so i’m out on my run today, and absolutely kicking myself, as usual, for not owning a camera phone, because i ran past another amazing shirt slogan.
i’m huffing and puffing down the gore road, trying to get in shape to run a half marathon in a month, and get my calves into shape for some shoe modelling (that’s another story), when i ran past a habesha guy in a sweatshirt that said across the chest as well as down one sleeve in big bold letters topped by rainbow asterisks “LGBT PRIDE”, and on the back “it’s in to be out”.
i could have died of disappointment in myself for yet again being unprepared to document this.
in the land of abibas, and anti-gay legislation, this is the ultimate irony.
from some western country that has moved so far toward LGBT rights and acceptance as to no longer have a market for the kind blatant billboarding that this sweatshirt offered, came a cargo ship loaded with clothing donations all the way across oceans to a puritanical country that would lock you in the clink for coming out of the closet if it even believed that gay was a real thing, a country that can’t wait to try on anything that remotely whiffs of western culture.
it was a perfect storm of “you just can’t make this shit up”.
on this brisk spring morning, along the cobbled dirt roads, from somewhere between “i need a cheap sweatshirt to keep warm”, and “i’ll bury you up to your neck and throw rocks at you if you check out my ass”, came this specter decked out in contradiction so thick i choked on laughter and three miles of hills at elevation as i jogged past and nodded hello.
i wonder if he’ll ever know.
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where i come from we have a more subtle form of blatant billboarding.
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stay tuned for our next episode:
the p’zone… it’s no mcRib.
****
watch it, buster: no reservations : anthony bourdain
no shortage of self-deprecating skinny jokes, constant, and occasionally painfully bad pop culture references, food, tattoos, beer, travel, adventure… why wouldn’t i love this show? you should, too.
