MIKE MALONE T- SHIRTS (ROLLO) LIMITED NUMBER AVAILABLE E bay page
Please check out all our listings for designs and styles available. We also have two SCOTT HARRISON t-shirt designs for for sale as well. All shirts are printed by: Anchor Screen PrintingTHE NEWSPAPER LAVALAVA By: Mike (Rollo) MaloneIn the mid 70's I was living in a huge old 5 bedroom, one bathroom house in Honolulu’s Moilili district. Old time Honolulu folks call the area Chinese Hollywood. A section of town established by the first wave of Chinese immigrants that made enough money to move outside the squalor of Chinatown. I shared the big old place with my pal Mike Brown and my girlfriend Kandi Everett. It was a great area to live in, Star super- market was right down the street and there was a launderette less than a quarter block away. I could nip out, dump my cloths in an empty machine and be home in time to catch the second half of M.A.S.H. One washday I gathered all my dirty duds and hurried over to the launderette. It was a sort of a game to see if I could get my cloths in a machine and get them started during a M.A.S.H. or Green Archers commercial break, then sprint home without missing any of my shows. After all who wants to waste time watching the machines going around when they could be checking out the antics of Arnold the Pig? This particular morning proved to be a little different. As I stuffed the washer I noticed a guy a couple of machines down. He was a short fat little man who looked to be in his 50's. He was bald except for a fringe of dark hair that gave him the look of a Jesuit monk. He was not the sort of guy you would really notice, what peeked my interest was what he was up to. He had a sheet of newspaper spread out on a top loading washer. He used a small pocket knife to cut paper thin slices from a bar of good ol' ivory soap. At first, I thought he was carving the soap into elephant or something. “To hell with M.A.S.H.†I thought, and found a place to sit and watch what this strange little bird was up to. When he had a good size pile of curly soap cuttings, he wrapped the remainder of the bar in a piece of newspaper and set it aside. This little fellow was making his own laundry soap! We were the only people in the place and it was hard to hide my interest in his unusual washing technique. He knew I was watching him but he paid me no attention as if what he was doing was nothing out of the ordinary. He dumped the soap chips into an empty washer then upended his old grey laundry bag into the machine. What came next was a surprise to say the least. He stripped off his dirty brown shirt and his yellow stained wife beater and dumped them in as well. Now he was naked to the waist except around his middle he wore a the biggest rubber band I’d ever seen. The band circled his belly and was about a half an inch wide. This is where you start hearing the theme from the Twilight Zone going off in your head. He took the first sheet from the classified ads opened it and tucked it under the rubber band in front of himself , the next full sheet of newsprint he slipped under the band in back. He reached under the front piece undid his brown khaki pants and slipped them off checked the pockets and dumped them in the machine. He wore no underwear and quickly fitted two more sheets of paper to cover his flanks. Samoan men wear a similar looking skirt they call a “lava-lava.†The only difference is they're made from tropical print fabric not the Honolulu classified ads. He acted as if what he was up to was as normal as could be. He plugged four quarters into the washer, gathered the front section of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, found a seat, fired up a cheap cigar and began to read the news of the day.