Category: Burning Man
New Games
Look for events this JUNE commemorating this important cultural movement.
New Games was a movement started in the late 60’s/early 70’s that encouraged people of all ages to make play a part of their daily lives. New Games was initially inspired by an idea of Stewart Brands, that he, Pat Farrington and George Leonard made into a New Games play weekend that attracted 6000 people. Brand soon moved on and a cadre of games enthusiasts, educators and athletes carried on to spread the idea of noncompetitive, immersive and cooperative games around the US and the world. A book of games collected from the four corners of the Earth and edited by Andrew Fluegleman was compiled and published, soon selling out and seeing multiple reprints and total books published nearing the 1 million mark according to some accounts. Probably best known for the “Earth Ball”, New Games was a pretty big deal in play and education circles by the end of the decade.
By the late 70’s the New Games Foundation was housed in a building on Arguello St in the Inner Sunset. Some of the folks involved would include Burton & Barbara Naiditch, John O’Connell, Todd Strong, Dale LeFevre and others. Suicide Club co-founder Adrienne Burk worked for New Games for a while. I even worked there – slogging out a few weeks working as a “shipping agent” mailing out Earth Balls and boffers (soft foam swords! the perfect way to work out physical aggression without hurting anyone) to schools and individuals around the country. 
I wasn’t very good at the job, I think they felt sorry for me, I was so broke!
I knew most of the folks involved and had great respect for them and their campaign to spread a wonderful idea everywhere they could. Principal trainers Todd Strong and Dale LeFevre were also active Communiversity participants and Suicide Club members. I recall some cool events they created or helped with in the secretive Suicide Club. Todd organized one of the first Rocky Horror Picture Show costumed events at the Strand Theater for the Club in 1977. This was before the idea really caught on with hordes of formerly shy, soon to be assertive goths kids around the world. Dale hosted one of the very first Suicide Club events. He took us to the massive South San Francisco The Industrial City letters which we slid down on pieces of cardboard, just like sledding some huge snow hill. 
The event made a giant impression on all participants and introduced me to the concept of the city as a PLAYGROUND. This is a concept which Gary Warne took to heart in his further experiments in urban adventure and it lay at the core and heart of the Suicide Club. This sense of play adopted by Gary and the rest of in the Club was instrumental in creating the culture that seeped through the later Cacophony Society and on into Cacophony fueled events, movements and organizations that continue to have resonance such as Burning Man, SantaCon (SOME of the original playful spirit of this event must still exist!), the world-wide UE (urban exploration) phenomenon and even a little in the Fight Club inspired underground pugilist groups that sprang up by the hundreds for a season.
A return to New Games including public events and lectures that are in the works for this Summer, specifically on the weekend of June 24-26. So please pencil in that time so you can meet and learn a bit from these awesome folks. Former NG co-Director, trainer, Aikido master and all around New Games guy John O’Connell has started the ‘Earth’ ball rolling and it seems that many of the principals involved back in the heady 70’s will be rolling into town. These are people that had a profound impact on our culture and have continued on in a variety of guises spreading the gospel of play as an intrinsic part of any healthy adult life.
I will post event and presentation dates and specifics as I become aware of them. Please check out New Games. The history is so important – New Games was one of the major influences on the underground culture of free play and underground events that we enjoy today.
Stay in San Francisco – really…..
There may be a solution for some of us. The amazing P Segal has a plan that might actually work. A plan that would encourage well heeled business types to invest in keeping some (not necessarily web-based) creative types in our fair City. Sounds crazy I know, but hear me out.
Don’t jump yet, there may be hope! photo J Law 1986
Many people I know are already in Oakland or have moved back East and taken over small towns or established themselves in compelling corners of decaying East Coast, South West/East, or Midwest Cities. Places they can afford. Places they can live in and work and create without every goddamn dime they make going to more and more exorbitant rents for closets in poorly retro-ed apartments with eight roommates or greasy cold floor spaces in ramshackle garages. How many would stay here if they could simply afford the rent with enough $ left over to continue creating?
I don’t hate the 100k salary ‘puter kids for coming here and falling for our City. If I were 25 and making that kind of dough, working in a field I enjoy, for a company that doubles as my Mom and lover, I’d probably do the same thing they do – work 90 hours a week, while snuggly ensconced in the warm folds of Googledom, take a comfy luxury bus ride home to one of the most beautiful cities in the world, arrive around 8PM, meet friends for dinner, drop a C-note apiece at one of the fabulous new restaurants in my fabulous hip neighborhood, bed down around 1AM, then take the comfy bus back to Mt. View in the AM to do it all over again. Then I would save up for my company sanctioned week long vacation/team building exercise at Burning Man©™ every year. That’s a pretty killer lifestyle for a young person in the corporate world we now live in; hard to blame them for not really realizing how difficult it is for a painter (art and/or commercial), old school writer or journalist, welder, arborist/landscaper, non big $ earner to continue to live in this special place. The kids might not even realize that these skint bohemians helped make San Francisco the super cool place that attracted them here in the first place.
Well, P. Segal has a dream. Like so many dreams – it seems….. dreamlike. How can it work? Will investors buy buildings for poor and poor(ish) artists to live in? Why would any one with $ do that? They just might want to consider the scheme that P Segal and the heavy-hitters she has recruited to sit on the board of her CA State non-profit 501 c3 organization have devised. It’s pretty tasty.
The plan is simple. Encourage investors to buy a residential or mixed use building already occupied by artist/craftsmen or a building to be converted to artist/mixed use/live work. The non-profit would provide a comfy tax incentive for the buyer, while facilitating artists to live and work in the building for way below market rents. Investors who buy buildings get the tax benefit of nonprofit donations and they still own the buildings and can sell them for a profit (possibly to the tenants) when the 10 years of allowable write-offs end, making a profit on the sale. More traditional nonprofit housing works for general housing needs, but the Art Houses will be residential AND commercial in order to provide a place for the residents to build and develop their art: actual live/work space. This plan could also enable artists to dial back dependency on the “conventional art world” that is dominated by a few established critics and their gallery owning friends or traditional galleries that take a huge percentage of sales. Common areas in the Art Houses will doubtlessly be utilized as collective galleries, maybe even generating some income for artists. For the investors, well they’re doing a good thing with their dough AND buying some good will in our less than huggy San Francisco affordable housing crises. Artists, worker bees and regular Frisco eccentrics, many of whom made SF the interesting place that investors, tech owners and tech workers are profiting from, get to stay and continue working in this amazing place. Win-win.
The first step is a fundraiser for the non-profit that takes place Thursday April 23rd (see flyer above) at 7PM above the Castro. For $25 you can hang with artists, patrons and SF characters in a very sweet location with one of the best views in SF. For $100 you will be able to choose from a pile of original art made by local endangered artists. See Paypal info below and on the flyer above or pay at the door. Please come and ask Ms. P and her non-profit board members just how this plan will work and if YOU can get involved as an investor or as an artist /creative qualifying for inclusion in the SF Art House pool of SF survivors.
(paypal at https://sanfranciscoarthouses.wordpress.com/support-this-project)