Earlier this year the dudes at Liberated Images / Shirts & Destroy released a limited edition 5-color gross-out pizza shirt that comes in a specially printed pizza box. From their description:

A pizza to end all pizzas. Served piping hot with everything you could want on it. Nails, screws, an eyeball, pocket change, a severed finger, cigarette butts, pepperoni, a razor blade, a dead fish, mushrooms and a bunch of other gnarly shit.

Gnarly shit, indeed.

The graphic was done by Billy from Tall Boy Illustration. Get yours here.

In the video below, John Joseph — singer for the legendary 1980s NYC hardcore punk band, the Cro-Mags — talks about his favorite veg spots in NYC, including Viva Herbal Pizzeria. It’s all framed around Joseph’s new book Meat Is For Pussies.

The blog software I use to run Pizza Rules! has been super slow and sometimes even completely broken lately, which is why I haven’t posted much. I have a whole folder of stuff to share once I get some time to fix everything, but in the mean time, here’s a quick pizza-related lolcat for you.

I completed my third annual Pizza Month yesterday at Stone Hearth Pizza in Cambridge, MA. As with the past two years, I ate pizza every day for the entire month of April. Similar to last year, I managed to do so without getting pizza from the same pizzeria twice.

Since I’m currently in vagabond travel mode, I got a lot more variety this year, geographically, than in past years. New York got some heavy representation early on, followed by a string of various Massachusetts pizza.

Billy (who participated in Pizza Month with me the previous two years) folded only 3 or 4 days into the month after forgetting to eat a slice, so I did this one solo.

• Best pizza all month: Not as easy to say this year as it was last year; it’s a toss-up between Motorino in Brooklyn, and my childhood neighborhood favorite, New England Pizza House #1, on Cape Cod.
• Worst pizza all month: Arizona Pizza Company in Hadley, MA. Better Fella’s (formerly Vinny Vella’s) in Brooklyn was a close runner up in this category too.
• Most interesting pizza experience: Definitely my trip to DiFara’s

I must say I was really surprised at how easy it was to complete Pizza Month this time around. I’m starting to think about stepping it up somehow next time (Pizza Season???)

I’ll let you know.

I always hated the annoying ads I see all over the internet for Busted Tees and their ironic t-shirts, but I have to give some credit for this one.

New pizza shirt on Threadless:

I’ve got some other pizza shirts I’ve been meaning to post about too. Soon.

I don’t know anything about this song or group, but I kinda like it that way. The mystery makes it that much better:

Best part: “I like pizza with tomato…” followed by an awkward lack of lyrics.

Thanks to Dean for the link.

Arnold’s Pizza Shop:

As though Shepard Fairey wasn’t getting enough press already from his work for Obama, I’m gonna mention him here on pizza-related business.

OMG Posters reports that Fairey just put up an installation at Nice Slice in Providence, not far from where he went to school at RISD.

I’m hoping to make it to Providence in the not-too-distant future. If I do, I’ll get some more shots (including some of the pizza).

The Mets’ new mark to celebrate their upcoming first season at Citi Field is making the team look a bit more like Domino’s Pizza delivery drivers…

My friend Jesse sent me this link about putting Domino’s online pizza ordering options to the test.

I’ve never ordered online from Domino’s, and in fact have consciously avoided ordering from Domino’s at all since about 10 years ago, but I am glad that someone out there is putting their system to the test.

It’s great how he tests them on whether it’s the right or left side of his pie that gets pepperoni, but the best part about the experiment was ordering an individual pizza with nothing on it (not even sauce) except beef on the left-hand side:

Hilarious.

Serbian Ljubomir Erovic just released a cookbook dedicated to recipes that include testicles. Pizza is one of them.

Do not want.

This just landed in my inbox, sent from the people over at L’asso:

L’asso Pizza Guide Party 10.7.08

The L’asso Pizza Guide Release Party L’ASSO PIZZA GUIDE THE DEFINITIVE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PIZZA

ON Tuesday October 7th from 5-10pm you are invited to our PIZZA GUIDE RELEASE PARTY!

The L’asso Pizza Guide - the definitive guide to pizza - will be carried as a NYC Onion insert (10.9.08). The guide is a humorous and informational guide to pizza - from its humble beginnings in ancient times to its current incarnation as one of the world’s favorite foods.

It’s been a year in the making! Be one of the first to check it out before the rest of the world gets to see it.

DJ, PIZZA SAMPLING, BOOZE plus the unveiling of a few new pizza recipes we’ve been working up, be the first to try our new inventions!

www.lassonyc.com

myspace.com/lassonyc

212.219.2353

I checked out L’asso in NYC a couple months ago, but never got around to writing it up here (I did get some photos though). In short, it’s pretty fancy: the form factor of the pizza is unusual, but it was good regardless. I expect this event to be delicious.

By the way, I’m psyched to see some pizza humor by the people at The Onion… geniuses.

I’ve been way too busy to spend time writing pizza reviews lately, but I’m anticipating some free time on the horizon.

Excuses aside, I wanted to post this video that a new student of mine sent me (thanks Chris!):

My favorite part is around the 21-second mark, when everything stops, and for a split second you think the video froze, only to then see the anthropomorphic pizza go in to some kind of scary rage (at least I think that’s rage… ?).

The Japanese always seem to have ads that are a million times more surreal and interesting than us Americans. Either that or I only ever see the weird ones.

So this might mean more to some of you than it does to others, but it’s pizza-relevant nonetheless…

Back in the ’80s there was a pizza chain called Showbiz Pizza Place. If you’re not familiar with it, you might have heard of a similar place called Chuck E Cheese’s. The basic idea of both restaurants was that they served pizza, had a bunch of arcade games, and provided entertainment for kids via large anthropomorphic animals.

Showbiz, which is now defunct, featured a live music act (if you can call it that) called the Rock-afire Explosion, manned by animatronic animals.

Since the Showbiz chain has gone down, there has been a group of obsessive Rock-afire Explosion fanatics that collect and maintain the musical robots. As is the case with so many quirky hobbies nowadays, there is a documentary about the phenomenon coming out (scheduled to be released in Fall 2008, according to the documentary’s MySpace page).

Here’s the trailer:

Keep your eye out for the film’s full site here.

A man from New York City has agreed to plea guilty to a murder he committed in Oregon, but only if he can get pizza in jail while serving his life sentence.

The article doesn’t mention any detailed stipulations about what kind of pizza; I would imagine that’d be a major factor though. I mean, it actually would be torture if you could get pizza, but for the rest of your life it could only be some frozen school lunch garbage.

The Globe just ran a piece about what authentic pizza from Naples is really like, with a run-down of some of the spots there worth checking out. The article gets a little melodramatic / romantic at times, but all in good fun…

…She romanced her pizza: carefully cutting a slice, raising it on her fork, admiring it before she wrapped her lips around it. Chewing slowly, she savored the pizza in her mouth, then closed her eyes to swallow before she smiled.

My friend Mary just gave me a heads up on this one…

Retired Air Force master sergeant Mark Evans and his son, who live in Illinois, have started a campaign to send a whole bunch of Chicago pizzas to American military troops overseas.

Lou Malnati's Pizzeria has agreed to give Evans pizzas at a discounted rate to help the cause. The initial goal was 300 pies, but Evans has received so much support for the effort that the number has grown far beyond that — as many as 3,000.

The pizzas will obviously have to be shipped frozen, a task which DHL has offered to do for free. Even though the pizza is frozen, it's still pizza.

Personally, I'm 100% opposed to the war we're in right now, but I won't get too into that here; I'm just glad to see someone actually supporting the people who have to be over there instead of buying a phony magnet for their bumper and leaving it at that.

If you're interested in contibuting to the "Pizza 4 Patriots" effort, you can write Mark Evans at sgtevans@sbcglobal.net.

More coverage via USA Today and Chicago's Daily Herald.

Domino's just held a competition for "World's Fastest Pizza Maker" in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The winner, Dennis Tran, who has now won the annual contest 3 times, put together 3 pies in 46.4 seconds.

There's something that just seems wrong about this whole contest to me. I mean, sure, timeliness is generally a good thing; but I would much rather have my pie made well than made fast. I suppose it makes perfect sense though, because this is Domino's we're talking about here.

The Ann Arbor News has the full scoop on the competition, plus this video:

Pam Aghababian reviews Bostone Pizza's sicilian slice for Bostonist's Cheap Eats series:

While many pizzas serve as vehicles for cheese delivery, the dough is the real star of the show in this case. The edges are buttery and crispy, not at all dry. The bottom of the crust is also very crispy, and yet the top is soft and pillowy, a perfect bed for the toppings. And with 4 or 5 different topping options available at any one time, including a Slice of the Day, there's always something delicious to go with that beautiful dough.

Bostone Pizza
225 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116
617-536-9451
www.bostonepizza.com