Don't Wear Your Medals in the Pool

Our Olympic printing tradition this year continues with the custom shirts we printed for 2008 Olympian Peter Vanderkaay. Peter took the Bronze medal behind Michael Phelps and Taehwan PARK of South Korea in the 200 Free, and took home the Gold in the 4 x 200 Free Relay along with teammates Phelps, Ryan Lochte, and Ricky Berens. Way to go PVK and thanks for letting Underground Printing be a part of your Olympic experience! It’s been a historic performance by the entire USA swim team this year, and we hope our custom tshirts have helped their fans cheer them to victory!

That’s right, its hanging chad season again! Politics can be a touchy subject, and there are a lot of hot button issues this year, as there always seems to be. However, one thing remains abundantly clear: candidates are pro T-Shirt. Elections are yet another forum where the power of the t-shirt can flex its muscle, spreading the word about candidates far and wide. Underground Printing has had the chance to print custom campaign t-shirts for candidates from all parties, large and small, all over the country this year. Check out a couple recent designs from local races in Wyoming and Michigan.

*** Obligatory Disclaimer ***

This is not an endorsement of any candidate, party, or the issues and platforms upon which the candidates are running. Quit being lazy and make up your own mind about who you want to vote for! UGP doesn’t choose candidates, they choose UGP.

*** End of Obligatory Disclaimer***

Underground Printing had the privelege of printing shirts for the Hope Shines Foundation. Joelle recently spent two weeks in Rwanda and we are extremely impressed and proud of the everything she has accomplished.

Congratulations Joelle! You can learn more about the the Hope Shines Foundation at: http://hopeshinesfund.blogspot.com/

Flugtag is a German word that means “Flying Day”,  at least according to the makers of Red Bull, who have sponsored the events since 1991 in 35 countries around the world. This year featured three American Locations, in Portland, OR,  Tampa Bay, FL, and Chicago, IL. The rules of Flugtag, at their most basic, are fairly straightforward.

“Red Bull Flugtag challenges teams of everyday people to build homemade, human-powered flying machines and pilot them off a 30-foot high deck in hopes of achieving flight.”

[source: http://www.redbullflugtagusa.com/what-is-flug]

While some of you are probably confused by the notion of driving something you made and power yourself off a 30 foot deck in the fleeting hope that it will, in fact, fly, others look at it as a noble challenge - mankind’s oldest desire…to fly. [airplanes, helicopters, hot air balloons, circus cannons, and Michael Jordan don't count.] Underground Printing had the privelege of making the official custom team t-shirts for one of these teams of aeronautical innovators who had entered the 2008 contest in Portland. Team Spaceballs, a plucky band of would-be aviators was assembled from the staff at the offices of Everett, WA-based JAMCO America. They submitted one of the more creative designs, based on the winged Winnebago flown by Lonestar and Barf in the classic Mel Brooks sci-fi spoof. JAMCO is one of the leading suppliers of aircraft interiors, so these folks were no rookies.

Team Spaceballs!

While Team Spaceballs didn’t take one of the top spots for overall distance (it should be noted that this was not necessarily the goal as much as dressing up in Spaceballs costumes and making a frickin’ sweet Winnebago), their hard work and ingenuity was rewarded as they took home the trophy for People’s Choice, demonstrating the crowd’s appreciation for all things Spaceballs. And come on, with a ride like that and some seriously cool custom printed t-shirts, how could they not? Check out their shirt designs below! A big congratulations and thanks to Maya and the rest of Team Spaceballs for passing along the pics! Good luck next year - may we suggest Ghostbusters Flugtag? you could make it look like the Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man or Ecto-1.

(Jason Bay-Watch?)

In a blockbuster three-team deal, the Pittsburgh Pirates traded star left-fielder Jason Bay to the Boston Red Sox last night. Manny Ramirez left the Bo Sox , headed to L.A.  to play for  the Dodgers and skipper Joe Torre, ending a rocky relationship with Boston management. The Pirates received a bunch of guys you may have heard of if you’re really into fantasy baseball or you happen to be Peter Gammons. More importantly, Pittsburgh received a promising left hander with a great arm that goes by the name of Underground Printing.

Ok so we don’t actually “play baseball” or “have a splitter” - but what we DO have great stuff - great custom printed apparel at low prices and fast turnaround, that is. The new store is located at 117 Meyran Ave in Oakland, just in between Fifth and Forbes on Pitt’s campus. A town like Pittsburgh needs a top-notch screenprinter, so we’ve been called up from the minors to step in and contribute right away.  The Oakland area is home to great local spots like Primanti Bros and Hemingway’s, and we’re looking forward to joining their ranks. If you’re in the University of Pittsburgh or Oakland area, stop by to grab a free shirt, a custom quote, or place a custom shirt order! You’ll know as soon as you walk in that ordering custom shirts from Underground Printing is a homerun! [Get it? They're baseball references!] Check out the new Pittsburgh store before and after shots below!

side note: do you think Jason Bay will have to change his name to Jason Harbor so ESPN can make Boston Harbor references when he hits home runs? And the anchors would probably pronounce it “Haaaa-baaaahhh” because that’s how they talk in Boston, right? Sports!

UGP Pittsburgh, Before

UGP Pittsburgh store, after

Golden Girl Kangaroos

We at Underground Printing take a lot of pride in our customers, their creativity, and their devotion to the events that brought them to us. Sometimes that’s a charity raising money, sometimes it’s a campus group raising awareness, and sometimes its a going away party with custom t-shirts featuring kanagaroos whose heads have been replaced with heads of the cast of the Golden Girls. That’s how you say goodbye in t-shirt form when your friend is leaving East Lansing for the Land Down Under! Also, either that’s the flash reflecting in the window or the guy in the middle is going to help Bruce Willis realize he’s a ghost. Thanks for the great pic in front of the store gang! It’s always awesome to see our shirts fulfilling their purpose, and doubly great to see them come back to our store during the event like this! We liked it so much, we thought we’d finish the song for you…

And if you threw a [going-away] party

Invited all the people you ever knew

You would see the greatest tees come from UGP

And your pics will make our blog,

Thank you for being a friend.

Post Script:

If you hadn’t heard, Estelle Getty passed away last week. Rest in Peace. Sophia was like everybody’s grandmother in the 1980s…except way cooler.

Tiffaney Florentine

Monday Night Football may stil be a few weeks away, but it doesn’t mean you have to spend your evening fixing the lawnmower. Hard hitting action still lives on Monday nights on NBC with the revival of American Gladiators. This week’s semifinal pits winners from the first season in head to head competition -  with one another and with the disturbingly energetic Gladiators. Underground Printing is proud to be printing for one contestant, Michigan’s Tiffaney Florentine, through our East Lansing store location.  The 25 year old has taken on the U.S. Air Force, the CIA, and the business world, and isn’t backing down from the over-muscled challeneges she’ll face in tomorrow night’s competition. Florentine’s fans will be easy to spot in their custom printed shirts made by Underground Printing. Good Luck, Tiffaney! Assualt’s a tough event but try to get to the bean bags, they’re practically money everytime.

Fans of all ages crowded into St. Paul, MN’s Excel Energy center last weekend to take in the dulcet tones and smooth melodies of the “greatest songwriter of this or any other generation” - Mr. Neil Diamond.  Expectations were high for renditions of “Forever in Blue Jeans”, “Sweet Caroline”, and “I am, I said.”  But what the crowd (and the rest of the good people in the metro area) were not expecting was the addition of the newest Underground Printing location in the heart of their community! An excited Diamond had this to say. “You make me sing like a guitar hummin’, So hang on to me, girl, Our song keeps runnin’ on… Play it now….Play it now!”  Yeah, we were confused too.

Underground Printing Minneapolis is set to open this fall, serving the University of Minnesota’s campus from its spot on 14th Ave in Dinkytown.  For those of you familiar with the area, the new location shares a wall with the Kitty Cat Klub and Bruegger’s Bagels.  For those of you unfamiliar with the area, Dinkytown is really what it’s called, and they have a bar there called The Library, which has to be one of the better college bar names in the country.  I can’t prove that for sure. But what i do know for sure is that custom printed apparel in Minneapolis will never be the same now that Underground Printing has arrived on campus. So if you’re at the University of Minnesota, come get your custom shirts this fall at 317 SE 14th Ave! And if you’re Neil Diamond, you really should play a set live from the UGP production facility on top of the 14-Color. You may think that it’s sequins that you’re seeing on his shirt in that picture, but in actuality those are tiny beams of pure awesome.

Underground Printing Minneapolis, Before & After

UGP Minneapolis Before

So while driving on the highway last night I had an interesting encounter with a tire which renewed my faith in the awesome power of t-shirts. I ran over a random stupid tire on the off ramp because I could not swerve out of the way. The tire tore my plastic undercarriage bumper guard thing back, causing me to pull over as it was dragging and making it very difficult to steer

Unable to reattach with the plastic snaps, I went digging in my car for something to fasten the bumper to. Of course, the only thing I have in my car are massive amounts of random shirts. So I took an official UGP Kickball shirt and tied it back together:

However, I understimated my knot strength and had to readjust 15 miles down the road by tearing the sleeves off and fastening in two spots:

Moral of the story? T-Shirts really do solve all of life’s little problems.

As our friend Andy “Silent H” Hrovat prepares for his Olympic journey, you can support him and help send his family to Beijing to be a part of this amazing experience by ordering some limited edition Silent H Wrestling merch:

www.silenthwrestling.com

All proceeds go to the Andy Hrovat Olympic Fund. View some of the shirts available below. I’m feeling very Olympic today - how bout you?

The state capitals. As children, we memorize them to some peculiar tune in order to pass our U.S. Geography quiz. As adults, we praise and lament them as the source of all that is great and woeful in our state governments. For the body politic of Michigan, it’s also one more place to R-O-C-K. ( Montpelier,VT also rocks, but in its own way).

The city of Lansing, MI is preparing for this summer’s 10th Annual Common Ground Music Festival, which it will host from July 7th-13th. Scheduled to perform is a laundry list of  contemporary artists and legendary musicians. Sammy Hagar, Grand Funk Railroad, War, REO Speedwagon (request “Roll with the Changes” for us!) and Kenny Wayne Shepard will play the classics.  Snoop, Finger 11, Seether, and Staind  bring something for the younger crowd looking for their rock and hip hop fix. Trace Adkins, Lyle Lovett, and Kellie Pickler offer a little something country to the crowds, as well. There really is something for everyone at the week-long festival - even The Zombies are playing!  Yes, they’re older but they actually had that name in the ’60s, too; it’s not a literal thing.

Underground Printing was proud to print all the shirts for this year’s Common Ground Music Festival through our store location in East Lansing at 209 M.A.C. Ave. The folks at Common Ground came up with some great custom shirt designs, which they will be selling all week at the festival, as well as online. These are sure to be a hot item, so pick one up ASAP! Event shirts are a great way to remember the day you crowd-surfed to “Paralyzer”  or “Red High Heels”

NO RUNNING AROUND POOL AREA. Unless you just earned a spot on the U.S.  Olympic team headed to Beijing for the Summer Games like Underground Printing customer and friend Christina Loukas did last Saturday.  Ok even then, be careful.  For most of us, “diving” consists of cannonballs, belly flops, and the little-kid-slow-motion-fall-off-the-edge-of-the-pool.  For Christina it means crushing your competition by almost 90 points ( that’s almost 100 points ) in a commanding victory at the U.S. Olympic Trials, executing perfectly on 5 dives with a high degree of difficulty.

Christina is a senior at Indiana University in Bloomington ( home to the newest Underground Printing store location at 114 S. Indiana Ave.) and this will be her first appearance in the Olympics.  She placed first in the three-meter springboard competition at the trials, qualifying her for that event, and may also have the chance to compete in the 3 meter synchronized springboard event, which is determined later in training. If memory serves ( from when i was 10 years old) the 3 meter springboard is approximately 73 feet in the air, and I’m too chicken to bounce before i go off it.

Loukas credited part of her comfort level at the trials to the large contingent of extended family and friends who made the trip to Indianapolis to cheer her on.  They were easy to spot over the weekend, sporting their custom t-shirts for her Olympic trials . Check out the pictures below. Congratualtions to Christina for all her hard work and dedication and good luck in Beijing!!

For those of you in the Midwest looking for a summer music extravaganza that doesn’t involve the word “palooza”, this year’s Rothbury Music Festival on the shores of Lake Michigan should provide an ample solution.  Modest Mouse has joined a star-filled, talented, and eclectic mix of artists heading to Michigan’s left coast July 3-6th.  Underground Printing was excited to again print this year’s tour shirts for the band as they hit up locations around the country on their way to Rothbury.

Upon closer examination it was determined that the animal on the shirt is NOT, in fact, a mouse

A fun feature of this year’s Rothbury festvial? Open Mic, dude! Check out the details here. If you ever wanted to slam a little poetry at a room of smoked-out Dave Matthews fans, here’s your chance! Wait…hang on..apparently the Rothbury folks planned ahead, and you actually have to audition. My spoken-word rendition of Usher’s  “Love in this club” will have to wait for an audience of more refined sensibilities.

Got an RV full of people head to the festival? Make some custom shirts from Underground Printing to commemorate the trip!

If you were watching Sportscenter this morning, you probably caught Rick Reilly’s piece on the U.S. Open (he should really stick to writing) and the highlights of the Mets/Rangers double-dip (hooray for sub-.500 baseball!). What you wouldn’t have seen were highlights from last night’s dramatic U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials. Of particular note was the outcome of the 84kg weight class, where Underground Printing’s favorite freestyle wrestler, Andy “Silent H” Hrovat, defeated favored Mo Lawal to seize a berth on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team headed to Beijing. Many of us were gathered round our laptops cheering on Andy on our tiny screens (what is this, a wrestling match for ants?) as we watched the matches streamed live from Las Vegas. For those of you not as well versed in wrestling as us, Hrovat scored two field goals and got a 10 from the Russian judge in the closing seconds. Honestly, who made up the scoring for wrestling? Probably wrestlers. In reality, some stuff happened that looked really painful and hard to do, Andy rolled over Lawal a couple times, and with almost no time left pulled off a dramatic come-from-behind victory.

In all seriousness, a berth in the Olympics is the realization of years and years of hard work and discipline for Hrovat, and we’re all extremely proud of him today. Way to go Andy! We’re all packing our wheelies and heading to Beijing! Underground is working on some brand new Olympic-themed Silent H gear already, but in the meantime, check out some classic custom shirts we made for Silent H and an awesome action shot from the match yesterday. The highlights from last night’s wrestling and judo trials should be aired next Sunday at 12 pm (EST) on MSNBC.

Have you ever looked at your coffee table, surveyed your collection of periodicals, and wished the whole world could know how interested you are in people, and time, and popular mechanics? Well if you read Rolling Stone and have mainstream taste in music, your wish has been granted!  Macy’s has teamed up with the magazine to bring some of their classic covers to the t-shirt world.  The shirts will features covers with artists like Metallica, Jim Morrison, Johnny Cash, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, and The Beastie Boys (full list here).  Each $36 t-shirt comes with a free year-long subscription to the magazine. You may remember this idea from the “not scalping” tickets on Ebay plan which led to a rise in auctions of very expensive coasters and bookmarks that came with complimentary tickets to an upcoming major sporting event.  $400 for a used toothpick is pretty reasonable, let’s be honest.

Converse, a brand best know for Chuck Taylor’s hightops and helping Michael J. Fox elude 1950’s roadsters, has seized upon the resurgence of the Celtics/Lakers rivalry as an opportunity to bring us back to the 1980s and the days of Magic and Bird.

Distributed outside the arena in Boston, these vintage style shirts bring a classic look to this year’s NBA finals. Featured on the shirt is their 80’s classic shoe know only as “The Weapon”, a staple of the Celtics/Lakers clashes of yore. It doesn’t look the shirts are available on the Converse website at this time, but you can still pick up your own retro pair of The Weapon-s so you can look fly in your next game of 5 on 5. Raindance!

Hot market printing means a lot of shirts and not a lot of sleep, but following the Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup Championship last Wednesday night, that’s exactly what many members of the UGP staff found themselves doing. Following the Wings’ 3-2 victory in Pittsburgh, the Underground Printing staff hit the presses, producing thousands of shirts in just a few hours. Performance enhancing drugs in the form of energy drinks and coffee were administered as needed. No word yet as to whether Red Bull will be sponsoring future hot market printing efforts (they haven’t returned any of my phone calls). Cmon, Red Bull, everybody knows that competitive screenprinting’s the next Flugtag.

Channel 4 News Detroit came out to cover the event (video should be up as soon as we get a copy), catching the last of the shirts rolling off the dryers before the sun came up. We introduced them (and through them, the world…of SE Michigan) to how those championship shirts hit the shelves so quickly after a big game, and they introduced us to the concept of microphone holsters. they are so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

It’s Casey Kasem time at Underground Printing! This year’s Impressions Magazine national rankings came out, and UGP made the Top 40 for the first time. Impressions is the screenprinting industry’s go-to publication, so we’re proud to have moved up yet again this year in their list of top volume printers. Ranking is done by volume only, so as yet there is no BCS-like call for a playoff system. Just two years ago UGP made its debut on the list as a “One to Watch”. Not being assigned an actual number at that point, UGP awarded itself fifty second place and has thus improved 12 theoretical spots in two years. Don’t argue, the logic is ironclad. This marks a big step forward for Underground, the second straight year climbing the charts - 2007 saw UGP at number 43 - and the company anticipates exponential increases in volume for next year’s list. If you have a passion for top-volume screenprinting or just an unusual affinity for lists of things, check out the full article here

What is edun Live you ask? It is the wholesale branch of Bono and wife Ali Hewsons socially conscious clothing company. Other than the whole Bono thing, these are unique and interesting shirts for a couple reasons:

1) They are certified organic cotton shirts

2) They are 100% African - driving sustainable employment for Sub-Saharan Africa

Currently then come in three colors (white, black, and natural) for in men, ladies, and youth sizes. To learn more about Edun, check them out here: www.edun-live.com

Congrats to the Purdue Stunt and Cheer Team. Looking good!