DANCE PARTY USA NEW YEARS EVE

If you haven't started stretching, you better get with the program, because DANCE PARTY USA NEW YEARS EVE is just a few days away, and the last thing you'd want is to cap off 2008 by pulling a groin in the middle of your hottest dance routine.

Flatform will be pumping out the hottest tunes, the SMASH team and friends will be passing out a champagne toast at midnight, attractive boys and girls will be ready to suck face with those of you who don't have a date (that one may not actually be true, but we will have free wristbands), and Deo will be over at the bar pumping out the vibe.

DANCE PARTY USA NEW YEARS EVE
The Vaudeville Mews on 4th Street
10pm till 2am (after party to be announced)
$10 at the door

AFTER CHRISTMAS SALE AT SMASH

Will this shirt be on sale? come and find out!

Do you think thoughtless shopping stops with Christmas? Of course not, this is America! To help move things along, SMASH will be putting some stuff on sale after Christmas. "What will be on sale?" you ask. We haven't figured it out yet, that's what the hour before we open is for.

We'll be open 11am till 7pm the day after Christmas and then open again from 11am till 7pm on Saturday. So you have no excuse not to drop by and spend money like it'll be worth 1/3 of its value by Valentine's Day!

mikeD'S REFLECTIONS ON 2008

So, 2008 is almost in the history books, and it's right about now that I start reflecting on the year, on the upcoming 2009, on my burgeoning addiction to "The Bad Girls Club" on W.E., on why I woke up on Tuesday in a tan 1991 Mercury Tracer with a pair of leopard print undies on my head .... you know, the usual.

So, I look at the turmoil our country is in, and I ask myself: Mike, where did our country go wrong? Was it because: A) we had become a nation addicted to shopping and credit cards? B) our manufacturing industry had slowly shriveled, being replaced by an expanding financial sector that no longer just managed money, but rather concocted complex, non-transparent financial vehicles whose values were determined by a shaky housing market? Or C) people didn't buy enough t-shirts?

The answer is C.

I mean, what do all those guys pulled before Congress to testify about our economy's collapse have in common besides Leer jets, houses in Fairfield County Connecticut, and a tendency to eat puppies for weekend fun?

SUITS AND TIES!

That's right, not ONE of those guys' work uniforms is a t-shirt, and if they had been, maybe we would have avoided this whole mess. A t-shirt is lightweight, comfortable, button-less, and it doesn't carry that same "Master of the Universe" or "On My Way to My Indictment" look that a suit does. We at SMASH wear t-shirts every day, and we're happy with a simpler life of screenprinting, designing, and looking good. There's no way someone in a t-shirt would have come up with "Credit Default Swaps" or "Complex Financial Derivatives", those things sound like they wouldn't leave enough time for trying to take the Tampa Bay Buccaneers all the way to the championship on Nintendo's Super Tecmo Bowl.

So, for 2009, let's all try and relax a little bit. Everyone just stop by SMASH (either in real life or virtually), grab as much 100% pre-shrunk cotton you can get your arms around, and give us your disposable income. At the very least, you'll know that we won't turn around and put that money into expensive lobbying firms. Rather, it'll go toward chillin' by the pool and hoping for world peace. So, the decision is yours.

jen's REFLECTIONS on mikeD'S REFLECTIONS ON 2008

As the new self-appointed editor in chief of SMASH news, I'm going to have to take issue with mikeD's reflection, not due to the content, but his liberal use of commas and the word "so." Is there some kind of rehab for punctuation addiction?

Now I'd like to share with all of you my own personal t-shirt testimony. Before I accepted the job at SMASH, my t-shirts were stuck in the back of my closet. I wore velour jump suits with questionable words printed across the back of my pants. When I wasn't trapped wearing pantsuits in the corporate jungle, I was running around in sequin tank tops and mini skirts. I had an outfit to match each of my Louis Vitton purses and that is A LOT of outfits! SMASH saw past my sub par wardrobe and invited me to be a part of Des Moines t-shirt culture. There was an extensive interview process that left mikeD in tears on one occasion (pictured above) and I finally joined the team after being wooed and taken along on an elaborate corporate retreat in Cabo. It was there that the SMASH team truly bonded as they draped me in plush American Apparel brand cotton. Who knew such a life changing ritual could be performed with an $18 t-shirt? Since that get-away, not a day goes by that I don't wrap myself in SMASH's finest t's. I am now financially secure. I am emotionally healthy, considering. My social status is continually climbing. I love my t-shirts. I love my life.

THE OTHER CITIES IN IOWA DESIGN COMPETITION

As you probably know, we at SMASH not only have the Des Moines t-shirt market cornered, we've got it on the ground, exhausted, briefly pausing while we climb to the ropes and prepare a flying elbow.

But what about all those other cities in our great state? WE'VE GOT NOTHIN'!

So we're reaching out to you: the general public. The same people who came up with mob mentality and the election of George W Bush.

If you have a good design idea for another Iowa city, you can submit it online and collect $150 if we pick it. That's right: $150! But you better hurry, since at the rate the economy is plummeting, that will only be worth $3.65 by February.

To submit ideas or to read the rules, just click here.