Before we begin our chat with Vinnie
of Vinnie's Tampon
Case fame, we spend a lot of time talking about spaghetti.
Vinnie loves spaghetti. He says if he doesn’t eat it at least once
a weak he gets REALLY crabby. We’ll take his word for it, although
it’s hard to imagine even a frown from this sweet supertalent who
began his business merely as a good Samaritan hoping to give out a lil’ help
to the ladies. Read on to learn more about Vinnie or email vinnie@tamponcase.com for his family's 600-year-old pasta sauce recipe. Yum!
So, Vinnie, you’re a dude… what led
you to tampons as a source of inspiration?
I never expected to be a Tampon Case creator, it sort of grew out of
other projects I was working on. I went to art school, not business school,
and at the time I came up with the idea to make the case I was living
a really good life making and showing art, doing illustrations pretty
regularly for Rolling Stone magazine, and making the occasional set for
lo-budget movie productions. I was getting by on my art skillz, I was
tan, in shape and stress free. Ah, youth.
Then I created Vinnie's Tampon Case as gifts for some friends and before
I knew it my phone
started ringing non-stop from women looking to get
their hands on one of my custom cases. So,
with the money I had saved,
I cut back on the freelance gigs and decided to attempt to make
Vinnie's
Tampon Cases into a legitimate project.
Initially, I just wanted to take a crack at creating a period-related
product for my gal pals that they might look forward to using. After
years of witnessing the sheer dread that women bring to their monthly
cycle, I thought it was about time they had something kind of wacky yet
entertaining
and enjoyable.
Along with functionality and enjoyment, the other main goal for my Vinnie's
Tampon Case project is to create a positive, non-sexual dialogue between
women and men regarding a woman's body. When I was contemplating creating
my tampon case, my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) Sarah Sockit
was really frustrated with the harassment she got from guys every time
she left the house. Nothing violent, just the run of the mill whistling
and cat calling, but enough to make her feel unsafe and uncomfortable.
I hadn’t noticed, because (duh!) they didn’t do it when I
was with her. Around the same time a good friend had revealed to me her
having been attacked in high school. I knew that women experienced different
levels of aggression from men, but the close-to-home-ness encouraged
me to try and do something about it. So, I designed a tampon case with
my cartoon face and the words 'VINNIE'S TAMPON CASE' as big as I could
make them to attract men as much as women. I wanted guys to wonder why
a guy named Vinnie is proudly associating himself with tampons and hopefully
get them to ask the case-owner about her Vinnie's Tampon Case. My intention
was to create a conversation that had never happened before: a man voluntarily
asking a woman about her period. My hope is, that with the basic facts
about a woman’s body, men can generate a greater respect and appreciation
for women and their bodies.
Does it work? Get a case and try it out. I’ve had guys ask me
about my project in the soda line
at Yankee games, and walk away excited
to present their girlfriend or wife a Vinnie’s Tampon
Case. When’s
the last time a couple of guys stood around at a Yankee game discussing
the menstrual cycle?
Your brand-new case is so super stylin', quite a leap from the early
ones you and yur
Granny made in yur kitchen! Can you give us a lil'
history lesson on the case's evolution over the years?
Originally, I designed a case with materials I could afford and produce
in my apartment. Being hella crafty, I knew how to silk-screen, so I
screened the original case design (a canvas case with two interior pockets
and a snap to keep the gear from falling out) and sewed it up.
My mother has the mad-skillz on the sewing machine and relieved my sub-par
sewing skillz for the first couple hundred, and my Grandmother in fact
DID help with the cases. I’d put ‘em in a duffle bag and
bring ‘em on the Ferry to her pad in Staten Island and she’d
help put the period charts in each case while watching “All My
Children” or Pro Wrestling.
Using inexpensive materials was important because I was giving my Vinnie’s
Tampon Cases away for free. I had no intention of this becoming a business
until stores, having seen my cases in the pockets of rad women, approached
me to carry them. I have given thousands upon thousands of my cases away
for free, even after stores picked them up. My commitment was and is
that Vinnie’s Tampon Cases would always be free from me (In person!
So for all of those emailed pleas for a free case, it ain’t happening!!
Just order it off of this here fredflare.com website like the rest of
the cool kids, yo!)
The all NEW Vinnie’s Tampon Case that just came out takes tamp-case
technology to a whole new level. This is NOT your older sister’s
Vinnie’s Tampon Case. I’m pretty excited about the new case!
It was definitely time to revamp and update for the new millennium. The
new case is full-color vinyl with a zipper that goes around 3/4 of the
case. Case fans requested a water resistant case. A woman in Colorado
wrote me a letter hoping I’d design a water resistant case after
she’d capsized in her canoe with her VTC…
The interior still
has the two pockets just like the original canvas case, and a Handy Period
Chart still comes inside, but is now full-color and expanded to include
a full year's calendar. I also redesigned my cartoon face to look cuter
and younger, one of the many perks of having a double life as a cartoon
character!
You're two books are also amazing!!! How did they come about?
Glad you like the books because I really enjoy making them. My first
book, Vinnie's GIANT
Roller Coaster Period Chart & Journal Sticker
Book is basically an over-sized, sticker-crazed version of the Handy
Period Chart that comes with every Vinnie's Tampon Case. A book seemed
like a great opportunity to blow-up and blow-out the idea of the Handy
Period Chart so Sockit, a professional book producer, set up a meeting
with Chronicle Books in SF. Turns out they were Vinnie's Tampon Case
fans and enthusiastically green-lit the GIANT Period Chart Sticker
Book. The Chronicle folks are great and basically let me make whatever
I wanted so I created a book with a year’s calendar designed
as a roller coaster and stickers of my cartoon self riding in a roller
coaster cars that can be stuck on the tracks every day you experience
PMS, your period, Crazy Cramps, etc. Every book comes with a shiny
red vinyl Vinnie's Tampon Case attached as well as perforated postcards
to send to friends to announce your impending period and need for chocolate!
The Giant sticker book also includes a handful of helpful and fully-illustrated
cramp remedies that have been so popular that we decided to make a whole
book of ‘em: Vinnie's
CRAMP Kicking Remedy Book, also from Chronicle
Books. Most of these remedies were sent in from the Vinnie's Tampon Case
fan club and a variety of them are my own Vinnie-fied variations on some
old stand-bys, like the Beanbag Booty Bend and the Fugidaboudit PMS Headache
Foot Rub. Don’t laugh till you try ‘em. They really work!
All remedies tested and approved by professional period-havers!
Okay, more raves... Your cramp relieving bubble bath comes with some
amazing beats on a free CD! We love the music mix so much. You're such
a supertalent! How did that project come about?
Once I learned that one of the most popular remedies for menstrual cramps
is a hot bath I had to make a bubble bath! And Blue Q, the rad company
that now manufactures and distributes my cases, was down with the idea
so I created Vinnie's
CRAMP Relieving Bubble Bath. But, what good is
a cramp relieving bubble bath formula without a soothing mix of custom
created slo-jams to pop in your boom box and set on the counter as you
take a bath, to ensure that you are COMPLETELY relaxed?!!! Not much,
right? So I produced my X-tra Bubbles Soothing Bubble Beats CD to go
with the bubble bath.
I was in bands growing up and one of my brothers is a music producer
so I know my way around music production enough to create what I want.
I worked with the notorious DJ/Producer Phil 'The Jeweler' Crumar to
help create the tracks. We looped a snippet of theme music from a 40's
menstruation filmstrip and scratched in some Gregorian chant type singing
from a record The Jeweler had commemorating one of the Pope's visits
to the states. All in all, it’s six bumpin’ and relaxin’ tracks
that’ll last for one full bath. Its Musak for menstruators. About
time, right?
Can we get personal? We heard you got married this summer on the Staten
Island ferry. That sounds amazing!!! Please tell us everything!!!!
I did get married on the Staten Island Ferry this summer! I married my
longtime sweetheart, Sockit. She’s from Northern California, is
an aces air hockey player, can speak three languages, knows every word
to every AC/DC song (might that count as an additional language?), reads
everything, has a nearly photographic memory (not always a good thing
for me!), makes pesto from basil she grows in our backyard in Brooklyn,
and would leave me in a heartbeat for Viggo Mortensen. (I think every
relationship should exist with the threat of a celebrity hook-up. Keeps
you on your toes and in better shape.) Sockit rocks!
We got married twice, actually. Once in Northern Cali so her extended
West Coast family and our West Coast pals could be a part of our event
and then the following Saturday in NYC, literally on the Staten Island
Ferry. The ride is only 25 minutes, which guaranteed that our ceremony
wouldn't drag on or have time to get too mushy. Normally you can't get
a permit for wedding parties of more than 12 people on the ferry, but
two great ladies at the Transportation office hooked us up so our sizable
party could attend our ceremony on the boat. (It's an Italian American
thing, you wouldn't understand.) It was incredible having all our family
and friends show up to the ferry terminal, buds you haven't seen in years
crammed in among the Ferry regulars.
Sockit wore a beautiful 20's flapper-inspired white mini-skirt dress,
custom-made by the NY designer and our pal InternAshley. I wore a traditional
cowboy formalwear outfit, complete with cowboy hat and boots (and a stylie
retro western suit jacket and matching 70's boot cut -- Ok, bell-bottomed
-- plaid slacks from Cheap Jacks on Broadway).
Just as I slipped the ring on Sockit's finger the Captain, as if on
cue, blew the horn and the assembled crowd went wild. As the ferry
pulled into Manhattan the NY band One Ring Zero led the crowd, now
including many unofficial wedding guests, in a rousing rendition of
Neil Diamonds classic “Sweet Caroline”. ‘Twas perfect,
I tell ya.
We've heard that you get fan mail on a daily basis. What are some of
the things that the girls tell you?
Dudes, had I known that handing out tampon cases was gonna bring me fan
mail from girls every day I would have started when I was fifteen and
could barely get girls to bump into me in the
school hallway!
Having never written a random fan letter I never expected to receive
one, much less THOUSANDS!!!! The fan mail I get is mind blowing. Truly,
it is the main reason I continue to make Vinnie’s Tampon Cases.
I have the greatest fans and get the best mail. Most of the letters are
pretty straightforward appreciations for my case. But I also receive
letters on Hello Kitty stationery from pre-period havers and Junior Varsity
Menstruators who can't wait to have a period so they can use a Vinnie's
Tampon Case. I also get women relating their unique experiences with
their Vinnie's Tampon Case, like the girl who left hers in the ladies
room at a Pro Wrestling Match and went back and someone had already snagged
it. She just wanted to let me know how popular my cases were that someone
would steal it! I've gotten pictures from a crew of women living in Antarctica
all standing outside in sub-sub zero weather in their Vinnie’s
Tampon Case t-shirts holding their Vinnie's Tampon Cases. Now that's
loyalty! I received a letter from faculty and grad students at a university
in Southern California hoping I would step in and settle a dispute between
them and their administration involving the recent removal of tampon
dispensers from the campus bathrooms. The faculty wanted them reinstated
and hoped my “tampon street cred” could tip the scales in
their favor. I even get letters from boys hoping to get a Vinnie’s
Tampon Case to win over girls. Those boys are going places!
