NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 100: Jersey Royalty

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It’s fitting that the 100th installment of this column sees us presenting a shirt by Jersey Royalty. I think I deserve some sort of crown for writing 100 posts on t-shirts of NJ pop culture, even if it’s a cardboard Burger King crown, I’m cool with that.

Miss Sexy Armpit and I decided to take a stroll on the Seaside boardwalk over the weekend…and yes, we did that intentionally. It still surprises me how overrun with tourists that area has been since MTV’s Jersey Shore premiered. It’s probably been seeing some of it’s highest visitor rates ever. In general there’s been a surge in popularity for our state thanks to that show and that’s reflected in the store fronts on along the boardwalk.

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In a sea of many ridiculously stupid t-shirts, many of them asking you to tell that cool story again, there’s also about a hundred different variations on New Jersey slogans as well. I never had any interest in a tee that said “New Jersey: We Go Hard,” or any of the like. But I did stop in my tracks when I saw a little store on the side of the boardwalk that sold “Jersey Royalty” tees.

The Jersey Royalty shop offered tees, sweatshirts, and tanks for men and women, and most of them incorporated the outline of the Garden State. Miss Armpit treated us to shirts because we just felt like we HAD to have them. That’s a feeling we seem to get often!

The t-shirt was basically custom designed since they didn’t have my size in the version I wanted. The front of the tee is the same and the stars on the shoulders were already there, but I made 2 other requests. I asked that they put the JR military style shield on the sleeves because it’s their initials and mine as well, and their cursive logo is printed across the upper back of the shirt.

The sales girls at the shop were from Ukraine and it was pretty funny to talk to them about how they are here selling Jersey t-shirts. They told us they were here only to work and then they have to go back to their country. They seemed to prefer to be in Jersey though. The girls were definitely giving the hard sell, but they were very helpful and eager to make my custom t-shirt dreams come true. Miss Sexy Armpit should be the one crowned though, since she shelled out a lot of dough! Thank you!

Jersey Shore Shark Attack…Finally!

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That title might seem completely insane, but it’s not what you think. I’m not saying “Damn, FINALLY someone came up with the idea to merge movies like JAWS and Piranha with MTV’s JERSEY SHORE type buffoonery. I’ll reiterate: that’s NOT what I was saying. When I say finally, it means that it took so damn long to get a trailer for what at first glance looks be quite a piece of shit. Now, when I say possible…there’s like a 6% chance that it will totally kick ass. OK, I’m exaggerating. The truth is, it looks terrible in the most awesome way possible and I’m glad that we finally have a trailer after nearly 2 years of it’s initial announcement.

In the trailer we see all the typical stereotypes of how the country views people from New Jersey. Actually, we aren’t all mongoloids. I speak normally and don’t sleep in a tanning bed. These errors are inconsequential when I think about what an event this movie will be for me. I’m always excited to watch an unintentionally funny, shlocky horror movie takes place in New Jersey. As you can see, the clones of the Jersey Shore cast get guns and hunt sharks at the end of the trailer. The effects are terrible so I’ll be going in with extremely low expectations.
The casting bemuses me though. If I was a kid on Twitter I’d probably tweet this in reaction to the trailer: “That moment when you realize Joey Fatone is in Jersey Shore Shark Attack.” I was taken aback for a moment when I realized Fatone shows up on the scene. Including the heftiest member of N’Sync, all the main stars were born in Brooklyn, NY. What the hell is that crap? The casting director should’ve taken care that they hired Jersey born actors and actresses considering there’s a ton of them. It would’ve made it more authentic. One huge misconception is that people from Jersey do NOT talk like they are from Brooklyn unless they are from Brooklyn and moved to Jersey. We aren’t all Tony Danza clones here contrary to popular belief.
Joey Fatone, Jack Scalia, Paul Sorvino, Tony Sirico, and hold up a second…WILLIAM F*CKING ATHERTON!?!?! NOW I’M IN. I’M SO F’N IN. I’m front and center for what just turned into a magnificent piece of entertainment. Sold. *SPOILERS* Vinny from Jersey Shore plays a news reporter who spills the beans that Joey Fatone’s character GETS EATEN BY A SHARK! I bet the shark is TEARIN’ UP HIS HEART as we speak. No release date has been announced yet, so until then “Bye, Bye, Bye!”

NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 80: It’s T-Shirt Time!

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Some of the Jersey Shore T-Shirts available at The Shore Store

It’s seriously t-shirt time here at The Sexy Armpit! I figured since the new season of Jersey Shore premiered last week, why not delve into the vast collection of tees offered at The Shore Store in Seaside Heights. This is the store where the cast of MTV’s Jersey Shore works when they aren’t getting drunk, smushing, throwing each others belongings onto the deck, fist pumping, or signaling oncoming grenades.

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If you scan through their online store, you’ll see that they offer a wide array of t-shirts, some highly offensive and some totally stupid, but the main attractions are the amusing New Jersey tees for sale. As you can see, there’s a good chance that the 4th grade class at your local elementary school came up with the one liners on these t-shirts, not William Shakespeare as you may have thought. In case you hadn’t guessed, Come Smell For Yourself is my favorite.

NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 62: The Beachcomber in Seaside Heights

This past weekend I took a trip with my girlfriend and some other friends to The Beachcomber in Seaside Heights, NJ. I wanted to check out It Ain’t Pretty, a band churning out modern rock and pop cover songs. The band is made up of Dennis Zimmer, P.J Farley (Trixter, Ra), Shawn Mars, Mark Hall and Dave Clauro. They rocked the place and helped the Beachcomber live up to it’s renewed reputation as a fun place to go to drink and let loose.

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When your establishment’s claim to fame is “This is where Snooki got punched,” it’s easy to attract business. Even their t-shirt has become a collectible with the stamp of approval: The Beachcomber Bar and Grill: The Official Bar of MTV’s Jersey Shore.

While walking around the Seaside Heights boardwalk that night, I realized why MTV chose the Seaside Boardwalk as opposed to the other stretches of the expansive Jersey Shore. Why not Point Pleasant, Atlantic City, or Wildwood? The answer is because the Seaside Boardwalk is unbeatable. There’s so much crap to do! There’s games, stores, bars, and rides; you’re almost guaranteed to have some sort of fun. So, for those watching Jersey Shore repeats thinking that Seaside Heights has a cheap, shlocky mess of a boardwalk, well, you’re absolutely right and that’s why it’s awesome.

NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 45: Popeye at The Jersey Shore

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Popeye Jersey Shore T-Shirt available at 80’s Tees.com

When mashing up MTV’s Jersey Shore with a cartoon property, Popeye is not the first to pop in my head. But, this T-Shirt mash up actually brings an amusing idea to the table. Could this be a novel way to breathe new life into Popeye for a whole new generation of young viewers? A guido version of Popeye could definitely be funny and it’s not improbable to think that Adult Swim, Comedy Central, or even Fox would jump on airing it. For the next few minutes, just imagine that Popeye’s crew got shipwrecked and washed up on somewhere on the Jersey Shore.

First, we’ll need to see if we can compare the stars of MTV’s Jersey Shore to the characters in Popeye. Ronnie could pass for Bluto (or Brutus as I knew him from reruns as a kid), and for Olive Oyl you can take your pick between Snookie, JWoww, and Sammi because they are all annoying enough to fill that role. Unfortunately, there’s no debate that Vinny would have to be the hamburger eatin’ straight man, Wimpy, and finally Popeye would be The Situation, although he’s nowhere near as heroic, and instead of ripped abs, Popeye’s got killer forearms, gee, I wonder if it’s because Olive Oyl doesn’t put out enough? Oh, and as for DJ Pauly D, we’ll let him create the modern fist pounding theme song for the show.