There’s some weird epidemic of cool people dying right now—as if they were just waiting to see how the 08 election turned out before they croaked.  Yes, it was THAT good an election.

This time, at 86 years old, it was the Inventor of the Hawaiian Shirt..

Stop that, it’s not nice to laugh when people die.  Besides, the Hawaiian shirt, alongside the enormous fold-out map and long-lensed camera is one of they key tools we have in identifying clueless tourists in major metropolitan areas—or so Hanna Barbera cartoons would have you believe.

Alfred Shaheen has been called the “inventor of the Hawaiian shirt”—but it turns out that it’s not really true.  He just picked up on the trend of Americans flying back to the states with the tacky over-the-top designs and decided to make them higher quality and with more style.  At least that’s what it said in the article I read.

How anyone could make Hawaiian shirts “more stylish” is beyond me.

Elvis made the shirts even more popular when he wore one on a 1961 album cover. Oh, Elvis, you taste-maker you.

If you feel inspired to “class it up” with a Shaheen design in his memory, you can find one here.  Sadly, they don’t come in mourner’s black.

(BTW, just found out that the inventor of the Hawaiian shirt was born in Jersey.  Go figure.)