I was in Orlando for a thing that ended up not happening so I went to see my friend Jason Gregory who runs a wildly successful leather goods company called MAKR.

He’s been doing well, so he had to bust down the wall of the space next to him and expand into this tasty realm.

Jason was actually the inspiration for the creation issue. He sent me a text that said, “You should do an issue of Annalemma that’s all about making things.” I texted him back, “That’s a great idea.” And here we are.

I’m jealous of Jason’s wild success with his brand and his beautiful space with his antique mid-century furniture.

But whenever I get jealous I remember a scene from Seven Years in Tibet where Lhakpa Tsamchoe’s character says to Brad Pitt’s character, “A friend’s good fortune is a blessing. I’m sorry you resent ours.”

The workshop.

The bookshelf. Well, well, well. What do we have on the bottom shelf…

Jason will need something, like a coat hook, and make a design, get it a limited run manufactured and then sell them all. Once they’re sold, they’re gone, never to be made again.

Enough gushing, you get the idea. The dude makes rad stuff. We had an editorial meeting and it went well, gave us a lot of focus and I’m very excited about the direction of all this. It’s making me feel real good inside.

The man and his big ass desk.

Unrealted: new Brice at Stardust. Thanks, Orlando, for being rad.

MAKR and I went up to Chicago. He had to go to Horween, one of the oldest leather tanneries in the country, to pick out some hides to make into bags.

It was like Charlie and the Chocolate factory. But with dead flesh.

This is what it looks like in Jason’s brain.

This is how the hides come in. That’s horse hide imported from France.

I want Horace McCoy to write a book called The French Eat Horses, Don’t They?

The hides are bathed in a sort of bleach wash deal that turns them into pasty white piles of mush.

Leather byproduct splatter strewn across an American flag. There’s a metaphor there but I’m not sure what it is.

Most footballs used for pro games? Yup. They came from Horween.

This place has been around since 1905 and is still family owned and operated. Skip Horween, the gentleman who showed us around, took us to this dark hole where the hides dry.

Horween is the last place in the States to make Cordovan, which is essentially the butt of the horse. I told Skip that it kind of looks like Illinois. He agreed and told us that an uncut hide looks like the United States. I said there was another good metaphor in there somwhwere. Skip quietly tolerated the foppish writer by saying, “Yeah, there’s something in there.”

But it wasn’t all leather for us. Side note: I enjoyed introducing Jason to my Chicago friends by saying, “This is Jason. He’s really into leather.”

We went to the Russian Tea Room, which made people whisper further.

We took the pink line (God, this is getting bad) down to Pilsen.

If you live in the greater Chicago area, care about the most interesting stuff happening in art book publishing and you have not yet been to Golden Age then you, my friend, are robbing yourself of one of the better experiences of your lifetime.

Go see Marco and his amazing store right away!

This was one of the best trips I’ve made back to the city since I moved. Without a doubt.

Thank you Tom, Bill, Ben, Anne, Theresa and Sheba. I miss you all.

And dare I say it? I miss this city.

Dear friend Jason Gregory just launched a new version of the MAKR site. Jason makes insanely high qulaity leather goods. If you’re into fashion and hand crafted things that carry other things then you should check him out.

Jason came over to my crib cause he wanted to shoot his bags.

And not the bags you’re thinking about.

I’m talking about his testicles.

Josh was the model, of course.

What’s the matter Jason? Am I too much of a man for you? You need a waifish, ladyboy like J Man?

Just kidding. J Man’s beard kind of out-man’s us all.

Sexy man.

Sexy man got places to go with his new tote. What kind of secrets you hiding in that tote, sexy man?

He’s an angel he is.

And there’s the shot. See? You gotta provoke your subject to get what you need. You’re welcome.

Jason and Gabbi picked me up from my regularly scheduled Sunday afternoon slovenliness at took me to the Rollins Gallery.

Rembrandt made this etching of a dude peeing. He’s holding his dong upside down and backwards, if that makes sense. It was probably fashionable at the time.

So tiny.

We were there to see the Josef Albers exhibit. Apparently he’s a color genius. To me that’s like saying you’re an eating genius.

Those bricks are both the same shade of red. Illusion.

Jason and Gabbi, learnin’ shit.

These were pretty cool.

This lady did these massive surreal triptychs that were covered in a shiny corvette-like resin.

Those flower stems were made with bomb fuses.

Pretty rad, though the giant flowers kind of ruined it for me.

I’m really pumped that Jason and Gabbi rescued me from the Sunday Blues.

And Chase is back from LA!

Weather is getting unbearably cold in Florida (read: 50 to 60 degrees, almost tropical by Midwest standards), so Jason open the fire pit up for the season.

A beautiful phenomenon that is happening all over town right now.

Everyone says they see a demon in the pic.

It’s just the top of Ryan’s head. Which is pretty evil in its own right.

Beautiful lighting for beautiful ladies.

Leah writes romance novels under the name Veronica Beatrice Robishaw and she asked me to take this picture for her book jacket covers.

“We must ride again, amigo.”

“But we swore to Padre Rodriguez that we would never ride again.”

“Yes, but my sister has been has been dishonored by the coward Capitan Finch.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Vaminos amigo! Let us ride like the wind!”

And this is why we don’t turn the flash on at the bonfire.

This is also why.