History of Our Awesome Idea
THE NUTZ AND BOLTZ
I remember Adam walking across the quad at Cal State Long Beach. It was my first day of college back in 1992. He was walking towards me with two other guys, one who looked just like him (he has a twin) and another with long wild red hair. The site of them felt ominous, like somehow I knew that meeting these three guys was going to be significant.
Flash forward twelve years (Ouch!), I'm walking behind Adam laughing at how thin his once luscious head of hair has grown and am struggling with the moral dilemma of whether or not he would think it was funny if I asked him to comb it over just to see...... Anyway, Kevin, the wild red-headed guy from paragraph one, was getting married in Yosemite, California and I, being a total girl, came equipped, not only with my own wedding gift and card to match, but a backup card just in case Adam spaced his (thanks mom). Adam, being the typical man (not that there is anything wrong with you guys) came equipped with only a gift card from Home Depot. Two things are wrong with this picture: one, the gift card was a leftover birthday present that Adam's brother had given him months earlier and, two, NO CARD! "Not to worry Adam, I brought an extra card for you because I knew this would happen". Adam ready the card and exclaimed, "No way Lisa, there is just no freakin' way I'm going to give Kevin this card, this is a girlie card". "I want to give Kevin a card that he knows is from me, not one he thinks my mom or you bought for me to give to him."
So now the morning of the wedding arrives and I'm sucked into the man's world of rushing off to the local drug store for pre-wedding beers, cheap cigars and, oh yeah, a wedding card filled with thoughtful, touching sentiment. We hit the store and I tell Adam that I'll pick out the beer while he finds a card. My mission was accomplished in about sixty seconds, Adam, on the other hand, was "entering a world of pain" (Walter, The Big Lebowski). I know that it is not lady-like, but in all honesty, snot flew out of my nose because I laughed so hard at how bewildered Adam looked. He was wandering through the card aisle looking so confused. He was angry that even the pictures on the "Blank Inside Cards" were too mushy. He did not want to give his rock-climbing, partying, hiking, mountain biking, surfing, kayaking buddy a wedding card with a sappy poem or pictures of bells and doves on the front. I took it upon myself to help Adam find the perfect man card, problem is, the perfect man card did not exist - yet. In our delirium from the long night that we were recovering from, we conjured up the idea of a greeting card company for men. We laughed about calling it "No Feelings Card Company" or names like "Ball Sack Greeting" which my brother later suggested. "You know, the logo would have sport bags filled with soccer balls and basketballs", he pitched. Never-the-less, we spent the next few hours dreaming up hysterical cards that we would have liked to have seen back in the aisle that morning.
What followed was a year of Adam and I talking about the fictitious "No Feelings Card Company" and then another eight months of exploring ideas with my brother and a few friends. Finally, in the fall of 2005, I met Nguyen Le on a camping trip in the Sequoias. Nguyen is an artist and volunteered to try and come up with a few graphics to match some of my ideas. Nguyen sent me some of his samples the day after we got home and I was immediately impressed. The artwork was awesome and I was equally stoked that I had finally found somebody as enthusiastic as I was about actually pulling this together. The rest is, to risk being cliché: NUTZ AND BOLTZ.
So men, this is your card company: some are serious, but mostly you will find funny, sarcastic cards that get straight to the point. The only tears these cards will bring are tears of laughter. Has a friend of your recently gotten a promotion? Do you know the real reason why? We have the card for the little brown-noser we all love to hate!
Nutz and Boltz is a card company just launching beyond the development stage of business. We invite you to be a part of our early success and welcome your thoughts, ideas and suggestions. Hell, we'll even talk about feelings if you're really willing to go there, Adam still won't.
Later Bitches,
Lisa and Nguyen