Artist Will Donate Part of Proceeds from Hollyweed T-shirt Sales to Myeloma

A man who calls himself a Hollyweed artist has started an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to create T-shirts marking California’s legalization of recreational marijuana — and will donate some of the proceeds to the Institute of Multiple Myeloma.

Matt Finegood is already selling shirts with an image of the famous Hollywood sign that his father Danny tweaked to read Hollyweed in 1976.

He plans to give a percentage of the proceeds to the myeloma institute in honor of his father, who died of multiple myeloma in 2006.

“Friends and family have long requested an original ‘Hollyweed’ shirt, yet I have been reluctant to commercialize my dad’s achievement,” Finegood said in his Indiegogo profile. “But with recent legislation and new political threats to California’s democratic approval of recreational marijuana use, I feel it’s time for everyone to celebrate and have an opportunity to make their OWN statement.”

Finegood’s father changed the Hollyweed sign for an art project at Cal State-Northridge — an effort that yielded an A. He took a photo of the altered sign the next day, before the city changed it back to the original.

It would not be the only time Danny Finegood and his friends would change the sign.

That same year, on Easter Sunday, they made it Holywood. In 1987 they made it Ollywood, to poke fun at Oliver North’s role in the Iran Contra scandal. And in 1992, during the Persian Gulf War, they changed it to Oil War.

The photo on the T-shirts, snapped the morning after the sign was changed to Hollyweed in 1976, is copyright-protected. Matt Finegood went to Indiegogo to jump-start distribution of products that feature the photo his father took of the Hollyweed sign.

The kick-starter campaign has several goals. One is to build an inventory of T-shirts printed with Danny Finegood’s Hollyweed picture. Another is to create an online store offering merchandise supporting the marijuana-decriminalization movement, including customized T-shirts.

Those who contribute $25 to the crowd-funding campaign will get a poster of the original Hollyweed photo. Fifty-dollar donors will get a Hollyweed T-shirt.

“Fans can customize the Hollywood sign to say whatever they wish.  From ‘MATTWOOD’ to ‘I LOVE DONUTS,’ the famous hillside monument is yours on a T-shirt,” Finegood said in a press release. “I hope to give everyone an opportunity to make their own statement.”