EVOLUTION INTO CHAOS: A CHRONOLOGY

Gary Warne

Editor's note. In the late 1970s, Gary Warne wrote the following 12 principles for The Cacophony Society, a group he pioneered. It was the more-public version that grew out of a secret society caled the Suicide Club. Cacophony created hilarious public stunts and thrilling private adventures, and eventually played a key role in bringing Burning Man to the Black Rock desert for the first time. I got this text from "Turn Your Life Into Art: Lessons in Psychomagic from the San Francisco Underground" by Caveat Magister, who, in turn, excerpted this from "Tales Of The San Francisco Cacophony Society", a coffee table book full of photos and excerpts edited by Kevin Evans, Carrie Galbraith, and John Law.

This paper is an attempt at describing the succession of stunts, parodies, and put-ons that have gathered so much attention for Communiversity and, at the same time, presenting the ridiculous concept of organizing principles for creating chaos, anarchy, and high times. Towards this end, it may also be referred to as ROBERTS RULES OF DISORDER. It is shared equally and for free to all comers in the hopes that you find the lost spirit of THE FEAST OF FOOLS and ALL HALLOWS EVE. When Communiversity was still at S.F. State in September 1974, several of us got the idea to do a practical jokes class. This event was to signal a new era for Communiversity, the Free University Movement, and many of us individually. As soon as it hit the streets, we were told it (the class) was "Not educational, in poor taste, and probably illegal from the sound of it." Preliminary discussions went on among the top brass at State about withdrawing our pay checks until threats and coercion failed. At the end of the year, we withdrew the school from State, forming a non-profit. A hundred people signed up for the practical jokes class, making it the most popular class in the history of the school (so far). We filled a room with hundreds of large balloons, covered the floor with mattresses and pillows, covered the ceiling with a parachute, and waited.... Two doormen greeted the registrants, asked them to remove their shoes, picked them up, and threw them through the door into the room. This went on for three hours-a balloon and pillow fight, culminating in a whipped cream and feather fight, separated the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. People left hurt, pissed, creamed, feathered, and limping. The thirty people who stayed journeyed to North Beach in a Salvation Army bus and pulled five stunts. First the women put balloons in their blouses and tried to apply for jobs as topless waitresses. They wouldn't let them in. We practiced carrying imaginary plate glass windows up the street sideways: it worked, people actually walked around us! Then we tried panhandling the same people as they walked down the length of a block-thirty people asking for spare change, all acting as if they didn't know each other. Then we tried giving money away, which didn't work either. Finally we tried to buy a banana split and couldn't come up with the money between us (30 of us, that is). This one really didn't work because we weren't very good actors; the intersection of Columbus & Broadway was so choked with people the waiter couldn't concentrate on us or even see clearly that we were together, and the idea sounded much funnier in the room than it was in action.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. I: DIVEST YOURSELF OF EXPECTATIONS. Make sure the people you're doing something with can dish it out as well as take it. If it isn't funny when it happens to them, then you've got sadists instead of pranksters. Initiate them to be sure they have a sense of humor about themselves. Never preconceive what the reaction to an event will be like; you are sure to be disappointed. Ergo.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. II: YOU WILL NEVER BE TOTALLY IN CONTROL.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. III: BE A FOOL, NOT A SADIST. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TAKE IT AS WELL AS DISH IT OUT.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. IV: ALLOW PEOPLE THE VALIDITY OF THEIR OWN EMOTIONS (HUMOR IS A VERY SERIOUS THING). When you are doing what you really want to do, maybe for the first time, allow people the reality of their own emotions and the sincerity of their own responses. Don't be shocked or bummed out if you are ignored, slugged in the mouth, or arrested. People cannot be expected to think your jokes are funny. Their reactions are no less valid then your own.

NATIONAL CLOWN WEEK Aug 9, 1974. Twelve clowns went into the B of A at Powell & Market singing "We're in the money" and tried to deposit fish, flowers, juggling balls, and comics at the tellers' windows. The guards came and they were really MAD; they were definitely going to beat up the ring leader. I was dressed as a Keystone Cop with a giant silver badge, British bobby hat, cane, and long blue trench coat. I ran up, blew my whistle, arrested the lead clown, and dragged him away, rabid as he was, and this was a very scary moment; the other clowns had already run for the door and burst out laughing. We ran. It was scary, but it was their territory, their values, and their job- accept whatever the response is it's real. The fact that the group broke ranks was really terrifying.

Again remember Principle No. III.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. V: SOLIDARITY IS A NECESSITY. Every time we changed locations in the course of the evening's bizarity, we lost people. This became a steadfast rule of entropy in future stunts. This is not good. The people need each other for energy and support, plus it is relatively dangerous to go out as a group to do stunts anything can happen. If you're going to start something, finish it. Corollary: Nothing's Ever Over When You Think It Is.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. VI: PLAY IT OUT TO THE END. (ANYTHING GOES.) A disaster: it fulfilled its title but the people couldn't trust one another because of the things each of them brought and did for and to each other with out knowing one another. A common purpose or focus decided beforehand is the best, even if people still can't go through with it; it will be an inner failing rather than paranoia. Other than initiations, and despite Principle No.ll, agree beforehand on what you want to do.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. VII: THE MORE EXTREME THE ACT, THE MORE EXTREME AND VARIED THE RESPONSE WILL BE. VOYAGE TO ANOTHER PLANET. We broke down into three groups and talked about how we imagined life on other planets. Then we blindfolded twenty-five people and took them to two unusual environments, one natural and one synthetic. We told them that when we took off their blindfolds, they could not use proper nouns, names, or earthly references for the sights they would witness. They had to decide what they were, why they were, what they did, as if they had never seen them before. Confused? For example, if we took them to a street and unblindfolded them, they couldn't use the word "concrete," "street," "pavement," "road," etc.. We took them to the Judah street tunnel under the Great Highway and took off the blindfolds in the dark. They had to walk out the seaward side, as if they were just landing on another planet, and "decide" what the ocean was. The descriptions, fantasies, and hallucinations were utterly incredible. I will never think of the ocean in the same way ever again! Then we reblindfolded them and took them into the belly of the monster, Alcoa Plaza at midnight - to Ripple's, a bar surely from the 21st century. TV sets two feet apart all the way down to the bar with curtains on either side of them like windows all showing the ocean beating on the shoreline. Eight foot motion picture screens broadcasting a band playing while people danced- the band wasn't there though. Women taking off their clothes in view screens over the urinals-women could enter accompanied by men, but men couldn't see what was going on in the women's bathroom. This place was so way out on a Saturday night that no one could come up with anything farther out.

JOKE CLASSES ARE LISTED ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE FRONT PAGE. We ran joke classes every catalog for two years until our "DEATHSKOOL" catalog, when people got too confused and we stopped for a while. Someone had registered for every joke class we have ever run, no matter how outrageously it was written. When the HARI. KARI class asked them to kill themselves, they politely asked if it was real or not. For DEMONIC POSSESSION we were asked in a whisper if we "had connections." When we ran PARANOIA AS A STATE OF HEIGHTENED AWARENESS, we had to re- evaluate the whole concept of joke classes a device, as far as we know, that no other alternative university has used. SIXTEEN people signed up for Paranoia. These were the ones either cowardly or fun loving registrars let sign up. Many more were turned away by other registrars. Some people didn't want ANY other class but that one and as you can imagine HATED filling out the skills exchange (a program we run in which participants signing up for the school offer their skills for barter). If you re-read the description a couple of times, I think you might agree that it's pretty horrible. But people wanted it. People in on the joke wanted it to happen but the BIG QUESTION MARK was what kind of people had signed up for it? The joke became too real; everyone who wanted to see what the registrants were like were also afraid to offer their homes to find out! The joke became very real. Eight months later someone was moving out of their house and offered to have the class the night before they gave the keys back to the landlord. We wrote and called people, had the class, and had a very intense and fantastic evening of sharing what we were afraid of. Our first joke had become real. An incredible reversal.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. VIII: HUMOUR IS AS RELATIVE AS ANYTHING ELSE. NIGHT OF ADVENTURES DEATHSKOOL CATALOG, SPRING 75 Description: Bring your ready to live adventures. Leave your pride at home, if we think they're either too dangerous or too boring. Must be in the borders of S.F.. Twenty-five people signed up for this class and three came with adventures. After we talked for a while, people started thinking up practical jokes, but I was never sure if they were fantasizing them THEN or they had brought them. There was a practical jokes class in that catalog listed without a teacher, but no one signed up for it (everyone was afraid to sign up first, because then they had to offer THEIR house). We planned two of the three adventures for the first night and the third would be put together later. The first, mine, was to walk through the JUDAH STREET CAR TUNNEL from Duboce Park to Cole & Carl. Half of the group went home right then and never came back. Other people didn't want to go through the tunnel and didn't want to go home either, so they waited for us at the other end.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. IX: FEAR IS A STATE OF MIND: THE FEAR/RISK RATIO IS NOT PROPORTIONAL. Since most fears are about things that have NOT happened to us or that we haven't experienced but have only witnessed through media representation or in our fantasy states, we usually don't know what an experience is like and our fears keep us from finding out.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. X: WE HAVE MANY THINGS TO RISK BESIDES OUR LIVES. It is also possible, I won't posit a principle here, that our adventures and fantasies are a combination of excitement and fear and other people's adventures are more frightening than our own because THEY have the excitement/ motivation and we don't, so we are only left with the fear. To support this, I offer up that one of the people who waited outside of the tunnel was the one who organized the FUR SALE demonstration, which terrified me and which didn't faze him.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. XI: WE SUBCONSCIOUSLY BELIEVE WE HAVE EXPERIENCED THINGS WHEN WE HAVE ONLY WATCHED THEM. WE HAVE NOT.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. XII: WHEN WE TEST OUR FANTASIES OF OURSELVES, WE FALL SHORT- SO WE DO NOT.