- Johnny Cupcakes

I attended a few meetings today. Checked up on all the finishing touches that are being prepped for paint, engineering + installation. It feels so weird that the new shop opening is right around the corner! Sorta surreal. Well, it's been nearly 6 months since I signed my lease. My shop would of been open a while back if it wasn't for my borderline o.c.d. and constant brain-stormage. I wanted to open my shop with a bang, rather than adding things to it down the road.

New video is going to be posted online in anytime now... hopefully tonight!

- Johnny Cupcakes

Who needs coffee + energy drinks when you have a bed to pounce on before you start your day. It looks like a ghost snuck in there to cause some mischief with me. For real though, the word around my hotel is that it is really haunted.

- Johnny Cupcakes

So I've been internet friends with this guy Dan Fleres for about 4 years now. During the opening of my very first home town shop, I displayed a number of Dan's uniquely styled paintings. 4 years later he spotted me from across the street and came over to say hello. He was in town for one of his art showings at the Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art in West Hollywood. If anyone gets a chance, head over there.

The show also consisted of some other great artists; Blinky, Downtimer, Josh Taylor and Zoso (whom also is another internet friend that I finally met. Thanks for helping me out in my time of need!)

Happy birthday Dan - and nice to meet everyone!

- Johnny Cupcakes

While working outside of my shop, this kid walked by and asked if he could get his photo taken with me. After chatting with this chill kid, turns out he's Ice-T's son, 'Lil Ice'. He'll prolly be camping out at the grand opening. See you there Lil Ice!

I guess these girls traveled down to my shop in hopes of seeing me there...well they found me. Hi. Next time I should put on a striped shirt and call myself Waldo. These girls were funny though! They're all anxiously waiting for opening day.

These 2 spotted me from across the street and were excited that I came over to talk with them. Down to earth guy's reppin The Hundreds cap!

Another group of excited Johnny Cupcakers! It's always interesting to me, to meet people who've been proudly ordering online + representing from across the country.

And the biggest group of them all! I've received a few e-mails in the past, from Vince and Matty (the two brothers on the right). I guess I've been a huge, huge inspiration to them. They told me that they are unable to make it to my grand opening, so I figured I'd exchange numbers and meet up with these dudes to give them a small sneak peek of what's in store. We met up, hung out and laughed for over an hour. Vince, Matty and all of their friends were funny, kind, good people. I plan on meeting up and hanging out with them before they depart on their tour. They're in a band called 'Dear Life', and they have two great companies; 'Loud & Obnoxious' and 'Glad Rags Ink'. It's always nice to see young entrepreneurs doing their thing. It's even better when you see it's with all their best friends + family.

- Johnny Cupcakes

Well it's July 15th and I just turned 26. It was almost yesterday when I was blowing out candles to my custom Ghostbusters birthday cake that my mom + dad got me. Feels kind of weird being away from my family and best friends. Instead I'm alone in a hotel in California working wayy late.

The photo above is what I feel like on the inside. The cement ground represents the solid foundation that I've built and continue to build. The many doors all stacked on top of one another is telling me that I should take one door/day at a time yet there are still many doors leading to different opportunities + adventures in life, so be patient. The cute couple in the backround is telling me that I'm going to meet a woman with a humongous ceramic head. Just kidding. I took this photo when driving by some random junk yard/antique place. I don't know what I'm feeling inside, just super tired and delirious. I figured I had to post a blog before passing out.

Thank you mom + dad for doing the wild thing back in 1982. I wouldn't be here without ya! I love life and am excited for the present and future.

- Johnny Cupcakes

Don't forget to rep your Jokester + Batcakes t-shirts at the movies! The Dark Knight comes out this Friday, July 18th - I don't think I've been excited for a movie like this, in a long time.

Growing up, I definitely kept our family dentist in business with my Batman cereal eating habit. Not to mention Sugar Smacks with that happy happy frog on the cover of the box. I guess the changed their name from Sugar Smacks to Smacks and/or Honey Smacks because parents didn't want to purchase cereal that said 'Sugar' real big on the front of the box. It still has the same amount of sugar I'm sure... just like every other box of cereal, with the exception of Kashi + other jaw-breaking natural forest-tasting bits.

But when I was younger, it was less of the cereal and more of the prize inside. You could even get a decent sized piggy bank with your cereal box (see Batman cereal photo). Now you have to send in twenty-two proofs of purchase as well as entering ninety-nine secret codes on some website. These companies are making out like bandits because no kid is going to have the attention span to type that much information in, never mind have computer privileges from their parents. And what about those families with no computers?

Same deal goes with soda caps where you could instantly win a free beverage. Now it's a bunch of jumbled case-sensitive letters and numbers, just like when you add someone on myspace and have to type in all that jumbled nonsense. There is no instant gratification anymore.

I can almost guarantee that more than half of the free prizes, beverages, etc. are not redeemed. Smart move for companies cutting corners. Not so smart move for companies trying to create memorable experiences + dimple-digging smiles on the many faces of children. Great way to make kids go on the dangerous internet. I hope you feel good about yourselves.

- Johnny Cupcakes

Before I left Boston to come to LA, my mom brought in some cold, fresh watermelon for everyone at the headquarters. It was so hot + muggy and this watermelon did the (temporary) trick. Despite the smog, I like that it's a 'dry heat' in LA and not so sticky. The whole dry heat thing never really hit me until just recently. But before that, everyone would be like, "It's 294 degrees here in the west coast and three quarters of my skin melted off, but it's perfectly okay because it's a dry heat! Weeeee!" --- and then I would reply with, "I don't care what kind of heat it is, it's still a bazillion degrees hotter than Boston."

I really used to think I was the only one who didn't feel or understand this dry heat thing. It sounded like an ice cream cone with two scoops of bs. It's sorta kinda like in the movies or old scooby doo cartoons, where one person out of a group will see a ghost and nobody will believe them. Well I don't see that ghost anymore and I now fit in with the rest of the group.

- Johnny Cupcakes

In the photos section, you will find some photos from the Johnny Cupcakes summer release. Thanks again to all the loyal, die hard customers who camped out for 2 + days, drove from other states, and waited in line... And to my entire staff, friends + family for helping out! It was the most organized, stress free releases thus far. Sydney was quite the conductor!

There will be lots of photos and video's taken at the grand opening of the LA shoppe. Rep your rare Johnny Cupcakes shirts!

- Johnny Cupcakes

The other day I went for a walk down Melrose Ave. Saw some great graffiti, checked out some neat thrift-ish stores, and got my exercise on.

Hung out on a bench in front of Dominic's shop, Brooklyn Projects. We chatted about east coast seasons verses west coast seasons, touring in/with bands, being business owners and so on. Dom's storefront neighbor, Joe Hahn, hung out too. He has a shop called SURU which has a neat dry cleaners esq conveyor in which his displayed t-shirts move around the store on. Joe is a dj too. I saw his band Linkin Park play when I was like 15 or 16 years old. I never would of thought that ten years later we'd practically be neighbors.

Joe leaves for tour today and Dominic leaves for Brooklyn soon. Safe travels guys!

- Johnny Cupcakes

While working on the shop, I commented on a kids t-shirt as he walked by. He then asked me if I knew when the shop was opening. I guess he's a fan/customer from England! He even has a shirt from years back... the Doctor shirt with the stethoscope!

Speaking of old shirts, check out this sighting last night during the sign fiasco. I saw a girl walking her dog through the corner of my eye. I thought I even saw a vintage Johnny Cupcakes shirt! Not only is this design 4 years old, but the colorway is super rare. I only made like 50 or so t-shirts that were black with the pink skyline. I said to her, "I like your shirt." She kept walking... So I yelled and asked her where she got this, because it was when I was selling shirts out of my parents house and on my very first website. She seemed like she was ignoring me. I don't blame her, there are a lot of crazies out there. So I crazily ran down the street to get an answer out of her hahaha... She told me she got the shirt from when she was back home in Toronto Canada working at Much Music (Canada's MTV). I remember 4+ years ago, having received a random order from Much Music Canada. It might have even been one of my very first big international online orders. Small world! This girl now resides right around the corner from my soon to be new shop.

- Johnny Cupcakes

A giant crane and a crew of professionals from Carlson (and Dave!) came by for the sign installation.

Adjustments + tweaks were made, but overall it came out great! Thank you everything involved!

So I got the store front 'grand opening' decal made yesterday, rush service. I thought it was important to have it up in time for Saturday (today). I was at the store for a hand full of hours talking to my decal experienced friend Clark as he gave me detailed instructions over the phone. I couldn't really understand what he was saying because half of me needed to physically see instructions and the other half of me was distracted by the loud automobiles outside. Clark even borrowed a pen from someone in line at for the new iphone at the Apple store, to draw instructions/images on a napkin and then took a photo of it with his iphone to email me. He promised me that I would screw this up if I tried it alone, at night and with no directions. While he was doing all that, I was saying to myself, "How difficult could a sticker decal be?" I almost asked a homeless person for help, because I'm a small sized young adult with minimum reaching abilities. I needed to get this up in time for busy Saturday too! Hmmm... what to do what to do?

Washing the window in prep for my possible mess up, a woman walked up to the security gate and stuck her hand through in attempt to shake my hand. She asked if I was Johnny Cupcakes. I was a little startled at first by this random yet super nice lady - but she ended up being my granite counter-top guy, Kailo's wife. He walked down the street after eating dinner at Pink's Hot dogs with a few other friends in whom he wanted to show the shop to. I let them in and took a break from my intro to disaster.

When I first met Kailo the other day, he was paying some of his employees while being in my shop and behind the counter. I asked if he was playing store, and he quickly replied with, "Nope, we're just placing bets on how short you are." Hahaha... Other than being hilarious and quick, he's a kind man who pays close attention to details and quality when working.

When letting them all into my shop - Kailo smiled and said to me, "You don't think you're going to successfully get that decal up on your own, do you?" He then asked everyone he was with if they were okay with waiting around for a couple minutes while he helped me get this grand opening sign up. Well well... those couple minutes turned into a couple hours. Making scientific cleaning solution mixes, finding a store that was still open, buying a blow dryer + extension cord, balancing on a ladder in every way possible, slowly slowly aligning and peeling off each section, etc..

Like me, Kailo has borderline O.C.D. and he didn't seem to mind staying a few hours - he just literally couldn't leave until everything was finished 100%. He even offered to come down the next day to double check everything. I felt so bad for everyone waiting around, and for Kailo. Thank you so much guys! You definitely saved the night and were a tremendous help.

Phew.

- Johnny Cupcakes

Some of the items for my shoppe which have been custom built, fabricated, wired and engineered - have been in the testing phase before being sent to paint and installation. Just making sure all the kinks get worked out way ahead of time. At the top, you will see a skeleton prototype of the mosaic wall of vintage ovens, where random oven doors will open up at un-predictable times, while shooting steam out and having random oven knobs that twist and turn. I really need to stop coming up with more ideas through. It's crunch time but my brain won't stop doing creative jumping jacks. Speaking of jumping jacks, does anyone still do those, besides in the military? Jumping jacks seem to be a lost art and should be practiced in more gyms.

And speaking of that... does anyone remember that old spy movie "Jumping Jack Flash"? I remember thinking Whoopi Goldberg was on some high tech future ish, when seeing her in that movie using a computer from an early earlier generation. Between Whoopi and James Bond, I always wanted to be a spy/secret agent. I think that's why I have a strange attraction to the idea of ballroom dancing. Seeing James Bond intrude a fancy shmancy party full of bad people, and then swiftly sweeping the enemies wife off her feet with diabolic dance moves. Not Jock Jams volume 8 dance moves, but polite, clean, classic ballroom dancing.


Oh yeah, MacGyver called... he wants his ovens back.

- Johnny Cupcakes