in love

In love

Some T’s I can wear during my ‘weekend’ (mondays, tuesdays, wednesdays), some I prefer to wear while I’m on duty.

When I’m in public I want to ‘show off’.
Not to literally, off course.

I want people to see a nice T-shirt, when I’m selling beer to them.

& I see lots of people. So lots of people do see me.

There is some vanity in me.

Although, it’s just about shirts.

Please, don’t be too reproachful on this habit of mine: I’m just in love with my T-shirtcollection.



i am

I Am

It’s already several years ago I got this one.

Greg Koch wanted to export his beer to Europe. He contacted me when I left a message on his site.

I gave him some names, some telephonenrs too.

Then he came to Amsterdam & brought me some beer & shirts.

Still have them. The shirts that is.

It’s a long time ago my belly could remember the beers.



key

Beck's

I keep on asking myself why that hole is still there.

It’s there already for some years.

I can’t keep myself from wondering when the mice will enter the store via that hole.

When I pass it I have to look at it.

It’s like a black hole. It’s attracting your attention. You can’t do anything else.

It’s like gravity in the universe.

Which I don’t understand either.



victoria

Victorian

I had a lot of Australian customers asking for it.
They said it was the best beer in the world.

Yeah yeah yeah (you just feel homesick).

That’s what lots of people say. Sometimes they even say that their beer had won a prize. Just the other week.

Nowadays Australians seem not so chauvinistic about their beer anymore.

They get other beers imported too, I think.

I had to taste one bottle of VB, to be sure what it tastes like.

Let it be said, once & for all, & don’t blame me, you Aussies asked for it yourself:

VB is not the best beer in the world.

They do have a nice logo though.



destruction

Destruction

I was fascinated by the colour of the leaves at the background.

Oh, I love the autumn, I thought.

Next day it was even prettier. And just above the place the T is hanging here leaves were getting red.

I wanted to be the colours myself.

As if beauty equals happiness.

2 Days later all leaves were gone.

They were laying at the ground, blaming me taking the last bit of life out of them.



earth

Earth

I inherited all the roads.

They were once my father’s.

Sometimes I think that it’s him, on the front of Grote Route 5, sitting on his bycicle.
In his younger years.

I do have as much roads to bike, paths to walk as I have books to read.

I will end my days in a 2nd lifetime.

There’s more to tell about this T.

About how I got it from Tom, the owner of O’Briens, ‘The hoppiest place on Earth’.
About how I sent some bottles of beer to him via a regular customer, who was visiting San Diego.
About how this guy was welcomed in O’Briens & got some beers to bring back to me.

But I don’t have time.

I got to examine what the world looked like when my dad visited it.



head

Head

This is not my bike. Let this be clear.

I’m still looking for an opportunity to take a photograph of my bike. I didn’t succeed yet.

I once shook hands with the headbrewer of the Dogish Head Brewery.
It was in Belgium. He was in a group of 6 craftbrewers from the US.

Something similar happened yesterday.
I met Garrett Oliver at the Bokbierfestival.

Now I had my cellphone with me. So I asked Alice to take a picture. I took hers.

It was a great day, yesterday. Not only due to the beer.



ijbok

IJbok

I had to pick a T for presenting myself at:

1. A weblogconference: #Blog08
2. A beerfestival: Bockbierfestival

Both in Amsterdam.

I thought: a shirt can tell something about a person.

This one does.

Hello, I’m coming! I’m nearly there!
Here I am!

This is who I am.



skull

Skull

5 Minutes ago I still had a headache.

And suddenly the pill started to work.

Why was it not possible to do that around 5 o’clock this morning? Then I could have been sleeping a little bit more.

Anyway, I got this T from a couple of American beertourists.

They were intoxicated all the time. That’s how it looked like.

Pissed & stoned, I guessed. In an untroublesome way.

At the end of their holidays they remembered that I was a nice fellow though.

So they gave me this T they didn’t want to bring back home.

Their skull probably felt like mine this morning.



handcrafted

Handcrafted

Some info on this T comes later with other shirts from the same brewery.

I could have taken a beautiful picture here. Before they gave this room this redecoration.

Well actually, I did.

It just wasn’t focused enough.

So I thought: I’m gonna try it again.

Then this tape was crossing the entrance of the former beercellar.
The flour looked gray. The walls were looking decent.

No entrance allowed.

It is looking neat.

But the mess was looking better.