His career fits him to a T

The accounting gig didn't work out. So a Clearwater man started making novelty T-shirts, and created a multimillion-dollar phenomenon.

CLEARWATER - Boys are smelly.

That's a universal truth for girls of a certain age. Or all ages, perhaps, depending on how their relationships are going.

It took a 30-something man, though, to put it on a T-shirt (with a boy stick figure he named after himself) and use it to build a multimillion-dollar multimedia business.

A business that gets requests from Cameron Diaz. And MTV. And Maxim magazine.

In less than four years.

"I just keep coming up with ideas and ideas . . ." says Todd Goldman, founder and creative force of his company, David & Goliath.

Odds are, you've seen some of these ideas, which are generated in David & Goliath's office in Clearwater. Besides "Boys are smelly" (which begat "Boys are dumb," "Boys have cooties" and "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them"), there's Goodbye Kitty. And "It's all about me." And "Auntie M: hate you, hate Kansas, taking the dog. Dorothy."

And you've seen them on more than T-shirts. There are pajamas. Watches. Socks. Mouse pads. Lip gloss. Tennis shoes. Flip-flops. Magnets. Stationery.

And coming soon, toilet paper. And sportswear.

"There's nothing that you can think of that we're not doing or talking about doing," Goldman says. "We come up with stuff every day."

David & Goliath's evolution has brought Goldman to this point: Clothes and accessories that feature 3,500 graphic designs and 40 characters. Fifty licensing agreements that produce 500 additional products. Products in 3,500 specialty stores and departments stores, including Macy's, Nordstrom and Marshall Field's. Company stand-alone stores in Hawaii and London, and 12 total to be open by year's end. Product distribution in 18 countries.

A suit from the bathing suit line made this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. One of the fame-hungry bachelorettes on the latest edition of The Bachelor was shown in one episode wearing a David & Goliath T-shirt.

Some of his ideas also have raised questions. Tolerance.org, a Web project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, has written that some of David & Goliath's designs exploit stereotypes of Asians (one novelty T is a graphic for "Sum Ting Wong Oriental Acupuncture"), and it joined the campaign against the "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" line started in January by Glenn Sacks, a commentator who hosts His Side, a weekly radio show aired in Los Angeles and Seattle.

"I'm sorry if I sound like a humorless zealot, but I just don't see the humor in it," Sacks told the Associated Press. "My 11-year-old son, whatever the joke is, he just doesn't understand it, either."

Sacks' campaign took Goldman by surprise because "Boys are stupid" has been on the market for three years.

"Gimme a break. It's a joke. It's a cartoon T-shirt," Goldman said. "Look at the lyrics of raps songs, the violence on TV, the video games kids play."

The subtitle he has assigned to his efforts is the Stupid Factory.

It's easy to look at what Goldman has done and think "I can do that." Draw a stick figure. Throw it on a T-shirt with a taunt little girls have said for ages. Or a silly play on words ("I am shellfish," with a picture of a shellfish). Or phrases we've all tossed out when we've been trying to be witty ("I'll sleep when I'm old," with a girl lowering herself from her bedroom window by a rope). Or phrases played with a twist ("Don't play well with others," with a girl stitching up a battered teddy bear).

Yes, you can do that. But you didn't.

Goldman, who turns 36 Tuesday, might have tried it sooner if he hadn't violated one of life's cardinal rules: Always listen to your mother.

The self-described life-long doodler and class clown who was born and raised in Belleair and went to Clearwater High decided not to go to art school, a move his mother suggested. Instead, he went with Dad's advice: "Go get something to fall back on."

"Accounting kind of made sense," Goldman said. "I went to accounting school. Absolutely hated it."

Still, he ended up with two accounting degrees from the University of Florida, a bachelor's and master's. ("I prolonged college as long as I could," he said.) Then he got his CPA. Then he moved to Atlanta for a job at an accounting firm. He lasted 10 months.

"I literally had a nervous breakdown," he said. What brought it on? "I had to wear a suit, and I had to shave," he said, with a sardonic laugh.

He quit, headed to Los Angeles to do the " "find myself' kind of thing," stayed 10 months doing "absolutely nothing," and moved to Miami. He worked for a real estate developer for a few years.

"Then, a friend of mine who lived in San Diego had a clothing company. He said, "Hey, we're going out of business, why don't you come out and help me with this,' " Goldman said.

"I had no idea what I was doing, but I got involved in the clothing industry. And this is how I learned the industry."

The friend's men's sportswear line eventually did go under. "My girlfriend left me. . . . All these bad things are happening. So then I decided to just get out of California and move back home," he said.

Goldman didn't know what he was going to do back in Clearwater. But he knew that he loved fashion. And he still loved to doodle.

"So I started doodling and drawing like I've always done. . . . And now I've got this crazy company."

Goldman decided to start with T-shirts. He began David & Goliath in 2000 by borrowing $250,000 from his father and opening an office in an unassuming complex of one-story brick office buildings in Clearwater.

He doodled and drew enough that he was able to put together a small catalog. He took the color photos in it. His then-wife, Ashleigh, was the cover model.

He took his efforts to sales reps, one part of the clothing business he learned in San Diego, and the reps took his items to stores. First, the stores bought (he sat by a fax machine himself waiting for orders), then the public followed.

One in particular caught on. A T-shirt with a crudely drawn image of a snapshot in which a girl and boy are standing side by side. The boy's face is scribbled out. Below the photo is one word: Ex-Boyfriend.

"That was the one that put me on the map," Goldman said. "And then "Boys are smelly.' And then "Goodbye Kitty' (a twisted take on the Japanese Hello Kitty line)."

That success got him into department stores such as Bloomingdale's and into chic and trendy young-skewing specialty stores such as Urban Outfitters.

He started attending trade shows. "I'd . . . throw out thousands and thousands of stickers. Thousands of stickers. Just to get my name out there," Goldman said. The stickers sent people to his Web site. And the stores came back to him asking, "What else do you have?"

The immediate answer: novelty pajamas. Why?

"I can't really recall what brought us to pajamas. Maybe one of our manufacturers said "Ever think of pajamas?' " Goldman said.

"Pajamas, I think, took us to the next level."

Goldman said he was able to pay back his father within six months.

It's hard to find a store that doesn't sell novelty T-shirts these days. The shirts advertise surfing schools, restaurants and bars that don't exist. They promote vacations the wearer has never taken. And there's an insult for every occasion.

"Blunt and graphic T's are really popular because teens are very comfortable sharing their opinions and feelings," Cynthia Engelke, manager of research and trends at Youth Intelligence, a marketing consulting company, told Reuters.

Teenage girls and almost-teenage girls are taking their allowance money/babysitting money/paychecks and buying David & Goliath stuff. Goldman's impact has been so strong, Brandweek magazine in April named him one of its Marketers of the Next Generation, a list of 10 executives under age 40.

Among those keeping Goldman company on the list are Avon's Doug Zarkin, Holiday Inn Express' Jennifer Zeigler and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy creator/co-executive producer David Collins.

"Todd stood out as an innovative thinker. His playful ideas, like "Boys are smelly,' resonate with young girls," Brandweek editor Karen Benezra said. "What's more, he wasn't afraid to nurture a creative idea and turn it into a retail success despite some fairly high odds."

This year Goldman expects $25-million to $40-million in sales of T-shirts and other products that come out of the Clearwater office, and $50-million through his licensing agreements. Next year he expects to double that.

Also in Clearwater are six warehouses for products to serve David & Goliath's smaller stores, and an office for Internet orders and accounting. A warehouse in Los Angeles serves the department stores.

Ready to be mailed to 24-million teenagers whose names he bought from magazine subscription lists is a lingerie catalog. This fall he's going on a book tour to promote the upcoming Boys are Stupid book, written in Dr. Seuss-like fashion. (It got "really positive reaction" at the 2005 BookExpo America this month, Goldman said.) In the planning stages is a Stupid Factory cartoon for TV with all his characters: Trendy Wendy, Eve L., Todd, Bonita Styles . . .

That will change the way the company operates, Goldman says.

"We turned down one of the major fast-food chains to have our toys in it. It's too mass. We cannot be a mass yet," he said. "We have to stay a little bit underground, a little bit obscure. . . . Once you go mass, and that will happen, as soon as the cartoon releases, we'll go more mass. It's just our marketing strategy.

"All these big stores, Kohl's and Mervyn's and JCPenney's, they all want the line, but we can't because as soon as everyone can have it, then you're not special anymore.

"It's a really hard decision when people are throwing crazy (money) numbers at you."

One day last month Goldman is sitting in his cluttered office wearing ragged-hemmed olive green shorts from Abercrombie & Fitch, a light green T-shirt (not by David & Goliath) and flip-flops (not by David & Goliath). And stubble.

In another room are five artists he hired about a year ago - recent graduates of the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota - after doing all the creative work himself since the company started. "This room right here controls everything that's created for David & Goliath," Goldman points out.

That's not to say there haven't been problems. The company has grown too quickly, Goldman said, and it has experienced some growing pains - issues with licensees and shipping. "We've lost some control. Now we're trying to take it back," he said.

The Sacks campaign against the "Boys are stupid" line has had some effect as well. Some of the department stores pulled that design but continue to carry other items. Other stores still carry "Boys are stupid," which is David & Goliath's No. 1 selling T-shirt on the Internet.

"I don't care if every single store drops "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them.' I don't care," Goldman said. "Because I know there's still a market for it. I see the notes I get. I see what people are buying online. I see what they want in the store."

And from where he sits in the cluttered office in Clearwater, he believes there always will be a market for what he does. Because there always will be girls who think boys are smelly.

"And as soon as that girl gets too old for "Boys are smelly,' she's got a little sister right behind her."

- Sharon Fink can be reached at 727 893-8525 or fink@sptimes.com