His name is Jon Kraus ('04). He runs a progressive t-shirt business called Bleeding Hearts Club, whose self-professed mission is "Restoring Legitimacy to the T-Shirt."

Following is part one of an interview in three parts, in which he describes the beginnings of the t-shirt business - a combination of deep thought and intramural basketball.

The Cynical Romantic: How did you first get the idea for the t-shirt business?

Jon Kraus: It was actually an idea that a friend and I had upon graduation from Wesleyan. If you'll allow the brief story...

Of course.

So Bryan Bissell (aka The Boneyard) and I were members of Vlad Squad, the greatest intramural basketball team in Wesleyan history. It’s comprised of the cross country runners and the occasional track runner.

(laughs) Okay.

Our team was named in honor of Vlade Divac, iconic center for the LA Lakers and later the Sacramento Kings. Our plan was to go out to Sacramento and sell the shirts, establish ourselves as an oddball fan culture of sorts. But then he got traded back to LA, our plans were in shambles anyway, and we both stayed on the east coast.

So you were going to sell shirts that said "Vlad Squad?"

Oh, they say more than just Vlad Squad, they've also got a cool little cartoon face of Vlade. And then they have our nicknames and numbers on the back. Our alter egos, if you will…

And yours was?

Well I started out as Mr. Macphisto, who was Bono's devil-in a gold suit character during U2's Zooropa tour. I later did that costume for a few Halloweens... spray-painted a whole suit gold, glitter boots, a red tuxedo shirt, white face paint, makeup, red horns.

I see a picture...looks sort of Joker meets Grandpa Munster.

There's a bit to that, yeah, haha.... there's a little bit of Vegas-era Elvis in there, too.

Anyway, who were you in the team after Macphisto?

I was the Diddle Monster, this persona that kinda reflected my very indecisive, neurotic and rambling personality – who then was ironically numbered 3 x 10^8, the speed of light.

(laughs)

You can have ANY number on the Vlad Squad roster, it's tight. Someone was even the pi symbol.

So how did the t-shirt business emerge from all this zaniness?

Well for a while, like I said, I kept plodding along trying to concoct the Vlad Squad business. And as I did, I explored more and more avenues of T-shirt business...Union-made, sweatshop-free, USA-made, organic cotton…all these different labels that indicate ethical business, which Wesleyan kids are much more aware of than most people.

Right. American Apparel and all that.

Precisely. And at the same time, I was just in my first year out of college, coming back from a post-graduation trip to Hawaii, where I had worked on some organic farms. So I got direct exposure to the value of agriculture and sustainable, harmonious living. And to make things worse, the country is halfway through the worst presidency it's ever had.

Agreed.

And since I’m now out of college, paying a lot more attention to the world around me, it got pretty bleak. Once Bush "beat" Kerry, I guess I just got more and more into issues. I read a whole lot of news and essays. www.commondreams.org was probably my primary source…absorbing the vast diversity of issues and problems out there – global warming, the war, poverty, AIDS in Africa, you name it.

It can be overwhelming sometimes.

Yeah, if you just try and take in all that information and just process it, really internalize it, it becomes paralyzing – a position in which I found myself sometimes. But in some perverse way, this got me thinking a lot about T-shirts.

Hmmm. 

Log on in a few days for Part 2 - where Jon describes the influences of other t-shirt types on his own company, as well as offering up his thoughts on Wesleyan.

For more info on the t-shirts, visit BleedingHeartsClub.com or join the Facebook group.