This is a story to savor over your lunch hour. It’s in Grantland, written by Amos Barshad, and it’s about a group of friends from Boston’s hardcore scene who came together in the late 90s and made crazy money . . . selling “Yankees Suck!” t-shirts. And I do mean crazy money:
For the big four, the money was enough to see the world. They’d hit Australia, Hong Kong, Jordan, the Philippines, Guatemala, Thailand, Haiti, Argentina, Japan — always in the baseball offseason. They went to Spain, had multicourse lunches in Bilbao, got high on Xanax on the lawn outside the Guggenheim. They’d splurge on food but sleep in cars. “More money for absinthe,” Manza shrugs.
All from shirts told out of cardboard boxes outside of Fenway Park, always staying one step ahead of the code enforcers and beating the hell out of anyone who tried to muscle in on their turf.
Eventually the shirt business turned into the drug business and eventually people got hurt bad and friendships ended. It’s like a VH-1 “Behind the Music” for Boston punks. It’s as entertaining as all get-out.