Gov's gaffe golden for merchandisers

08:26 AM CDT on Friday, June 24, 2005

By APRIL KINSER / DallasNews.com

It was the gubernatorial gaffe turned golden goose.

While Gov. Rick Perry and his camp may be trying to distance from his ill-timed “Adios, mofo” remark to a reporter, one entrepreneur has embraced the quip as a moneymaking opportunity.

One day after the “mo-fo” heard ’round the state, at least two vendors hawked T-shirts bearing the governor’s smiling headshot and his quote on Cafepress.com, a Web site that makes personalized merchandise.

A Plano resident, Travis Fussell, said he had sold 45 items since coming up with his simply designed shirts, baby gear and bumper stickers Wednesday.

“A friend of mine e-mailed me the story. I read it and kind of cracked up,” Mr. Fussell said. “We used to say that to each other. It was an inside joke … I mean from high school. That was 10 years ago.”

The anonymous figure behind the left-leaning political satire blog pinkdome.com claims responsibility for another set of shirts, tote bags, sweatshirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers. He says he had sold nearly 100.

An Austin political blogger who goes by “Charlie” says he’s responsible for the shirts, tote bags, sweat shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers. Charlie declined to give his last name, saying he wanted to remain anonymous because he runs the satirical political blog pinkdome.com.

“As soon as I saw the video, immediately after I stopped laughing, I said, ‘This has got to be a T-shirt,’” he said. “We were selling them the next day.”

Perry apologized for his choice of words earlier this week after an interview with a reporter from KTRK-TV in Houston. The reporter had unsuccessfully tried to get the governor to discuss details of his education plan before a planned press conference.

After the interview ended, the reporter acknowledged that Perry had kept the details a secret and said, “Try as I may, Governor, I guess I can’t win this one.”

Believing the cameras were off, Perry seemingly mocked the reporter, saying: “Try as I may, Governor, I’m just not going to wait that long.” Then he added: “Adios, mofo.”

A call to Perry’s office seeking comment was not immediately returned.

The shortened form of an extremely vulgar term, “adios, mofo” appears to have existed since at least 1963 and is so common in the military that AMF is its well-known acronym, according to Grant Barrett, project editor for the Historical Dictionary of American Slang.

“In terms of usage, all the forms … are used as a way to indicate ‘goodbye,’ usually with a sense of finality or dismissiveness,” Barrett wrote in an e-mail to DallasNews.com.

He also noted that “Adios, Mofo” is a drink made with vodka, rum, tequila, blue curacao, simple syrup, lemon juice and lemon-lime soda. “That sounds like a final goodbye to me,” he joked.

Charlie, who already has sold almost 100 shirts, said he’s not worried about a possible backlash from Perry.

CafePress.com

“Politicians are fair game, and this was all done in good fun,” Charlie said. “If anything, I think it gives Perry a little humanity that he didn’t have before.”

Perry opponents also took advantage of the remark. A spokesman for Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn suggested Wednesday that legislators may be saying “adios to his tax-increasing, phony proposal.”

Strayhorn, who announced her campaign for governor last Saturday, is running against Perry in the Republican primary.

Dean Barkley, campaign director for humorist Kinky Friedman, who is running for governor as an independent candidate, said they did not plan on using the blunder to their advantage.

“I think Kinky would be the last one to stand up for political correctness,” Barkley said. “Maybe Perry’s becoming party to the dewussification of Texas. … He could have said what he said in a more eloquent way, but we’re not going to beat him up over a snafu that he made.”

E-mail akinser@dallasnews.com