Too Much?

We created this t-shirt after a heated office debate about the war in Iraq, in particular the recent figure which showed that more than 4,000 American servicemen had died since the country was invaded. It was suggested by a certain individual in our group, incensed at the actions, lies and betrayl of Bush and Blair that the torch, held by the Statue Of Liberty, should be replaced with "that little f**ker's head on a spike". And the very next day we got to work.
It's probably the strongest t-shirt we've put out so far and we haven't really done a lot of political designs, but we hope you like it nonetheless.

As a point of interest George Bush once said during a conversation with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson about the Iraq war: "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." Gun, shoot, foot.

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction!

A while back a few of us here at the S.D.F.C. went to see the Cohen brothers latest movie No Country For Old Men, half of us loved it, half of us hated it. So imagine our suprise when we came across this little nugget of information, which we found posted on a celebrity website blog. This is one strange coincidence:"In the novel 'No Country For Old Men' (but not in the movie), Sheriff Bell says of the dope-dealers, "Here a while back in San Antonio they shot and killed a federal judge."
The author set the story in 1980. In 1979, in San Antonio, Federal Judge John Howland Wood was shot and killed by rifle fire by a Texas freelance contract killer named Charles Harrelson. Actor Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells in the movie) is his son.
Charles Harrelson was sentenced to two life sentences for the murder of Federal Judge John Howland Wood on the orders of drug dealer Jimmy Chagra, who reportedly paid him $250,000. Harrelson has claimed to be one of the "hobos" taken away from "the grassy knoll" right after the shooting of John F. Kennedy.
Harrelson died on March 15th, 2007 in a federal super-maximum prison in Colorado."

You can find out more about Woody's old man HERE over at Wikipedia.

Dinki-Di Dog Food And Other Updates.

Long before he claimed to own the whole of Malibu, in a time before he referred to police women as "Sugar Tits" and blamed every major war on the Jews, Mel Gibson was actually famous for being Mad Max. In our humble opinion the best installment of the Road Warrior trilogy was the second film and it's from that movie that we drew inspiration from, for our latest film tribute tee.

Dinki-Di dog food is the fictional brand of canine sustenance used in the film which both Max and his faithful four legged companion share whilst trying to survive on the barren wasteland highways of the future. The word Dinki-Di is also Australian slang for "genuine" and legend has it they called the dog food that because Gibson insisted on eating the real stuff, taking method acting to a whole new level. So there you have it an inside, subtle movie reference t-shirt for anyone who ever wanted to dress in leather, drive a supercharged car and eat dog food.

Aside from designing new t-shirts we've also been hard at work on updating the site and in the next few weeks you'll notice a few changes around the S.D.F.C, most notabley a new logo, a gallery section, clickable links to our social network pages and a new section for hoodies. We're also pulling out all the stops for this summer and fingers crossed you may actually see us and our stall at a few of the summer music festivals around the UK.

Lovelace & King

Long time no hear, but truth be told we've been busy tidying the website up, getting organised for hitting the summer music festival scene, generating new ideas and designs and working on a special side project which we hope to reveal later in the year...plus some of us ended up addicted to playing Call Of Duty 4 on Xbox Live.

Anyhoo, here's two new tees for your wearing pleasure this month, the first features a replica of the customer service sticker which was stuck onto the body armour of Hannibal King, (played by Ryan Reynolds) in the movie Blade: Trinity.

We understand that the Blade vampire franchise is pretty much dead in the water but why, oh why, didn't they just forge ahead with a Nightstalkers spin off with Reynolds and Biel?


The other tee is a design we came up with ourselves pulling inspiration from a 70s sex comedy farce called Linda Lovelace For President. Those of you not familiar with Lovelace can catch up with her rather tragic life story here, but in short she was one of the world's first commercially recognised porn stars, largely due to her controversial hardcore movie Deep Throat.
That's all for just now folks but we have a ton of new and exciting stuff for you in the pipeline, which we hope will take your fancy.

The Ups & Downs Of December 2007. Part 2: The Ups

Reeling from our missed opportunity with the BBC, (thanks to some clown at Heathrow Airport), we pressed on and distracted ourselves with work. Sifting through the mail one day we came across an unusual letter from a guy called Lyle Christiansen from Minnesota and we immediately recognised him as a previous customer. On opening his letter we found with it a photograph and a photocopy of an article from New York Magazine about the mystery of D.B. Cooper .

This is where things start to get a bit bizarre, as in his letter Lyle explained that he came across our D.B. Cooper's School Of Skydiving t-shirt on our website and felt compelled to buy it because, in his words, he thought it was the best one of it's kind. He also purchased it in memory of his late brother Kenneth who he stated was the real D.B. Cooper.

Now, we've received a lot of weird and wonderful things in the post before, many of which we could never write about, for legal reasons, but this really took us by surprise, especially as it referenced one of our all time favourite unsolved mysteries.
With a fair amount of scepticism we read on and started to digest the accompanying New York Magazine article which Lyle had included with his letter. You can read the whole article for yourself HERE .

To cut a very long story short, it turns out that Lyle's brother Kenneth is now indeed an official suspect in the D.B. Cooper case and aside from the fact that his height and weight may not fit the profile his experience as a sky diver and his past history certainly do. So there you have it on a random rainy Tuesday morning we receive a wonderful letter and photograph from what could be the brother of D.B. Cooper, the only man in American history to carry out a skyjacking and evade capture from the FBI, unless of course you buy into the theory that he died...something we certainly don't!

N.B. As a point of interest Lyle informed us that in the photogrpah, (pictured above), he's wearing one of his brother's wool lined overcoats, which he may have worn for the jump and he has one of his attache cases which he found when his brother passed away.

The Ups & Downs Of Decemer 2007. Part 1: The Downs

Firstly let us officially wish you a Happy New Year and all the very best for the next 12 months and thanks again to all of our customers who kept us busy throughout the run up to Christmas. Last month was definately full of mixed emotions for us here at the State Dept Of Fashion Corrections. This first part will detail the down side of December for us and the next part will deal with the upside.

Picture the scene we're busy printing up shirts for customers three weeks before Christmas when we get a call from a lovely young lady from the BBC, (for our American readers that stands for British Broadcastng Corporation), who tells us that she loves our John Smeaton and Proudly Banjoing Terrorists t-shirts. We thank her and she goes on to tell us that she's currently involved with filming a documentary about John Smeaton, (the Glasgow airport baggage handler who helped to fight off two terrorists intent on blowing the place up), for the BBC entitled An Accidental Hero and that it would be really cool if we could supply her with some free t-shirts. So we agree, after all it's not everyday we get a phonecall from the BBC. She explains that the film crew will be followng Smeaton to New York where he'll be presented with a special CNN Everyday Superhero Award and will meet with stars such as Mary J Blige, Glen Close, Kevin Bacon and Billy Connelly and that she and the rest of the crew would love to hand out our t-shirts to the stars. As you can imagine we get a tad excited about the prospect of our t-shirts being handed out to Hollywood celebs so we agree to supply her with a batch of Smeaton and Banjoing Terrorists t-shirts and we post them out to her two days before the crew are due to fly out to New York. She is overjoyed and promises to phone us when the she returns from the Big Apple.

Four days later and true to her word we get the call, but we realise straight away that something is wrong. She tell's us that they all made it to New York only to discover that Heathrow Airport staff had placed the wrong labels on all of their luggage and that they spent the entire three days with no change of clothes, laptops, camera equipment or, more importantly for us, t-shirts. So there you have it folks, what could have been a massive opportunity for the S.D.F.C turned into a non-event, we had visions of watching LL Cool J flexing his man cannons whilst wearing Proudly Banjoing Terrorists t-shirt. Apparently nobody seems to know where the the t-shirts ended up, so if you settle down to watch the news one night and are surprised to see some kids running around Somalia or Kazakhstan with John Smeaton's face plastered over their chests, you know the story behind their t-shirts.

The Xmas Rush

Hey folks, not long now till the festive season kicks into high gear and don't worry if you've just recently placed an order with us, we'll try our very best to get it sent off ASAP. We run a 5-10 working day dispatch policy, which basically means when you place an order with us we will dispatch it within 5-10 days, (weekends not included). Usually we send out orders within a day or two but as you can imagine we have been slammed with Xmas orders and things here at the S.D.F.C. have been busier than normal. Any queries drop us a line at info@bonaroo.co.uk

A Man Called Quint

A while ago we sent out one of our Quint's Great White Fishing Trips tees to, funnily enough, a guy called Quint who writes and contributes for the excellent movie website Ain't It Cool News. That was a few months ago and to be honest we had forgotten all about it until just last week, when one of our inmates noticed that the big guy had included not only the Quints t-shirt but our Snake Plissken and Karate Kid tees in a review of online gifts to buy for Xmas.

Each year Quint compiles a comprehensive and excellent guide to things online which would make someone smile this festive season, you can read the whole article HERE. We did and going on his recommendations we've ordered The Monster Squad on DVD and that rather excellent Alien Abduction lamp, (pictured above). Genius. So here's a big thanks from all the inmates here at the S.D.F.C. to Quint from AICN. Keep up the good work.

Are You A Gradute From The School Of Hard Props?

This design is basically a take on the famous phrase School Of Hard Knocks and if you've never heard that phrase before it's usually used to describe a person that looks like he/she had a very hard paper round when they were younger....and if you don't know what that means then there really is no hope for you.

We digress, anyway we came up with this design in tribute to those amatuer rugby players who, although lack cool sounding names and the natural athleticism of the likes of Joe Rokocoko or Bryan Habana, put their bodies on the line every Saturday or Sunday. They do so for two reasons, the love of the game and the fact they have a very strong sadomasochistic streak. Let's face it rugby is one of the last true Gladitorial sports left and it's played by sportsmen and women who have graduated from the School Of Hard Props.

Shaun Of The Dead T-shirt

Probably the greatest Rom Zom Com ever made, if not the only one. Shaun Of The Dead taught us that platonic love between two men could exist and that the best way to kill a zombie was to remove it's head or brain. This is admittedly uncharted waters of geekery and nerdism for us here at the S.D.F.C but I think you'll agree it's a t-shirt which would complete any self respecting Shaun outfit for parties or Halloween , all that's missing is a cricket bat and a bunch of flowers. We can't wait to the see what kind of pics will crop up with this t-shirt.

We're Now On Facebook

Yes, we finally decided to take the plunge and enter into the wonderful world of Facebook. If you're already part of this social network then by all means add yourself on and become part of the Dept. Leave a comment, a video a picture or even give us a poke.

Add yourself on HERE

If The Shoe Fits

Take a look at these trainers. They're the Ian Brown inspired limited edition Adidas shoes which we got a first hand look at when one of our old friends dropped by The S.D.F.C. for a visit. He was lucky enough to buy them on ebay for half the price most shops were selling them for and was eager to tell us that you cannot buy them on the high street anymore. Admittedly they do look the part and have an enormous amount of detail. Apparently in 2005, Adidas asked the singer if he would design a pair of trainers to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of their Superstar shoes range, (remember the famous Run DMC trainers?).
So he gave them a special wax coated leather at the front which would repel the Manchester rain and coloured them red and black in honour of Manchester United supporters. He also gave them a gold plated looking tag for the front of the shoe with his initials IB and the eye from the ‘Music Of The Spheres’ album cover was imprinted on the outside of the heel. On the spine of the left heel, was the signature ‘Ian’ and, on the right, ‘Brown’ both stitched in red.
Finally he also added the lyrics of two songs ‘Longsight M13′ and ‘One Way Ticket To Paradise’ to the inside of each inner sole.
Our friend was also pleased to announce that his pair is only one of 5,000 ever produced and have become one of the most collectible pairs ever manufactured. Personally if that's what you're into, then that's what you're into.

Howling Halloween Madness

Just a big thanks to everyone who bought a Teen Wolf t-shirt over the Halloween period and were kind enough to send us their pics. Apparently dressing up as Scott Howard in full basketball playing werewolf mode, was the costume to wear this year and it seems our Beavers tee came in handy for the finishing touches.

"We always wanted the t-shirt to be special...but we never expected this."

Every Which Way But Loose - The Black Widows

Anyone who grew up watching Clint Eastwood's cult movie Every Which Way But Loose, (and the sequel Any Which Way You Can), will appreciate our new t-shirt. It's a tribute not to Philo Beddoe or his beer swigging pet orangutan Clyde, but instead to the most inept biker gang ever to grace the silver screen. Led by the hilarious Cholla the Black Widows, through the course of both films, lose their bikes, their hair and eyebrows, their dignity when they are chased by a shotgun weilding 80 year-old woman and are consistently abused by Beddoe's pet ape Clyde. Like the Keystone Cops on two wheels these lovable rogues nearly steal the show. Check out our product page HERE for more details.

Long Time, No Hear

It's been far too long since our last entry but things here at the State Dept Of Fashion Corrections have been hectic, to say the least. Firstly a big thank you to all of our customers for their gracious feedback about our products, along with pics of them enjoying their new favourite t-shirts, keep them coming.

You'll be happy to hear we have a fresh batch of new designs sitting in Solitary right now awaiting release in the next few days, including a cracking tribute to a certain 70s cult movie featuring a street brawler and his pet orangutan. So if you haven't subscribed to our newsletter then keep checking our website for updates. We are also planning on re-arranging the site before 2007 bids us farewell, with a more interactive theme and gallery feature, which we have been threatening to do for some time now.

Also a few of the inmates have been indulging in the odd orange flavoured KitKat with their tea and coffee, they are surprisingly delicious and come highly recommended.


That Is All

Our Gremlins T-shirts

After watching Joe Dante's 80's classic creature feature Gremlins recently, we put our heads together and came up with the following two designs for tribute tees. They will both be uploaded onto our main site for sale shortly. Let us know what you think?

What Would John Smeaton Do?

It's been a very busy time here at the S.D.F.C. recently, following the addition of two new t-shirt designs to our website. The first is our tribute to Glasgow's very own have-a-go hero John Smeaton, (the airport baggage handler who helped police restrain one of two terrorists who tried to attack Glasgow Airport), with a simple design and phrase which reads: "What Would John Smeaton Do?" We've been recieving all sorts of feedback from this t-shirt, with people being asked by complete strangers to pose for pictures whilst on holiday or at recent summer music festivals, all because of their John Smeaton t-shirt. One of our customers wrote and told us that over 100 people at T In The Park, were pointing at his shirt and singing "There's only one John Smeaton."

Our second t-shirt has proved just as popular, with a design of Scotland complete with Saltire cross it reads: "Proudly Banjoing Terrorists Since 2007". The word "banjoing" was used by John Smeaton in one of his many, unintentionally hilarious interviews, with the world's press and basically means to blooter someone very hard in the face. The media and online attention these two shirts have recieved has been overwhelming, one of our inmates even ended up on national radio to discuss the tees and their increasing popularity.

We even managed to raise a few hundred pounds for the British Red Cross through the sales of the John Smeaton t-shirt alone and recieved a wonderful letter of thanks, which takes pride of place on Big Jim Slade's oak desk.

NB. Look out for a change of design for our John Smeaton t-shirt, which will be uploaded onto Bonaroo.co.uk, very shortly.

Our Guantanamo Bay T-shirt

Here's our special tongue-in-cheek Guantanamo Bay t-shirt, inspired by those tacky tourist based designs you often see for sale in novelty shops, during your holidays.

Regardless what your opinons are on the so-called war of terror, one thing's for sure whatever happens in Guantanamo Bay, stays in Guantanamo Bay. The detention centre there, dubbed "Camp X-Ray", seems to operate outside of all the human rights laws ever laid down and is surrounded by an air of secrecy.
Wether you're a die hard, right wing republican or a tree hugging liberal, you have to agree that nobody really knows what's going on in there and how many of the so called "prisoners of war" are actually guilty of the crimes that they've been accussed of, (without any proper legal procedure). Here's an interesting statistic for you, as of November 2006, out of 775 so called "terrorists", who have been brought to Guantanamo, approximately 340 have been released.

One Dirty Weekend

A big thanks to Grant, Dougie, Kyle, Slammer, Leddy, Yorgi and Thomas who kindly offered their services last weekend to take part in the annual Swamp Soccer tournament, held in Argyll, Scotland. We lost both games but took three points in our final match by default, (the other team failed to show...we would've had them anyway). For those of you unfamiliar with the event it involves a pitch of knee deep mud and six players on each side trying to score more goals than the other team, it's outrageously messy and extremely tiring. Check out the main website HERE for details of next year's event which will be the World Championships. Better start our pre-season training now then. Our team, (in fact only half of our team) is pictured at the bottom of this newspaper article along with players from Team Cafe Bar Koodi, all the way from Finland, who had the good grace and manners to beat us 3-1.

Frankie Is An Asshole

Here's a quick heads up about our latest t-shirt, currently available to buy at the S.D.F.C. If you turn the dial back to the 80s you'll remember there was some fuss made over a "Frankie Say Relax" t-shirt, printed as part of a publicity campaign for the pop group Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Well here's our take on the design, simply because the original is back in high street stores for a pocket bursting price of £35 ($69), and is now considered somewhat "chic", that coupled with the fact that we're sick of listening to what Frankie has to say!