Okay, this is something that’s been pissing me off for a little while now.
Everybody, can we calm down on the Harley merchandise? Seriously, what’s the ratio of Harley shirts to motorcycles? It’s gotta be about 10,000 to 1.
But shirts aren’t the real problem here. You wake up in the morning, hope to put on something that isn’t covered in body fluids, I get it. But this merchandise spiral goes way further than that.
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For example, Harley travel mug. If you have a cup holder on your motorcycle, I can sort of see this one. Sort of. But really, aren’t these mostly ending up in the cup holders of huge trucks with Harley tailgates? You know, the ones used for towing a motorcycle? Which, by the way, is completely idiotic. That would be like buying an airplane and then setting it inside a larger airplane to take it places. A motorcycle is transportation, assholes. You don’t have to transport it.
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Now, maybe you do have a cup holder, and that’s fine. But there’s a part of me that doubts very much that you are just setting your drinks on your gas tank and using a coaster to keep them from leaving rings. In fact, I defy anyone to come up with a way in which these could be involved in any sort of motorcycle-related activity. Also, once you are over the age of 15 you should stop acquiring things with skulls on them. You don’t have to purge them until 30, but stop getting more. That’s just one of the many rules that will improve society.
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Okay, now this one is blatantly not for motorcycle use. Floor mats? First of all, why didn’t you do like the rest of us and break into a dealership late at night and steal a huge box of those paper floor mats that come in a new car? And who decided to put wings on skulls? That guy was either a marketing genius or haunted by terrible visions that must have driven him over the brink of insanity where I doubt he was saved by a flock of skullgulls.
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Nothing says badass biker like a rolling suitcase. The second rule that will fix society is the outlawing of rolly suitcases. Because of these monstrosities every idiot thinks that a huge piece of luggage qualifies as a carry-on. Well guess what: It’s a carry-on, not a drag-on. If you can’t lift that fucker over your head, it ain’t coming on board with you. But to get back to business, I can’t think of a better way to convince the world that you are a giant douche (rolling)bag than to wheel this thing through the airport.
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-Sigh-
Look, I don’t know a lot about wine. I couldn’t really tell you the difference between Boone’s Farm and Martha’s Vineyard, although I would guess that one of those two places is far more likely to have a rollercoaster and decent corn dog. But something that I DO know about wine is that novelty glasses are sort of frowned upon. It’s not a shot glass, people. It’s for drinking wine. This is why 7-11 doesn’t have special wine glasses when Iron Man 2 comes out, or why you don’t get free wine glasses with your extra value meal that have the Jurassic Park logo on them.
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This one just falls into that category of absolutely unnecessary. I refuse to have it be explained to me that having the Harley version of Yahtzee somehow enhances the game. I absolutely refuse. To make matters worse, there pretty much has to be some kind of shitty extra shit rules that turn the game into utter garbage, like you roll a skull with wings and that means you lose a turn or some shit. Just stick with the game’s original formula which was designed perfectly…for special ed classes where they’re trying to trick kids into doing arithmetic. And by the way, game makers, would it kill you to include a real goddamn pencil with an eraser? They cost like a cent.
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You know, there are so many dumb things you can buy for your dog. The really sneaky part of it is that you can always say, “He likes it!” You know what else your dog likes? Everything that tastes either good or really awful. He likes eating steak and cat shit. The thing that bugs me here is that it is fundamentally impossible for a dog to operate a motorcycle. Let him have a shirt with a bowl being scooted across the floor because that seems to be the only operation he’s capable of.
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You are not going to believe who makes this shit. You remember the jagoff who came to your high school? The one who told you to buy a class ring and showed you his that he either wears all the time or pulled out of the ash tray of his Chevy Nova for the sake of tricking you? Well, that great fellow from JOSTENS (really!) is ready to sell you yet another ring to celebrate something that really has nothing to do with rings or jewelery. How he sleeps at night I’m not sure, but I bet it involves pills and ignoring the directions about not drinking that comes along with said pills.
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You know, this really isn’t the worst thing, as far as objects in a vacuum go. The main issue here is that this item is listed as “Men’s Dress Belt.” Folks, a belt with a company logo on it is not a dress belt. You do not wear a logo to your grandfather’s funeral. You might wear a Super Mario 2 belt to your grandfather’s funeral, but only if you are 5 years old and don’t own any sort of belt and kind of convince your dad it’s a good idea. So please, stop marketing these things as dress belts. They’re just belts. Middle-aged men are easily fooled into thinking things that are not at all dress clothes are dress clothes (see: khaki shorts, brown leather sandals, shiny polo shirts with sports team logos on them).
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Well, that really takes the cake, doesn’t it? Okay, if you ride to the golf course with this behemoth on your back, you are a genuine badass no matter how low your handicap is. But otherwise, and I think that it’s always OTHERWISE with this one, how about you just get a normal goddamn golf bag and spend the cash on something else like, I don’t know, Extensz to make you feel better about yourself and fill that god-shaped hole in your life?
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So, next time you think about buying some sweet Harley merch, remember: You’re just wearing some other person’s brand, doing their advertising. They’ve tricked you into believing that this is some kind of lifestyle. It’s a trick! Believe me, drinking wine from a Harley wine glass does not make you badass. Nor does it save your badass rep when you say, “Oooh, oooh, wait, use a coaster, please” and bust out a Harley coaster. Just leave it alone already.