Father, Forgive Them...

...for they know only what they hear on right wing radio.

We Buy & Sell

I've been carrying this old sign around with me since I found it behind a second-hand furniture store on the square in Ozark, Missouri around 1999. (It was right about where the black SUV sits in the picture below. My loft's balcony is just above that. Thank you, Google Street Views.)

It's a reminder to me that that's what we do, and that sometimes, it's not art.

Joe Zark

Alaskans are getting understandably pissed that their state is being mocked nationwide as some sort of meth-lab trailer-trash white racist book-burning haven of religious extremists who squirt out babies every 9 months while hunting wolves from airplanes as they eat moose burgers.

I've been to Alaska twice and I can attest that it is a very nice place, more so in the summer, and that these broad generalizations and urban-snobbish opinions can easily be applied to any state in the Union. I'm sure upstate New York has its share of hill-folk. I once met a man in Leesburg, Virginia, 40 miles from Washington, DC, who talked about how "we" beat back the Yankees at a certain point on the Potomac. I know you don't have to venture too far here in Florida to find less than urbane and civilized characters. And having lived for a few years in the town of Ozark, Missouri, I can solemnly state that few regions of the United States could rival the Ozarks for backwoods closed-mindedness. (And meth labs.) Oh, they love Jesus, doncha know, but they love the white, Matthew McConaughey Jesus who votes Republican.

Joe Zark is my expression of my love/hate of the beautiful/ugly state of Missouri, which is really no different than any other state.


Advertisers: You may rent space on Joe Zark's hat or overalls.

Here's another Joe Zark.