I wanted to reprint this shirt (unlicensed of course) because it reminded me so much of what all the "Uncles" over here would wear in the late 70's and 80's. When Hawaii was still in the prime outlaw days. The era of legit MAUI WOWIE / HAWAIIAN PAKALOLO. When THAT was heaviest weed around.
If you're from HI you know why "uncles" is in quotations. We throw uncle around pretty loosely here. Definitely don't have to be related to be an actual uncle, NONE of these pakaloloo growing' guys except for one, was actually my fathers brother (stepbrother) the rest were all hanai kine. Guys I'd look up too.
My parents owned the first Organic fertilizer store on Maui at the Pauwela Canary in the early 1980's. All the "Uncles" that rolled through to pick up the bat guano and chicken shit fertilizer grew it. Excuse me, they FUCKING CROPPED IT. I was just a little haole keiki with a blond mullet on a BMX bike.
They were BAD ASS. They were like gods. They didn't operate in the same world as everyone else. I didn't know how cool they REALLY were. But I knew. And when they rolled up in big ol' lifted TOYOTAS I was blown away. Most had gnarly pitbulls in the back of those trucks. They had gigantic Magnum PI mustaches. Sometimes they wore shorter shorts than their old ladies. Almost always wore mud boots (even with the 80's short shorts) The coolest of 'em had nicknames like Spider and Tiny (Tiny was fucking the hugest blalah of all). TATTOOS! I thought my uncle Kimo was soo cool because he had an ulua tattoo the size of a POG tattooed on his bicep(it was so small!). There was one guy who had tattoos of German shepards dripping blood tattooed on his forearms that he got in the VIETNAM war. These dudes were fucking characters.
Years later my parents would tell me more about the fertilizer store and the stories around it and the "uncles". I guess even at one point the store was being watched by the FBI. That couldn't have looked good when spaced out farmers brought in their unhealthy wilty sinsemilla plants to ask my mom what was wrong with them.
Without getting anymore overly sentimental over it all that's why we wanted to print this shirt. There were a bunch of similar designs floating around in those days. But this one looked the most familiar. (Also I saw some hipster was selling one for 200$ on Ebay and FUCK THAT SHIT!)
"Vintage" HAWAIIAN PAKALOLO long sleeve T-Shirt. for the UKNOS.
AVAILABLE In White & Natural.
