Tuc

N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N Here's my graphic design portfolio, first off: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tuckruegerNow, my "about me: An Angel was brought into this world, in Milwaukee, WI on June 19, 1973 at 7:33 pm, which classifies me as a Gemini. I'm most compatable with Taurus I've been told. actually, then some stranger on myspace said that was false, she yelled at me. So I am suppossed to have a duo-personality. Bullshit. Well, sorta. I was told not to play with my Tonka trucks in the dirt caase it was dirty, so I excelerated my creativity by playing with my still brand new Tonks trucks on shag carpeting.Anyways, my parents brought me home and said "look at that tuchess" pointing at my butt, so hence the name "Tuc" means buttock. I grew up with a nice family on Evergreen Blvd in nice little cookie cutter Cedarburg, WI, which looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. I have one older sister who is nice to me usually. She just gave me a hundred bucks recently. but what's funny, is sometimes that cheap bitch will give me a hundred for my birthday then 50 the next year. Whatever, i got a way with less chores growing up as my mom favored me as the prefered child. If she's reading this right now it's fine, as we have an understanding of who's better, and that person is me.Some of the most influential people in my preschool days were my cousins in Florida. When I was 3 and 4 years of age, they showed me cool stuff like girls, pinball, the Fonz, and cool bicycles, ATC's, and Budweiser. Really, I think they sort of shaped who I am today, minus the country music.Once in Key West, I was 4 years old hanging out at a pool, and there was this cute girl swimming, wearing a Fonz shirt. Not only could she swim, and I couldn't, (Still can't) but she had a fonz shirt, and was a whole year older than me! 5! My first crush. I didn't approach her or talk to her. Just watched. I guess I was never great at approaching the ladies. Anyways, that night, my cousins proped me up on a chair to play a pinball machine in the lobby of our Holiday Inn, across from the pool with the vixen 5 year old. From that time on, I've always been infatuated with pinball. I don't recall much except, my older cousins telling me I was really good at pinball, and had won. I probably did, I'm a good player to this day, not to brag. I'm not good at much really.Religion. I grew up going to Catholic church Saturday nights with my dad and sister, then we went to go see my great grandma in the nursing home and I tell her all about dinosaurs and stuff like that I was interested in. She would reply with smiles and a german accent. We'd watch the Mandrel sisters on TV. Remember them? We'd take a walk with her and go home and watch The Love Boat, Dukes of Hazzard and if lucky we'd stay up late for Fantasy Island and Dad making popcorn. Today I'd say I'm a reformed catholic and more into Eastern religion than anything, but have a good sense of where I am rooted though Catholicc upbringing, at least on my dad's side. My mom didn't practice religion. I think her religion was Elvis Presley and her kids and being a rebel. I took some of those inspirations as well, sorta. My real calling came possibly as religion came when I saw my first Kiss album with Gene Simmons blood dripping down his face. Ah, Satanism! Well, i don't know what I was thinking, but I was into the blodd thing and a demonic looking figure who breathed fire, so what does that tell ya. More on him later. I went to CCD classes, which were for good little Catholic kids on Saturdays, and it was alright I guess. Maybe it was good socially for me more than anything, but I didn't really like Church stuff as akid or now even, but I went ahead and became a confirmed Catholic when I was 16 and that was really the last I saw of Father Ed other than funerals and crap like that. That dude's still at St. Francis church too. My sister thought he was actually God when we were little. See how dumb she is? If he's God, and along with that music, then maybe hell is where i belong, habging out with all the cool bands that will surely make it there like Slayer and Megadeth, Danzig. There's a special ring in the circle of hell for musicians like Billy Ray Cyrus too, but I wouldn't want to end up there, cause that really would be hell. There's enough hell right here on earth musically already. I'm not going to go off on religion here and start talking like a stoner talking about infinity, but I believe for sure in some stuff, energies, spirits, maybe Gods, Gene Simmons, good and evil, (Gene Simmons by the way is the God of Thunder and rock and Roll). I believe there must be a god in certain things like for the fact that there are things like puppies and drums and art and vanilla flavored ice cream and women and pinball machines.When I was 4 I attended this weekly Library school, which I remember quite well. We'd come in and grab our name tag with was yellow with black yarn, and I'd see my cousins there Amy and Tracey, and they'd sit us down and read stories to us. While they read, I'd daydream a bit I remember. I didn't care much for the stories. Maybe my parents never read to me, but I didn't care for being read boring stories, that is until they showed us the pictures along with the stories. That sparked my interest. I remember thinking to myself at 4 years old, why not just have pictures ion all these books instead of those words getting in the way. I still sort of think that way to this day. Words, who needs um, Pictures! Yes! I think some of my earliest meaningful art was definately awesome dinosaur illustrations in the many books I had on the subject . One of my favorites was one I still have of a Trex biting into a triceratops. I kinda want to find the original of that and put it up. These illustrations really evoked meaning, thoughts, and moved me. So did the TV show Land of the Lost, as they had those crappy stop animations dinosaurs. I really loved that crap, and they made me want to live in a different time even. Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes really pleased me as well as a child, as far as cartoons goSo, I started my schooling and such at Westlawn Elementary School in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and learned how to be nice to people. Only having a handful of friends, I typically played alone at home cause my sister would always be reading, and she had girl germs and stuff. I remember my first day of Kindergarden very well. I guess i was fine with it. My mom cried though, and i was shy a bit but didn't cry. I sorta thought I was Luke skywalker a lot in my alone play time, killing stormtroopers, taking over the Death Star (my home), and killing more stormtroopers. This playtime fun also corellated directly with action figure play. Space legos were my thing as well. Damn were those fun. Still are!I graduated to other toys but really found anything outer space related worked best for me, or anything you could choke on. So I grew up in this crackerland that reads like a norman rockwell image. Nice Christian backdrop sorta setting. I had a few friends in grade school, a couple i even still keep contact with. Hell, I've been friends with Tim "lucky" McCormick since kindergarden.My first musical influences were me listening to my parents pop country music station. Keep in mind, we are talking like 1977 here, when my folks were going through their Jack Daniels and cowboy boots stage, which lasted roughly until 1982 or 1983, when my sister introduced them to pop music. I thought I'd be a blonde haired cowboy when I grew up, and I was right! I am! I couldn't understand why so many songs were about love, still can't. Country songs sometimes made me sad. I especially thought like, who was it , the blind piano country guy, Ronnie Milsap? Anyways, I thought his songs were sad cause I thought he was sad cause he was blind, so I was sad. Well, that all changed when my Florida cousins gave me my first Kiss records. Alive I and II on vinyll of course. One look at Gene simmons blood dripping down his chin, and I was hooked. I was 4 or 5 years old. Kiss is like candy to a kid that age. I couldn't stop playing those Kiss albums, and my mom actually even started liking some of the songs. Life was good. I was weening my parents off crappy music at a young age. Something had to be done. Later on, like a year later, I got some 45's. J. Geils band for one. I loved the song Freeze Frame. My grandpa caught me listening to it from two houses down where he lived. I had it cranked. He thought I was nuts probably. The rock radio station here, back in 82, WRKR, put me on the radio, with my little kid voice, requesting "Centerfold" by J Geils. That was kick ass. I didn't know what the song meant at all, but it sure was catchy. I still don't know what that song means.I just saw Kahlin at a tattoo convention, who I used to be friends with way back then as well. In second grade, Mrs. Wakemen would have us drink our graham crackers and milk for like a 10am snack or something. Every day, a new kid would have a chance to bring in their favorite record to play during snack time. From Mickey mouse, or Sesame Street, to the Smurfs, whatever you wanted to bring. Hey, it was like 1981 here! So when it came around time for Kahlin and I to DJ for the day, Mrs. Wakeman cut our listening/snack time short, cause we brought in our favorite Kiss albums. I think songs like "Love gun" are very appropriate for second graders. May of 1977 meant nothing more than Star Wars in theatres. I think i saw it three times. I didn't find one character I liked the best or anything, I liked them all. Obviously these movies super inspired any young kid. Shiny silver objects became my favorite thing ever, so out came the silver R2D2 shoes grabbing recess time attention. Star Wars sorta coated my Jedi and sci fi mindset to this day, but I think I needed a role model, and it could have been worse, but the movie Grease provided this for me. I saw Grease on the big screen in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the late 70's sometime. I assumed my life would be just like John Travolta's, at least my adult/high school experience would be just like the movie. Dancing, cars, and you get the girl at the end. I think in some respects, I tried to live out that movie, minus the dancing part, and Olivia Newton John. For sure though, because of that movie, I tried kissing girls in kindergarden, and to hell if I didn't succeed. I think when I saw Xanadu, I thought that was the female version of Grease.I dressed as Paul Stanley for Halloween when I was 7, cause it was the Kiss member that had the easiest makeup for my mom to apply. I really wanted to go as Gene, the devil, and, my hero at the time, and maybe still. No, he's not, but I had to wait til 2003 to go as him, and it was killer.So, I'm 8 years old and in Florida, and my cousin J.R. is 18, and about as southern as they come. We go off in his pickup truck to go fishing somewhere. He hands me a tin of Wintergreen chewing tobacco and says, put a little of this here in your lip, and two things, don't swallow it, and don't tell your mom. I didn't get sick, but felt sorta cool, although i didn't realize I was sitting on an ant hill, and kept getting my little ass bit up. Maybe I thought it was the chew, but I got bit to shreds. Same trip, my cousins kept a bottle of brown liquid in their bedroom. I asked what it was, they told me to drink it. I took a nice gulp, and had my first taste of the devil's blood. Jack Daniels. I remember my cousin Mark asking me if I was going to cry, and I said No. I didn't know anything could taste like that. Wow. It may have been that same year, JR gave me a can of Coors, and I sat out back alone in the sun, and sipped it for like a half hour. I almost got to the warm end of it. Don't remember being drunk, but remember feeling like I was cool as shit, sipping a beer alone in the warm Florida Sunshine. Some time in there, I also satrted driving like a nutcase their 3 wheeler ATV arounfd the orange trees in the backyard. I was tearing it up. Then at one one point my sister was on the back and I flipped it. Oopsy daisy. I jumped off and was fine, she cried. Sissy I think i became a man this trip. I remember my Cousin Rick saying to me when I was young, that I should stay with them for a summer, cause I'd come back home with big muscles and stuff. I kinda wanted to do that. I really like the Incredible Hulk TV show, so I thought it'd be cool to have big muscles, and tough. Cause when I was 4, I remember meeting Spiderman and he signed his autograph to me "To Tough Tuc" and I really to this day think I am tough because of that. Dude, if Spiderman tells you you're tough, c'mon!Somehere in the Atari era, yes, I can still destroy anyone at 2600 baseball. Bring it! I grew up with a phobia of dogs, with the exception of Candy, the 100 some pund St. Bernanrd next door, but that was because candy was docile and behind a fence. Candy and I were born around the same time and he was put to sleep when I was 7. I would pet him through the fence and lead him towards his giant metal water pale cause I liked the sound it made whan he drank. Aside from him, I thought any dog in the world was going to bit me for some reason, even though I can't recall any bad experiences ever. On Xmas Eve 1982 my sister and I were surprised from Santa with a giant box that enclosed 7 pound Malamute/yellow lab Dolly. My fear of dogs ended in about 2 days. She lived 17 and a half years. So she knew my story pretty well. That same year, this kid Adam and I sorta had wrestling matches on the playground and he was able to beat me up pretty good. I was scrawny and he had 3 other brothers so I was screwed. One time he pinned me down and said to me "I can take you down like a bottle of cheap whiskey" (direct quote from a second grader)! Nice.In 4th grade, I tried playing soccer. I was on the Wings. I really sucked, and only played one season. I joined cause everyone was in soccer. Somewhere around 1983 or so, we played a a lot of soccer at recess. One particular sunny morning before class we were out on the elementary field and some kid told me Michael Jackson had a stem but no balls. I was wearing a Milwaukee Brewers jacket. The next time I was to play soccer, would be in 1996 in a parking lot in the fog in England, after work. I did much better, as I was in better shape. i actually made a killer assist for a goal.Well, around the tail end of 2nd grade or third, I found MTV right when it started. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I really did. Not the sports channel, music! I also discovered cheese balls. Yes! Lots and lots of cheese ball eating in front of the tv and I was getting fat but music was cooler than being outside by our white trash pool when you hate water. I also became addicted at this time to those Cheese N' Crackers® with the little red sticks to spread the processed chese on them. I started collecting the little red sticks and put them in an empty bottle of Miller Lite. Somewhere in the mid 80's I threw out my collection of sticks. I maybe had 100 or so at that time. I started up the collection of those sticks again when I started high school in 1987 because they were sold in the lunch room. That's 20 years now if you're counting, and I am. I have almost 2000 sticks probably now. I'm not joking either. In fact, I don't even know if I like the crackers much anymore, it's mostly for the red stick collection, but I still buy um. Maybe it's my way of holding on to my early days of Mtv or something. At one point in time those bastards tried to go ahead and change the stick color. I was furious! All these yellow, blue, and green sticks! WTF? So I wrote them a letter in the mail, and told them about my collection, and they fixed the problem. So, if you are reading this and eat those, please send me your red sticks.Back on track here, after my failed soccer career in 4th grade, I started playing 4 square with a few friends in the hood, not like "hood" my neighborhood. It was like a club. I was actually pretty good, but c'mon, it's 4 square here.So Def Leppard and and Van Halen a blaring, we enter 5th grade. Kings of elementary school. I went through a period of not washing my hair, I remember. I thought it looked cooler greasy. I started kinda hating and dreading school a bit around this time, and was starting to figure out how there are clicks and people who suck, and people who are fake and all that. 5th grade was all about finally being the oldest in the school, but excited to go to middle school. I'm afraid my chapter on 6th grade is gonna be a long one! Let me give you a hint about my 1984: "Tuc, do the siren, Tuc do the siren"!!! More to come on this steller year in my life.8th Grade. Wow, this is when it all happens really. Girls are looking and smelling better, hair is growing in funny places. I have a mix of Dead Kennedy's, Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Agent Orange in my walkman as I ride my Haro Freestyle bike to school. Grasso and I have been a band for nearly a year and a half at this point, me ..board (playing drums) him on guitar. I won an "Art Purchase" award, whatever that means, that year for a piece entittled "Twist and Shout", which is on permanent display in one of the libraries there. It was a cut and paste piece of a live concert based on the Beatles song but without the Beatles. It wasn't my favorite thing I had ever done art wise but I guess I used materials and concept well. There's a snowmobile in the crowd, I remember that much. So, at 8th grade graduation I was awarded most likely to be a commercial artist. I got drunk with Grasso and Keith for my first time on 3 cans of semi warm beer on July 3rd 1987. We went off to the fields behind their houses and puffed on cigars, cigarettes and Redman tobacco, and listen to Floyd while making a little fire and watching the glow of the Lakfront fireworks 20 some miles away. It was cool as hell, and possibly one of my favorite memories.Tuffy was born this same year I believe, or maybe 1988. Tuffy was a tropical fish. An African Cichlid to be specific. He lived 9 years in the same tank and beat the living hell out of every fish in there. No mercy. In his day he had bouts with addiction also. He had a meditation chamber ( a glass jar) he wouldn't leave for days on end. He is buried at my parents house up north. Sure i had my share of guppies and piranhas, sharks, even a crab named Marty. One piranha actually commit suicide and jumped out of a tiny hole on the top. I had a white outline of where I found him on the floor for about two years. Seriously! His name was Charles. I am weird? To skip forward to 1993: I'm just gonna take a sec to tell a story maybe, cause I don't want to be all serious and shit for a moment, my God.Ok, here's something great, well, at least it's so dumb it's great. It was early 1993, and one of my best friends at the time, Michael, and I, who met as Valet's (we met cause during breaks we both smoked pipes. I was 19 or 20, he was 18.We'd valet at different places throughout Ft. Lauderdale, life performing arts center and a couple high end hotels, so we'd work different places, but always meet at this cool coffee house that was half outdoors, sorta in a riverwest district, with a train that always went by and cool artists and such, but the cool thing was, it was open 9 at night til 5 in the morning, so it was perfect for all of us underage artists. Jazz records all the time, some cool artsy shows, went on in this dim place.I found a nearby corner shop that'd sell me a twelver without asking ID, so we'd sit in a a lot with his jeep and drink beers and listen to Pink Floyd, look up at the dark sky, smoke a cigarette, and repeat until we were out of beer and needed to drink coffee for a few hours.Eventually, we started a side business, which started with teaser ads around the place for our business. We built a big selling booth and display, made business cards, and Launched Lunar Real Estates!You too could own real estate on the moon! Sea of Tranquility area went fast, but what was funny, is that you could name your plot, then you'd write it on the giant moon map display. This and you got a signed and certified Lunar Deed® with all this false legal jargon we looked up at the library, with your moon coordinates on it, a golden seal, and our signatures. Wait! There's more! You also got a glow in the dark moon rock which were kept in a tin foil box with a light on it. We would charge the glowing rock by switching a light on for a few seconds, (to clear the radiation form it's entry to Earth) and out came a super glowing rock! (Which was from the traintracks actually).$2.00 a pop!My friend Austin who lives here now actually took over my position when I moved back home in Septmber of 1993. He became Vice President of Lunar Plot Distribution. At the beginning, i think it was too do something completely odd every wednesday night, (and meet girls) and people would come just that night to buy some moon!We were friends with the owners and workers cause we went there enough, and eventually, after i left, it was over, and the moon map display was given to the dim lit coffee shop. Probably only a hundred bucks was made, but it was fun.I haven't lost that spirit of doing shit like that. Actually, i have so many ideas like that still, but no time or energy for it.To come, 1984, mosh pits, metal, mullets, camaro, and Pinball high scores, , all this and more, when my memoirs continue...At some point in time this will end with me trying to be a rockstar and graphic designer in San Francisco for 5 years, and then the same back home in Milwaukee. But you need to check back, cause I'm only to age 8 here, and there are some very impotant gaps to fill here. Or Important gaps, maybe, not impotent ones.