Category Archives: Merchandise
Kicking off October at Society6!
Over at Society6, they’re kicking off October with a 2-day promo: 25% off everything from Sunday morning through Monday night!
Even if you’d don’t see anything you like from Gas Station Burrito, you’re bound to find something amazing from the other artists on Society6. They have tote bags, pillows, phone cases, coffee mugs, shower curtains! They’re just launching stickers now too, so they have something for everyone. And everything is 25% off through Monday, Oct 2nd! Check it out!
Library card 23322 from a Hutchinson Technical High School book in Buffalo NY that was “lost” sometime in the mid-60s.
Party at the Plumbers Local No. 36
I came across this old advertisement, framed, saved, taken care of, in the basement of a house I was doing some work on, updating it before it would be sold. This basement was definitely a working man’s basement, an organized basement, one well maintained with a workbench and assortment of tools and saved parts and old metal coffee cans full of screws and more tools older then I am that still looked as good as the day they were purchased, collected odds and ends and useful bits that could be put together to tackle any type of household handyman task. This was a good basement.
Seeing this framed ad, this simple small poster, I was intrigued. It wasn’t just the awkward sizing of letters in some places that drew my attention; or the date or ticket price, or even the mention of the Harugari Temple, a “secret” society I’d never heard of before a week prior to finding this sign, when I’d driven past another sign for the Ancient Order of the Harugari, or my interest in local history and what might be at this location now. It was a little bit of each of those things sure, but I wondered if there was something more personal to it.
Here was an old framed advertisement in this meticulous basement. What did this mean to the man who kept an organized workbench and well maintained tools, a space that was functional and purpose driven, not cluttered by the accumulated detritus that seems to swallow up any spare space one in my generation might happen upon. What was significant about this event? I wondered what this event, this night may have meant, that the advertisement was saved, preserved, framed and held onto. Protected just as any work of art or family photograph would have been.
What kind of story does this prompt for you? Was there something historically significant that occurred on that date? Or was it something at that party to be personally commemorated?
Or maybe it was a cool looking old poster
Puttering Around in Etgar’s Ice Cream Stand
“What are you doing over there,” my wife asked.
“Eh, nothing. Photoshopping a seal on a unicycle.”
She reacted as one would. It sounded ridiculous. It sounded ridiculous and stupid and that’s why I didn’t want to tell her what I was working on. Actually, that’s why I don’t like telling anyone what I’m working on. I’m accused of being secretive, of keeping too much inside. But I’m not being secretive, not really. I’m just embarrassed, because what I’m working on usually sounds stupid if I try to explain it.
It usually looks stupid too, when it comes to my graphic design/Photoshop puttering. Of course, I give up on a lot of these projects about a third of the way through them, so not only do they sound stupid if I try to explain it, but look that way as well. Every project is going to look like crap for the first third of its life. And the second. And most of the rest of the time, for that matter. Pretty much until that second you step back just to see how it looks and realize you’re done, whatever you’re working on is going to look like crap.
Well, you’re going to think so at least.
Somehow, and without really meaning to or intending to or believing I would, I finished this one. It wasn’t just a seal on a unicycle, I should explain that. That sounds stupid without the context, which would explain the confused look I got.
I’ve been fooling around with this story idea for a week or so, and to get a feel for it I wanted to do a little reading. Christopher Moore’s A Dirty Job was at the top of the list, and that was awesome. Next up was Etgar Keret’s The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God, a title that has been on my bookshelf for five or six years now. More specifically, it was the long short story “Kneller’s Happy Campers”. This story was the basis for the movie Wristcutters, starring Shannyn Sossaman, who a friend of mine will forever be in love with. His obsession with her and this movie is what put Keret’s book of short stories on my radar in the first place.
Keret’s story wasn’t what I expected and not what I needed for this writing project, but his book—his writing style—is exactly what I needed to get my head back in the game. From what I’ve read so far, his writing style is stripped down; simple but not basic, if that makes sense. There’s a feeling, a voice that runs through his stories, a narration. You’re looking into these stories, getting these quirky and dark and sad peeks into life. Even when the story is told in the first person, you feel as if the speaker is… disembodied, detached from their own life at the time they’re telling you this particular story.
Getting back to ‘Kneller’s Happy Campers’: at one point Mordy and his pals are on a little roadtrip through the afterlife for suicides, or those who ‘offed’. They stop off at an ice cream stand to celebrate the miracle of their headlights working, and chat up Sandra to find out what flavors might get them trashed.
Click on Etgar the Seal to check out this design on Society6
“Under her name tag was their logo—a seal in a clown’s hat riding a unicycle, and under that was the motto: ‘Low in price, high in flavor.’ ”
I had to putter. I had to. There was something about that quick description. I don’t know why I thought the seal also needed to be wearing a t-shirt and have an ice cream cone balanced on his nose, but he does need those things. Doesn’t he?
The stand had no name in Keret’s story, just a logo and motto, but it only made sense to call it Etgar’s. Right? And I know, my copy is only one of several different covers, but I used that as a template for my color choices and all that. You can do a lot with clipart and Photoshop. I think it was an evening well spent. Aside from some sizing and capitalizations—I know the font isn’t a perfect match, but I wasn’t getting sucked down that rabbit hole—I’d say I did a pretty good job.
Gas Station Burrito 