About Us

This page is dedicated to you, curious individual!

By clicking on the link to this page it shows that you care enough to wonder what goes on behind the scenes at SmartTorso.com.

Thank you.

If you are here because you clicked on a link by accident, this page is NOT dedicated to you. (But you’re welcome to read it anyway, because we at Smart Torso respect the clumsy, and feel that you should have rights just like all the real people.)

       

Hi, my name is Jim, and I run SmartTorso.com.

I manage the website, run the ad campaigns, take care of problems, and have the air of authority that makes people respect me and do what I say. I live and work in Utah, the shirts are manufactured in Canada, screen printed in North Carolina, and individual orders are shipped from a facility in Texas. We all try to make everything work seamlessly so you, dear customer, only have to worry about how fabulous you will look in your clever apparel.

How Smart Torso began

In December of 2005 I was all alone, with only ideas for funny shirts to keep me company. I submitted those ideas to most of the big funny tee shirt sites, all of which promptly never wrote me back. So I thought I’d just make them myself. Since I didn’t know anything about making shirts, I went online to do some research. Following a quick search on Google, I found that there were hundreds of sites that had pictures of naked women.

Although this didn’t directly help me, it did fuel my desire to make comfortable, yet clever shirts for the world, so that these poor women would be able to clothe their upper bodies in something warm – preferably something in pre-shrunk high quality 100% cotton with double stitching at the seams. (My heart was especially moved when, upon very close inspection of the photos, I realized that these poor topless women must be cold. Or at least in a slightly chilly room.)

Then I found a site that sold me a professional silkscreening press, which was a lot more helpful.

Up until the end of 2007, I printed and shipped all shirts myself in a home business tax-write-off kind of way. It was a good, small little side business, and I enjoyed interacting with the customers and the artistic fun of handling the ink and press myself. In January 2008, I decided that it was time to expand and get more people on board the team. I decided to do this for two reasons:

1. The site was doing well, and that kept me happy, but gave me many a busy night.
2. My military unit was called up to go to Afghanistan, and I
   Since I had just finished a tour in Iraq in 2005, I was off the hook.

   But after mulling it over I decided that it was the right place for me to be, so I said I’d go on this tour with them.

   I also turned down a $180k/year contracting job to deploy.

   Good hell, what WAS I thinking?

   volunteered to go with them.

So I started contacting potential business partners, made some phone calls, and ended up with a network of happy people that I’m glad to work with.

The reason my base never gets attacked is because I repel all the Taliban with sheer badassery.

Now I’m in Afghanistan. I do my soldierly duties by day, and at night I take care of this fun and exciting business. It sure beats spending my free time looking at the rocks or re-watching the movies I brought with me.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would lose brand recognition.”

-The Bible.

This site used to be called EsotericTees.com. Since about 60% of the population didn’t know what that meant, or had a vague understanding of it but didn’t see how it related, I had this little cartoon on every page:

That took care of web traffic, but not people that I dealt with professionally, or people who came up to customers and said “That’s funny. Where’d you get that?”

So after two and a half years of re-hashing the same conversation, this site sponsored a contest to come up with a new name, and in July of 2008 SmartTorso.com was launched.

You sound like an interesting person, Jim. Why don’t you tell us more about yourself?

Gosh, really? I feel so embarrassed. I usually don’t ‘talk myself up’ much.

Well, I guess since you asked it would be impolite not to answer.

So yeah, when I’m not running this site I fill up my schedule by fighting for freedom as a Noncommissioned Officer in the United States Army. I’ve been in the Army since March 1994, and although military life and I aren’t a perfect match , I keep re-enlisting because I believe in what I do.

And quite frankly, I feel that I do what I do pretty damn well.

I'm a Standup Comic, but just as a hobby. I have had a few paying gigs, but most of the time I just go to open mic night in comedy clubs and hang out with the other comedians. A friend of mine posted a video of me onto YouTube a few years back.

Feel free to contact/stalk me at myspace.com/jimbarlow or facebook. Or you can use the handy-dandy form on the Contact Us page. That goes directly to me.