I Had My Own Condom Brand
PART 1: Where the idea came from in the first place
I was a budding cartoonist throughout grade school, middle school, and high school. I drew on anything and everything I could find, from my textbooks to my desk at school to any scrap of paper I could scrounge. My teachers would sometimes grade the drawings I squeezed into the borders of the homework papers I turned in. I always got an “A” on those. And my classmates were always quick to say I was the “best artist in class.”
I handcrafted comic books for my friends, making short runs on the school mimeograph machine. My main influence was MAD magazine, of course, and later, it was adult comix like ZAP!, Wonder Warthog, and the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. My primary inspiration, though, was my dad and his friend Ronnie, who were forever drawing and painting in our living room. Before I could even walk or talk, I’d sit alongside them and watch them work. It’s not surprising that I was drawing customized hot rods before I was two.
Art became my means of escape. It was how I survived the many tragedies and traumas that came to define my youth. By creating my own worlds to live in, I outfoxed the real world. My fantasy life was everything to me. It kept me sane. And as it turned out, my soaring imagination has never left me. I’m a big dreamer. But also a doer. I’m driven to bring my dreams to reality. Every personal project I’ve ever worked on springs from this foundation.
Art became my means of escape. It was how I survived the many tragedies and traumas that came to define my youth. By creating my own worlds to live in, I outfoxed the real world. My fantasy life was everything to me.
Many of my dad’s art pieces were functional, from his customized hot rods to tricked-out skim boards to handcrafted furniture. He made collage art out of found objects, mounting them on old wooden doors, then wiring small motors, lights, and relay switches to everything to make it interactive. He’d hit a button and then step back as his Trip Board came alive, cycling through a series of chain reactions. Wheels would spin, lights would flash, mechanical arms would swing, and then hit another switch, triggering another chain reaction. He sold several of his boards to bars in North Beach, San Francisco, in the mid-1960s.
I hit my stepdad’s private stash in 8th grade, and by the time I started high school, I was a chronic pot smoker. I smoked all day, every day, and often took a bong hit before swinging my legs out of bed in the morning. It was the best medicine I found to foment and enhance my escapist existence. Which was, like I said, everything to me. It’s where I lived–Fantasyland. But my biggest dreams were to bring fantasies to life. I was lying in wait for an opportunity.
I had a subscription to High Times magazine because, as a successful pot dealer, I found the market-price lists they published useful in setting my own prices. They also published gorgeous, breathtaking snapshots of flowering sinsemilla buds, chunks of delicious hashish, and colorful, ornate glass bongs. It was porno for potheads. But I bought the magazine mainly for the articles, most of which were highly subversive, activistic, and UFO/government conspiracy theory-laden, but always interesting and always good for firing the imagination.
A 1979 article in High Times, “How to Start Your Own Record Company for Under $2,000,” really grabbed me by my limbic system. For years, I had been planning to start a legitimate business with the money piling up from my illicit marijuana sales. Nothing had piqued my interest until I read about a new entrepreneurial business opportunity that was shaping up. The article detailed how a handful of people had successfully started small independent record labels–which was uncharted territory in those days, predating the industry-changing boom of the mid-1990s (which was likely due, in part, to this singular article).
I sat down and began brainstorming potential names for my own label and mocking up dozens of logos. I settled on Stacked Records, based on a drawing I did of a large-breasted woman (what we’d call “stacked”) surrounded by stacks of vinyl records–HEY! I was a high school kid, and it was the 1970s, but go ahead, string me up by the neck, and sue me. I know it wouldn’t fly today.
For years, I had been planning to start a legitimate business with the money I was piling up through the illicit sales of marijuana. Nothing had piqued my interest until I read about a new entrepreneurial business opportunity that was shaping up.
I set out to find a band or two to record and a studio to record them in. It wasn’t as easy to pull together as I imagined. I also began writing songs, thinking I could get into the songwriting and music publishing business as well. Things didn’t work out, but the motivation to fulfill the dream never died. After I moved out on my own and started working random jobs, I kept stoking the fire.
My Record Company
In the late 1980s, I convinced a friend of mine–who was sleeping on my couch–to partner with me in starting a record label. He had no money to invest, but he was a better salesman than I was, mainly because his mouth never stopped flapping. I saw it as a useful tool at the time. My forte was being the idea man, a problem-solver, and the one with vision, both artistically and business-wise.
To make a long story short, my so-called friend ripped me off, going behind my back and stealing the first project out from under me. He found a wealthy friend to loan him money, and he put the record out under his own label. He stole my business plan and the recordings we pieced together for a compilation record featuring a dozen San Francisco Bay Area bands. We didn’t have a written agreement or contact of any kind. It was a fatal mistake.
The thieving bastard became a local success story. I heard him interviewed on the radio; they called him a genius and applauded his support of up-and-coming artists. He began promoting live shows and lining up new recording sessions for the bands I had handpicked–all part of the original plan I spent years putting together. Thankfully, I hadn’t told him everything, and he quickly ran out of ideas. Not knowing what to do next–he fell flat on his face.
One afternoon, I was at home brainstorming and doodling. I was having fun mocking up labels for fake products, something I did every so often. I was thinking back on the old Wacky Packages stickers I enjoyed when I was a kid. If you don’t know what those are, they were cartoon parodies of products like cereal, candy, soda, and cigarettes, and they sold the stickers in packages with bubblegum, just like baseball cards. They are still sought after and collectible.
I started to imagine what Wacky Packages would have done with a box of condoms. I did a sketch of a condom box and tried to come up with a funny pun for an existing condom brand. Nothing good hit me. Then, I switched gears and began drawing a “Big Daddy Roth”–styled monster driving a hot rod, based on the old Odd Rods stickers that were popular at the same time as Wacky Packages. And suddenly, in a flash, it all came together: Hot Rod Condoms!
I mocked up a box of Hot Rod Condoms featuring a crazy-eyed monster driving a giant erect condom with a blown-V8 engine strapped to it and exhaust pipes spewing out flames and smoke as it ripped down the street. Immediately, I fell in love with the name and the idea. I thought to myself, “Wow, this could be an actual product. People would buy a brand called Hot Rod Condoms.”
I mocked up a box of Hot Rod Condoms featuring a crazy-eyed monster driving a giant erect condom with a blown-V8 engine strapped to it and exhaust pipes spewing out flames and smoke as it ripped down the street. Immediately, I fell in love with the name and the idea. I thought to myself, “Wow this could be an actual product. People would buy a brand called Hot Rod Condoms.”
I mocked up logos for the brand and came up with a few really good ones. I was super excited about it and had to tell someone. I called my sister, Lori, and told her my idea and how I was sure I could find a manufacturer in the same way I found one to press records for Stacked Records. She was beyond excited as well right from the start, and we talked about it for a couple of hours. We both saw the potential, not only in selling a cool product but in promoting safer sex. At the time, HIV/AIDS was still raging around the world, and our favorite cousin, Jim Kidder, had died from AIDS less than a year earlier. It was a no-brainer–this had to be done, this had to be pursued.
My first worry was that someone had likely trademarked the name Hot Rod Condoms. It was just too good to still be available, I thought. I was prepared to be let down as I began my search with the help of my sister. It was early 1994, years before the age of the Internet. Everything had to be researched in brick-and-mortar libraries and government office buildings. We poured through trade publications and directories at the public library and did an exhaustive copyright and trademark search at a trademark library.
Over the next several months, after finding no conflicting records, I became my own lawyer. I couldn’t afford to hire an actual lawyer. The learning curve seemed insurmountable, but I pulled it off. After filing for a Registered Trademark with the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, I had to learn all about the condom manufacturing business, FDA regulations and registration, and U.S. Customs importing requirements.
I designed the retail packaging myself on a computer at my local Kinko’s copy shop, the same place I finalized the logo design. Then I set off to find a world-class manufacturer of high-quality condoms who would produce my private-label brand. That proved to be the most daunting task of all. After many false starts, hard stops, and restarts, within a year, I got the business up and running.
But none of it was easy.
CONTINUED: PART TWO
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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "What a page turner! This story is an amazing piece of investigative work—both compelling and heartbreaking." - Amazon review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I’d seen the author’s work in OZY but was blown away by this book. It’s SUCH a great read, written from the heart! Full of interest for those historians of the hippie generation, North Beach, corrupt cops, mobbed up pols, and San Francisco in general. Very well written and paced up to the last pages. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Buy this book now!" - Amazon review
Great start! Looking forward to part two.