CARNIVAL COSMOLOGY
– Gary Warne

The world is a midway; cities are its sideshows.
The only difference between children and adults is
that there is no one to take care of us. When we
left home it meant we were lost on the midway
and, unlike God, the carny boss will only let us ride
as long as we pay.

No one will come to find us. Some children will hurt
us, others will stop to play…some are still deciding.
But you can sneak in too.

I have been exploring a world of adventures, exotic
locales, mystic essences, confronting my fears was
the immediate goal, the predominant focus of the
explorations and challenges. Now, nine months
later, my fears have become wafer like and
crumbling, shadows of their former selves. Now I
find fear only a final, non-evolving image that stills
other possibilities, the creation of more intoxicating
future images, that prevents me from entering into
a visionary dialogue with whom I could become.

Recently I have walked past the place where my
fear images blotted out what would have come
next if I had not been afraid. I climbed the Golden
Gate bridge three weeks ago immersed in images of
falling thru space into the ocean. There was
nothing to fantasize beyond this one, final, deadly
image. Fantasies of my friend’s deaths were
perhaps even more vivid and recurring. People who
didn’t go asked their companions to call them when
they returned, no matter what the hour. Those
unable to express their love in this way simply
asked for the rent before their roommates left for
the climb. The image of death, for many THE
culminating fear image, blots out all other
possibilities.

The subject of fear has fascinated me for many
years. That night I felt I understood it much better.
Fear is a freeze on the future, the filter or floodgate
that stops our imaginings; something within us that
stops us from becoming more powerful and loving,
rather than fearing those things that are more vivid than our fantasies, more powerful than our magic, more mysterious than our own mysteries.

I buried the predominance of fear in my own
cosmology that night. After many months of
incredible experience and a rich new flood of images
and emotions I began to see the colours and text-
ures beyond the death images, beyond the
fantasies of authority and arrest, beyond inner
visions of my own failure of stamina or confidence.
And something more began to emerge.

I am not speaking at all metaphorically when I say
that it was the bright lights and moving colours of
the bigtop, carnival, amusement park-midway.
Once I was on the bridge I was greeted instead by
moonlight on still waters and the skyline of the city
diminutively reduced to scale on a plywood board,
ready for display. The outline of the city floated
across in, all of shades, autumnal colours of yellow
and orange. Our height did not make them that
way; it allowed me to see them that way as the
houses, ships and lights below took on a bathtub,
toy like countenance. The height silhouetted by
sky and underscored by the sea allowed me to
place it within a gigantic midway, rather than
myself as a stick figure man within the reality of
the cities overwhelming back buildings.

Two months before I had climbed the Oakland Bay
Bridge and for the first time the metaphor had
become real. The bridge was obviously a jungle gym
made to climb rather than drive over: the cars just
using it for the in between times. The girders were
so huge that you could climb inside them like chimps,
risking nothing but a strained heart from the
excitement. It was then that I was first struck with
the feeling that we were here to play, if nothing else,
here to play with the world and other people.

Before that I visited a ghost town in central
California and it became the spook house of a long
bankrupt carnival, disappearing into a marshy bog
at the same pace it was swallowed up by the past.
As I walked along the tracks at night that led to
the town, unsure if I was going the right way, a
bouncing yellow light appeared behind and we
waited for the predictable “hey you kids, get out
of here!” only to have it explode instead in to a
supernaturally silent coal black train screaming
into the night ahead, shaking the ground in great
heaps and gulps of air as it roared past.

My mind elongated with it, as it did as a small child
in front of the tv, when Daffy Duck sold Elmer Fudd
a new house and then turning to leave, opened the
front door and let a train rush straight at the
camera, straight at Elmer, straight at me, right
through his living room and mine, my child’s mind
simply gasping at the possibilities.

Other possibilities are becoming much more apparent.
The world is becoming a total play environment and
I am becoming something else entirely. The future
is no longer on a circuit like the news, entertainment
something an entrepreneur plans as I expectantly
read the notices in the bleached parchments on the
corner stands. It is an imagination away.

_________________________________________________

Chaos Principles
1977
EVOLUTION INTO CHAOS:
A CHRONOLOGY – Gary Warne

This paper is an attempt at describing the succes-
sion of stunts, parodies, and put ons that have
gathered so much attention for Communiversity and,
at the same time, present 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 Sept. 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).
See Class #1 on THE FRONT PAGE

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 thru 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 that 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 pan-handling 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. 1
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 N OT 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 can not 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- burst
out laughing. We ran. It was scary but it was their
territory, their values and their job- accept what
ever response is- it’s real.
The fact that the group broke ranks was really
terrifying.

Again remember Principle #III.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. V
SOLIDARITY IS A NECESSITY
(SEE FRONT PAGE)
Every time we changed locations in the course of
the evening’s bizarity we lost people. This became
a stead-fast 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 (See page One)
A disaster- it fulfilled it’s 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 #2, Agree before-
hand on what you want to do.

CHAOTIC PRINCIPLE No. VII
THE MORE EXTREME THE ACT, THE MOVE
EXTREME ANDVARIED THE RESPONSE WILL BE.
VOYAGE TO ANOTHER PLANET (SEE FRONT PAGE)
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 oceans 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 awhile. Someone
had registered for every joke class we have ever
run no matter how outrageous it was written. When
the HARIKARI 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 HIGHTENED 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 time 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 forthis class
and three came with adventures. After we talked for
awhile 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 (because 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 and never came back right then. 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 thru media representatives 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 phase 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 FANTACIES OF OURSELVES
WE FALL SHORT- SO WE DO NOT.

____________________________

ESSAYS
WHY I JOINED THE
SAN FRANCISCO SUICIDE CLUB
–David T. Warren

As the years slip by and I try to align each day with
the passing of my life, I find myself on tenuous
ground. After forty years of living, dreaming, and
working to build the kind of community that I would
like to live in, I find myself faced with the reality of
how little I’ve done to accomplish this task. I haven’t
tried. I am accompanied into the future with the
lessons learned by my daily attendance in the
school of hard sox. Though reality has popped my
balloon I arrive at this point in time with the buoy-
ancy to find a better way to live the remainder of
my life than the way I’ve been doing it. Apparently
life offers no stable, secure rounded fulfillment. Life
at best is for me an untidy mess of unfinished bus-
iness, broken achievements, personal failures, half-
successes, short-lived triumphs, belated insights,
noble desires and shameful deeds. Hopefully through
the years I have accumulated a little wisdom; but
for me life is incomplete and much potential remains;
it eludes my mortal grasp. Life as an ongoing state
has controlled me more than I it. Like most people
I’ve had my moments of breathtaking perfection,
but no permanent achievement seems possible.
This may be because as a human being I am only
part of any evolutionary process whose task it is
to till the soil, learn the rules, build the technology
and make ready for the people of the future, where
necessity will require that basic human needs and
wants be provided for by the collective of the com-
munity and individuals will be set free from hampering
emotions of jealousy, fear, and rivalry. The fact that
people will also lose their ability to hate, love, have
hope, or be generous will have little effect on the
world of the future that will operate with ant like
perfection into the millennia. Provided of course,
that we don’t blow ourselves off the face of the
earth or drown in the slime of increased pollution
in the interim. For me, these alternatives are grim
and bleak and leave so much to be desired that
I’ve decided to become a charter member in the
San Francisco Suicide Club. The only requirements
are that I put my affairs in order, stop looking for
satisfaction on a tomorrow that may never come,
and live each day as though it were my last. With
this commitment, I bequeath half of my worldly be-
longings to the club’s trinary garage sale, these
funds go to support the club’s bizarre activities.
Going places I’ve never been and doing things I’ve
never done. Maybe I’ll see you there!!

____________________________

Suggestions Based Upon Experiential
Data....or..............Blowing it
Gary Warne, John Law, Adrienne Burk, David
Warren from the Golden Hind, Sewers &
Kennedy Hotel Events

Our format has been adopted to insure the minimum
of arguing, bickering, amending, censoring, and
voting on other people’s ideas,rules, and other
volatile subjects. Each person is totally responsible
for their fantasy, the logistics of carrying it out, and
the rules they want abided. It is up to the members
to decide if they want to attend and when, if they
do attend, they want to end their participation.

At the same time guidelines have been offered by
people in very empirical terms-i.e. what they would
have done differently if they had only known….
These aren’t rules because we don’t even meet
much less vote.

They are for whatever purposes you may use them
for and as warnings or assurances for those events
that bear our names.

WE DID THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT IS WRITTEN
BELOW

1) Discussions will take place at the first meeting
place. People became too excited and it was so
chaotic in the sewers that we couldn’t get people
to listen to us, stop talking, count off or apprise
them that people were following us that we might
have been in danger.

2) The leader will give a point by point description
of the adventure as they imagine it. Diagrams would
be helpful at the meeting place. When people climbed
the side of the ship facing the guard house on the
Golden Hind we realized that what was obvious to
some wasn’t so obvious to others.

3) The leader will give a point by point fantasy of
what he thinks could go wrong and what he
fantasizes doing about it. If they’re wrong, great!

4) We will not be meeting people beyond the first
meeting place where the discussions and planning
takes place. We realize that this will be a hardship
but it has been more of a hardship trying to avoid
hardships.

5) Verbal directions are out. Duplicate maps will be
given all drivers.

6) The organizer will provide a list of the equipment
necessary and will give it to someone to check off
as we leave.

7) We won’t simulate danger, even for joke
purposes, in situations that are possibly dangerous
already.

8) We’ll ask someone to be an official explainer and
talk to witnesses that insist on staying and being
perplexed when we’re climbing buildings, etc.

9) A firm hand grasp (holding hands) will be our
universal, non-verbal signal to stop talking at any
volume.

10) Everybody should have all of the equipment
that is specified, the organizer has advised us with
a reason, we shouldn’t disqualify ourselves from
their requirements because we think we know
better. If it says everyone must have flashlights-
this means everyone (and many people still don’t
own one- buy one). If it says no kids- it means no
kids- if it says hard soled shoes, it means hard soled
shoes, if it says everyone should have a candle-
EVERYONE has to have one.

We feel its best of tell people the truth, if not the
whole truth, about what we’re doing. Many people
are not using the planned chaos form and so are
leaving information out of the write ups that others
need to know or that the leaders are not thinking
about. Use them. On the small but positive side- we
feel we were right about the use of costumes to
offset police suspicion/ repression and food (pot
luck) helps too!

_________________________________________________