Category: Suicide Club
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.
Billboard Liberation Front at Steven Wolf Fine Art
http://www.stevenwolffinearts.com/dynamic/exhibit_artist.asp?ExhibitID=152
This show is not a retrospective, rather a small selection by Steven of two memorable BLF “Improvements” with beautiful photos by A. Leo Nash and Nicole Rosenthal. We’ll be sharing the gallery with Anthony Discenza, Jacqueline Gordon, Victor Moscoso and psychedelic poster artist Robert Fried. The opening is this Saturday the 12th of July, 2014. I won’t be there – I’m off on a UE trip to the Midwest. Other BLF Ops may be in attendance. Steven is planning a closing party for August 16th which I will be attending – I’ll be missing Lynyrd Skynyrd to be at this closing party, a sacrifice I had to make, so I hope you will drop what you’re doing and stop on by too.
Ronald McDonald’s fiftieth birthday. Board by Ron English & Jack Napier. Ad Copy JN & _____ DeCoverly. Bigger than life animatronic Ronald & fat kid by D.P. Swain, Jen Gilles, Louise Jarmilowicz. special thanks to Katy Bell, our Many Ronald costumes, Tarssa Yazdani
Apple Campaign Napier and DeCoverly
NSA/ATT campaign by Milton Rand Kalman.
The BLF finally retired a few years ago after a 35 year run. It had been a lot of fun, but the thrill was gone. Addressing later generations in a book foreword, Shepard Fairey said (to paraphrase a bit): “Check out the BLF, they’ve been hacking billboards since before you were born!” And that was years ago.
Suicide Club billboard “improvement” 1977. Created by 26 Suicide Club members attending an “Enter the Unknown” event created by Club founders Gary Warne & Adrienne Burk. This event inspired Irving Glikk (Suicide Club co-founder Dave Warren) and young fellow member Jack Napier (John Law) to found the BLF on X-mas day 1977.
BLF spin-off group Billboard Movement (BM) Board by Glikk (Dave Warren, Arnold Fleck, and Jean Moshofsky.
Then, a few years later, I was inadvertently outed by my pal, rocker Anton Newcomb and, unlike Banksy, no one seemed to notice or much care. Ow! Then I outed long time copywriting partner and retired BLF propagandist Stuart Mangrum “_____ DeCoverly”. Bruised egos crave company…. Well, I had to remind myself, it was a heckadventure and, after any number of close calls, we remained unscathed, un-injured (35 years and not one single work place accident!) and with the exception of the initial Suicide Club improvement in 1977, un-captured. We had stayed incognito, using silly nom de guerres, sporting masks, dyed hair, funny glasses and the like, for decades. We kidnapped journalists, shocking and amusing them enough that they wrote about our exploits with humor and energy without being too critical. 
By the end of the new millenniums first decade, the new generation of BLF Ops had moved on to the serious pursuits of middle age. Many passed thru the organization over the years, most were fellow pranksters in Cacophony and the earlier Suicide Club. Co-founder Irving Glikk (David T. Warren, co-founder of the Suicide Club and early ignitor of the silly wooden figure now worshipped on the Black Rock Desert each year) passed away in 2010 at seventy-one. Dave was one of the great inspirations in my life. He was the “Spirit of Chaos” in the Suicide Club. Once in the late 70’s as I was just embarking on a lengthy solo cross-country hitch-hiking adventure, Dave with somber mien, gave me a giant rubber thumb declaring: “Here kid, you’ll need this on the road!”
The BLF was a primary creative outlet for me for many years, but all things come to pass. I’ve settled into other pursuits in recent times, becoming more interested in and energized by slipping back into small group UE adventures, restoring the ridiculous and sublime giant DogHeads that I somehow have become responsible for, and knocking off the occasional book event for our history of the Cacophony Society with co-author (and past BLF Art Director) Carrie Galbraith “Ethyl Ketone”.
Invalid Stock Value (multiple internet start-up billboards) campaign – _____ DeCoverly. Field install assistance from BLF 2.0 (the younger, new crew) with special thanks to Amanda Hav (Paul Addis RIP)
Former BLF operative Conrad Hoc “Scott Beale” our first webmaster, got us online initially, and way back in the 90’s convinced me of the importance of the digital realm as a means of archiving and preserving work done in meat space. Milton will probably link this blog post to the official BLF website <billboardliberation.com> and we’ll call it a day with the exception of any future gallery, academic, historical or law enforcement interest (the statute of limitations is closing fast, fellas..)
I’m Sick of It – campaign by Milton Rand Kalm
This is the first of 2 posts that will serve, for the time being, as my digital “closing the book” on the BLF. In the next post before the closing party at Wolfe Fine Arts, I will out and tip the hat to everyone I can recall that passed through the group from 1977 til we closed shop in 2010. If you are a past operative, please drop me a line and let me know if I may use your “real” name in my next post. I will also include many more photos of “improvements” made by BLF over the years with short anecdotes about the actions.
cheers, “Jack”
http://www.stevenwolffinearts.com/dynamic/exhibit_artist.asp?ExhibitID=152