THE END OF THIS CURSED YEAR IS NIGH!
First things first: if you have called, emailed, DMed, or snail mailed something to us in the last few days with no acknowledgment or response, I'm sorry! At Boredwalk we work insanely long, hard hours from mid-November through late-December and need time off to recover and spend time with family and friends. We'll be back in action tomorrow, but are closed today in observance of the holiday weekend. I promise we're not slacking — largely by pointing out that I am writing to you from ≈ 9:30pm on Christmas Night. That bit of housekeeping out of the way...
Happy Kwanzaa! Today marks the first day of the celebration of Kwanzaa, which continues through January 1st, and is a celebration of family and community that may have originated in 1966 during the Black Freedom Movement (thanks to California State University Long Beach professor Dr. Maulana Karenga) but espouses values that should be shared by all cultures every single day.
"Kwanzaa" comes from the Swahili phrase "matunda ya kwanza," which translates as "first fruits," and since Swahili is the most widely-spoken language on the African continent it makes sense that it would be the language of choice for this pan-cultural holiday.
That said, I hope those of you who celebrated the Festival of Lights last week had a Happy Hanukkah!
If you're among those who observe Yule, I hope you are in the midst of a cozy and (relatively) penalty-free sartorial assessment from Yule Cat — the supernatural feline that still gets short shrift from the holiday movie-making establishment. Make a Yule Cat movie in 2023, you cowards!
Yule Cat is, fittingly, the patron demi-god of Boredwalk. It eats people who did not receive new clothes for Christmas Eve. An easy way to avoid this unfortunate end is to just buy everyone you know some Boredwalk tees and/or hoodies for Christmakwanzayulukkah next year (assuming we're still in business then, of course)!
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Speaking of buying Boredwalk apparel...look. I know you probably just emptied your bank account in order to demonstrate to your friends and family how much you care about them via monetary expenditures (yay Capitalism!), but the fact is that Boredwalk barely makes any money on the sale of our hoodies.
This is largely driven by the fact that we print our designs on really premium blank hoodies that are nice, flattering, and durable. Unfortunately, the manufacturers of those blank hoodies are also aware of their superiority in the space, and have raised their prices a gobsmacking amount over the course of the pandemic as a result.
So that leaves us with a few undesirable choices:
A. Discontinue hoodies altogether
B. Switch to printing our designs on a cheaper, but noticeably inferior blank hoodie
C. Raise prices on our hoodies so we can continue printing on the same soft, cozy, high-quality blanks we've been using since 2019
Given the recent polar vortex/winter storm bomb of it all, option A seems illogical at best and cruel at worst. Option B seems icky and gross — charging the same price for a noticeably inferior product? Hard pass.
So I guess option C it is. We're not happy about this, trust me. I lose so much sleep about our pricing, especially during economically uncertain periods, like when foreign wars drive up oil/gas costs and inflation generally!
Real talk: I drive a 12 year-old hybrid (that I bought used when it was merely an 8 year-old hybrid) and go out of my way to fill up at a gas station near Irwindale Speedway because they undercut other area gas stations. I'm not proud of this fact, mostly because I wish I was wealthy enough to drive a plug-in EV, but this is the capitalist hellscape we live in. My 19 year-old cat is laying next to me as I type this, and at this point his morning medication regimen looks more like a bag of Skittles than a one-and-done bottle of the same generic tablets. (This medication rainbow also costs as much as a car payment. Fun!)
Taste the rainbow, if you must.
GIF via FunnyJunk.com
GIF via FunnyJunk.com
SO...now through next week is the last chance to get our rad graphics printed with high-quality eco-friendly inks on those sweet, soft, cozy hoodies at their current prices before they go up in the New Year. We haven't decided what the new prices will be yet, but we do know they will be more expensive than they are now. Sorry! But also, if you recently received a Boredwalk gift card, this would be an opportune time to use it!
Want a few December 26th famous birthdays and historical facts before you go? Here are a few...
• 1898: Marie & Pierre Curie announce the isolation of radium.
• 1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving in the United States.
• The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" are released in the US, marking the beginning of "Beatlemania" on an international level.
• 1991: the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union meets and formally dissolves the Soviet Union, ending the Cold War. Someone should probably clue Putin in on this.
• 1903: Actor Elisha Cook, Jr., is born. Mr. Cook would go on to appear in several iconic films, including The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Shane, House on Haunted Hill, Rosemary's Baby, Blacula, and Salem's Lot.
• 1956: Humorist & writer David Sedaris is born.
• 1963: Metallica drummer/songwriter Lars Ulrich is born. Obey your master and eat some cake in honor of him!
• 1966: Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt frontman Jay Farrar is born and goes on to become a key figure in the alt-country movement of the late 1980s and 1990s
• 1970: The Shins' founder/singer-songwriter James Mercer is born
• 1971: 90s heartthrob and on again/off again frontman of 30 Seconds to Mars Jared Leto is born
• 1986: English actor Kit Harington, best known for his role as (sigh) Jon Snow on the HBO series Game of Thrones, is born
• 1987: Rob & Tom Snow, best known for being — intermittently — royal PITAes to their older brother (moi, who still loves and is very proud of them), are born. Happy birthday, bros!
Pour one out for:
• Curtis Mayfield, singer-songwriter of The Impressions and composer of the Super Fly soundtrack, who passed this day in 1999
• Bishop Desmond Tutu, anti-apartheid and human rights activist, who peaced out this day in 2021
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Alright! No new Q&A this week due to lack of volunteers! If you'd like to be featured in an upcoming Monday email (and are a customer with some Boredwalk tees, tanks, hoodies, towels, bags, or books to show off), just reply to this and let us know, and we'll send you some fun questions to answer (along with our undying gratitude)!
We'll be back here in your inbox on Wednesday with some more random holidays to observe, historical tidbits to acknowledge, and fun links to entertaining content! Until next time...
Peace, love, and celebration of first fruits,
Matt
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