Category: pranks
42 Years of strange doings in SF/Oakland/Bay Area & Beyond. Please help me raise some $ for my once in a lifetime show
This November 17th. – general fundraiser at Pro Arts. Open to the public. Tickets available at: Eventbright tix to fundraiser.
Limited Curated experience. 10 people max – Tour of artist studio and limited edition of 10 signed prints of Golden Gate Bridge 50th Anniversary : Tickets here: Eventbright tix to curated experience.
Billboard Liberation Front action 1980. Collaboration between “Jack Napier” (John Law) & “Simon Wagstaff” nome de guerre for a well known local SF character.
JL neon piece for SRL “Doom”show 1994.
JL photo Golden Gate Bridge 1986
Natalia Mount, Executive Director of this landmark gallery in the very heart of Oakland, is curating the show and has been working with me to burrow and wade through my massive pile of poorly organized photos, video/film, documents, neon pieces and all sorts of material produce during my four decades of trouble making, experience design, artifact making, collaborative work and explorations.
JL as “Vito Lawtoni” in Don Herron’s The Fatty Arbuckle caper, 1980.
We need to raise a substantial amount of money in order to print huge photos, produce several finished videos out of mountains of raw footage, restore some neon sculptures and make some new, finance travel and accommodations for five (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 as of now, maybe more) of my collaborators (unindicted co-conspirators as they say) from over the years and to cover any number of other expenses. 
As usual, I am broke and in a hurry. I don’t drink, drug, gamble, womanize or waste money; it is just tough financially these days. Pro-Arts is experiencing the typical travails of most smaller cultural institutions and is underfunded as well. Moneys raised will all go directly to producing this show and to support this wonderful community based, yet influential gallery.
Kodachrome Magazine 2017 article on neon artists featuring JL
“Detroit” 2016. 28′ x 14″ x 10″ metal, glass, distressed matchbox cars, astro-turf, neon, opaque crystal ball. Like most of my work, this is a ham fisted metaphor! Various neon installations and sculpture here.
Please pass this link along and spread the word. If you have worked with me or enjoyed any of the products of the collaborations and (occasionally incognito) creative projects I have driven or contributed to or any of the transgressive cabals (my neon piece is at 1:44 & 2:00) or ridiculous pranks that may have benefited from my efforts, I really need the help and feedback now. I am not done yet; this show is just a retrospective of my first four decades here. With luck, we’ll have another one when I am 100 in 2058……
Oh, almost forgot, this is also my 60th B-day party.
LINK TO 42 YEAR ONE MAN RETROSPECTIVE AT PRO ARTS GALLERY JUNE 7TH TIL AUGUST 24TH, 2019
Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society pdf (and news of coming reprint in paperback)
Cacophony 2018 Book spreads lowres
This book is out of print. It was published in full color large format hardback edition (5000 copies) of 320 pages (weighing almost three pounds!) in 2013. Our publisher Last Gasp of San Francisco is reprinting in paperback in a slightly altered version by the end of the year. This pdf is low rez but readable and the best I can do til the paperback is out. Please spread the word! The new edition will include a memorial page for Carrie Ann Galbraith RIP.
Carrie was the co-author and designer of this loving in-depth history of the Cacophony Society. One of her many contributions to Cacophony and the worlds of art, pranks and creativity was the concept of the “Zone Trip” the best known Zone Trip being the 1st Burning Man on the Black Rock Desert in September of 1990.