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LAESQ's EXCLUSIVE INTERVEW WITH "OBLIQUE" -- CONTEMPORARY POP-CULTURE ARTIST AND CREATOR/SUPPLIER OF PRINTED TEES TO URBAN OUTFITTERS.

Recently, I sat down for a drink at the W Hotel in San Francisco with Oblique, where he was gracious enough to provide a brief interview to yours truly. Enjoy.
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LAESQ: Well, first of all, thank you for sitting down with me. I know your slammed.

OB: No worries. No worries

LAESQ: So, how did it all start? I mean...it used to be that only the "cool kids" were industrious enough to go out and find an "I'm a Pepper" t-shirt or whatever at the local Goodwill or Ragstock. Now it's like out of control. I saw an 80 year old woman in a wheelchair yesterday wearing a "I Gave My Word to Stop at Third" shirt.

OB: But wasn't she fabulous?

LAESQ: I'm not sure I'd say fabulous per se. But then again, I have a slight phobia regarding elderly women.

OB : What's that all about?

LAESQ: I had a bad experience.

OB: Oh, Darling...

LAESQ: In any event, how did it all start?

OB: I personally had a closet full of these t-shirts. The real ones. You know, like you said, the ones from Goodwill and Ragstock and the Salvation Army.

LAESQ: To that end, when you went into those places, how did you differentiate between the cool tees and the not-so-cool tees?

OB: What can I tell you? I'm Asian.

LAESQ: I see. Well, it's one thing to have a closet full of these tees and another to become a multi-multi-multi millionaire conceiving them and selling them to Urban Outfitters. Connect the dots for me.

OB: It's quite dull really. It was the mid-90's and went to a rave at American University. I was wearing a Cheap Trick "Dream Police" tee and met Danny Obermeyer.

LAESQ: Dan Obermeyer as in...

OB: President and CEO of Urban Outfitters.

LAESQ: And met, as in....

OB: Had sex with.

LAESQ: And I take it that something about your t-shirt clicked with him.

OB: Not at first. Danny is kind of a passive-aggressive type. We started dating and he started paying for a lot of things. Even my tuition at Tufts, which until then my dad was paying. Anyway, he would say it was his pleasure but then he would get all creepy about it when I wasn't wanting to give it up. So I thought to myself, hey maybe I can earn his money in some other less boorish fashion.

LAESQ: You mean Boorish, as in uncouth or ungracious?

OB: Oh, no. I was combining "boy" and "whore." Boy and Whore-ish. Boreish. But I guess your definition works too. That's so funny!

LAESQ: That is funny. So, you were saying, you wanted to earn his money in a manner not rooted in your sexual relationship with him. So you came up with the t-shirt idea?

OB: Not at first. At first I had an idea for dual-use glowsticks.

LAESQ: Dual-use?

OB: You know, Dual-Use. Like a good shower-head massager has a dual use.

LAESQ: Oh. And?

OB: Danny liked the idea but he wasn't comfortable presenting it to the shareholders.

LAESQ: And then came the tees?

OB: And then came the tees...

LAESQ: What was the first one?

OB: Oh Lord, there have been so many. I think "Too Cool for School" and "Montana Got a Big Ol' Butte" were two of the first. Or maybe "Kiss Me I'm Loaded." It's hard to say.

LAESQ: And then there are the tees that aren't so much cute phraseology as they are replicas of vintage tees. The Adidas stuff, the CBGB's tees, the Concert Tees.

OB: We've had some success with those as well.

LAESQ: Although those are clearly not as inspired.

OB: What are you saying?

LAESQ: I'm just saying that they don't really require any original thought. You're just co-opting existing designs from the past.

OB: It's not that simple, darling. I have to pick which tees are cool and which aren't.

LAESQ; Okay, let's test you out on that. I'll name a tee and you tell me if it's cool or uncool.

OB: Shoot.

LAESQ: Human League Concert Tee.

OB: Believe it or not, cool.

LAESQ: Alannah Myles.

OB: Who's that?

LAESQ: You know, "Black Velvet."

OB: Uncool.

LAESQ: The Fonz.

OB: Could be cool. Depends. He used to be cool so it's tough. It's better when it was never cool. Then it's cool because it was always uncool.

LAESQ: Who is cooler, Duane Wayne or Rerun?

OB: Rerun was fabulous, but Duane Wayne more lends himself to a t-shirt.

LAESQ: How so?

OB: Rerun's gimmick was his little dance thingy. It's hard to capture that on a tee. Duane's thingy was saying, "hey hey hey," which is easy to do on a tee. We could just center an image of his head on the tee and below it print "HEY HEY HEY!" Actually, that's not a bad idea.

LAESQ: You're welcome.

OB: Seriously, you're good at this. Any other ideas?

LAESQ: What about a t-shirt with Twinky, the robot from from Buck Rodgers, and under it you can write, "iggy biggy diggy."

OB: (No response, sips his Cosmopolitan)

LASEQ: So, what do you make of the accusations that you've made it impossible for printed tees to be cool anymore--essentially so saturating the market that there is no differentiating between the legit cool printed tee and the generic Urban Outfitters printed tee?

OB: I can be bothered. What's the consequence? Anti-Darwinism? Are the cool kids going to accidentally fuck the uncool kids because their wearing my tees? Dilute the gene pool?

LAESQ: I never thought it through quite that deeply.

OB: Serves them right.

LASEQ: Have any of your shirts ever been censored?

OB: Well, rejected but not censored. I'm not going to release a censored t-shirt.

LAESQ: What is your favorite rejected tee?

OB: It would have to be a t-shirt that said "Hung" on it.

LAESQ: That doesn't seem particularly offensive or anything.

OB: There was also an artist's rendering of Ving Rhame's penis on it.

LAESQ: That'll do it. So, in conclusion, what comes next for Oblique?

OB: I don't know. I'm working on something for Starbucks. I signed an NDA, so I really can't go into it.

LAESQ: Can you give us a hint?

OB: Let's just say that your Grande Frappuccinos are about to get a whole lot more fabulous.