What Spock Found in the Toilet

February 8, 2008 Mailed a custom piece of crap (by request) to The Lab at Belmar (outside Denver) for their impending Failure exhibit. You gotta feel good about the new FREE downloads, especially the electronic re-issue of The Sphere. It's really amazing, this. And although it's yesterday's news (like Hillary Clinton), I can't get off this without recommending The Office if you like to laugh. Lastly, tonight I googled into a site featuring plenty of stuff to drive you nuts.

January 5, 2008 Dig this because this. We're going to figure it out. It's going to be great later. It might start to suck really bad for a while, but it'll get better. The thought of November is pleasant this year.

January 1, 2008 I’ve smoked them all. Beginning with a clove cigarette (and then a pack of Newports like the burnouts with the Army jackets smoked) at age 14, I have bought and smoked an entire pack of most of the major brands of cigarettes available since 1983. This includes, but is not limited to: Vantage, Kent, Chesterfield, Marlboro, Camel, Kool, Taryton, True, Lark, Lucky Strike (for a long time), More, Tall, Benson & Hedges, even Virginia Slims, Pall Mall, Barclay, the lowly generic brands like Alpine, and Phillip Morris Commanders on the way home from football practice, sophomore year in high school. I have also smoked many of the finer brands, such as Player’s Navy Cut, Sherman’s, Turkish Ovals, English Ovals, Gaulois, Export A’s, Sweet Afton and most recently Davidoff’s. I have rolled thousands of cigarettes from pouches of American Spirit, Top, Bugler, Drum, Arbo, Zig Zag, and the long lost Three Castles (which will always reign in my memory).

On average (never having quit for more than three months), I figure I have smoked at least three cigarettes per day for the past 24 years. Three a day in one year is over one thousand per year. Multiply that by 24 and add a few and you get 25,000 cigarettes. With this in mind, and knowing that the carcinogens I have willfully ingested are more or less with me forever, I have concluded that it is time for me stop smoking tobacco.

For the sake of my own longevity, I hereby declare that I am done with tobacco, and that tobacco sucks.

December 30, 2007 A good year coming to a close. Putting in time with pizza project tonight and cleaning out mailbox, which includes reminders to myself of things to post on this site. For example, this is a problem that must be addressed. But it's been identified, which is good, and there are smart people out there who can make it work. But mostly it seems a good idea that everyone not eat so much dang meat. I mean really. Like it grows on trees or something. The trees that are left. Think about how many more trees there used to be. It's different now. It'll be nice if we can ever get the tree cover back.

On a lighter note, there's this:

Probably the funniest thing I saw in 2007.

December 27, 2007 One in the morning. You want a blog? Here's your blog. I'm still up. I have to go to work at 7:30. I've looked at a computer screen for almost 12 hours today. Tomorrow I will wake up and look at a computer screen (and big one) for another eight hours. By then I will be tired of looking at computer screens. Then on Friday I will put in another eight hours in front of the screen, and on Friday night will clean the home office where I will be spending a lot of time in the near future looking at my computer screen. Busy now with a free lance frozen pizza project. Watch out, folks. The revolution starts here. We are taking the world by pizza, and it's gonna be great. No. Seriously. It is. And then there was Christmas, which was stellar with Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads and a lot of second hand books, puzzles, and records, and Booby Trap from Lakeside. New sleeping bags for the kids. Camping rules. And then after church (us Catholics celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas) we went to Heavy Duty Acres for some seriously rural home made fun with a plastic sled and ideal packing snow for a pretty big snowman. And now that it's 1:15, and the J. Bavet in my new rocks glass is gone, it's time to go outside and take the wood out of the back of the truck, stack it, drive the truck over to the city lot (around the corner) and put the minivan in the driveway. Then up to the bedroom, where I will take off my clothes and get in bed, turn on the alarm clock (6:45 should be good...shower? Two or three times a week) and fall asleep next to Vicki, who's been sick with maybe an allergy from the Christmas tree, but maybe just sick with the Kickapoo Crud, or some other asshole virus in the neighborhood. I'd better get to work.

December 18, 2007 Breaking news. See The Sloppy Croppies captured on video at your local YouTube! This skit was performed at CROPP's annual Winter Party just days ago. Josh Peters on Kazoo, Mister Koppa on xylophone, Mickey Keeley on bass, Eric Snowdeal on harmonica, and Arthur Bernstein on percussion and electric guitar. Loads of sloppy fun.

December 17, 2007 Here's the long overdue photo of The Freaks of Nature
(left to right = Tedd Heilmann, David Bruce, Joe Brandt, Mister Koppa, and Barry Jensen on keyboards/sax got cropped out of the picture, which is too bad, because he's a handsome guy) at the annual Gays Mills Halloween Ball this past October.
See you all next year.

November 28, 2007 Today I realized that I don't really buy anything anymore. Due in part to not having any money to spend, but also in part consciously, being surrounded by Amish...and I think it's actually kind of depressing. So is this because it is human nature to want to buy things, or because we're taught that we want to buy things? Is it because Henry Ford convinced a bunch of men that he could pay them to work for him so that they could buy things to make them happy? Was it incredible timing that this came at a time when an agrarian society seemed no longer feasable? Does that make it God? Are we learning a lesson? Can we ever be agrarian again? Whew.

November 16, 2007 Made a few "signs" to mat and frame and sell at the local public market. Figured I'd post them all here under the NEW FREE DOWNLOADS tab for all you sorry suckers who don't get to live in Vernon (or Crawford) County. No, really. It sucks here. You don't want to come here. But you can download the signs for absolutely no charge and that's just The Heavy Duty Press's way of saying Merrrrrrrrrrrrry Christmas! (And now I'll see if I can stay off this site until Christmas...missed the Thanksgiving goal by just one week!)

October 7, 2007 TONS of time put into supercharging the Collage Gallery, plus a lot of other tweaks throughout, trying to tie up loose ends (again). Taking another extended break from the web, so don't expect any more exciting updates like this one until after Thanksgiving. Happy fall!

September 16, 2007 Gave the Collage Gallery page a facelift, and it has suddenly become much more kick ass than it ever was before. No surprise...isn't that what facelifts are for? She-oot. PROFESSOR!!!

September 14, 2007 In lieu of preparing for the Driftless Area Art Festival, have decided to upload an old series of collages from 1999-2001 titled The Virile Reverie. This was the follow up to the debut series...the fabled "second album." They were the first collages to use the Vernon County soil survey maps, 5 years before we moved to Vernon County, and 2 years before we started making payments on land here. The series is narative, and inspired by The Lamia. Time for bed. Will update with new collages later...if you're lucky.

September 13, 2007 Sorry to report that The Heavy Duty Press withrew from the Driftless Area Art Festival this morning due to a death in family this past week, too many irons in the fire, too much stress, and not enough rest...but you should go anyway because Driftless Wisconsin rules! Will try to set up a gallery or coffee shop show somewhere soon to show work that was intended to debut this weekend. Will also post new collages on this site in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. It's very exciting.

September 8, 2007 IT'S A BOY! The Heavy Duty Press added The Heavy Duty Truck to it's growing list of assets last week. This charming 1988 F150, brush painted black, was acquired for just $625. On the drive back to Viroqua from La Crosse I did experience some severe wobbling at 50 mph, but am confident that new tires and a couple hundred bucks will have this machine completely road worthy in time for the Driftless Area Art Festival in Soldier's Grove, Wisconsin, this weekend (September 15 and 16). Five more collages including Vernon County soil maps in progress!

August 22, 2007 The Peregrine Duration, now part of the permanent collection at UW-Marathon County, is on display at the Institute for Public Policy, 615 Stewart Avenue, Wausau, Wisconsin. Go see it today. Also coming up is the Driftless Area Art Festival in Soldier's Grove, September 15 and 16. The Heavy Duty Press will occupy booth 15.

August 20, 2007 Added a bunch of stuff to the virtual portfolio for commercial service, including a broadside for this weekend's medicine show in La Farge.

August 9, 2007 Hot news. How do you feel about confinement hog farming?
Need more information? How 'bout more? You might want to read about the situation from the eloquent fingertips of my good friend, Mr. Snowdeal.
And why not throw in a plug for my employer, which offers farmers
a real alternative to confinement farming?

July 21, 2007 Okay, that's it. I came back from a wonderful vacation of camping in the Northern Highland American Legion State Forest here in Wisconsin with a few specific ideas about things to do. Lots of details and some new links in the Travels collage gallery to add more surprise to the site. I also now realize that I have a terrible addiction to editing this site and I have to stop for a while. Must.stay.away.from.computer.

July 6, 2007 Edited collage page for The Peregrine Duration, created way back in 2000... pre-GW. It's vacation time. I'm so sick of this web site eating up my time I think I'm gonna puke. I'm swearing it off for the rest of the summer sausage.

July 3, 2007 Pruned dead wood off plum, apple, and choke cherry trees, and broadcast remainder of prairie seeds gathered last fall all over Heavy Duty Acres. Completing the burn one of these days would be nice, but is highly unlikely. Added Ys on a Trampoline t-shirt, designed (and titled) by Katrina, to Textiles tab. Happy 4th. R.I.P. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. I can't be the only one to suspect that they had a pact.

July 1, 2007 Thinned lettuce and tied twine to posts for climbing peas, beans, and cucumbers. Jumped off ten-foot culvert into swimming hole across the highway from the junk yard. Added colophon tab for fans only. It's really enough to make a guy wonder if he's got an ego problem, but then, hey...it's channeled.

June 28, 2007 Updated design of Ethanot t-shirt and sales strategy for all t-shirt designs. If you're interested in learning more, you should at least think about clicking either here or here. Or here.

June 13, 2007 heavydutypress.com gets a face lift! Refresh your cache with a shift-refresh maneuver to experience the dazzling improvements. As promised, here's the lowdown on the whereabouts of Living in the Valley: it's in the Crawford County Administration Building Gallery, 225 N. Beaumont Street, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, throughout entire summer. Go see it if you're in the neighborhood.

In garden/prairie news at Heavy Duty Acres, asparagus is up and raspberries are hanging in there. Deer keep feasting on trees and all we can do is hope the trees can survive the abuse. Father-in-law says human hair acts as a force field against deer and other critters. There's a beauty salon down the block...will get hair and see what happens. If anyone out there can verify this claim or offer other advice, please contact us. Burned a small section of prairie planting with a propane torch for 2 hours the other day in an attempt to destroy black medic. The area has been seeded several times over the past couple years, and last year's even smaller burn resulted in two, that's right, two pale purple coneflowers that could only have have sprouted from seed. Now that's exciting. And it's evidence that my forced-burn strategy works!

May 31, 2007 Full Blue Moon tonight...could be only chance in a lifetime to spoon in June under the Blue Moon. Living in the Valley to be on display in government building in Prairie du Chein, Wisconsin, throughout entire summer. Details to follow. Perigrine Duration, 2000, donated to UW Marathon County in Wausau, Wisconsin. Will update with details when I know where it will be hung for display.

Have been participating in an interesting discussion about type, the Century family specifically (signature type face of printed matter from The Heavy Duty Press), on Typophile.

May 19, 2007 Finally introduced self to html bold and italics tags, and put new knowledge to work on this news page. Baby steps.

Loads of time spent at Heavy Duty Acres, and more to come in the next couple weeks. Gloriously started lawnmower with a jump from the truck after carbuerator rebuild, etc., made necessary thanks to neglectful winterization of gas, engine, and battery. Planted, so far this year, 60 raspberry canes (3 species), 10 currant bushes (2 species), 3 native plum seedlings, 2 chokecherry grafted trees, 50 crowns of asparagus (with barley cover crop), acorn squash, melons, and 2 kinds of peas. This weekend will plant home gardens to include lettuces, chard, beans, and a cukes. Monday to plant employee garden at work with all kinds of carrots, golden beets, radishes, and zucchini. Have 72 pepper plants started in kitchen window (4 heirlooms), and will put those in the ground after June 1, which is probably when we'll put the tomatoes in, unless we do that today. It is Saturday, after all, and the farmer's market should be brimming with garden starts...probably pick up some herbs this week or next, also. Whew.

Gardening was not a big part of my childhood. No one to blame, it's just that I grew up in the city, like lots of us do, and most folks in the city buy their food from the store or from the happy clown who invented McDonald's. I discovered the power, the benefits, and the importance of growing your own food when we moved to the country three years ago. At the risk of sounding like a nutcase and losing all credibility, I think I need to take a position that goes beyond recommending gardening, and go as far as being in favor of a mandate forcing all property owners to establish and maintain gardens on their land. Everyone should have a garden. Everyone. You included. Everyone should rip out his/her/their silly lawn, at least some of it, and plant a garden. A garden or an ecosystem for that part of the natural world that's more than just the hand-picked favorites of Joe America... the part that used to be where the lawn laden burbs and concrete heavy cities are now. The bad thing about lawns, in case you don't already know it, is that your lawn mower engine is worse for the environment than your car, and that there is a hugely nasty toxic chemical industry built around making something as unnatural as a lush lawn into a neighborhood-wide, national competition. This is terrible, absolutely terrible for our soil. It is positively stupid to kill everything but the grass around your home. You cannot eat grass, and you cannot grow good food in soil that's been destroyed by Round Up!. Sure, you can look at your lawn, but isn't it kind of boring? Manacured lawns create a completely unnatural lack of an ecosystem. Bugs, bees, birds, worms, microorganisms... those are good things... they're our friends. We need them around. And here comes the pitch for organic... GO ORGANIC! It is the answer.

Watched Supersize Me last night, confirming existing frustration with the limited nature of so many of my fellow Americans. C'mon, folks. Really. Sometimes... and man, I hate to be such a downer sometimes... but sometimes the whole works really appears to be blindly headed in completely the wrong direction. But we'll get 'er straightened out someday, right? Or should we just give up and focus on getting into outer space?

May 11, 2007 Added three new t-hirts you have to buy.

May 7, 2007 Created new collage gallery with 6 old collages and added Koppa's logo to for Hire page.

April 26, 2007 Added detailed explanation of Living in the Valley, the greatest thing I've ever created, to collage pages. It could be yours for just $5,000.

April 25, 2007 Added Tired Mom t-shirt to inventory, designed by friends' kid, Luke.

April 24, 2007 Witnessed sturgeons spawning in the mighty Wolf River on Sunday, pictured above, as they have been doing since the age of dinosaurs. They are very large and handsome fish.The opening reception in Wausau, aside from a few complimentary conversations with a couple people, came and went just as these things always do, nothing sold and nothing gained. However, it is worth mentioning that the gallery and staff are very nice, and it was a nice break with the family away from the usual routine. Isn't that nice? Be nice. You may still go see the greatest thing I've ever created, pictured here and titled Living in the Valley, through May 20.

April 12, 2007 Delivered work to CVA in Wasau for show up tomorrow through May 20. Here you see a detail from Living in the Valley, which I refuse to attempt to explain here, but invite everyone to see in person. It is, without question, the coolest thing I have ever made, and is for sale for a very reasonable $5,000. The reception is April 20, 5 to 7 pm. Let's test the effectiveness of this invite. If indeed you do go to the reception as a result of visiting this web site, please introduce yourself with some sort of outrageous comment. I'll try to play along. Just keep in mind my family might be there, so don't fall back on any "your mama" jokes or whatever.

detail: Living in the Valley

Beyond that, I am happy to be done with at least a solid month of late nights in the basement and looking forward to the growing season. Time for going to bed early, staying outside as much as possible, and selling t-shirts!

March 18, 2007 First evening in a while that I've put any time into the web site. Additions include a posting of logo designs, a downloadable pdf book, Little Piggy Field Mouse, and further developments with Treehugger, PHASE 2. Been doing a lot of work downstairs, with the Wausau show coming up. Things are coming together nicely. Will be happy to be done with it all soon and get into the growing season. Lots of plans for Heavy Duty Acres, home, and work gardens. March feels especially good this year.

January 29, 2007 As dreamt, then planned, spent lots of time cleaning basement and creating proper art making and framing space, then made some money framing Dan Hazlett's art. Also ideas for assemblage for Wausau show, and made a penquin collage with kid on birthday Sunday. 38. Now back on puter working on logo for Maple Valley Co-op, and dorking with this website. Glenn reports working on mixdown of Sylvania Lark California ep, recorded in 2004. Happy to know that. It's like a blog 'n junk.

January 1, 2007 Happy new year...really. Pack goes 8-8, Favre cries (goodbye?), and Treehugger is printed and bound. The discount is off, too bad for everyone who missed it, but still a bargain at $175. Uh...hope to add more collages soon, too uninterested to try to figure out how to get the bylines off the this Plone template, and lots of framing to do for big money early this month. Liking the idea of cleaning the basement and actually making something rather than typing junk all the time. I guess that means updates may be delayed. Or is that might be delayed?...It's might be delayed, blast it, and I am frankly tired of people getting away with may when it should be might. "May reduce the risk of heart disease?" PLEASE. So it has permission. Am I right? It's might, right? And might makes right? Wait a minute... oh, yeah...other news. Will be in a show in Wausau on April 20 or something like that...in fact, here's the link. See you at the reception?

December 5, 2006 Prospectus and downloadable pdf of Treehugger,
an "artist's book," the latest publication from The Heavy Duty Press!