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| 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! 9/24/04 |
