MNKR

®®® The Original MNKR ®®®

2010-03-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

Almost 7 years after Mnkr's inception, and thousands of shirts later, MNKR is finally a Registered Trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office. We've earned the right (and payed for it as well) to use the little ® after our name to protect ourselves from any would-be biters.

Back in early 2003 I began what would be my third attempt at a clothing line. The first two brands were far too single-minded and this time I needed something that allowed me free reign to put anything I wanted
onto a shirt. Places I've visited, music I like, things I believe in, et cetera. It would be me, but in t-shirt form. My given name starts with the letter "m" and so I figured the brand should as well. Enter "moniker". I thought it was perfect. What better name for a brand name than a word that means "a name"
for a company that exists around one persons ideas? Basically "moniker" would become another name for me. Coupled with the fact that it played to my nerdy side for it's obvious word-play, I was sold.

Next I had to see if it was already in use. I did my searches with the USPTO, the Google, the other search-engines and there was nobody in my industry using the word "moniker" to any degree. Nice! I was safe to go ahead with the use of the moniker "moniker" for my name brand. Months later it would become the vowel-less "MNKR" you see today, shortened for an easier to recognize URL and to separate myself from anyone else using the word "moniker" to let's say, sell plumbing supplies, or arrowheads.

Fast-forward a few years and come to find out that a couple other clothing companies have decided to use the word "moniker" in their name as well. Crazy original right? Now I'm not saying that these people didn't come to the same great epiphanic conclusion on their own just as I had, but a simple internet search of the word "moniker" + anything clothing related, should have brought you to one very simple, black & white conclusion..... already taken (a.k.a. "let's not be dicks"). Pfff. One of em even sells, you guessed it,
art-driven graphic tees.

An old friend of mine, Pollie Gautsch, who happens to be an copyright and trademark attorney, helped me with the filing of the application at the USPTO along with the writing of the cease-and-desists that were sent to both moniker designs, and moniker wear. Neither company has done anything to resolve the issue at the time of this article. Thank you Pollie for your help.

Here's to my next venture, "Nikee, Things that go on your feet!"

Spring/Summer Photo Shoot @ The Claassen Gallery

2010-03-04T18:41:00.000-08:00

Mnkr wanted to thank everyone who helped out on what seems like our 500th semiannual photo shoot this past month, especially photographer Richard Fusillo and store owner/facilitator Jeff Claassen. This was by far Mnkr's fastest, easiest, and best looking shoot to date and wouldn't of been possible without you guys and all the models that stepped up as well. A big thank you to the models Henry, Jamie, Sophie, Danny, Michelle, Ben, and David for doing a really great job in helping us get just what we wanted.

Pictured left to right: Danny, Michelle, Henry, Sophie, Ben, David, Jamie, Jeff

Here are just a couple of all the great shots/outtakes that came out of that evenings shoot.

New Newsletter, New Year, New Beginnings

2010-01-20T13:05:00.000-08:00

Welcome, welcome! So we are doing the new newsletter (which some of you have already seen, for those of you who haven't go to mnkr.com and sign up in the lower left corner, it's good stuff I swear) and from now on the 'MNKR News' will take you here to our blog. That way we can fill you in with fun new information from MNKR or just random bits from our lives...like this photo above. This is us with some family out in the dunes near our home. We came out here for part of Christmas day. Enjoyed a nice sunny central coast day and played some kick ass Bocce Ball. Pretty amazing.
Well, Happy New Year to all you lovely people out there. We hope that this will be your most wonderful year yet. We also look forward to bringing MNKR to a new level this year. Ever year is such a growing experience for us and our company and we want to strive to be better at what we do and how we do it. Plus we want to do our best to make you our customer happy with our service and our product. That is pretty much it for this month. Til next time.

Mnkr helps raise cash money for San Luis Obispo Skate Park Project

2009-11-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

Mnkr, Kandace Reuter & Nito Bandito helped raise over $500 through silent auction donations last night at the Ride Coalition Board Shop to benefit the Santa Rosa Skate Park Project in San Luis Obispo Ca. The project will replace the existing park, and if you've seen the existing park, you'd probably agree that it's great, but could most definitely use a facelift. The new park is going to far exceed that. It's incredible, I want to go there now. Thank you to Jono and Stephanie at Coalition for caring enough about the community to pull this benefit together. Check out the video plans of the new park.

Boney M Rasputin video from waay back

2009-11-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

The kind people over at Trendhunter.com were nice enough to write up a little diddy about us and one of our newest tees featuring Rasputin. Along with the write-up they posted a video from Boney M circa old, chronicling Mr. Rasputins life. This song/video is awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvDMlk3kSYg

Abbot Kinney Weekend/The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien

2009-10-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

The Abbot Kinney Festival in Venice is most definitely one of our favorite events in California to sell at. Everyone seems to be in a really good mood and people are happy to spend some cash on quality, unique wares. I'm pretty sure these people are taking happy pills right before they leave their houses and personally, I appreciate it. Looking forward to next year already. Also can't wait to move to L.A. so I can get up on some of those "happy pills". Here's a nasty overexposed picture of our booth.

After A.K.F. we took a couple days off before we went to see the Tonight show with the f$$king man, Cooonaaaan Ooo'Briiieen, and of course Andy Richter, who was surprisingly almost as tall as Conan?
Maybe it was the second-hand happy pills talking? The show was a blast! We spent like 4 hours there from start to finish but it went by way too quick. Kate Walsh? Don't really know her. Jesse Eisenberg, had just watched Adventureland (coincidentally) days before, he was interesting/funny. And Brad Paisley... well, we were just happy to be there. I'm really glad Conan took over the Tonight Show and moved to Los Angeles because I've wanted to see him since Andy was originally on his show, but it being taped in N.Y. made it a little more unrealistic. The first 90 people to arrive got a golden ticket to reserve their place in the first 90 seats, and it truly did feel like we were about to meet Mr. Willy Wonka himself.

It was a great couple of days and after returning to second-home-base in Pasadena after the show to unwind before heading back to our real home I realized something was missing, our journey wasn't yet complete. Then it dawned on me, of course, a tree hadn't fallen on anyones car! No journey is ever complete without a tree on a car. Well folks, it must of been my lucky week cuz next thing you know (insert tree falling noise) then crash! That's right, a tree fell right on my sister's car. Neato-frickin-bandito.

David Garibaldi/POOL Trade Show

2009-09-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

We did POOL again for the third time and it was better than last time, which was better than the time before that, which was even better than that other show we did, which at the time was terrific. That being said,

we had a corner booth off of the main aisle across from Free Gold Watch (3rd time at a show with them as neighbors strangely enough) and right next to where Garibaldi was going to do his live paintings. So the time comes, they announce over the p.a. "shows about to start", he shows up, a crap-load of people gather, and he knocks out a rad portrait of Michael Jackson in like 5 minutes. But it doesn't feel like 5 minutes because the whole time he's dancing around, pointing at people, jumping in the air, real cool shit you know!?

I think at the time he even had a nice leather jacket on which doesn't sound like much unless you've ever seen this guy paint. He's painting with his hands, he's throwing paint, there's paint on the floor, probably would have been paint on the ceilings had they not been 75 feet in the air. Cool dude to boot. garibaldiarts.com And yes, I know I did the "This guy" photo thing but I was pretty excited and he truly is an awesome and unique artist.

New shirts/Pool Trade Show

2009-08-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

So we're off to Vegas. It's been a really busy couple of weeks/months and it's finally here. We've got around 30 new shirts so we're pretty excited, plus we have a corner booth at the show on the middle aisle so that's fucking great. Shirts pictured above include Rasputin, Oh Diana!, Wolf Tear, Soupy Sal's, Fingerless, Student of Life, Hot Air Balloons, and Crocodile. The Croc tee is a remake of an old favorite of mine, Last Night a Sticker Saved my Life, but this time in Japanese, why not right? If you're going, we're booth #1006. Gonna be hot in Vegas!

Jeff Claassen Grand Opening Party

2009-08-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

Last night was Jeff's Grand Opening Party and it was a ball. A ton of new art from Jeff, Stenzskull, Blake Foster, and Mnkr, the walls were filled, and his new gallery has some huge fucking walls. Music by DJ Wiggins?, cupcakes by Eclair Bakery, Pyramid brewskis, and a raffle (no party is complete without a raffle right?). We didn't win shit. Anyway, it was fun.

John Hughes Memorial Breakfast/Eclair Bakery

2009-08-08T01:24:00.000-07:00

If you're ever on the Central Coast looking for some tasty baked goods, from vegan cupcakes, to fresh eclairs, the Eclair Bakery in Arroyo Grande is the definitely the joint. It'll probably be Jeremy (he owns the place) or Kielly that greet you. We're headed there in the morning for a John Hughes Memorial Breakfast. Gonna be tasty, can't wait. RIP John, thanks for all the laughs.

4th of July weekend continued

2009-08-08T00:46:00.000-07:00

Here we are at our ever so giving friends house in Pasadena for the 10th time this year. Tessa & Derek are the most generous people I know and their house has become sort of a middle of the road hangout for everybody from here to there. 4th of July weekend=lots of poker, food, booze, poker, booze. Poker picture, starting on the left going clockwise, that's Derek and Tessa (both amazing in many ways), Kandy is unfortunately hidden by Amy's chin, Phil, Jeff, Me (apparently super fucking excited to have a chair full of beer), and finally Amy.

Second photo, pictured left to right, Kandace, Amy, Emilie, Elizabeth, and Tessa.

Emilie Simon/Pasadena 4th of July weekend

2009-08-08T00:44:00.000-07:00

Not quite sure if jumping through time and space is the proper way to write a blog, but I didn't really anticipate the effort it would take to keep up with it. That being said, if you haven't heard of Emilie Simon, you're crazy.

She has a beautiful voice, she writes her own music (besides the covers of course, Bowie, Nirvana, etc.), mixes her own beats, and on top of all that, she has this incredibly bad-ass arm contraption thing that controls her sound effects! You can see the silhouette in the pic. Look her up.

Renegade Craft Fair L.A. & S.F.

2009-08-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

This is Nick and Andy from Campfire Goods . These awesome dudes were our neighbors the first time we attended POOL in Vegas and we were lucky enough to run into them again at Renegade L.A. Got me a Helvetica shirt from em too. After L.A. is was on to S.F. for the next show at Ft. Mason. We headed up a day early and had dinner with a bunch of other brands from all over the place. Loyalty&Blood from Brooklyn, SuperMaggie, Mary Ink, half of Campfire, Sue, Kate and the whole Renegade crew. It was a gloriously crappy S.F. evening but fun nonetheless. Sold some shirts, sold some art, gave out a crapload of stickers. After the show we went out for some burritos and beers with our behind us neighbor at the show, very talented photographer Misha Ashton and her boyfriend Cade. The night was relatively short but they were awesome and we had a blast.

Michael Jackson Tribute Poster cont.

2009-08-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

Here we are at Renegade L.A. and this is M.J. super fan Nicole Papincak. Nicole was the most gracious recipient of our first M.J. double print. She was also one of the lucky few who were able to attend the memorial service at the Staples Center, and as you can see in the pic, still has here entrance bracelet on. Nicole in her own words:

Michael Jackson R.I.P.

2009-07-07T16:56:00.000-07:00

First off let me start by saying M.J. was a bad-ass. He pulled off most everything he tried. One glove, check.

Crotch-grabbing, check. Moonwalking, a monkey friend, check check. He couldn't be touched and probably never will be. He did however, seem like he was continuously sliding further and further into Crazytown. We all know the slide was built by an accumulation of things ranging from a far less than normal childhood to being one of the most popular and recognizable people on the planet. He also left some questions unanswered. Michael was one-of-a-kind, and during those days after his death it really hit me that he had been part of my life pretty much forever, and as much as I enjoyed giving him a hard time, I was truly going to miss him.

I stayed up pretty much all night the day he died making this poster. It's obviously of a much younger Michael. Call me nostalgic.

It's too bad that now that he's dead, he'll finally skyrocket out of debt, and back into the black.

I know I know, I'm Bad, I'm Bad.

The beginning of our MNKR blog

2009-06-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

Hello to all you wonderful people out there. This is Kandace from MNKR and this is our new blog. I am thinking I will write these blogs sometimes and hopefully Matt our designer will get in on the action as often as he can. I might need some assistance coming up with fun things to entertain you with. So here's to new beginnings!
We started this blog because of Jeff Claassen of the Jeff Claassen Gallery in San Luis Obisbo. He has once again inspired us to venture into new areas for our business. This seems to be a fun way to keep you up to date on events and new things going on with ourselves and all things MNKR. Also, we can post fun stuff we enjoy from videos, cool artists we meet at shows, places we go and whatever comes to mind. We are hoping to start out writing on this blog at least once a week and as it gets easier and more familiar we will try to post things more often. So that's about it for now. I will leave you with a photo of Matt putting together the 'Candy Kaleidoscope' puzzle that his sister gave us. Let me tell you, we thought it would be a quick fun puzzle to put together, but man this was quite an endeavor. After a few beers some stealing of eachothers pieces it all worked out just fine.