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Okay, so we\'ll have to sit with this one for a minute. This is obviously a pretty dope shirt, and I\'ve owned many and worn them proudly since I was a kid (literally, a kid), but my perspective has changed considerably over the years, not only about Sid, but about punk in general. See, when I was kid, I\'d have rocked this shirt proudly as a young punk, thinking that Sid was the ultimate icon: he looked great, embodied the image and aesthetic (even though I wouldn\'t have known that word), seemed committed to anarchy and chaos, shot drugs, died young and left a pretty corpse, etc. I thought it was \"cool\" to rock a Sid Vicious tee, and coolness was something with which I wanted to be associated. I was vain (still am, but now it\'s less about looking cool and more aboutnotlooking silly). So a kid, wanting to look rebellious and cool, spiking my hair and rocking a Sid tee--this was me. I think people probably figured that this was a phase, and thus I\'d grow out of it. Didn\'t happen, obviously. Punk got into my blood, and funnily enough, the older I get, the more\"punk\" I become--but these days it\'s more about the philosophy, theethic, andless about the fashion. If you read John Lydon\'s first memoir,No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, you learn he describes late friend, Simon John Ritchie (that\'s Sid in case you didn\'t know), as a \"fashion victim.\" Heavily into glam (think Roxy Music) prior to punk, Sid was the type of guy who would show up at Lydon\'s door in the dead of winter sockless in sandals so that he could show off his freshly varnished toenails. And this, according to John, carried over into punk, upon which Sid was hyper-conscious about cultivating, not only his \"uniform,\" but his public image. Dumb as he was, Sid knew what he was doing. But like many of us, what he couldn\'t ultimately conceal were his deep-seated compulsions to act out, up to and including physical violence. See, Sid actually had a reputation for being a \"sweet\" guy, somewhat insecure and polite, almost shy. Unfortunately, this may actually have been his core personality--had he been raised a bit more conventionally, with a bit more discipline (long story, but it was actually his mother who introduced him to drugs), he likely would have turned out okay, whether he became a \"punk\" or not. But, even before he joined the Sex Pistols, he was a known quantity amongst the \"Bromley Contingent\"--easily recognizable on King\'s Road and in the pubs where the punks first began to congregate. There was a roomful of witnesses the night Sid beat journalist Nick Kent viciously (no pun intended) with a rusty motorcycle chain, supposedly for blocking his view of the gig (no charges were filed). There were also plenty of witnesses that night at the 100 club when he hurled a pint glass at the stage when the Damned were playing. (His actual target was Dave Vanian--whom Sid, in his twisted mind, blamed for \"stealing\" the lead singer gigfromhim. In actuality, Sid had simply blown off the audition, which may or may not have resulted in an offer to join the band.) The glass met with a pillar, shattering to pieces, and sending shrapnel in all directions, and a girl ended up losing an eye (Sid was arrested, and rightly so, but managed to escape any serious penalty). Years later, he was out on bail after being arrested yet again, this time for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen (I\'ll spare you the details on that: that crime and the ensuing charges have been very well documented). This time, he smashed a bottle into Todd Smith\'s face (Patti Smith\'s brother), basically unprovoked (as though any provocation could justify such a senseless act of violence). But sweet people don\'tdothings like that. Nice guys don\'t behave likethat. I\'m sure Sid had a sweet side; human psychology is very dynamic and most of us are complex individuals, but there\'s an even deeper, somewhat more superficial, paradox at the core of Sid Vicious\' status as a \"punk rock icon.\" And that paradox is this: you could make the argument (even though it might be a dumb one) that Sid was never really a punk. Because he didn\'tbelievein anything (and writing him off as a \"nihilist\" would be a bit of a stretch, for that would imply that he had some kind of philosophy, or that perhaps he had actually read some books). No. The reality is that Sid Vicious was very angry, he was f*cked up, and he wasn\'t very bright. And when we consider the likes of Joe Strummer, Ian Mckaye, Henry Rollins, Patti Smith, Kathleen Hanna, Steve Albini, Laura Jane Grace, and on and on--in light ofallof these great punk rock icons, dead or alive, who actually possess belief systems and have fought for just causes, often at enormous personal and professional expense...to lump Sid Vicious in among the icons just strikes me as a bit myopic and trite. It\'s a shortcut to thinking, and I\'d honestly like to believe that we\'re better than that, aren\'t we?
And yet, I must admit--as far as I\'ve come as a human beingandas a punk, I\'ve never completely shed my own superficialities, no matter how old I get. And I still like to hook up a the dive bar when I can, and so yes--I\'d still rock the hell out of a Sid Vicious tee, especially one as cool as this. And, there\'s something super cool about this one, and it\'s a bit of an \"inside joke.\" If you\'ve seen Sid and Nancy, Alex Cox\'s phenomenal film (second only, in my estimation, to my personal favorite, Repo Man), then you may know where I\'m going with this. Despite his limited intellect, Sid was somewhat nostalgic, particularly when it came to certain pop cultural themes of his youth, most notably \"Action Man\": the British version of G.I Joe. Now, this only adds to the irony. Why would a \"punk\" be so fond of a fictitious military meathead, let alone a \"man doll\" designed for boys? I have a theory on this. According to anyone who knew him, Vicious was meek at his core--a \"sweet guy\" who seemingly lacked the wherewithal to grow, cognitively, into a full-grown man. This doesn\'t excuse everything; but it does make one wonder: what would Sid have evolved into had he survived? Unanswerable as that is, we still have the shirt. Sid was a \"man of action\" only in the sense that he was legally an adult when he died\' but, at 21 years of age, we must acknowledge that his pre-frontal cortex still had a bit to go, plus he was a junkie to boot. So, as punks, we wear this one somewhat ironically. Sid may have \"acted\"--though, more often than not, inappropriately. But then, he was essentially just a kid, and a stupid one at that. Densely--and self-destructively--dope.
