This here garage

I just realized that this blog is called "My name is Jason and I print t-shirts in my garage" and, so far anyway, there's been a lot about me, a lot about the t-shirts I print, but not much about the garage. I've been insulating it sporadically for about 6 weeks now (basically when I can afford to buy more insulation), and more or less printing around the renos. So here are a few pictures of the chaos- hopefully these will contast dramatically with how amazingly well organized the spot looks 6 months from now.

Montana Band

DSC02761, originally uploaded by zeebeekyoo.

Here is one of the JD inspired shirts I did for Montana Band last week. Here's what they had to say about them:

" Just a quick email to commend you on your excellent work. The shirts look great, the workmanship is great. People are always so quick to complain when they are not satisfied but they seldom take time to commend when they are satisfied. You have our business and we will be sending everyone we can your way."

Well that just warmed my cockles, dinnit?

Heading downtown to hit up some kitchens with some resumes. I hate this uncertainty. My rent is still not quite paid yet and I'm really hoping to hustle something up by tomorrow, because otherwise I might have to hit up Moms for a loan, and I freakin' HATE doing that. I did the food bank thing last week and that's about as low as I want to go for the next little while. Props to the food bank, they do good work, but it's a pretty depressing place, and the hopelessness is slightly contagious. Send some positive vibes my way and wish me luck in my hunting today. I could use a dose of it.

Strangely Adventurous

strangeadventures, originally uploaded by zeebeekyoo.

This is by far my favorite all-time custom print. I did these sweaters for Cal & co. @ Strange Adventures Comic Shop, only the most amazing comic store east of Montreal, last summer, and was pretty happy with the results. I think Cal probably still has some of these left, swing by 5262 Sackville Street the next time you're in downtown Halifax and check it out!

So I've been looking for a job. Yeah, you know. It sucks. "The only thing worse than having a job...". But damn it, I need to make some money, and like it or not, the shirt biz slows down a lot in this town from pretty much now until April or May. Last year I was on pogey ("employment insurance", whatever that means), so that was enough to get through. But this year I've got nothing- yet. And it's gotten kind of bad lately. Mr. Noodle ain't lookin' quite so disagreeable these days, nah mean? But I think I'll be alright. That is, if I can gets a jorb. Any offers? I was a bicycle courier for many moons, though at 39 I don't know if that's a career choice any longer. Worked a lot of kitchens, warehouses, one car wash, drove cab for a while, delivered bread at 4am, delivered a baby (ha jk but I had you there for a second but i did deliver a breast implant once in vancouver), um, then there was that screen printing thing.....

Cuban Assassins!

DSC02725, originally uploaded by zeebeekyoo.

Did another batch of shirts for the Cuban Assassins last week. These guys have been around forever and are still kickin' ass and taking names.

James P. Brown the Maker Man

maker, originally uploaded by zeebeekyoo.

This was one of the very first multi-color screen prints I ever attempted, probably around 2002. James P. Brown makes these elaborate belt buckles and stuff out in Sackville, Nova Scotia. Or at least he did then. It just occured to me for the first time that this dude's name is actually James Brown. His name is freakin' James Brown. How cool is that?

Billy Bragg and everything else

Saw Billy Bragg last night here in Halifax and he was fantastic. I used to listen to his stuff a lot back in the day. This morning after my coffee I was walking down Brunswick and I saw him coming the other way. "Great show last night, Billy!" I said, giving him a friendly slap on the shoulder. "Oh, I quite enjoyed it," he replied. So now I've shaken Mike Watt's hand and met Billy Bragg. I think I can die happy.

So some people seem to find the title of this blog a little strange. Why do I want to advertise the fact that I print shirts in my garage? Won't that drive away customers? Well, I suppose it might. But the fact is, I do print t-shirts in my garage. I don't want to misrepresent myself and pretend that I'm some big company with 50 employees and a personal assistant.

And besides, I'm proud of the fact. I did this because I could no longer afford to own a commercial space and play that game. It's freakin' tough, man. Between rent, power, insurance and all the other expenses, I was barely breaking even (actually, technically wasn't the last few months). But I wasn't ready to give up on my dream. Hell, I would have gone back to printing in my apartment if that's what it took. Luckily, I have an incredibly cool landlord, and when I first asked him about this idea he was immediately receptive. The funny thing is, I moved into my current place about a year ago and I remember thinking "Wow, that garage would make a cool print shop. But the landlord would probably never go for it." Well, sometimes you never know until you ask.

Currently, the garage is far from finished. I have about half of it insulated, and I'm hoping to finish it soon, but money's still pretty tight. If you want to help me, go buy a t-shirt at ZBQ or a onesy at Buzzy Weez so I can buy some more insulation. Luckily, there haven't been too many cold nights so far, but they're coming. I've been able to print relatively comfortably so far.

I have taken a bunch of pics of the garage, and these I will be posting very soon (maybe even later today), but I can't seem to locate my USB cord. With a tech-savvy 9 year old around (my son), that's a pretty common occurrence. But once that's found, I'll be posting pics of all of the shirts I'm working on at any given time. I might even get some videos up at some point.

The last shirts I did were for a local band called the The Sorrys, who are a bunch of old geezers like me. The shirts were cool, and I went to see them the other night and was quite entertained. They kind of remind me of one of my favorite bands, Guided by Voices.



This week I'll be doing shirts for local weekly paper The Coast and some other bands like The Cuban Assassins, Shelter With Thieves and Montana Band. There will be pictures.

Well, Billy, I hope the rest of your tour goes as well as last night. Looking for another girl......

My name is Jason and I print t-shirts in my garage.

Well, for the last few days I have, anyway.

Woah, I hate to to interrupt, but I just had a pretty funny thing happen to me. I removed my glasses to attempt to clean them with my greasy t-shirt, and when I put them back on it suddenly seemed that my right eye was no longer seeing clearly through them. In fact, with my left eye closed, I could no longer focus on the words I was typing. I started to panic. Had the sight in my right eye gotten that much worse and I somehow hadn't noticed until now? Was I, in fact, in the early stages of going blind in that eye? More panic. Glancing down for a moment, I noticed the right lens that I had popped out of the frame, lying on my lap.

So yeah. This is the brand new Zero T-Shirts blog, for the brand new Zero T-Shirts web site that I just launched a couple of weeks ago. Fancy that. Though maybe "launch" is a little dramatic, because at this point it's just one little web page (anyone remember when people used to say "Check out my web page" instead of "site"? Back then, in the 1900s, many web sites were basically just one page that would scroll on for like 2 miles). But it's going to have a lot more bells and whistles very soon, lemme tell ya, including an extensive gallery of the stuff I've printed over the last 11 years or so.

Yeah, I've been doing this t-shirt thing for a while now. I mean I'm 39 years old (with 40 starting to tailgate) and I first started printing t-shirts in my bedroom when I was 13 or 14. Maybe that's a stretch, because those shirts were hand painted for myself (you couldn't get cool band shirts in LeQuille Nova Scotia in 1983). But I made a lot of them, and sometimes I made them for my friends. I think the first one was either The Alarm, Adam and the Ants or "Punk's Not Dead." Damn I wish I had pictures of all of those, because some of them were truly hilarious.

When I was 24 I bought an old heat press, and that kind of changed everything. But maybe I should back up a little.