dead old blog

A week ago my buddy Kiya had a grand opening party for his new store Self Edge. Self Edge is a high end denim store, the name is derived from the term selvage.

I had been feeling like I had been lagging behind in crafts, so I decided to challenge myself to a new project for the party. I had found a nice pair of blue jeans on my doorstep, so using my design for my Fat Tie Hats, I made some Blue Jean Hats.

The denim was fantastic to work with, especially after working with ties for so long. I used the pocket lining for the inside of the hat and the linen under the brim. On one hat I used the coin pocket from the pants. On the other hat I added some of the belt loops from the pants and added a belt.

Although cutting the fabric patterns was easy, I had to relearn my stitching. I had good needles for denim, but the thread just didn't seem to being pulling through right. After a while I got the hang of it though. I did the initial stitches with a darker thread that wouldn't show up on the material, then after the hat was almost fully constructed I added the golden thread.

Check out the cool gold denim stitches, in particular around the brim where the parallel line split. I usually adorn my hats with a beautifully embroidered Something New Something Old logo, but being that denim is hard enough to work with as is, I would like to come up with a different way to emblazon my logo on these hats.

Even though there was plenty of life to the material, when I finished the hats I thought they looked a little to dull and not aged enough so I distressed them myself using a nail file. I focused at any areas where aging might natural occur and along seams. That faded areas really gave a higher contrast to the material and helped "define" the form of the hats. I might write a little piece about how to distress denim next week if people are interested.

Labels: crafts

I'm watching the "breaking story" regarding the cartoonist that stormed the Miami El Nuevo Herald with a gun and just noticing how the 24 hour cable tv news handles it. When the news is unknown, the stations obviously try their hardest to fill the gaps by making up their own news. On CNN a reporter is walking up to bystanders asking "You work at the Miami Herald, do you know anything about the gunman inside?" "Look, I don't want to talk right now, please don't film me." "So, you don't know the gunman or editor?" "I don't want to talk right now, all I know is that I have many friends still inside." "So, we were told that the Miami Herald has told it's employees not to talk to the media, is that why are not commenting?" "No man, I don't know anything about that, I just don't want to talk to you right now. I have nothing to say."

Depending on the channel the gunman is either carrying a shotgun, a machine gun, or as a female CNN anchor reports a "laser gun".

As she was talking to the Miami Chief of Police she said "So reports say that the cartoonist stormed the building with a laser gun, is this what your officers have found?" "Uh, no, we believe that he may have a laser sight mounted on his machine gun... but not a laser gun."

Which is a shame really. A bitter cartoonist with a laser gun would make a really cool comic book.

The best Thanksgiving dinner that I ever had was in a Ryan’s Steak House in Chatanooga, TN. Ryan’s is a buffet chain, like Bonanza and Western Sizzler. Lots of buffet tables, jello salads, cheap pasta dishes, and a guy at the end of the buffet with a big knife asking “Turkey or steak?”.

I wen’t with my roommate, Dwight. He had an abusive father and a family who didn’t help him escape that situation, so the “turkey day with the family” wasn’t an option for him.

I myself don’t typically celebrate Thanksgiving either, but we both felt kind of obligated to get out of the house and do something, so we took a trip to Ryan’s Buffet right as they where opening.

We brought a chessboard.

It was the best Thanksgiving meal I had ever had.

We ate ham and jello, played monstrous games of chess, and consumed as much sweet tea as humanly possible. I wouldn't have tried it for all the tea in china (which presumably would be unsweetened).

My traditional holiday fair would be me and my folks going to Shoney's Dinner for the evening. Mom would complain about sitting beneath the air vent so we would move, then she would fidget more and complain about being too close to the door so we would move again. Dad and I would rarely bother opening up a menu or sometimes even taking a seat until mom seemed completely settled in at a table she could approve of. Afterwards, we would usually drive to Columbia TN (30 miles away) and see a movie.

I don't think I had had a fancy Thanksgiving meal between the ages of 14 to 25. In 2002 I had dinner with my friend Matt's parents. Matt was an awesome dude, but had the weirdest parents you could imagine. They where very religious, right wing, conservatives.... that clung on to odd new age belief systems and only ate meat that they "hunted" themselves. For some religious reason they didn't eat sugar, something meant to do with sugar raisers worshiping the devil. The turkey was fantastic, however the pumpkin pie was bitter and nasty. To make up for the lack of sugar, his parents sweetened the dessert with raisins. Raisins!

Tonight Shan and I went to dinner with her folks. We ate at a fancy restaurant in San Mateo. A martini, three hours, four courses and a few minor arguments later we left the joint and caught a movie. So, turkey in a restaurant followed by a movie.. my traditional Thanksgiving evening.

We saw Stranger than Fiction and I bawled my eyes out, I ain't gonna lie. We'll not really bawled, but I did cry, what a fantastic fucking movie. Especially after the slew of films I've been dissapointed with lately. Finally I can like that actress, Maggie-whats-her-name. Good times.

My studio session wen't really swell today. I posted a new song called Sicko on DrownRadio.com.

Read more info about Sicko here

Neat, a few months ago I wrote about the Dana Countryman and Jean Jacques Perrey show in SF. Well, Dana has just posted a pic of me from the LA show and a link to DrownRadio.com

That's just too nifty.

This morning started with a trip to Ritual Roasters, mainly to work on beats on my laptop.

Hood's "The Lost You" was blasting, and I was in a great mood when the cashier asked what I'd like.

"A large latte and a bagel with cream cheese." I said.

"Which type of bagel?"

"Just a regular one".

He grabbed the tongs and proceeded to grab a plain bagel, but stopped short and said "Uh, I'm sorry, I can't tell which one is a 'regular' bagel."

"One without blueberries or onions" I said. He starred blankly, so I added "a plain bagel".

"Oh, PLAAAAIN".

So, that was annoying, but after he rung me up he decided to bring it up again.

"I would have a hard time distinguishing a regular bagel from any other kind." He said.

I couldn't believe he was going to continue on this shit. "You mean it never occurred to you that I was asking for a plain bagel? You don't think that the words "plain" and "regular" are somewhat close?"

"Nope. None of the bagels have 'regular' written on the signs."

"None of them have a sign at all."

"Well, I just wouldn't know what a regular bagel was."

Seriously, shut up. You know how comic book and music nerds get really high and mighty about petty music trivia? I never thought I'd meet a bagel snob.

I spent most of the day at 826 Valencia yesterday, having a good time and getting stuff done. In the morning I illustrated a children's story involving rocketships, martians, and a 100 foot giant super computer with spikes named Gina. (Yes I did remember to take my name tag off.)


I came back to 826 later that evening for our pirate craft night event. There where about 20 people there, making peg legs, eye patches, and pirate hooks. Good times.

I brought my sewing machine and showed the basics of pirate patch upholstery, and of course I brought plenty of scrap tie fabrics. We made 15 "tie patches" that I believe the store will sell for $10 each. I'm really happy with my embroidered ones, but some of the other ones turned out specatucalarly.

Labels: crafts

A few weeks ago I blogged about my buddy Dan coming to SF and doing a podcast with me.

I just wanted to update the links since he's moved his servers.

The video is here.

The audio is here.

It was fun, we drank absinthe, talked about Fat Tie Hats, and sexy parties.

Dan frequently updates his 40's Over 40 podcasts on his site www.MoreFog.com

Thanks for checking out my site. Please note that this blog has moved to www.DocPop.org. So please come over to the new site to see my new crafts, or you can find the "Fat Tie Hats" entry here.


I'm sure a lot of ya'll remember the blogs I wrote many months ago about John and Fony Hats. John's work really got me into hats (go figure, a middle aged balding guy getting into men's head wear...), but shortly after John and I first met he had to leave town for a while. Many months passed without being able to get in touch with him and people were contacting me about where to get cool hats in the city so I decided to try my hand making hats.

I loved John's hats, but of course I wanted to do something entirely different than what he made, so I drew up some patterns and got to work. I knew from the start I wanted to make the hats out of recycled clothes and I've always had a penchant for cravats, so making Fat Tie Hats was the obvious choice.


A lot of folks tend to be surprised that I can get an entire hat out of just one tie, but I've been re-making ties enough to know that when you open the seam on one, there is a lot of material inside. Still, I've gotta work the patterns pretty efficiently to get a tie out.


So obviously the front of the tie is the main fabric I use, but I also try to use the inside lining of the tie (usually a solid color thin polyester) as the lining underneath the bill of my hat.


For the size adjuster on the back of the hat, I use the original tag off of the tie. This solved a few problems and more importantly looks cool as hell. Some of the tags on old ties are gorgeous and deserve more attention for their eye for detail.


I've scratched my older production moniker of Better Sleep, and have decided to work my crafts under the name SNSO (for Something New Something Old).


A couple of local stores will be carrying these hats, but for now you can only either get them through me directly or Miranda's shop on 14th and Valencia (in San Francisco). Miranda also worked on our costumes for Master Of Champions, she's the bomb. I imagine these would make a killer Father's Day gift..

Here are some gratuitous pictures of some of the work done so far. Notice that sexy embroidery along the sides? No, I don't have a programmable machine. These where all down freehand on my [girlfriend's] Necchi. As part of my philosophy of working with as much of the tie as possible, I like to try to work the embroidery into the existing patterns. The red hat is a pretty decent example of that:


Ties are for nerds

My booth at the Lower Haight Street Fair. Shirts, comics, cds, and now hats! At the end of the day one dude came by and bought these two beauties and one more not pictured.

Members of SCOW (Sewing Crafting On Wednesday) model. Rachel, Matt, Bethanne, and Shan.

Labels: crafts

My buddy Mike just gave me a great gift after this week's Cartoonists Conspiracy.

It's a 12 pound ball of ties. I haven't tried to guess exactly how many ties could be in it, but it seems to be a solid ball of ties (not just ties wrapped around a basketball... Or a bowling ball or something.)

Apparently he found it in the Haight last Saturday and knew it would be perfect for me because of all the necktie projects I've been into lately.

I've been working on a clothing line of sorts that are fully constructed from cravats and I'm hoping to post a collection of pieces on Monday or Tuesday. I've been working my ass off on 'em and finally feel up to showing the results.

As for the 12 pound big ass ball of ties... My plans are to first use it for window displays that love and carry my stuff... Then after using them to whore out my product, I'll hopefully start to run low on my very very large collection of ties at home, so I'll start whittling down the ball to it's very core.

I like to imagine the center tie as being a real gem... Like gold and silk threads and really fucking fat and wide... Lot's of material to work with. It'll probably be some icky black skinny tie though.

This is the first in what might be an ongoing autobiographical cartoon and personal writing project. I had always joked that when they make the story of my life, "Rad Hair Day: The Life and Times of a Professional Hair Model" would be an awesome name. Of course Tom Cruise would play the lead.

Click the image larger view.

Here are some illustrations from today's volunteer storytelling at 826 Valencia. The kids where from Nueva Elementary School and the story was about a cow and a penguin searching for the mystical purple coconut. In order to find it and the evil water bottle pirates that gaurd some great treasure, the pair have to travel to skate parks and bust certain bmx combos. I had a fun time illustrating it, but it was one of the more tedious writing sessions I've been in on. Of course Mrs. Blue rejected my ending today.. again.



and of course I wore my eyepatch.

Wow, this Tiger Slug mating ritual documentary is actually... really neat!

I’ve put a new song on myspace, I don’t imagine it will be up too long but I wanted to share it for a bit.

It’s called a Mechanic Of Bodies and while it’s on my myspace page you can download it through this link.

Musically, the singing is a bit flat… The music is built with a guitar, musical saw, mouth harp, and Yamaha PSS 140.

Lyrically, this is hard because I never like to talk about my more personal songs, but I guess it’s about my grandmother who recently passed away. The song was written and recorde within a few hours of arriving back home from attending her funeral. Both of my grandmothers lived very long lives, but spent many of their last years in poor health… Sort of waiting to die I guess is what I’m saying. This song is simply about that time, not really pushing a point, just thinking about it. The power of a doctor to fight for an elderly person’s life, even if the life is nothing more than technically alive. Not something easy to think about, I just wanted to get some stuff out of my head.

I'm helping out with a pirate craft fair thing at 826 Valencia. I'm getting a bunch of local designers together to work on customizing pirate eye patches for it, so I put together my very first instructable on how to re-make an eye patch using ties or whatever other scrap you have lying around.

Read it here.

Labels: crafts