OK. So I floated a camping trailer to the middle of Lake Ladoga.

It was pretty funny. Camp Tipsy was super fun. The lovely and talented Anja took photos.

http://anja-ulfeldt-photography.smugmug.com/gallery/9342935_9uTNm#P-1-30

There was 140 people all told. The contest was awesome. The idiocy abounded.

A little sad without the small dog… but a fair amount of work. If you went and have no AS YET made a donation, please allow your generosity to be your guide. It cost real money to throw that event and life has been expensive of late…

Here is a video:


http://vimeo.com/6177803

I’m gonna build this next:http://ephemerisle.org/

You can just use a dumpster as a pool too…. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111624469

Anybody live or know anyone in the Delta? By Paradise Point? I need some space out there to build. Anyone got any connections in or around Stockton? Gimme a shout…

Behold the trailer that I am going to float to the middle of Lake Lodoga using barrels from the maraschino cherry company.

It’s a swim up cafe. And the coffee is free….

Can a guy try any harder?

chicken

Camp Tipsy has some Olympic contestants. Special Olympics, that is…

Here are a few of the boats you will see floating around….

Kezia and her catfish boat (notice the floatation she uses) with the top off. Yes, there are a few bike helmets in there:

Here is Team Fandango:

Their entry blurb:

Our UFO-themed “boat” is made from a bathtub and some incredibly flimsy bits of found-lumber that we used for an outriggger/sun-deck. If this deck holds up through the weekend without somebody snapping it in half trying to “come aboard”, I’ll eat my tricorn pirate hat. We still need to affix our “floatation” sacks, as I’m betting our duct-tape latticework won’t stand up to three weeks in the sun of the NIMBY parking lot, much less immersion in water. (We have alternate plans involving the plastic mesh from hay-bales.) We are aiming roundly at a Third Place prize (worst design) since we just made it out of whatever was handy, and then painted it silver. We’re not even sure if we’ll be able to reach the water with a paddle. But it’s totally gonna work.

The amazing Scott built a Hovercraft out of leafblowers. Yes, he did…

And yes, that is a model airplane prop and a weed wacker engine….

Here are the barells for the Ritual location nearest to Camp Tipsy:

Directions to Camp Tipsy:

Take I-5 North to the Maxwell exit. Take Maxwell Sites road west. Take it for like 12 miles or so, over the big hill. The ONLY thing you will see is the Lodoga Store which is also Lodoga Storage. 300 feet after the store is a brown sign for East Park Reserviur, but they probably spelled it more better. There will be Camp Tipsy signs everywhere. It is impossible to get lost. If you do a Google search for Lodoga, California, you will see the lake. The store is at the crossroads. The store is actually the entire town of Lodoga. And it’s for sale.

It’s free camping. If you wanna give me some money to defer costs that’s great. It’s expensive to get all that shit up there and takes tons of time. But it’s a donation thing. There is no gate, no ranger ect…

chicken

So. A bad thing happend on July 20th. My own beloved Dammit Dog died after 19 1/2 years of faithful service. It was very very sad. I postponed the event. I posted it here, but somehow, the blog post didn’t show up. I was very upset. So sorry if you looked here and didn’t get information. I don’t think anyone went up looking for the event. Lemme know if you did, so I can feel even shittier.

The event is now August 11th, which is a Tuesday through the 16th. The competition day is on the 15th.

Many people have said that this works even better for them, and it appears that we will have maybe 18 boats total.

We are doing a build weekend August 8th and 9th at NIMBY. Call me for more info 415-215-1632

chicken

I just don’t wanna hear one more person say they can’t build a boat.

Nonsence.

These boats are made outta cardboard, some caulk, some ducktape and glue. In this coffee powered city of over-acheiver, I refuse to belive my ears when I hear people say: “I don’t know how to build a boat.” Duh. Did you think I knew how to build a boat when I built this?:

Camp Tipsy is now less than a month away. The prizes for competition are as follows:

****Top dog!
 Worst implementation of worst design


****Sloppy seconds!
 Worst implementation


****Third rail!
 Worst design


****Fourth dimention!
 Boat most likely to kill pilot


****Fifth Avenue!
 Boat most likely to get pilot laid


****Sixth sense!
 Boat most likely to sink, but doesn’t


****Seventh heaven!
 Boat least like a boat


****Last place!
 Least effort put forth

This event is the one that finally gives people an opportunity to fail to win. Aren’t you tired of the know it all genius’ that surround us getting all the attention? In SF, we’ve got the best and the brightest artists and engineers and they run ramshot over our events and provide for us giant Tesla coils and steam powered pancake makers, giant robots that jerk off and fire spewing yoni art cars that run on puppies. You can’t compete!

Now you can. You seal up a few old guitars and paddle to glory. The genius’ can’t think like idiots. This is OUR turn, to take it all back. Let them come with their fancy pantz boat that runs on granulated McDonalds napkins. Someone is gonna figger out that all ya need is a few milk crates and some dodge balls and you’ve got a boat. Packing peanuts. You can fill up garbage bags with air and throw some foamcore on it and it’s a boat. Paddle away with a loaf of Italian bread. And win.

You don’t have to build to come to Camp Tipsy. You can just go and watch. That’s fine. But I don’t wanna hear anyone else say “I can’t build a boat.”.

“To dream, the impossible dream”
(this is a dramataztion montage of your boat sinking in slow motion…)
“To fight, the unbeatable foe”…..

Camp Tipsy competition date is Saturday August 1st. We’ll be there the weekend before and all week. Don’t miss it.

How do we put in an entry?

There are a few of you that are saying you have boat ideas and stuff, but you need to just take 10 minutes and give me a description of the idea. I need a team name and a sponsor as well. It’s easy. I’ll write 3 right now, and you can copy them for structure….

team name

THE ALMALGAMATED DOUCHEBAGS OF OAKLAND

sponsor

CAFE VAN CLEIFS BAR

boat name

KENNEL KLUB

description

Boat is made from 6 dog kennels. We got them at yard sales for cheap. We sealed up screw top wated bottles and foam and put them in the kennels and closed the doors. We put picknik benches between the 2 rows of 3 kennels. We sit on the benches and operated the reins on our dogs that pull our craft. By using the reins is how we steer. Dog paddle propulsion. PETA should be kept out of this. We are going for the 4th place prize “Boat most likely to get pilot killed”. We are expecting to be beaten up by K-9 lovers for making a dog-sled boat.

team name

Team NIMBY

sponsor

Google

boat name

Dumpy

description

Dumpy the Dumpster is a 20 yard all steel dumpster full of rotting trash. We, the artists of NIMBY, will sit in the dumpster and paddle it using whatever we find in the dumpster. We expect it will float, as it’s full of air. We are going for the coveted last place prize “Boat that least effort was put into”. With a 60,000 square foot metal shop and all teh tools we would need to build whatever we want our entry is thus as we have no time to build anything because we have this 60,000 sqare foot shop to keep up. And if it flips over at least we don’t have to pay for Dumpy to get serviced.

team name

The Steven Raspa Experience

sponsor

Anon Salon

boat name

Bunny Bunny Boat Boat

description

The Bunny Bunny Boat Boat is HARE-raising giant easter egg cracked in half. Painted in all the Easter Egg colors, it can hold up to 4 large Bunny Buddies. It is made out of paper mache’ with a wooden frame and then fiberglassed. It has a small electric trolling motor for steering and propulsion. If we don’t win 5th place: “Boat most likely to get piliot laid”, we will be Hopping Mad!!!

This is from Tipsy last year…

So. It’s a swing set boat with maybe flame effects and a flippy dippy dealy. Here is what Team Leader Dav has to report:

 

We had a great time even though we didn’t build a boat, but I started idly thinking about what I wanted to build for this year soon after. My first thought was a floating human canon, so you could do canonballs into the lake with style. I have no idea how those things actually work though, and I suspect I shouldn’t actually try to build one. Then I thought how about a floating catapult? That seemed doable, but too complicated. In the end I scaled it back to a swingset mounted on pontoons, so you can jump into the water. So that’s the plan.

Abstract:

A backyard-style swing set (with a slide and maybe two swings) mounted on two long pontoons with an additional beam or two across the middle for lateral support (also serves as a platform to help get into the swing seats). The pontoons will be wooden enclosures filled with empty containers or foam or whatever can be found.

Concept rendition:

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday night I went to a class on Flame Effects at Langton Labs (billed as Learn 100% of the technical skills you need to make 80% of the fire art you see at Burning Man) so now I’m thinking it should have propane flame effects as well, but that might have to wait for the next event. Besides, we’re totally going to win without going that far.

 

OK, that from Team Yaginuma. Stay tured as the other 15 entires get their shit together and tell me all about it.

So you may have heard me or someone else talking about Camp Tipsy, and may want to know more about it or want to be invited. OK. Your now officially invited. It’s really fun. Funny. Stupid. It’s about embracing your commitment to leisure, while thumbing your nose at the leisure class. It’s a boat building contest. It’s a camping trip. It’s a fundraiser. And it’s really the best event I have ever thrown. It’s a little over 100 miles north of SF, in a little reservoir near the town of Ladoga. You come, and camp out. Car camping. You can bring a boat. Or not. We bring like 20. Row boats, canoes, paddle boats. Inflatables. We will likely build a small dock this year. There is a huge lake. You camp right by it. It’s gonna be super hot. The water is great to swim in. We have a common kitchen you can use with burners and grills and all that. We have enough tables so that 150 people can eat at once at 1 table.

But the fun part is the boat building contest. Did you know that you can build a “boat”? You can. There is a contest. You can win. How can you win a boat building contest if you have never built a boat before? Simple: the top prize is for the worst implementation of the worst design. So if you have ever felt like these fancy pants over-achiever types have been dominating the landscape in our community doing the alpha male one-upmanship crap… this is your chance to make ‘em all look like they’re trying too hard.

Lemme ‘splain… you can, and should, build a boat. Once in your life. How? Well it’s easier then you could possibly imagine. A truck inner tube is a boat. Sure it is. You won’t win the contest, but I’m just sayin’… you can do what Spy did last year and blow up some balloons and put them in milkcrates and flip ‘em upside down and paddle away with a broom. And it totally worked. Ms. Reecy inflated garbage bags with an air compressor and put a piece of plywood on ‘em. That didn’t work out as well, but it was funny and quite regal when she went down with her ship. Styrofoam offers like 25 lbs of ‘lift’ per 1 foot square. You can glue milk cartons closed and put them under traffic control signs and paddle away with flip flops. Old coolers. A dumpster. Wood has been disappointing in my career as an art guy: it’s doesn’t burn or float as much as you want it to… but it doesn’t sink. So with a little help it’s a good building device. But you can totally do it. People will be there to help, if you wanna come a few days early and put the finishing touches on. We bring a proper shop out there.

And we have a bunch of boats… you can borrow ‘em. We built a huge barge that we yuck around in as well. It’s a bar, made of drift wood. We’ve got giant clams. A bunch of paddleboats. And of course the hot tub boat. It’s an effort, but it’s worth it. If you never get to simply muck about with boats, you’ll love it. The lake is huge, but not so much that if the wind strands you on the wrong side you couldn’t walk back in an hour or 2. You can easily swim across it. Kids love it there. There are other boaters and campers, but they stay away from us. There are far less of them there on the weekdays.



I’ve been building propulsion systems for HUGE junk boat trips every summer. Camp Tipsy is the fundraiser for the junk boat project in the Adriatic Sea in Europe summer 2010. But don’t be confused: Camp Tipsy is a donation based event. The camping is free. You are under no obligation to pay. But if you’d like to see us continue to do boat stuff, you’ll be SUPER generous. If you come to Camp Tipsy for a few days and enjoy all boats and the entertainment and the food and stuff, you should kick in like $100 or more if you’ve got it. Or pay nothing, and use all the resources and you’ll have something to complain aobut in the future when I can’t do these things anymore because I don’t have the financial support. But in any case, there is nothing enforced. You can do whatever you want and no one will ever know. Last year 50 people paid for Camp Tipsy that didn’t even show up. So there ya go. The junk boat project this year cost $200,000. That’s what it takes to make mind-blowing international cultural exchanges between artists. ALL art exchange programs were eliminated under the Bush administration after 9/11 when they made it impossible for people to come to the USA under an exchange visa not affiliated with an accredited educational institution. So, for example, when we tried to bring Thai puppeteers to Burning Man 4 years ago we failed. Spent thousands and still failed. Hundreds of hours and phone calls and 2 trips to the Thai embassy in Bangkok IN PERSON. Just for your 411. Art for all purposes indeed.



So set aside the time, rally a crew together and build a boat. Or just come. I’ve rented NIMBY for the weekends of July 11th and 12th and July 17th and 18th. I’ll have a pile of materials. We go up to the campgrounds on the 23rd. The event is both weekends, July 25th and 26th, and August 1st and 2nd, and the week in between as well. The contest is on Auguest 1st at 4:00 in the afternoon.

Thanks for reading chicken

Camp Tipsy is a camping trip and boat building contest that happens the last week of July, culminating in a contest of hand made junk boats on August first.

the hot tub boat

Teams build boats competing for prizes.

Saturday, August first they compete. There are judges. There are real prizes, some cash! There are bribes! There are mermaids! And there are the most absurd boats you have ever seen.

The grand prize is awarded to the boat that is the “Worst implementation of the worst design”.

Save the dates: Camp Tipsy only comes once a year.

More info soon, this is just to make people save the date and stuff. Click on the photo section to see what happened last year.