A recent shift in my shop space created a gap for a table, a drying rack, a slop-sink mop-sink utility-sink off-loading silk-screen supply platform if you will.
I could go to the store and buy some new fasteners. I could find the exact match online and buy two of them. I could give a shit about color coordination. I could get a brand new table, in just the right size at IKEA and it would off-gas its particle board odors for 5 to 7 years. Fuck that.
What truly brings me joy is finding old seemingly incompatible shit that’s been sitting around in the garage for years and slapping it together to create something new. Something new to me. Some people call that In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU)
I call it taking it out of context and putting it back in.
On this project there was no measuring, no calculation, no trips to the hardware store and no out-of-pocket expenses. This project cost a total of zero dollars because it was all just sitting in the garage collecting dust.
A few years ago I found a Lyon stool in a to-be-tossed pile. It was missing a couple of spacers at the base of two legs, so it was a little ricky-rocky. But a washer solved that problem.
Lyon Stools are steel and bombproof. Old school like your Junior High shop teacher. They used to be made in Aurora, IL. I’m not sure if that’s still the case. However, there is no doubt in my mind that this particular stool was made in the USA some time in the last 75 years.
The loss of paint, rust, battle scars and duct tape residue clearly illustrate the life that this stool led in chemistry labs for years and years at UW before it was kicked to the curb. Which is where I spotted it and adopted it and offered it another life in a quiet, less toxic space.
A few months ago I found a nice sturdy piece of plywood in a loading dock scrap pile. 24” x 16” x ⅝” = solid. A real keeper.
Yesterday, all the scraps came together.
I rounded off the edges of the plywood, sprayed painted a crow stencil (from Bret in ABQ) and silkscreened on a few lines of elevator conversation. Then I slathered it all in six layers of polyurethane.
Now it’s a table, it’s a stool, it’s a silk-screen supply platform drying rack. Nobody has one of these, except me.
56 is the number on the mail room in Bagley Hall. It’s more like a storage closet where the mail gets delivered each Mister-McFeely-morning.
Bagley was built in 1937 and houses the Chemistry Department at UW. I like to visualize the craftsman that hand painted those digits on the doors in Bagley some time between now and 1937. Years later the 56 was covered up with tape and a sign for some reason. Then more years later the sign was removed but the residue remains and it makes me smile in 2025...
Just moments ago, Chris Murray sent me this shot and it occurred to me that we're in the last full week of July.
That's my old RB-1 still rolling across Iowa for yet another RAGBRAI. I've lost count of how many it has done now. Same stem, same saddle, same cranks, maybe even the same rear wheel...
I believe Mr Chris Muray is on his 21st RAGBRAI leading team pilderwasser on a great bike ride across Iowa from West to East. I'd like to draw your attention to the team's new green & black jerseys in the background.
This book is 10 years old. But new to me as I plucked it from the public library. It’s a satisfying smaller size, not too heavy to schlepp around in your bag. But it’s not light and fluffy reading. It’s unlike the books you’re used to. And it features a crow.
This book is 18 years old. It got my attention in the little free library on a Thursday night then I finished it in a day and a half. A 400 page page-turner. It’s disturbing, distracting, entertaining and well written.
This book is 9 years old. But the English translation is only 7. Cat thanked me for recommending it to her. Then I told her it wasn't me and I took it as a recommendation and bought a used copy. Here's another book unlike the books you're used to. I haven't been blown away by it, but it has helped me appreciate some small details of the work-a-day-world that I don't always think about. And it's a great size to have and to hold and to read on a summer day sitting in the shade somewhere.
One day back in the day Junior was given a hefty bag full of hand-me-downs. That bag included a zebra print coat that she would never wear.
So I gave that coat to those guys down at DANK bags and a while later they gave me a zebra print coozie.
Fast forward 13 years and call it "today" when I’m standing in the garage holding a can of Dalton and I pair it up with that there zebra coozie. (Bon Jovi added to show scale) Then I paired that pair up with this photo of 39 in the zebra print coat and here we are
fever, tiredness, body aches, skin reactions, flushing, sweating, constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, dry mouth, halitosis, vertigo, headache, insomnia, nausea, suicidal thoughts, abnormal heart rhythms, internal bleeding, liver problems, kidney problems, drop in sex drive, confusion, regret, rumination, loss of appetite, alopecia, muscle soreness, joint stiffness, fatigue, swelling in the affected area, inertia, complacency, seamlessly smooth transitions from coffee to beer and back again, a dwindling number of fucks to give, a total absence of give-a-shits, phantom nostalgia syndrome, phantom ass-pocket U-lock syndrome, asking “what if?”, questioning “if only”, repeatedly repeating the same old stories, bad jokes, poor punch lines, when-I-was-your-age-phrasing paired with you’re-doing-it-wrong-proclamations.
Zeppelin II cassette stuck in the deck of a Datsun B210 to auto-reverse forever.
In most situations with a strong correlation I say let’s not jump to causation. But here I say causation all the way.
27 years ago I did a little zine called kickstand with the Soundgarden song looping in the back of my mind…
…correlation? Yes.
…causation? Hell Yes.
Today I made myself a dickstank trike shirt and I also got myself a knock-off Soundgarden kickstand trike shirt
In the late 90s I had this t-shirt, not from a concert, from the cool poster shop at 6th & Denny. I wore it very few times. If only I still had it I could sell it on Etsy for $450.
For my second attempt at owning a version of this shirt I went with a tasteful understated black instead of the original sickly brownish green.
kickstand
Kicksand, you got loose and I threw up Yeah kickstand, you got the juice to fill my cup My mother say that it's alright My mother says that's the only life
So do it right Do it right Come stand me up Come stand me up Come stand me up
Yeah kickstand, I got saddle made of leather Oh kickstand, I got the words to come together I got the urge to ride your trike My mother says that's the only life
So do it right Do it right Come stand me up come stand me up come stand me up
Oh kicksand, you got loose and I threw up Yeah kickstand, you got the juice to fill my cup My mother say that it's alright
Do it right Do it right Stand me up stand me up, stand me up
When I was a bike messenger I took these photos at 1000 2nd Ave when Martin Selig the Seattle real estate titan, owned 33.3% of downtown Seattle. Selig probably owned 66.6% of the buildings I frequented as a legal messenger.
5 years ago the covid shutdown lockdown ghosttown downtown zombie shitshow (working remotely) changed Seattle in many ways. It still has not recovered or returned to the work-a-day office space of yesteryear. Here and now Selig’s grip on the city is slipping away. You can read all the details in this Seattle Times article
If you own the building you can do what ever you want with it. You can paint huge canvases, call them art and hang them in the lobby, in the hallways, in the offices of your real estate empire. Selig painted these giant paintings (12’ x 7’ ish) that got my attention back then. That's Mary posing in front of one circa 2006.
The USPS will call it a postcard if it’s no more than 4.25" high x 6" long x 0.016" thick.
Some of these pilder mashups are 12” x 18” and up to 0.25” thick. I like to write on the back, put on a fake stamp or three and “mail them” to special penpals I know on campus or nearby in coffee shops or bike shops. Hand-Delivered via electric ass cargo bike.
Junior Junior will take over delivery duties on a crow creation I recently made for one of his teachers that is retiring, a guy you might know: Chris Quigley. As if. If only.
One day a few months ago, I hand-delivered an old-marine -climatic-map-crow-creation with the words I wouldn’t want your job on a day like thisslathered over it, to Dr. Cliff Mass at Atmospheric Sciences. When I asked him about it later, he laughed and said he got a real kick out of it.
I enjoy handing off postcard-size postcards to the USPS, for penpals around the country. Those feature some of these same themes but are constrained by their size limits. However, I’m not ready to pay the postage on these 18” x 12” lumpy creations that would have to be bundled up to make the journey and therefore would no longer appear to be giant postcards.
