Don't Be a Tool - Get Your Gear Soon

I have vivid memories, as a youth, of not being "the first" to have things; Girbaud jeans, pubic hair, hyper color shirts, nor transformers. One of the reasons for my being late in terms of acquiring goods was my having two older brothers who had to be "paid" first with gifts. My oldest brother would get a sweet pair of Jordans and pass them to my middle brother who would beat the shit out of them and finally, after wearing a hole or 6 in the sole, would pass said shoes on to me. Another reason, and more importantly I imagine, was that we, as a family, weren't rich. We weren't poor neither, but not well off enough to have every god damn thing I begged for, that's for sure.



Not being one of "those" kids with all the sweet gear to start each school year was and remained an issue for me throughout adolescence. I'd get a sweet ass pair of Guess jeans, but not until Dayton's had them on sale some time the next Spring - and these were the yellow or green jeans, not the money acid washed ones that my dad said he "could've made in the garage for me with a bucket of rocks and some bleach." He tried on 3 occasions, burning holes in my only good jeans, leaving me with cut off jean shorts. By the time, it seemed, that I received the desired material good, say a Rubix Cube, a DinoBot (Grimlock for sure) or a satin Georgetown Starter jacket, they'd be out of style and I'd look like one of those kids in Africa wearing a 1996 Utah Jazz NBA Champion hat or whatever losing team gear that we, America, shipped out.

To this day I still get shit from the "rich kids," such as our band leader Joe Lover who upon seeing my recently purchased mesh trucker hat said, "Hey Ashton, are you punking someone right now?" It's a tough deal, but it's my lot in life I suppose.

The point and what makes this relatively Subsidies-related is that we are getting to a point that many of our fans have purchased their Subsidies gear and will be wearing said gear this Saturday in Rochester, as well as next week at O'Gara's and all subsequent shows.

Don't be me. Don't buy your gear too late and be "that guy" - be a cool guy - be like Grant and all those other cool kids and have the latest, greatest shit right! You don't want to be a square.

Well, I'm off to pick up my parachute pants.