In the last blog post, I talked about starting up the climbing gear business—Zartman Rigging: Legendary Climbing Gear. It was a nod to my old Yosemite Valley nickname, “Ben Wah, the Legend,” of which I’m inordinately fond. Now, in the rough-and-tumble Valley parking lot scene, nicknames weren’t something you chose: they were given to you. All you could do was hope that you didn’t have an accident or do something ill-advised that would land you a cruel and unusual nickname. It wasn’t always your fault: Cedar Wright lost his glasses, and as he stumbled myopically around was branded “Mr Magoo.” That got shortened to Magoo, and that he is to this day, unless we shorten it further to “Goo.” I don’t know if anyone even knows Spaz’s real name, who happens to talk in rapid, short, unintelligible bursts. One last unfortunate example was Aaron, who self-tattoed his initials on his arm, “ARD.” Inevitably he was forever “Tard.” There was very little concern for feelings in those days; feelings and insecurities were something you hid deep down inside where no one would ever, ever find them—those who had them, of course. Most of us didn’t, which was just as well. But I’m getting sidetracked. My nickname was the result of riding a conveyor belt in the Lodge Cafeteria meant to bus trays into the dish room. The belt ran inside of a sort of long cabinet with occasional openings, and there was a question whether a constriction as it passed through a wall into the dishroom was big enough for a body.
Once the bounty of crumpled bills on the table exceeded the danger (in my mind) of getting busted by the manager, who had a nickname of his own—the Little Round Man—I went for it, riding flat on my back right past his well-stuffed waistcoat. For his part, the Little Round Man couldn’t figure out why the entire caf’s attention was suddenly focused apparently on him, nor why there was practically a standing ovation as a dishwasher opened the scullery door and showed me the real way toward the restroom. The Little Round Man bowed slightly, mystified but pleased, as I slipped behind him, scooped up the bounty, and headed for the door.
For years after I left off the climbing bum life to go sailboat cruising, the nickname went dormant, only to resurrect again when I set off with some old friends from the Valley parking lot scene to sail through the Northwest Passage. I can’t say that I minded, since it’s not a bad nickname at all, and much connected to youthful glory indescribable. But to bring it to the present: Danielle insisted despite my modest, stammering protests, that “Legendary Climbing Gear” has a nice ring to it. That was while we were designing packaging, one of the endless details that attend on starting up a gear business. We went for minimalist, compostable, one-color packaging, with simple pictorial instructions and warnings. Even that took hours of formatting, test-printing, drawing (on Antigone’s part, who makes beautiful illustrations).
Each separate type of product—and we now have about a dozen—requires a similar label with different information on it. But that’s not all. Danielle also designed a square countertop display box, which Antigone illustrated, and we went through several different tries on heat sealer and poly tubing to fill with rope dye. There were promotional posters to draw, Instagram videos to shoot, and a constant stream of samples to send out for testing. All of this while keeping the boat rigging business alive, and doing captain work on schooners in Newport for the summer to supplement.
As if that weren’t enough, I was also asked to teach a week-long rigging class at IYRS-the International Yacht Restoration School in Newport. Wanting a textbook of some sort, I asked Antigone to draw some splicing instructions from photographs I took. I had envisioned a stapled sheaf of simple photocopied black-and-white drawings, but Danielle’s enthusiasm took up the project. By the time the class began, there was a beautiful spiral-bound book in three colors, with glossy pictures, reviews on the back, and the first print run had all but sold out. We’re on the second print run now, and together with all sorts of splicing tools and supplies, “Modern Splicing,” by Ben and Antigone Zartman, can be bought on the webstore. The book, strangely enough, only intensified a clamor that had been building for a while among my subscribers, for a YouTube channel of splicing instructions.
Well, I love my subscribers, and so after a few attempts we figured out how to set up a camera, and have begun shooting videos. The method needs some improvement; perhaps a better camera or even two, but hopefully the half-dozen videos over on Zartman Rigging will be joined by more. I’ll probably never ride a dishwashing conveyor belt again—I may no longer fit through the constriction—but if I do, I’ll be sure to make a YouTube video of it.
