I want to be honest here- when I reflect on my PSY merch purchases, I feel that I’ve made some missteps in the past.  I think this is a good time for a self-critical and reflective review of each merch purchase I’ve made, followed by a reflection on the lessons I’ve learned and how that’s affected how I will go about selecting my merch in the future.  I’m going to include merch that I considered purchasing but then decided against, and reflect on those decisions as well. I invite others to do the same. Here are my purchases (and seriously considered purchases) in order:

1) Great Milenko T-shirt: this is the straight up Milenko album cover with red hat and trim, and “Great Milenko” written across the back.  This was the first merch I bought and it was and remains a dope purchase.  Milenko is still one of my favorite albums, and the cover looks fresh on a t-shirt. I rock that shit at least once a week, whenever it’s clean, and sometimes even when it’s not.

2) Ringmaster T-shirt: very similar deal, it’s the tan Ringmaster album cover on a black background with “Insane Clown Posse” on the back.  Another dope purchase.  When I bought it, it was mainly because I thought the Ringmaster looked fucking cool, but since then Ringmaster has become my favorite ICP album so there’s an added significance.  And the Ringmaster still looks fucking cool regardless.  As above I rock this at least once a week and when I feel like sporting it I’m not dissuaded by a moderate level of dankness emanating from the pits.

3) Rhinestone Hatchetman Charm: once when I was drunk I tried to order a rhinestone hatchetmat charm online.  Being drunk, I must have missed one of the steps because I never got the charm nor was my credit card charged.  That was for the best, I’m not really sure what I would have done with a Rhinestone hatchetman charm.

4) Fluorescent Orange Hatchetman Hat: so I wanted a nice hatchetman hat, and in my online meanderings came across a cool looking orange one that was on sale for like $7 at Spencers gifts.  I ordered it, but when it came it was not at all how it looked in the picture.  Instead of being just an orange hat, it was a fucking mesh trucker cap with a fucking shiny plastic fluorescent orange traffic cone colored front.  At first I was pissed, what the fuck was I supposed to do with a ridiculous orange shiny plastic hat?  But, then the more I thought about it, the more it grew on me and it just seemed like it was meant to be.  Jesus has his cross, J has the butterfly, and I have this hideous orange traffic cone hat.  It’s like my mantle, something I bear that represents both part of myself, and a burden that the outside world has imposed on me.  I can’t wear it anywhere but to shows (and also sometimes when I’m sitting around my apartment), but I’ll be wearing it to shows until it rots off my head.  I’m wearing it right now and I can smell the Faygo from here.

The craziest thing is, at the last show I went to in Baltimore, there was someone else who had the exact same hat on.  I went up to the dude and said something very profound about this hat representing the burden we both bear, and we experienced some heavy spiritual communion over that.  I think, or maybe I just said “whats up” to the dude and there was no spiritual communion.  Or maybe I hallucinated the whole thing.  Not my hat though, that’s definitely real, like I said I’m wearing it right now.

5) Black hat with red hatchetman & ringmaster hoodie: these were things I saw at the last show I went to and thought about buying but didn’t.  That was really stupid- I would have loved to rock both, I can’t find either online now, and I was a fucking pussy for not pulling the trigger.  Fuck me.

6) Jeckel Brothers Hoodie: Black hoodie with Jack and Jake coming out of the skull candles side by side.  I ordered this online and it just got here today.  It came in a package direct from China, with Chinese postage and a Chinese return address.  I’ve never seen that before.  It’s the worst quality hoodie I’ve ever seen.  I put it on when I opened it but had to take it off right away because it smelled very intensely of vinegar, so much so that I almost passed out.  I washed it and the Jeckel Bros. have already faded a little bit.  Still it looks dope as fuck and I am very happy with the purchase.

That’s it.  I guess these purchases weren’t so bad after all.  I was going to try to draw some lessons from these experiences but I’ve already typed my ass off and I think it’s played out, for me and everyone else too.  So, maybe later for that.  

Anyways what reflections to y’all have on your own merch purchases?