in memoriam Riley Gale, 1985-2020… donations can be made to Dallas Hope Charities.
A new Snake America on GQ.com:
https://www.gq.com/story/rihanna-end-racism-tee
https://www.gq.com/story/rihanna-end-racism-tee
About how the Nemesis Records END RACISM tee that Rihanna wore in Harper’s Bazaar and which sold for $700 and $400 on eBay over the following week explains the spun-away vintage market of the past decade. The vintage market has become unmoored since eBay killed all their cool search tools and things moved to other sites and since more shirts have been seen in the wild. I think at least. A bit of a philosophical piece!
Rihanna:
and auction results:
Note both auctions have the photo spread photo of Rihanna taking out the trash. There’s no way to know who won the auction. I had a period where I thought whoever won a very expensive auction (and beat me) was Bruce Willis… I no longer think that… I was convinced Bruce had a room full of redline Levi’s and Aston Martin ashtrays… I believe this visualization was built out of my thinking vintage searching and buying was the highest form of productivity… not really the case anymore. I didn’t mention in the story that a Snake USA shirt I made (and sold out of) two years ago is a direct Nemesis rip, building off of this design:
With this language:
to creat this shirt:
Which, as I mentioned, is sold out. Not exactly story material but worth mentioning. A decent piece of publishing lore. The most insane thing I found researching this story is this tee:
Which is insane. What a shirt. I want to say I was made aware of Nemesis Records in the mid-90s and those shirts eventually but I have never once heard, read about, seen, or heard rumor of this shirt. No one’s hinted at it, it was never in a zine or an ad or in a photo on a record or on a trade list… I never heard it get made fun of, it wasn’t even popular in 2001 when shocking things like the Ronald Reagan Public Assistance shirt and Howard Beach/Biohazard things were popping. Did people know about it? I’m sure. But of all the things to be hidden in plain sight…
One specific thing worth noting about this tee is it features the hardcore apostrophe, that is, no apostrophe, the opposite of the grocer’s apostrophe (“apple’s”)… otherwise the shirt makes my mind go blank. I didn’t invent that term, or know the apostrophe’s origins. If I had to put money on the origin it’d be show flyers, like with Gilligan’s Revenge or something. Who knows? Worth noting the friendly comma on the Drugs and Gangs tee, too: Use your head, say no to drugs and gangs. Very charming. I looked for a William Safire story on the grocer’s apostrophe but couldn’t find one. What a crazy shirt. Its the only way to be sure.
Thanks for reading. rest in light Riley.
Snake
Other work: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-JLRt0Ec6gZBm50hATYCYmLctnF9GhVijoEbam50JSw/edit