Onward and Upward

Whew! It's been a busy week with several very interesting wholesale orders to keep me busy. (Yes, that's right - I'm the only one here.) Some of our first images found a fan last week. We've got some nifty stamp images of rhinos that I've always quite liked and they finally found a high and noble cause to serve. Andy Lodge, of the Ngare Sergoi Support Group, discovered them and decided they would make great fund raisers to supply the NSSG with what it needs to protect the rhinos in Africa. I, of course, heartily agree with him. Among the images is one of my favorites, almost 100 years old:
I wish Andy and his organization all the good fortune in the world in this very worthwhile effort. Though I wouldn't keep one in the back yard (they cry a lot when you don't let them in at night), I think they're pretty nifty critters. You can see more handsome critters at our Animal T-shirt Page. I'll have more info on the NSSG soon.

Ever been to a Greek Festival? Well, there's one coming up in Greenville, South Carolina, in the middle of May, the St. George Greek Festival. Once again, excellent taste was shown by the organizers in choosing Going Postal Greek T-shirts. Of course it's organized by the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of South Carolina but I rather got a kick out of the images they chose, one in particular seemed to be a favorite, that of mighty Zeus:

These folks know good art when they see it, pagan or not!

The other good news is that it looks like we may have enlisted a very good rep to take care of the entire state of Florida for us. Downthere, unlike Uphere (Idaho), they get to sport their t-shirts twelve months a year. That's the kind of state I like!

The T-shirt as World Event

I think I mentioned in some previous entry just how much news I receive here centered around t-shirts. People really take these things seriously. Or at least they take seriously what's on the t-shirt. For example, get a load of these headlines that came through just today:

No Iraq T-shirt? The gift was safe return of grandson (San Jose Mercury News) - DEAR ABBY: The letter about the grandmother who was angry because her grandson Adam didn't bring her a souvenir T-shirt when he came home on leave from Iraq ...
(Grandma got upset because she didn't get a tee from Iraq?!!!)

Religious retailers in US find salvation in T-shirt sales (Taipei Times - Taiwan) Walk into Lori Devins' downtown shop and it's clear this isn't a typical Christian retail store. First of all, Extreme Christian Clothing features T-shirts. ...
(Extreme Christian clothing? Once more a fad takes off without me.)

Man wearing Hells Angels T-shirt slain in error (Newark Star Ledger - Newark,NJ) A Somerset County man gunned down Sunday in a Manville sports bar was killed because he was wearing a Hells Angels T-shirt, authorities said yesterday. ...
(This guy might be up for a Darwin Award.)

Oh, well. People might scratch their head when they see you in one of our t-shirts, but the odds are they're not going to gun you down because of it. Case in point: I got the sci-fi t-shirt page up yesterday, the one featuring the work of Polish digital artist Mirek Drozd. There are only three shirts but there will be more, I promise.

I think these are going to make cool t-shirts and probably won't get you shot in a bar.
The new page is Mirek Drozd T-shirts.

Idaho Genius (or Trendus Interruptus)

You can usually be sure a trend is over by me jumping on it. Take this t-shirt, for example. A local merchant in town is selling them like hotcakes and figured she could do better by having Going Postal make them for her. Fine and dandy, I hope so. So why not put it up on the site as well? It's a natural fit for our Idaho T-shirts page, since the movie this phrase eludes to is a made in Idaho film by a made in Idaho director: "Napoleon Dynamite" by Jared Hess. I recommend it. You'll have to in order to know who Pedro is.

You're wrong I'm right....

Hardly a day goes by that a news item doesn't cross my screen reporting some kind of ruckus caused by an in-your-face t-shirt. Usually, it's a kid getting kicked out of school for wearing a tee that might possibly offend someone (which is almost anything). Today it was a story about how many Cubans are getting very offended at Che Guevara t-shirts. Most people know what they're doing when they wear a shirt with certain well-chosenwords or images on it: they want to stick it to someone else, especially someone who disagrees with them. Take almost any stance on any issue and there is sure to be someone who'll be offended by it. (Why we've suddenly turned into a nation of so readily offended people is a mystery to me.) I have a hunch that most of those who are wearing Che t-shirts don't have a clue about the emotions that this guy's image conveys to a lot of people who were his contemporaries. It's like saying a word in your own language that happens also to be a dirty epithet in someone else's language and then getting bopped for it. "Hey what the heck, the dude is cool, man. Didn't you see Motorcycle Diaries?"

Why do we want to offend people we don't know who don't agree with us? You know the chance that the offendee just might be slightly deranged and carrying a tire iron down his pants leg isn't as slight as it used to be. But then again people can seem to get riled up over almost anything so why limit your own freedom of self-expression on what may or may not be a valid fear?

My solution, of course, is to wear something beautiful, cool, comical or even inspiring, in the hopes that one might make someone else's day or bring a smile to someone else's face. For instance, these:

Of course the very important French benefit is looking oh so cool yourself. Nothing to be sneered at. (By the way, you can click on the image to see more like it.)

Rumors of Things to Come

You get a little preview today. A very talented Polish science fiction artist has agree to let me feature his art on a series of t-shirts. Mirek Drozd, an optician who lives near Warsaw, has a unique vision of other worlds that, when I first saw it, impressed me as good t-shirt art. We'll try it and see how it works. Here's a sample:

To see the full range of his art, you can visit his site at www.tse60.com . But of course, if you want to know how the future is really going to look, you've got to visit our Pulp Magazine page.

(Yes, you saw it here first!)

St. Peter Dontcha Call Me....

I've settled on a new format for most of the t-shirt pages and only have a few remaining to change. It's a big chore and I can only get around to it occasionally. I finally did finish the Spiritual t-shirt page and while doing it added a bunch of new non-philatelic images that anyone with a taste for the great European masters will appreciate. One of them is this one of St. Peter. The rub is that I've misplaced my notes on this work. Do you know anything about it? Let me know if you do, please.
I call this page "Spiritual t-shirts" but I suppose it could more accurately be called "Catholic" or "Christian". I didn't mean to limit it to either and will be adding others as I find them and they fit the bill.

The coincidence of this image being added on the day of John Paul's death is not a coincidence, although I didn't plan it that way. I just don't believe in coincidences.