Episode 1625 - Mike Elias

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Lock the gate!

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Nicks?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

It's one of the originals.

That's what I'm told.

I just watched a documentary about myself last night.

I'm in Austin, Texas.

Hopefully I'll be home.

I guess it will be today when you hear about this.

I've been on the road for a week, and that doesn't sound like a lot, but every day is at least two to three days in road years

when you're out here, and I'm...

I'm ready to get home.

I get a little

isolated, a little strangely lonely out here.

But here's what's going on.

Let me tell you what's going on today.

A couple of things.

My special taping has been announced.

I'll be doing two shows at the Bam Harvey Theater in Brooklyn on Saturday, May 10th, 7 p.m.

and 9.30 p.m.

There's a pre-sale going on today from 10 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

Eastern Time.

Presale code is all in all caps, one word.

Tickets are on sale to the the general public tomorrow, Friday, March 14th.

So,

first off, let's go into

who's on the show today, because this is an interesting episode of WTF.

Because I talked to a guy, he's not the kind of guy I usually talk to.

I mean, he's as a person, he is, but he's not in entertainment.

He's not in music, he's not a writer, but he is a guy.

I would, what would you call him?

A craftsman, a craftsman of clothing, of accessories.

He makes things he wants to make out of brass and out of fabric and out of leather.

His name is Mike Elias, and he is the proprietor and creator and

designer for a place called Ship John.

That is up in Portland, Oregon.

I've mentioned it before because I wear his stuff.

all the time and it's not because i have to it just fits me and it suits me.

But he's got an interesting story.

This is sort of a Delray, Dean Del Ray, turned me on to Ship John years ago.

Dean's kind of a fashion plate.

Dean is a guy who's always

of a certain type.

I mean, it's not for everybody, but there's a world that Dean exists in that has to do with boots, watches, jackets, and eyeglass frames, I would say, are the primary things.

Guitars as well, he knows about.

He knows about a lot of things, t-shirts.

But one time we were up in Portland and he was opening for me and he had, he knew this guy that had a little workshop and a very small little workshop store and he designed jackets.

I was kind of into the jacket idea.

It was a jacket that Dean had.

He did some shirts, but I was already on board with Philson from many years ago, from probably 20, 25 years ago.

And this guy was in the same zone as that.

I wouldn't call it work clothes.

Some of it is sort of work-oriented.

But he made this jacket called the Wills jacket.

And it's a very specific and unique design.

And it's fucking awesome.

And oddly, Mike, Ship John himself,

designed that jacket 10 years ago.

It's the 10th anniversary of the Wills jacket tomorrow.

And a lot of you are like, who cares?

What is that?

What does that mean?

It's some guy who makes a jacket.

Well, you know, to all of us, no matter what we do, when there are sort of markers of our life, of our career, of our art or whatever it is, it's a big deal.

And this jacket is sort of a big deal.

And

I'll validate that.

I will say it's a big deal to me.

I wear the thing all the time.

And it's a unique thing.

But ultimately, it leads to a bigger conversation.

He also gave me an oiled tin cloth shirt that I wore on Colbert that was way too hot.

It was really not that kind of shirt.

But since then, like, there's a, I'm wearing Ship John stuff most of the time, whether it's the shirt or the jacket, occasionally a hat.

He just sent me

the Ship John version of a utility knife, of a Stanley knife, which he has an obsession with, which we'll talk to.

But the story is interesting because he didn't set out to do this.

You know, he comes from an oyster fisherman family in New Jersey.

And the story is great.

And he's a real, like, he had to learn this craft, not unlike anybody who has to do something creative or that they're possessed to do.

And the arc of the story is pretty fucking interesting.

And I deal with him all the time.

We exchange records.

We

hang out when I'm in Portland or he's down here.

And, you know, there's a lot of stuff that he's involved with.

Like, I've always been a little,

I've always felt like a little bit of a fraud when I wear

boots and jackets that are sort of meant for you know hard work which is sort of why he created the jackets but but there is a look to it and it's just something I've landed on I'm not going to feel too guilty about it any more than I feel about my personality in general in terms of of being a fraud I mean it's a it's a tricky thing and after just seeing that documentary

I've got some answers about me and they're they're not the easiest to sort of take identity self, who you think you are, who you really are.

Look, clothes have a lot to do with that.

Haircuts have a lot to do with that.

But that's sort of the same with personality, too.

This is sort of a,

it was kind of a heavy few days out here in Austin.

Steve Finearts premiered the documentary about my life,

focusing a lot on the loss of Lynn Shelton to everybody that loved her, including me, and sort of, you know, who I am.

And I have ideas about who I am, and

sometimes those don't really match up with reality.

I would say that's probably true most of the time.

And I kind of talked about how my first viewing of the dock was a humbling experience, but to see it again was

even more humbling and sad and entertaining.

I mean, I could see it was funny and how it would be funny and touching to people.

But to me, kind of re-engaging with the grief, but and re-engaging with, you know, what I was going through and re-engaging with building a comedy set from that was heavy.

But I got to be honest with you, the stuff that had the most impact on me, and I imagine some people, certainly the newer generations, have experience with this, but we didn't.

I mean, I'm 61 years old, and there was a period in time when I started doing comedy in the 80s where there were VHSs of me that were existing.

They existed.

I had them.

I had not looked at them in many years.

And there was stuff I shot at my house with the family's home video camera.

And that to me was really, oddly, the most disturbing stuff to watch

in a kind of cringy way.

The emotional stuff that I'd gone through in the past four years or five years

was not.

I could re-engage with that.

But all the early stuff of me

trying to figure out who I was on stage and really trying to figure out who I was as a person

is a little tough to watch because the truth is, and I speak to specific people who are either self-aware of this or suspect it, if you didn't grow up in an emotionally grounded household

that was relatively healthy, where you were, you know, enabled to kind kind of complete yourself.

You know, it's a rough go.

And, you know, you try on a lot of personality pieces.

You try on a lot of

jackets and shirts and boots.

You try a lot of haircuts.

You try a lot of glasses frames.

You try a lot of music.

You read books about how to be who you are.

It's a very specific type.

I don't think it's unusual and I don't think it's unusual in my audience, but it's a real thing.

So to see myself at different stages in age, but also at different stages in trying to find a voice as a comic, it was a little much.

And it really kind of fucked with me while I was watching the show because I'm watching this whole thing and I'm like, you know,

am I still doing that?

Have I landed in me?

I mean, I would hope so.

And the truth is, I have.

And it's not great.

It's not, you know, I know your experience of me is what it is, and I give you as much of myself as I can, which is not nothing.

It's an awful lot.

Seeing how I am from an outside perspective was

really,

it was kind of daunting because many of you know over the years of listening to me, you know, my need to, or propensity or compulsion to compare myself to other comics, to think that, you know,

why am I not more more popular in in a broader way and and the thing is i never really set out to do that and i always was kind of against it so what was interesting about watching this thing is i'm exactly really what i set out to be but there's always this other part of you that judges your it's not even a grass is greener kind of thing it's it's more like that guy seems to have his shit together on all levels and look at him presenting himself and being broadly popular and making a fortune and being good at what he does.

Why am I not that guy?

So that's not really a grass is greener in the sort of traditional sense.

It's just sort of like, why can't I be a whole person that seems to be in control of their being?

Why?

Why am I always falling horizontally?

Why is my brain on fire all the time?

Why am I always catastrophizing and thinking the worst of myself?

Why?

I have answered to these questions, some of them that I've talked about on this show.

I have frameworks that I've used over time, psychological and recovery stuff, but that still kind of

eats at me, you know, like

what I think I'm for everybody on some level, but the truth is, is I'm not.

So what was kind of revelatory about watching this documentary about me is that, you know, I'm turning into this, I wouldn't say eccentric character, but a character nonetheless.

And I've always noticed, particularly with presidents, you know, who start out young and then get old, that there is a turning point somewhere between 55 and 65 where they become their, they're the, you know, the phase before the end form.

Not old, old, but like, oh, this is the beginning of old.

I can see it in their disposition, their hair, the wrinkles on their face.

And you notice this with actors and everything else.

And, but it's sort of hard to notice for yourself.

But, like, I'm like, you know, on the outside of middle age here, and I'm watching this movie, and some things haven't changed, but some things aren't going to change.

And at a certain point, some things, you know, you're going to have to just accept about who you are.

It is a whole package.

And it's been sort of like that way for a while.

So I think the big lesson for me was like, all right, well, whatever I thought I was going to be,

and whatever on occasion I still think I could be or still think I should be

is not relevant to the fact that I am who I am for better or for worse.

And that I think that getting to that point sooner than later with yourself is probably a good thing to kind of like give yourself a break a little bit.

The fact is, I'm doing exactly what I've always wanted to do.

And I'm doing it exactly the way I want to do it.

And so, and there is really no other way.

Yet that voice persists.

So removing that guy from the equation means that there's some radical self-acceptance that has to happen.

And

I guess it happened.

I think it happened because of this doc.

And it's such a weird emotional documentary portrait of me that when it was over, you kind of get that feeling like, well, it's sad this guy died.

You know, when I had to go up on stage, you know, with Steven after the movie, I got up and I'm like, this guy's still alive.

There was a moment where I'm like, I'm still alive.

This is not one of those docs where you're like, God, I wish I, I'm glad I've been introduced to his work, but it's sad that he's gone.

No, I'm here and I'm walking up to the stage right now.

So it was an exciting weekend.

And I was wearing a Ship John shirt when I got up on the stage because it seems that the Ship John shirts shirts seem to fit the me who I am currently and presently.

And it seems to be pretty much all of me.

And the guy who designed that shirt is on the show today.

So

it is, as I said before, tomorrow, March 14th, is the 10th anniversary of the Ship John Wills jacket.

And Ship John is releasing a special decade edition of the jacket tomorrow.

You can check it out at shipjohn.us.

It might not be easy to get one, and you might have to wait for it.

But let's get into the life of Mike now.

This is me talking to Mike Elias in the garage.

This is an outlier type of talk for me, but the truth is, is that I wear all your clothes.

You got a bunch of them.

But I wear it, like I, they're like in terms of on stage yeah i've been wearing uh this tour i wear that shirt that you got on but doesn't look like that so you did that on purpose well i've been i've just been wearing this non-stop for the last two and a half years and you wash it yeah yeah i just wash my when it's stinky yeah and then it just fades out like that yeah now what is that fabric called a sashiko ori it's kind of the um if you look at japanese kendo geese it's the fabric they made for that okay so now an idea like that now that's a like a a fairly traditional Western-cut shirt.

And you get hip to this fabric

because you got people in Japan.

I got some people in Japan, and I fell in love with a shirt in Japan that was made out of this.

Yeah.

Bought it.

Yeah.

It was a small company over there bought the shirt and then got back here and you could only find a really thin version of this.

That's here made in America.

The fabric is not made in America.

Right.

But the idea of the fabric is supposed to be that fabric.

But the fabric that you found here was not made in Japan either.

It was made in Thailand, I think.

So some knockoff of this and really accessible.

And

a lot of the shirts you see made like this are made out of that kind of cheaper version.

Right.

But this one's heavy, man.

It's heavy.

And once I set my sights on kind of what I want to make something out of,

I just need to do that.

I can't cut the corners and get the shitty version.

So for this vision of this particular shirt, you've got to track down a manufacturer in Japan.

Yeah.

And you found a guy.

Yeah, found a guy.

They still make it the traditional way.

What do you mean?

Like they grind the stuff to make the dye?

And then they, like, I've watched like Instagram reels of things that are either Chinese or Japanese where they start with like rocks.

This starts with a plant.

It's indigo.

However, I don't know the exact process of it.

They spin the yarn.

Yeah, it's like crazy to watch it.

It is insane.

And, you know, this is a machine made.

It's not somebody hand-making this fashion.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

But it is, it's a special version of it in that it's it's the thick actual yeah it's heavy man like I when I pack that shirt it takes up you know a lot of room yeah you gotta you gotta make way for it in the suitcase like I bring I bring that shirt on the road now and I also perform in the the moleskin that green moleskin Western

with the brass buttons those are the two the two performing shirts for this tour.

I'm glad they're with you, buddy.

Yeah, they're the Ship John specials.

And then I got the Wills jacket, and I guess you just got my booking agent one, Joe.

He got one, Joe Schwartz.

No shit.

Yeah,

he just ordered it regularly.

Oh, cool.

I didn't hook you up, but I guess he got it shortened a little bit.

And he said, yeah, it seemed really long.

I'm like, that's because Mike cuts everything to fit him.

Everything could be a little long.

I mean, the whole basis of the brand is just shit that I want.

Yeah.

That's

everything I've ever designed is something that I see

missing in the world or

existed, but they don't make it the same way anymore.

So I'll just.

Yeah.

This shirt is the it's not ex it's not a complete copy, but the old U.S.-made Wrangler shirts.

Okay.

They were cut trim, they were denim, they were good denim.

And at a certain point, they started making them elsewhere and made them out of shitty denim.

And then it just turns to garbage.

So I was like,

those are now missing in the world because you stopped making good ones.

So that's when I started making my version.

Well, I think this shirt's a pre-sell-out Filson.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

I mean,

the history of that company is...

The tragedy of that company.

I'll stop short.

But the history, there's so much good history in Filson.

It's an inspiration for a small little brand like me, like what they've done over the years.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, like, so where does it start, though?

I mean, because I know

you're just a Jersey guy.

Yep.

Yep.

But, like, not North Jersey.

I come from North Jersey.

I come from,

I always say I don't come from Joysey.

I come from Jersey.

Yeah.

You know, where?

Divide and Crook, it's called.

It's a little small town in

the closest town people seem to know is Vineland.

Yeah.

What's that?

I don't, man.

I mean,

I know, here's what I know.

I know Bergen County, and I know the Jersey Shore, and I know Jersey City.

So I know, you know, Patterson, Wayne, Pompton Lakes, Haskell, Butler, up where my grandparents were.

And I know Jersey City, and then I know, like,

Monmouth County.

Gotcha.

Yeah, see, I'm two and a half hours

south of Monmouth.

Yeah.

Well, where's Monmouth?

Is that central?

It's a beach.

It's like, it's on the water.

It's by Asbury.

Oh, okay, yeah.

So, yeah, at least an hour and a half from there.

You know where Cape May is, all the way down to the bottom?

No, but like, what's the

bottom of Jersey, that little angle that hangs?

Yeah, sure.

So that's Cape May.

Yeah.

I'm on the Delaware Bay side, half hour north of there,

on the bay.

So that's barely Jersey.

No,

that's actually Jersey.

We're going to have an argument about what's real Jersey.

It's not where Bruce Springsteen comes from, man.

No, it's not.

It's not.

But what is it, right up against Delaware, then?

The Delaware Bay.

So if you cross the bay from where I'm at, you'll hit Delaware.

Yeah.

So what do you what do you are you

you're on the water then?

On the water.

My dad's an oysterman, crab, commercial fisherman.

Oyster guy.

Yeah, oyster guy.

So you grew up with oysters?

Yeah, my first job was on an oyster boat.

Really?

Yeah.

Is that where Ship John comes from?

Yeah, Ship John is a lighthouse right in the middle of the Delaware Bay called Ship John Shoal.

And that was kind of a point of reference when we were fishing as a young kid or working.

We're south of Ship John today, north of Ship John, that kind of thing.

So wait, this is before oyster farms.

They're farmed.

Yeah, they are.

Even back then?

They do it differently out there where they'll dump the shells on the ground and then dredge the oysters.

Whereas on the west coast, like on the William Bay,

the tide will go down and they actually string the shells up and pick the oysters

in some instances.

So the hipsters figure out a way to pick oysters.

The hipsters do.

I just know that when you go to up the coast, up outside of Northern California and stuff, and up into Washington, you get all these different kinds of oysters.

It just seems like someone got the idea to breed these things and then put them on strings so you can pick them off.

Yeah, yeah, you just go out there and pick them like tomatoes.

But that's not the old school way.

The old school way from the old, old school, they would tong them.

They'd have these long tongs where they'd, you know, I think

12, 15-foot tongs.

Yeah.

They'd just reach down there and pull as many as they could.

So this is more efficient.

Yeah, the dredges are more efficient.

Like, because Jersey, like, are they the big oysters?

Yeah, medium, not giant, but yeah, because, like, there's some, like, uh, and then you've got all the clamming, no clamming in the family.

There's a little bit of not in our family history.

Maybe my dad's grandpa or something like that with clams.

Yeah, none of those big cohogs or steamers.

What are the steamers, those little ones?

Little necks?

They're good.

Yeah, that's what I remember about the Jersey Shore, the Jersey Shore is go get in those buckets of steamers.

Melted butter on those these things.

Yeah.

Just pull the thing off the tongue.

Do you still eat shellfish?

I haven't eaten shit.

I haven't eaten any of the any of the meats of sea or land.

What do you get a cake?

Two years.

They actually make it now.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's only been a couple of years, but they make a vegan rube in there that's fucking awesome.

No shit.

Yeah.

Some companies doing a like a vegan corned beef facsimile,

which is just

with the spices, and then you can get, you know, the sauerkraut, vegan Russian dressing, avocado instead of cheese.

They grill it.

It's fucking fine.

I bet it's good.

I don't know.

I don't miss the meat.

What am I going to tell you?

You don't have to.

So how did you avoid becoming a fisherman?

I moved to Philadelphia.

But what was the insane?

You got brothers and sisters?

Yeah, they're all still kind of around that zone.

They're not fishermen.

Brothers work at

their labors.

They work on the highways.

They fix the roads up and down New Jersey.

Oh, yeah?

Bridges and Chilika.

And your dad's still around or no?

Yeah, he's still around.

He's still working on the boats.

He's still on the boat.

Yeah,

he won't quit.

So oysters and what else?

Crabs.

He used to go out in the scallop boats every once in a while.

That was like maybe two weeks out in the ocean.

So he's like a bottom feeder guy.

Yeah,

he gets what we want from the bottom of the face.

Yeah, yeah.

So you get those Delaware crabs?

Yeah, the Blue Point.

Yeah.

Or not

Blue Crab.

Yeah, yeah, Blue Crab.

What are those other ones that the bigger ones?

Dungeness.

Dungeoness.

That's West Coast.

That's up by near you, up by Washington, Washington, right?

They're so damn good.

They are good.

You eat one of them.

And then what are those ones down in Florida?

Like Joe's crabs, those bigger,

there's another type of crab down there where it's kind of like a dungeness.

I never ate crabs in Florida.

Yeah, well, you got to go to Joe's Crab Shack or whatever.

I'll make it.

It's a big deal.

It's a big deal, those crabs.

I feel like I've heard of it, but I never realized what kind of crabs they do have down there.

Yeah, so you basically are in a family of fishermen.

Yep.

And everyone's kind of hanging out.

And what makes you want to get the fuck out of there?

I just didn't quite.

I love the way I grew up.

Yeah.

We grew up rabbit hunting, deer hunting, fishing,

all that kind of

woods where you came from.

Bow hunting or gun hunting?

A little both.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you can handle a bow?

I can handle a bow.

It's been a long time.

Yeah.

And what you guys do, shoot like one deer a year?

Nowadays,

I don't want to give out any secrets on how deer.

They fill the freezer up.

Yeah.

And that's pretty much all the meat they're eating.

For the year.

Or for six months.

Yeah, I mean, for the year on.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Same with,

well, rabbits too?

We'd eat rabbits sometimes.

We'd give them to some of the poor families around.

We

kind of did it for sport.

They never went to waste.

They did.

So

you grew up shooting those guns?

Yeah.

Yeah.

22s, shotguns, big ones.

Shotguns,

some rifles, handguns for fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Gun shot in the hand one time with a 22.

What did that do to you?

It just, it's, I think there's a little shard of it still in there.

But it wasn't.

My buddy sprayed the shell sitting there with a, you know, the hairspray torch.

Yeah.

He sprayed a shell that was sitting there and it shot me in the hand like a dumb dumb.

Oh, that's some fun kid stuff.

Fun kid shit.

What do you think was going to happen?

I don't know if he did think.

So, so you really grew up in that, in, in the, in that that sort of rugged outdoor working-class world.

Yeah, yeah, just middle of the fucking woods and riding dirtbags.

From when you were a kid.

Yeah, yeah.

Because there's something about Ship John, and it's always been the way with me in certain clothing,

in that

I know I'm not living the life that the clothing honors.

So I've got to temper

my purchases to acknowledge the fashion and not come off as opposer of any kind.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I don't really buy into any of that shit.

I just think if somebody wants to wear something, wear it.

The thing about it is, I didn't

come from the fashion world

at all.

So it's just like, these are the clothes that I think are nice and will last a long time.

Whoever wants to wear them, you know, now the workwear fashion is kind of a big thing.

It's been one for a little while.

And then we have people who buy our shit and actually beat the hell out of it, you know?

For real, for the work.

For real, yeah.

Well, I think Philson's the same way.

But like, I just remember I used to do a joke a million years ago when, you know, shirts, you know, work shirts were getting popular back the first time when I was in college.

These guys would get these shirts with like someone's name on it.

And I had a joke about, like, yeah, that must have belonged to somebody who had a job.

Well, you got a job, kind of.

It doesn't, you know.

Well, you know, I'm just careful.

Like, I had an experience where, and I've told the story before, but not too many times, where,

you know, I was in Boston, and one of the

DJs who used to show up at comedy shows to kind of promote them, he always had these amazing leather jackets.

And Vanson Leathers

was in Quincy.

So I'm like, well, I asked him, I said, where do you get it?

And he's like, you got to go out to Quincy to Vanson.

So I'm like, I'm going out there.

I'm going to go to the source.

And I remember, you know, trying on a jacket and a guy like fitting me, like, who was there,

he says, you know, well, if you're going to be traveling at pretty high speeds, you're probably going to want something that fits a little snugger than this.

I'm like, I'm looking for something a sweater will fit in.

I'm going to be doing a lot of walking in this.

Did you feel like you were appropriating motorcycle culture with that thing on?

Of course.

But like, I, and I, like, there was one I wore a lot, but I always have a problem with sweat.

I think Dino ended up with,

uh, Delray ended up with both of those.

I think I just gave them to him if he wanted to sort of move them or sell them.

Because the one I really liked, like I sweat through, so now I got to, you know, really, I don't sweat as much as I used to.

Maybe I'm more relaxed, but

you got rid of the meat?

Maybe.

I think I got rid of the stress too, some of it, in terms of the nerves that made me sweat.

But like with leathers, they're porous.

So like

if you sweat through a leather, it'll get that, you know, that

salt stain on it.

And it fucks it up.

And there's nothing you can, you can't get rid of it.

It wants to stay there it's going you're gonna fuck it up you can hide it it'll show its face again yeah yeah you can't you can re-dye it i guess but it was just uh it bummed me out yeah but that's why when i got that um

i think i got some fabric from you

like the the most waterproof fabric you had you just sent me a little piece of it i don't remember it because i wanted them to sew armpit things into that suede thing.

Oh, I remember that now.

That was that jacket in there?

Yeah, the old one.

The Japanese one, no.

No, the Japanese one.

The Y2.

Yeah.

I had a guy at the tailor I know kind of fabricate some sweat things.

That was a sweat?

Yeah, to put it inside it.

Yeah.

Just so to have a little boundary so I don't fuck the suede up.

No shit.

All right.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Makes sense now.

Yeah.

That was that idea.

So, okay, so what do you do in Philadelphia?

Working odd jobs.

I was a valet parker.

You just wanted to go to Philly because of the skills.

Yeah, well, I was into skating and I

like rollerblading, actually, not skateboarding.

I was into rollerblading.

Really?

That doesn't seem like a man's game.

I thought it was.

But I did that when I was a kid.

And you're not doing pools on roller skates.

No, yeah, all that shit.

Oh, you can do them on the handrails and all that.

That's the with the rollerblades?

Yeah.

Okay, but did you how'd the guys on skateboards look at the rollerbladers?

They didn't they didn't like us,

if I'm being honest.

But I did get um uh one of the guys who built FDR said I was the only FDR is a skate park in Philadelphia, made by skateboarders.

Yeah.

And I know I knew how to skate concrete, so he noticed that, and he's like, you're the only rollerblader allowed.

Oh, really?

So I got a little badge from that.

Who was that skater that I met that knew you at Canners?

Oh, that was Matt.

Yeah.

Isn't he a skate guy?

Rollerblading, yeah.

Oh, he's a rollerblade guy.

Yeah.

You didn't know you were hanging out with the rollerblader, did you?

Well, I knew he did something.

He's a sweet dude, man.

He's the kind of guy who like

takes care of the kids.

You know, he like makes sure everybody feels good about like what they're, even if they suck at what they're doing, he'll back them up.

He bought my dinner, dude.

That's sweet.

Yeah, sweet guy.

He's a good dude.

Yeah, he seemed like a good dude.

He was a competitive rollerblader, that guy?

Yeah, at a certain point.

He's owned a skate shop for a long time.

Helps the community out.

And blades?

Just blades.

I think maybe skateboards on Bakersfield.

You never did the skateboard.

I'd skateboarded too.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Competitively?

No, no, no, no.

Can you go up the side of a pool and then turn around and come down?

Yeah, I could still do that.

Probably shouldn't do that.

Were you a punk rock guy?

A little bit.

I delved into like East Coast hardcore for a little bit.

You had to, right, with the skates, but maybe not.

I mean, it didn't really tie in.

That all came from my brother.

He was real into the.

Older brother?

Older brother.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was, what's he, nine years older than I am.

So

he fed me all the

Fugazis and

New York hardcore, H2O and Samadall and all that shit.

How old are you?

I'm 43.

Oh, you're a fucking kid.

It's crazy.

How do you pronounce your last name?

Elias.

Elias.

Because I was going, I knew it could have been Elias or Elias.

A lot of people go Elias, but Elias.

Elias.

Elias.

That's a family name.

All right.

So what

occurs?

Because your journey as a clothing manufacturer is a little peculiar, isn't it?

It is not

the way a lot of people go about it.

But so you're skating and you're working in restaurants in Philadelphia.

Then I was a bike messenger, and then

I was parking cars,

doing those jobs where you give cigarettes out at bars and shit like that.

And then at a certain point, my wife and I.

You were with her back then?

We met in Philadelphia.

Okay.

Yeah.

We decided it was time to get the fuck out of Philadelphia.

This is around 2004, 2005, something like that.

So we hopped in a Volkswagen van, believe it or not,

79, and headed west and just traveled the country.

Had no sites on anywhere.

Where to live?

No, we just left.

Yeah.

And so you did a crossroad trip?

Yeah, we were up across the country three, four times, up and down.

I don't know,

zigzags.

But that was the idea.

We're just going to live off the land for a year.

We wanted to move somewhere, but we didn't know where.

Okay.

Sure.

We thought about the desert.

We thought about West Texas.

texas oh yeah um

like marfa like more like there's this little town called terlingua it's a little hippie town near big bend and all that okay yeah real pretty down there yeah but i i'm glad i didn't stay there stay in texas yeah but you hung out for a while hung out there for a little bit hung out in california for a little bit

uh just zigging around what were you doing for money playing guitar Really?

On the street, yeah.

That's that's and wrecking up credit card debt.

How'd you do on the street with the guitar?

I mean, I never made a shit ton of money, but I'd make enough for a little gas or burgers.

You've been playing a long time.

Yeah, yeah.

Well,

I wanted to play when I was a kid.

My dad always played guitar.

Yeah.

And

I'm going to call him out for this, but I was like, dad, can you teach me how to play guitar?

And he was like, I taught myself, you can teach your damn self.

So that was the, that's your guiding principle.

Yeah.

I got to teach myself.

Honestly, kind of,

it stuck with me.

Yeah.

I taught myself myself how to play guitar in late teens, early 20s, and just kind of like folk stuff.

Sure.

What did he play?

Your classic rock and roll.

Oh, yeah.

Like Pusher Man and some Zeppelin stuff.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

On acoustic?

On acoustic.

Oh, that's nice.

That was always happening in the house.

Oh, that's good.

But, all right, so you're playing guitar on the streets.

So you're living this kind of pseudo-hippie lifestyle.

A little bit.

I mean,

pretty groovy?

Yeah, I wasn't like a hippie per se.

Yeah.

Just kind of.

Well, no, but you know, just kind of free spirit.

Sure.

Right.

Yeah.

And how do you get up to Portland?

We had to meet somebody there.

We had a job

at a skate camp, actually, for a summer because we ran out of money.

This is in De Hatchby, California.

And met some friends there.

They invited us to work on their farm up in Humboldt.

Pop farm?

Yeah, trimming.

Yeah.

So you did that?

You're picking buds?

Picking buds, trimming buds.

This is before hydroponic, right?

It was out in the wild.

This is in the woods, yeah.

Yeah.

So an Eagle Eagle pop farm in the woods.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

That must have been pretty because I remember that was where all the good pop came from for a while.

Oh, yeah.

Back in the day when I still used drugs, you know, I remember when, like, you know, like sense, like when buds came.

Yeah.

Like they were rare.

I mean, like, all of a sudden you're getting these fucking Humboldt buds.

Yeah, before that, it's just like whatever kind of shake in a little bag.

But

it was in my lifetime that Sensomia became the thing.

Right?

It used to be like they didn't sell that shit.

It was crazy.

I don't even know why.

I don't know the history of weed.

I mean, it always came in buds.

Maybe they just ground it down to stretch it.

Who the hell knows?

Mix the leaves in.

Yeah, yeah, like that.

The shit with the shake with the good stuff.

But yeah, but when those hydro, like it was hydroponic, too.

That came out of Canada.

But when the Humboldt weed came, and I was still smoking weed, it was pretty exciting.

That was like the the place.

I knew a guy who came from up in that area, played in a band called Dieselhead.

I remember that band.

Oh, he would like that band, actually.

I'll check it out.

There's only like two records, but they were kind of this odd bunch of guys who were playing around San Francisco that did kind of a hillbilly punky kind of, not really hillbilly, but it's hard to describe them.

But I kind of knew those guys, and they were all kind of Humboldt kids.

Yeah.

So you're up in Humboldt picking buds.

Doing that.

And then before we went there, we had to meet somebody in Portland.

So we were in Portland for one day,

two days maybe.

Yeah.

And then went down there,

got done with that, and we're like, you want to go check, at least check Portland out a little bit more.

It seemed nice.

What year is that?

That was 06.

Okay.

Yeah, 06.

So that's sort of peak Portland.

It was good.

It was good.

So you get up there, you're like, this is it?

Felt groovy?

We kind of just, you know, we were living in the van on not like four blocks from where my shop is now, just in a parking lot.

And

we didn't have any computers or anything.

So you go to this little coffee shop and look at their like community computer and try to find jobs and places to live.

And I ended up finding that I got a job at Stumptown.

It's a coffee place, the original Stumptown.

I went into the original one to apply.

I didn't even know what a fucking latte was.

I walked in.

I was wearing the same vest as the guy, Blake, working, the same plaid.

And I was like, you guys hiring?

He's like, yeah, actually, we are.

Yeah.

Trained up and started making coffee.

You're doing?

You're pulling espresso?

Pulling espresso.

Yeah.

That's what you do in Portland.

That was kind of a...

So at that time, Stumptown was the only good coffee.

There were some other ones starting, but that was before they got really huge.

Oddly, Stumptown, for whatever reason, is still very good coffee.

Oh, it's great coffee.

And I can't ever figure out what it is, but

I guess the magic is in the roast and the beans.

But if you drink Stumptown, you're like, oh, this is Stumptown.

Yeah.

It has a flavor.

It's all of them.

They don't fuck it up.

You know, like, yeah, but I don't know.

They don't over-roast it.

They don't under-roast it.

Right, it's a magic.

You got to find the magic numbers.

Everybody roasts coffee.

Intelligentsia is sort of the same way.

They make a good coffee where you can actually tell this is intelligentsia no matter what bean it is.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, so

signature roasts.

Right.

I don't even know, but I don't get how that works.

So you're at the only Stumptown.

No, at that point, they had three of them.

And only in Portland.

It wasn't like a nationwide or worldwide thing at that point.

But it was cool because everybody rat in Portland.

It was the best coffee in Portland at the time.

So everybody came in.

So I got, that was my intro to Portland.

I got to meet all these amazing folks, musicians, artists, all these people.

I became part of the community of Portland pretty quick.

As a guitar guy or just a guy?

As the guy who made people's coffee at that point.

But made some friends, you know.

And

it was a good intro to the city yeah yeah whereas i don't if i never got that i only worked there for a year but if i never got that job i don't know what would happen because when i started making shit like all my friends who i met through

through the coffee shop yeah started buying the shit and just kind of branched out from there but how does that happen you're just a dude who's got no real vision And when do you like make your first shit?

What compels you to do that?

It's always been the same thing.

It's always been, like I mentioned earlier, with the shirt.

Yeah, but still, there's a big jump

between this isn't around anymore.

Well, that's how it started too.

So at the time, I was real into cycling, too.

Bicycles.

Oh, bicycles, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Riding bicycles around.

And you know those little cycling hats with the little brim?

Yeah.

You couldn't find those without a big fucking logo on the side.

Right.

And I've never been a big fucking logo guy.

So I wanted to make my own cycling hats without a logo.

So that was the first thing.

Started selling those.

At the time, I was starting to make wallets and shit like that.

But that was like the...

With what?

Just your hands?

The shitty sewing machine I had.

So you didn't know how to sew, though?

You figured it out.

Not really.

I just started sewing shitties.

So you took a bike hat and you took it apart.

Basically, yeah, took it apart, altered the pattern a little bit, made it.

fit my big old head

and uh started sewing them up you know i fucked i fucked a bunch

stuff up.

But that's all, that's like your dad, you know, you got to teach yourself.

Yeah.

So you had a shitty sewing machine.

You're taking apart pieces of clothing so you can figure out patterns.

Yep.

And you made bike hats.

Made bike hats.

That turned into.

That became popular, your bike hats.

Well, I met one of the best bicycle builders in Portland.

Yeah.

Sasha White, still one of my best friends.

He's building these phenomenal handmade bikes.

And I went into his shop and he asked me about my hat.

Yeah.

And he liked it.

He did one out of wool.

And then he was like, can you do a run for vanilla, for vanilla bicycles?

And I was like, shit, yeah.

Hell yeah.

This guy's like my craftsperson hero.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that turned into me making bicycles with him.

So I started to learn metalwork.

So, okay, so you do the hats.

Do the hats.

But you're you're making one hat at a time.

Yeah, yeah.

I think I did like 25 hats for him or something.

That That was the run.

That was a huge run for me.

That took you a month.

Worked my ass off on this thing.

Did they sell pretty good?

Yeah, they sold out.

So now you're in the shop and you're starting to learn how to put together bikes?

Yeah, he needed, he was starting like a little bit of a production run of bikes and he just needed hands.

Right.

He's like, you ever run a lathe?

And I'm like, no, but I'll fucking figure it out.

Same thing with the latte.

I figure out how to make a latte.

I can figure out how to run a lathe, right?

Yeah.

So I just go in there and start learning how to fabricate metal.

So we're

hand-making bicycle frames in a little shop in Portland.

And you're welding?

He's doing all the brazing at that point.

I ended up doing some of it, but

so I'm like prepping all the parts.

So tubes have to fit together with a miter or some people call it a cope

where the tube kind of wraps around the other tube.

So I'm prepping all those miters and

stuff like that.

But you're learning the ropes.

Learning the ropes.

And machines.

And also a lot of handwork.

And I think that's where I really, really realized what I could do with my hands.

Yeah.

Like what kind of handwork on the bikes?

A lot of hand filing.

Okay, so sure.

Some tubes are welded, some are what's called fillet brazing, which is like a brass ramp between the two tubes.

Yeah.

Which holds the steel together.

Yeah.

So to make those perfect, you have to kind of do a lot of hand filing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you're getting skills.

Getting skills and learning how to use my hands.

And once you kind of realize the hand-eye coordination and the brain

construction coordination,

you can apply that in a lot of different ways.

Sure.

I think that's when my dexterity and my kind of my brain kind of opened up to how I can use my hands.

And you learned to craft, too, though.

Learned to craft, yeah.

And I still use that.

I still make little metal bits.

Yeah, I know.

I have some.

I have some metal bits.

Yeah.

Every time you get a wild idea, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay.

I need that thing that holds the record down.

Some weird Mike Brass

bit of business.

That's where my mind's going these days because I, you know, my mind is always,

I love the clothing that we make, but I don't, it's hard for me to get excited about another piece of clothing.

Oh, yeah.

Personally.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm excited about what we like putting this stuff out there, but my mind wants to make other rat shit, you know.

Well, okay, so, but, like, in the world of

what you do, so so you quit the coffee shop to work at the bike place.

Yeah.

And then

what what happens so you got this metal skill set you've made hats yeah so then what's the next jump

the next jump i started making bags for bicycles messenger bags no like a like a pannier bag that would go on oh on the bicycle out of what canvas seat bag canvas and leather or no a little bit of leather yeah sometimes webbing uh-huh

So I'm starting to formulate these, and the pattern making on those is more straightforward than a garment.

It's a rectangle here, a rectangle there, curve here, blah, blah, blah.

So I'm starting to formulate a little bit more of an idea of how to construct a pattern.

I'm learning about seam allowances more.

I'm kind of, and this is all by fucking up.

And stitching?

Stitching.

My stitching's getting straighter.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And just starting to

figuring out tools too at the same time.

Because there wasn't, you couldn't go on YouTube and figure out how to make something back then.

Yeah.

So I'm like, fuck, there's got to be a a tool for this.

So

I had the internet, so I had to research, but like, there wasn't this wide variety of people selling leather tools online at that point.

Oh, really?

You had to really fucking search.

You had to go to Tandy.

Tandy's kind of bullshit tools, but I'm glad they're there because.

Are they still there?

They're still there.

Isn't that crazy?

It used to be owned by Radio Shack.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

Or Tandy Core owned Radio Shack.

I know they were affiliated, but I was knew that.

Anytime I went to a tandy store for whatever, like

rarely in my life, but I just remember there always being a tandy store.

I grew up in New Mexico, and I'm like, who the fuck is shopping in here?

Who's making these belts?

But somebody was.

Yeah.

I mean,

the cool thing about...

a place like that, and this exists in all kinds of

tool applications.

If you're going to make you and your friends a couple of belts, it's perfect for that.

You buy the tools.

They're not going to last forever.

They'll do the job.

They'll get the job done.

But if you're going to

manufacture it, that stuff's not going to hold up.

Yeah, yeah.

It just isn't.

So, all right, so you figure out where to get leather tools.

Yeah.

Started learning about, in fact,

C.S.

Osborne is New Jersey.

Oh, one of the leather?

Yeah, one of the leather tool manufacturers.

Oh, yeah.

So I found out about them and then I started like...

Do you have a relationship with them now?

No, I don't, but they don't give a shit about me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they still make the tools.

They still make the tools.

And what about the leathers?

Are you going to like Horween or what are you doing?

I use some Horween.

I use mostly Herman Oak.

Yeah.

Where's that?

They're in the Midwest somewhere.

I forget where they're at.

But so now, like, alongside of the skill set and the tools and figuring this stuff out,

you're also researching materials.

Research materials and

making mistakes, just like cutting shit up and trying, like, I'd make the corner of a bag, just the corner of a bag, just to see how like those two, those three pieces would fit together.

Yeah,

figuring it out.

Yeah, just trying to make sense of it all.

What's the first, like, so the first run of stuff you did after the hats was the bags?

I started making some custom bags for custom vanilla bicycles.

Yeah.

Then I started making my own kind of duffel bags and backpacks and things like that.

Yeah.

And you still do that?

Still do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So where does

you know the influence to kind of broaden it out?

You got that from Philson?

I mean, in a sense,

there was definitely inspiration from them.

Well, I remember when I bought my Will's jacket early on,

because Dean brought me to the, before you even had a store, really.

He brought me to the first shop.

Yeah.

You know, I didn't know who you were.

And he was.

Yeah, but he said like a little

story.

Yeah.

And, you know, Dean, I met you, and then, you know, he's talking up that Will's jacket.

And, you know, Dean is the pipeline pipeline to all uh small artisans of all kinds he finds the folks yeah yeah he's he's interesting like that but I imagine between him and I we brought you a few customers yeah I can't I can't thank you enough

but the problem is we're bringing you customers people are like I got to wait a year for that jacket yeah but it'll be cool

but I remember you telling me on my Wills

You said that that oil cloth, that tin cloth that that's made out of was Filson surplus.

Or from the same place that Filson from

I won't mention any exact specifics on that.

Yeah.

But

so

the Wills jacket was born of

that fabric was prior to the Wills jacket only used for luggage bags.

Okay.

For Filson or whatever.

Filson, other people made stuff.

I was making my bags out of it.

That's how I knew about that fabric.

Okay.

And is that called a tin cloth?

I mean, tin cloth is kind of Filson's coin term for it.

It's waxed canvas.

Wax canvas.

Yeah, heavy wax canvas.

Generally speaking.

This one, the Wills is waxed twill.

Yeah, so it's a one by three weave instead of a one by one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you're making bags?

Making bags.

At that point, I got a job as a stonemason.

Wow.

I was done with the

building

like hand chiseling rock walls, dry stack rock walls.

Yeah.

Like an old castle.

Yeah, yeah.

So was that a detour or were you still kind of chipping right away at the close?

I left the bike thing.

I was doing my own thing this whole time, but it wasn't making enough money

for it to be my full-time job.

So I had to work.

I was working at bars too.

I worked at like three, four different bars in Portland.

Wow.

Okay.

And, you know, doing music stuff at the same time, all this different shit.

Doing Portland stuff.

Doing Portland stuff.

Yeah.

Life stuff.

Yeah.

You know,

trying to explore whatever the hell it was I was going to be doing

for the rest of it.

Yeah.

And he figured out a way to do all of them.

So when do you.

I don't know if I figured it out yet.

But when do you start to make it your business?

How does that, is that with the Wills?

After the jacket, yeah.

That kind of changed the game.

So you're still working out of your house.

Yeah.

At this point, I think right around this time, I got this little barn studio.

Yeah.

It was $100 a month.

It was like a little,

maybe 15 by 15 carriage house from turn of the century.

Okay.

But it was finished on the inside.

And you had your leather tools in there, leather tools, sewing machine.

Little workbench, little sewing machine.

Uh-huh.

And all the tools.

I like slowly collected tools.

That's what I was doing at that point.

If I sold like a wallet or a little thing, just buy more tools.

Yeah.

I never had,

I was poor as shit.

I didn't have any money around.

And you hadn't had a kid yet.

Not yet.

Yeah.

No.

and so but you're also learning how to you know draw patterns yep and doing all that yeah so what so the the real

like the the the moment of lightning in a bottle was this will's jacket and that came that came from i won't mention a name but i bought i saved up some money and bought this really nice work jacket to do the stonemasonry yeah yeah

and the fucking thing two weeks yeah it was gone like the front seam fell apart.

Okay.

I got a hole because I'm carrying these big rocks around.

So I had holes in the arms and shit like that.

And I was like, you know what?

Fuck it.

I got that.

I have a couple of yards of that really heavy shit.

Yeah.

I'm just going to make myself a jacket out of that.

Right.

That won't rip.

Yeah.

That was the impetus behind making the Wills jacket.

It was like, I just needed a better jacket.

So you made the jacket with the brass?

With the what?

With the brass buttons and shit?

Yeah, it had brass snaps.

Yeah.

and you made the snaps no no no no okay no no no they were snaps i can get okay so you got the brass snaps and then uh

you uh you made the jacket and so what people start going like where the fuck did you get that jacket it was bonkers every single person who saw me walking around wanted one i had like you know instagram with like couple three four hundred followers and every single one of them wanted one yeah and then all the people i worked with at the bar wanted one and blah, blah, blah.

So I was just like, fuck it.

Let's make some jackets.

Yeah.

Give me some money.

I'll get after it.

So you started to do it.

How many did you make?

At that point, it was like 25 or something like that.

And it took a long time to.

And you had no one working for you.

No, it's just me.

Making Will's jackets.

Making Will's jackets.

Out of that one fabric.

Yep.

Yep.

One fabric.

So then they start spreading.

It becomes viral.

All of a sudden, I mean, I guess for back then.

Micro viral.

Yeah, but everyone in Portland won one.

Everybody in Portland wanted one, and then spread a little bit.

I had buddies in Seattle for music, so they wanted one, and it started to kind of creep out.

So that's all you were making at a certain point.

Yeah.

Still wallets and things like that.

Because at the same time, I was refining my leather craft.

I'm still refining it.

I don't mean to reflect.

The chain wallets?

Chain wallets.

I have a bunch of different wallet designs and bag designs and things like that.

All right.

So when do you start hiring people and broadening the merchandise?

Just

ever so slowly decided that the shop had to grow and

now buy some more sewing machines.

A lot more sewing machines and started to hire staff.

Are you still the primary designer?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I design everything.

You don't have anybody there that's sort of like, what about this idea?

They don't even bother?

Jacob and I worked together on like fabric choices and things like that because, um you know the the thing i didn't realize when i started the business is yeah you have to do all this other

yeah like payroll and right all the accounting and all that so so much of my time now is spent kind of tip tapping on the computer yeah um

and

so it's cool to have um trusted folks to bounce those ideas off jacob jacob who

you met a couple times,

he's really cool in that he he studied a lot of the history of garments.

He's collected like vintage band t-shirts for the last fucking 25, 30 years.

So he's a garment historian, and he's a little bit more.

He kind of is, yeah.

And he knows a lot about fabrics and the history of them.

So he'll like do these little searches for neat fabrics that are available and kind of throw some stuff in front of me.

And I'm like, nah, that one feels

this way or feels that way.

Yeah.

So I make the final calls.

Right.

Or, you know, it's funny because when I bought the Wills, I think I bought

a

waxed shirt that I wore on Colbert, remember?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It was too hot to wear on Colbert.

That was very, very sweet.

Yeah, those things are not, they're not forgiving, though.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's for, you know, it's a layer for rain.

I mean, like, but like, that's just my thing.

It's like, this is a cool shirt.

And there I am on Colbert, like, you know, sweating my balls off in a waxed shirt.

It looked pretty good, though.

It looked good.

Yeah.

Wrong place to wear it.

But yeah, so, okay, so then you just start making all the other stuff.

Yeah, the wheels.

And then it's kind of the same thing.

Like I mentioned earlier,

I wanted the duffel bag.

So started to design to make duffel bags and the shirts and the jeans and it's all deck later, right?

Yeah,

it starts to grow in the 2000

17, 18.

The story behind the stitching on the back pockets of the jeans.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

To make it like there has to be a signature to jeans.

Yeah.

And you did it with a record.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's it's one, two, three, four.

It's five 12 inch curves

that I laid out.

Yeah.

And that's where you get that.

And then what now for the for the denim nerds, because like I'm not a nerd,

but you've got some machine that you hemmed my,

those things shrunk up a little on me.

I might need to get some more

jeans.

We'll set you up.

Because

like they're, they're, they're about just right, but I think they did pull up a little bit.

I don't know how that happened, huh?

You dry them?

No.

No?

I don't know how it happened.

But they're fine.

They're good.

I wear them.

But what is that machine that is so sought after for that bottom hem?

The Union Special, the 43800G,

it's made for hemming.

And that's like an old Levi's thing, or what is it?

Levi's use,

pretty much all the big jeans companies.

But it's a manual thing.

You got to sit there and do it.

Yeah,

I mean, it's got a motor.

It's not

treadling or hand-cranking it.

Yeah,

I do it by eye.

Some people iron the hem out a little bit beforehand, but I do it kind of, I call it the old hairy eyeball method.

You roll it, and then there's a little folder that holds it in place.

And

the people love that machine because it

twists the hem a little bit.

So if you look at an old pair of Levi's pre-early 70s, probably

the bottom of the hem has this little angle to it on the fades, and they call it a roped hem.

Oh, and that's what you get with that machine.

That machine is

flawed.

No, no, they don't make it anymore.

So that's so you get like a little time travel element.

Yep, definitely.

So when did the attack happen?

Oh, the head attack.

Yeah.

That was 2018.

So that's about where we are in the timeline.

Yeah, yeah, it was starting to pick it up with Will's jackets and things like that.

But it's still the old shop.

The first shop.

The second shop.

The second real shop.

But not the store shop.

Not the one that I have now.

But was it the one I went to?

That's the first one you went to.

Okay.

MLK.

Yeah.

Is that where it happened?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And what happened?

That was.

So we have music events in the shop.

This one was whatever.

celebration we're having.

A Portland band was playing.

We had a great night.

And Goodart Hollywood, the silver guy who just got me then tonight.

um they fucking the goodart stuff is so fucking cool they are magicians yeah now i'm like a bracelet guy i've been that in my life at a different time back when i wore black cowboy boots now you're a real bracewick yeah but not yeah now it seems back these are good ones yeah this one could probably be a little smaller but it's okay yeah the new one's beautiful the one the ship john goodart anyway so yeah so you had to have a little party and my wife and i were closing the shop up for the night yeah just a sweet trunk show the goodart was there.

They put some jewelry to show.

Just sweet people.

They're always good times.

Some drinks, some food, music.

And then

we

close the shop up,

walk into the car, and two tweakers on little BMX bikes cruise by.

Like one of them tried to rob me.

One of them kind of sucker hit me in the head with an axe, with a hatchet.

With a fucking hatchet.

Yep.

Yep.

And you went down.

I went down.

Yeah.

And your wife is okay?

Thankfully, she was okay.

I was out.

Yeah.

I went straight down.

She effectively saw me get it.

Saved your life.

She thought that I was gone.

Cops came.

They scurried off.

I came too in the operating room.

That's not supposed to happen.

Prepping me.

They hadn't like

put me under yet.

They were kind of like pulling me in there in a car.

And first thing I thought of, I didn't know exactly what happened, but I knew something happened.

I knew my wife was there.

Yeah.

And

like, I just didn't know if anything happened to her.

So I started trying to say, where's my wife?

But my skull was cracked and pushed into the on the part of my brain that controls speech.

Oh, my God.

So I could, everything up to the point of speech coming out worked, but it came out like,

oh, my

God.

Words didn't work.

Yeah.

It was crazy.

Yeah.

So I started getting up off the fucking thing because I thought she was in the next room

over getting operated on to or not there.

Or maybe

one of the, yeah, one of the nurses was like, he's not, we got to get her.

Oh, they gave me a piece of paper and I was like, I just wrote my wife, you know.

Yeah.

And

one of them, thankfully, she went and got her.

She came in and like held my hand.

And then, you know, you've been put under.

They, they do the thing like, oh, tell us about this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, then I woke up the next morning.

But you were conscious the whole time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When I came, when I came to.

Okay.

And everything,

like I said, everything worked.

But

I think it's like the broca area.

Yeah.

I'm not a fucking brain guy.

Yeah.

From what I've read and what my doctors have told me, the part of my brain that like my skull was pushed in.

Yeah.

Like holding that part down.

So I just wasn't letting it work so what'd they do they had to cut that part of my skull out and they just popped a metal plate on there and you can talk yeah could you talk like right after surgery it took a while oh it did and i still have like i still have

it's like a

sort of an aphasia thing okay um kind of but you got a metal plate in your head got a metal plate yeah and a second lease on life second lease on life

how did that change your approach to life

i don't know man i thought it it was going to, I think I'm still figuring that out.

Still talk to therapist.

Yeah.

Kind of

trying to understand how it affected me.

Yeah.

You know, because for a while, I'm kind of a, you fall down and you fucking get the fuck up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tough guy, you know,

starting to realize that it had more of an effect on me than I thought it did in the last year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So working through that with a therapist and trying to figure out that shit.

Anger?

No.

No anger.

No.

Just sort of like the fact of being attacked.

There was a point in time where I was going to get my CHL and I was like, I'm going to carry a fuck gun around with me all the time.

But I just don't want to be that guy.

I don't want to.

That to me is living in fear.

And I'm like, I'm not.

I'm scared of a lot of fucking things

in the world, but not being attacked.

Even though it happened to me, it didn't put me in the state of like, every tweaker I see is going to fucking kill me or anything like that.

Right.

Did they find the tweakers that did it?

They did.

Yeah.

It was like a fucking CSI thing.

Oh, really?

My wife remembered that one of them threw a soda cup down.

Yeah.

They grabbed that for evidence.

Yeah.

Got

DNA off of that.

Yeah.

Got a video of them buying the soda.

And then so they had a facial tie-in.

Yeah.

and got them, man.

I think they caught the guy who

didn't hit hit me first.

Yeah.

And he fucking ratted the other guy out.

Yeah.

And that was that.

And what happened?

What was the justice?

One of them got five years, one of them got ten years.

The guy who actually hit me

ten years hard time.

Wow.

So they're put away.

One of them's out now.

That was six years ago.

No apologies?

Funny enough, the one who

did actually attack me

did did a form of an apology in the in the the courtroom.

Oh, really?

Oh, you went to the trial?

Yeah,

the arraignment for him.

And the other guy was,

yeah.

No.

That's interesting.

So a form of an apology?

Like he said he was high or what?

It was one of the written notes that somebody probably helped him out to write and blah, blah, blah.

But yeah, they were tweaked out.

They were fucking.

And so you have a certain amount of forgiveness?

Yeah.

I'd say a little bit.

Yeah.

I don't like it.

What am I going to do?

Fucking hate him for the rest of my life?

Yeah.

I've got other people who hate more than that.

But after that, so the business held up and I guess after you recovered, you just re-grooved and got back into it, right?

Yeah, and I mean, that's another thing with it.

Like, so many people, like, there was a GoFundMe and they did a big old like music benefit shit like that.

And my community just kind of like gave me the biggest fucking hug through that.

And my employees kept the shop rolling, and it was a good thing through it, you know.

So we were able to kind of make it through all that shit.

That's great.

I had a pretty long recovery after that.

Yeah, that's amazing.

Kept rolling.

Yeah.

And you got it, you kind of just plugged on.

Still doing it.

Yeah.

When now, when does

because, like, you know, I remember I asked you years ago

that, you know, you do a lot of

collaborations, I guess.

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, with Wesco

Leather.

Wesco Boots.

Wesco Westco boots and then the leather Langlets.

Langlets.

And you have relationships with people in Japan that love your shit.

You seem to go over there a lot.

Is it primarily to

buy fabric or sell stuff?

Or

what's the global market of this stuff?

Well, a lot of these collaborations, kind of the beautiful thing, the way I see it is

they're actual friendships.

It's not just a business transaction.

So

like Chris Chris Warren from West Coast, he's one of my best friends in the world.

Benny Langlets, they're just Josh and Rach from Goodar.

They're actual true friends of mine.

So it makes the

maybe the customers don't give a shit about this, but

I think it's an important thing to bring these things, to birth these things from a place that's more than just like, we're trying to make money off of this shit.

Well, of course.

It didn't ever seem that way to me, but it's also interesting and not unlike food, where if you've got people that are craftsmen that love what they do and they're constantly you know doing new things or or honoring a tradition you know the integrity and quality of the stuff is better yeah it's the best you can get

you know i remember that one time i got a denim shirt from you and for some whatever reason one of the stitching was coming was coming off and it was i felt bad because you were like oh my god that that should never happen like it was like this glitch and i felt like i'd insulted you forever and you well no i mean the thing is you can make

we're still dealing with

cotton.

Yeah, you know, it is.

It's kind of, you know, even, you know, you burke your ass off out there, swinging the hammer and everything.

You know, the stitch is going to.

Exactly.

It's all that hard work, right?

No, I just noticed it, but

we got on that right away.

But I guess I asked you early on because even the nature of the shop, like the new shop,

It's like a functioning boutique.

Like, I mean, you've got a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, you've got stuff coming in.

You've got products you like to sell that don't necessarily,

your name's not on them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But all kinds of stuff, you know, you know, jackets, pants, gloves, hats.

You did a t-shirt in the marked maroon color.

Yeah.

Did that sell?

They're gone.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

And you did a beefy tea, you did a lighter tea, the black tea, and you got the West Coast stuff.

You got some Langlet stuff.

And then the Goodart stuff.

Yeah.

But then you got the Axes.

Now, the axe,

you're into these axes.

Like, I know you got some Swedish.

What's the axe company that you work with?

Grantsfors Brooke.

Yeah, we're from.

I can't do the accent, but they're from Sweden.

Yeah.

And I'm just, I've loved those before, even before I got.

I loved hatchets before I got hit in the head with one.

Isn't that fucking crazy, though?

It's like I've wielded.

Yeah.

You brought a hatchet right to your head.

Oh, man.

Even on the handle of my personal Grantsfors, I've had it for almost two decades.

Before it happened, I carved a skull onto the butt of my handle.

So I was kind of thinking, like, fuck, did I do some fucking weird?

Some magic?

Some dark magic?

Some prophetic magic.

But, yeah, those axes I've always loved, and there's not a whole lot of places to get them.

So I figured out how to carry them and started carrying those.

And they sell good?

They sell pretty good.

Well, I guess the question I had early on, though, was like, have you been offered to be bought out?

It's been discussed from a couple of angles.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I'm not.

I don't know.

I don't have.

I'm a pretty bad businessman.

Yeah.

You know, like

I keep my prices at a point where it makes sense for the health of the business and no more.

You know, and I'm not after it.

I don't have that like startup mentality where I'm building this up to sell it.

Well, you like the work.

I do like the work, and I like the brand.

It's a part of me.

Yeah, and I guess the only drawback is that you can only do so many.

Yeah.

Like, like, if you're going to do a Will's jacket run, you know, people are going to order them a year in advance, and then they'll get made.

So I guess the only, that, that becomes a question is like, is there any way to make more of these and maintain the integrity of how I do it?

And I guess the answer has been no.

We've upped it.

You know, we've, we've grown it

not exponentially and not a shit ton.

In terms of your ability for output?

Yeah, for the Wills jacket specifically and working with people to make like the collaboration stuff and offering other things.

So it's expanded, but I don't like, I feel like we've expanded on a level that's that's

manageable?

Manageable and the foundation is there before taking the next step.

Right.

You know, I don't, I don't like to, you know, if you start running across a bunch of stones real real fast, one's going to, you're going to slip on one, fucking rust your ass.

Right.

So I like to have the strong foundation before taking another step.

Yeah.

And that's, I, I feel like that's a healthy business move.

Sure.

Hey, look, man, if you're making enough for the life you want to live and you're providing what your employees need, I mean, like, that should be enough.

Yeah.

I'm happy.

Yeah.

And we try to pay our employees well.

I want to continue to improve that trajectory of making sure they're taken care of better.

And, you know, insurance and all that shit.

We provide a well-being opportunity for these people.

And that's the most important thing.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's why it's family.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, is your dad wearing any of the Ship Sean stuff?

Yeah, he's got some shit.

Out on the boat.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

He's got this hat.

You should see this fucking, one of the waxed hats.

Yeah.

It looks like it's been through

fucking hell.

All that salt air.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he's got a classic wax baseball cap style.

Yeah, one of ours.

And then you do the trucker hats, the trucker cut.

I have a few of those.

Yeah, the classic.

Yeah, it's a big difference, man.

It's weird where that type of hat has gone.

Yeah, they started making them like shallower and the bills got longer.

Well, the fastbacks, is that what they're called?

The snapbacks?

Snapbacks.

They're their own thing, and they're pretty good, if you like that style.

But yeah, those dumb ones

that fit real tight on your head, I don't know what those are.

It's the new style of that hat and and i like the ones you make with the the big top yeah for the the old style from when i was growing up totally yeah yeah crown so what's uh what's the big plan for the future just to keep on keeping on yeah man uh starting to like last year was better than the year before this year's starting off better than last year so

starting to continue

improving logistics within us you know smoothing out the way we operate um And now you seem to have an obsession with making metal stuff.

Metal shit.

I'm working on more.

I just made this little key release thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the weight for the records.

I think I sold one of those.

Someone I worked with on the movie.

Gotcha.

Her husband's an audiophile, and she's like, I just don't know what to get them.

I'm like, I do.

Oh, yeah.

Even if you don't use it, it looks nice.

It's a cool thing.

Yeah, yeah.

I wonder if she got one.

I have no way of knowing that.

And before we go, what's the

your obsession with Stanley knives, utility knives, is kind of interesting.

Yeah.

You collect them.

Well, it's kind of back to the beginning.

So when I started doing leather work, I didn't have any money.

Yeah.

But I had one of those knives, so I did all my leather cutting with one of those knives.

With the Stanley.

And so it's been that like treasured little tool that I learned how to, it's not a leather tool.

Right.

And specifically the ones where the blades don't retract.

Yeah.

So it's kind of like this,

I'm a nostalgic guy.

Yeah.

So it's like this, oh, that's

my little tool that helped me learn how to do all this shit.

And that branched off into a full-on obsession?

Yeah,

I got a little, yeah, I have a problem with them.

I've got like Stanley.

I don't know how many I have, but.

How far back do they go?

Like, you know, years.

Like, what's your oldest Stanley utility knife?

In the 40s, I want to say.

Originally there were cast iron and then there were cast aluminum

and so on and so forth.

And now you made one.

Yeah, Shenjan Utility knife.

Yep.

Yeah, they got machined in Japan.

Based on the Stanley.

It's a totally new design.

Sure.

But the idea is based on the Stanley.

It holds the same blades.

Oh, yeah.

I got to get one of those.

It's a beautiful thing.

I love it.

I got to get one.

How quick do they fly off the shelves?

The brass ones went away real quick, and then we did some copper ones.

Then we did aluminum ones, and they weren't as hot.

Okay.

It's special aluminum.

People like brass.

They like the patina.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, buddy.

Well, it was great talking to you.

Nice talking to you too, Mark.

Thank you.

There you go.

That's not a usual WTF story, but it is a human story, and it is the story of a guy who was possessed with the need to create and manufacture and design.

Great guy.

And I'm glad to have talked to him.

And again, the Decade Wills jacket is available tomorrow.

Go to shipjohn.us to order it.

Hang out for a minute, folks.

Hey, people, we posted the 20th Ask Mark Anything Bonus episode for Fulmarin subscribers this week with my answers to your questions, including this one.

Have you ever blanked out during a live set and forgotten how to get back on track?

How do you deal with that?

It happens.

I wouldn't call it blanking out, but sometimes you'll miss a piece of the bit or the story.

That's happened before, where an integral piece of the story, a sentence, it just got away from me.

And then usually what I try to do is backload it.

And,

you know, so the joke makes sense if I am acting on my feet.

Or in a few instances, I've said, oh, that, why didn't that work?

Oh, I forgot to tell you this part and I'll do that.

I'm comfortable enough to where I, within a live show, where I can do that.

I don't believe it's happened to me on television, but it does happen.

And usually,

the immediate on-your-feet thing to do

is really just backload it.

See if you can get it in there before you get to the ending.

So you're not missing that piece.

You can hear all the Ask Mark Anything episodes and get new bonus episodes twice a week by signing up for the full Marin.

Just go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus.

And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

All right, here's uh here's some guitar from back in the day.

Boomer lives and monkey La Fonda

Cat Angels everywhere

and Buddy Holly