alt rock & one idea short

diagramming a mug club concept, start to finish

They say: Kill your darlings.

They mean: if there’s something in your writing you’re precious about it, delete it.

I say: Don’t kill your darlings.

I say: clutch your darlings so tight you wound them and then have to go to medical school to learn how to provide the type of round-the-clock care your darlings now need.

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I wanted to put a mug in a bath bomb and put that in a box and put that box in the mail. I wanted to do this for my Alt Rock Mug Club, which is my weirdo mug club for folks who get it. (They like me for me.) I wanted Mug Club members, who have no idea what each installment will entail, to open a box and see an enormous bath bomb, put it in water, and out of the effervescence, a mug. And the design of that mug would be: ____.

I assumed the mug should be bath themed to arrive in a bath bomb but painting it with bath items is not wacky enough for Mug Club. The previous Mug Club was McDonald’s Hammy Meal and the mug had 3d chicken nuggets and a french fry box on it and the handle was the McDonald’s M and I made a mini beanie baby platypus and it all arrived in a homemade Happy Meal container.

My sister gets all the pitches. I need them spoken aloud to someone.

I knew that I was too focused on the bath bomb part. I could feel it obstructing my mind bowels.

Simultaneously and unrelated to this project I’d become obsessed with ducks. So then I thought okay I’ll make a rubber ducky mug where the mug IS a rubber ducky shape. That’s wacky enough. Picture it, though. What is the handle?

I tried. I couldn’t figure out how to make the ass of the duck recognizable AND holdable. I even made a sample rubber ducky as a guide.

I gave up. I offered Bruno the mini duck and recycled the mug attempt. I backed off for a few weeks. Not in my mind, though. My mind was stuck at the top of the Mug Club ferris wheel, basket a-swinging. But my body made other things.

I came back to it last week in earnest because it’s an intense season for people like me and these need to be out the door. I decided I was overthinking it. Maybe it doesn’t need to be totally related to bath time to arrive in a bath bomb. I thought okay what if it’s just like a calming lovely scene? I was literally on Architectural Digest dot com scrolling for serene interiors..

This sketch was a low point. Down with the dino bones low. Yoga lady led to thinking a mug of tea on one side and a margarita on the other and the words business in the front party in the back became: Yoga on the front, Gaga on the back.

But for some reason as I painted an irl sample of that concept my mind was messing around with the phrase self care and just added bears to it. Self Care Bears.

It felt like when you’re skiing and you’ve been shuffling yourself from the chairlift and the grade of the mountain takes over and there’s that moment where you are no longer responsible for your own propulsion. That’s how it felt once I thought of Self Care Bears.

Each bear has a unique design on its tummy and a unique name. Some of the traditional Care Bears are: Share Bear, Cheer Bear, Funshine Bear… I made mine: Edible Bear, Hygge Bear, Multiple Beverages Bear, and Screentime Bear. (These are unfired.)

As I told my sister, I knew this was right because it was ridiculous.

Look at the size of this bath bomb. And inside it is a mug with Screentime Bear on it. I want to be on Maxim’s Unhinged Under Hundred, please.

Making the bath bombs was sloppy. It was my first time. I used this guide.

I decided to do them like a PR package to an influencer from a brand. I wrote:

Hey Bestie!!

How is it already October!? It’s giving brr!!

We here at Ham Council are not so secretly thrilled that it’s finally Self Care Season and we thought you could use some inspo so please enjoy a sample of our newest product, the Oppen-Ham-er Bath Bomb. This thing will decimate your bathtub…with relaxing vibes!!

To me it’s funny that a beauty brand would try to hop on the barbenheimer thing like months later and clumsily. I’m sure some actually have.

I debated whether my joke was punching down. I tried other versions but went with the first one. I don’t do much satire on my insta and I wouldn’t have done this bomb joke on there either for the same reason, which is that I never want to risk making anyone feel bad. Because this is for the members of this one mug club I relaxed my rules.

They have all been shipped out and delivered and I burned all my NDAs. Y’all are free to talk!