Shirt Stains: Iced Earth January 6th Blowout Bonanza
Sons Of Clearance
It’s the 2 year anniversary of the January 6th Capitol insurrection. It feels like just yesterday as we watched a bunch of numbskulls awkwardly fight and, in some cases, die, for Donald Trump, a man who would throw his own children in front of an oncoming train if it meant it would make him one more cent. As the far-right extremists broke into the Capitol only to mill about like lost uncles during a Black Friday sale, a familiar face to heavy music fans popped up. A leader of a well-established and much-beloved band was seen on the grounds, yelling at police officers while brandishing bear mace. No, not Michale Graves. I mean Iced Earth’s Jon Schaffer.
It’s been a heck of a time for the Iced Earth guitarist as people immediately recognized him in the pro-Trump mob. If only it was an internationally common practice to wear masks at the time then maybe he wouldn’t have been arrested, jailed, got a face full of pee pee and doody, lost his band, lost his label, lost his other band, turned into a government witness, and disappeared for a short amount of time. All of that leads to a lot of legal bills and financial problems. Have no fear, because the Iced Earth store still exists and, boy, oh boy, do they sell a lot of crap.
Ugly sweaters are well-established thing by now, so I get the “it’s so ugly, it’s fun” mentality. This Iced Earth ugly sweater is so ugly that it’s just ugly. Seriously, what are we looking at here? A knockoff Eddie handing me a sloppy meatball? The Great Malenko showing me a blood clot? They tried to go for edgy and ended up with unfinished. Even knockoffs and bootlegs are better quality than this.
The internet tells me that Iced Earth’s mascot is Set Abominae. Not exactly on the same level as Megadeth’s Vic Rattlehead or Motorhead’s Snaggletooth now is it? Even Disturbed’s The Guy is more recognizable and he doesn’t even have a name. Set needs to take some writing lessons or calligraphy or something because what the hell is going on with the logo. Your doodles on your high school math notebook looked smoother than this. The little drippy blood on the shoulders is cute, though. Maybe Jon can use that to water the Tree of Liberty or whatever the fuck.
I guess we’re not going to get a “Four Decades Strong” version of this sweatshirt.
An Iced Earth commemorative coin selling for $10 seems fitting for a man that was in cahoots with the type of people that want to create their own currency. Sure, it’s not worth anything now, but it’ll be real soon, b r o t h e r *wink wink*. Having a five-minute AA chip is a bigger accomplishment than owning one of these. They should be buried next to all those E.T. Atari cartridges in the desert. Think they crammed enough hard-to-read words onto this? Shit, might as well have made an Iced Earth 30th Anniversary pocket Constitution, you dork. At least then Jon would have something to wipe his face after the next piss-and-shit party his fellow prisoners give him.
Pffffffft hahahaha. At least pirate metal bands have an excuse for using such silly imagery.
Ah, yes. Band hot sauce. Just like coffee and beer, when in doubt and in need of revenue, slap your band name on it and watch the money come rolling in. Even better if you can name it after a 16 (!) minute song. Get your ass blasted to the dulcet tones of Dante Alighieri’s epic. There’s a ring of hell joke somewhere in here, but it’s not worth the wordplay. Not when they also have a hot sauce called Seven Headed Whore. Sheesh.
The ad helpfully lays out what Iced Earth’s hot sauce has to offer:
- CAYENNE FLAVOR – Well, yeah, I’d hope the Cayenne sauce has that.
- LOUISIANA STYLE! – You hear that, North Dakota-style hot sauce. You ain’t got nothing on Dantes (no apostrophe?) Inferno Iced Earth hot sauce. We even have an exclamation point to really drive it home.
- MAKES EVERYTHING TASTE BETTER! – It’s Jon Schaffer condiment of choice when licking boots!
- LIMITED QUANTITIES – K.
What we have here is a genuine, bona fide Iced Earth bookmark. It’s the perfect item to keep your place as you read militia manifestos and Constitutional law. There’s something extra special about Jon Schaffer being depicted as a puppet being controlled by a malevolent force while thinking he himself is the puppet master.
Oh, the irony!
