Trenchdesign

usb ports are the new castors.

2011-10-31T00:06:00.000-07:00

Where was I?

I was making chocolate.

That is what happens when Ikea decides to sell a side table for $3.99. People like me start doing things like this. Thank you Ikea!! After making chocolate the other day, as I licked the back of my neck clean, it struck me that I could never do that with epoxy and sawdust! Chocolate may well be the best medium in the world. It sounds impossible for one medium to be better than another medium by definition but chocolate has pleasantly defiant aspects and this is one of them.

I know a thing or two about medium. One semester in college I got my report card and had five 'C's. No pluses and no minuses. I couldn't believe it either. Someone once told me that the coach only notices the first guy and the last guy but without the 'C', greatness and failure are like the walls of a deflated balloon: Undefined and flapid.

As I make the transition from whatever I was doing before, to making chocolate, I realize that my departure might not have such a huge effect on things. So little so, as a matter of fact, that it inspired a proposal. I propose a moratorium on all furniture design and manufacture! Enough is enough! Unless you have something really sick to add to the pile, go do something else. Put a usb port in it and call it done.

No more interestingly paired materials and surprising transitions. No more architectural stacks and broken planes. No more coldhouse porn regurgitated Dwell stainless furry fastened knockdown ice cube cozy cowhide bullshit! Enough!!!

My advice to you is to go to the vintage store and buy some used furniture. Get something good. There is plenty of good furniture out there and we don't need more.

I am including stuff made from reclaimed wood or recycled materials. No nothin'.

People who are good at furniture would also be good at other things. If you know anyone like this, encourage them to figure out what that is and to go do it. It will be better that way. Come on, no new furniture for one stinkin' year.

Are you with me?

Where Can I Get My Giddy Switch Tightened?

2011-06-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

I got a call from a buddy and he set me up with a tiny gig. Get, crate and ship a painting for a guy back east. This guy's x wife had this painting that he painted back in the 60's. I think they have been divorced for a long time and she has had the painting for something like 30 years. He likes it and wants it back. There used to be another one that was green and said something like "red red red" on it in green but it got lost. I know. How do you lose a painting that big?

It is a big 6'x6' red canvas with the word 'green' written in red on the red background.

I grabbed the giant painting and got it home like Jed Clampett meets Sanford and Son. You try driving on the highway with a giant 6'X6' floppy ass kite covered in cardboard boxes that had been patched together with 30 year old tape in a little Japanese sewing machine pick up truck.

It turns out that the guy who painted it is involved with a fancy gallery in NYC and this crate was going to his house.

I made the crate for it and I stepped back and thought about this opportunity. I called Ruppert and told him the story and said that if he wanted, he could come over and paint something on the crate but he had to do it instantly. He rode his bike over and knocked this out with the dregs of paint we found in my garage (not bad pickin's) and some borrowed colors from the woman who lives across the street. The brush he used was fashioned from a tuft of dry aged nostril hair, gum and a doll arm.

Conception Execution Celebration: 2 hrs.

Nailed it.
This is what it was like:

I Shook The Baby!

2011-06-14T00:45:00.000-07:00

I did, I shook the baby, the little bastard. It was the turbidity that made me do it. My numbers were high, my resources are low and I have a school of fish a floppin' that need to be fried. What am I talking about? Good friggin' question. I am not saying that I have bitten off more than I can chew but I am definitely talking with my mouth full.

Last week I pushed my precious Garnier Merlot through a two penny rental filter and now I am feeling guilty. I swear I could almost hear baby Baccus cry as I basically disassembled the wine that had a year and a half of pampered barrel life. Then I throw it into a tub and expect it to find itself again. In an ideal world, I add no sulfur, I use no pumps and I let gravity assist the wine as it flows through unhindered lines from the vine to the toilet. Unfortunately, in the words of the venerable Ice T, "shit ain't like that."

Life throws you curve balls and what you have to do is adjust your swing. I would still consider this wine a base hit. Don't discount the Texas leaguer. If it weren't for mediocrity, greatness and lowliness would share a thin wall and I am not a proponent of that. Some things are actually better than other things and if I have to fill the space in between, I'll do it. There is a lot more room to play between the end points. Besides, extremes get too much attention.

I should get my own turbidity tested.

–adjective

not clear or transparent because of stirred-up sediment orthe like; clouded; opaque; obscured: the turbid waters nearthe waterfall.

thick or dense, as smoke or clouds.

confused; muddled; disturbed.

When Yer Hot Yer Hot!

2011-05-31T23:51:00.000-07:00

I was just checking the google stats on my blog and the data is truly remarkable. There was a wild spike in my visits on May 12th and I am trying to find out why. From May 1- May 12 there were no visits, then all of the sudden on May 12th BOOM! 2 visits! Out of nowhere I'm going friggin' viral! and I don't know why.

mom?

Well, whomever you are, I thank you because I truly believe that you are at least partially responsible for this great contact I made in China. Linda from Duchy Group. They have ways of finding out who is hot and a spike in visits like the one I experienced on May 12th really opened doors for me. It is very complicated but on graph paper it looks a lot like a tsunami.

–noun

an unusually large sea wave produced by a seaquake, a spike in blog visits or underseavolcanic eruption.

Other designers are probably going to wage jihad on me for posting this but my gratitude outweighs my fear. I haven't used these guys yet but if their product is half as good as their presentation I am sure they will do a bang up job. Please tell them I sent you. I am guessing you will get the VIP treatment if you do. Let me know how it goes.

this is Linda

and she works for Duchy

It's got to be a wonderful company

Splain me this

2011-05-26T23:40:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I did it but a while ago I started posting vids on youtube. It is an extension of my prairie scream. I have no agenda, I just want to create an opportunity to thank the academy and I don't know how else to express my gratitude. (Not that I have actually hardly even seen a whole movie at once in the past fuckteen years.)

You never know what is going to please people. At least, I don't. I aim to please but I am not always accurate. Case in point: magic jewelry box videos. You would think people would love a 48 second movie featuring an interesting box and some legitimate Belgian yodelhumming. Well, if you thought that, you would be at least two things; in agreement with me and wrong.

Of all my 26 antivideos, why has this one struck such a cord? Why are people so inclined to take all the effort to click thumbs down? Do those 6 people want me to take the video down? Would the 5 people who gave it the thumbs up stand with me if it came down to a bare knuckle affair? With me on the thumbs up side, that would be 6 on 6. Let's meet in Nebraska or somewhere and have it out. (I am a coaster so for the sake of convenience, I assume that all the people who dislike the video live on one coast and all the likers live on the other.)

I will take the vid down if my side loses. That is my promise. And what the hell, I will give t shirts to all who attend and two shirts each for the winners.

What's Not To Love?

2011-05-21T00:34:00.000-07:00

Is it so wrong for a man to love a sign? Not a sign like a Sign From God but an A-board sign you might see on the sidewalk in front of a business. I am making some signs for a new restaurant that just opened on Alberta here in Portland called Natural Selection. One blade sign that will hang above the entrance and one A-board that will age gracefully on the sidewalk.

The materials and the design are built to accommodate the weather and to change with age. Metal will rust, rough cedar will green/gray, colors will fade and history will be recorded. Looking forward to decay does not sound optimistic in general but in this case, it is. These signs are going to look better and better and better.

The frame for the A-board is made out of one piece of the famous junglewood. I sawed it on the '56.

I had been trying to get my beautiful wife to consider accepting this sign into our family as a member. An intimate member. I was surprised that she seemed warm to the idea when I first brought it up. You can imagine how awkward it was. We both decided together that it would be too hard to explain to the kids and let it go.

These messy, through tenons are the physical embodiment of the loose, overshot lines of a quick sketch. To me it indicates an infinite, unfinished, hopeful element. It adds life to inanimacy because it invites inquiry.

Everything is not so defined that it closes the door on subjectivity. Rather, it is a subtle, aesthetic catalyst for an emotional interaction between someone and something. It is neither discrete nor exclusive.

good old Ruppert oil slapped the turnip and cabbage summa cum-laude

Even the refuse generated by this project please me. I am a sucker for a trophy, having won very few. But tell me the powers from beyond weren't shining on me when I generated this off-cut when I plasma cut the "S"s for the blade sign. I humbly accept this great award.

And here is a piece of metal I was testing some milk paint techniques on. I'm keeping it.
Extra added bonus!

All in all it was a bountiful project. Thank you, good night.

What The Hell Do I Do All Day?

2011-04-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

It's like riding a moth. I would have to be able to type in multiple dimensions, simultaneously to accurately explain what I do all day. I would also need a new alphabet just to spell the words. Designing an alphabetter is on my list and I'm not talking about making another wacky font. It is time we revamped our system. I mean, Double U? Where's my Double N 4 M? Gimme a break.

In the meantime, here is one way to make chocolate:

Don't Forget To Put Chocolate On Your Toast!

2011-04-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

Chucky T Update

2011-04-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

What I got out of that Documentary ADD And Loving It is that I must have ADD. My neighbor said it made him think the same thing about himself. You too?

So a couple of days ago I was having what I call a chocolate temper tantrum. I continue forward hoping it will get easier if I do it a million times, but for now tempering chocolate remains predictably hectic. After I pour the chocolate into the mold, I slide it into the fridge for a few minutes. I should clear the shelve in the fridge before I get to this stage.

I am frantically moving stuff around in the fridge with one hand to make room for the full, flimsy, mold tray in my other hand. In the process I knocked a full quart of yogurt onto the floor, covering my sneaker.

I looked at the stark white creamy clean blobs on my beater Chucky T's and I realized I ought to give an update on my war against Nike for raising the price of Chuck Taylors beyond my means. Or even worse, beyond their worth. Here is a link to the original post back in July 2009
$44 for sneakers that wear out in a summer. Please. I have been rocking these ever since.

Oh Crap! This just in, I just checked and now they are $50!! Well they can suck it. I'm going to wear my old ones til I die! Unless I get distracted.

I wear them pretty frequently and they are holding up well. I am mending them as they devolve. I sew like Rambo. A child couldn't work on these kicks even if it was legal!

I am pleased to report that my Dalmation felted tootsie cozys are holding up strong!

Music is by a band that used to play called Action Daddy

Woodblock Chocolate

2011-03-24T23:59:00.000-07:00

I am on track to eat more than 70 lbs of chocolate this year. That is 6 times more than Joe Bag-a-Donuts according to the International Cacao Consumption Association.

Bribri Indian showing us his cacao.

I have entered the transitional furnichocular period of my career. Two very exciting things in one week.

I couldn't make the Armory show to see those bad benches because I was busy studying cacao with Steve Devries in Costa Rica.

Now I know a lot better what I don't know about cacao. I had very high expectations for this trip and it surpassed my hopes. I was not only surrounded by but steeped in knowledge of cacao. I am too intimidated by the depth of what I learned to try to detail it here. What I can say is that we will be making better chocolate because of it.

It Is About Time The Big Apple Had Some Decent Benches

2011-01-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

I went to a coffee shop today and ordered a decapitated Al Pacino but I got a decaffeinated cappuccino. I didn't bother sending it back because I was celebrating and there weren't nothing gunna to change my good mood.

The benches at which I have been hacking away are complete! Not only do they look amazing but I still have all eleven fingers.

They are made from wood I bought from a very creepy dude, next to some train tracks, who could twist my head off like a bottle cap if he wanted. His arms looked like legs with hands that grew from where his neck was supposed to be and his thumbs were like well seasoned iron skillets. He had a mustache that grew over his lip, between the gaps in his teeth and, as far as I could tell, right down his throat. That freakin' guy!

The exciting part is that they will be showcased at the Armory Show in NYC March 3-6. If you are in the neighborhood you should stop by and sit on one. The 56" length gives the book matched slats in the middle a nice little bounce. I want to keep all four of them. They will be in the lobby. If you show me a picture of you on one and I will send a free t shirt!!

It is all reclaimed pallet wood. Below is a picture of the pile.

Wabi Sabi vs Crapsmanship

2011-01-24T23:33:00.000-08:00

My self serving and manipulative understanding of Wabi Sabi has gotten me out of more than a few tight spots. Wabi Sabi is not a panty dropping mustard and peach schnapps shot but an aesthetic that lauds the beauty of imperfection. A crack in a tea pot, a nicely misshapen circle, a broken spider's web. This works well with the unique personality of my craftsmanship. There was a time when a craftsman would try to make something so perfectly that it looks like it was made by a machine. Well, I am changing all that. Flaws tell stories while perfection is sterile and bleak. That is why I strive for imperfection and darn it if I haven't done a good job so far. I mean, when I make something you can really see the craftsmanship. There is a lot of craftsmanship in each piece. Tons of it.

The question is how far can I go? When does the beauty of imperfection turn ugly? Having a checked piece of wood (wood with little cracks in it) is one thing but what about a stupid idea? How about an honest mistake or some good old fashioned laziness? Fine artists get away with it all the time, why shouldn't designers?

Remember these Coors cans? Finger slicers.

So dumb that it's beautiful?

My next year's New Year's resolution might be to try to be a little less perfect and a little more beautiful. Either that or try to stop cramming crumpled bills into my pockets when I buy a pack of sunflower seeds with a 20.

What not to do

2011-01-11T21:15:00.000-08:00

My stupid cousin hacked my precious blog and I can't get this video off of it. Sorry.

Ahem Meyham, Where Is My Catalyst?

2011-01-03T20:25:00.000-08:00

Quitting smoking is like living without punctuation. I'm not talking about the convenient absence precipitated by the advent of texting. Oh no! I wish my lack of interval was a matter of efficiency and convenience. Instead, my days feel like more of a run-on sentence with no end in sight.
A plottless streaming volubilithon. Forilla.

I need to form a new segue. Chokers used to catalyze my efforts and now I have a wall to jump over every time I switch tasks. And that is a frequent occurrence when you have an attention span of a moth.

Charley's School Of Woodworking: Lesson #1-Straight Up Jigga

2010-12-07T23:31:00.000-08:00

Google me this: What came first, the jig or the right angle? You really need one to make the other and it had to start somewhere. Find me a right angle in nature and I will send you a free t shirt. I don't care who you are. They are out there but it took me a long time to find one. You want a shirt? Show me the natural 90. It is the quintessential man made object. It is what most separates us from nature.

First thing to do is build a jig. I build jigs to build jigs. I have built mini jiglettes for jigs that I have made to make real jigs. It's a good thing because if your jigs are tight, everything else falls into place. And that is an especially good thing when you are routing in the dark. It gets dark early in these parts, this time of year. Below is a picture of me routing this evening at the main or "upper" manufacturing facility. I can only plug three things in at once. Two routers and a radio. Even though I can't hear the radio over the R rated scream of the router, it is comforting knowing some NPR bozo is yammering away somewhere. I don't need light, thanks to jigs. I hardly need anything at all!

I set up the camera to give you a better idea of what it is really like.

The benches I am making in the dark, cold rain are going to be boss. Honkin' dovetails, tight, tight grain, and a weighty girth. A real bench's bench.

Coincidental Felt Soup

2010-12-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

It was a year ago yesterday that Madeleine felted sick. It was also a year ago yesterday that I put a bowl of felt soup into the fridge while she went to get an emergency appendectomy.

Look at this bowl of soup that my daughter made yesterday, exactly one year from the day she made the previous one. Weird, right? These are the only two bowls of felt soup she has ever made. It was purely by chance. I ate them both.

Instead of appendicitis, this year she had a loose tooth which she extracted in dramatic fashion. After a full day of creative attempts, she finally had me tie a ball to a string and attached that to her tooth. She threw it and boom.

Yeah! It's My Birthday!! T minus X

2010-12-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

I might as well use a cartoon woodpecker as a drill. Much to my beautiful wife's delight, the primary manufacturing facility is now covered in a giant blue tarp that has a large enough pool of water on it to raise a Beluga. It does serve to waylay the indoor rains that were threatening to ruin all of my tools but really it's the menacing impermanence of the entire set up that is of deeper concern. It is so friggin' tight in there, I am moving my hips like a hula dancer navigating my way to the screw gun. Dippin' and divin'.

But I'm a lucky guy! I am making some more Skuk benches for my all time favorite furniture store in NYC, Regeneration. I am trying to build four of them out of my shemp shop. Luckily I just threw away all my jigs about a month ago. That means I can make new better ones! That is what I was doing today, in the rain. the wonderful rain.

The vintage was all consuming this year. It was both frenetic and fun as ever. We smashed the winery record for the most grapes processed in a day. Previous record was 76 tons and we hit 96! All the grapes came at once. A purple hailstorm. It is like a five year old boy's dream job. Driving a forklift, dumping 1/2 ton bins of grapes in a hopper, squirting water all over the place, getting barefoot and digging out tanks, cleaning the press!

Cleaning the inside of the press is one of the craziest things. You gotta try it. Squeezing your weary shitass into the press cavity and muscling the huge rubber bladder around is not a normal task. The deflated bladder is like a grape skin covered dead walrus smashing against your face. Sometimes I couldn't tell if we were fighting or making love.

Here are a couple of undercover movies I took with my Cybershot:

And there is always the thought that the tank might roll and bisect you or someone could knock the air on by mistake and turn you into a million tiny extrusions.

–verb (used with object)

to cut or divide into two equal or nearly equal parts.

Tank Digout:

Good news, A to Z 2008 Pinot Noir just got a 90 point rating from the Wine Spectator which put them in the top 100 wines of '08! I helped make that!

Round III

2010-09-26T00:35:00.000-07:00

Round III starts Monday. I can't get enough of those sticky grapes and earwigs. Although the vintage is looking ifey, my duties remain the same. It is just as laborious to make crappy wine as it is to make great wine, as far as I am concerned.

I bought a new pair of Bean boots. Screw those Blunstones that all the real wine geeks wear. Too much time on the vineyards rob you of your sense of fashion. Duck boots are where it's at. Ask Madeline Weeks.

“It’s definitely a good look,” said Madeline Weeks, the fashion director of GQ. “But the proportion of the boot and the pants has to be right. You don’t want to the boots to be too short or too tall — say, four to six inches above the ankle, or up to eight if you’re really going to go there.”

Before I dive into the juice I need to crank out one more project from my pathetic manufacturing facility. Pa from Little House on the Prairie had a better set up than me. It continues to rain in my factory long after the rain outside has stopped. The only power is run through extension cords coming from my back yard and the cords sizzle in the Oregon mud puddles. I can't believe this structure even passes for a garage. Drive in there and you can't open the doors to the car, it's so friggin' small. You could crawl out the sunroof but you would mush your head on the soggy broken rafters. You can't light a cigarette in there on a balmy day, it is so drafty. I am starting to embrace the idea that my design career is doomed and that chocolate will be my savior. It kind of kills me that I can't succeed in design but what are you going to do? Make chocolate.

Drove down to Eugene to pick up a 70 kilo sack of Ocumare beans last night. On the way down it was Slayer, Sepultura and High On Fire. Coming back: Dolly Pardon and Bjork.

Where were my handlers? Why didn't I just get a job with UPS back in '86?
Did you read this? Hello? Echo!

Maker or Works?

2010-09-03T00:33:00.000-07:00

If I was going to start a Bean to Bar chocolate factory with my wife, we would have to name it. Pretend that every name in the universe was already taken with the exception of the following two, which one do you like better?

PORTLAND CHOCOLATE MAKER
PORTLAND CHOCOLATE WORKS

Note: A chocolate maker is someone who roasts cocao beans and grinds them into chocolate. A chocolatier is someone who uses chocolate to make truffles and bon bons and whatnot.

There are but a handful of bean to bar houses in the US. I am new to the scene but I have to say that chocolate is way more complex and dynamic than Hershy's would have you think. I am loving the research.

My favorite bar, right this second, is the Amano Dos Rios bar. Beans from the Dominican republic. I can't f#$king believe that this bar is only beans and sugar. It is so dynamic and the flavors are so distinctive. I like to eat it in front of my spice rack and point to what I am tasting as the complex flavors eel through the canyons of my pallet. The best way for me to describe it is to ask you to substitute the word CHOCOLATE wherever you see the word GUM, in the exchange below. Except for the very first GUM.

Willy Wonka: Don't you know what this is?
Violet Beauregarde: By gum, it's gum.
Willy Wonka: [happily, but sarcastically] Wrong! It's the most amazing, fabulous, sensational gum in the whole world.
Violet Beauregarde: What's so fab about it?
Willy Wonka: This little piece of gum is a three-course dinner.
Mr. Salt: Bull.
Willy Wonka: No, roast beef. But I haven't got it quite right yet.

2010-08-26T23:48:00.000-07:00

It ain't easy being interested in everything. The diameter of my focus is manipulated by a flood of opportunities that each hold their own significant importance. Actually, "diameter of focus" implies a foolish consistency that is not accurate. The profile of my focus is more nebulous, morphing to accommodate the ebb and flow of priorities. Oh, the list I could write! My old buddy James, from college used to keep a credit card sized piece of paper in his wallet with tiny key words for jokes scratched into it so he could remember them. It was funnier than the jokes.
Well, that is how my "to do" list reads right now.

Below are a few random images from a project I have been working on.

Color sample for the Three bench. Milk paint on bamboo, shellac and wax.

Rude drawing of Three Bench. I drew it after the bench was finished to make a show submission more interesting. Faking history. Fabricating a story. Its all a big lie. I saw a kid at Pratt scribbling on a cocktail napkin right before he had a presentation. He tacked it to the board and the teachers were intrigued. Suckers.

Spooky photo of the almost finished Three Bench

Flip side of the color sample. This is a blotch of milk paint. A controlled spill. We went with the stenciled circle. It was prettier. Less of a statement. I do love this sample though.

Presenting The MOGmobile Interior!!!

2010-08-17T00:45:00.000-07:00

TaDa!

This used to happen to me when I kept a diary. I am a busy guy and if I don't keep up with myself I get a little concerned
that I am not giving all of these interesting things I am doing their due. Whaddaya gunna do?. Some kind of digital haiku would be nice but that would turn into a thing that might warrant a post of it's own.
Below are some images of the MOGmobile interior. What a rig. I wished I had documented the process a little more
vigorously but my hands always had tools in them, which makes it hard to type. There was some good drama with the
arm mechanism but everything else went pretty smoothly.

Thump

Nutglandseat

Casting Couch

Polly's Backdoor

Nutgland #1

Brain

View From Nutglandseat

It's A Blub Blub Thing

2010-06-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

Duct tape, staples, screws, blue foam, luan, chicken wire, wood glue, gorilla glue, expanding foam, zip ties, polyester resin, gum and Spandex are some of the materials I removed from the MOGmobile dome to make room for the brain. In the wine world MOG stands for "material other than grapes". I think it refers to earwigs and things that find their way into the wine. They are allowed to have a certain % of earwigs.

So I removed all the material other than MOG that constituted the plug upon which we laid the fiberglass.
This is to make room for the new roof mounted remote control arm mechanism (garage door opener) and the AC unit. It will also house some lovely lights to back light the brain and eyeballs.

The chicken wire that I pulled out tells the story of how blub blubs drill. Sometimes the chicken wire would catch the drill bit and wrap around it, wreaking havoc beneath the fiberglass shell, as it augered up sparrows' nests of junk drawer plug debris. What makes it such a blub blub thing is the effort and determination it took to make these gnarly knots. They are like wasp nests. Some are so tightly bound, I can't imagine why the blubs didn't stop drilling and reverse it. I love the resolve but the execution is questionable. It did make for some nice photos.

MOGmobile Sawzall Surgery

2010-05-30T23:15:00.000-07:00

Not unlike the wizard of Oz, my job now is to give some substance to the appealing yet gutless shell that is the MOGmobile. I am hoping that after installing a brain, everything else will fall into place. Western as that may seem.

Giant Chocolate Roommate

2010-05-17T23:39:00.000-07:00

We have a new roommate. A 70 Kilo sack of Rio Caribe, '10! Trinitario cacao beans from Venezuela! Fermented for 5-6 days and dried in the South American sun. Our house smells like a yummy plummy vinegar. I am looking forward to the explosive aromas we will be releasing when we roast these puppies and crunch them up.

My mind is working like a taffy machine in some silly town as my schemes drift from the MOGmobile to my chocolate fantasy to my burgeoning baseball buddy (Leo) and back. I have been gobbling more chocolate than ever before, drawing pictures and making models of the MOGmobile components, and playing baseball with my kids on the grassy school yard at the end of our block. On top of it all, it has been a beautiful Springtime here in Portland. I hope I didn't jinx it. Has there been any research into the potential jinx effect of blog content? If the jinx effect is valid, can it be manipulated or tricked? I better turn the old taffy machine off now.

Objectophelia

2010-05-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

I love my '56. What can I say. I remember the day I saw it's picture on Craigslist. It wasn't a good picture, not like the ones I was planning on taking, but it was enough to get me to drive 45 minutes and drop the $275 that was supposed to go towards feeding my children. My plan is get a professional to come and take some pin up style cheesecake shots of it for the "Naked Tools Of '56" calendar I am planning on never making.

This machine was originally purchased by a general contractor but was apparently too heavy to bring to job sites so he kept it for his rarely used basement shop. When he sold the house, the saw stayed in the basement. The new owner hardly ever used it but respected it nonetheless. I don't think the thing moved more than twenty feet in 50 years. And now it is my responsibility and I am questioning my worthiness.

I bought it last year and moved it from the contractor's basement into my leaky garage, where it continues to rain long after the raindrops have stopped falling outside. The result was a fine coat of orange rust. It haunted me in my sleep. The tip tip tapping of the Portland raindrops on the roof above our bed should have been soothing and relaxing but all I could think about was the poor saw that was slowly deteriorating on my watch after 50 years of being pampered.

I had to sell it before I let it completely disintegrate, so I cleaned it up for the hoc block. I wanted to sell it to someone who was worthy. I wanted to find someone who would be angry at me for the care I had not taken and just give it to them out of shame. Someone cool enough to handle such a trophy saw. However, in the process of caressing those solid state lines with naval jelly and rubbing the machined surface with wax, I rediscovered the attraction that originally hooked me. So I cleaned it up, got a brand newly sharpened, used blade and a new belt and now it is sitting out in my leaky garage, in the rain, looking and working great. It hums like a science fiction movie. It is like having my own locomotive. I love it.

Please excuse the sloppy photoshopping on the above picture. The teeth on the fence track are tedious and I am a busy dude. My wife probably thinks I am looking at porn because when she walks up I close the window on my computer screen. It is really because I don't want her to catch me spending hours painstakingly tracing the details of a picture of an old rusty saw when I should be doing something important.

Poor Me

2010-05-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

You try sitting next to this bowl all day. My wife and I have decided to take our chocolate lust to the next level. It happens to coincide with my knee surgery recovery and I am just fine with that. Research, research, research!

Two Good Legs

2010-04-30T00:36:00.000-07:00

That wasn't so bad. It was a creepy but not so painful process. I was concerned the other day when my surgeon told me that my ACL looked funky in the MRI and he wouldn't know for sure until he got in there. Well, today on the phone he told me that he "really wailed" on my knee and it seemed tight. I cringe at the thought of him wailing on my poor knee while I am out, cold. I told him to try it while I am awake and see what happens.

He also said that he found a piece of ligament floating around in there and he couldn't figure out from where it came. Did it drip down from my old shoulder? Was it planted there by someone? I remember digging through full bags of garbage looking for a tiny, missing piece of 18th Century veneer that disappeared from a chair I was working on. I would like to think that my surgeon would take similar measures. I don't know what to think about that. I think I just won't think about that.

They don't say anything on the label about mixing Vicodin and high test, single bean selection, gravity flow, Criollo chocolate but they should. I feel funny. This is when I start doing regrettable blog posts. Who reads this drivel anyway?

–noun

saliva flowing from the mouth, or mucus from the nose; slaver.

childish, silly, or meaningless talk or thinking; nonsense; twaddle.

A Good Leg

2010-04-29T00:02:00.000-07:00

I had an MRI yesterday and an operation today! My meniscus was breached, its integrity compromised, some mechanical breakdown occurred but now, hopefully it is fixed. It took about half an hour.

I had my kids mark up my good knee so the blub blubs in the OR didn't operate on the wrong knee. It worked.

The couch part of my rehab will be all about chocolate research.

Charleyland, OR

2010-04-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

I live in a fantasy world. Here is the proof. This is my house today. How could I justify a bad mood?

The MOGmobile is back. It has been on a 4500 mile tour and is ready for an interior makeover. Lounge is the word I have been given. I will keep you posted.

Wine Update

2010-04-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

My goal is to put Merlot back on the map. I know, that is a bold statement coming from a guy who drools at pop tarts but the movie Sideways wrecked Merlot for a lot of people and I'm not going to stand by and let this unwarranted alienation of a perfectly good varietal continue, uncontested. I'm going to do something about it. Especially after tasting a '98 Petrus Pomerol last Fall. I really just dripped a drop out of an empty bottle onto my palm and licked it. It tasted like hand with notes of things I had been doing and I will never forget it.

The Nectar Vats

Here is the Merlot I am making with my pal Joe and a highly qualified peanut gallery of real winemakers. It is working while I sleep. Every day in the barrel it is getting a rounder, fuller mouthfeel and a buttery cherry flavor as it muscles through malolactic fermentation, allegedly. I need to stick some toasty oak in the barrels because the ones I used are neutral (aka: old and cheap, like... super cheap). I actually just stripped the barrels off the soapbox car and epoxied the holes. The addition of some good oak will make the wine a little more dynamic. It will taste like it was aged in a nice barrel. Fake the oak.

This is the results of a chromatography test. I like the way it looks.

My plan is to ask a few of my ultra talented pals to design labels for the wine in return for some of the wine. Maybe I will send them a bottle and they can drink it, name it and make a label for it. That way I will feel like I have a bunch of different wines in my cellar because they will all have different labels. But really it will just be a giant stock of minky Merlot that I can give away, bring around and barter with. Black market fun tickets. Tax That!

These are the Merlot grapes that will set things straight.

Chocoloflop

2010-04-09T23:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes having a bad temper can produce some nice results. At least, that was the case today when my beautiful wife and I attempted to temper 2 kilos of chocolate. Although our efforts yielded undesirable returns as far as well tempered chocolate goes, the medium has grabbed us both by the short hairs.

Woofing down chocolate has been a passion of ours for-almost-ever, so we decided to take the plunge and learn more about it. Chocolate is like firefighters, you just can't say anything bad about em.

Below are some pictures from the day. Don't be fooled. We totally flopped. Ironically, when we figure out how to do it right, the pictures will probably become more boring. Hopefully there will be a long drawn out learning curve.

medical supplies

2010-04-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

I am nursing a wounded knee. Something is not working very well down there. So much so that I had to locate a rental pair of crutches. Luckily Portland has a great place to rent medical equipment. Shamrock Medical supplies has everything you need. Either of those look like they would be pretty helpful.

NEXT!!

2010-03-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend down in Austin, Textus for the MOG party at the sxsw music festival/interactive conference. It was an unveiling of the MOGmobie and it seemed as though it was a hit. If nothing else, it is a smile generator.

I had a great time. The Black Keys, Broken Bells and my favorite, Demolished Thoughts featuring Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.), and Andrew WK. I was rocking my homemade leather pants, my Chuckie T Experiments and a clean function shirt. I felt like a hundred bucks.

The function shirt attracts a weird demographic. I was getting the "sup, we-have-high-visibility-stripes-in-common" head nod from the traffic and construction guys. One citizen thought I worked for the city. I was eating one of the tastiest pulled pork sandwiches when the guy came up to me and said,"Excuse me, sir? There is a dead dog in the river over there. Could you take care of it, or call someone?"

I said, "Now you tell me, right after I dropped four bucks on this sandwich!" indicating that I could and would have been happy with a free dogmeat sandwich, had he informed me 5 minutes earlier.

But enough about the past.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but a decent picture costs a thousand bucks. That is a dollar per word. Maybe I should consider a career in wordography. How many words are in an average epic? I'll call it The Baths I've Taken. That would get me in the lettuce.

–noun

a cultivated plant, Lactuca sativa, occurring in many varieties and having succulent leaves used for salads.

any species of Lactuca.

Slang. U.S. dollar bills; greenbacks. fun tickets.

This is a tentacle of the multipus growing in my head as I try to figure out how to make the MOGmobile project a juicy worm that will attract more pleasure. I mean, work. Where do I go from a big blue hairy monstermobile? Maybe I'll do a boat with Dorrito sails or figure out a way to attach mini ad banners to mosquitos. Let's make a phone for the clumsy and the fatfingered!

As much as I love furniture, it is the design process that really curls my toes and I am hoping to use the MOGmobile project as a way to broaden my appeal. This weekend my friend suggested following his sister's lead and sell anti-fungal cream to podiatrists. I have to take that as proof that my appeal has already broadened and I am looking forward to a future more vast than bright.

–adjective

bloated with opportunity, oozing good fortune; dripping fortuity, etc: the future looks vast.

of very great size or proportions; huge; enormous: vast piles of rubble left in the wake of the war.

very great in number, quantity, amount, etc.: vast sums of money.

very great in degree, intensity, etc.: an artisan of vast skill.

Can you tell I read a David Sedaris book on the plane? I would be honored if you could.

Out of the gates

2010-03-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

Pre-departure trip to Richmond School. Driving my kids to school in the MOGmobile might have been the best part of the whole project.

Is it inappropriate to crank up the MOGmobile and start a dance party on RT 101 while we wait for a crash to be cleaned up?

All that remains here in Portland are the fiber shards in my underpants. I have come to enjoy the titillating effects of the glassy hair shirt and will miss the ganky smell of uncured resin in my sneakers. It has been a whirlwind of a month. The cardinal sin for a designer like me is to let a cool project out the door without a great photo. I am guilty of that sin, but that is what you get when you squeeze a 4 month project into 5 weeks. So you will just have to trust me when I say that the MOGmobile is amazing! Glowing eyes, articulating arms, rockin' stereo, smooth ride, hairy and hell a friendly. A little smurf, a little Grimace, a little Seuss, and a lot of blub blub blood.

The drive down to San Fran was a mess. It rained like crazy for the entire trip. Nothing like busting your butt on a project and having to deliver it, looking like a soggy muddy blue poodle. The good thing is that the MOGmobile functions very well in weather, so I don't have to worry about that.

Thanks to David Hyman and MOG for the opportunity to do this crazy project, and thanks to everyone for helping me out.

Now what? Anyone need their living room painted? I can clean out behind your fridge, I can do yard work, drywall, build a deck? What you want? I am available

magical drilling

2010-03-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

Like snowflakes on a sunny day, we are all glistening in a magical sparkle cloud of fiberglass dust. It is truly beautiful. I dance in the heavenly mist.

MOGress Report: All Praise The Blub Blubs!!

2010-03-07T01:40:00.000-08:00

I am literally fighting back tears at the overwhelming outpour of effort and time people have put towards the MOGmobile. Remember when Tom Sawyer had to white wash the fence? Well this is that to eleven. People I don't even know are proudly donning the Blub Blub blacks and plugging holes just to be part of this insane project. Today we had 12 people working like ants and we got quite a bit accomplished. Unbelievable. Thank you.

The stereo rocks! This vehicle will cause mayhem anywhere it goes.

Bloodflow

2010-03-05T00:07:00.000-08:00

9:30-9:32 is exercise time at Kapow Design. Then, back to work. Put your respirator on and join us on the web cam, your day will be more productive.

2010-03-03T23:40:00.000-08:00

Hair phases are always tricky. Every hairy monster mobile I do seems to offer new challenges. In the name of R+D I bolted a fuzzy sample to the hood of my designmobile. I am happy to say that the hair has maintained its luxurious integrity through the last three weeks of Portland's wet winter.

The plugging process is tedious but offers a quantifiable satisfaction. This a hectic project and settling in to a plug session is a relief. Dip and plug, dip and plug, Ahhh sweet dip and plug. It is quiet, steady and blue.
All adjectives aside, here is how it really happens.

Team drilling

Team plugging

Team fluffing

MOGmobile Udate

2010-03-03T13:17:00.000-08:00

The Team is kicking some fuzzy blue arse. We have enlisted a group of highly trained Blub Blubs to assist in the hairplug process. They are in the black Blub Blub shirts.

PreBlue

Blue

Blue too

Blub Blub

Blue hair here

Samples And an Update....Two Bits.

2010-02-25T00:05:00.000-08:00

Here are some peripheralisms from the MOGmobile.

The foreground is the MOGmobile, the background is another project that is sharing the room with us. The manager of the Watershed Building is putting a lift kit on his burner rig.

These are some samples testing for color, density, DNA

Don't Ask.

First ball attempt using a balloon failed when some rascal with a pea shooter popped it.

Birth of the ball with a yoga ball inside.

Here is how the MOGmobile looks tonight.

10,000 Years Of Fiberglass Experience

2010-02-22T22:57:00.000-08:00

It is a fortunate occurrence when you have the opportunity to do what you do best. Kapow Design boasts a cumulative ten thousand years of fiberglass experience!

We have everything under control.

Techcrunch.com!!

2010-02-22T08:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the folks over at TechCrunch.com for spotlighting the mogression of the MOGmobile! Much appreciated. Just for the record, beyond the technology we are integrating as far as gear goes, we should mention the fabulous efforts of the unrecognized freaky scientists who came up with the polymers and the ketone configurations that make this monster possible! If you see a piece of plastic or some polyester resin today, stop and give it a lil kiss.

I guess I better hurry up and finish this beast.

Things You Don't Want Your Client To See

2010-02-15T22:55:00.000-08:00

I'm going out on a limb here because that is where I feel most comfortable. Here is a link that will let you see live action MOGmobile fabrication, thanks to Dead Letter, the manager of the Watershed building. There will be action between the hours of 8 and 8 every day, give or take a few hours on both sides. If you see anyone in a Function Shirt slacking off, please send me an email and I will have them replaced.

The MOGmobile is progressing with deadline fervor. I am picking polyester resin out of my hing hong as I type. My hope is to post frequently but my fear is that the MOG brass will panic at the sight of an out of context process image. Sometimes are not the best times for a client to see a work in progress. Back at Carlton House Restoration, Kenny had a process by which he would actually light a table surface on fire with some alcohol to bring out some orange hue from the wood grain. Not the ideal time for the client to stop in for a look. The MOGmobile is in a similar state right now. Hopefully not on fire, but you never know with that resin. Mix it a little too hot and we will have more orange hue than we know what to do with!

We are basically building out the van with foam which we will fiberglass over. Then we will give the bald bambino 24,000 beautiful blue hair plugs, add a psycko sound system and send her down south.

Below are some images of the mogression.

We actually used whipped cream to form the fenders.

Here is the van with the plug- pre glass

This is the scene here. It is like a work hurricane.

Taking form.

MOGress Report: The Bar Has Been Set High.

2010-02-06T20:11:00.000-08:00

The bar has been set high by Polly Ward from Hammer and Fabric.

She works out of her garage shop she shares with her boyfriend in Eagle Creek Oregon and she slew this project. I asked for a fur tuck and roll made from the hides of the elusive Orange Harp Seal and its baffling cousin the Blue Harp Seal. I don't know how she got them but she did. We spoke about the colors and some general concepts and she pretty much knocked it out of the park. I asked her to go with her inspiration and gave her a lot of freedom with the details of the design. The seats and the flowing musical graphic sewn into the door panels are Jamaican Blue Lizard, a hide even more rare than how I like my steaks, and that's very rare. Now it has become a primary goal to make sure the interior isn't the best part of the vehicle! And that ain't no gimme. Thank you, Polly!

I also have to thank my pal Doug Hoeschler for taking some of these pics for me.

24000

2010-01-25T21:55:00.000-08:00

Somebody must have slipped me some bad bananas. I did a little math and discovered that I was off by quite a bit with my MOGmath. What did I say? 3000 holes? 800 feet of rope? Try 24,000 holes and 4000 feet of rope! I am a visual guy so I made a graphic representing that many holes and it is a mesmorizer. zoom in and count them. go ahead. Count them and I will send you a free t shirt.

I was trying other ways to get a grasp of what the hell I have gotten myself into and came across a hair transplant site that has a pretty good analogy. I wish I could somehow get the hair transplant calculator movie on here directly but I can only provide a link. Click on the calculator under the guy with the question mark on his forehead. I need a drink.

Eat Your Heart Out, Rogaine!

2010-01-19T21:50:00.000-08:00

Although I suffer from male pattern baldness, I have never sincerely considered drilling 9/16" holes in my head until now. What a luscious, thick, silky blue forest of hair the MOGmobile is going to have. The ladies are going to line up just to run their fingers through it. I might have to hook a blow dryer up to the exhaust pipe.

Here are a couple of images of a sample I have been playing with. I made a fiberglass cast of my daughter's Bilibo and plugged it up with ultra fancy nautical nylon rope. It comes in the colors I need and it can take a beating without losing it's integrity. I plug it, then pick and fray it and suddenly, poof! I have a full thicket of luxurious hair. I am going to build out the whole rig in a fiberglass encasement, drill about 3000 holes and stuff them with about 800 feet of rope of varying lengths. I'll be drillin' like a villain for the month of February.

I have rallied a few bros to help me out

How To Buy A Used Car

2010-01-17T22:19:00.000-08:00

I know when I need to call in a ringer and I am lucky because I've got a few of 'em. My pal Derrick is a dozen ringers wrapped in one. Among other things, he is a champion of the little guy, and in the heinous arena of used car procurement, I am tiny. I enlisted him to accompany me, yesterday to find the van that will become the MOGmobile. After working the seedy car lots of Beaverton, Tigard and Portland, we finally scored a killer deal on a beautiful Ford 1 ton blank canvas. Take a look because it ain't gunna look like this much longer. It is off to the upholsterer tomorrow for the interior fuzzativation.

Derrick has been honing his system for a while now and when he explained it to me, I asked if I could video him. Here it is. Pay attention.

MOGmobile Conception: Real Enough to Reveal

2010-01-16T22:06:00.000-08:00

The MOGmobile is now in it's second trimester and I feel like I can finally tell people.

Ever since the first sonogram I have been itching to let the cat out of the bag, but if you have ever incubated such a project, you know how it is. I am excited to report that after some initial concerns, we are now looking at a very happy, healthy, fuzzy, blue baby.

If everything works out, I will be driving the real thing down to San Fran in early March. Keep your finger crossed for me and feel free to let me know what you think. I will continue to document the progress. This one is going to be special.

The rendering below is the result of a ringer I brought in from Baltimore, my very good and ultra talented pal Monsieur Ruppert. As a matter of fact, he is making the trek across this great nation to help fabricate. I secured an extremely funky fabrication facility today and purchased a bald van from which the beast shall burgeon. Things are progressing. I am looking forward to generating a bountiful bouquet of blogworthy blather to share with all of my imaginary friends. I will keep me posted.

Kitchen

2010-01-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

Before I took a few years off the end of my life renovating my bathroom, I spent my kids' college fund renovating my kitchen. All $500 of it. It caused a fraction of the headache the upstairs bathroom produced and it came out looking really sweet. We ripped the hanging cabinets down and opened the room up with shelves made from reclaimed fir from a job site my neighbor had worked on. Here is the new set up and here is how I did it. I drew this picture last night just for the halibut. There was an inquiry on Design*Sponge so I thought I would show how I made the magical floating shelves.

I built the hell out of it. There is probably a better way but this seems to work. This is a view from the back, the part you can't see:

The shelves are lag bolted onto the substrate from behind, snug in the dados and that whole assembly is screwed onto the spacer slats that are anchored to the wall.

We painted the walls over the subway tile with Yolo paint color called Leaf .03. Yolo is a local paint company with a really beautiful set of colors. I have to hand it to them, their presentation is seductive. Instead of single sprayed square samples, they lay them out in palettes on a nice 8.5X11. The application is actually brushed onto the sheet, giving the swatch a painterly feel and a lovely texture. Below is a swatch sheet I scanned. They will sell you a poster sized swatch for $5 too, which is a great aid. We have a bunch of them. I don't know if swatch is the right term for a paint color sample but you get the idea.

Nothing Like Trying To Explain A Joke

2010-01-04T15:59:00.000-08:00

Doomed, is the joke that needs explanation. However, judging by the vote, thus far, I feel I must clarify the punch line (or in this case, the punch picture) When a Chinese artist's butt itches, he picks it, but he says it in a Chinese accent so it sounds like "Picasso". So I drew a picture that is supposed to look like a Picasso. There. Now is it offensive?

This is not necessarily the greatest timing for this particular blog entry as I was just fortunate enough to have my house featured on Design*Sponge and there will undoubtedly be a gang of new visitors who may quickly dismiss my efforts on account of this silly joke, but what are you going to do.

That being said, I would like to thank Grace and Amy at Design*Sponge for taking interested in our hovel. It is a great honor and a lot of fun for me and my family. Let not the itchy artist joke reflect it's shallowness in any way upon them, for it is I who have the nonsense of humor. Actually, while I am taking credit for this abomination, let me also release my sweet wife from any responsibility or accountability for this joke, too. She prefers good jokes.

Thank you

Is This Offensive?

2009-12-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

I just want to know if this cartoon is offensive or not. Please vote and let me know. I am doing an assessment of the pc climate.

What does a Chinese artist do when his butt itches?

MOGmobile: It's Time To Start Conceiving

2009-12-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

I am more than fortunate, I'm fivetunate. What a gig! I am fired up and ready to get into the MOGmobile. I enlisted the help of Twin Barrels Burning superstars, Eric Black, Derrick Benson and David Lewin to brainstorm with me the other evening. And what a storm it was. We came up with a whopper.

whop·per (hwŏp'ər, wŏp'-) n. Slang

Something exceptionally big or remarkable
2.A gross untruth.

I need MOG to give me the thumbs up before I show anything here but

lemme tell you this: The safety is off!

I can show you this: (hint hint, can you guess what the MOGmobile is going to look like?)

felt soup

2009-12-07T23:26:00.000-08:00

Have you ever felt, like... a bowl of soup? My daughter felted a bowl of soup the other day. Actually, I think she had further plans but was struck very suddenly with apendicitis and we had to whisk her off to the hospital! She is fine, everything is fine, just a scary 24 hrs or so. This was what she was working on before she felt sick. I didn't know what to do with it so I put it in the fridge. Baby chopsticks and all. It looks kind of yummy and healthy to me. I would eat soup that looked like that. I have eaten soup that looks worse.

Portland Slide

2009-12-06T10:33:00.000-08:00

Here are some images of a slide in a park here in Portland. I love this thing. Everything that is wrong is what I love about it. The textures created by the years of use and lousy maintenance make this thing a masterpiece. How many kids have been bonked and bruised? How many dads have had to climb up and rescue their over ambitious kid, stuck at the top? I know at least one and he is me.

Someone poured some green house paint down the slide and the thick worn texture of the frozen stream caught my attention. It reminded me of carved acanthus leaves and whatnot found on 18th Century antiques. Not just the shape but the distress and the patina.

I don't really like the patina on this chair leg, I think it is bunk. Not the greatest example.

This looks nicer to me

So I started looking closely at this slide and was amazed to find such a rich agglomeration of textures and color. The layers of degradation competing with mildly effective coats of paint and moss and dirt and stickers give the structure a life story that I can't help but consider. That could be my problem but this kind of stuff keeps me from ever getting bored.

Scary music by Action Daddy

It is an aesthetic that I love. Back at Carlton House Restoration, we spent hundreds of hours applying hundreds of years of history to furniture pieces that had been "inappropriately" handled. As a matter of fact, in the early 80's there was a movement to make old furniture look as if it had just come out of the shop. So they would dip and strip all the life out of these things to make them look brand new. Then when that craze ended, we would get them and beat them up again to make them look like they were old, again. This costs thousands of dollars to do well. Crazy.

Here is an antique joke that my old boss and good friend Kenny made up and tried to tell a couple of movers as they brought in some important piece of furniture:

"Hey, how do you restore an American antique?"

Two Ways To Prepare Crow

2009-12-01T13:34:00.000-08:00

I'll tell ya, it's a hustle out there in the design fields. I have been very busy chasing a few leads on some really fun work which means I have been writing proposals like a goon.

I tend to start a proposal by opening a previous one and looking there to see if there is anything I can salvage and use in the new one. I think I am going to alter this method after what happened yesterday. I had been working and reworking a proposal for a company called MOG. It is an amazing music sharing website. (You should definitely check it out. I am rocking out to it right now as a matter of fact.) They want me to design and fabricate an insane marketing mobile. They are going to have a couple of ladies drive it around the country to campuses and festivals to get the word out about MOG.com. We are talking about a mix between a Burning Man art car and the Oscar Mayer Weiner car. Sounds good right? Here are a couple of graphics they gave to me for inspiration and a car that I find inspirational.

This is MOG's fuzzy friend. The psychodelic earphone on top is MOG's "dot head ear vomit" graphic.

This is a car from a series of fat art cars by Austrian artist Erwin Wurm

I was also working on an RFP (request for proposal) for some mobile task carts for the new Fort Vancouver Regional Library. Can you see where this is headed? I was pressed for time as I had just been informed about the opportunity and the due date for submissions was yesterday at 4:00. So I ran into the library leading with my little packet that contained 4 hard copies and one cd with a .pdf of the proposal on it. It was 3:45 when I finally wiped the sweat off my face.

I left with a nagging feeling that I might have dotted my 't's and crossed my eyes. Something felt thing wrong. That is why I didn't look, much like when I have a gaping wound. Things are only as bad as you think they are.

Last night I sent a copy of a few proposals I have done to my pal Christopher in Baltimore. He wanted to see what one looked like.

Quick but significant sidebar: Christopher and I are old buddies. He is an artist/ballroom dancer/chimney sweep/firefighter/tattooless tattooist. We have always had a lot of fun communicating. We actually thought that our sarcastic banter about the artist/designer struggle might warrant a blog of its own. So we have an indulgent blog together: panspeter.blogspot.com. I don't think it is ready for people to see yet so no matter what! Don't look at it! You will be sorry if you do. You might be better off trying to stuff as many grapes in your mouth as you can.

So I sent Ruppert a few proposals including the MOGmobile one and the library mobile task cart one. In the morning I woke to an email he sent me that goes as follows:

I think you may have blended the two projects in your library proposal.
You mention " the most rad, eyepopping, funky ass, vehicle anybody has ever seen" along with "a low maintenance, highly functional, public use, mobile task station" in one sentence.
I'm trying to picture the expression on Miss Crabapple's face as she tries to visualize this in the children's section.

While I was pillaging the carcass of the MOGmobile proposal I somehow managed to leave the first half of a sentence from the aforementioned and tied it in with the new proposal. The actual sentence was a brutal run-on that was so perfectly out of context it was ridiculous. What are you gunna do, right?

I managed to worm my way back to the library and replace all four cover letters and the cd with new and improved ones. Nobody saw. Phew!

So just now, as I was recounting this blunder the land line rang and the lcd read "Aquent". I have been researching different phone options as my contract is about up, so I have been up to my eyeballs in wireless plans and such. So when I saw Aquent my first thought was that it was a telemarketer. I never answer those calls but for some reason I did today. The poor guy on the line was actually representing a creative talent agency and he had gig for me. I treated him with respect but I was very blunt. He asked if there was a better time for him to call and I said I would prefer it if he would never call again and said goodbye. As soon as I put the phone down I felt that feeling again. I quickly googled Aquent and the fog arose. AAHHHHGGG!!! I had to call right back and explain myself. What a day.

MT Tabor Onions

2009-11-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

I'm going public with my famous Mt Tabor Onions. I would have broken it out before Thanksgiving but the systems were not yet in place to accommodate the seismic reaction that is bound to follow the unveiling. Now that everything is set, I can tell you.

I have been honing my onion process for a few years now. My mother used to make them with heroic effort out of her tiny kitchen on w 12th st. She hosted countless Thanksgiving feasts in our wee apartment that would have made Standish proudish. Watching the amazing food pour out of our closet kitchen was like watching 20 clowns climb out of a Mini.

They are basically baked whole onions and they are hard to screw up. They don't take up a lot of oven space, they are inexpensive, you can make them the day before, it is almost impossible to overcook them, and they weather the turmoils of leftoverism with tasty grace. Plus, it's fun to throw a whole onion on someone's plate.

Get enough small to mid sized yellow onions to sardine fit into a square or rectangular Pyrex or some such dish.

Chop the tops and the bottoms off making two planes parallel to the horizon. Peal the outer skin off. Then, with a paring knife, slice out a little trough, creating a peak in the center. Throw the conical onion off-cut into the stuffing or something.

Drip a puddle of balsamic and drop a pad of butter into the trough of each onion. Put a 1/4"-1/2" chicken broth in the pan and liberally sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Throw it in the oven at 325 or 350 for about 3 hours and serve them up. One each.

I drool.

Save Moron Car Insurance

2009-11-23T23:29:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one who thinks that Geico's tag line is offensive? Probably. I have honed my ability to find the "that's what she said" (or the "said the actress to the Bishop") type of humor everywhere. It has become a distraction. I can hardly hear a sentence without somehow making some joke of it in my head by linking words or formulating absurd metaphors. Fortunately, with this skill, I have also developed a self imposed censorship firewall that usually works to stifle the most offensive inclinations before I blurt them out.

My point is that when Geico says "fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance." I am left with the idea that they are calling their product insurance for morons. The copy editors at The Martin Agency must have seen that, right? It has bugged me for years, what can I say?

proretrovino

2009-10-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

Things are tapering off at the winery. What with the sticky grapes, the long hours and the earwigs gnawing at my brains, I have only been able to imagine blog entries. Ones rich and fruity. Somewhere between my inspiration and my fingertips there has been some interference and I have to blame it on blissful exhaustion.

The video is a morning punchdown of some Pinot Noir in a 3000 gallon oak fermenter. It is about 10 feet tall. The grape cap is a couple/three feet thick on the top, so there is a good 6 feet of juice below. My job here is to break up the cap and mix it up with my feet. If you think it is gross, you are right. My feet should be featured in a JRR Tolkien book.

I have jumped on the opportunity to make some wine myself. I have a deal with Garnier Vinyard in Mosier, OR. They gave me a ton of Merlot grapes and I am going to give them some wine! They had a surplus of grapes. What are you going to do when you grow more grapes than you can sell? I am hoping to make some drinkable vino. No, I want to put Merlot back on the map. I am proretrovino. I yeasted it two days ago and she is starting to take off. I will keep you posted.

Wall Of Fruit

2009-09-28T23:06:00.000-07:00

It feels like all Hell is about to be released in the form of 1500 tons of grapes. I have started working at the winery for the '09 harvest and the weather is freaking everybody out. This is my second harvest at Rex Hill. It is so much fun I can hardly tell you. So many freakin' grapes, you wouldn't believe it. There is drama, there is danger, there are huge decisions to be made on the spot, there are millions of bees and billions of earwigs. What could be better? I am in awe of wine.

One of the most intriguing things I came away with last year is how saturated wine is with the winemaker's signature. I mean, these guys shoot from the hip. When you have twenty ferments going on at once, the winery is run like an ICU. Each tank needing specific love and each one getting it.

The hours are pretty brutal. It is total immersion and it is finite so I am happily making a wine widow of my poor wife and vinorphans of my kids. The harvest will wind up around Thanksgiving. I will try to take some pictures but I am serious about these sticky grapes. They keep us so busy and gooey that I rarely have the chance to take any pics.

I will scan my hands every week and post them to monitor their purplification.

You Can't Get Arrested For Felting.

2009-09-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

Felting is not just for the becoddlement of my indulgent monkey feet. Here is my daughter with her felt puppet she made with her mom last week. I feel we will continue to felt. The word itself makes me want to write a Dr Seuss style story.

"If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good."
-- Dr. Seuss

9/11

2009-09-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

Who was the first person you called when the towers fell? I called Isaac Mizrahi. How crazy is that? I rode my bike to the studio extra early that morning because I was designing a table for Isaac and he was sending a film crew to my studio to shoot some process footage for his show. I wanted to make sure that all my best crap was hanging on the walls and the place looked immaculate but functional. This was going to be my big break and obviously it was overwhelmingly important. I wanted to look cool, so I put on my favorite t shirt, a sleeveless black rock t for the band "Twin Barrels Burning" printed in yellow. Black and yellow...stings like a bee.

Next thing you know, my pal Julius who worked for some French furniture fruitcakes next door to me told me to head up to the roof because a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. The studio was in long Island City, Queens. From the roof we had a clear view down the East River. That explains this weird picture. That is also where the soapbox derby team name came from. Any ways, after the second tower was hit but before either of them fell, I went downstairs and called Isaac and asked if we were still on!?! I mean, the whole thing was so shocking and surreal I just wondered if I was going to be on camera in an hour or not.

No. The shoot was postponed. Thank god, I wasn't really ready yet. No, I wasn't behind 911.

Seriously, I have met so many people who experienced 9/11 from so many different places and there is a similar characteristic or look in one's eye when they reflect back on that horrible, horrible day. Whether they were in the bloodbath at the foot of the towers or if they were on the west coast learning about the events from 3000 miles away, everybody tapped into a new, deep, communal pool of sadness and disbelief. What a day.

I always think of 911 when I see firefighters. You should have heard the sirens coming from all over the planet, funneling down the avenues and across the bridges to lower Manhattan. From the roof of the studio it was terribly eerie hearing the screaming sirens while the skies were completely quiet as all air traffic was grounded. You don't realize how many friggin' planes and choppers are always flying overhead until they stop.

I don't really have a point I just want to spew. 9/11/09

Felting Sounds Like Something You Should Be Arrested For

2009-09-09T23:24:00.000-07:00

So of course when my wife said that we should start felting, I was all for it. It turns out that felting is not what I thought. It is actually a very intriguing ancient textile.

They say that felt is the oldest textile. Monkey man wrap fleece under foot with leather. Monkey man make felt.

My new favorite movie is about ten minutes long and shows this Iranian felt maker doing his thing. It is on the peaceindustry website . My secret dream now is to make a rug in the vein of Claudy Jongstra, a Dutch felt maker. Of course, I want to do it naked with my beautiful wife, in the desert somewhere. Is there anyone out there who would consider watching our kids for a few days? There might be a funky felt coaster in it for ya. Below are some examples of Claudy's work.

So this Monkeyman tuned up the Chuck T's with a felt tuck dalmatian print insert. I put a few layers of wool in each sneaker, spritzed them with some hot soapy water and wore them sockless as I installed my new floor in the bathroom. They turned out great. Comfy, cozy, primitive, rebellious, street, hip, and invisible. Actually, I like the fact that the sneakers look pretty road warrior from the outside but little do people know: My coddled tootsies are basking in extreme bunnycomfort. Steve Martin used to put a slice of bologna in his shoes because it made him feel funny. Maybe I will try that next.... hello? Is this thing on?

Thank You

2009-09-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

I speak for the whole Twin Barrels Burning team when I say thank you for the explosive interest in our recent endeavor. What started as a reason to drink beer on Tuesday evenings blossomed into a veritable movement towards a more barrel vehicle filled planet. I don't see why it wouldn't happen.

Our team was stacked. We had nerdistic levels of expertise and blind devotion focused on the design and fabrication of the silliest car in town. Our talents comprised a perfect storm of design, craftsmanship and stupidity. The result was a true collaboration done in a relatively civil manner. I hardly even cried. I am welling up with tears now though. I can't help it. I loved the process, the flexibility, the open mindedness and of course, the execution of this project. It was a very rewarding experience.

I would rather work with those guys than with some of the best people in the world.

And I mean that.

Clowns are animals too!

2009-09-03T00:34:00.000-07:00

One of my best friends from high school, Toms Bugby Royal, lives in Wishram WA. He is a mosaic artist who also works for the railroad, shuttling railroad workers around in a van from the Wishram depot. He called me yesterday and told me that the Ringling Bros train just pulled up and was letting all the circus animals out to stretch. He was telling me that elephants were walking past linked by trunk and tail, horses and tigers, monkeys etc. I asked him if they let the clowns out. No. Of course not. The clowns weren't allowed to leave the train. Not even for a second. I don't think it is fair but I understand.

I am no stranger to clownery. Unfortunately the documentation of my foray into the realm of the painted funster reveals but one aspect of the blithen darkness, shrouded by The Tainted Veil of Jelly Beanerie. I have been an advocate for clowns' rights since I went to the see Ringling Bros on acid back in the 80's.

My friends and I even went to demonstrate at midnight on the Manhattan side of the Midtown Tunnel when they were bringing the circus animals over from Queens to Madison Square Garden. We were standing there with the animal rights activists, but our signs said: "Bigger Cars For Clowns!" and "Clowns Are Animals Too!" Hopefully with your support we can slowly make things better for this misunderstood group.

My pal Sam Rodd is sort of a pioneer in clown psychology. He put together this documentary and graciously bestowed upon me the important task of Being Clown. I am the guy with the red nose.

Peeper

2009-08-30T23:27:00.000-07:00

Presenting one of the biggest tiny tables ever made! Here is the Peeper set I designed and built for a Waldorf school here in Portland. If I get an engineering trophy for the slowest car in a derby, I should get something for designing the biggest tiny table. This thing is McMassive! It accommodates 16 squirming 4 year olds with room for a teacher. I am excited to see it get beat up a little so it looks less important. That shouldn't take too long.

I fabricated this bamboo blockbuster at a guest facility. The top of my noggin looks like an inverted golf ball from banging it 9000 times on the low duct work in my friend's basement shop but it is all worth it. Rudolf Steiner would be pleased.
To give you some reference of scale, here is a picture of Kapow Design's oldest intern with Peeper.

Best Engineering

2009-08-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

Our car wreaked of many things, but engineering? I mean, I don't know a lot about engineering from an engineering standpoint, per se. Some of the other cars made me think "engineering", our car made me think, "what kind of idiot...?". WE WERE THE SLOWEST CAR! I thought the Drunken Pig (pink and white) should have our trophy. Now that I am thinking about it, I am going to give it to him... when I am good and dead.

Look at us! oh yeah, engineering, baby! This is the last picture of the twins I will be posting. I can't help myself.

Twin Barrels Burning Rolls!

2009-08-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

I might have found my fight club. Riding 'The Twins" down Mt Tabor was like shoving a whale into a VW and was easily the most terrifying 5 mph I have ever gone. I laugh so hard when I see a video my friend made of us rolling by. My body is as tense as a log jam and my head looks like it is in a vise. I remember knowing where my family and friends were but fearing distraction too much to even move my thumb the 1/2" to acknowledge them with a scream from our siren. My personal goal was to reach my health insurance deductible but like many other goals I have set, that one eluded me. If you knew my deductible, you would have said it was ambitious.

We are a six person team and we were in three heats so it worked out that everyone got to take a ride. We were the slowest car on the track that day but I think our intensity and our struggle vindicated our efforts. I think I can speak for the whole team when I say that we certainly did not intend to be the slowest but we pulled it off. In the second heat, Eric and Derrick caused a little drama when they engaged in a 2 mph fender bender with a Water Department Security Jeep that was parked 100 yards in front of the finish line.

Twins-1 Security Jeep-0.

At the beginning of the third heat we had a troubled start and the Twins were in the gutter 30 feet off the line. We wrestled it back onto the road and aimed downhill again. It slowly began to descend and as it did, the crowd closed in behind and walked down with them cheering and clapping. It was like a demented Coke commercial, David and Trevor gritting their teeth and having the full 3 mph Twin Barrels Battle while kids are passing them on scooters cheering. It was very funny.

We ended up winning a trophy for best Engineering! My friend Julius congratulated us for getting the smartest prize for the dumbest car. For a while I didn't think we really deserved that particular prize until Derrick reminded me that we put disc brakes on wine barrels with a '57 Ford F100 drop axle for a frame and rode them down a mountain. I saw several cars there that I thought should have our trophy, though. I was secretly hoping that we would get crowd favorite but we lost out to a giant Lego car. I was feeling the love in the pit and from the crowd but I guess the numbers didn't add up in our favor. We should have gone with a more identifiable brand.

We have plans to do it again next year. I can't wait. We will make the Twins faster. That is all I can say at this point. Below is the rig as it looked race day. We installed the siren that is powered by a motorcycle battery. We also put in some machine guns in the yokes but the yolk was on us when we found out water was all we were allowed to shoot. This photo was taken by Squid Vicious.

Twin Barrels Are Heating Up

2009-08-17T23:26:00.000-07:00

The race is this Saturday. We are taking the rig to the mountain tomorrow for a test run. This thing is 10 feet long, probably 400 lbs, and hops like a bull in a rodeo stall. It is a bone crusher. It will make you a cartoon. It should have a poet in residence. It scratches so many itches I can hardly focus.

Here is how to make one:

First you get three wine barrels.

Wrap two of them with bicycle tires and staple.

Countersink and screw the banding to the staves.

Shove an axle through them.

On the front barrel you need to build a plates for each side to mount the rotors and the brake assembly

Mount the aforementioned technology

Build yolks

Cut hole in third barrel to accommodate an old truck axle

Bolt third barrel to old truck axle using angle iron

Attach yolks to an old truck axle and third barrel with kingpins

Style and attach gussets where needed

Build handle bars off of front yoke

Add foot pegs on front yoke for leg steering

Let simmer

My pal and team mate David Lewin made this image that will be on our race jerseys.

The ladies love it!

Twin Barrels Burning Team:

Eric Black, Architect

Derrick Benson, Kaizen Leader

David Lewin, Industrial Designer

Sam Tannahill, Winemaker

Trevor McWilliams, Assistant to the Intern

and myself

Let's Redo The Bathroom!

2009-08-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

Why? Why did I do it? Redoing my second floor bathroom might be one of the worst decisions I have ever made. It is more than a nightmare. It is an open wound, a festering abscess but worse! It is viral. The extent to which the ill effects have infiltrated even the most remote and exclusive aspects of my life is mind boggling. The venomous tentacles have saturated everything from my pocketbook to my sex life to my newly compromised DNA. It is unbelievable.

You don't have to tell me, I already know: Getting into an old house is looking for trouble. That is why I was prepared for twice as much as I thought it would be, but a BILLION times more?!? Things have spun out of control.

The clincher is that this whole catastrophe is all because we thought we didn't like the way our old bathroom looked. I mean, it was nice enough. It flushed, it soaked, the lights turned on and off. The tub filled right up or if we were so inclined, we could take a nice shower. There were even random tiles with animal scenes on them. Come to think of it, it was one of the nicest bathrooms I have ever seen.

Why did I do it? Where were my handlers?

Rather than showing you pictures of the battle zone I have made a montage of bruises, contuses and lacerations I have accumulated. They tell the story better than I.

Update

2009-07-25T22:41:00.000-07:00

Quick update on a few projects:

The Soapbox car has a pulse.

The Plastiplums are not yielding very exciting results...yet.

Peeper chairs are done. Kiddie Conference Table on deck.

$44.00 for a pair of Chuck T's, I think Not!

2009-07-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you know this but Converse was bought by Nike a couple three years ago. So my beloved Chuckie T's are now allowed on campus! (ref: Nike campus in Beaverton, shoe regulation)

I feel like I have been burning through my Chucks faster than usual. At first I attributed it to the load I carry on my shoulders. That would make sense. I don't swing my arms anymore when I walk and my feet slap when they hit the ground. Even in grass. But I can't imagine that accounting for more than a small percentage of the overall deterioration of the sole.

My point is that I am not going to sit in Nike's backyard and pay $44 and change for kicks that last a month and a half. Not unless they hire me.

I am going to see how long I can keep this pair going. I have a little more work to do but here is the breakdown of what has happened over the past few days. I wore them around today, mowed the lawn, rode up Mt Tabor, they feel good. Actually they feel friggin' awesome.

I put music to the slideshow and it is by Action Daddy.

Put It On Casters! Passive Aggressive Furniture Fabrication

2009-07-11T23:25:00.000-07:00

Of course architects can design furniture... they design whole friggin' buildings for crying out loud. But seriously, I love architects. I pick them out on the street. As a matter of fact, last year at the ButtJoint I was working with the big door open and this dude walked by. I asked him if he was an architect and low and behold! I think it freaked him out. He probably thought I had met him somewhere but I could actually just tell. I can pick out bass players too.

Anyway, I was having a conversation with a couple of architects I know the other day and one says, "I know, take a log and put it on casters!" He snapped his fingers and turned around triumphantly as if all problems were solved and it was that easy.

I was instantly reminded of this log with a few different chair back styles poking out of it at the Hudson Hotel in NYC.

"That sounds like an architect thing to do." I said.

My friend, an architect, designed the bench at the Hudson. I never loved it. I thought it wreaked of what it was: An undeveloped, smartypants whim. It is like a joke from the movie "Airplane". With the budget he had... he should have put wheels on it, at least. I mean, why stop there? let's put some USB ports in it. Ohhh, if I ran the Zoo!

Of course, it isn't just architects who do such things. To my horror and surprise I found this image from something that came out of the Droog studio in Holland. Same wacky idea but this time they made the chair backs out of metal (maybe gilded). Holy Irony! I am guessing an architect who works at Droog did it. Prove me wrong and I will send you a free t shirt.

So I decided to call my architect friend's bluff and put some casters on a log. Bring on the awards! Notify MOMA! Get ID Magazine on the phone! I have to say that it makes moving the log around a whole lot easier and Passive Aggressive Furniture Making is a relatively healthy way to deal with my design demons. Working it out...

Soapbox Derby Update

2009-07-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

If you close your eyes, you can feel the rumble. No, Dave Lombardo didn't move into your basement. It's not the world coming to an end!

It is the sound of Twin Barrels Burning.

The race is 5 weeks away and The Solution is crystalizing.

I am calling it The Solution because it is not a car, it is an answer.

Trenchdesign

usb ports are the new castors.

Where Can I Get My Giddy Switch Tightened?

I Shook The Baby!

tur·bid

When Yer Hot Yer Hot!

tsu·na·mi

Splain me this

What's Not To Love?

What The Hell Do I Do All Day?

Don't Forget To Put Chocolate On Your Toast!

Chucky T Update

Woodblock Chocolate

It Is About Time The Big Apple Had Some Decent Benches

Wabi Sabi vs Crapsmanship

What not to do

Ahem Meyham, Where Is My Catalyst?

Charley's School Of Woodworking: Lesson #1-Straight Up Jigga

rout

Coincidental Felt Soup

Yeah! It's My Birthday!! T minus X

bi·sect

Round III

Maker or Works?

Presenting The MOGmobile Interior!!!

It's A Blub Blub Thing

MOGmobile Sawzall Surgery

Giant Chocolate Roommate

Objectophelia

Poor Me

Two Good Legs

driv·el

A Good Leg

Charleyland, OR

Wine Update

Chocoloflop

medical supplies

NEXT!!

let·tuce

vast

Out of the gates

magical drilling

MOGress Report: All Praise The Blub Blubs!!

Bloodflow

MOGmobile Udate

Samples And an Update....Two Bits.

10,000 Years Of Fiberglass Experience

Techcrunch.com!!

Things You Don't Want Your Client To See

MOGress Report: The Bar Has Been Set High.

24000

Eat Your Heart Out, Rogaine!

How To Buy A Used Car

MOGmobile Conception: Real Enough to Reveal

Kitchen

Nothing Like Trying To Explain A Joke

Is This Offensive?

MOGmobile: It's Time To Start Conceiving

felt soup

Portland Slide

Two Ways To Prepare Crow

MT Tabor Onions

Save Moron Car Insurance

proretrovino

Wall Of Fruit

You Can't Get Arrested For Felting.

9/11

Felting Sounds Like Something You Should Be Arrested For

Thank You

Clowns are animals too!

Peeper

Best Engineering

Twin Barrels Burning Rolls!

Twin Barrels Are Heating Up

Let's Redo The Bathroom!

Update

$44.00 for a pair of Chuck T's, I think Not!

Put It On Casters! Passive Aggressive Furniture Fabrication

Soapbox Derby Update