Originally ran March 7

First off, I had no idea there were so many magazines aimed specifically at pregnant women. But there are, and the latest issues of every one of them seem to be lying around my house these days.

Second, I had no idea anyone made Ramones maternity T-shirts, but there it was in an ad in one of those magazines.

I certainly support the rights of pregnant women and anyone else to wear T-shirts bearing the likenesses of their favorite bands.

And I’m sure being a Ramones fan wasn’t required of the model who posed for the ad.

But it reminded me of a recent Rolling Stone article about how popular Ramones merchandise is. More popular than the band ever was, apparently.

People know the name even if they don’t know the music. Retro cool is just a visit to Hot Topic away.

Now it is just a hunk of cotton with some text and illustrations on it. But sporting a band T implies a personal connection to the performer and/or the music, doesn’t it?

Actual embarrassing conversation from ninth grade involving a Led Zeppelin T-shirt:

Really Cute Cool Girl I had a crush on: “Wow! Cool shirt!”

Me: “Thanks!”

Really Cute Cool Girl: “When did you see Zeppelin?!”

Me: “I didn’t. I ordered the T-shirt from the back of Circus magazine.”

Really Cute Cool Girl: “Oh. Um. Nice shirt.”

The rules were stricter then. You wore the T-shirt, you had a concert story to tell.

By the ‘80s, though, Misfits T-shirts were de rigueur for Metallica fans, thanks to James Hetfield’s endorsement of Glenn Danzig’s old crew. If the Misfits sold half the records they had T-shirts, they’d be bigger than Coldplay.

By the ‘00s, Jennifer Aniston was wearing an MC5 T-shirt on “Friends,” the same show that, a few seasons before, had the gang all a-dither over a Hootie & the Blowfish concert.

Rachel? “Kick Out the Jams”? That’s just false advertising.