The fighting sheen of it The yellow, the green of it The white, the blue of it The swing, the hue of it The dark, the red of it Every thread of it!	The fair have sighed for it The brave have died for it Foemen sought for it Heroes fought for it Honor the name of it Drink to the fame of it— The Tartan!
—Murdoch MacRae

A friend of mine just stepped up with an offer I couldn’t refuse, in terms of a trade for my Utilikilts credit. I worked a lot of very entertaining, but very hard hours in booths all over the bar area, getting men out of pants and into kilts.

Utilikilts has come a long way since then; they have a flagship store in Seattle now, and wholesale to select kilt vendors nation wide.

In the old days, the booths were run on a shoestring, by a staff of very few employees, and many volunteers, who did it out of love for the product. The pay? If you worked a long hard day, you’d get a kilt. and maybe a t-shirt. But we didn’t do it for the pay, we did it because it was so goddamn much fun.

Part carnival barker, part sales rep; part freak show, part haberdasher, part lifestyle counselor, part pirate, part street performer. I’ve never accosted so many strangers, copped so many feels, been flirted with by both genders, as much as I have at fairs and fests and games, when I used to shout things like “Sir, have you considered FREEEEDOM from TROUSER TYRANNY?”

It was some of the most fun I’ve ever had working.

It was work though. Hell on knees and ankles; long, long hours bending, stretching, fetching, measuring. Hours roaming and passing out cards, offering what was, for most people, a first look at a concept. Because that’s what the utrilikilt was; not just a garment, but a new kind of garment. We’ve all seen a kilt before, or a sulu, a sarong. But this wasnt exactly any of those. It was a technical object, an exaggeratedly masculine garment. A skirted garment for men without a cultural reference.

The thing with MUGs (Men’s Un-bifurcated Garments), is that they mostly come from somewhere. Scotland, Indonesia, Africa, Polynesia, or even Rome. The Utiliikilt, though, comes from nowhere but Seattle, WA. It wasn’t a reference to ‘what we wear back home’ or ‘what my ancestors wore’; it was a statement on it’s own. “This is what I wear,” it said, for no reason other than because I want to.

That’s come a long way in four or five years. Now, when I wear my Utilikilts, people don’t say ‘is that a kilt?’ or ‘nice skirt’; they say “hey, Utilikilt!” The concept is winning it’s way into the culture. And I feel I’ve done my part for that. I own seven or eight Utilikilts; I wear them, if not daily, then at least weekly. I own no suit, no tuxedo; I wear kilts for fancy dress affairs.

On the other hand, I’ve stopped fighting the fight. I don’t usually wear my kilts to work (they just don’t suit sitting at a desk that well; ladies, you know what I mean). I don’t feel I have to wear a kilt just to make a statement. I wear them because I like them, because they’re flattering, and because they’re comfortable.

All those fairs I worked brought me a lot of joy, some *action* (if you know what I’m sayin’), and a lot of kilts. I didn’t buy most of my kilts, and I still wound up with several Utilikilts worth of credit.

Thing is, I don’t really need another UK right now. I look at the lineup and can’t think of anything they have, that I need.

So my hard-earned kilt fund is getting turned into another kind of kilt.

I just ordered fabric samples from my favorite Highland Kilt maker, J Higgings in Kansas City. When I get back from Seattle, I’m going to place an order for a new kilt in some variation of Red MacRae Tartan, a compliment to the one I already have in MacRae Hunting.

It’ll be something like this:

Hey, sometimes a guy needs to go old-school.

The wise and incredibly hot Merrick says, of modern kilt wearers:

The type of guy who wears a kilt regularly is not only stylish and can dress himself, but is, most certainly, a pervert. I mean, I know that kinky sex and nerdiness pretty much go hand in hand, but kilt wearers are just a class of their own. For one, you’ve got the obvious exhibitionist factor, because if you are wearing a kilt you better expect at least one bold lady (who may or may not be inebriated) to come up and ask if you’re wearing that kilt “traditionally”. She might even try to peek. And as a perverted wearer of kilts, you might just let her. Or encourage it. I think this is a good time to point out that if you want to be dating the type of guy who wears a kilt, you really have to be okay with this type of behaviour. Expect it, and expect it regularly. Those perverts. And for two? Well, I’m sure most guys are familiar with the appeal of a button fly on women’s jeans. Utilikilts, at least, are just a belt buckle away from a very… eye catching flourish of removal.

(I won’t quote the part where she then says kilt wearers are snuggly-wuggly little bunnies, you have to get over there yourself to see that part.

I point this posting out not just because she drops my name (though sure, that’s enough), but also because she does a great job of conveying the modern kilt thing, as fashion, lifestyle, and point of view.

I haven’t written a lot about kilts lately; I haven’t been working Utilikilts booths the last couple years, and wearing my kilt has become so ordinary in my life that it no longer seems to warrant special mention; so I like to see the female perspective on it.

Wow, that didn’t take long. I listed my kilt on ebay yesterday with a ‘buy it now’ price and it got snapped up already.

Nice. I’m suddenly thinking, what *else* can I sell on ebay?

(kids. I wonder how much kids would get)

I blogged a couple weeks ago about Jen Cantwell of Sporran Nation and the skull sporran she was making me.

I just got it:

And a thing of beauty it is.

Jen is absolutely wonderful, and this sporran is incredibly well made. The strap is better quality that that of most sporrans I’ve seen, and the lining — a red-purple two tone silk that’s yummy enough to eat (As is Jen herself).

Thanks Jen, ‘yer a fuckin’ peach. I bet I sell a mess of these for you when I wear it at the Utilikilts booth.

I’ll post pictures of me wearing it with the leather Utilikilt as soon as I can arrange it.

So I have this leather Utilikilt. I earned it by working a lot of shows the last couple years, and it’s a thing of beauty, truly.

Only problem with it is that, unlike a regular Utilikilt, it has no pockets. This means I’ve gotta wear either some sort of waist pouch or a sporran.

But all the sporrans I have are intended to go with my highland kilt, and just look too damned scottish to my eye when put with a leather Utilikilt.

So I got to thinking, what I need is something more hard-core. More edgy. Studs, maybe. I was thinking about having a local leather worker make me a biker-lookin’ sporran.

Then I started thinking about just buying a really plain one and decorating it, maybe a skull broach or something, maybe put some studs on it myself. I starting looking for things like that, and then it occurred to me to just google skull sporran.

And what do you know. Someone makes it already:

www.sporran-nation.co.uk

I talked to Jen, the lady who runs that shop (The sporran-maker herself), and she’s making me a custom skull sporran, black on black. And better yet, we worked out a barter deal. She’s an absolute sweetheart, and I can’t wait to see the sporran she’s working on for me.

I’m absolutely thrilled. This is the sporran I wanted. Something that’s me, that’s custom. The idea came to me after seeing my friend Corrine, who’s all about the bat tattoos, wearing a bat-shaped sporran with her leather kilt. That was the idea I needed; not some generic highland thing, but something that says Karl Elvis.

The bad news is I may not get my penis in a book.

The good news is I’m working a kilt booth at a tattoo convention. Which should be a blast.

I’m gonna be working at the Central Coast Tattoo Expo selling Utilikilts on March 5th and 6th.

This is in Paso Robles, CA. More details to come on this, I just got word of it a few minutes ago.