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Re: The Yes Men Distribute Fake New York Times: “Iraq War Ends”

Radcliffe — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:05:49 -0000

Imaginitive, creative, determined pranksters, like San Francisco used to be!

Re: Escape to Detroit

Radcliffe — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:14:52 -0000

DETROIT TOUR 08

By Chris Radcliffe

Two groups of white urban underground explorers ran into each other in the largest abandoned building complex in America and a fistfight broke out. The origin of the fight was an internet tiff from three years before. It involved the ethics of trashing these kinds of ruins. I stood there with my friends wondering if this was going to spread into a Donny brook. I’ve lost touch with how this must sound to most of you. To me, while ironically absurd, it was just another strange weekend. Nothing came of the fight, someone cried uncle, lesson learned. This all happened last Saturday night in the Packard manufacturing complex (www.flickr.com/photos/paant... in Detroit.

I’d come to town expecting things like this. We had broken into a sixteen story department store downtown earlier in the day. I usually start at the top and work my way down. I’m interested in the architectural artifacts that get left behind when they seal what’s become a sarcophagus. Old neon signs and the crest that every architect worth his salt would have had sculpted to cover the water tower at the peak of a building seem to recall the history that I’m standing in. Old gothic train stations and the dead hulk of obsolete steam powered electrical plants are my favorites. Every major city has something like this but Detroit is the mother ship.

Detroit is not going to experience the urban renewal that seems to follow a sudden influx of artists. Its scale is too vast, the level of devastation too widespread. David Best, a well known west coast artist, built a temple to the American dream in northwest Detroit last year (www.detroitdreamproject.com.... I went in search of it on my last night in town. In any other city it would be sitting in a major public square, in Detroit it was swallowed up in one of the tens of thousands of vacant lots off any of the major roads leading into downtown. It had no context other than a let them eat cake kind of feel. Even something monumental is dwarfed in that landscape.

There are two city blocks that make up the Heidelberg Project (heidelberg.org) that begin to attempt working at this scale. The artist that started Heidelberg used whole building as his canvas, one completely covered with numbers in various fonts and sizes. The next house was painted with multicolored dots and another had stuffed animal toys nailed to every inch of trim work. These houses were still all occupied in the middle of a mostly empty neighborhood. Whether that was due to the identifiable nature of this distinct place among the ruins or because its been a cause celeb for so long and attracts bohemian sycophants I couldn’t say, but there it was. I was inspired by the spirit more than the aesthetic. There was a building in another part of town that I saw glittering in the middle of a square mile of leveled city blocks. It was covered in broken mirrors glued to scavenged plywood that caught my eye the same way. It all looked like dead flowers on an enormous grave.

Detroit like Chernobyl won’t be coming back anytime soon. If there are other uses for this kind of environment maybe it time to seize that place. As a scene all it takes is common purpose and specific gravity. The next thing you know, what do you get? That's the real question, what do you get. I had a coney at Lafayette's before I left. I sat with a bunch of cops that looked like they'd been under siege for a long time. I didn't get the feeling that they were going to roll over for a bunch of artists with good intentions. But there is a place that could start fresh, inside the Zug Island salt mines the are hundreds of miles of caverns. Maybe in Detroit the new canvas is right below your feet.

Re: Escape to Detroit

Radcliffe — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 04:01:12 -0000

I went to Detriot searching for something after I left NOLA a couple of years back. I mean no one goes there so their had to be something. And now this. I drank in a bar in Johns new nieghborhood and could see something but not enough to pioneer. Maybe Johns new digs is going to act as a halfway house to introduce a new kind of bueaty. Won't be the first time I learned something from this guy.

Re: Paul Addis Pleads Guilty To Damaging Property at Burning Man 2007

Radcliffe — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:54:02 -0000

With gas heading to god knows how much wouldn't it make more sense to just have Burning Man in Candlestick Park. Think how much safer the community would be. Everybody could have a great seat for the burn. Oakland's distant light would replace Gerlach. You could get to the asphalt playa by bike or muni and set up camp!
We could pay hard working San Francisco Police overtime rather than Nevada. And the permit money could help the city feed the homeless.

Why leave a bigger carbon footprint than necessary? I mean why bother going out to the desert? There's a fence set up that keeps you in. Really what does the playa offer anymore. Any sense of being out of the city has totally disappeared. We probably burn enough hydrocarbons to raise the local temperature to an acceptable playa wear level if we recycle it!

If we got a house band we could be the new Dead show! All the art will look the same. If it relies on the desert look we can all way's drop a background. Whatever made my experience of Burning Man so unique must have had something to do with the risks I accepted being in some place wild. Without rules or rulers.

Seriously, I see the community every where I go. The change Burning Man brings to peoples lives has diffused into popular culture. Not bad for a bunch of people that happened to get their hands on the wheel of imagination. Sure things have changed but let me beat you with this one last time, Its not the place, its not the idol, its the change in you when you learn to defeat fear and accept risk. Not to life and limb, but to your hubris. Your not going to find that out there anymore. It showed up for the last time last year. From here on out more crowd control will be needed to funnel you through the prepackaged experience of creating your own world. Make it easy on yourself. I don't think this will affect ticket sales, your just too ready to be led.

Its magic!

Chris Radcliffe

Re: Paul Addis Pleads Guilty To Damaging Property at Burning Man 2007

Radcliffe — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:06:27 -0000

Dear Mike,

The heart of this discussion seems to me to be a conflict between the ideals of people who want to believe that there is a heart in your community and those that see the leadership of the organization as divorced form the ideas that they espouse on your behalf.
Paul's defense of his actions in court certainly didn't help his sentence but I would like to point out he stood by his ideals. And didn't wimp out with a lame apology like you suggested.
Idealism and the personal courage to see through your actions are somethings in very short supply now day's. It may only be the purview of madmen. But without someone like Paul to stand up and voice dissent against the consumerist mediocrity that the event is devolving into you will only find yourself wondering at some future day when the whole thing went south, for you.
This isn't some turf war this is the culture war. It has always played out in the arena of the arts. Try looking at it from that prospective. Paul Addis has taken personal responsibility for his act. For that I salute him.
The "old timers" that you see as some bitter cabal are the guy's that broke your trail. We sit out here in the weeds and laugh at your incomprehension. Kids were tougher in my day bla. bla bla.

Re: Paul Addis Pleads Guilty To Damaging Property at Burning Man 2007

Radcliffe — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:34:18 -0000

The thing thats really sticking out like a sore thumb is the divergent line between style and content in the actions of the LLC. I called Larry last week and begged for mercy. He told me his hands were tied. That if he asked the court to go easy this time what would it look like the next time? He said he had no axe to grind. I took him at his word. He also told me that they would not pad the expenses. He lied to me. Will Rodger walked into the court with a bloated bill.
I guess you should expect that kind of thing from an organization that pro-actively works with the DEA to continue to avoid prosecution under the rave act. I guess that's the American Dream.

I'm not so much angry with you guy's, I'm disappointed.

PS: When did John become such a good writer?

Re: Burning Man 2008 Art Theme: American Dream | Laughing Squid

Radcliffe — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 00:03:34 -0000

I think that co opting the central HST theme in the face of what was a simple act of culture jamming is just as lame as having a "green" burning man because an obscure reporter claimed that burning man wasn't environmentally sensitive. How many of you need your hands held by this Uber-Nanny organization? I don't need forty thousand other people to reinforce my sense of identity or validate my personal ethic. I act upon my own sense of what is right and gather what support I've needed from those that trust my judgment. To all those that have shared the burden that I shouldered, I applaud you. And to those that feel that the shelter of crowds protect you I would remind you that wolfs do feed upon flocks of sheep. But seldom kill the iconoclast ram far from the well trod path. Long Live Howard Rourke.

Re: Burning Man 2008 Art Theme: American Dream | Laughing Squid

Radcliffe — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 21:11:00 -0000

The world doesn't turn on rusted hinges.
It turns on dime store cowboys, like Addis
that have worn thin with cynisism
Now comes another false profit
draped in bunting no less,
from the house promo piece ideologue.
See their brown net shirted docents serving crap to
the empty vessels that gather for this vanity?

Run, very fast, another way

Re: Burning Man Set on Fire Early Due To Arson | Laughing Squid

Radcliffe — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:40:59 -0000

Mr Addis has been released from jail by my people. Over anxious black rock rangers were bitterly disappointed that they were not allowed to avenge their idol. The Pershing County Sheriff leveled automatic weapons at the hysterical floppy hatted minions of the idol as they led the SUSPECT to safety.