4 years ago my younger brother stepped foot onto the University of Maryland as a wide-eyed freshmen.  I was jealous--as he was about to embark on a new set of experiences that would define his future.  He was prepared--with a suitcase full of Crooked Monkey t-shirts.  Day one--he chose an original classic, our "My Roommate is gay" t-shirt.  That's the shirt that clothed him as he stepped into his dorm for the first time, and met his unsuspecting roommate.   They had a good laugh and became close friends.  Throughout the years my brother sported countless other tees, and became known as the dude with the greatest wardrobe on campus. People would come up to him to see what shirt he was wearing on any given day.

As you can imagine, he's got loads of funny episodes with Crooked Monkey t-shirts.  One night out at the bars, the girl he was hanging out with made him turn his "No one's ugly after 2 am" shirt inside out as the clock struck 2 am.

Last week was somewhat of a sad and nostalgic day for him.  He graduated.  So he pulled out the t-shirt that he was holding onto for exactly this occasion.  Our "Never Leave College" John Belushi tribute shirt.  That slogan was our company's original rallying cry. Having just left, we created this company to "Never Leave College."

What a way to bookend college.  Way to live the dream.

Summer Cold's suck. School's out, my friends are playing in the sprinklers, and I'm stuck inside trying to beat back a cold.

I've taken pride in my new found ability to beat/fight/lessen the severity of the common cold.  I've gotten so good at it, I'd like to share my non-scientific pieces of advice with you.

When you notice the cold is coming--I always get a little bit of phlegm in the throat, and an overall uneasiness in the throat area--you gear up for war.  Go to the store, get some Zinc (in the form of Zycam or coldeez or whatever you like), some tea, some honey, airborne pills (if you're into them), and nyquil.  I like to keep the medication as natural as possible, but when you're hot and cold, and your nose is running through the night, you need some nyquil to put you to bed.

Now that you're ready for world war 3, you drink lots and lots of water and hot tea (with honey).  As much water as you can.  The fluids are integral.  That's the other great thing about airborne pills--they encourage you to drink more water. Throughout the day take some zinc and the airbornes. Get a lot of rest.  At night take the nyquil.  Wake up and do it all over again. Drink drink drink.

That night, take nyquil again and you should be fine by the next morning.  Maybe take an airborne for good measures.  And continue to drink water.  Then, when you're feeling good about yourself, and the cold is on its way out the door, give it a nice boot through the exit door.  Go work out and sweat out the cold.  That's my favorite thing to do.  Then take a shower.  You'll feel like a million bucks.

And when it's all done, reward yourself.  You've just gone to battle with the oldest warrior on the planet.  Go buy yourself an awesome t-shirt.

As the original gangsters/rioters, us Terps have a lot to offer these Egyptians.  We could do some cultural exchanges--they can show us how to build pyramids, we'll show them how to riot properly.

Which brings me to my next point--Obama and the state department have shown tacit approval for these riots, while still supporting Mubarak.  I hope that Gary Williams and the UMD administration are taking notes--you too can support and encourage our riots while maintaining a bit of distance from them.  That's the least they could do for us after we got the university national notoriety and features on ESPN.

Terps, on to Route 1.  Fuck Duke.

Crooked Monkey moved offices about three years ago. And by "offices" I mean basements--we moved from my former business partners basement... to my mom's basement.

Just last week, my former partner's mom was reorganizing, and called me to pick up some Crooked Monkey boxes. It took me about a week to find time to head over there, but when I did it was like going back in time.

Heading down the staircase brought memories of a nascent company looking to find its voice amongst the throng of t-shirt companies. Swinging open the doors to the basement door, I flashbacked to the dog days of cold calls and 2 PM happy hours. Of long road trips to Chicago and of Crooked Monkey Hotties.  Of "Fuck Duke" and Cease and Desist Letters.  Of "Party with the Monkey" and of brainstorming sessions into the wee hours of the morning. Of being a budding Entrepreneur, living in my parents house and sleeping on friends couches, with wide eyes and the naivete to push forward--against the odds.

I haven't looked through all the boxes yet, but I'm excited to. It's like a time capsule--a window into the beginnings of the Crooked Monkey brand.

Guest blog by Dr. Mark Drapeau, originally posted on BrianSolis.com, about our Photoshoot at the Warehouse:

I hadn’t heard of the popular t-shirt company Crooked Monkey until I was invited to an exclusive party they recently held. You see, even though they get great press from actors wearing their shirts in movies and magazines talking about their fashion styles, Crooked Monkey is based in Washington, DC – not widely known as the fashion capital of the country. And they wanted to do some local brand building.

This wasn’t just any party. Sure, there were attractive guests in a cool setting with great drinks and music all the usual stuff. It was what they did differently that made it the most memorable event Ive been to in a long time.

Lets start with how I even found out about the event – a secretive email from someone I didn’t know telling me that my friend recommended me as a guest for the event. This is somewhere in between Facebook and Eyes Wide Shut. Then, a request for my home address, to which was mailed a package containing an envelope with a paper invitation, and also a sparsely decorated white t-shirt, which I was required to save for the party two months later and bring with me to gain admittance. Finally, a bag of tart banana candies finished the package.

Further inspection revealed that the event was on a Sunday night (no night is safe from parties!) at a secret location to be given to us later. Keep in mind that I dont know the person behind the party, nor the other guests, and now also not the location. Still later I discovered by email invitation that the event would be in a warehouse in a not-so-savory part of Washington, DC and that we MUST bring our white t-shirts because wed be doing something with them on the night of the event.

When the day of the event came, I really couldn’t stand not knowing anything! I texted the contacts I had for the event to ask questions, but they revealed little. I emailed some socialite friends to try to figure out who else would be there we knew it would be all tastemakers of different sorts, but no one really knew who was going, which was exciting. I used Google Maps to investigate the location of the warehouse. I stressed about what one wears to such events (I think I chose well!).

Even the party itself was very engaging. An artist created a mural from our white t-shirts that we used for entry right in front of our eyes. An old-fashioned photo booth let us take pictures with each other, and the photo strips had (what else?) a Crooked Monkey logo on them. Even the name of the event Photoshoot at the Warehouse gave the party an active quality.

Do you detect a pattern here? Crooked Monkey kept busy, elite attendees who get invited to tons of events mentally engaged with their event for weeks. They made us part of telling their story. They got us to talk about their brand before, during, and after the event. And in the end, the event delivered with a cool venue, outstanding bar, fun atmosphere, and lots of fashion.

Photoshoot at the Warehouse is a great example of putting the public back in public relations and brand engagement. How great? Im writing an entire post about them – and I dont even like wearing t-shirts!

This post originally appeared on Brian Solis’ PR 2.0 site.

Once or twice a year my apartment complex slips the dreaded "Apartment inspection" note under our door. We usually have Seven days to prepare our house for inspection.

It's not the college dorm room inspection--where they're looking for drugs, alcohol, and toaster ovens. This is the next version--they look for cats, dogs, and BBQ grills. We've got the latter.

It's a huge BBQ, like 4 Ft high, 6 Ft wide and 3 Ft wide. So its a real work of art hiding this thing. To successfully hide it from the authorities, we turned to the best. We took notes from Elliot, who hid E.T. in a closet filled with trinkets and blankets.
We got very creative with our disguise--starting off with a blanket to fully cover the monster. Then we added two duffel bags flanking the grill, a 37" TV box, a fold up mattress, golf clubs, and silverware. The goal is to make the closet look like such a mess that no one in their right mind would enter into the room. When everything was finished, we sprinkling dirty laundry on top of everything--a few socks and underwear--to really add to the exhibit.

And to top it off, we made sure my bed was real nice and messy which really enhanced the overall image.

As it turns out, my roommate Eddie is good friends with the inspection dude. So the guy knocked on the door, asked if we were housing pets, we answered no, and he went on his way.

Since news broke of Michael's passing I have been teary eyed and at a loss for words. I never got to see him in concert but watched him on TV whenever I got a chance. I did have the pleasure of videotaping his Madison Square Garden Concert, and watching it over and over again. I put my favorite video of his below, Smooth Criminal.

He loved his fans more than anything else in the world. That kind of mutual love--between an icon and his fans--is so rare. But now we are left to mourn alone.

He was planning a huge concert series in London. Turns out he was just practicing for his debut with God.

RIP Michael.

History repeats itself. Just usually its hundreds of years later, not 15 months later.

When Governor Spitzer resigned from office last March because of his lust for Prostitutes, Crooked Monkey produced the "I'm not a governor, i just like hoes t-shirt." It was a huge hit, but the moment was short-lived.

Well yesterday we were excited to hear that Governor Mark Sanford joined the ranks of Governors who love hoes. I'm not sure who went to greater lengths to secure a Crooked Monkey shoutout--Spitzer for spending tens of thousands of dollars, or Sanford for going A-wall for 5 days--but regardless they both earned it.

Ironically enough, yesterday monring, I decided to wear the Governor shirt, long before news broke of Governor Sanford's infidelities. After hearing the news, I was beside myself. A modern day prophet? That's for the history books to decide.

Crooked Monkey was the first business to ever use Facebook. We launched in the summer of 2005, just when Facebook was hitting the college scene in a big way. Back then, Facebook was much different. There was no tagging of pictures, no fan pages, and no global groups. You could only view profiles of other students who attended your school.

But somehow, even with all those restrictinos, we created 20 "Crooked Monkey Hotties" groups at campuses across the country. We had over 4,000 beautiful women, spread across the USA who were part of our group. I still meet people today who tell me that they are part of that elite group. What a legacy.

It wasn't easy to accumulate all those groups and hotties. We had to borrow our friends usernames and password, create the groups, and then find hot girls on campuses to join the groups. How did we do this? Since we didn't actually know anyone on that campus, we had to be quite wily. We searched hot names, like Heather, Melissa, Kirsten--don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. We also searched thru the good looking sororities--those are obvious. And then we sent out the invitations--and voila 20 Campus groups with at least 200 of the hottest girls on campus all clamoring to be Crooked Monkey Hotties.

4 years later, Facebook makes our lives a lot easier. We have a universal fan group and are not forced to commandeer our friend's logins. Our Fan group now is a lot better--everyone's invited, we run promotions and contests, and let you know about new t-shirts. So join it, and make our life easier.

The stock market soared over 1,000 points last month. Unemployment numbers have stopped their downward spiral, and the overall sentiment is that this recession is almost over.

Time to start making fun of that lame ass recession. We came out with four recession t-shirts. This shirt, Broke is the new Black is one of my favorites. Playing on the "(Insert word here) is the New Black" phenomenon this shirt lets people know that it's hip to be broke. Long gone are the days of flaunting your money and proclaiming that you're frivolously spending cash.

Our Recession tees are only $19.99. Enjoy them.