old cursed Nick Cave shirt
a shirt story
sometime in early 2010 i was gifted a vintage nick cave shirt from his 2001 European tour from a friend who had gotten too fat to fit into it after he got sober and stopped doing drugs, since he knew i was a fan. i made some minor modifications to the sleeves & neckline to make it a little more feminine, which resulted in the partial removal of the “NICK CAVE” text on the top, as displayed in the photo below.
i believe that this “upcycling” of the shirt somehow stirred an evil force that lay dormant within it. like in Poltergeist (1982) when they removed the headstones from the cemetery and built a turdy suburban house on top, but left the bodies underneath it. whatever modifications i made deeply disturbed the spirit trapped inside the shirt because, from that day forward, nothing good happened when i wore it. much like 9/11, i remember where i was each time i was wearing the cursed nick cave shirt. here are three such times.
Penn Station, NYC (Fall 2010)
2010 was by all accounts a bad year for me. i was drinking too much at the time and had horrible habit of making very early morning travel arrangements and then staying out all night before. when you’re young and delusional it makes absolutely perfect sense to simply stay out all night when you have a 7 a.m. train/flight/bus/boat to catch. you just leave the bar around 4 or 5, go home, freshen up/powder you nose, stumble onto your particular mode of transportation, and then convalesce there.
knowing full well i had a 7 a.m. train back to Appalachia to visit my mother and friends the next morning, i decided go out drinking the night before and wear the nick cave shirt. i frequented the absolute worst trash bars at this period in my life. this particular night i went to this shitty irish bar that always smelled like old man farts. despite the smell, the people there were friendly and the bar had pool and darts, which was fun. the dart board was on the door to the basement and every so often while you were playing you’d hear a guy yell “IM COMIN” before he opened the door one split second from getting a dart thrown at his face. sometimes i wouldn’t even hear him yell, the door would just violently swing open without warning while you were throwing darts. if anyone doubts the veracity of this, i found this old pic of the bar and you can clearly see the dartboard right at face level on the door. if the fat guy in this pic is your uncle or something lmk and i’ll take it down.
i have no idea why they put the dartboard eye level on the back of that door. maybe the barback got a thrill from almost being impaled by darts in the face every night. if we’re being completely honest, i got a little thrill throwing them.
this bar was great b/c at 4:00 a.m. last call they would clear most people out, turn off the lights/pretend to be closed, and then let the regulars smoke cigarettes at the bar until like 5 or sometimes 6. so that night i was there until like 5:30 or so, wearing the cursed nick cave shirt paired with a pair of very cursed ugly shoes. those shoes were jeffrey campbell “litas”, unceremonious dubbed the “most popular ugly shoe on the planet: the boot, with its two-inch platform and 5.25 inch heel, is the Clydesdale hoof of modern footwear.” these things were absolutely everywhere in 2010/2011.
other than chucks, these black lita platforms were the only shoe i wore from 2010 to 2013. you are probably looking at these monstrosities and asking “goddamn, why would anyone wear these?” i will tell you why. these boots were impeccably designed to be lightweight and incredibly easy to walk in for girls who don’t otherwise wear heels. that means for the first time in my life i could go from 5’4 (pathetic, assault target, never seen a concert in my life) to 5’9 (beautiful, unthreatened, unobstructed view of sigur ros). these things made your legs look so long and spidery, like a sailor moon girl, it was worth how absolutely retarded they made your feet look. the design was so popular that it was actually patented, with Jeffrey Campbell suing the shit out of anyone and everyone that dared to copy it.
at like 5:30 they kicked everyone out of the bar, and i rushed home to grab my bag and head over to penn station to catch my train. when i got home, my contact lenses were absolutely glued to my eyeballs because, well, i was severely dehydrated. not just that night, but i would say that i was probably terminally dehydrated from like 2008-2014, just generally in my bog mummy era back then. i wore daily lenses and had already received a stern talking to from my optometrist about taking them out every night, so i knew i needed to pry them out of my eyes before catching the train. it took me a good 10 minutes to peel them off and switch into my glasses. at the time, i had these high prescription hipstery coke bottle glasses that made me look like harry caray in a red wig. i bought them at https://www.39dollarglasses.com where every pair of prescription glasses costs exactly thirty nine dollars. because it took me so long to get my contacts out, i didn’t have time to switch into a sensible shoe, so i just grabbed my bag and headed to penn station in “as is” condition, looking absolutely unhinged with the addition of the giant glasses.
i made it to Penn Station without incident about 20 minutes in advance of my departure time. then, as i approached the stairwell to the actual amtrak station, the shirt curse struck. when i hit the second step, my ankle went “hehe :)” and rolled at a 90 degree angle, causing me to fall down the entire flight of stairs and eat absolute shit on the concrete. i just acquiesced to gravity and hit the ground so, so hard. not only did i drop my bag when i hit the ground, my giant glasses flew off my face. i’m fairly certain i said the only thing a girl falling down is legally allowed to say when her glasses comically fly off her face which is “MmY GlAssEsss!” at which point whatever dignity i had left turned into 800 baby cockroaches that shot out of my body at lightning speed and scuttled into the annals of the subway platform.
me barreling toward the amtrak corridor drunk as hell at 6:40 a.m.:
there was a family of blonde midwestern tourists buying metrocards from a machine like 10 feet away who witnessed the entire event. concerned, the mother rushed over to me & asked “oh my gosh, are you ok?!” i instinctively responded “mm yeah i’m good” before i even assessed the damage. once i reassured her that that i was fine, she and her husband went back to trying to buy metrocards. but i was not fine. as soon as i tried to move my left foot/ankle i could tell that it was supremely fucked up. so i lay there on the ground desperately trying to stand upright like a newborn foal for at least 10 minutes. every so often the mother would glance back at me. i could tell she was going thru the classic nyc ethical dilemma of “should i help this person or should i not get involved.” ultimately she chose to ignore me, but her 3 creepy little towhead kids just stood there and stared at me while i labored and groaned on the cold concrete like a wooly mammoth that had fallen down a steep ravine after being pursued by hunters.
this story ends exactly how you would expect, with me missing the train and then eventually going into urgent care back in the city where i was treated for a sprain. i know you’re reading this and thinking the same thing the cityMD guy said: “you didn’t fall & eat shit because of the cursed nick cave shirt, you fell & ate shit because you were walking drunk down stairs wearing some dumb ass platform shoe.” but a woman’s intuition is never wrong and should never be questioned, even by a licensed medical professional.
Port Authority Bus Station, NYC (Summer 2014)
in 2014, i wore the cursed nick cave shirt to take the exam to get my professional license for whatever dumb occupation i chose, which shall not be described with any specificity because it is very lame. the exam lasted two full days, and was held at the jarvis center, which is located directly in the butthole of new york city. the last day, during the lunch break i overheard this chick say “yeah the questions on the back were crazy hard” i was like “the BACK?! there was a back?!” which should give you some indication of how well i thought i did on the exam. after the test, my spirit was broken. convinced i had failed by no close margin, i collected my belongings and headed out toward the subway near the port authority bus station.
for those unfamiliar with nyc, the port authority homeless are an advanced breed of homeless. they don’t ask for money or even seem to know what money is, they just wander around muttering Nostradamus prophecies and helicoptering their dicks. if they unionized they could absolutely run this city with an iron fist. but unfortunately they are on drugs and/or mentally ill and that is very sad. if for no other reason than because they probably wander too far south into Hudson Yards every so often and think they’re actually in hell. imagine randomly seeing the giant suicide dreidel monolith for the first time when you’re already deep in psychosis… that has to be terrifying. you’re like “holy shit what is that thing” and some security guard outside the fancy mall there says “idk people just jump off it and then everyone on their way to soulcycle awkwardly steps around the body like it’s a baby bird that fell out of a nest” and you walk away terrified because you have no idea what the ‘soul-cycle’ is but it sounds absolutely demonic.
as i’m walking over the westside highway, this absolute unit of a homeless man with plastic bags around his shoes locked eyes with the eyes on my shirt, ran toward me, put his face like 2 inches from mine, inhaled with all his might, and then screamed “hell yeah PEWEEEEEEEEEEE HERRRRMANNNNNNNN” at me, full blast, sending all the nearby pigeons aflutter.
emotionally rattled from the day’s events, i went home, immediately disrobed and threw the cursed shirt on my bathroom floor. i walked into the shower, turned on the water, sat down, rolled myself into a little ball like a pill bug, and sobbed at the day. as an aside, crying in the shower is so so unbelievably satisfying. it so much better than dry crying, i can’t recommend this option enough. if you haven’t tried wet crying, you’ve been missing out big time. the water is basically the same temperature as your tears so it doesn’t even feel like you’re really crying at all. and then when you’re done crying you won’t have that sticky post-cry film on your face because you’re in the shower. all the shame and sadness is simply washed away, swirling down the drain, out of sight, out of mind, forever.
Antika Pizzeria, Astoria Queens (Fall 2015)
in fall of 2015, i wore the cursed shirt out to get dinner with my friend in queens. we went to some random pizzeria to split a pizza and some wine or whatever. halfway through the meal our waiter, a mid 30s generic looking white guy, came over to ask if we needed anything else. upon seeing my shirt, his face lit up with absolute delight. the conversation lasted around 5 minutes and went like this:
waiter: “oh man, great shirt. i LOVE him.”
me: “oh yeah, thanks. me too. he’s great.”
waiter: “i actually opened him for like 7 years ago on of his tours”
me: “wow…seriously? that’s wild.”
waiter: “yeah, he’s actually super cool & real. we actually would smoke weed before the show together.”
me: “wow, seriously?”
waiter: “yeah, he would give me great advice on my set”
me: “what type of music do you play”
waiter: “oh i do stand-up”
me: “…oh. he had a comedian open for him…?”
waiter: “yeah.”
me: “oh, that’s cool.”
i’ll never forget the nostalgic grin on his face as he walked away, shaking his head saying “haha, yeah. my man. good ol’ Dane Cook.”
i sat in silence with my friend for a full minute after this exchange before she slyly smiled and quietly said “you’re wearing a dane cook shirt” before helping herself to another slice of pizza.
at that moment, i came to think that maybe the shirt isn’t cursed it all. perhaps it is just a mirror and people see what they want in it. like how the angel of death materializes with the comforting and familiar face of your grandmother, wife, or even you yourself, to guide you across the shadow realm. to some that face is paul reubens before he got caught jerking off in the theater in times square, to others it is disgraced comic dane cook.
i save my cries for the shower. i refuse to do them dry anymore
Love your crazy stories❤️