BOMONSTER Blog

The Hangtown Classic opens the outdoor MX season and has been around for 45 years. We took the BOMONSTER art and apparel show there to get my art out in front of a new crowd. The Dirt Diggers North motorcycle club puts on the event and did a great job organizing the previously strip mined valley into an dirt bike racers paradise. The racing was was excellent and the access to the riders and pits was made easy.

Putting on an event of this magnitude requires big money which requires fans who spend big money. Taking a page out of NASCAR's in-your-face barrage of sponsor brands, the actual race is only a backdrop to the real opportunity of getting brands and products in the minds and hands of a perceived high-value target – the 18-35 demographic. Understanding great marketing, I wasn't shocked at the big semi-truck rigs pulling into vendor row from Red Bull, Oakley, GoPro, FMF, Lucas Oil, etc. What shocked me was the way these brands debase their brand image by standing in front of million dollar rigs screaming into microphones like carnival hawkers begging the crowd to enter contests, liking them on facebook, and generally harassing the crowd to pay attention to them. Extremely loud and angry metal music vibrated through inferior sound systems assaulting the targeted and anti-targeted demographics all day.

Red Bull had a great display of extreme sport graphics but the Red Bull truck parked next to their display opened up into a 16' high DJ booth and video wall complete with a head banging, headphone-wearing DJ who cranked up the volume to 11+.  Mr head banger DJ violated the airspace with a one-dimensional sampled electronic dance thump complete with F-word bomb lyrics for the whole family to cringe to without interruption for 8 hours. We endured the noise and the customer complaints and wondered if Red Bull's marketing team back at the office realized their long term brand image would be better served using their caffeinated sugar water money to celebrate the sport and not try to alienate the spectator experience.

Nonetheless, we appreciated the opportunity to be there as people really dug our work and it gave me a good insight into the crowd. The thing we heard over and over was that we were new and different. Of the 25,000 people in attendance more than half were wearing one of four famous brand name logos on their bodies. The people we impressed were the ones who appreciated the new. Marketers call them the leading edge trend setters. They don't buy because everyone else is wearing it, they buy because they like the unique. Someday when BOMONSTER is famous and one of the five famous brands, I will always remember the leading edge trend setters at Hangtown who came into our booth – not because we were shouting at them to enter a contest or trying to impress with our taste in obnoxious music – but because we stuck to what we know – art.

All photos by BOMONSTER except the photo of BOMONSTER by W.B.

I'm getting ready to go to the Hangtown Outdoor Motocross Classic next week and try to sell some of my BOMONSTER shirts and scratchboard art to a new generation of dirt bike lovers. Hangtown is put on by the Dirt Diggers M.C. and I may be the only person in the world with an original Dirt Diggers Hopetown Grand Prix and International Moto Cross poster from 1967. I bought it in the parking lot of the Corriganville movie ranch Hopetown – named after Bob Hope, and the site of the first appearance by the world champion European riders on U.S. soil. I was a little kid – not much bigger than a poster – but I remember the deep mud hole on the racecourse, walking the back roads of the course and the old west movie sets and trees where they shot Tarzan classics, TV's F-Troop, Rin Tin Tin, some Lassie episodes and tons more. It was on the east end of the Simi Valley and the back hillside had just been graded for the future 118 Freeway to connect to the San Fernando Valley. I think about these things when I look at the poster on my wall behind my computer screen:

I wish I knew more about the poster artist. The signature looks something like Earl Tressman. It is a beautiful black and red silkscreen on a heavy cream colored stock. The reason I was at the race was because my dad Winston Beaumont produced and distributed a motorcycle results paper called Rap Up. He took pictures, wrote the articles and pasted up the page layouts. It morphed into a competition guide as another investor came on board but after the Hopetown issue, it folded. Here are some photos from that historical race not previously seen by many:

What made the 1967 Hopetown classic a true classic was the arrival of the Europeans. The rider with the number one plate that year was Torsten Hallman. He is pictured at the top. My dad wrote "...Torsten Hallman clearly demonstrated why he is Number One in the world. He stood up constantly, used trees for brakes and took bumpy corners like the Hollywood Freeway. His Husqvarna backed him up with horsepower, torque and revving abilities we rarely, if ever, see in the United States." Also pictured are CZ riders Roger Decoster (C), Dave Bickers (A) and Joel Robert wheelieing though the mud hole. The Europeans won the two-day event with Hallman and Decoster tied for first in two-day points and Dave Bickers second. The International raced on Saturday on 250cc machines and combined a Sunday race on open class bikes. Gary Conrad on a Greeves was the top American over Eddie Mulder and Bud Ekins. Eddie Mulder almost won Sunday's open class race but got passed by Hallman before the checkers who averaged 51 mph on the 2.8 mile course.

Among those pictured above is Gary Conrad (3), Eddie Mulder (12) Triumph, and a 16-year-old amateur Al Baker (3) Husqvarna. The Europeans were so fast when they first came over here and it took the rest of the decade before the Americans would shake the moniker of "First American..." in the results.

In summing up the event my dad wrote "Hopetown was a rare opportunity to see Europe's and America's best riders on the same course and spectate over the differences in their machinery (knowing full-well the differences between factory bikes and individually-prepared entries). Pit commentary explored every possible motorcycle-rider combination, then questioned the relative advantages of being born in in Sweden or America. In Europe, it is custom to run up a hill to the corner grocery store - on legs, not on wheels. Here we start life in a car seat with a miniature steering wheel affixed to it, and seldom venture beyond the garage on foot. Some riders in this country work out daily, with long hikes and rough country bike practice; but will anyone who doesn't begin conditioning before the age of one be destined for disappointment? This question may never be answered, but many people asked it during the race."

Photos by Winston Beaumont and Harry Burton, 1967

"Rat Rod" is one of those terms which rankles traditional custom car builders and is a real dividing line between custom culture fans - many of whom have never built a car. The most common argument among rat rod haters is that they're not safe. This coming from a group of non-traditional outsiders who'd never be caught dead in a Volvo. For some reason I like rat rods. They're complete one-offs built in a garage by car guys who probably had no real plan or direction for the car and just free-formed it using available parts that came along either cheap or free. Assuming the welds are strong and the owner doesn't fall asleep at the wheel while driving and run over any kids or pets, what's the harm? While inside selling my BOMONSTER art and apparel at the 2013 Lone Star Roundup in Austin TX, I heard some comments about the "wrong kind of cars" being allowed into the show. I knew what an ironic statement that was at a hot rod/custom car show where the point is to present something far from showroom stock. So I went outside and took a look at these undesirable beasts...

All photos by BOMONSTER

At this year's 2013 March Meet thousands came from around the world. And so did the rain. The vendors set up on Wednesday in anticipation of four days of selling to an international drag racing crowd but the weather had other plans. Storm clouds hung over the light Famoso crowd all day Thursday and on friday the rains came closing the Grapevine to snow. The crowds stayed home and the vendors stayed in their hotels. The BOMONSTER team arrived to a closed track and an alley of zipped-up vendor booths. Rather than drive back into Bakersfield, I figured we could use the same amount of gas by idling the car for a few hours in the rain while my "staff" keep the heater running enjoying a book and a nap. I used the opportunity to walk around, take a few pictures and talk to other die-hards in the rain who had nothing better to do.

Famoso raceway sits on one square mile of asphalt. It was interesting to walk that one square mile and take in the scene. We've all heard that the rain falls on the rich and the poor and never is it more evident than experiencing it at the drags. On one side you have the million dollar race car rigs covered and lined up side by side while their crews in matching logo jackets huddle under canopies and keep warm next to outdoor space heaters.  At the other end you have the parts swappers parked on the uneven, broken up asphalt dirt keeping warm by standing out in the rain next to trash can fires and surrounded by thousands of rusty old car parts. Both groups having the times of their lives – and no one wanting to go home. And between the two were the die-hard fans walking an empty track, looking at cars in the rain and saying passing hellos from under the cover of seldom-used California umbrellas. We opened half our booth to give the die-hards some shelter from the rain and in the process made some new new friends. Of course they couldn't resist buying some BOMONSTER merch which paid for the gas in the idling "staff" car.

Finally, on Saturday the rains let up and the track crew began the long process of drying out the track before they brought out the ground-pounding funny cars. The vendors opened, the fans arrived and we enjoyed a good weekend selling original BOMONSTER art and apparel. I've been home a week now wondering what my favorite memory of the show was. The sales? The conversations? New and old friends? The race cars? Oddly, it was the rain.

All photos by BOMONSTER. Model: Emily Sherer

Every original BOMONSTER design starts out as a solid black piece of scratchboard. I transfer a light outline shape onto the board and then start filling in the details the way tattoo artists approach their art. The difference is that a tattoo artist will define the shapes by shading the darker shadow side whereas I start scratching where the light hits an object. I scratch heavy for highlights, medium for light falloff and leave the shadows alone. Here's a step-by step visual breakdown for one of my latest pieces: "Survivors"

Once finished, I scan the image and then do a live trace in Adobe Illustrator which converts my fine scratches into a clean vector file which any silkscreen printer can use to make the film and screens from.

I first had the design made into a nicely antiqued metal garage sign. People kept asking if it was available on a shirt. So to prove I listen to my customers, I had some good quality Alstyle AAA t-shirts printed up. Both turned out great and you can find them by clicking these links:

"Survivors" Metal garage signs: www.bomonster.com

"Survivors" Men's Tees: www.bomonster.com

"The Eternal Hot Rod Christmas Flame 2012"

A line was crossed this month. It was as if Satan himself opened the lid on the jar of all things evil and let some hideous vapor escape which took the form of a crime so horrific and so sad, it stunned even the most hardened of hearts. He's opened this jar many times before and unleashed small amounts of cruelty and mayhem just to get our attention and to demonstrate his power over lost souls. We've been shocked before but as generations pass we become jaded and immune to the constant barrage of violence, terrorism, decadence and outright immorality. We steel ourselves against evil, package it and market it to our children as mainstream entertainment as if to reduce and control its place in our lives. Hollywood insists that it is only a reflection of society's conscience and continues to age down what's acceptable to young eyes and minds.

But then evil needs to raised another few thousand notches just to have an impact on us. Unfortunately the ramping up of evil this time crossed the line and targeted 20 innocent children and their six valiant guardians at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT. Now we know there are no limits, no agreed upon line which evil respects and will not cross.

The souls and spirits of those babies are safe because God promises "the little ones belong to Me." But the way they died deserves not only our honor but also demands our pause and reflection as a society.

Is it right that military-grade weapons be available to the general public after a simple 14-day waiting period? Is it right that XBox, Nintendo, Sony, EA Games and others market slickly packaged instructional violent killing video games to kids this Christmas and then becomes tomorrow's $2 bargain bin deal?  Is it right that iTunes, radio and the recording industry markets angry and violent lyrics screamed to a heavy metal/catchy hip hop beat to our kids? Is it right that Hollywood uses its hyper-realistic visual technology advances to market explicit slasher/killer/horror films to our kids? Is it right that prime time television advertisers profit so heavily on violent murder scene/crime entertainment to our kids? Is it right that violent images and descriptions are so prevalent on the internet? Our first and second amendment rights says we can. But just because we can should we?

.

Original scratchboard art by BOMONSTER

The Mooneyes Christmas Show is probably the most over-rated and yet "must-attend" show every year. On one hand it's got it all: Last show of the year, freeway close, 1,200 custom cars, drag racing, great music, bikes, girls, a nice history, all the cool vendors and BOMONSTER! On the other hand, the only way to enjoy the show is to get there early (like 5:00am) because the show is huge. By mid-day the parking lots and too few stinky outhouses are full, the drunks are annoying, security is scarce, the too few food vendors have mile-long lines and while business is mostly good for the vendors we're always left to load up in the dark because the lights don't stay on long. On one hand you're thankful for the show but on the other hand it's easy to imagine that just a couple of small adjustments could make this a near-perfect show experience.

Aside from all that, it's the BOMONSTER fans and visitors that make our experience a great one. It's cool that cool people think of some vendors as friends and always stop in to say hello. Mooneyes originally started out years ago with an art focus and there is a core audience that still looks at it that way. BOMONSTER designs are now showing up as tattoos in the crowd which is fun to see. Thankfully they've all been executed by talented tattoo artists who have drawn my original designs better than me!

Here are some pictures which were all taken within 100 yards of our booth. There was a lot more to see but you'll just have to get up early and check it out for yourself next year...

All photos by BOMONSTER

It seems the day after Thanksgiving everyone gets in their car and drives to the mall. We got in our car too but the difference is - we didn't stop until we were in the middle of nowhere surrounded by greasewood bushes, rocks, sand and clear open skies. The BOMONSTER family spent Black Friday not shopping but camping and riding dirt bikes in the Mojave desert.

Mr and Mrs BOMONSTER are usually too busy working to think about fine luxuries - like camping in the desert. We need encouragement from our kids and in this case it was our son who wanted to go riding and show his girlfriend what makes desert camping so fun. We all brought bikes but the girlfriend was getting over a cold so the first thing in the morning Mr and Mrs BOMONSTER and the boy took off on a 26-mile ride across the valley, into the hills, past ancient mine shafts and to the top of a mountain which stands a government microwave station for tracking UFOs and enemy aircraft. Since everyone was out holiday shopping including government employees, we managed to ride to the top without having to show our passports and official documents to any roving BLM Rangers.

We're all experienced riders and we like to ride far and fast. But me being the artist means everyone is used to me stopping often to take a picture. I see cool things everywhere in the desert. There aren't many animals out this time of year but the rocks, bushes, trees and ant hills are a reminder that the desert stands the test of time. We ride mostly on rugged jeep roads and a few single track trails and I'm always surprised to see how wind, rain, and the seasons erase the marks made by man and how so much of the landscape is pretty much exactly what gold and silver miners explored over 100 years ago. The BLM continues to shut down public lands using the yearly registration fees collected from off-roaders to fund the massive effort to keep public lands out of the hands of the public. Fewer trails means excessive wear and tear on the ones that do remain open and those well-worn trails later become "evidence" of man's impact on a "fragile" environment.

So we enjoy it while we can. As the sun sets, we play games, gather dry sticks to start the logs we brought from home, cook up steaks, drink bloody marys, start the fire, shoot off fireworks answering the neighbors 10 miles away in the darkness skyrocket for skyrocket, roast marshmallows for Smores and marvel at how many more stars you can see when you get far away from the city.

The next morning we found the fallen skyrockets and covered the melted wine bottle in the still warm coals knowing it would crack as soon as it hit the cool air. The boy and I needed one more ride so we gassed up, lubed the chains and took off in another direction and covered 46-miles of fast sandy trails, crossed a dry lake, climb up and down some rocky hills and rested on top of some incredible vistas. Later when we returned to camp, he showed me his GPS tracking app on his iPhone which marked a red line on Google Earth showing our route, estimated our average speed of 26 mph, recorded our top speed of 84 mph and our elevation changes from 2,000 ft desert floor to 3,600 ft mountain tops. He saved the map in a desktop folder for future reference. So while it seems we will probably never top that incredible weekend, technically, we can retrace our tracks and do it all over again.

Photos by BOMONSTER except for the photo of BO by his wheelie-popping wife.

We drove over 1,200 miles to a Good Guys show in Scottsdale, AZ and back last weekend for the purpose of selling art and apparel hoping to make enough money to buy new tires for the truck. Now that we're vendors selling BOMONSTER art and apparel, I measure all sales in terms of covering expenses. If we sell ten shirts, then our meal expenses are covered. It takes about fifteen shirts and ten prints to cover our four-night hotel bill. I never count on a Good Guys event being a good money-maker for us. Good Guys events are the among the most expensive to vend at and are mostly made up of well-manicured, gray-haired, humorless, polite white guys who drive nice old cars with good paint jobs and after-market wheels. They're certainly nice enough if you approach them as they Armor-all their tires but those types generally stay away from my art and anything with the name "MONSTER" in it. The first day of a Good Guys Show is generally made up of just the car owners on Friday. They wear In-and-Out Burger t-shirts, Dunn Edwards car shirts, and souvenir logo t-shirts from their company picnic two years ago.  They buy plenty of Goodguys event T-shirts but then hunt for $5 bargains among the rest of the vendors. After a long day of selling on friday we sold six shirts and four stickers for a grand total of $78.

All of which made my incentive to buy new $1,000 tires for the truck seem like a long shot. They were wearing down fast and the sidewalls were deteriorating rapidly. I thought if we could have a good sales weekend then we could buy new tires after all the expenses were covered. That's why we took a chance and drove six hours to Scottsdale only to make $78.

But then on Saturday they opened the doors - and as I like to say - in came the Working Man. The people who dig our stuff work on cars themselves and live the lifestyle. They weld, they paint, they get their hands dirty and then clean up and wear cool stuff, listen to cool music and are married to cool people. When they see BOMONSTER art they drop their jaws, and start pointing saying "I want that, I want  that..." They buy but they also hang out and tell cool stories. By the end of the day Saturday faith in my fellow hot rodder was restored and we sold enough to cover the expensive booth space, the hotel, the food and the new tires! Whatever we sold on Sunday would cover the gas to get home.

Admission to a Good Guys event is $17 but the fans get a lot for the money. Just about every style of car you can think of is there. Plus a large swap meet, plus an autocross track where a steady stream of unique cars race a 37-second lap against the clock, plus two vendor areas - one outdoors and one inside with some great vendors - and BOMONSTER. I had a nice time visiting with professional car photographers Bill Garrett and Tom Davison before I took their pictures and lost them to the crowds.

There are so many different automobile eras represented at a Good Guys Show that you can usually fill up your camera chip just shooting cars you like and ignoring all the others. My favorite was a 1954 fiberglass Kasier Darrin made into a gasser. There were only 450 made originally so purists hate what the 16-year-old owners did to this car years ago. But it really doesn't matter because there were so many other modified cars for purists to hate and perfectly restored stockers to keep everyone happy.

Happily, we made our gas money on Sunday and came home on nice new smooth running, perfectly round new tires. But we noticed the AC wasn't working as well so I guess that means we'll need to find another Good Guys show soon to pay for it.

All photos by BOMONSTER

This was our second Hot Rod Reunion selling BOMONSTER art and apparel and it's become my favorite show to attend. The event is laid out on a one mile patch of asphalt at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield, CA and for a whopping $25 the spectator gets more than their money's worth when you add up all the attractions on that one square mile: Free parking, open pits and open staging lanes of vintage dragsters, fuel altereds, funny cars, gassers, famous racers and race cars, a swap meet filled with reasonably-priced cool stuff, rows of owner's kustoms, hot rods and race car/daily drivers, all-day drags with a quarter-mile length of bleachers, good food at a good price and a long row of some of the most unique vendors you'll find anywhere. And BOMONSTER.

We were assisted in our booth by the lovely Ren-a Valdez who seems know all the cool people in the kustom/hot rod scene. The highlight of the weekend was the showing of Tiny's "DRIVEN Kustom Culture TV" world premiere at a local theater. The response to the show was positive and it felt good to see so much hard work finally on the big screen.

Once the drags opened and the cars were rolled out onto the starting grid, I was thrilled to see John Turk's blown Chevy aluminum-bodied BOMONSTER-stickered rail entered into the 7.6 class and ready to go. He makes me look like a major sponsor of his car so now I can say "I have a car in the show." His crew has won two races this year in the 7.0 class and for CHHR he detuned it to 7.6 because his driver doubled up with a car already entered in the 7.o class. Unfortunately he spun the wheels on Sunday during the burn out and flattened the tires which DNFed his car. It's one thing to lose straight-up racing, but I really felt for John's crew who worked hard only to lose the race before the green light.

We also met the Sander's Bros Racing Team owners Howie and Jaime and followed their progress throughout the weekend to their final elimination win in the 7.0 class B-Group class. They have a beautiful orange rail with graphics by Zombie and it's a true family affair for them as mom drives the chase vehicle, dad preps the car, brother drives and grandma and kids cheer from the chase car.

We make new friends at every event and it's interesting to meet super cool families, happily married couples, outrageously talented artists/dreamers, successful entrepreneurs, and general kool kats all connected by a common interest. It makes me realize we are there for more than just selling art.

Photos by BOMONSTER.