white squirrel crap

brevard white squirrel festival 

no sign of sugar

we did see pisgah pete though

dropped strawberries

newest entry into the flickr "spilled food" group 

downtown asheville last night

squirrel banquet

conversations with sugar

scene: kevin driving, me passenging. see the white squirrel in the tree. stop car. roll down window. 

us: (yelling out the window) hey sugar! what are you doing? we love you sugar! yeah we love you sugar! 

sugar: (looks at us. nibbles acorn. twitches cotton puff tail.)

us: hey sugar, wanna come home with us? we will feed you peanuts! you're a good boy sugar! we love you sugar! yeah we love you sugar! 

sugar: (looks at us. nibbles acorn. hops further up the tree.) 

us: you are so handsome sugar! you are the most handsome squirrel in the world! we love you sugar! yeah we love you sugar! come home with us! follow us home! you will be happy there! we will protect you from the dogs! we love you sugar! 

sugar: (hops further up tree, out of view) 

us: see you later sugar! we love you! (driving away so happy)

white squirrel!

i've known there's a white squirrel near our house for a couple of years now but i never have my camera when i see him.

until today!

i felt like meryl streep with her ghost orchid in 'adaptation'!

i love you white squirrel!

why it's okay to rent part 75

 

somebody's gotta come fix this and i don't have to pay for it.

(if i don't break my neck first)

(just kidding, it's not as bad as it looks)

(and most of that ivy is gone, in an afternoon fit of garden shearing frenzy)

squirrel tidbits

highlights of this week included:

finding this nut-eating golf-playing squirrel fake-collared sweatshirt at goodwill. he has a rhinestone eye.

going to see a week-old baby. he was probably smaller than this squirrel. the whole time i was there he was sleeping, healthy, and pink.

watching kevin compose an ode to holden on a terrible dented manual typewriter - "The Bowels of Heaven"

ALSO one of the people in the following photo will be doing 5 minutes of stand-up comedy next tuesday july 5 at the magnetic field in asheville's river arts district. (event link here.)

i consider stand up comic to be the scariest job in existence. i would rather change the light bulbs on top of bridges.

happy 4th of july! hope your bombs burst in air.

christmas squirrel marshmallow world

5 Nut peanut! 5 Nut peanut!

in the world of roasted peanuts, there are many 2 and 3 nut peanuts. the vast majority have 2 or 3 nuts inside.

then there are way too many 1 nut peanuts. so much work for so little reward.

very rarely will i find a good 4 nut peanut. i am always grateful when i do.

i have heard of the mystical 5 nut peanut, but until last night never really believed they existed. kevin swore he had one a couple months ago, but then squirrelled the nuts into his mouth too fast before i could do a proper accounting.

but last night it all came together and i reached in the bowl and pulled out a real live 5 NUT PEANUT!

5 NUT PEANUT! 5 NUT PEANUT!

i feel like meryl streep in adaptation hunting the white ghost orchid. or ahab in moby dick hunting humps like snowhills.

it's a great feeling!


*****


EDIT: just checked wikipedia ("peanut") and now i believe this peanut really was a wonder of nature! they don't even acknowledge the fact that 5 seed pods EXIST!

The fruits have wrinkled shells that are constricted between pairs of the one to four (usually two) seeds per pod.

happy national peanut butter month!

gonna have to face it - you're addicted to peanut butter

what would cause your carpal tunnel?

i do not have carpal tunnel. and for that i am grateful. my MOM had tendinitis in her thumbs that required surgery from playing so much bridge and shuffling cards. if i did develop carpal tunnel, it would most likely come from opening roasted peanuts. i can't get enough of these things- it must be part of my squirrel heritage.

another possible cause of my nonexistent carpal tunnel would be the game minesweeper. i have gone through phases where i played that game 8 hours a day. usually while procrastinating from studying. 

introducing chippy

he's rowing his little kayak above the TV, so instead of watching football, which generally makes me sad and bored, i can watch chippy, which generally makes me squeal with joy.

squirrel with his piano - poll

an eBay seller in the UK stuffs squirrels and poses them in adorable positions.


for instance, this "Wild Grey Squirrel With His Piano."


he also does a squirrel riding a horse, squirrel with a gun and top hat, and squirrel riding a motorcycle.


if anyone is ever struggling with a gift idea for me, one of these would be a surefire hit.

click here to see a squirrel get flung in a homemade spaghetti strainer slingshot.

RIP Vintage Vantage (2001-2010)

it's a sad day over here.


the vintage vantage death announcement was published this morning, announcing an everything must go liquidation sale, all shirts are half price or less. the 40% off coupon code 'skippyhaha' still works, on top of the discount.


it has been a wild ride full of chaos and chuckles.


vintagevantage started as lone ebay seller john keddie selling vintage t-shirts out of a tiny garage in ocean beach san diego california in 2001.


in 2002 i was about to graduate law school in chapel hill and selling vintage myself on ebay for some money, and emailed vintagevantage fanmail because I thought they were doing a great job.


one email led to another and i met up with john a month later at a widespread panic festival in colorado. we couldn’t find camping and set up tent in a taco bell, were woken up by the Denver sheriff who ran our licenses and let us stay.

2 months later he moved to charlotte where i just started working for a law firm uptown. we came up with 'we be illin' sacred hear

t children's hospital'  and urban outfitters ordered 5,000 of them, along with 'get high on yourself,' and we were off.

1 month later i quit my job and we moved to ventura california, driving nonstop for 2 days with holden on the passenger's lap.




we sold mounds of dirty old t-shirts on ebay, and modeled every one of them. we started coming up with more and more 'originals' and working with factories to make supersoft t-shirts in flattering cuts. that was a shitty process, i didn’t really deal with it.




we got recognized by strangers at music festivals and on the streets. i didn’t like that.


we got married.


we got nacho.

American eagle outfitters copied our ‘

detroit is for lovers’ shirt and we sued them and settled. It was awesome. 

people asked heather. 

we hired happymexicansock, aka socky, to stuff packages.


we moved to pacific beach san diego.


we met a bunch of awesome people across the street.


we hired matt duerr to manage the growing warehouse and do sales.


we made up the ‘voting is for old people’ shirt and caused quite a stir, Russell Simmons hated it, MTV hated it, the san diego news came to our house.  it was awesome.

we had an online dating contest for matt (get fresh with mateo), won by none other than kid D, and flew her out to san diego from oklahoma for a weekend. It was awesome.


we moved to hillcrest for a couple months, and then moved to encinitas, where we had a pool and a living room full of trampolines and a bitchin 80’s homecoming dance.

we outfitted the kitshickers.

and the kitshakers -

we had a contest and took 8 people to amsterdam for 4 days to film 'vintage vantage and the disappearing corn dog.'  there was a lot of footage but no movie came out of that trip. yet. i peed myself on the street in amsterdam laughing so hard, at what i have no idea.

we got divorced.


Matt quit for a more stable job, and John moved the warehouse and operations up to San Francisco.


I moved to Asheville.


Things quieted down, but we kept coming up with newer better funnier t-shirts, and selling the best real vintage from the 70s and 80s online. We started making t-shirts for bands – ALO, Tea Leaf Green, Guadalajara Joe…awesome shirts for awesome bands.


The inventory was hugely swollen and the sales were down. We are not good business people. The economy went to crap. We didn’t adjust. The interest on a loan from Bank of America ate all our profits. No good offers to buy the business materialized and now we have to liquidate.


I plan on selling vintage t-shirts on my own, on ebay and on etsy, possibly on the vintagevantage.com website if I can arrange that in the next few months. And I’ll keep making peanut butter stash safes.


John is starting a new t-shirt company with a well-established LA partner and their future looks bright.


Nacho will continue hopping through life like an arctic bunny.


All is well.






Some of my favorite t-shirts over the years have been:

Solar power turns me on -

Let’s hear it for sign language -

the pantychrist -

Fork my life -

Duluth, Duluth Duluth is on fire (burn Minnesota burn) -

Minivan Mega Fun

Polite as fuck -

Jesus loves immigrants

I’m not fat husky-

French canadien

Made a shirt with my dad on it -

And one with holden on it -

it was a good ride. keep it fresh, amigos.

walmart parking lot

these folks were squealing around the walmart in sylva, NC yesterday.
i thought it was illegal, but it isn't. here's a list of state laws about riding in the back of pickup trucks:
http://www.iihs.org/laws/cargoAreas.aspx

also spotted yesterday - a hissing hawk protecting its dead squirrel after pecking its eyes out

conversation on a plane

flight attendant: peanuts or pretzels?

flyer: penis.

flight attendant: peanuts?

flyer: yes, penis.

flight attendant hands over tiny pouch of peanuts.

nacho's birthday ice cream

nacho had some peanut butter doggie ice cream from the hop for his birthday. he enjoyed it thoroughly.

happy birthday nacho!

today is nacho's 7th birthday. he got a baby pool to swim in, he is going for a walk to the pond, and later he will get peanut butter flavored doggie ice cream from the hop.

he is a clown dog, he always makes me laugh, and he is soft like a bunny with bucked teeth and an oversized gullet.

his latest nickname is fluffycups.

banana peel squirrel

you'll feel better next time you throw a banana peel out the window and say 'the squirrels will use it for a nest.'

mini mountainranges

we got about 5 inches of snow today. and coincidentally also 5 lbs of peanuts in the mail.
nutsonline.com is awesome.

deer carcass

there's a squirrel stuck in the chimney. or a raccoon. i heard banging yesterday and closed the glass doors on the fireplace. this morning i could hear it scratching its little claws against the metal trying to get out. i'm going to do nothing about it because i'm paralyzed by fear. i need clark griswald to come over and catch it in the coat, smack it with a hammer.

the aerogarden is doing great, italian basil is in the lead, the only one sprouting already.

the tar heels are looking okay this season, but nothing sparkly and spectacular like last year. last year i loved danny green, ty lawson, and wayne ellington. this year, i like marcus ginyard and ed davis. the freshmen have not dazzled me, and zeller looks like he should play for duke. and poor roy williams and his shoulder, looked like he was in a lot of pain as he won his 600th game the other night.

it's december first already, going to be 60 and sunny today here in charlotte, can't really complain about that.