Arlo Eisenberg Is Skating On the Creative Edge

Imagine a “typical Dallas guy.” Whatever you come up with, it probably won’t be Arlo Eisenberg. He describes himself as “an agitator, a communicator, a skeptic, and a graphic artist with a distinct point of view.”

[Courtesy Drug Receipts]

Distinct is putting it mildly. A graduate of Dallas’ Booker T. Washington arts magnet school, the former pro rollerblader won the X Games Street title in 1996, snagging steep cred in the action sports and streetwear worlds. In 1993, he and his friend Brooke Howard-Smith had co-founded Senate Industries, an inline skating accessories startup that “exposed legions of young people to countercultural ideals.”

Snap forward to today, and Eisenberg’s still skating on the creative edge. Along with his Dallas Design District creative agency—named simply Eisenberg—he runs the NFT company Drug Receipts in collaboration with Howard-Smith, co-founder of New Zealand-based Non-fungible Labs, and fine art photographer Tyler Shields. (All three are former pro rollerblading buddies.)

The venture celebrated its first birthday in March and released its all-new “Kill Team Stabbi Capsule Collection.”

Arlo Eisenberg (pictured far right), along with Brooke Howard-Smith, and Tyler Shields, are leading the charge in pioneering innovative Web3 commerce and collectibles. [Photo: Drug Receipts]

Drug Receipts is based on Eisenberg’s own doodles drawn on restaurant and bar receipts, featuring talking pill bottles, strolling capsules, moody syringes, and a saucy tablet. 10,000 of the transgressive Drug Receipts NFTs sold out last March in 24 hours, earning $2.5 million.

“I’ve always made time for art,” Eisenberg says in a video post. While working a “very demanding” agency job in 2015, he began doodling art works on lunch receipts. “I had no idea where it would go, but I kept drawing.” He posted the works on an Instagram account called @drugreceipts.

Arlo Eisenberg’s images have been described as playful subversion. [Image: Drug Receipts]

“Over time the drawings evolved, the characters and themes developed, and it started to gain a little bit of traction.” Now, after that $2.5 million sales day, life has changed for Eisenberg.

“Drug Receipts is a project built on the pillars of art, subversion, science, skepticism, and community,” he says. “For the first time in my life, I don’t have to make time to make art. NFTs make it possible to just make art.”

A Drug Receipt drop — in “one adorable little pill”

So just what is a Drug Receipts drop? The startup says its capsules come with a “DRx Prescription,” which lays claim to physical items in its store.

Its latest DRx contains digital and physical wearables with the Kill Team “Stabbi,” or as DR describes it, the Tabbi + knife trait.

The Kill Team capsule includes three digital wearables and three physical claims in “one adorable little pill,” the startup tweeted. a That includes a snapback hat, t-shirt, and a hoodie or the “highly coveted Kill Team Onesie.”

A version of this story was originally published in Dallas Innovates 2023.

Quincy Preston contributed to this report.

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