The Hamster Growls

Somali Pirates Again!

2010-09-09T14:42:00.000-04:00

Well, here we go again. Just when you thought it was safe to visit the Horn of Africa for your next vacation, comes this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/piracy Remember, this link is best viewed while wearing one of our Somali Pirates t-shirts, available here: http://www.growlinghamster.com/somalipirates.html

Our first Free Shirt recipient.

2010-07-09T17:43:00.001-04:00

As we mention on our website, you can do both of us a favor by buying one of our Authentic Growling Hamsterwear Logo t-shirts. You do us a favor by both buying a shirt and helping to promote our viral little enterprise, and you do yourself a favor by getting a free t-shirt of your choice when you send us a picture of you wearing your Growling Hamsterwear shirt.

This was sent to us by a Mr. Jay Knipstein, of suburban Detroit, Michigan. We believe he was attending his son's bar mitzvah, and got lost in the catering hall somewhere. Anyway, he now gets himself a FREE SHIRT!

If you'd like to participate in this shameless promotion, buy one of these fine wearables by clicking here. Or here. Or even here. Then, take a photo of youself wearing it, and send it to us at info@growlinghamster.com, tell us which free shirt you would like to receive, and eventually, we'll send it to you. Free of charge! Ain't capitalism grand? We certainly think so.

http://www.growlinghamster.com/ghshirt.html

Varsity Crew: Cuz Kollege Sux

2010-06-26T15:58:00.002-04:00

Remember college? It was that thing you did for a few months after high school. Remember it now? Even if you didn't go to college (in fact, you're infinitely more suitable as a reader of this blog and as a customer for our shirts if you didn't even attend high school), you were probably jealous of those big, studly jocks dripping with muscles and cheerleaders.

We've been researching why jocks are such a big deal on campuses across America. Apparently, their popularity has less to do with which sport they play, and more to do with how they carry themselves around campus. Football and basketball players, even if they aren't required to attend actual classes, seldom have enough time left after practices and games to be much of a threat to the non-jocks. You know, the dorks. Scrubs. Dweebs. Nerds. Geeks. Sissies. Whatever. The most popular jocks are the ones who are able to not only avoid class, but who are able to avoid actually devoting any time to their sport, either. More time for Jager guzzling and bong-hitting contests.

We found that the dudes getting the most cheerleader action played the following sports, and the most successful of them, at least sexually, wore their team workout tees 24-7. The big men on campus turned out to be members of the Varsity Ass Kicking Crew (t-shirt available here), the Varsity Bloodsucking Crew (t-shirt available here), the Varsity Flesh Eating Crew (t-shirt available here), the Varsity Remedial Reading Crew (t-shirt available here), the Varsity Insemination Crew (t-shirt available here) and the Varsity Projectile Vomiting Crew (t-shirt available here). An impressive group of athletes, we think, and no wonder that they rule the extracurricular roost.

Now, you can pretend you're just like them. Get on the team without even trying out! These might not have bowl games, but you'll agree they're the most popular. All you need is one of these shirts. And an invitation to pledge I Felta Thi. Or Tappa Kegga Bru. Or Signa Phi Nothing. Or even Eta Bita Pi.

http://www.growlinghamster.com/ghpage02.html

Coming December 21, 2012: The End.

2010-06-26T03:31:00.002-04:00

There seems to be increasing interest in the date 12-21-12. And not because it's almost a numeric palindrome. It has something to do with the Mayans. Or maybe it says more about us.

Even as things get better in the world, too many among us seem obsessed with the idea that social collapse, at best, and doomsday, at worst, are almost at hand. Despite the fact that the worst of our wars are becoming distant history, some sort of social justice is actually more prevalent worldwide now than ever before, and the standard of living in the Third World has increased dramatically, it goes against human nature to accept that things might, however maddeningly slowly, be getting better instead of worse. We just love to be depressed. And we love to believe in myths, Gods, rumors, innuendo and magic, even when reality is typically less scary and nebulous.

Sure, Islam hates us, there's goo spilling all over the Gulf of Mexico, and the Republicans want all unemployed people to take drug tests. Given that, it might be hard to see the big picture, but think about it: what's the worst thing that's ever happened? People might say it hasn't happened yet, but a logical human might suggest that World War Two (50 million dead) begat the Cold War (zero dead), the Spanish Flu (20 million dead) begat the Swine Flu (a couple of thousand dead), and the Great Depression (25 to 30 percent unemployed) begat the current recession (less than 10 percent unemployed). Things are getting worse, you say?

OK, you're right. This is too rosy an outlook. Logic is no way to run a railroad. Better to use the obviously superior logic of an ancient, failed society, like the Mayans. Our long-departed friends from the Yucutan tell us that the calendar--and, without any leap of logic, that must mean the world, too--is ending on December 21, 2012. It must be true! They wouldn't just, you know, have an end to their astrological predictions. They would have kept calculating further and further into the future until--oops---they must have stopped for some reason. Maybe because they hadn't finished calculating into infinity when the TOTAL COLLAPSE OF THEIR CIVILIZATION occurred? Nah. They actually must have figured out when the world would end, in between human sacrifices and other important stuff. Yep, the latter seems MUCH more likely.

So, it seems we all have an expiration date, at least according to our Mayan pals. Buy one of these Mayan Doomsday t-shirts and wear your expiration date proudly, but act now, while civilization lasts! You know the quality is top-notch because it's from Endtimes Food Products of Chichen Itza, Mexico, the leading wholesaler of groceries in the greater Yucutan area. Well, at least they are until the clock runs out. Yeah, we actually found this label on a can of condensed milk at the grocery store in Tulum, and decided to put it on a shirt. Gets one a little antsy, no?

http://www.growlinghamster.com/12-21-12.html

Nostradamus Predicted Me

2010-06-26T02:54:00.003-04:00

It seems that prophecy is the big poop lately, and the head shoveler of this sort of precognitive fecal matter, at least historically, was Nostradamus. We partied with a guy in Vegas who could predict with uncanny accuracy the winners of various sporting events but, aside from him, Nostradamus seems to have been the most accurate prognosticator of vague, cryptic events that may or may not have occurred. Yep, we're talking specificity with a capital "R".

Prophecy is attractive to humans, since we won't accept the fact that what we see is all we get. There must be more, we tell ourselves, and the government probably has it hidden in a warehouse in New Mexico. Nostradamus, being one of the few practitioners of non-approved thought to have survived the Inquisition, has become a natural fascination for many. He didn't really predict anything at all, but wrote endless, cryptic babble that keeps malcontents and the otherwise insane busy and away from us, so that's probably a good thing.

Nostradamus mentions a certain "Hister" at one point in his ramblings, so naturally he must have been talking about Adolf Hitler, 300 years before der Fuhrer's birth. Just like Homer was predicting my inflamed ileum when he wrote, and similarly misspelled, The Iliad. Of course he knew about my current gastrointestinal problems 2500 years ago. Jeez. Don't be such a skeptic.

As a devotee of Monsieur Nostradamus, you'll want to tell the world that you showed up in one of the guy's quatrains, even if he did spell your name wrong. Oops. Anyway, grab one of these t-shirts before the big, end-times price increase.

http://www.growlinghamster.com/nostradamus.html

Jerk Chicken or simply a foul fowl?

2010-06-26T01:39:00.005-04:00

Ah, Jamaica. Land of contrasts. Ganja. Warm breezes. Soft sands. Sharp machetes. Topless Italian women and their fat, hairy fathers (at least we assume those are the fathers) wearing Speedos. And, of course, tasty jerk chicken!

While Jamaicans endlessly slaughter each other over arcane political differences in their comfy shantytowns in Kingston, we tourists are largely insulated from this mayhem in resort towns like Negril, Ocho Rios and the dumpy-but-lovable Montego Bay. If you've ever been to any of these places, you've been accosted by helpful but persistent roadside vendors hawking this insanely spicy bird, served from rusty, 50-gallon drums with all of the sanitation and hygiene that's a hallmark of Third World dining.

Jamaicans, interestingly, almost never eat the stuff themselves. "Too spicy, mon, and not Ital." The locals more typically eat beef stew (called, quaintly, "stew beef"), chicken noodle soup, steamed fish and other, equally exotic dishes. We suppose that it would be akin to assuming everyone in Buffalo, New York eats chicken wings slathered in butter and Frank's Red Hot sauce day in and day out, 24-7.

Probably as a way of creating some humor amid the stifling heat and poverty, jerk chicken vendors seem to go out of their way to create the hottest sauce possible to slather upon these skinny but yummy poultry treats. So, why is it a "jerk" chicken? Oh, you'll hear theories of Spanish and Arawak Indian etymologies, and root words like "jerque", but we're convinced it's all a ruse. These are simply very rude, obnoxious chickens. Jerks, if you will. "Rude bwoy birds, dem. Dey rassclots."

Want to re-create this tasty dish at home? Here's our jerk chicken recipe, in typically vague Jamaican terms. Get some chicken. Preferably the skinniest, boniest bird you can find. Then, rub it with salt, pepper, allspice, nutmeg, garlic powder and a bit of yellow, English-style curry powder. Cook it over an open fire, in as casual a manner as possible. Charcoal is good. Burning tires and beach debris are even better. For a sauce to slather on it at the end, try mixing some of this stuff together and simmering it for a bit. Quantities are up to you. Experiment. Be a jerk.

   Soy Sauce
   Diced Scotch Bonnet (a.k.a. habanero) Peppers
   Salt
   Black Pepper
   Diced Scallions (white and green portions)
   Allspice
   Thyme
   Molasses
   A touch of ketchup

So, remember: this chicken is more than a jerk, he's a bumboclot (ask a Jamaican). Yes, you can also ask us about our genuinely rude curried goat, if you'd like. While you're barbecuing up your bird, feel free to order and proudly wear one of our Jerk Chicken t-shirts!

http://www.growlinghamster.com/jerkchicken.html

Bounty Hunters: Start-ups from the short bus

2010-06-26T00:36:00.003-04:00

There's plenty of evidence that Americans are the retarded, spoiled, inbred cousins of the civilized world: our increasing obesity, our current pop culture, the state of our journalism and our views on sexuality, politics and the world at large. As if you needed more proof, consider the case of America's latest glamor job: the bounty hunter.

In the desperate days of reconstruction after the Civil War, impoverished southerners headed west seeking opportunity. Most ended up as cowboys, the lowest-paying, lowest-skilled profession one can imagine today, but one to which we've added all sorts of uniquely American romance and myth. The more skilled arrivals to the Old West became engaged in various cons and scams, from the mercenary "law enforcement" of men like Wyatt Earp to the hardball tactics of land barons such as Charles Goodnight and the railroad entrepreneurs. Common thievery thrived when farming and other more honest pursuits failed the more common man.

Pockets of order existed amid the chaos, and a nascent legal system offered rewards for the capture of various known criminals and suspected felons. Into this crucible of lawless, amoral freedom stepped the Pinkertons, professional security guards who were sort of the Haliburton of their day. If one couldn't afford their services to protect one's assets, they were happy to spend their efforts on collecting available reward money, given their vast network of contacts and resources. Seeing their success, independent businessmen began emulating the Pinkertons. All one needed was a gun, some gall and a reward poster, and one could ride off into adventure and fortune seeking hapless cowpokes who had probably committed nothing more than the sin of drinking too much on their monthly payday.

Since the turn of the 20th century, these reward seekers, or "bounty hunters", seemed to have become a relic of the past. A relic, that is, until being revived by America's current fascination with all things "real". "Reality" television, of course, is one of the great oxymorons of our time, but that's fodder for another blog. Our focus here is on the resurrection of the bounty hunter. The most disturbing example is, of course, Dog the Bounty Hunter, immortalized in a TV series of the same name.

Not a bounty hunter at all, at least not in the Wild West sense, this Dog fellow is actually a bailbondsman who, like their brethren the process server and repo man, are distasteful but unfortunately necessary parts of modern society. Sort of like coroners. Nobody really wants to think about them, but we'd be a more desperate country without their services. Dog, unlike his legitimate peers, and looking like the poster boy for poor nutrition and a bad educational system, has recast himself as a modern day bounty hunter, when in fact no "bounty" is ever offered or paid. He's simply a collection agency, like all bail bond services.

Undeterred by details such as honesty, Dog has even created badges and uniforms, giving him and his employees a certain "official" air, although he has no more legal authority than you or I do to apprehend criminals. Given that, we've decided that everybody should be able to proudly wear the uniform of an official Bounty Hunter. Everything you'll need to become a free-wheeling, fully-certified, card-carrying bounty hunter is contained in our t-shirts. That is to say, not much, other than a snappy slogan. Happy hunting!

http://www.growlinghamster.com/bountyhunter.html

Pig Latin? Uckfay Ouyay!

2010-06-25T18:56:00.006-04:00

When America was younger and more impetuous, she kept many of her minority populations in varying degrees of squalor and servitude. Truly, the pedigree of a great nation. While the millions of Africans we forcibly moved here were eventually "freed", they never did assimilate the way Booker T. Washington and most white folks thought they should. In fact, the animosity between the races and classes of America remained as strong as ever.

Sometime in the late 19th Century, African-Americans began developing an alternate, coded, secret language to use for safe communication while amongst the general, and mostly white, population. Based on a similar, humorous 18th century word game sometimes called "Dog Latin", this black version grew into what was, sadly, called "Nig Latin", but further evolved into more general usage and was softened to "Pig Latin". While this later "Pig Latin" became a staple among kids of all colors, as late as the 1930's the standard black slang term for a white person was "ofay", which any child will tell you is Pig Latin for "foe".

Happily, Pig Latin moved into venues as diverse as mainstream white speech and Three Stooges films. Remember? By way of explaining Pig Latin to Larry, Moe says "my name would be 'oh-May'." Larry replies "oh, I get it! I'd be 'Arry-Lay'." Curly, of course, chimes in with his famous "and I'd be 'Curly-cue'!"

We thought that given its cruel beginnings, we could ennoble this humble language by connecting it with its Roman cousin. You know, the "REAL" Latin. By buying one of our Pig Latin t-shirts, you can show your penchant for dead languages and exhibit general intellectual snobbery with this tribute to pigs. And Latin. Or something. Latina porcinus ad nauseum. We think it's funny. And sad. For a lot of different reasons.

http://www.growlinghamster.com/piglatin.html

2010-06-25T18:26:00.005-04:00

No Sh-t, Sherlock: A study of the obvious

2010-06-25T17:33:00.003-04:00

Since being created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the 19th Century, the character of Sherlock Holmes has become a metaphor for the cunning use of Man's powers of deduction to overcome brute strength and the forces of evil. More generally, he is as seen the manifestation of pragmatic intelligence. Played in the movies most memorably by Basil Rathbone, dozens of other actors have played Holmes to lesser effect.

Most recently, Robert Downey, Jr. played the great detective as a sort of cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and MacGyver. We have to admit the MacGyver overtones actually capture some of the original Conan Doyle intent. We actually liked the movie, too, although critics didn't share our enthusiasm. They seldom do. Or, as a wise man pointed out to us recently, "no shit, Sherlock." It has to be more than coincidence that Robert Downey, Jr. was massively addicted to cocaine, then played Holmes, who was massively addicted to cocaine, a character who was portrayed by Basil Rathbone, who starred with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in 1939's The Sun Never Sets, who in turn was the son of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. a swashbuckling silent film star, who in turn was the partner of Charlie Chaplin in the original ownership of the fledgling United Artists studio, who in turn was portrayed in a 1990's film by--who else?--Robert Downey, Jr.! See? Life always works out. An argument for Intelligent Design, we'd say. Except we're atheists.

Anyway, if you're still with us, you're probably saying to yourself, "no shit, Sherlock." Being in the t-shirt business, we're entitled to a bad, visual pun once in while. Even online apparel merchants have their lapses in judgment. We have big enough balls to sell this t-shirt, but we're too girly to spell out "shit" uncensored in this blog entry's headline. Go figure. We do think you should buy one of these shirts, thereby exhibiting your brilliant powers of deduction.

http://www.growlinghamster.com/sherlock.html

Rock and Roll is DEAD!

2010-06-25T14:18:00.004-04:00

Rock and roll is dead. Has been for years now. Like it's brighter cousin, jazz, it died sometime in the early 1980's. Unlike jazz, it had a relatively short life. And also unlike jazz, it was never a truly original form of music to begin with. If you're under the age of, oh, 45, you'll take great offense at this statement. You've already grown weary of hearing fat, balding baby-boomers tell you how they invented everything remotely moral, fun or creative in the last 50 years or so. Unfortunately, they're right. From the civil rights movement to sexual liberation to creative music to environmentalism, just about everything worth talking about was, in fact, the progeny of these ubiquitous post-war spawn of the denizens of the middle of the last century.

It's not that rock and roll doesn't still exist in some sort of Lenin-esque state of embalmed perpetuity. It's simply that no new, creative or otherwise contrary movement has taken hold since the early 1980's. The last days of rock and roll were the early days of rap and punk. Everything since then is simply a re-assembly of older forms, from grunge to electronica to hip hop. Want proof? Listen to something from 1930. Avoid the most creative music of that time, whether it be a Louis Armstrong Hot Seven record or Bartok's Fourth String Quartet, and concentrate instead on the pop music of the day. A Paul Whiteman record would be perfect. Then, listen to something from 1970--a Hendrix tune, for instance, or a Stooges track. Now listen to something--anything--produced by a current pop musician. You decide which 40 year period saw the greater evolution of popular culture. One might argue that the latter era really saw no evolution at all.

Are baby boomers self-indulgent, self-important shitheads? Of course they are. So whine all you want about the injustice of it all, but until some succeeding generation does anything remotely different, from drugs to politics to culture, you'll have to sit there and take it. Or, create something new. Kill the old. Be proactive. Quit whining about NOT being around for the summer of love, you worthless hippie-wannabes. Instead of repeating the past, make something original, for once. Kill the past! Start with rock and roll, and take credit for its much-overdue death. Or shut up.

So, if you're sick of your parents telling you how new music sucks, do something about it! Buy this shirt from us, for starters. Wear one of these bad boys while you're popping a cap in rock and roll's ass. On the other hand, maybe you're a bitter old person who can't bear the thought of Madonna being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You might as well make a clean break with the past. Buy one of these t-shirts. Now. Rock and roll is dead, and I killed it. One can only hope.

http://www.growlinghamster.com/rockisdead.html

North Korea's Kim Jong Il: joker or statesman?

2010-06-25T12:52:00.004-04:00

Perhaps you've noticed that this week is the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, a war initiated by Kim Il-Sung when his armies invaded South Korea in 1950. A swell time was had by all. In fact, the war never really ended. There has simply been a truce in place since 1953, a state of limbo which has more or less kept the region from reigniting into full-scale war during the intervening years. Kim's stylish and perky son, Kim Jong Il, now rules North Korea with the same even-handed benevolence of the father. Like all great despots, Kim the younger favors leisure suits, Elvis-meets-Bruce Lee haircuts, and glasses that would make Harry Carey proud. Or drunk. While his subjects starve and suffer under Orwellian conditions of constant surveillance, disinformation and isolation, Kim Jong-il (we'll use all of the official spellings here, just to satisfy everyone) is lavishly entertained by various concubines, entertainers and other paranoid performers of favor. Then again, who wouldn't want to offer sexual services to a man of his obvious beauty, serenity and charm? He reminds us of Henry the Eighth, oblivious to his own disgusting traits, but willing to change the world around him to suit his desires. Talk about HOT! We salute his style, both in fashion and diplomacy. If you'd like to emulate this fashion sense, we suggest purchasing one of our two smart Kim shirts: the always appropriate Sex, Drugs and Tasty Kim Chee Since 1994 "Progress Through Paranoia" (top) or the equally sartorial Lir'l Kim Fan Club "Don't You Wish Your Boyfriend Was a Fleak Rike Me" (bottom). As long as he's going to be lobbing missiles at Alaska and sinking South Korean ships, we might as well show our appreciation. These shirts are actually made in an American sweat shop, but they have all the quality of their North Korean counterparts. We think the artwork's cool, and it has those Obama colors of which you Yankee imperialist hegemonists are so fond.

Shirt shown at top is available at http://www.growlinghamster.com/kimprogress.html

Shirt shown at bottom is available at http://www.growlinghamster.com/kimfleak.html

Pirate News!

2010-04-01T11:42:00.000-04:00

Those pirates are up to something! Check out this link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100401/pl_afp/uspiracyshippingseychelles. Then, get yourself one of our fine, commemorative t-shirts, too.

Iron Death Choppers: custom bikes, custom reality

2010-03-24T12:25:00.017-04:00

Like a maggot burrowing its way out of a dead cop's eye, Kern Canyon Rd. slithers southwest out of the Sequoia National Forest and into Bakersfield. Miles of angry, hot blacktop, ideal for opening up the chopped, V-twin chariot carrying Pete, Sr. back to the shop after a day of abusing cacti, tourists and air quality standards. Pete, Jr. greeted his burly, tattooed father with a grimace as the elder partner entered their co-owned motorcycle customizing business.

Like some latter-day Odd Couple, father and son had as much in common as Britney and asparagus. Both spears, obviously, but hardly compatible. Pete, Sr. had been dishonorably discharged from the Army following an infamously eventful tour of duty in Vietnam. The discharge was part of a plea deal at his court martial hearing, wherein he agreed to disavow any knowledge of hot-rodding a Jeep, driving it into a Charlie-infested village and, in his words, "wasting a couple dozen gook broads and skullfucking their daughters".

After returning home from Southeast Asia, the elder Pete joined the notorious Orange County Scorpions motorcycle club, a group of bikers so feared that the president of the local Hell's Angels chapter pronounced them "even tougher than Hunter S. Thompson, and God knows, writers scare the living shit out of us." Pete, Sr. spent most of the 1970's and 80's selling dope, consuming copious amounts of Cuervo, beer and methedrine, and fighting rival bikers and cops. He found time to marry, and subsequently divorce, four fetching women, one of whom bore him a son, Pete, Jr.

Since his ex-wives were even worse sociopaths, the job of raising his son fell to Pete, Sr. who, in a rare display of responsibility, didn't leave the child out in the desert, sell him to Mexican heroin peddlers or stomp him to death during one of his frequent amphetamine-fueled bouts of spontaneous homicide. As Pete, Jr. grew, it became apparent that perhaps the child's mother had been less than forthcoming about her recent sexual escapades prior to consummating her brief marriage to his father. The kid showed almost no evidence of any genetic link to the father, even at an early age. When Pete, Jr. was only nine years old, his father took him along on a "business trip" to Tijuana. Attempting to mentor the child in the only fatherly way he knew, Pete, Sr. engaged the services of a couple of willing, fourteen year-old senoritas-for-hire to initiate the lad into the ways of sexual adulthood. Screaming from the rented room that "Daddy! Daddy! They don't have the right parts!" the boy exhibited the lack of interest in women that increasingly disturbed his father, and this first attempt at "making a man" out of Pete, Jr. ended with him being tied, whimpering, to the backrest of his father's Harley for the trip back to southern California.

As a teenager, Pete, Jr. continued to suffer the wrath of his father, who beat him mercilessly every time he expressed an interest in pastel colors, show tunes, women's fashion, interior design or any of the myriad other things that consumed his contrary development. Pete, Sr., after a run-in with the FBI during a RICO investigation into the affairs of the Orange County Scorpions, began to live a more legal and "normal" life. In 1996, he bought a small motorcycle repair shop in Bakersfield, christened it Iron Death Choppers, and proceeded to turn it into one of the top custom bike facilities in southern California. Finally coming to some sort of fitful terms with his son's "otherness", he purchased a second shop, in Encino, as a present for his son's eighteenth birthday. "Better than seeing him jerk off all over the couch every time male figure skaters come on TV" was the father's justification for finding an outlet for his son's misplaced femininity.

Managing this second shop, Pete, Jr. reignited his father's wrath and disappointment by straying from the tried and-true course of motorcycle modification and enhancement. While his father built mean, fearsome, chopped vestiges of former Harleys, the younger Pete dabbled in sequin-adorned Vespas and pink taffeta-ensconced Suzukis. Despite developing quite a following among the greater Los Angeles cross-dressing community, the Encino shop became a thorn in the elder Pete's thick and weathered hide.

In 2007, Pete, Sr. removed his son as manager of the Encino location, and appointed him roving consultant between the two shops. Despite his questionable sexuality and motorcycle design tastes, Pete, Jr. had uncanny accounting talents, and managed to make his father's enterprise quite profitable. As a result of the son's persistent marketing, a reality TV show following the exploits of Pete and his son, Iron Death Choppers, USA, premiered on the DuMont Network in 2008. If your cable system doesn't carry the DuMont Network, by all means start a campaign to have them pick it up. As millions of viewers will attest, the show is a hoot, and we would recommend that you purchase a fine, Iron Death Choppers t-shirt for yourself. We will update you here periodically on the whole Iron Death Choppers experience.

http://www.growlinghamster.com/irondeath.html

Those Lousy Somali Pirates

2010-03-24T02:18:00.009-04:00

Since the Japanese have clubbed and eaten most of those pesky and dangerous sea creatures that keep many of you away from the world's oceans, you may have been lulled into a false sense of security. "Honey? I hear those nasty, vicious dolphins are damn-near extinct now, thanks to our friends from Japan. Now we can go on that cruise we've been planning." Well, the complacent among you may be in for a shock.

Not only are there apparently millions of nasty, slimy critters still lurking in the waters off our coasts, a few of them share something in common with Johnny Depp. They're pirates! No, they're not the peg-legged, parrot-molesting characters we remember from history. These modern buccaneers are more like some maritime version of the boys in the 'hood. Poor, mean and after your shit, should you venture into their waters.

Aside from a few drunken thieves working half-naked on inland lakes in the Midwestern United States, the bulk of these modern privateers can be found off the Horn of Africa. No, not the tenor saxophone. That's the Horn often played by African-Americans. If you check your maps (we'll wait), the Horn of Africa is that scary, pointy thing sticking out of the east side of the dark continent, just south of Ethiopia. We'll assume the canine population there is referred to as "Horn dogs".

After years of abuse at the hands of the Arabs, British, French and Italians, the nations in the area (Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, among others) have collapsed into varying degrees of lawlessness and chaos. Much like white folks in America did after the Civil War, these former colonial masters essentially told their now-independant charges to "get your shit together! We freed you! What else is it you want?" after the region was milked dry of any easy corporate and political pickings.

The CIA and other murky sorts of folks, along with a handful of American military, still work the sands and waters of Djibouti. We tried that in Somalia, but it seems to have ended badly. Given Western nations' minimal military presence there, their preoccupation with finding elusive terrorists in the area, and their utter lack of interest in helping to develop any sort of civil society in the region, it's no wonder that enterprising young men in Somalia have started to take advantage of the "opportunities" that have presented themselves just a few miles off their shores.

Located as it is, at the entrance to the busy and narrow Red Sea, the Horn of Africa is one of the most ship-soaked bodies of water in the world. Oil tankers from the Persian Gulf, freighters from Asia and cruise ships from Europe all have to pass within a few miles of the Somali coast to get to where they're headed. Very much like the 17th Century Caribbean. While Spain, France and Britain duked it out politically and militarily in the West Indies, self-starters like Blackbeard, Henry Morgan and Captain Kidd saw opportunity sailing by, and seized it. Similarly, as the shadow war against terrorism is waged on their doorstep, these modern pirates are now causing havoc for seafarers who thought the scariest pirate they'd ever seen was Errol Flynn. Or Keith Richards.

For the last few months, the monsoons have kept the bulk of these latter-day Captain Bloods off the waves, but now that the seas are calming again, look out! A friend of ours tells us that his parents were held captive by Somali pirates, and all he got was this lousy t-shirt (see picture). It's not surprising, since being held for ransom often puts vacationers in a lousy mood. Why not get one of those shirts for yourself? You can, you know, by clicking on this link. If you should venture into the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast, and it goes badly for you, don't say we didn't warn you.

http://www.growlinghamster.com/somalipirates.html

O, why does the Hamster Growl?

2010-03-24T01:35:00.006-04:00

We're tiny. Really tiny. Well, not tiny as in "hung like a hamster" tiny, but small enough. We are the brainchild of a handful of idiots in Metro Detroit. You know Detroit. It used to be in Michigan. The locals pretend that it still is. We've been in the commercial art and graphic design business for a long time, but as the city has decayed around us, so have the prospects for easy money in the advertising world. Hell, we used to be able to eat off of putting together Chrysler catalogs once a year, but you folks around the world have told us to grow up and stop relying on cars to make a living. Well, we listened. We had to. All the business dried up. We weren't rich enough to move to where the work is, like the Sun belt. Or Mumbai. So, here we are, selling t-shirts on the internet.

Growling Hamster is the website face of Conceptsmart, Inc. That's the official, tell-the-IRS-our-deepest-darkest-secrets business entity. If you actually buy something from us, your credit card statement will indicate Conceptsmart, Inc. as the company with whom you've done business. It's even tinier than Growling Hamster.

Why "Growling Hamster"? Well, we're pissed off about the dire prospects for the automotive business, and the resulting panic, depression, social collapse, cultural malaise and soul-searching experienced by the entire Midwestern United States, which explains all the growling. And, as we mentioned, we're small. Small like a hamster, but mean enough to eat each other if need be. Just like a hamster. Lovely pets, those, and a nice allegory for the people around this part of the world, as it turns out. Seriously, we value your interest and the potential to actually sell you something.

If you like what you see. let us know. You can comment here on our blog page, or send us a nice note at our Contact Us page. Send us naked pictures, too, if you'd like. Well, you can if you're of legal age. Send us gifts. Or cheese. Or crates of filet mignons. If you can convert a hunk of sharp cheddar into a PDF file, and successfully attach it to an e-mail, we'll hire ya.

OK, our blog is up and running!

2010-03-24T01:07:00.006-04:00

The amiable morons at Growling Hamster Vicious Apparel welcome you to our new blog. Ain’t it grand? Of course, it’s a thinly-veiled and shamelessly commercial sales tool, designed to lure unsuspecting folks like you to our website. The one where we sell things. Like t-shirts. Notice all of these links? They’re no accident, amigo. We may be morons, but we’re mercenary morons. Soon to be moneyed mercenary morons, we hope. Or at least guilty of an alliteration overdose.

What??? The links aren’t working? Well, then type “www.growlinghamster.com” into your browser’s little URL window. Now! Quickly! Then buy something. Thanks for stopping by! The more you do, the sooner we can tell ourselves, “hey, we’ve had 8,000 hits and nobody’s bought anything yet”.