About John

How It Happens

John M. Tootabeanie prints restroom graffiti on t-shirts.
The images are extracted from photographs of bathroom graffiti taken in bars, restaurants, schools, colleges, libraries or anywhere else it's found.
John either takes the photographs himself or uses concepts/images/photographs submitted to design@letterfromjohn.com by his friends or the general public.

How It Began

It all started on April 18, 1983 when John Tootabeanie was an only child born into a prominent family in rural USA. They had it all. Dad cleaned shit out of coo-coo clocks and mom was an amateur wrestler with a pernicious appetite for alcohol and the knuckles of an orangutan. Reality came quickly. One Saturday morning in the summer of '86 while Mom and Dad were drunk, they stuffed John in a pillowcase and started swinging him at their dog. The dog they kept outside in the yard, all year round. John wriggled out of the pillowcase, emotionally hurt and fed up. That night he ran away. He ran and ran and ran.

At three o’clock that morning he found himself to be lost and alone, but happy. Next thing he knew, some overweight Christian pygmies picked him up, brought him home and used him as their head bather. He bathed the entire village, every day and every way, even under the carriage, for the next fifteen years. Soon enough, John turned 18 and whilst life was good, he wanted something more. He applied and was accepted to the Wharton School and eventually graduated after many nights filled with acid and alcohol.

His first job was as the Integrity Chief at a now-defunct major investment bank. After two weeks, John realized how offended he was because his title contained the word Chief. This drove him to set out on a solo expedition across the US to find himself.

He started snapping photos of restroom graffiti and realized this was going to be his way to touch the world. He printed his restroom images on t-shirts and here we are - all the world over.

John's Hobbies

Milk Can Escapes
Autopsies
Eating Carrot Cake

People John Would Like to Break Bread With Before He Dies, Dies, Dies My Darling

Tom Araya
DJ Annalyze
Al Capone
Ron Hawkins (Not Rompin' Ronnie but the LOTL and Rusty Nail version)
Gretchen Bleiler
Ben Hogan
Tony Alva
Abby Hoffman
Tanya Memme
Your Mother and Her Friends