Super punk. Super dad. Maybe distant Blademaiden relation. South(side) Pole all the way.
Shopkeep / IT Dood
ABOUT: Marek works here a mere few hours per week, but he is like that rare classic car part that is impossible to find, and you probably couldn’t afford it even if you could: he is the occasional IT guy whose professional services we get to rent when things blow up.
While we had a little help in the beginning, the current iteration of the website is all us, and until Marek, the best we had for keeping it running was Blademaiden, who can dink around and figure things out on the internet, but is lost when anything real goes wrong.
Born and raised South Side Polish he is fluently bilingual, not counting coding languages. He is a former DJ, downtown techie by day, and suburban married dad by night, which, as a bald bearded fella, of course means he has been a client here since seemingly forever. We couldn’t be happier he decided he wanted to be our Wednesday evening Shopkeep/IT Dood.
FAVORITE THINGS: Punk Rock & Hip Hop, coffee & comics, Olympic Weightlifting, vintage car rallies, short bikes, the 80s (being one of the few staff members to have direct memories of that decade), family, believing the truth is out there.
FANDOMS: Battlestar, Bukowski, Da Bears, the alternate planes and timelines of Netflix (Dark and Stranger Things), speaking of dark, all things Tarantino, fine punk bands (Strung Out, Descendants, The Lawrence Arms), and fine vintage German automobiles.
#TheITDood
The Shopkeep position is so much more than simply manning the desk. The Shopkeeps of Beardsgaard are jacks of all trades, and masters of some, people wranglers, ringleaders, emcees, schedule Tetris-ers, and whatever else that individual Shopkeep brings to the table – all run from the heart of the star that is the front desk. It is the best place to keep ones’ finger on the pulse.
Outside the shop, Marek does the 9-5 doing app development or something that goes right over our heads, and turns into Speed Racer on the weekends. Otherwise, dad stuff.