemism for his heroin addiction. He went into the woods, spotted a buck and became one with it - before shooting it.

He described his experience as this: “A vital, spiritual energy which surged through his body, filling him with physical strength from the moment he aimed his rifle at the wilderness within himself and fired on the target of his own animality.”

Ringolevio is written in third-person as Grogan recounts his experiences.. The way Grogan talks about himself is incredibly honest and very self-aware. He speaks about his own ego - and what it felt like to have people say they were inspired by him.. Without even knowing him.

One thing about Grogan was that he hated recognition - which is something I respect and Mat told me he respected. He did his business anonymously. During the Summer of Love, he organized the famous Free Concerts behind the scenes.

He declined to be interviewed by newspapers.. He gave away his name to people of the Diggers - so it was incredibly hard to identify him to people who wanted to interview him. Giving away his name meant he allowed other people within his troupe to tell others they were “Emmett Grogan.”

Ringolevio went into Grogan’s interactions with people like, Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg. Described in depth how they were like. As self-aware as Grogan was, he also had a keen sense of observation towards the idosyncracies of other people.

In 1978 - Grogan died of an overdose on the Coney Island F-train. It seems like he is one of the forgotten figures of his era.

Upon his death, Bob Dylan dedicated his album, Street-Legal to Grogan and Richard Brautigan dedicated his poem, “Death is a Beautiful Parked Car Only,” to him.

TWO:

After a month in Boston, I got a job in e-commerce at a corporate music company about an hour drive outside of the city.

It was called Avid, who manufactures Pro Tools for all the musicians out there. In the lobby of the place, there were Grammy Awards, Emmys, Oscars - that the company had won for their help within the music industry.

I thought that “Hey, I like music. If I am not doing clothing, at least I would have the opportunity to work within a creative industry.”

Music has always ran in my family. My great grandfather was a jazz musician in the Prohibition era. He had mob ties and on one night, a mobster came into the joint he was playing at.. Held a gun to his head and told him to keep playing. My dad played with the Toledo Symphony for 20 years and backed Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin for a few shows. Even other jazz legends like: Dave Brubeck, Arturo Sandoval, etc. He also played a concert recently where he backed up The Who. My dad never talks about it either, he just thinks it’s whatever, but everytime I talk about that to other people they flip out. I kind of flip out over it too.

My dad played with Ray Charles shortly before Ray died. Said Ray needed help walking up to the piano, he sat down, and blew the roof off the place. My dad said it was one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen.

I loved Boston. There was good food, Bodega, my favorite clothing shop was there, I had friends there.

Bodega has a hidden entrance in a back-alley near Berkley College of Music. They have some of the best clothing from Japanese brands, American, British, etc. I am not going to spoil anything, but when you enter the store it just looks like a small grocery store with a window.. But, there is a back level/secret entrance to it that opens to their clothing store. You just have to find it.

There was also a place called Yume Ga Arukara which was probably the best meal I have had in my entire life. It is in the back of a college building and for $12 they make either cold or hot udon - get cold. Then you squeeze a lemon onto that joint.. After the meal they have a mochi stand next door. 1, 2 punch right there.

When my mom found out I got that job at the music company - it was the first time she talked to me like a human being in my entire life. Her entire demeanor changed. She told me I got a “real job.”

When I started working at that corporate company, I knew I wanted to quit. Right after employee orientation.

In my heart, I knew that I never was cut out for it. What I realized about myself was that I have to go through something to truly realize it. Sometimes, I will know deep in my heart I am not cut out for something.. But, i’ll do it anyways. And struggle.

This is everything in life for me. Whether it has been a girl that wasn’t right for me, choosing colleges that weren’t a good fit.. I have just settled.

I think alot of people are like that though.

Even though I could dress the way I want, worked in music, I walked to my desk and had an SKU over my name tag.

The second day of work, my supervisor asked how old I was. I said, 23. She said at 23 she was in her uncle’s laundry room sleeping on a mattress - following her dream to be a soccer coach.

Another one of my co-workers said at 23, he was pursuing beauty school.

Their stories made me wonder what the fuck I was doing there. Like this was a place where people had given up.

I lasted four months at that job to the day, and I hated every second of it. I haven’t hated anything more in my life.. Working at a gas station in graveyard shift, grocery stores, sandwich shops.. This was the one that I hated the most.

I would go days without talking to a soul for over 10 minutes. I remember our team at work would many times just communicate through Skype. Whenever I did speak up, my voice was raspy.

There was this one guy who was in his 50s-60s, and walked around the office with a cane. I looked down the line at myself - and knew I didn’t want to spend my life staring at my computer all day.. Just to look like that.

I was tired of hearing the same conversations like, “you see the game,” and that’s it. I got tired of hearing about sports all day - bullshit small talk.

Most of all.. I didn’t hate it because it was a 9-5 job, I didn’t hate it because it was “corporate” It wasn’t because of the people - the people were nice - and that’s all you can ask for.

I just didn’t feel anything. Even when they said they were having record numbers in my department, all the congratulations, the awards displayed in the lobby. I felt absolutely nothing. I just felt miserable. My boss said to me that sometimes when I looked at her, there was nothing behind my eyes. Like a shark.

I feel like people fake happiness. Like there is some stupid ass smile plastered on their face at all times when they are dying inside. There just seems something contrived about it.. Like something is always being held back.

One day, they brought the founder of the entire company in for our yearly report that was broadcasted at every corporate branch in the Philippines, California, etc. He hadn’t worked for the company since the 1990s. The company had recently won an Emmy for their work in the entertainment industry - and gave one of the Emmy’s to the founder. The man was almost moved to tears.

I remember thinking.. Wow, I may have just witnessed the culmination of this man’s professional career... Getting a piece of fucking metal. As happy as I was for this guy, I realized that this was something I didn’t want.

I think it’s because when you find something you are so passionate about that it makes you sick, you can’t really do anything else. Every day, you feel that shit slipping away.. You come home so exhausted that it is hard to find the motivation. It makes me wonder whether most people find that passion in life. I feel like I was one of the lucky one’s. Because when I did something I loved, it was never about the money. It was never about recognition. It was never about getting some fucking award. It was about making something that I loved. Something that I looked back on a few years later and was proud of.

I met my friend, Dane through a random email regarding Frank Ocean, clothing, and vulnerability a few years back after he found a shirt I posted on a Frank Ocean subreddit, The Most Dangerous Game.

About a year or two after talking to him over email, I met up with him when I moved to Boston.

Every Saturday, he ran a show on BU’s college radio where he plays rap, jazz, funk, etc. called Buggin’ Radio. He has an amazing taste in music. He said that something he had been trying to do recently was live in the present. That was some good life advice. I took that corporate job to hope it would be better in the future.. But, the thing is.. I could die tomorrow and I would have died miserable.

As time went on, I realized that I wasn’t even working for anything.

THREE:

The topic of “creativity” is one that has always intrigued me/I battled with. I never have been strong at articulating my thoughts when I spoke, only when I wrote things down. My mind always moves at a million miles per hour. My friends say that sometimes I “stroke out.”

Discussing creativity to me at times is fucking pompous and I think people like talking more about how creative they are as opposed to actually making something. For a long time, I felt like I could coast and make something cool, but I could never hit that second level. The second level being making something that was cohesive in all aspects, up to my standards visually and brutally honest.

To me, I think creativity is derivative and everyone takes inspiration off each other. This can be visually, how somebody, talks, etc. A true original is really rare. Everyone takes reference off of each other. Everyone. I think many times, people just do not know all of the references people take off things they see.

I saw some of my favorite clothing brands - the references they took as I got deeper into my interests. But, alot of people didn’t know that, hailing them as true originals.

Questlove, the drummer of The Roots said something that made alot of sense to me and related it back to himself. He said he takes drummers throughout time, and has this ability to play a track at a (for example:) 25% Clyde Stubblefield and 75% Bernard Purdie pace.

He internally takes elements from each drummer and amalgamates them together. But, in doing so... Is he establishing his own identity? Most people (even musicians) I think it is fair to say would not be able to make that distinguishment. I think he is establishing his own unique identity by doing that.

For me, I now rarely take inspiration off of clothing. I like digging into music, cooking shows, bum-fuck art movements.. To be honest, alot of clothing/fashion does not appeal to me whatsoever.

I think in the earlier days of what I did.. All the references I took were off of clothing, like I just thought something looked cool and flipped it. I loved The Madbury Club, Vuarnet, vintage Ralph Lauren tees. I constantly received comparisons to them and for good reason, I was just fucking biting off them. I copped style. But, the longer I have done this, the more I began to stray away from them.. And established my own identity. Making stuff way more personal to me. I stopped referencing clothing.. I started referencing my life experience. Stuff that I was really passionate about. Maybe that people my age weren’t.

Once a year I drop something called a “Case Study.” A Case study to me is deep diving into a topic and amalgamating elements that may not relate too much standalone, but I am able to mesh them into something personal for me. A story behind a release like this, something that has made me feel something.. Whether it’s happiness, or sadness. For alot of these write-ups, I have cried at certain points writing them, feeling rejected, feeling not good enough. Because it is admitting something super personal through self-reflection. I am always honest, nothing is ever made up. The reason it is released so infrequently is because it takes me at least a year to write.

I released an Alpine hoodie in July 2018 that was based around old issues of National Geographic I had sitting around my college dorm room and a vacation to Switzerland. I was just making it to close my college career. I combined elements from my earlier days doing the clothing brand with the first hoodie I ever released (taking inspiration off of the Utah Jazz), and The Most Dangerous Game (Case Study 03). It sold out in a night in the middle of the summer, priced at $80.

But, to me I wasn’t really being all that creative. I was just re-hashing ideas that I had previously had. I wasn’t challenging myself from a garment standpoint.

That’s why I didn’t put it under a “Case Study” umbrella.. Because it’s not a new idea. However, I don’t think re-hashing things is always bad.

The way I tried to challenge myself with the hoodie was that I looked at the artwork of John Baldessari, different National Geographic magazines from the 1960s, and the No wave movement..

Baldessari used these dots that reminded me of stickers that you would find on the back of records, labeling different sides.

The actual hoodie to me wasn’t all that creative, but how I did the art direction was probably my best work to that point. That’s how I challenged myself.

But, I was internally struggling with the project because I felt like I was just phoning it in. But, was that struggle conducive to my development? I remember when I showed my cousins the hoodie when they were in town, I told them I really wanted to do something that was less accessible to people. I felt like something was missing with that.. Like I was trying to relate to too many people, when to be honest..

The entire thing was that I felt like I couldn’t.

I think everybody has to go through a personal struggle whether that is internal or external. I think that struggle is instrumental.

I watched the documentary, “What Happened, Miss Simone?” Which highlights the rise of Nina Simone while also the decline of her mental health. A massive theme in the documentary was her battle with the powers that be. Being racially prejudiced, critics who didn’t take black musicians seriously, an abusive husband - but while simultaneously having her talent shine through. When people attended her concerts, she at times would stop performing and tell the audience to sit down, shut the fuck up, and pay attention to the music. Nina became outcasted by society, it upset her that many of her fellow musicians were playing it safe.. Like they knew where the money was coming from.. Instead of standing up for something that she felt was vitally important.

Her daughter described that her mom slowly turned into a monster because of bi-polar disorder - she left her family one day and moved to Barbados. When her daughter visited her, she was incredibly abusive towards her. Physically hurting her, telling her she was weak if she cried. At the end of the documentary, they found Nina living in squalor in France, with trash all over her apartment, her hair cut unevenly and convinced her to be medicated.

In her final years of performances, while medicated, she interacted with the audience gleefully, taking audience participation. Was she free?

Nina in a way reminded me of my own mother. For most of my life, she was really verbally abusive towards me. Destroying my self-confidence. Calling me a fucking loser, telling me I wouldn’t amount to shit. When I talked to her, I always felt like I was walking on egg shells. That’s something that I still carry today..

I’m so quiet in public situations, I stutter when I talk to people I really admire, my face gets really red.. Because I am so scared of saying something fucking stupid.

I would rather just not say anything at all. Because of that, I can be incredibly awkward. It’s a weird feeling being awkward - because I realize it.

Especially when I talk to people in social situations. Shit can be really depressing. Sometimes, it eats away at me.

For my entire life, I knew my mom wanted to shape me into something that was ideal in her eyes. Someone who wouldn’t stand out, goes to work, heads home.

Someone she can tell her friends about - and is able to describe as something accessible.

Someone people in her life can understand. Every year she takes me to a store to buy dress clothes, they end up sitting in a trash bag in the trunk of my car.

While this shit is really damaging - one thing she did teach me was to never make excuses - and to get the fuck up and go.

My mom’s family had a drug store in Compton, California growing up and I remember her family telling me how abusive her own mother was.. How her mom made her cry at her wedding.

In a picture with my father on her wedding day, she has make-up smudged on her face from that.

When she was a kid, she would get her power turned off, get bullied all throughout school for being “right off the boat.”

All throughout school - she played the flute and eventually went to the Cleveland Institute of Music where she met my dad. Unfortunately, music didn’t work out for her post-grad..

But, then she went back to school and became an OBGYN. That’s something that is inspiring to me.

More on Nina:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/movies/review-what-happened-miss-simone-documents-nina-simones-rise-as-singer-and-activist.html

FOUR:

In Ringolevio, Emmett Grogan left a bunch of Digger Papers at a man named, Abbie Hoffman’s apartment. A man who had no direction himself, read the papers and copped style. Copying Grogan’s/The Diggers words verbatim and published a book about them.

Peter Coyote, a Digger, had this to say:

“Abbie, who was a friend of mine, was always a media junky. We explained everything to those guys, and they violated everything we taught them. Abbie wentback, and the first thing he did was publish a book, with his picture on it, that blew the hustle of every poor person on the Lower East Side by describing every free scam then current in New York, which were then sucked dry by disaffected kids from Scarsdale.”

This shit happens in every single era I have realized. There is such a thing as being respectful, taking inspiration... Or, just biting. There are sometimes things that you need to live to truly see. Some people just fucking bite off a movement, but just get it at surface level. It’s fucked.

Movements or cultural phenomenon usually has a purity that runs dry because they get kooked out.

In music, I see an artist put out an iconic album, then it will have about 20+ derivatives.

I started to realize that the reason that the derivatives are never as good as the original is because the people who construct the derivatives never go through that “struggle” that the original did.

A prime example of this theory is to look at the comparison between Sgt. Peppers by The Beatles vs. Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones.

Sgt._Pepper's_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band.jpg

George Harrison went to India, did speed, and studied under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He also became very good friends with Ravi Shankar. Harrison physically went there and learned about the culture, converting to Hinduism. He was a student.

The Rolling Stones per Mick Jagger essentially just dicked around, were really chaotic and in hindsight have panned the album, Satanic Majesties themselves. They tried to re-create Sgt. Peppers without going through the struggle.

The Rolling Stones are geniuses and that went down. Because we all get comfortable and complacent.

I think something that is toxic in life is playing catch up with each other. I see this all the time with people my age, especially on Instagram.. It’s just a massive dick swinging contest. We all roll at our own pace, do shit in our own way that makes us happy.

The story behind the construction of something is vital. The process. Even more-so than a finished product.

If you cop style off someone else.. Not taking in other elements that mean something to you, you aren’t being creative. You just think something looks dope and you decide to cop style. You can never cop somebody’s internal battle which is why the person who you got it from will just move on while you are stuck in rotation.

You can cop style, but you can’t cop struggle... And some people struggle for their entire life.

In college I had a lot of friends talk to me about creativity, saying they weren’t creative.. Technique can only get you so far if you don’t have that struggle or idea behind it.

To me, talking about creativity is overrated. It is not constantly having output, it is also really important to be able to control your output.. To not put things out until they are finished.

I think everybody is inherently creative.

But, alot of people can’t capture beauty. Out of all the shit that is “dope” “rad” or “cool” I think there are many who try to manufacture this beauty. Stretching the details of something, romanticizing situations.

FIVE:

Over a year ago, I released “The Most Dangerous Game” garment. It sold out around the world in eight minutes.

I dedicated it to my best friend, Zach who had died by suicide the previous New Years day. The person who I first started wanting to make clothing with in high school.

My friend Brett and I were the one’s who found him in a park after he had died, with a bag over his head in his car. His car was parked in the corner of the park where nobody could see unless they had walked up to it.

A few years prior, he had worked for the park system... He said that people would always go into the park to end it all.

When I was on my way to the park after seeing his location on Find Friends, an app we all used to track each other.. I had a gut feeling that it was already over.. His parents hit our friend group and I up after he didn’t come home the previous night.. We were the only one’s who had his location. We got together and looked for him. My best friend Brett, came to my house and we went down to the park.

After telling his parents over the phone and them losing it, I saw them drive into the park, see their son for the first time after he had passed. The exact moment.

We always had a tight core friend group of six - and everybody came to the park when we called each other.

I’m just glad the paramedics took the bag off of his head.. Before his parents saw.

This moment replays in my mind every single day. Multiple times a day.

The night everything happened, New Years Eve, I watched a movie with my mom. She told me I reminded her of one of the characters.. That I was “tortured.” The same fucking night my best friend ended everything.

When she said this to me, none of us had known yet. Isn’t that some shit?

The night after it happened, I woke up in a cold sweat at 3AM and as ridiculous as it sounds.. Saw a face smiling at me.

At his funeral, he looked like a wax figure. It didn’t look like him anymore. He was holding a rosary - and he was an athiest.

It made me realize funerals aren’t actually for people.. They are for the person’s family.

I remember all five of us friends walking up to his casket together to look at him to say goodbye.

This moment in life, made me realize things rarely ever come full circle. We rarely ever get the closure we are trying to seek. For a long time, I blamed myself for not seeing the signs. After a few years, I became numb.

In this case, Zach never owed it to any of us. It was his life and I was happy to be part of it. Nobody owes anybody shit.

To this day, I am still going through it thinking about him. I think people can see it in my eyes. Like I am distant sometimes.. Like there is nothing. I think they call it a thousand-yard stare. But, the thing is.. It would be even worse if I didn’t have my best friends to talk about it with.

This is the last time I am going to talk about it publicly, but the reason I am mentioning it is because of this:

The final picture of Zach two days before we found him was a shitty iPhone picture of him reading an Eyewitness book about Minerals in my basement. One of his biggest passions in life, one that he pursued throughout his academic career.

A book meant for a child.

This is a photo that touched me. It wasn’t taken on some expensive ass camera, or on film, my buddy Brett took it.. Who works at a soap company and doesn’t give a fuck about art.. But, that is one of two photos that have made me cry during my entire life.

That picture is beauty to me. It is kind of like that scene in Ratatouille where that food critic gets transported back into his childhood. I think we all have things that do that for us. Whether it is watching sports with our families, eating something, listening to music.. Something that even if only for a fleeting moment - makes us happy. But, this isn’t a movie. This moment wasn’t manufactured by some creative team.. This was real life.

It was interesting to see how people reacted. My mom tried to relate her own experiences to what happened - but she couldn’t. My dad told me he couldn’t relate to me.. But, that he was there for me. Mat and Dennis gave me real, honest advice. How the recovery would be a process. I started skateboarding heavily as a means of therapy. It made me feel like a kid again.

After finding him, this is incredibly fucked up to say.. But, I was finally able to hit a level two from a creative standpoint and I never turned back.. Because I was the saddest I have ever been. I used my ideas as an escape. I went into a hole. I started researching my interests extensively.

It’s because that’s what I did when I was with him. We used to sit in study rooms in college for hours, just researching.. A lot of times, we would find a cubicle with seats facing opposite of each other, and sit there. Spend our Saturdays there.

He changed my life.

I stopped caring. I stopped caring whether I was going to be relatable to my friends or not. I stopped caring whether anything I made was going to sell. I just started making things because it gave me a sense of happiness or peace with all the fucked up things that were going on in my life. Doing so, I realized I grew farther apart from my friends and the people around me in my interests.. and for alot of things that I did - they didn’t understand.

I always knew what was marketable to people - but at a certain point it made me fucking bored. And I moved past it. Because something that’s marketable gives an idealized version and that’s not what life is. I ended up making things that reminded me of my childhood.

Whenever I hear people who are geniuses in their field talk about “creativity,” I hear that. They gush about things that remind them of their childhood. I may not be a genius, but I feel like the things I am the most proud of that I do, remind me in some way of my childhood. I also noticed that nobody takes references from one medium. Someone who is really good draws references from fucking everything.. If they are a chef, they draw reference from music.. If they are a musician, they draw reference from food. They don’t just box themselves into one medium.. They are able to flow through them effortlessly.

In college, there was this story that was told in my Economics classes. About how there is “no such thing as a free lunch.” What that means is that there is always a cost going to a free lunch.. You will have to go to a boring presentation, the food will be bad, you wasted your time. Nothing is truly “free.”

I think that shit works the other way though... I realized you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to do what I was doing. I would rather do what I loved doing..

After that.. During college and post-grad, I was never really home on the weekends. When I visited my friends and couch-surfed around the country.. They always said, “Sorry you have to get the couch.”

I never really had a problem with sleeping on couches, or felt the need to have a place of my own. I like traveling around.. Trying new food, taking alot of photos that I never share with anybody. I enjoyed being with my friends - and I know they enjoyed being with me.

SIX:

On social media, I never really post pictures with my friends unless I know I am not going to see them for a while.

I had a conversation with a girl recently that I hadn’t seen in a long time before that. She said she couldn’t believe that I was constantly just moving around.. That she could never do it. Her family and friends were in the area. She was happy there.

I’m happy that she feels that way, I am happy that she is happy. That she has comfortability.

I told one of my best friends from home after I left that I am never coming back. I guess I never had that comfortability. Do I miss everyone? Yeah, but I know I had to leave it all behind.

I have the rest of my life to live for other people and when it happens.. I’ll embrace that.. When I was a kid, I remember my mom telling me that nobody owes me anything and I always lived by that.

Since then, I have realized that there are so many things I don’t care about. People get so bent out of shape on shitty stuff that happens on a day-to-day and I just keep a straight face. It’s all good man. I just don’t care. I think I care alot less about the day-to-day than most people around me.

Traveling, sleeping on couches has never been this spontaneous - worldly thing for me. Sometimes, I realized I just needed to do something.. Make that leap and figure it out along the way. I never posted about that shit.

For a long time, I felt unfulfilled with people around me. I felt scared to speak on what I was really thinking.

That comfortability that the girl talked about, in some ways I have it and in some ways I don’t.. Especially when I research things. I tend to get mental blocks.

One of the great things is that as of recent, I have amazing people in my life that are constantly sending me things that they are interested in to check out. Articles, movies, music - literally every day to a point to where I have compiled a long list. I always do and get back, but sometimes I gravitate towards the things I am familiar with and make me feel secure. There is this episode of Chef’s Table with a Korean monk named Jeong Kwan that I have watched legitimately over 100 times.

I would flat out play it in the background of whatever I was doing at work - just to hear her speak. She lives in a Buddhist temple in Korea and is one of the best chefs in the world. She just has this unbelievably peaceful demeanor - one I have rarely ever seen. No ego.

Sometimes, I watched it at work in the background and again before I went to bed.. Instead of checking the list of suggestions that my friends and family gave me. I feel like at times that familiarity can be detrimental and I have been trying to get alot better at that. This sounds super fucking corny, but especially with this internet thing where I can just look something up.. There are tools to where I can expand my knowledge in certain areas. I feel like at times I just screw around, don’t make the best of my free time like that. I have tried to break down that familiarity.

I have always looked up to people like Anthony Bourdain and Jonathan Gold who were willing to go into the folds of society.. Not just travel, stay in a hotel.. And explore what was safe and comfortable. They made themselves uncomfortable in order to learn the real, deep-rooted history of a place they went, or a country.. They talk to people no matter who they are. I think that is what can be so fruitful. But, you can also experience a deep sadness from a first-hand perspective on what is happening in the world.

SEVEN:

I have always researched for hours on things before forming an opinion, but when I tried talking about it with other people they would just nod their heads and say, “dope,” not really contributing any of their own thoughts.

Just using the same hip adjectives that everyone does. Just re-gurgitating shit that was said, not necessarily giving their own opinion. I could tell it didn’t really mean that much to them.

I had so many people come up to me and say, “Dope shirt you designed, I didn’t read the story associated with it.. It was too long.”

You can wear all this hip shit, say this bland stuff to make you seem like you are in the know about something.. But, if you don’t really contribute anything to discussion.. Why bother? Why do you think things are dope, hip, rad, whatever the fuck it is... Why does that speak to you?

Man, the feeling of people just rolling their eyes when you talk about things you are passionate about - that’s the stuff you always keep with you.

I feel like alot of people in my life began to box me in “Oh, you design clothing?” So you are the clothing kid, I am just going to talk about some “dope” t-shirt I saw.. How many people showed me fucking Nirvana band tees, Off-White stuff I can’t count. I think a good analogy to how my life was is: say your mom takes an interest in one of your passions.

She tries to relate, but in part you know she is only doing it because she loves you. You really appreciate her for that, but at a certain point you just know she doesn’t see it the same way as you.

Everyone is always trying to relate to the most people possible.... Act like they have lived what other people have lived.. When they just haven’t. It’s a two-way street..

What people don’t understand about all this shit is that whether it is clothing, music, or some other outlet.. There is always a cultural context.

For example, John Coltrane made one of the greatest songs of all-time called, “Alabama.” He made it to pay tribute to the lives lost in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by the KKK that killed four children and teenagers and injured many others.

This is really heavy, but Coltrane took such a horrible event and made a beautiful and somber song that inspired many.

It still inspires me over 50 years later. Many times, the most beautiful things come out of the saddest of times.

I think the reason Alabama was written is such a crucial detail to know about. It is never just about something at surface level, people draw from all avenues to make one thing.. Not just things within that specific medium. You can’t just listen to a song, look at a piece of art without keeping that context in mind. It is a detail that changes your perception.

I went to an art museum with my friend and she said that I am one of those people that has to read every single caption associated with the piece. I think that’s why I do that.

I think people who don’t see this are generalized at surface level as a specific race, educational level, wealth status.. But, the truth is, it just depends on the person. No matter where they come from, who they are. I have seen people from all walks of life who just see this or don’t.

As time has gone on, I have seen myself gravitate towards art that shows the darkest depths of humanity. Art that that sparks memories.. Brings me to a really dark place or makes me feel something, like being alone, or even happiness..

More on Alabama:

https://musicaficionado.blog/2016/04/14/alabama-by-john-coltrane/

Nan Goldin, a feminist photographer who catalogued the opioid epidemic within the LGTBQ community in the 1980s is an inspiration to me.

There is a photo by Nan Goldin called “Gotscho Kissing Giles.”

In it, a man named Giles is dying of HIV. By his bedside is his partner named, Gotscho. It is one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever seen. This is a piece of art that sparks emotion for me.

CONCLUSION:

The best art sparks emotion, something that makes you feel uncomfortable. It’s not just about shit that looks dope.

I went to the Souls of a Nation exhibit that broadcasts Black America and the civil rights movement. There was a room that showed art of black people getting lynched and different caricatures of them. The most painful experience was watching the facial expressions of black people viewing the exhibit with me. It made me realize that nobody else has any fucking idea what it is like to be a certain race.. Unless you are of that race. We need to stop giving advice, or trying to rationalize things.. We just need to empathize.

My friend Noah and I talked about liner notes that are included with records - that explain an artistic process that went into the making of the record. Now, things like these aren’t included anymore. My dad, the musician has said the same exact thing.

This is why for you to get this shirt, you had to read this. These are your liner notes.

One of my best friends was surprised when I told him he was my best friend over the summer. He actually said, “really?!”

He’s not into art, or clothing at all - but speaks his mind, smiles all the time, energetic as fuck. He loves football, specifically the Cincinnati Bengals. He actually jumps around screaming for almost every play, at full attention. I have never seen somebody do that, get so passionate. People who aren’t afraid to be like that are so rewarding to be around. Most of all, he is one of the kindest people I have ever met, understanding, listens, empathizes. Why wouldn’t he be one of my best friends? Almost every week, he goes home and watches the game with his father. It’s shared experience. I think it reminds him of his childhood. No cool guy shit. It’s life.

Whenever I am out with friends, I usually let them lead the way. As time has gone on, I have realized how important shared experience is.

Two years ago, I wrote about how I felt alone. How I felt like I didn’t have anything in common with anybody. But, as time has gone on.. I don’t think that really matters. I feel like it is the active participation in seeing the people around you in their element. There is also beauty in the mundane, just sitting around.. Talking. Not everything is going to be a fix in life, sometimes you just have to pass the time. When I realized that, I had some of the most meaningful conversations I ever had.

Being too passionate about something can be really dangerous to your mental health, sometimes it makes you feel more alone than ever before.

Sometimes, I will show parts of my life on social media that actually matter to me or that I think is funny. I won’t just post a photo for the hell of it. After I found Zach, I guess I just realized that life is too short... Because it’s no skin off your ass to tell someone how much they mean to you. There is alot of shitty stuff that comes out of it, but there are some things that can be good. Whether we like it or not, in many ways it is such a large part of our lives now.

I post these long, sometimes corny posts about my friends or people that matter to me.. But, I tell people I am around how much they mean to me - before I post anything online. To their face. Someone could be here today, but gone tomorrow. You never know how life is going to go.

During my life, I feel like I had to constantly put up a front.. To control my personality, to like certain shit that people around me did, go to college.. Graduate. Get a job, family.. For what? I go to college for four years to sit at a fucking desk all day.. Maybe get a momentary reprieve - just look forward to a weekend where I can sit on a couch.. Watching the fucking game? How the fuck is that growing up. Why is life supposed to get worse as time goes on? Like you just settle doing the same thing week after week. It just sounds really boring. It just made me sad.

I felt like this for years. It’s crazy because I have actually been called an inspiration by people in my life.. For making clothing, for saying shit that I feel.. But, the thing is.. Alot of the things I made came out of sadness. I have always been extremely self-critical. When I have fucked up, said goofy shit.. I stayed awake at night thinking about it at one point. But, at least I wasn’t scared to fuck up.

Looking back at it, I wouldn’t trade life experience for anything since I have gone through it.. But, I don’t want anyone to ever have to see some of the shit I have seen. I feel like they would just be better off content. I’m not sure if people could go day by day with it on their conscience. Since then I have made it a point to say what I feel. Saying shit is fucking whack. Not catching my tongue, or saying something is beautiful when it is.

I feel like people use shitty things that happen to them as an excuse. As a part of their self-identity but I kind of realized I did not want alot of it to be public for everybody to see - unless they cared enough to read something like this. That kind of shit pisses me off, when people use depression as a pity party.

When I worked at that desk job, it was so bad.. But.. I got used to it. I got used to how shitty it was on a day-to-day basis. I think people just get used to being content.

Five years ago, I spent all my money I made from a summer job working at a grocery store to make my own clothing. My mom told me it was a mistake.

In December, I quit my job and moved to California to intern for the clothing company, HUF. My dream gig. It was a free internship. I slept on a couch.

That’s why I have to give this away for free - like Emmett Grogan in the 60s. One of my cousins is named Emmett after him.

I stopped living for other people, I quit my “real job” as my mom says.. When I first broke it to her over the phone, she was speechless for the first time in my 23 years of knowing her.

I found beauty. In myself. I never relied on anybody else for that... But, first I had to realize that beauty was all around me.

When I heard that I had landed the internship driving home from work on a Friday, for the first time in my life - I cried because of happiness.

For a chance. It was never getting to that point.. It was the road.

I found my peace.

Free because it’s yours.

FREE LUNCH:

So, you may be wondering - I read all this.. How do I get this shirt?

Write a summary for me and email it to: FreeBecauseItsYours@gmail.com - then I will email you back if I approve it or deny it. Upon approval, I will request your address, size and send you the shirt. For free.

But, what are you writing about? Well if you skipped down to this section.. Go back up, read the entire thing, then look at the links I posted curated by my family and I. There should be 6 topics to write about. Where the links are.

Like I did with Mat that was so instrumental to my development - I am asking you to do the same.

I will give you a two week timespan before I start the approval process.

PROMPT:

No page limit minimum, but it needs to be of substance.
You can do this shit in bullet points if you want.
Touch on every link here in the summary - if you hated it.. Explain why. Shit, you don’t have to like everything but tell me why it doesn’t appeal to you.
What did you think about what you read? What did you take away from it?
Most importantly, tell me about yourself and some things that inspire you. Most importantly, why they inspire you.

That’s it. Peace.

Death is a beautiful car parked only to be stolen on a street lined with trees whose branches are like the intestines of an emerald.

You hotwire death, get in, and drive away
like a flag made from a thousand burning funeral parlors.

You have stolen death because you’re bored.
There’s nothing good playing at the movies in San Francisco.

You joyride around for a while listening
to the radio, and then abandon death, walk away, and leave death for the police to find.

“Death is a Beautiful Car Parked Only” by Richard Brautigan

Special Thanks to:

My father for the daily talks over FaceTime on my drive home. Alot of people say we have the same voice and manneurisms - you are my biggest inspiration and every day when we talk, it is my most comforting part.

Mat McGrath for the non-dominant hand box writing, showing and teaching me so much and sending me Ringolevio. I look forward to our weekly conversations.

Dennis McGrath for being like an uncle to me - I value coming to your pad and looking over photobooks and your endless stories. You changed my life.

Jon McGrath for designing / letting me use your collage as the box, zine, and t-shirt graphic. This project wouldn’t have been possible without you.

Emmett Grogan, and the Free City Collective for writing one of the best underground stories of all-time. Being an inspiration to me, my family and so many more. The “1% free” symbol is adopted from the artwork of Peter Berg.

Direct thank you:
My mom and my sister
The Franczek Family
Tammy Kernodle
Paul Williamson
Dane Persky
Jacob Jennett for letting me sleep on his couch and being a brother to me
The boys back home
MARKET Crew
The HUF DBC

Additionally:
James Brown
John and Alice Coltrane
Bob Dylan
Nina Simone
Fred Hampton
Harry Everett Smith
Vivian Maier
Adam Yauch
Nan Goldin
The 14th Dalai Lama

This project took for the better part of four years to complete. There were many months in which I thought I was done, or even had given up before being thrown a curveball by life. Ringolevio was a story that my family passed down to me in many ways, and I put alot of pressure on myself to do it justice. Hopefully I did. I think what ended everything was seeing Jon’s Ringolevio artwork from years ago which is now the back hit of the shirt. It completed it. I remember always feeling like something was missing before that. This has been the most emotionally fulfilling, while at the same time, the most draining project I have ever worked on.. Being able to do it with people who teach me game every single day (who I am also lucky to call my family) makes it even better.

If I don’t publicly release clothing or a project again - I feel like this is what I would want to go out on.

Free Because It's Yours

Case Study Number Four: Free Because It's Yours