Date: June 17th 2010

What is Camp Tipsy?

Well. Camp Tipsy is what happens. It’s a result. A reaction. To what, you may ask… the list is long. Lets pick one, shall we? OK. I’ll pick this:

 

 

Fucking Rocket Ship. Camp Tipsy is what happens when engineers with fancy degrees come to Burning Man and make this:

 

 

Smarty pants know it all’s with subscriptions to magazines you’ve never heard of and business cards that describe them in confusing ways that could be construed as either medical, architectural or comical. What is a “designer” anyway?

Well… to me that rocket ship is a knick-knack. I’m no critic, but it took many cranes to make that thing… and many guys took their shirts off and spoke in loud, condescending tones arranging the construction of the vessel. Men, not even that young anymore, with tools. Welders. Grinders. Truckloads of stainless steels. Hundred grand. Blueprints. Computers. Precision.

For what? A giant knick-knack. It belongs on a giant mantle next to a giant snow globe and a giant graduation photo of your brother Mike.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we should or shouldn’t have $100,000 knick-knacks kicking around. I just represent the reaction to these giant things. These engineered, organized, scripted contasions  perpetrated by design and engineer types that have infiltrated the arts scene here in SF and abound… I’m not saying that at all. But if you are gonna spend 100 grand on a giant stainless steel rocket trinket you’ve gotta be able to be tough enough to withstand  a jab from a guy who builds ocean going vessels out of Styrofoam cups…

You see,  Camp Tipsy is the push back from all this fancy money design trip. You can’t build a giant rocket. Neither can I. OK, well we probably could but who cares. Lets say we can’t, just so we can simplify our polarized position. We can’t make a giant rocket so we made a raft out of 3 inner tubes and a lawn chair. That rocket ship probably took 10,000 hours to build. You built your raft in 20 minutes. You see where all this is going…

My sister just got into the Rhode Island School of Design (congratulations Carmel!!!). She’s a patcher. Makes new clothes out of old stuff. I wonder what her business card will say… hmmmmmm……

“Carmel Snow textile reclaiming design” or something, probably… keep ‘em guessing.

You can build a boat this Saturday at NIMNBY in Oakland and bring it to Camp Tipsy next weekend and make a business card that says: Nautical Engineer. You can build a boat. You can feel the thrill of imagining something, then seeing it to completion. Then drinking a Mai Tai on it. Then sinking on it. Laughing the entire time.  And ya know what? It’s just as hard/easy to build a boat than a giant stainless steel rocket. Boat don’t tell anyone… we need giant rockets in the world so we can be the smart people who go to Camp Tipsy and build junk out of rubber bands and milk jugs. 

 

What is Camp Tipsy? Camp Tipsy is really fun. Come to our build day Saturday which is also really fun. It’s at:

 

 

It’s from 10:00 AM to dark or so.

There is no charge for the build day, but the event is donation encouraged.

NIMBY is 5 blocks from the Colluseim BART stop, by the Oakland airport. 

hope to see you there...      chicken