I had this t-shirt stored away until I saw it in old concert footage.

It’s fun to hunt for t-shirts with a known connection to some element of history or pop culture. It’s more fun, turns out, to find the t-shirt first and the connection months later. Stumbling through Youtube last week, I got to have that experience for the first time.

I like to have music on while packing boxes. Last week I settled, eventually, on a Blink 182 live set from 2000, filmed at Daytona Beach during Spring Break. Enema of the State is a consummate pop-punk album; it makes up much of the performances

Tom Delonge, turns out, was insufferable even then. And 2000, peak cargo shorts, was a  long time ago style-wise. But the band sounds pretty good, and they played “Dammit,” and it’s fun to see that Mark is wearing a skin tight heathered ringer t-shirt.

 

 

T-shirt looked a bit familiar: A small image of the national capitol with “Washington DC” written above it. My t-shirt bins are right behind my workstation, so I dug around a little and, lo and behold, pulled out the same damn one.

This kind of moment rarely happens. Most t-shirts linked to rock stars are in such demand that finding one is near impossible. Originals cost hundreds. But Mark Hoppus isn’t Bob Dylan, and this wasn’t a legendary performance. There’s a good chance I’m the first person to have paid attention and identified the t-shirt here.

 

 

It’s a late or mid-eighties Screen Stars ringer. 50-50 cotton-poly blend, white tag, and with a small printed graphic on the chest. A vintage t-shirt to be sure, unlike, say, anything from Hurley.

Because we try not to hoard things here, I shipped this out to known Blink 182 fan last week. The moral of the story here, I guess, is to pay attention to my Instagram account and tell me what you like.