Merch Is Still Good

Part 2 of post-Black Friday gift ideas

A couple of quick things before I get to the hats I like:

• I could write an entire post about this, but Eddie Huang’s note about Fox News playing on TVs when he goes to a schvitz is pretty dead on. The truth is that I’d ban televisions from the schvitz if I could, but then I wouldn’t be able to watch Russian or Finnish hockey while sipping a little vodka. I’m generally anti-news programming from any network on in any public place, especially if it’s a place you pay to go and relax.

• Speaking of a nice time at the schvitz: Could somebody at Casio Japan get me a sauna watch if they come out? I sort of need to try that out and weigh in as an “expert.”

• There was an essay the Times published over the weekend that I could see people overlooking, so I wanted to mention Joan Bregstein’s “An Elegy for Crystal Cove A7, Our Family’s Piece of Paradise” as one of the best essays I’ve read all year. It’s a beautiful essay about the writer’s longtime Caribbean vacation home, and while I was reading it, I kept thinking of Jack Weston as Max Kellerman in Dirty Dancing lamenting how families didn’t care about the Catskills anymore; it was all about “Trips to Europe, that's what the kids want. Twenty-two countries in three days. It feels like it's all slipping away.” The last time I mentioned that part in an article, it was actually for a review of a book on the Catskills back in 2015, but it feels apt for Bregstein’s piece as well. Her moving elegy is haunted by dead family and the dream of making just enough to get a nice little place to tune out. Now, it’s almost certain you have to have seven figures handy if you want even a little place near a beach in the Caribbean, just like Montauk or Miami Beach has become mostly untouchable for anybody not considered wealthy.

Anyways. Onto the next round of gifts. I did coffee table books the other day, so today we’re talking…

I thought Samuel Hine made some good points earlier this year when he wrote about “The End of Merch” for GQ. Brands beat the collab thing to death a long time ago, so it was only a matter of time before they figured out how to ruin letting dummies like me pay to advertise businesses on my head or chest for free. There is just too much damn merch out there, and a lot of it is bad. I don’t especially love that fact, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop loving good merch and spreading the gospel that nothing beats tossing on a dad hat that tells other people “Yeah, I love that place. Why else would I wear their name on my forehead?”

Hat For Your Friend Who Just Got Into Drinking Espresso Martinis This Year: Bootleg Bemelmans hat

I’m generally a huge fan of bootleg merch, especially when they look kinda janky and cost 20-30 bucks less than “official” ones. That said, I do think the Sporty & Rich hat for the hotel the bar named after the Madeline creator lives in is pretty good.

Hat For Your Friend Who Is In The Middle Of A Long Duolingo French Lesson Streak: Brasserie Lipp hat at Gift Shop.

I’d buy it just for the “No Salad As A Meal” embroidered over the back.

Hat For Your Friend Who Loves Pickles And Already Has The Books Are Magic Hat In Every Color: Sweet Pickle Books hat.

People love bookstore merch because it tells people you read books. Some of it is designed by experts, and sometimes stores have been selling the same hats that you fasten with velcro since 1995. Either way is good, but there’s only one store I know of that takes as much pride in selling books as it does selling pickles.

Hat For Your Cultured Bi-Costal Friend: Getty Museum hat

I find that some museums have good hats, and others don’t. There’s something odd about that to me. The Getty one is especially good with its strong white font on a very nice blue hat.

Hat For Your Friend Who Saw The Light By Realizing Pickleball Is Silly And Tennis Is The Best: Racquet Magazine pizza hat

Feel free to accuse me of adding this hat just so I could make fun of pickleball, but I actually love it.

Hat For Your Friend Who Loves Getting Into Arguments: Harper’s mag hat

You could honestly do this with a hat from any media company, but I think the Harper’s hat is the best because it looks great, and also if anybody comes up to you and starts talking trash, you can ask them if they have a subscription since there’s very little chance they actually read anything from the magazine if they don’t since the mag DGAF about page clicks.

Hat For Your Friend Who Disagrees With Egon Spengler’s 1984 Observation That “Print Is Dead”: Casa Magazine snapback

It’s no secret that Casa is one of my favorite places in all of NYC, so I always nod at anybody I see wearing one of their hats.

Hat For Your Friend Who Loves Iconic Delis But The Hats At Katz’s Are Kinda Bunk: Manny’s trucker hat

Manny’s putting one of their smoked meat sandwiches towering over Chicago’s two biggest buildings for a logo is such an incredible flex. You wear this hat, and people will go “Screw Arby’s; that person has the meats.”