War Criminal: Ed Hardy/Christian Audigier

Christian Audigier with frail teenage boy recluse

If there exists another brand-whoring duo worse or more offensive than this pair, I might have to gouge out my eyes and brain and offer them as sacrifice to the Satanic Lords that will have surely overrun our planet and neutered anything good, pure, happy and decent, as is their wont.

Until that time, we must make do with Hardy and Audigier, champions of a hair-gelled, fake-tanned culture that I want no part of. Well, that's not entirely true; I want something to do with that culture if I have a giant douche-bag seeking missile that will kill every last one of those idiots with clothing that's covered in tattoo designs.

Hardy: the man responsible for this mess

But before I get too lost in my own gaudy rhetoric, let's review: Ed Hardy is a crusty tattoo artist somehow revered by the masses for tattooing the shit out of stuff better than anyone else (sorry, Kat Von Whatever). His designs are all full of flaming skulls, half-naked women, and other shit adored by sailors and Marines on shore leave.

That's not the horrendous part, per se: it's the French asshole who latched onto his aesthetic and through repeated yard rape, has made it as ubiquitous as God, and about as idolized and annoying.

Christian Audigier, some designer (well, a designer who bought up everyone else's designs to market them as his own) of minor fame, already angered the universe once with his Von Dutch garbage (yeah, the trucker caps and short shorts adored by Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee types), and has since brought Ed Hardy's tattoos into just about every industry possible. (Mercifully, Von Dutch is already dead -- their website says it all -- so I hold out hope for this latest piece of evil)

You can buy:

- Ed Hardy clothes
- Ed Hardy hats
- Ed Hardy sunglasses
- Ed Hardy condoms (probably)
- Ed Hardy HAND SANITIZER WHAT THE FUCK
- Ed Hardy flavored Doritos
- Ed Hardy shoes
- Ed Hardy g-strings
- Ed Hardy Vodka
- Ed Hardy Beer
- Ed Hardy Mace (probably)
- Ed Hardy forest-clearing equipment that scorches the Rainforests and makes Mother Earth weep in her hemp undies
- Ed Hardy switchblades
- Ed Hardy Morning After Pills (now with 99.9% success rate! For the 0.01% that fail, you'll give birth to a beautiful baby flaming skull tattoo!)
- Ed Hardy beach towels
- Ed Hardy AIR FRESHENERS ARE YOU KIDDING ME JESUS FUCKING CHRIST
- Ed Hardy bail bonds
- Ed Hardy cocktail shakers
- Ed Hardy jeans
- Ed Hardy shotgun shells
- Ed Hardy iPhone covers
- Ed Hardy Pinot Grigio

In short, just about anything can now be purchased with Ed Hardy flaming bullshit all over it. For every possible facet of your life, there's an Ed Hardy product. You could go from birth to death using solely Ed Hardy-branded shit, filling every waking moment of your life with an Ed Hardy experience.

The duo are killing the world with their carefree licensing of the brand to just about every fly-by-night 99c store concept, and it has to stop. Audigier is a tireless self-promoter (subtext: he talks about himself to anyone and everyone around him) whose awfully-designed Ed Hardy product websites make me want to commit atrocities upon the weak, elderly and infirm.

Please, Stallone, dust off the fists and pummel this asshole Audigier (at left) to death

There's nothing this tanned asshole won't foist upon the world, and I am sick of it.

Of course, considering the brash, pseudo-edgy nature of the merchandise, every gym-bound jock moron sports at least three Ed Hardy t-shirts a day, each of them a crime against humanity. It gives me further reason to wish painful, prolonged death upon Jersey Shore-dwelling, knuckle-dragging Gotti types who revel in the Hardy/Audigier universe like it's some badge of honor. It's not. It's a fucking t-shirt with flaming skulls on it. My infant son could do better.

Maybe I'm biased, maybe I'm cranky, maybe I'm misguided and simply off-base with this offensive. I tire greatly when corporate synergy, pointless cross-promotion and branding is shoved down my throat, and lately, the collective gushing of chromosome-deficient halfwits over the Hardy/Audigier brand is the most nauseating of all. It makes me hate tattoos. It makes me hate self-expression. It makes me hate life.

This bronzed bastard must be stopped before he grabs an artist actually worth a fuck and proceeds to dilute and distill his life's work into a series of meaningless, disposable products normally sold out of the back of a van or at some store on a boardwalk somewhere.

My elevation of their sickening "craft" to War Criminal status is borne from all these straggling, incoherent feelings: the commodification of art, the French, rampant consumerism, Jersey guido nightclub types (the Bridge-and-Tunnel crowd), and most of all, cheapness. All of this stuff is so intrinsically cheap, it makes me sick.

So please, Mr. Hardy. Stop letting this garlic-scoffing c*nt from wrecking the world further with Hardy-branded tattoo-ridden products. They fucking suck. You fucking suck.

And Monsieur Audigier? Please take all your money and retire in peace. The world is done with you, though some new strain of ebola or swine flu will be arriving in 5-10 years to rob you of your dignity, your energy, and your life.

(Shit! Even the douche ex-husband/fetal alcohol syndrome candidate from Jon Plus Eight on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays and Kate Plus Eight on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays Except for Holiday Weekends wears this shit! Maybe there is hope for this to die out after all...)