Send me to Jamaica!!!!!!

I recently became a finalist in this competition on Facebook to win a trip to Jamaica! Appleton Estate Rum has been putting out custom tiki mugs to send to bars and this year Australian bartenders were given the opportunity to help design the next mug. Out of a butt-load of entries my concept was chosen with two others to be drawn up by some of Tiki-Farm's finest mug designers, and they go up for voting from the 4th to 17th of April. The winner gets involved in taking the mug through the design process and through to completion, plus a trip to Jamaica to the Appleton Estate and to meet the Master Distiller!!! WTF AWESOME.

Now.. I have several reasons why I NEED to win this. Ever since I was a little boy, I've been obsessed with the caribbean and tropical islands, and the first pictures I ever drew were of such islands. They had waterfalls, volcanoes, cannibal villages, tree-houses, quicksand, shipwrecks and I drew them all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. Still to this day I love cheesy tropical stuff, and being a bartender at Hula Bula Bar (Perth's only tiki bar) has only reignited my need to go to the caribbean. It's also introduced a fondness for rum, and I have been drinking this whenever I can, which is a pretty boss Jamaican overproof rum called Wray & Nephew. It'll put hairs on the hairs of the hairs of those that are on your chest.

This for me is a perfect marriage of career paths. I want to be an artist, and I love my job behind the bar because of what sort of bar it is, a tiki bar. I would absolutely love the opportunity to work closely with some of these amazing artists and delve into the seedy heart of this tiki culture and all associated scenes and their art, and see what I can do. If I could end up working for Tiki-Farm due to this, or find someone interested in helping my game become a reality then fuck yeah!

ANOTHER THING! My board-game! Is so heavily influenced by tiki culture, pirates, the carribean, rum, i totally need to go see the place! And the connections I could make and communication with these artists could give me some really good ideas about how to manufacture the boxes, pieces, and give the whole thing a really authentic and quality feel! Who knows, perhaps It might even get some Appleton's stamp of approval!

My mug design is pretty much taken from the game too! Seamus Morgan, the fearsome Voodoo Ghost Pirate is my "rum-god", who is pictured in the right side of the banner on this blog, so check him out, and imagine him much more rotten and tiki, in mug form so you can drink out of his hat. Dope.

In order to help me out, head on over to the Appleton Estate Rum - Australia page on facebook and like it, then when voting starts give your vote to me please. And if you feel like telling your friends to do it too, that'd be killer.

JAMAICA!