JE SHIRT COMPANY OFFICIAL BLOG

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Customers,

Okay. I am writing this quick. Let’s drop the “we” shit. First confession is that this company is only me.

Second (and it’s a doozy): What I was referring to in other posts as a “collectible mug” was in reality a massive amount of cocaine that I purchased (with 115k of the money Leonard had given me) through my cousin Clay Deegan in Reno, Nevada last weekend. I thought it would be easy to “move” in LA; I was oh so naïve. Unable to find a buyer, I (stupidly) decided to sell it through the JeShirt site. It sat around for almost a week.

Last night, out of boredom, I wound up doing a LOT of it. Like, a LOT. Leonard Pilk started banging on my door and I panicked and in a drug-fueled frenzy tried to flush the rest down the toilet. I got through three bricks, at which point the toilet was COMPLETELY clogged with cocaine. Leonard and I got into a fight and the hospital stuff happened. Leonard died. When I returned to my room, I received a message that I had a very real potential buyer interested in the cocaine. But with 1/3 of it flushed (and another half brick up my dumbass nose), I was seriously short on promised inventory. I again freaked out. I found a supply closet at Claremont with a bunch of boxes of powdered bleach and replaced the missing cocaine with it. I don’t know what I was thinking. 

I met the drug dealers (three guys wearing hoodies pulled low over their faces, didn’t get a great look) in a parking lot behind the nearby Vons. The deal itself went down pretty smoothly, besides the beginning when the drug dealers made fun of my car in a very mean-spirited way. They of course wanted to test the merch. My heart was pounding faster than Flea on a new set of skins (drums). Luckily, when the main guy did that thing from movies where you stick the knife in a cocaine brick and put some cocaine on the knife and rub it on your gums, he stuck it in one of the three remaining bricks of actual cocaine and not one of the ones with mostly bleach. Otherwise it could have gone south toot sweet. They gave me two big paper bags full of money, not a suitcase like I was expecting. 

I returned home relieved and finished cleaning up. I had a voicemail from a member of Leonard’s family that said he had added me to his will last-minute before he passed away. The reading of the will was this morning. It did NOT go as I had hoped.

Here’s something I learned today about “sweet” “wise” old Leonard Pilk: He was the owner of a Haunted House attraction in Michigan that burned to the ground in 1986. He was sued for negligence, successfully, multiple times and carried over 2 million in debt to his dying day (yesterday). The money that he “invested” in JeShirt was money he was hiding. It was never his to give. 

The judge who ruled against him? A one Honorable Arthur Stilwell.

And what happened to Stilwell, you ask? Years after the trial, he was found decapitated under “mysterious circumstances”, which makes the crosshairs on the “Stilwell” shirt not even accurate. I have no doubt in my mind that Pilk murdered him or had him killed and was gloating about it via those shirts. Sickening. They’re probably brunching in hell right now laughing at me as I type this. 

So I had to give all of the drug money back to his estate. It was still in my car in those bags so I just left them on the curb outside the lawyer’s office and screeched away, pissed off and once again broke, and headed back to Claremont.

Then the day got bad.

I knew something was wrong as soon as I entered the common room. It had been totally wrecked. Garbage all over, “easy chair” flipped, the works. Huh, I thought, and went to my room, not realizing it had anything to do with me. Then Joel, one of the Resident Assistants, came knocking and told me what happened. It was two gentlemen in hoodies (I guess the third guy was doing something else) asking for me and tearing the place up. Apparently they read the Tumblr and had checked out the Twitter feed. I knew my life was in danger. I tweeted asking how to get a gun to protect myself. Joel told me he covered for me but that I needed to leave. I frantically started moving the shirts out to my car by the armful.

I realize now that, knowing they were aware of the JeShirt Twitter, I should not have tweeted the above, because it revealed my location. As I was shoving the fourth load of shirts into the car, they rolled up and the dudes got out and saw me. I ran back inside and they followed. They wanted their money, which was of course, now gone. They had weapons. It quickly escalated into more or less an insane bloodbath. Many of my dearest friends at Claremont perished as I live-tweeted.

I wish I could justify making a memorial shirt for each of the fallen old timers, but since literally NO ONE has purchased a “Leonard” tribute shirt as of this writing, I’m not certain that a “Roger McDaniels” shirt would exactly fly off the shelves (apologies to his family). At one point during the chaos, some old guy came out of his room like a badass with this World War II-looking antique pistol and it seemed like things were going to take a really cool turn, but the gun jammed because it hadn’t been fired in about a hundred years and that was the end of that.

I somehow escaped with my life and most of the shirts. The original “Che Lenos”. The revised “Jay Guevaras”. The Alt color print. The Goof-Up. The Noose. Not the “Turkey Shirts” because there are no “Turkey Shirts”. All of the different Prè shirts. The “Leonard” and “Stilwell” shirts. I escaped with a ton of shirts. They are literally all I have left. I slammed on the gas and got the hell out of there.

Oh, almost forgot, more good news: Apparently the police want to speak with me about Leonard’s death because it turns out being the health care proxy doesn’t mean actually doing the physical unplugging, especially if no one else is in the room, so there’s some more bullshit to wade through on that front. One top of that, I’m desperately on the lookout for more “mug” (cocaine) as I have now developed quite the taste for it but am terrified of buying it anywhere near this area for fear that my ‘bleach-cocaine’ mixture had started to circulate around before people realized what was in it.

I am writing this from a gas station outside of Barstow. I really shouldn’t even be saying that, as I’m fairly certain those guys are aware of the Tumblr blog and I’m definitely going to Tweet this as soon as I’m done writing it. I think I’m going to keep driving for a while. I need to find somewhere safe where I can lay low and ship these shirts as orders come in without fear of being gunned down by drug-world goons or arrested by dickhead cops. I trust that I am in your prayers and hope I make it through this alive. 

I started this company with one goal in mind: To sell a fun, cool, clever novelty T-Shirt that combined the faces of Jay Leno and Che Guevara because their first names sounded similar and I didn’t think anyone had done that before. Looking back, I probably would not have moved forward if someone had told me it would completely destroy my life in under three weeks. Win some lose some, I guess. If I happen to turn up dead, someone just please make sure they don’t bury me in one of these fucking shitty, awful shirts.

This confession is also available in shirt form.

- Jason Samuel Woliner
   JeShirt.com

Dear Customers,

It is with great sadness that I can confirm the news we alluded to last night on Twitter: JeShirt has suffered a devastating loss as Leonard Pilk, our newly-appointed C.F.O., has passed. There have been a lot of rumors swirling and I would like to clear some things up and set the record straight.

Last night began no different than any other in recent memory: Me sitting in room 206 at Claremont, surrounded on all sides by unsold T-shirts, clicking reload on our inbox every few moments to check in on sales that do not exist. Most of the guys here are asleep by 6pm and it gets intensely dull. My complaints about the situation are typically met on Twitter with “fans” gleefully encouraging me to abandon my hard-fought sobriety. But my will is strong and I did no such thing. I did, however, wind up indulging a bit in some other stuff and was, by around 7, a little “up”. I launched into something of a frenzied “Twitter Q&A” and I apologize for anything off-putting that might have been posted to the feed. I said some truly shameful and delusional things. There is no need to reprint them here but in the interest of transparency, we have left them on the JeShirt Twitter timeline. It was an “Old JeShirt”-style meltdown and an embarrassment to the company; I can assure you it will not happen again.

At one point, there was a knocking at my door that must have gone on for god knows how long before I noticed it. I panicked and quickly tried to hide/dispose of some stuff that was out. The door opened and the knocker revealed himself to be Leonard, stopping by to check on sales. He took some hints from the scene and became furious, accusing me of engaging in some unbusinesslike activities and saying that he intended to report me to the Claremont administrators. We got into a verbal dispute which became a physical one but I barely touched him. At that ripe age, your bones are essentially made of dust, I’m told. Leonard took a spill and let out a crazy wailing sound, like an animal. It was genuinely disturbing to hear a sound like that coming from a person. A few Resident Assistants showed up and soon, an ambulance arrived. We took him to the hospital. They gave him some pain stuff on the way over that zonked him pretty good so he thankfully didn’t have to go through the stress of describing/reliving the accident. I let them know that he had tripped while checking on our T-Shirt sales.

(Stock Image)

After an annoying amount of waiting, they let us in to see him and told us he had broken his hip in the fall. I could see that he was in terrible suffering, and because he had two days earlier (before we started fighting) designated me his “heath care proxy”, I knew it was time to make the most difficult decision of my life.

At 9:36pm, we lost him. There will be a memorial service at Claremont this Friday at 3pm.

In honor of Leonard Pilk and the time we got to share with him, JeShirt has decided to release this very special, Limited Edition Non-Novelty Memorial T-Shirt, The “Leonard”. We feel like it captures the spirit of this wonderful man and pays tribute to a life tragically cut slightly short. It is available now at JeShirt.com

Graphic (click to enlarge):

Jacobson quote may not be verbatim. In the rush to get this out the door, there is a small typo in the year of death. All proceeds from the shirt go towards the memory of Leonard Pilk.

It was an emotionally draining night, to put it mildly. And at a certain point I started coming down, hard. But after the darkness emerges the light. I returned to Claremont to find a message in my inbox that I never could have anticipated:

WE RECEIVED AN ORDER FOR THE MUG.

The timing of this could only mean Leonard’s ghost/angel was indeed smiling down upon us, showering JeShirt in good fortune as his final gift to the human world.

I was so excited about the mug being sold that I decided to hand deliver it last night. I was shitting bricks - this would be the biggest sale in JeShirt history - but after a dicey moment in the beginning it went surprisingly smoothly. The dudes were cool, it was super-quick, one-and-done, no bullshit. And now - we are good. We have money! We are out of debt! We are in the black! And I have even gotten word that Leonard may have perhaps added me to his will before he left us! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

I don’t know about you, but I love happy endings. Thank you for all of your support during our rocky first few weeks. We could not have gotten through them without the love of the fans/customers. Now, we move forward, into the bright bright world of what’s to come.

Here’s To The Future! All good from here on out!

- Jason Samuel Woliner
   JeShirt.com 

Dear Customers,

There are many ups and downs in running a business. As I blogged about on Monday, this company has recently named Mr Leonard Pilk, a new and dear friend of mine, as its C.F.O. after Leonard so graciously invested nearly two-hundred thousand in liquid cash in JeShirt. We could not be more thankful for Leonard’s very generous “angel investment” at this crucial moment in the company’s history.

Now, no one appreciates Mr. Pilk’s investment in this company more than me. It has allowed us to re-invest the funds into certain goods that, once sold, will finally put us on solid financial footing. But as I am learning, getting “in bed” with someone means that the occasional compromise must be made. 

Yesterday, Leonard told me he had a “great idea” for a shirt and demanded that a portion of the money he invested go towards the production of this shirt. I was in no mood to be given orders about the creative direction of this company and it got ugly, fast. I saw an angry side of Leonard that I had not yet been privy to (and at this point, I would say I’m closer to him than anyone, including his family, who never even come to visit). We were asked to quiet down. He told me he wanted his money back, which is currently not an option.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, I felt I ultimately had no choice but to acquiesce to his demand. I put him in touch with our graphics dude and placed an order for 3000 shirts. I saw the design this morning.

The image he constructed is, to me, confusing and somewhat chilling.

It appears that he is using this shirt to further some vendetta against some other elderly gentleman who is apparently named “Stilwell” and who maybe is hurt or dead (?). He wouldn’t tell us anymore about who the man is or what the shirt is in reference to. As a business man whose chief priority is transparency, trust, customer relations, and top-quality product, it sickens me to have to release this shirt.

The only upside is that Leonard didn’t specify what was to be on the back of the shirt. Thus, I feel like we have no choice but to include a message on the shirt that clarifies the situation and sets a boundary between Mr. Pilk’s viewpoint and that of the company as a whole.

An imperfect solution to another PR headache, but what are you going to do. If I were you, I would not buy this shirt. It is not fun, it doesn’t spoof anything from popular culture or combine two unlikely people/things in a clever and surprising way, and it doesn’t even begin to celebrate the Lord or what he did for mankind. I’ll go so far as to say I think it would make a terrible stocking stuffer. Please don’t buy the “Stilwell” shirt. Beyond my own dislike of it, it will only creatively empower Leonard further if these things sell.

To be perfectly honest, Leonard has started the unmistakable drift toward the “more trouble than they’re worth” category, a distinction which currently describes virtually all of the people in my life. He keeps riding me about the time frame in which he can expect to see a return on his investment. He knows nothing about business. I am getting sick of Leonard.

In other news: No serious offers on the mug so far. Please, please help us get the word out about this mug. Time is running out. I remain sober (so far) and have not turned my back on Jesus Christ and it seems to not be doing a lick of good for this company. The financial pressures are very real and our creditors are getting antsy. We need cashflow, we need to move this stuff. I will now consider breaking it up and selling it off in pieces. I am going to purchase a digital scale this afternoon but I have basically zero experience in this stuff. Inquire at JeShirtCo@gmail.com.

Time is running out.

- Jason Samuel Woliner
   JeShirt.com

Dear Friends,

It is with great excitement today that I am announcing a new addition to the JeShirt family. I’d like to introduce you to the sweetest man I have ever met, our “angel investor” and new C.F.O. Mr. Leonard Pilk.

While many here at Claremont have shown apathy towards my plight or shunned me entirely, Leonard has taken a keen interest in this company’s struggles. He and I have grown extremely close lately, spending countless hours chatting in the common room and the garden out back. It is all very “Tuesdays With Morrie”, except it is Everyday with Leonard because I luckily have nowhere else to be.

I have told Leonard all about the struggles this company has faced in recent weeks. The difficulties launching the “Che Leno” and “Jay Guevara” shirts. The “Turkey shirt” fiasco. The storage unit situation. The arrest. The cave-in and our subsequent rebirth as a Faith-inspired company. And the enormous, crippling debt that hangs over my head, every second of the day.

Well, here’s the big news: Leonard has stepped up with an extremely generous “angel investment” that covers the entire sum I have put into this company. It is a massive amount of money, enough cash to pay off our creditors and break even. With Leonard’s money, I could settle out and walk away.

But if I did that, what kind of CEO would I be then?

I did not get into the novelty T-Shirt business to break even.

“No Risk it, no biscuit.” - Famous Business Quote

Late last week, my cousin Clay clued me in to an investment opportunity that was WAY too good to pass up. Clay is part owner of a pawn shop in Reno and had a line on some non-T-Shirt goods that he thought would be very popular in Los Angeles. So I decided to take Leonard’s generous donation and turn it into MORE money, which I can then invest back in the company. Thus the last-minute road trip this past weekend. I apologize if I alarmed anyone with my tweets; it was a big step up for this still-young company and I was fairly nervous. But it went fine. Everyone was cool. Once I sell these goods - and believe you me, these are apparently GOOD goods - we should be comfortably in the black and I can finally go back to spending my time thinking up fun new T-Shirts that combine things people have heard of. I’m not exactly an expert at moving these kinds of goods so if anyone has any pointers, hit me up. Pretty sure the powers that be at Claremont wouldn’t be thrilled that I’m storing them here.

In Other News: There’s a new item in the online store! It’s a fun, one-of-a-kind collectible JeShirt mug!

We’ve only got one of these in stock but it is of top-shelf quality. Some might even call it a pure, uncut Colombian mug.

Act now and we’ll even throw in some “cool-lectible” JeShirt stickers.

(Dollar bill for scale)

Dear Friends,

Tuesday night was perhaps the darkest moment of my life.

I called into a popular radio show, The Best Show on WFMU, hosted by my friend Tom Scharpling. It’s a funny, loose talk show and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to plug the shirts and try to raise some awareness during this critical moment.

I thought the call went fairly well. I kept it together. It was shortly after I had hung up that someone on Twitter alerted us to the fact that when I plugged the website, I spelled its URL wrong. Well, that was just the straw that this camel needed for yet another broken back (aka descent into a night of alcohol abuse).

With no one to unload on, I again sadly took to Twitter to vent my frustrations as a small business owner in the current economic climate. I’m not proud of these outbursts. It got very dark.

Then, at around 11:30pm, it happened.

My screams for help were completely ignored by the “kind” residents of Claremont. I’m sure it didn’t help that, shortly after I realized none of them cared enough to do anything, I launched into a vitriolic rant cursing the nearby men and their entire quote unquote “greatest generation” that lasted more than an hour. To be perfectly honest, though, I’m not positive anyone could even hear me from beneath the hundreds upon hundreds of shirts.

I would take the occasional break from screaming to refresh the JeShirt e-mail account. Surprise surprise. A total of NO orders came in. The computer eventually powered down. I was running out of oxygen.

I literally could not sink any lower.

And then: It happened.

At some point during the evening, barely conscious, I began to feel a sort-of “pull” from above. I have a hard time describing it - but there was a presence, a warmth, and I have no doubt in my mind who it was that spoke to me. I am still processing the experience, but I can tell you it was nothing short of mind-blowing.

Friends, I have been reborn. I have accepted His love into my heart.

I have been saved.

It is as much a shock to me as anyone; I was born Jewish and have spent my life identifying with Jewish culture and its people. But then again, so did my new main man, Jesus Christ. It’s just one of the many things that I am realizing we have in common. Much like He, I have similarly been attacked from all sides for trying to do what I believe in (in my case, marketing novelty T-Shirts that combine Jay Leno and Che Guevara and in His case, all of the things he did in the Bible). I have thought a lot recently about how He would have responded to haters on Twitter, and I think you’ll see a pretty meaningful change in our customer interactions moving forward.

Introducing: Prè

(Pronounced “Pray” FYI)

Today, it is with joy that I can announce the launch of Prè, a new line of Faith-inspired apparel from JeShirt.com. His love has truly changed and saved my life, and the least I can do is spread that love on a great new line of fun, funny, novelty T-Shirts.

Here is the first batch of great new tees:

The “CheSus My Lord and Jayvior”

The “British”
A fun spoof on the popular “Keep Calm” craze.

The “Ampersand”
Another fun spoof of a popular T-Shirt design, infused with His love.

The “Cowbell”
A shirt based around the classic skit.

The “Plain Truth”

We strongly feel that this will open us up to a new market and dramatically increase the potential to make back the money we so desperately need to stay afloat, while at the same time doing our best to spread His word via shirts.

The original, secular shirts are, of course, still available and still a lot of fun.

Thank You and God Bless,

- Jason Samuel Woliner
   JeShirt.com

Dear Customers,

There are some questions as to my whereabouts this weekend and the forty-three hours of “radio silence” on the JeShirt Twitter feed and Facebook Like page. It is my intent with this note to clear things up.

Early Friday, we released a statement about the “Turkey shirt” debacle. It marked the end of a difficult (to put it mildly) first week, which began with a flurry of confusion over the image on our popular “Che Leno” novelty T-Shirt and the hasty release of our follow-up, the “Jay Guevara”. I had the hope that it would also mark the beginning of a new chapter for this company, one in which we were defined by the fun, clever products we offer and not by mismanagement and my own personal struggles. I began Friday with a new sense of purpose and a firm belief that things were looking up.

This feeling did not last long.

For one, the cold reality of the financial situation that this company has put me in is still a very real concern. This in mind, I took a meeting with the manager of the storage unit in which I am keeping the shirts to see if I could get a discount because the door of the unit was severely damaged last week. He listened to my pleas silently for a good ten minutes, then told me he had read our company blog and knew full well that it was me who damaged the door, backing into it with my car while inebriated. This was extremely humiliating. He also demanded that I pay for a new door. Strike one.

I took this gentleman over to the unit itself to show him that the damage was only superficial and we got into a dispute because he disagreed. It was at this point that I noticed the smell. It became clear that one or more vagrants had been lured to the unit by the sandwich and chips I had hurriedly left on the pile of shirts when I ran out in a panic Thanksgiving evening. With easy access because of the busted door, they had turned the place into their personal bathroom/”F-palace”/what-have-you. The result is a massive amount of damaged T-Shirt inventory, some of which is, at this point, borderline unsellable. Strike two.

I spent the next hour making a temporary door out of nearby scrap wood and nailing it to the unit. I then returned to my car to check some sales numbers on my laptop. To my surprise, the JeShirt inbox was blowing up! I tweeted, with a momentary (false) sense of hope. But instead of orders, this is what I found:

So apparently, whoever runs the “Kenny Powers” twitter feed promised his followers a “free signed Jersey” to the hundredth person who emailed the company account to fire me. I was literally in shock. Now, I have worked in comedy for a while and I’m friendly with some of the “Eastbound and Down” guys, and as far as I know they do not run that twitter account. So I have no idea who this is or what he has against me or my company. And he wants me to step down? Let’s get this straight:

I will do no such thing. I built this company. I am this company.

I went into a rage. I basically flipped out. I drove to 7-11 to buy some alcohol. There was a cop on line in front of me who noticed the “Che Leno” shirt I was wearing and asked me, with a smirk/chuckle, if it was a picture of “Ron Perlman or an ape”. I was not in the mood to joke around about something that has literally turned my life to shit. I got in a verbal dispute with the officer and allegedly assaulted him. While he was still on the ground, I fled and drove back to the storage unit as fast as I could. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. Strikes three and four. (hitting the cop and fleeing the scene)

At this point, things took a real turn for the worse.

Before you read further, please understand that I was out of control. I was panicking. I was not myself. I am not proud of this behavior. I snapped.

I barricaded myself in the unit as sirens approached. In an insane frenzy, I attempted to fashion a makeshift noose out of four JeShirts. The cops were sadly able to get the door open before I could “finish the job”. I was arrested and spent the weekend locked up. Perhaps the most bitter part of all of this was spending “Small Business Saturday,” a day which I had hoped would be spent celebrating everything we have achieved with JeShirt so far, in a depressing jail cell. A day also during which, might I add, not a SINGLE order was placed for ANY of our shirts, so thanks a lot for that.

I was released on Sunday but was - shocker - not exactly welcomed with open arms at my home/JeShirt HQ. Last night, I decided to move operations to my new room at the Claremont Home For Men in Claremont, CA. My buddy Ray works there and has been kind enough to let me stay while this is all being sorted out.

It is no easy task to launch a small business, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that this endeavor has been particularly trying. But I am steadfast in my resolve and I will not waver. Yes, I have made mistakes. Big mistakes. But I cannot spend my entire life apologizing.

I have a T-Shirt business to run.

If this company is to continue to grow and evolve, we must begin the process of putting this bumpy first week behind us. We are on the cusp of the next big step in the JeShirt journey. I do hope you’ll take it with me.

Also: In an attempt to have at least some good come out of this, we have decided to offer the actual one-of-a-kind JeShirt noose for sale on our site, for a limited time.

Please check it out, and please, PLEASE buy some of these shirts.

Thank you.

- Jason Samuel Woliner
  JeShirt.com

Please click here to read the original post if you are not caught up. 

Friends,

First off, I want to reach out and personally thank all of you for your support of JeShirt.com. It’s tougher than ever to start up a small business in the current economic climate, and your enthusiasm has been truly inspiring. But some troubling events have occurred in the past couple of days that bear addressing, and I would like to clear up a few things.

On Wednesday, we released this image on our Twitter feed and Facebook “Like” page:

It was meant to be a fun holiday bonus for the fans and customers who have stuck with us in what has been an extremely trying first week. It was NOT meant to be an announcement of some kind of “Thanksgiving-themed novelty T-Shirt”. But unfortunately, many confused customers took it to be just that.

I will admit that it was dumb of me to have our graphics team place the message on an image of a T-Shirt. But being that we are a T-Shirt company, I felt it was appropriate. It was also not ideal that, due to the architecture of our site, it could only be displayed on a page that had an “Add to Cart” button. This “perfect storm” of mishaps laid the groundwork for a tidal wave of orders for a product that DOES NOT EXIST.

I did my best to clear up the confusion on twitter, to no avail. The tweets (and orders) kept coming:

It almost seemed to me that people were intentionally not listening to me, just to push my buttons.

The issue is this: Every time someone clicks “Order” on a “Turkey shirt”, I am charged a processing fee by my online shopping cart vendor. Additionally, I am charged a PayPal fee. On top of that, because I cannot pack or ship a product that does not exist, I must refund the money, which incurs additional fees. I made this very clear and begged customers to stop ordering the shirts. They would not stop.

Some suggested that I just make the shirt, being that it was so much more in demand than our others. What an idea! There’s no way I could possibly have considered that! The truth is, I have unfortunately already invested so much money in our existing line that I simply can’t afford to roll out a new product at this time.

We “sold” over 1600 “Turkey shirts” yesterday. Meanwhile, sales of the products that we DO actually offer remain in the mid one figures. This debacle has cost us thousands of dollars and it only digs me deeper into a debt hole, one from which I will at this point basically never emerge.

Because of some personal issues going on in my life (which are not being helped by the JeShirt situation), I was asked to not be home last night. With nowhere else to go, I wound up spending Thanksgiving evening alone in the JeShirt warehouse. “Warehouse” is putting it nicely; it is basically a storage locker. Unfortunately, this was a one-way ticket to what is becoming a now-typical “meltdown”. I lost control in a very public way. The posts remain on the company twitter feed; there is no need to post them here. I am not proud of this behavior and am getting the proper help. To try and keep my head above water, I decided last night to put my personal car for sale on the site and began trying to determine how much I could get for it.

It was at this point that I received an email which provided a glimmer of hope:

I was overjoyed; It seemed too good to be true. Unable to contain my glee, I took to Twitter and hinted at the impending huge announcement.

Because my phone was dead from texting, I needed to get to a landline to talk to the investor. I remembered there was a payphone at a nearby 7/11. I shut my laptop and raced to my car out front, jumping in and slamming on the gas. Unfortunately, my intoxicated state prevented me from noticing I had put the car in reverse and I went flying backwards, crashing into the storage locker door and doing considerable damage to both the door and the rear of my vehicle.

To put icing on the cake, I later learned that the “angel investor” is as real as the “turkey shirts”: After all of the hype, it turned out to be just a mean-sprited prank from someone on Twitter. I did eventually wind up walking to 7/11, if only to purchase more alcohol. I don’t really remember the rest of the evening and I apologize if I tweeted anything inappropriate to any of our valued customers. In any event, I have listed the car as for sale on the site. If you’re in the market, please check it out. It would be doing a father and struggling small business owner a world of good.

The bottom line: As Founder and President of this company, it was my duty to keep my composure during a situation such as this one, and in this regard, I failed. It is a bumpy road indeed but I feel like we have survived the storm, and a new day is upon us. The orders that have been placed WILL ship on schedule. We have some mending of fences to do, but we hope that you know that we are as committed as ever to providing fun novelty T-Shirts that feature a combination of the faces of Jay Leno and Che Guevara to the customers who rely on us. 

I will not let you down again.

- Jason Samuel Woliner
   JeShirt.com 

Friends,

When I started this company, it was with one goal in mind: To market a high-quality, fun, innovative novelty T-shirt that combined the face of late night titan Jay Leno with the iconic imagery of similarly-first-named Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.

We went live with a soft-launch of our product late last night (November 19th), a T-Shirt we dubbed the “Che Leno”:

The response was overwhelmingly one of negativity and confusion.

In the first few hours post-launch, we received a tidal wave of mocking tweets: 

@Berrrodie: I’m sorry, but who’s face is on that shirt? like Rocky or something

@KeeferD420: Schwarzenegger with a little ape in the chin?

@Atencio: I thought it was the Fratelli mom from Goonies.

@NickfromIslands: I think it’s Willem Dafoe DISGUISED as an ape

And so on. I went into “spin mode” and had something of a public meltdown. I will admit: I lost it. I was entirely too revealing about the financial situation that manufacturing 15,000 of these shirts has put me and my family in. I begged my followers, only half-joking, for tips on a quick death. What began as a fun dream to cash in on the novelty T-Shirt craze immediately became a living nightmare. There’s no need to go into it here, but in the interest of transparency I have decided not to delete any of these embarrassing posts from my timeline. Ultimately, they are not important. What is important:

You have spoken, and we must listen.

That’s why today, JeShirt.com is announcing a MAJOR revamp of our product line with the launch of our new T-Shirt, the “Jay Guevara”:

We think you will agree that this sets our ship back on course. We feel strongly that this new design leaves little to no room for confusion with regards to who the shirt is depicting. We have doubled down and are committed to going as deep into the hole as we need to until we hit fresh air on the other side. I have egg on my face, and I am fully prepared to lick it clean off.

I cannot thank you enough for coming along with me on this journey, and I pray that you will buy this shirt.

-  Jason Samuel Woliner
    JeShirt.com