Heavy Metal Madness: The Agony of Defeat

Gene Gable

[Editor’s note: Though this is the final installment of “Heavy Metal Madness,” Gene Gable’s new column will debut next month.]
This column began as an account of my journey into the world of letterpress printing. It was supposed to be a charming chronicle full of thoughtful and amusing anecdotes that not only reflected on the craftsmanship and values of the past, but brought fresh insight to the challenges designers face in the modern digital world. I had just quit a high-pressure job and bought a shop full of metal type, a hot-metal line casting machine, and various presses with which I would craft limited-edition works of great personality and style.

My shop started out all neat and tidy (above), but now it’s just a place for accumulating more junk.

Today, however, I must admit defeat.
It’s not that I didn’t learn things, and if you measure success that way, then my efforts were successful. The experiment also gave me an excellent reason to revisit my youth and create a punk poster as a tribute to the Ramones and my wife Patty. It represents my full body of work.

The completed page held in its chase on the bed of the proof printer.

I had hoped this would be a new path — a simplifying of life and a return to the values of publishing that got me interested in the first place. I thought the romance of the past combined with my appreciation for modern tools would put my life’s work in perspective. Or that I would at least be able to move from the ranks of “technology hack” to “artist.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have a talent for vintage composition or fine printing. I’ve never had a lot of patience when it comes to anything requiring detail work, and even in the cold-type and digital era my typography would not pass muster with the typophile elite. The truth is, from the day I first laid eyes on that basement full of equipment, I knew I would probably fail.

There’s no better way to celebrate failure than to watch Citizen Kane for the umpteenth time. When CFK loses even Jed, things can’t get much worse. All I ever wanted was to feel the blood of Gutenberg running through my veins.

And so began a series of headaches that I’m hoping this admission may quell.

This gentlemen in a 1950 Bufferin ad (left) seems to be doing his best Marlon Brando imitation, while the woman on the right is frustrated in 1937 because she can’t get the little tin of Anacin open. One thing my wife Patty taught me early on was that Excedrin brings the only relief to a bad headache.

Excedrin Headache Number One
Even though I bought my letterpress equipment before I left my last job, I had already made the decision to quit when it arrived.
Quitting a job over principle feels good for about a day. Then you realize that the twice-monthly automatic deposits to your checking account have stopped. And though you may convince yourself you deserve a break, you know that eventually you’ll have to face reality and make a living again. They say you should do what you love, but I’ve never known what I love, aside from the people and pets in my life, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to make a living from them.

In my experience, most headaches are caused by stress, though I like to think my problems are bigger than what the boss thinks of my cooking.

I never expected letterpress printing to provide an income, though for some it does. No, I simply thought everything would work out somehow and that I’d soon be solvent again. Yet knowing I had no income not only caused a perpetual headache, it also took away the enjoyment of tinkering in my garage with a bunch of old type.

The only thing worse than having the boss mad at you because of your chronic headaches is to be the boss and be mad at yourself.

Excedrin Headache Number Two
Every blessing is mixed, I’ve found, and when my nephew arrived as a new addition to our little family, I couldn’t have been happier. However, both the emotional and financial burden of taking in a troubled teen are great.
I love Marc and wouldn’t change a thing about our relationship, and the one success I can reflect on during my heavy metal period is his recovery and progress. Yet aside from providing the checks for his treatment program and private school, the credit goes to Marc, not to me.
While hobbies are supposed to be a distraction from your troubles, I’ve always found that hobbies lead to thinking, and thinking always gets me in trouble. The sadness of my nephew’s past and my own difficulty in addressing it not only gave me a headache, it also made it very difficult to retreat to the garage and tinker with a bunch of old type.

There is something about a headache that makes you want to furrow your brow and check your watch — time slows down to an excruciating crawl as you wait for three hours so you can pop a couple more Excedrins.

Excedrin Headache Number Three
When I embarked on my garage experiment in heavy metal, I put quite a bit of emphasis on my pets: three cats, three dogs, and three birds. They were all invaluable in keeping me from feeling lonely in my shop.
I’ve always been attached to pets, but working at home brought me even closer. So when I lost my first co-worker, it was a little harder to take than usual, but I chalked it up to the cycle of life. She was an old cat and had had a full life.
Then we unexpectedly lost one of the dogs to a pointless car accident. It seemed like a sign that it was time to give up the fantasy of a vintage print shop with all the animals curled up together in front of the woodstove.

I lost my first co-worker Sable (right) early on. And though the dogs were not as involved in my heavy-metal efforts, the premature loss of Stella (left) left me with much less interest in my new hobby.

And then, when I accidentally let our newest dog into the street and a car broke her foot, it not only gave me a really big headache, but made it even more difficult to retreat to the garage and tinker with a bunch of old type.

When I almost accidentally killed our new dog Twiggy, I knew it was time to hang up my printers’ apron and admit that other things are simply more important. We’re hoping for a full recovery, but she’ll probably always have a limp.

Excedrin Headache Number Four, Five, Six, Seven…
Sometimes when you start on a decline, it seems that everything piles on and it’s hard to recover. For some reason my garage full of letterpress equipment began to symbolize everything that had gone wrong in my life — family difficulties, job failures, and more. Every time I looked at the equipment, I got depressed.

When taking pain relievers, I typically don’t share Sally’s easy transformation from blue to gay — usually relief is more along the lines of hideous to not-so-hideous.

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, Oh What a Relief it Is
I’m freeing myself from the burden of unused tons of heavy metal. Next week I’ll list my garage full of equipment as free to a good home. There has to be someone out there who’ll see hope and possibility in this project.
If you’re interested and willing to take it all (a firm requirement), feel free to contact me ([email protected]). You’re looking at a forklift, a flatbed truck, and lots of muscle to move it, but at least it’s stored on the ground floor.

Removal of this equipment will be easier than it was bringing it in, and if anybody does want it, I’ll even help drive the forklift and get it as far as your truck.

Wow. Suddenly my headache is gone and the sun is shining.
Read more by Gene Gable.