Home Sweet Home

Ladies and Gentlemen I have some very exciting news for you all.

Today, December 21st 2009, was the final day of my daily commutes from Hillsboro.

Please, let's take a moment of silence and remember the good 'ole days and all the wonderful things Hillsboro had to offer. Like the Rice NW Museum of Rocks & Minerals or large number of retired peoples.

But good riddance, I say. No longer will I come to work angry about the aggressively passive aggressive drivers of Hillsboro and Beaverton commuters. Goodbye to the suburban lifestyle, hello city lifestyle. More specifically hello Oregon Theater- my new neighbor. I can't wait to get to know you.

Now all I need is some flannel and a cigarette...

Fabian Fridays (Part Tres)

Well here we are again friends, another edition of the glorious Fabian chronicles. This is the third out of a projected four posts covering my interview with the man, the myth and the legend. So without further adieu, here it is.

MUTT: What is your favorite place in Portland?

Fabian: I really like the bridges and the riverfront, particularly around the steel bridge. I've found that river city people are always a lot nicer than ocean city people. Think about that old Credence song. People on the river are always happy to give. They're just friendlier. I think it's because rivers bring an interesting mix of people together. On top of that people are always coming and going, and I like that.

MUTT: Which Transformer is your favorite?

Fabian: So, my favorite Autobot was Optimus Prime. You know, he’s the cool archetypal hero- strong leader-type but not arrogant. Clearly he’s in power but he doesn’t abuse that power. He's a clear-headed thinker, not like Megatron is. Optimus Prime even had some humanity to him, he wasn’t invincible.

Then, my favorite Decepticon was Sound Wave. He was a dark character, but he was intellectual. From what I remember he had a very dry humor, but I could appreciate it. In fact, he was probably my favorite of all the transformers.

MUTT: Would you rather: Understand women’s thoughts, or breathe under water?

Fabian: Well, I used to teach scuba diving, so I have breathed under water. It’s a totally different world down there- I loved it. But that's the thing, they've got equipment for taking you underwater. Now, I think understanding women’s thoughts would be considerably more useful. To understand people’s thoughts, fears, aspirations would be exciting. I’d definitely take that.

The Amazing Dancing Damien

Fabian Friday!

Editor's Note:

Holy Moly, I've kept you all waiting for far too long. Time for another installment of Fabien Friday's! For taking so long I'm going to give you an extra dose of the interview. And worry not, from this day on I promise to have a little update for you every Friday morning.

Hugs and Kisses,
Mister Z


MUTT: Who is your greatest inspiration?

Fabian: When I was younger it was Alexander the Great. I was motivated by greed and avarice. Lately though, my greatest inspiration is Voltaire. He was a freethinker and highly revered. You have to respect his knowledge and the fact that he speaks his mind. Basically he says what he means and means what he says. I admire individuals who are up front and honest with themselves.

MUTT: If you could punch any one person in the face, dead or alive, who would you punch?

Fabian: Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria.

MUTT: Wow, you didn't even hesitate there. Why him?

Fabian: He was Stalin's primary henchmen. Stalin killed something like 20 million people and the man who really did it, the muscles, was Berria. He was probably the most feared man of that time period. He did terrible, terrible things. So, I have to say, I'd love to have the opportunity to have punched him as hard as I could right in the nose. If all went well I'd have sent shards of bone into his brain and saved the world a lot of pain.

MUTT: What’s your dream car?

Fabian: I’ve got a couple I really like.

1959 El Dorado convertible, model 62. They’re all in museums now, or in movies. Honest to god, that was probably one of the most beautiful cars to roll out of Detroit.

Rolls Royce limousines from the 70s and 80s, mostly the 80s. They were subdued elegance. It’s not a loud Lamborghini, pretending to be something cooler than it actually is. It’s for someone who appreciates class and elegance. If I had someone who could drive as well as I do, I’d very much appreciate to ride around in one of those.

MUTT: Would you rather: Speak any language forever, or be able fly for an hour?

Fabian: Speak any language. I can rent an airplane. I can buy an airplane ticket. The ability to speak any language is the ability to traverse culture, customs, etc. That is a force to be reckoned with. A man like that would be well received. You'd be able to mitigate any barriers and come to terms like adults (and make a helluva lot of money).

TO BE CONTINUED...

OOPS!

It looks like I'll be wearing my contacts a little more often these days....

The black tape is a bit deceiving, my glasses are in fact broken. This morning I may, or may not, have made an off-handed comment to Cromer about his inferior yoga skills and how I would likely destroy him in a pose-off. Naturally, this pushed the man's buttons and he went straight to the studio to start the competition.

Now, I'd like to point out that Cromer's been going to yoga for months, I haven't been since June.

So, tough guy began with an Ustrasana, to which I countered with the ever-popular Dhanurasana. Luker was impressed, he's still in his Simhasana days. Scott, feeling a little played, went for a sequence from Virabhadrasana I into Virabhadrasana II. I continued his play and added a Virabhadrasana III pose. My balance is unparalleled. For his last move Cromer went into a little Ardha Chandrasana. Good stuff. I knew if I wanted to clench the title of Yoga Master here at Mutt I'd have to go big. And that's when I curled up, took my knees to my elbows and whipped out a little Bakasana. And I had it too. I just forgot I was wearing my glasses and I forgot that sometimes you faceplant if you don't have your wits about you. Needless to say, I was a little hasty in my victory celebration and as I cheered I teetered a little and took a six inch dive into the concrete floor. And that's how I broke my glasses this morning.

Our Friends, Moulé

It's that time of year again, the Holiday Season, and our favorite Portland (and Winnipeg and Vancouver) fashion boutique Moulé is in the midst of their 2009 holiday campaign. This year's campaign is called, "Long Live Family" and what a lovely family story the Gorenstein's have to tell. If you hadn't heard, Moulé is family owned and if you pop in to one of the four Moulé locations you'll see some special Gorenstein themed gifts that highlight the aspects of being a part of a large family. Moulé has posted some of the work on their facebook page. We highly recommend you become their friends.

Here's a quick peek to get you in the holiday spirit.

Beauvais. In the Study. With the wrench.

It's been frigid in Portland lately so I'm curled up by one of our four old school radiators. It keeps me nice and toasty. All day though I've been peering to my left and I see this classic gun range poster threatening me.Why does a businessman have a pistol? Why is he so calm when he's pointing it at me? And then Mr. Beauvais came at me with the phone. I was like whoa. Uncanny resemblance. See for yourself.

I Love My Ducks

Today is a big day. My Alma Mater, The University of Oregon, is playing in this little football game tonight at 6 PM at Autzen. Civil War Baby! And not only will this win tonight give us another year of feeling far superior to Oregon State fans, but it will also send us to this year's Rose Bowl. That's some serious stakes being set, winner takes all and today at 2:22 PM, just under four hours until kickoff I am calling an Oregon victory. And if you've been checking ESPN lately you'd see that they agree with me.This makes me feel even better about it. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

National Mutt Day

Do you know what today is? Yes that's right, it is National Mutt Day. We feel honored that the Animal Miracle Network would honor us with our very own day.

They're Taking Notice

HEY!

Our Mello Yello win was just announced in Ad Week today.

COKE TAPS MUTT FOR MELLO YELLO

Very exciting.


But what is this? FAT415 obviously has some sort of beef with our own Mr. Luker, and isn't too supportive of Mutt. Look at this....

mashups.

i was wondering how on earth they come up with these characters. that smirky little shit from verizon®, or that bizarrely attractive girl,'Flo' from the progressive® insurance ads. well i think i may have just cracked the formula of the Pre girl. take one part smug intellectual and equal part child-like moon-empress from a distant and dying world... insert current handheld communication device and voila.

Welcome Back!

We hope everyone had a relaxing and delicious Thanksgiving weekend.

Here's a little peek into the work we've been doing. We give you, "Ugo Posters" made by Mutt for Paciugo. You should see the prints, they're gorgeous.

Clean Up On Aisle Your Team

Mutt has received a face-lift. Today the partners and Mr. Beauvais were hard at work rearranging and organizing Mutt Headquarters. And may I say, It's like a whole new office. Kudos boys.
Onto something completely unrelated to the office. This weekend I hung out with some old friends. One night we headed over to McMenamin's Back Stage Bar and played pool and drank beer. By the time we started our second game I was feeling fairly confident in my game, not to mention my teammate had taken billiards in school. I bet a round on the following game. I thought we'd clean up and then HAZAH! we'd get a free pint of beer.

Cut to twenty minutes and a sad David Z later and you'll see that my buddies had pulled a fast one on me. They didn't tell me that they too were well versed in billiards and do, on occasion, win games when bets are on the table. And that's where today's title came from, miss Reardon uttered it as I walked to the bar to get her a beer- a free beer.

Good story, right?

New Mutt Business Cards

It's official. We're official. With a new wave of mutts came a new wave of Mutt business cards. Here they are in all of their letterpressed glory...

Tomorrow We Have A Very Important Business Meeting

Our fearless partners and Mr. Beauvais are at the Portland airport as I write this, about to take-off for dear old Atlanta and Coca-Cola headquarters. Tomorrow they meet with Mello Yello and present our latest work.

With that said, last night was a biggy, a lot of wonderful things happened.



Lessons Learned. Nick Cline is not this man.

The cue to show Steve work was three deep. It lasted something like two hours.

Apparently David rather enjoys the warmth of his pockets, even while sleeping.

What a wonderful thing mobile devices are these days for the amateur journalist.

Today is a Special Day

Today, November the 18th, is Teresa Lynn Zavertnik's Birthday.


This amazing woman was the one to give birth to me.

Thanks Mom, Happy Birthday.

I'm So Tired.

A little side story for you. Lately our man Grand Master D has being controlling Mutt Music. You see, we have some fancy little Bose speakers that are attached to our server so whoever is quickest gets to control the music for the day. So D-mon has been on top of it these days and he has a knack for picking songs that are eerily apropo. In fact, his current pick was the inspiration for today's title.

Anyway.

The big news here at Mutt is our latest creative venture. We've got a presentation for Mello Yello later this week and lately we've been absolutely killing it. But with this high level of creativity comes a sacrifice or two. Ours can be explained by the following images.

Big Brother Is Watching

If you haven't yet deduced, I'm the youngest of the Mutts, unless of course you count the recent surge of babies being had around the office. And I suggest you do not, lest you want to insinuate we here at Mutt don't believe in labor laws. HAHAHA. I just made the entire office laugh.

Now, my point here is this. I'm young and like most anyone who is older than someone else, the boys here are keen to give me big brotherly advice. Or tease me like the younger brothers they likely did not have. Needless to say, life here is an experience.

Tonight Big Brother Nick gave me a little reminder of his cultural positioning.

The post it is an eye. It represents Nicky vonNickington's every-watching eye. The stuffed Owlgiraffe next to it reads faster, as in "your current pace is unsatisfactory, you need to work faster."

Thanks boys.

Fabian's Story

Mutt Industries World Headquarters is home to an interesting and eclectic group of small businesses, artists and storage units, all of whom are worth getting to know. They've all got stories and histories that have already dropped

This is Fabian Gordon.

Fabian owns and operates North West Imports and Liquidation. I sat down with him shortly after his birthday (September 30th) and asked him a series of random questions in an effort to learn a thing or two.

MUTT: Did you have a favorite stuffed animal growing up?

FG: Yeah, I had a lot of them. My father was a carnie when he was young. He left home when at 16 and went to work at a carnival. He worked his way up and owned the midway games, [Midway games are most of the games you imagine when you think of the carnival. Ring Toss, Test Your Strength and so on. They’re the ones that give you stuffed animals with a high enough score.] He also designed some toys for his games. So there were a lot around when I was a kid. My favorite was a penguin, and I took it with me in the bath, obviously I was too young to understand the plush toy conundrum. Needless to say the penguin didn’t last the experience….”


MUTT: Speaking of your dad, I hear he's kind of a big deal. What's his story?

FG: My father (Terry Gordon) is famous for being an innovator in adult entertainment. In his heyday he was known as the King of Tease in Las Vegas. He invented the Champagne Room.

The story behind it was this: Terry Gordon was vilified in Las Vegas to the point where he wasn’t allowed to possess a license for anything “privileged” like alcohol. So he got a deal with a supplier in Australia that produced non-alcoholic champagne and imported a grip of it. Then he’d wash the labels off and replace them with expensive champagne labels, or knock-off’s of expensive champagne labels. They’d sell it at expensive champagne prices and no one knew.

But there was no sex in the Champagne Room.

Oh and his brother was Jack Gordon who was married for a while to Latoya Jackson. So, Jack was married Latoya who is Michael Jackson’s sister. And Michael was married to Lisa Marie Pressley, so I was, for a stint, related to Elvis Presley...

To keep this interesting for everyone we're going to end there today. Check back soon for more from the Fabian Chronicles.

Take That Mrs. Peller's Homeroom

The boys have a library of books here at Mutt and it's a goal of mine to read them all. Yesterday I took a gander at two of Paul Arden's books (1)(2). I preferred the latter of the two, but the first had this gem:

Mutt knows this. I was told from day one here not to be precious about my ideas. But it wasn't always this way.

If you're quick witted you've deduced that this story is about Mrs. Peller's homeroom. I got in many-an-argument over sharing work. Everyone was precious about everything. I'd say things like, "come on man, it's called collaboration." Or, "It's not hurting you any." Or even the sensible, "it's better for your back not to hunch over like that." And would you believe people argued? Apparently I was ahead of my time.

So now I'd like to say, "I knew it. I knew better." And I hope you've learned your lesson. Thank goodness for collaboration.

Only Time

It's no surprise, I'm a n00b and am, for all intensive purposes, uneducated in the law of the land. I went to school and they told me I could be amazing. I got a job and thought I would be amazing. For these past few months I've been quietly soaking up everything ounce of knowledge I can from this place, but it doesn't come easy. Tonight however, I had a formal schooling. During a pit stop at La Merde with the boys I had the opportunity to explicitly learn a thing or two. Here's my main takeaway from the evening:

Why November

You've snuck up on me. October was a month amongst months and we here at Mutt are sad to see it go. I've got to catch you all up on a few things. The last of October brought the highlight event of the season, the Moulé Fall Fashion Show. Our good friends (and wonderful client) Moulé hosted an evening of ghoulish (see the Halloween pun there?) -ly good times. The inspiration for this season's show were the Cullens of the world.

That's a vampire reference for the rest of you. Set to a gothic vampire theme, we here at Mutt were asked to produce the visual aesthetic for the event on behalf Ms. Rachel Gorenstein and her tribe of Moulé Fashionistas.

We'll have a video up here in the near future that documents the entire evening, but to give those of you non-attendees an idea of what happened, we have some pictures to share. As you can see, we all had quite a good time.

EiEi Yoga

I've been on a yoga high since the beginning of the year. I had a twice-weekly yoga class that I frequented regularly and by mid-June I was fully centered and five times as flexible. But with the move and recent hire I haven't had a chance to find anything comparable to Michelle's 8:30 am Hatha Hour.

It's been over four months and needless to say I'm getting ansy (and stiff). I asked around and struck up a conversation with Partner Chromeo and Nicky Fresh on the subject. The two are quite the yoga connoisseurs and shared a great deal of knowledge regarding Northwest Yoga trends. They suggested a few places around town and insisted I check out a guy named Yogi Okie Dokie, with Cromer saying he's been training with him for decades, as an outside training source.

I was sent home with nothing less than an old VHS with EiEi Yoga plastered on the top and the promise that I'd be back to being fit in no time. Once home I popped in the tape. Rather than express my reactions, I'd rather you explore yours. Here's an excerpt....

UPDATE:

Mrs. Okie Dokie, Robin Maxwell, very politely asked that we take down the video of her husband and we here at Mutt are happy to oblige. So instead of the video here is a link to an article about the video with an excerpt from Mrs. Dokie herself.

Oh, Portland.

How you've hurt me. I've spent the last four or so months wandering around Portland whilst running errands, or trying to grab a bite to eat, and for the most part I've been loving it. But today one thing hit me: I get lost a lot. It's not even my fault, you see, Portland (supposedly well known for its city planning) has a lot of these things:
And they're annoying. Just today I found myself on the wrong end of more than a few one way streets. And every time I wanted so badly to cheat it, alas, I've had enough conversations with local police officers for the time being.

I'm all for controlling traffic flow...in fact, I would LOVE to control the traffic, but these one-way streets are killing me.