Indie guys wearing "Ho Chi Minh" t-shirts

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After stumbling in a sleepless stupor over to Easy Street records after the EMP pop conference finale this past Sunday around lunchtime, I saw some skinny indie/emo dude walking around wearing a white t-shirt with Ho's mug on the front and his name captioned below. On the back was the phrase "Ho Chi Minh City" swirled around like a rainbow, in a red sports font. That was it.

My first question, before I ask further questions, is this: Is this a shirt being sold at Urban Outfitters or the like right now? Or at least, is this possibly more than just an isolated phenomenon? Have you guys (especially in the U.S.) seen this around the country, per chance? I'll continue on with the thread, once I get a round of answers.

(I'm not judging the T-shirt nor the t-shirt wearer at all, right now. I just want some insight before I possibly do any judging at all. I'm more interested in discussing the marketing of t-shirts from retailers, if such is the case.. i don't want another "indie guys with trucker hats" type thread, as, um, fun as that was)

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

well, why not? Comandante Che Guevara is omnipresent, stripped of his ability to signify. I myself have not seen any T-shirts featuring Uncle Ho.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I wonder where the shirt was made.

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Was it Ho Chi Minh or Colonel Sanders?

― hstencil, Monday, 19 April 2004 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

(teeny wins)

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

The only Ho Chi Minh shirts I've seen feature the caption from Jon Williams' picture on the Men With Blogs thread.

― C0L1N B3CK3TT (Colin Beckett), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

It was very much Ho Chi Minh, in text. Though it's very possible, since the indie dude's rather large bag belt covered the picture on the front, that it WAS Colonel Sanders, and maybe that was part of the "joke"?

anyway, both j0hn and teeny, OTM.

C0l1n, OTM in a LOL kinda way.

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I have not seen any such shirts being mass-marketed in the states.

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm pretty sure there were Ho Chi Minh shirts back in the 60s too. Not so many Pol Pot shirts though.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

search: my mom's pancho villa t-shirt
destroy: my future stepfather-in-law's "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" tattoo

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

This is available from a Swiss specialist offering "trashy to culty items from Asia":

http://www.tropechopf.ch/Shirts/Revolution_T-Shirts/Ho_Chi_Minh/Ho_Chi_Minh.JPG

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

i haven't seen that shirt, but there's a guy who has a table every sunday on orchard street in nyc selling ringer tshirts with a 70s brown/tan color scheme and tropical island print. "baghdad" is written under the ocean bit where "tampa bay" or whatever would normally go.

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

that it's a ringer-tee marks it as exclusively tailored for the indie-guy set

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 19 April 2004 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Or those who live in fear of "ring around the collar"

― C0L1N B3CK3TT (Colin Beckett), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

It's possible the t-shirt I mentioned above (which was not a ringer-tee, shockingly enough) was available at Left Bank Books in downtown seattle, or some other anarchist bookshop in town.

But J0hn pretty much brings up one of my main points and that is... what IS the point of just taking a controversial political figure and putting it on a shirt with a hip graphic design? Why NOT make a "Pol Pot Has A Posse" t-shirt then?

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Indie guys should be banned from wearing clothes.

― Huckelborace (Horace Mann), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

..and at the risk of adding more fuel by uncovering the race card, the guy wearing the shirt above was very much white, and certainly not Vietnamese.

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, etc. are verboten as ironic figures for this stuff - they're too associated with death counts. That would be like wearing a swastika-emblazoned shirt.

Castro/Ho/Lenin not so much.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:07 (twenty-two years ago)

They're the Party Dictators!

― Huckelborace (Horace Mann), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

maybe it was a cross-cultural excuse for the dude to wear a shirt that says "Ho" and look stupid on two levels

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

"Why NOT make a "Pol Pot Has A Posse" t-shirt then?"

Because millions of Cambodians died at this guys hand (which is indefensibly unfunny/uncool) whereas there is an at least semi-reasonable argument in defense of (or even for) Ho Chi Minh.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I think the point is very Bucky Fuller/Adorno/which-have-ye postmodern theorist: the images are presumed to contain their own codices which may or may not actual refer to the thing they depict. Ho Chi Minh is an odd choice, since so few people could identify him strictly by site & not that many more would recognize his name as of any particular signifigance. Ergo in the context you cite "Ho Chi Minh City" might well be an updated "Bumfuck, Egypt." I'd be more inclined to believe that the use of both Uncle Ho & the city once named after him is "check out the goofy Asian shit" - a name that has "ho" in it, a Confucious-lookin' Asian guy, and so forth.

The commonly used icon of Che really brings Trotskyite sloganeering into the latter-20th/early-21st by encapsulating most of the tropes in graphic terms. As to Pol Pot, I don't think he belongs in this discussion: he's not really a "controversial" figure any more than Hitler is. One can have an honest discussion over whether Ho Chi Minh was a good egg or a bad one. Similar discussions aren't really possible over the man whose tenure as Brother Number One is now referred to by Cambodians as "the era of the contemptible Pot."

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

x-post obv.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I didn't think this phenom actually existed, but sure enough, I saw an underfed, goateed hepcat sportin' one this afternoon.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, etc. are verboten as ironic figures for this stuff - they're too associated with death counts. That would be like wearing a swastika-emblazoned shirt

which is why i thought it was so strange that one could buy stalin watches/shirts/belt buckles/badges in the old town in prague.

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I had a friend with a shirt with the profile of Lenin on it, over the incongruous legend, "Howdy from Texas!"

It made me laugh.

That and the "IF NOT MAO,..WHEN?" shirts.a

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Why can't indie cockfaces support underappreciated historic figures with positive legacies like Bucky Fuller? Jesus.

many xposts (one oddly also containing a Bucky Fuller mention)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Why can't indie cockfaces support underappreciated historic figures with positive legacies like Bucky Fuller?

Not sexy enough.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Bucky?a

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Because millions of Cambodians died at this guys hand (which is indefensibly unfunny/uncool) whereas there is an at least semi-reasonable argument in defense of (or even for) Ho Chi Minh.

Perhaps, but I was living in O.C. when the near-riots occurred regarding the video store rental place owner who proudly displayed Ho Chi Minh in his window display, in a very large American Vietnamese community within Orange County (in the city of Westminster). Maybe the protesters were over-reacting. Maybe they weren't. I'm not in a position to objectively judge whether they were or not, since I'm not Vietnamese, and have no history or family in Vietnam. But to many Vietnamese living in the States, Ho Chi Minh elicits a reaction (whether extreme or not) near that of Hitler or Pol Pot, which I have seen before my eyes.

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

x-post... and surprisingly, no funny Kim Jong II T-shirts yet! What gives?

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

That doesn't have much to do with Minh's actions (re: oppression), but with the reasons many of those families left Vietnam (they were on the losing side). Cuban exiles act like Castro is the anti-Christ, but no one takes that seriously.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:23 (twenty-two years ago)

well, apparently those Cubans do, Milo. As well as the Vietnamese protesters I mentioned above, in their case. "But no one takes that seriously" seems too quick a dismissal to me. Sorry. (I don't necessarily agree with them, of course, but to say "no one takes that seriously" seems a little presumptious)

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:28 (twenty-two years ago)

It is a dismissal, because they're upset not because of any grievance with universal oppression but because they lost. It's like Southerners hating Abe Lincoln for a century after the war (and probably to this day, in cases).

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:31 (twenty-two years ago)

So losing (which is a very flexible term in this context) is a valid reason to dismiss one's outrage at a political figure?

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

(i'm asking that not rhetorically, but earnestly, btw)

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

i think what milo says holds a lot of water. i wouldnt say its a valid reason to dismiss outrage, but i would say its a valid reason to look at it in that context yes

― gareth (gareth), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:38 (twenty-two years ago)

This is the one I saw...

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/Personal/Trips/Vietnam99/Shirts/white-thinho.jpg

...invariably procured at some crappy street fair on 4th avenue or something.f

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Of course the irony is that Ho was initially very fond of the American approach and came to the post-WWI peace talks trying to press his case there in the atmosphere of Wilsonian self-determination...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Stalin and Hitler and Pol Pot inspire outrage across the globe because of their near-universally condemned actions, ie genocide and/or mass slaughter.

Ho Chi Minh and Castro only inspire that same level of anger and hatred among people with a vested interest - Cuban exiles who lost their luxury lifestyles, Vietnamese exiles. (And American right-wingers.)

If outraged Vietnamese and Cuban exiles had the same outrage at Batista or French colonials/Diem/Thieu/Ky, then maybe I'd take them a little more seriously.

I'm not dismissing them, there's no way I can dismiss someone's outrage, but I think it's worth putting in a context, and separating the Hitlers of the world from the Minhs.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:42 (twenty-two years ago)

i think that was explained on the back of the t shirt, ned

x-post

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:44 (twenty-two years ago)

thw ho chi minh shirt was played out years ago. is there any logo/symbol/person NOT on a t-shirt these days?

― kephm, Monday, 19 April 2004 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

i think that was explained on the back of the t shirt, ned

Amazing!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

is there any logo/symbol/person NOT on a t-shirt these days?

anthony eden?

― gareth (gareth), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd love a shirt with this logo...

http://www.fantastic.com/images/sherwin.gife

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i once saw someone wearing a t shirt with the complete text of the declaration of the rights of man on it, in tiny little letters

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd put Milo's case a little more mildly is all - those riots over the guy in OC who wouldn't take down the Ho Chi Minh poster (I lived down that way at the time m'self) were by people ideologically dead set against Ho Chi Minh's program, with specific political reasons to demonize him. I'd compare them to the people who wanna put Reagan on the dime, but I'm bullish on the question of how history will eventually judge Ho Chi Minh. I'd say a more apt comparison than southerners hating Lincoln is southerners hating General Sherman: which they have good reason to do!

Alex that SWP thing is so awesome

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 19 April 2004 17:57 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, one of my favorite logos

― Magic City (ano ano), Monday, 19 April 2004 18:02 (twenty-two years ago)

ok im stupid, can someone give me a primer on the pros and cons of mr minh.

― anthony, Monday, 19 April 2004 18:04 (twenty-two years ago)

ho chi minh was a poet.
skinny guys are always indy(ilx hivemeind#593823782).
indy guys write poems.
BINGO DINGDING

― kephm, Monday, 19 April 2004 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

a friend of mine has a t-shirt with a football pitch on it, positions on one side are bush, blair, berlusconi, putin etc; on the other it's hussein, mugabe, kim, assad etc. ref: annan. (clearly it was made in europe cos chirac and schroeder weren't on the 2nd side...)

― g--ff (gcannon), Monday, 19 April 2004 18:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Just for Gareth...

http://www.aozj96.dsl.pipex.com/edenshirt.jpg

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Monday, 19 April 2004 18:16 (twenty-two years ago)

anthony: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh

i've been told that the book he had on his deathbed was john brown's diary, but i've never verified that for myself.

― g--ff (gcannon), Monday, 19 April 2004 18:17 (twenty-two years ago)

it was the french who wanted to rebirth their empire after WWII, & Truman undermined the 1954 Geneva Accords and prevented the general elections in 1956. So it was US&french policy that pushed Ho to the Soviet Union and China for weapons (ie Vietnam). his biggest political mistake was not allowing Russian and Chinese troops on the grounds for the Vietnam conflict. but nobody wants WWIII

why the hell anyone wants him on a t-shirt beats the hell out of me, but the man is very much clouded in myth

― kephm, Monday, 19 April 2004 18:23 (twenty-two years ago)

i bought that exact shirt that Alex in NYC posted in San Francisco when i was a sophomore in high school.

― DAziz, Monday, 19 April 2004 18:48 (twenty-two years ago)

sophomore = smart idiot, yadda yadda yadda.

― hstencil, Monday, 19 April 2004 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

anyways, the common practice of Chairman Mao clothing is equivalent to Pol Pot gear, right?

― Sym (shmuel), Monday, 19 April 2004 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)

we all know Ho Chi Minh had a copy of "Survivor" by Palahniuk and was wearing a PBR shirt when he died

― Gear! (Gear!), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

no, Mao is nowhere near a Pol Pot equivalency

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Fuck Eden, I want William Henry Harrison on a T-shirt.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:40 (twenty-two years ago)

how are we measuring equivalencies here?

― hstencil, Monday, 19 April 2004 19:41 (twenty-two years ago)

One of my favorite stories. My friend Tom was living in mainland China during a period of great thawing - the omnipresence of chairman Mao's face had faded considerably; it was safe to run a business with no reference to Mao anywhere on the premises! This was especially notable in taxicabs, which had once ALL featured a portrait of the chairman. In the thaw, almost all cabdrivers had removed their pictures of Mao. So Tom was surprised to get into a cab one day and see a picture of Mao Tse-Tung. Again, there was a great mood of freedom in China at the time, so Tom could ask: "Why do you have a picture of Chairman Mao in your cab?" Replied the cab driver with a huge, proud smile: "Because I like Chairman Mao!"

you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody (besides the so-called Khmer Rouge ex-DK ppl who run little smuggling operations and are essentially a crime syndicate) in Cambodia who'd say "I like Brother Number One!" Mao may have been a failure for his country; may have been a tragic failure for his country. Pol Pot annihiliated 25% of his country's population in four years.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

the Cambodian population was smaller than China's, so percentage-wise that 25% could equal say 1% of China. Anyway, I've never seen an accurate number of the population killed by Mao, but I'd bet it's up there, and I'm not saying they're not both horrible and evil, but saying one's worse than the other kinda dilutes the point. Esp. as many of Mao's crimes are still under-documented.

― hstencil, Monday, 19 April 2004 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

what I'm arguing is that Mao was an ideologue while Pol Pot was just insane.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:53 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.spalding-group.com/gwb/images/500_1010.jpg

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know nearly enough about Pol Pot to argue for/against insanity, but I'd think anyone would consider the line between idealogue and insane person to be pretty thin when considering Mao, Stalin, Hitler, etc.

― hstencil, Monday, 19 April 2004 20:00 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm pretty sure i've seen stalin clothing on hipsters. perhaps wearing this clothing is not intended as an endorsement of the person or his actions or his ideologies, and is perhaps only worn because soviet iconography looks nice.

― Sym (shmuel), Monday, 19 April 2004 22:43 (twenty-two years ago)

we had stalin and mao pictures in the house when i was growing up

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 05:36 (twenty-two years ago)

we had the little red book growing up, most of the leftiss of my parents did...i wonder what tht means ?

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 06:42 (twenty-two years ago)

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