It's an attitude favored by those who are bombarded daily with the exhortations of "SAFETY FIRST", and deadly boring meetings about on-the-job safety. Those poor souls who find their shoulders bent with the weight of safety manuals, safety missions, safety recommendations."Hell yes, we know how to be safe -- we're adults", say the poor engineers and rocket scientists and computer geeks and gamers, who secretly long for the dangerous days of yore when men could be men. So they go out into the desert to blow things up, and go to Burningman to build and burn.
They join tribes like !!!SafetyThird!!!
and they inspire and understand my shirts:
It's a small world, I found out later -- the founder of the Safety Third tribe, way back when, is now an Etsian, piperewan
A friend even named his fire troupe S_T_3 -- Safety Third, of course.
They could be seen performing around the Phoenix area, at parking lot parties, First Fridays art walks, raves.
We had a few discussions about the expression "Safety Third", which he decided to name his troupe. Later, when he saw my shirts, well, it was a natural collaboration. The fire kids all wanted one, but they want theirs to be unique, each "Safety" a little differnt.
Throughout America, those responsible people who question authority all understand the phrase. It means that Safety is always in the equation, and near the top of the list of considerations. But you do not let every bit of fun and spontaneity and exhuberance and excitement be obliterated by the petty bureaucrats and scaredy-cat mothers who would insist on the Safety Imperative!
Who say you must wear oven mitts when holding your coffee cup. You put pontoon-like wheels on bicycles so they don't fall over. You put diapers on dogs so they don't have an "accident" on the floor. You don't go outside after dark in fun neighborhoods. They put rubber tips on your sewing scissors. And tell you to never, never,RUN WITH SCISSORS!!!
click above to see more dangerous shirts, which have moved from my other my Etsy shop, RunzwithScissors
