Ode to the T-shirt

December 14th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 4 Comments »

They are windows to our souls. They say who we are and what we believe; who we support and who we despise. A good one will make us laugh or, heaven forbid, think just a little. Maybe. A bad one will make us roll our eyes, draw our ridicule.

More than any other item of clothing we own, our T-shirts deliver our message to the world.

“Shit Happens.” The red shirt with large block yellow lettering, worn by a man applying to join my father’s construction crew, provided me with my earliest lesson of the power of the T-shirt. I was playing in the yard with my brother when the man stepped out of his car and walked towards the house/office.

By this time in my life I had shot myself at point-blank range with a bb gun in the leg – it was only one pump, but one pump was enough to have me jumping around the yard cursing. And I had placed a sweater de-fuzzer on my tongue to see what it felt like. To save you the trouble of testing this out, you know those little bumps on your tongue? Well, they are the tongue’s equivalent of fuzz and a de-fuzzer removes them. There is blood involved and a strict no salt diet for at lest a week.

What I am trying to say is that I was a stupid kid and even I knew that Mr. “Shit Happens” would not be getting a job that day. All because of his T-shirt.

My T-shirt collection is extensive. I have over 50 shirts in my current T-shirt rotation and at least another 50 somewhere in storage. I keep these for their sentimental value. Some of them are over 20 years old, which means I was about seven when I was wearing them. Oh the memories.

Don King – my oafish distant cousin, not the oafish boxing promoter - broke my leg as I ran from first to second at the Wilt family reunion. Our legs got tangled and my little femur experienced a spiral fracture. I was out. That reunion still stands out against all of the other drab reunions and to this day I bump into distant relatives that say: “Aren’t you that boy that broke his leg playing waffle ball in ’87. I remember, sounded like a chicken bone being snapped.” I don’t remember the sound, but I do remember that I was wearing a yellow Garfield T-shirt.

If they are windows to our souls, what kind of soulless person would make you throw some of your more beloved ones away? Your wife.

RIP yellowed, stretched-out Kung Fu shirt.

RIP Purdue Basketball shirt. You accompanied me on my first around the world trip.

You were all loyal friends. Know that your cotton blend may deteriorate in some landfill but the memories never will.

The NLC would like to slap you in the face

December 11th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 5 Comments »

This video produced by the National Labor Committee has some pretty powerful images, including young Bangladeshi women sleeping with their faces smooshed against the side of their sewing machines.

I’m all for people knowing where and who make their clothes, but I think this video has some faults. The narration is a bit extreme and completely dismisses the context in which the workers live.

The narrator says that the factories reach 100-degrees in the summertime and that the worker’s clothes are covered in sweat as if the workers have a place to escape the heat. They don’t. If they weren’t at the factory, they would be sitting in 100-degree heat in their home. Granted, workers coloring cloth, using irons, or presses work in areas painfully hot year-round.

Is a woman who is allowed eight seconds to sew on a button, and who does this time and time again, any different than any factory worker anywhere in the world that puts the same widget in the same place day-in and day-out? A factory is a factory. Doing a repetitive job efficiently is factory work. I know people in Ohio who have spent most of their lives doing the same thing.

The narrator also mentions that the workers don’t have pensions or health care plans. Few people do in Bangladesh. To say it as if the workers don’t get it like everybody else in the country is misleading.

The narrator makes broad generalizations as if all of the women workers’ families are falling apart and all the supervisors beat the workers.

Without a doubt the video is shocking – somewhat misleading but shocking. Maybe that’s what people need. Personally, I want the whole story and this video is not the whole story. But maybe I saw a video like this years ago and it planted the idea for this quest. This video could be the that kernel for someone else.

Maybe we need a little slap in the face before we actually think about something.

Where am I wearing? The ultimate slideshow

October 31st, 2007 | By Kelsey | 3 Comments »

I raided my photo archive from the WAIW? trip and set it to Gary Jules’ Mad World and U2’s Yahweh. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get either one of them to play for me so I had to do it myself. Don’t worry, I don’t sing. This is more of a beginner guitar player’s shot at spoken word.

This will permanently live in the “About Where am I wearing?” section to the right.

A thousand words

October 27th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 3 Comments »

How exciting is this…?

I described my individual items of clothing to Geoff Hassing and he brought them to life. He came up with the idea of doing the the circles that zoomed in on the tags.

Thanks Geoff. You rock!

Hands of Labor

September 3rd, 2007 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

These are the hands that make our blue jeans, underwear, flip flops, and about everything else we wear or use. I suppose today is a good day to thank them for their work.

World Vision Report interview - Part 1

August 10th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 6 Comments »

My first interview (1 of 3) with the World Vision Report’s Peggy Wehmeyer airs this week. I discuss the origin of the quest, searching for the factory that made my t-shirt in Honduras and the one that made my underwear in Bangladesh.

Go here to find the time and date a station in your area airs the WV report

OR

Listen to it online now

Where am I wearing? highlights

August 4th, 2007 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

Here are all of the audio slideshows and “Made In” summaries in order:

The Quest

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Made in Bangladesh - My underwear

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Made in Cambodia - My all-American Cambodian blue jeans

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Made in China - because going barefoot sucks

My T-shirt: The Factory

April 2nd, 2007 | By Kelsey | 2 Comments »

I’m already living the next chapter of my quest so I figure I better wrap up the first. Below the cut you’ll learn what San Pedro Sula, Honduras, is like and how I was received at the factory that made my t-shirt.

Go here to read about the Honduras experience in its entirety

(more…)

The adventure begins…

March 26th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 4 Comments »

And so I’m off to discover Where Am I Wearing. The next time I post will be from somewhere far from Ohio. Until then, enjoy this audio-slideshow that introduces the quest.

WARNING: This feature is rated PG-13 for excessive body hair.

My T-Shirt: Soccer in the Jungle

March 23rd, 2007 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

Tired of reading? It’s your lucky day. Listen to a story about Kyle and me playing soccer in Mocoron.

A few notes about the recording:

- I sound a little like Joe Dirt. There’s nothing I can do about it. People from Ohio aren’t supposed to have a southern accent, but I do. Lucky me.

- I will be calling into the World Vision Report radio program during the WAIW? Trip. I’ll probably do so twice. Once, when I’m ready to leave Bangladesh from Cambodia and again when I’m back home. The format will be an informal chat with the host Peggy who sounds ultra-intelligent. Speaking of which…

- I think my favorite part of the soccer recording is when Peggy reads my bio at the end of my piece. When I wrote: “He lives in the middle of a cornfield near Greenville, Ohio.” I thought this would be kind of humorous. But with Peggy’s nice and clear, I’ll-believe-anything-this-lady-says voice, it sounds like I actually live in the middle of a cornfield.