ROUGH DRAFT January 1999 Issue #148 Email: [email protected] Phone: (415) 665-0351
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. ROUGH DRAFT January 1999 Issue #148 http://www.zpub.com/caco email: [email protected] phone: (415) 665-0351 ROUGH DRAFT is the official organ of the San Francisco Cacophony Society, which is a randomly gathered network of free spirits devoted to the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society. We are pranksters, poets, freaks and fools, dogged seekers of the strange and connoisseurs of the bizarre. We are wise children and wise asses, dreamers, displaced extraterrestrials, unemployed artists, urban necromancers, underground performers and inspired game players. We are the termites in society's crutches and the bad egg at the corporate picnic. We are a roving pack of naughty Santas, a virtual circus filled with mischievous clowns. We are a semipermeable collective of free radicals, nattering nihirealists. diehard disinhibitors and dangling participants. We are organized anarchist infiltrators of the status quo, exposing minds to alternative realities. We are the punctuation at the end of hypothetical sentences, words in prose of technological satire, and grammarians of absurdist syntax. We are that fringe element which is always near the edge of reason. We are the bon vivants of industrial despair, mixing Hammet and Pynchon with Wilde abandon. We are creative social terrorists and late- night reality hackers, carving out temporary autonomous zones within the real estate of modem culture. Our numbers are most prominent in the flat edge of the Bell curve. We are the rapidly evolving mutants of the next millennium. You may already be a member! JANUARY EVENTS: Danger Ranger's Circus Redickuless New Year's Eve Bash 6th Annual Post-Yule Pyre An essential part of the cit\'s rec\cling program Ringmaster Chicken John will present an all-night circus of occurs each \ear at this time w hen the last stand of sidewalk Christmas trees weirdness, music and lun u ilh special performances b\ The Yo-Yo is logged by Friends of the Rootless Forest and piled onto King, Chuckles the Carnage Clown, the Ama/ing Jencho Reese's the beach for some ver\ rapid decomposition. Just follow the tinsel Lucky One-Eycd Knife -Throw ing E\tra\ aganza and Dammit the trail. Wonder Dog. All the usual suspects and more. Ongoing When: Saturday, Jan 9th, 7:30 pm (departure at 8: interactive art installations, obscure videos and live bands. At 15 pm) Meet: Under the giant Doghead at 2750 Sloal Blvd. midnight, the Re\erend Da\ id Aptx;alypse, presiding pastor of the (a 47th Ave. Bnng: a Christmas tree. End of Time Church of the Armageddiin, will be shot from a gianl Divine Ignition will appear in spite of rain, sleet, snow or cannon. Later you can take the free shuttle ride home or crash in outside moral authontv. the Big BedrcK)m (sleeping bag check available) or just stay up until breakfast is served. Cacophony Meeting When: Thursday, Dec. 31st, dtx>rs open at 9 pm. When: Monday, Jan 18th, 8 pm Where: SomArts Gallery, 934 Brannan at 9th St. Where: Tommy's Joynt, Geary & Van Ness enue, Admission: $ 15, includes a champagne toast and pancake breaklast. A\ upstairs in the back. Info: (415) 695-2884 Bring: Stones, photos, event ideas, money for f(xxl and dnnk. FUTURE EVENTS: Subscribe A subscnplion to ROUGH DRAFT bnngs you 12 months of Bicycle Rodeo events and activities in a personalized image en\ elope which ma\ March 13th also contain found photos, old newspaper clippings, miniature A day of 2-w heeled insanit\ toys, gocxl-luck charms, \ ixxlcxi talismans or other pieces of cultural debris. Send $15 check/monev order to: Brides of March March 14th SF Cacophony Stnct dress ccxle for all participant; P.O. Box 424969 San Francisco, CA 94142-4969 Saint Stupid's Day Parade April 1st All events are in San Francisco unless othenvise noted. Your It's a stupid thing. smilage may var\ . Objects in mirror are closing in. Warranty void while not prohibited. Breakers to Bay Salmon Run When: May 16th Your guest editor: Gene\ i\e J. Petrone Swimming against the current since 1994. http://laughingsquid.com/santa/ Santarchy in NYC Around !Opm on Ihc night of December 1 1 . Friday. I had my first meeting with the Santas. We met at a hole-in-the-wall called Barmancy. located a convenient 4 blocks from my hostess Gecko's apartment. \\c stayed at Barmanc> until around 1 1, when we began the rampage. The Hast Village area that Barmancy is located in is full of little trendy-kwking restauranLs with big windows and crowded 10pm Friday night tables. Walking past those places made me reali/e jasl h(n\ much of an impact one hundred Santas can have on people People were staring, slack-jawed, and then gnnning like idiots when we just kepi coming I especially liked watching the single person who had noticed us at a full table tr> lo convmcc their friends to turn around. Fridaj night was pretty uneventful, compared to Salurda>. We marched through the East areas, several Village and the surrounding stoppmg at bars. We stopped for doughnuts (honestly, the best doughnuts 1 have ever had in my life). At one point, we all crowded into a local Santa's apartment. At another, we were forgiven the $5 cover at a club that played live slam- dancin' music. The night ended around 3am. when we had lost about half of everyone and were dragging our feet. Saturday started a little early, for people had been up until or so. convened al at who 3am We noon, Smith's, a huge diner-style place near Times Square. 1 was a little late, so I didn't cat anything, in the fear that 1 wouldn't have enough time to cat before we left. That fear turned out lo be unfounded, since we stayed for another hour or so, but it gave me a lot of lime to talk to people. Mosl of the Santas were from San Francisco (enough money from geek jobs lo fly out to NYC on a whim) and Brooklyn (K)cal), but there was one woman from Seattle, one guy from Chicago, and a whopping nine people from 13elroil, 1 was the onl> one from Denver. 1 have to admit, Salurda> kind of blurred together in nn mind, so 1 can't claim this histor> is exactly correct. If 1 left anything out, correct me. After Smith's, we tried to go into an adult video plaza with viewing booths, but were denied. During Ihe commotion of "where are we going?", we met the Real Santa. Apparentl>, this guy lives in ne<u-by NJ and was visiting N^'C for the weekend. He was having lunch with his wife down the street when someone told him abt>ul our mangy group. Being the jolly old fellow himself, he wandered down lo see if he could share some of our cheer. If there's a real Santa, this gu> was it! We marched through Times Square, lemporanlj joining a small protest aimed at gelling China out of Mongolia. We liwk that time to sing a few Naughty Santa songs ("l>>n we now our rubber panties, fa la la etc, we're a bunch of twisted Sanlies, fa la la etc.") and slaple together our own protest signs. After a short jaunt through the Disney Store ('Thank you for sharing the Spirit in this si>ecial way, but could you please not hand things out in the store?"), we headed down to l!N Plaza for our own protest. "Make loys Not War!" and "Don'l I'ouch M> Pole" cried the signs we carried. Our protest had only barelj gotten underway when wc were hurriedlj removed by the police. They urgently needed lo know what we were protesting; when wc protested that we were just Santa (collective!), Ihey asked us to quickly leave. Now. Santa Cons of Ihe past have had quite a bit of trouble with the local lav\ enforcement. Since most of Cacopht)ny is native to places pretty far from the east coast, we were a little unsure of how the N^ CPD would lake to a bunch of red-and-white rabble-rousers. Well, surprises can be good as well as bad, we found out. The police seemed lo enjoy us (with the exception of the ITS') as much as anyone else, even allowing us to lake pictures with them. After a stop at a local Irish pub (".A sober Santa is a sad Santa") for refueling, we headed to that street of dreams. Fifth Avenue. For those of ytm who have never been lo or heard about Fifth Avenue, it is the capital of expensive shopping and working streets in the US. It is Macy's and Neiman Marcus. It is towering office buildings and four-story department stores. Above all, it is crowded, lor Denver, the only comparison would be if the droves heading out of a Broncos game all decided lo go to l.arimcr Square at the same lime. There were so many people that there was one traffic cop at each corner It) regulate the pedestrian masses. One of the strangest things about New \'ork is that people seem to keep cameras with Ihem at all times. Now . 1 take my camera when 1 know I'm going somewhere cool, but the rest of the time, it slays home. New ^'tirkers don't seem lo share my practices: one in five locals seemed lo produce cameras from out of nowhere to snap photos of us. During the Fifth Avenue part of our lour, we posed, primped, and generally acted the picture turkeys that we are.