imply put, CADDIS is an anti-anti-aging company. It isn’t looking for the Fountain of Youth (Kelly Slater already found that, anyway), and it isn’t interested in the botox-boner-pill-cream-oil-depilatories-face-injection-butt-implant industrial complex. When preventative plastic surgery is an actual thing that many people do, the company has questioned the tired maxim that 40 is the new 30 and asked, “What’s wrong with 45 being 45?”
Its first product is eyewear, or as it calls them “eye appliances.” Because when you’re 45 and you have to strain to read the notes you scribbled in your Moleskine, you should have another option besides the spinner at Duane Reade next to the adult diapers.
Tim Parr will play a song for you.
Tim Parr founded CADDIS with these thoughts in mind after selling his first brand, Swobo, to Santa Cruz Bicycles, and working for Patagonia in Ventura, CA. We caught him between trips in search of old guitars and newer surfboards, at his home base in Marin, CA, where he’s working on launching CADDIS. He promises to play you a ballad on lap steel guitar. Even takes requests.
These were ours.
We hear you jumped into a career with a bluegrass band. Can you walk us through how that comes about? What was the moment?
Sometimes you don’t choose it…it chooses you. That’s the only way to describe how being raised on punk rock and The Smiths led to becoming a bluegrass musician. I guess I had just enough ignorance to not question the gravitational pull. That helps. The moment was seeing Larry Keel play Aug. 23, 2011. 10:35 p.m.
We hire you to help us curate the first ever Whalebone Music Festival. Who is headlining and what opening acts are involved?
Donavon Frankenreiter headlining
Sturgill Simpson
Tommy Guerrero
Bruno Mars & Adele unplugged duo set
Elvis Costello & Willie Watson duo set
Larry Keel
Justin Townes Earle solo
One Grass Two Grass
Taj Majal
Bill Frisell & Greg Leisz
Greensky Bluegrass
Chris Thile & Michael Daves
Middle Brother
Pokey Lafarge
Jordan or Lebron?
Meadowlark.
The ugly fascination with quick success isn’t healthy. Anything of value is never fast, or easy, so cut yourself some slack.
You now own and run an idea with CADDIS that many wish they thought of first. What is one idea or business that exists in the world that you wish you thought of first?Streaming music. If I could put that genie back into the bottle, I would, and figure out a way so artists get paid….then let the genie back out…
Your favorite 3 movies from the 80s?
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Quadrophenia
Stop Making Sense
One piece of advice for any creative or entrepreneur starting out with a new idea?
Resources—not having any—is the worst excuse for not getting started…and I hear it all the time. Do the work, and the resources will happen. The other point, I know you said one, is how we view time. Your idea or creative pursuit will take time. Years. The ugly fascination with quick success isn’t healthy. Anything of value is never fast, or easy, so cut yourself some slack. One last thing…your idea is not worth anything. The work you put into it is. Being paranoid about others stealing your precious idea does you no good. Talk to anyone and everyone who will listen about your idea. Tweak your idea. Enlist others to help. Hell…email me if you need to.
Your favorite eyewear company growing up and why?
Oakley Frogskins. Tom Curren had them.
One book you might suggest everyone read before life moves much further down the road?
Ego is the Enemy and The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday. Read through both once, then read both again with a highlighter. Then repeat. I know a lot of “further down the road” people who would eliminate a lot of angst if they would read these…and use a highlighter.
Let’s say you get invited to host a dinner with three people of your selection (alive/dead/fictional or real) but you have to cook. What are you cooking and who is invited?
My dead, insanely awesome grandfather, Joe Marcellino. He would be playing violin, cutting salami…Francis Mcdermott because she rules, …and who wouldn’t want Shep Gordon?? I wouldn’t cook…I’d dust off the pizza issue and get take out.
The most memorable wave you ever rode? Where and when?
Most memorable wave is the first wave. Capitola Pier in CA. After traveling the globe and surfing in a lot of great places, none are more memorable than that one. 40 years later, I can literally still recall the size, what the face was doing, the foam, and how the nose looked gliding over glass. Changed forever.
If someone wanted to pick up a pair of your reading glasses, what’re the coordinates and your favorite model?
Our website, and selected retailers soon, but picking a favorite is like picking a favorite child of mine…that’s BS….it’s the Miklos.
