Monday, December 20, 2010

Hard Rock Cafe - Sacramento





My mom got this shirt for me and gave it to me when she got back from one of her trips.
She picked it up from the gift shop at the Sacramento Hard Rock Cafe. That gift shop would be the only place you can buy it -rare item-.
The shirt is made of a nice quality fabric -it's heavy and durable-. Although, the fabric isn't very stain resistant =/ After a lot of time it's gotten some stains and junk but they don't come out very well. It says medium on the back but it's tight for a medium, maybe it has been washed too many times or something. It's a white shirt but it has this tan thing going on. I don't want to over-think this but I get the feeling that this was a white shirt but in use and storage it is working on a nice yellow/tan hue. On the other hand, tan and mining go well together.
The theme for the day is "gold rush". And, while this is near the standard Hard Rock Cafe logo on the front it's been modified for Sacramento. The designer took the logo out of the dead center of the shirt -as is the norm-. They also changed over the font to a comparatively detailed sculpted wood with nails in it appearance -drastically different from their normal flat color or just a slight gradient-. They added little pickaxes and the word Sacramento in what I would call a craftsman style font. On the back is a really touristy picture in mainly yellow and browns of a gold mine with a guitar. Ignoring the fact that a solid gold guitar would weigh hundreds of pounds and sound horrible, it's competently drawn and well printed.
I may pull something like this out if people are coming in from out of state, just to meet expectations of California. Coming from NorCal, I want to rep the gold country but there isn't anything going on in Sacramento -sigh, again I can't speak for the rock scene there but seriously, it's like Palm Springs!-. To be frank, I pull this out a Hard Rock Cafe shirt when I can't think of any shirts that match my day; they're a safe, cool, alternative.

Way back when I was a little kid in middle and elementary school, the gold rush would come up in my studies. Because we were so close to Sutter's Mill and gold country in Marin we had a few field trips there. We would drive up in little carpool groups with people's parents as chaperones. I was stoked once my dad retired because then I could go with him driving and my friends and I could share the same car ride and not have to worry about some stuck-up parents car rules. When we got there we panned for gold, slept on floor and enjoyed nature like it's supposed to be enjoyed. The whole Western movement and the men and women who pioneered it were reminders of our state's short heritage. And apparently so is this shirt.

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