This past weekend saw the goodbye party for friend and once long-term fellow roomie of the Flux Factory, the mad thinker and tinkerer the one and only Pirate Brian. It’s so hard to describe how cool Pirate Brian is. Let’s just say his geocities-era website is actually still hosted at geocities! He’s that friggin’ amazing!
Here’s another way to put it by Brian himself, quoted that evening as he talked with another Brian about fabricating a multi-purpose necklace-tool-doowhop:
It’s viciously hard to make an actual consumer product.
Viciously!
The going-away party was to celebrate his next-month move to Los Angeles with his lovely newlywed Evelyn. Requirements to attend the party including following one of three rules, your choice: bring booze (easy), bring a present (little difficult, if you know the honorable guests: Brian would rather make his own tools than have you buy one), or your last choice dress up as one of them! I would have loved to do the latter but since I’m currently living out of two duffel bags I don’t have much of a wardrobe to choose from (books and computer parts take up more than one full bag you see). Dressing like Brian would include apparel such as aviator goggles, tool belts of DIY design, necklace with a sharpie, headlamp, magnets, LED lights, foil-wrapped food pouches, etc. So I made up for my lack of appearance by documenting the evening and making sure the dance floor was always bumping (ask around me and Sarah kept it breaking when everybody else jumped ship – eventually they all came back once they saw our behinds beckoning).
A Brian lookalike inspecting the quality of rigging in the ceiling above, outfit complete with Periodic Table of Elements and mobile phone mount for hands-free communication.
Then suddenly out of nowhere the Hungry March Band leaked out of the woodwork and we had a brass band house party in an instant! Complete with first dance:
The trumpet rocked! The other trumpet rocked! The trombone rocked!
hosts Todd and Libby and the cat that loves guacamole
Evelyn dispensing vodka distilled inside a crystal skull from The Temple of Doom.
Say bye bye now.
I’ll always remember Brian for his lessons on safety in the woodshop like “Don’t chop your arm off” or his fascination with battery-powered devices or his instructional tutorials on how to lift, open and deploy a ladder. Yes, a ladder. What a pirate!
Terrible lighting but here’s a video of the Hungry March. the music matters more than the visuals anyway:
I just wanted to say thanks for posting this. As a fellow artist/engineer/all-around tinkerer, I have been a long-time internet follower of Pirate Brian’s. Every time I stumbled onto his website, I’d be inspired. It was terribly disappointing today to discover that geocities no longer hosts his website. When I searched, this page was the only one talking about the right pirate Brian- it was good to know where he went, at least. So thank you, and thank him for me, if you run across him.
~Gwen
Awesome!
I’ve known Brian since his days at OU, and I miss him to pieces! Was just seeing if I could find him (since Geocities went away) and happened across this blog. If you could pass this greeting along, I’d much appreciate it 🙂 And remember… curry rice is an acceptable Thanksgiving dinner!
T
two oddly similar but distinct comments within two hours of each other about our Pirate Brian. how strange!
@Gwen, it’s a shame he didn’t archive or backup his site; maybe he did. I’d love to see it rendered in another domain!
@Tom, I will say hi to him next time we talk; also, he’s on Facebook. haha yes curry is a suitable turkey replacement!