I suppose we would like to be thought of as original; the Merry Pranksters
were back in the 60s, so they must have had an ethos, they must have been
doing it for a reason, we're not. I dunno why they were doing what they did,
I dunno what they did, which all goes to help our claims for originality a
little more - not that that's any sort of defining quality, it's just a nice
little by-product - because that was forty years ago, everyone's forgotten
about it and people know Jack Nicholson more than Ken Kesey. People also
lazily compared us to the German man who, I think with his wife, swathed the
Reichstag and other places with wrapping paper. There are similarities, on a
Sesame Street 'Two of these things are kinda the same' level, but I believe
that motive, reason, ethos, ideals are where connecting lines, if any, are
drawn. He did what he did because it was art, we did what we did because
there was no reason, because it was random, because it was something to do.
We're not "Hey look at us, we're nihilists"; while we do have a few nihilist
'members' - such an icky word but better than when we called each other
'friends' because then a bunch of fucking Quakers turned up and tried to
join in... actually a couple of the larger-breasted ones did stick around,
we're very welcoming... Umm... point... oh yeah. All sorts of different
people, some believe in some things, some don't believe in some things, all
sorts of different reasons for being there, we just turn up and do a bunch
of meaningless shit for no reason, but not for No Reason - you dig?
People were quick to label us environmental protesters because we painted
the skyscraper green, but we're not anything. I'm sure if you asked around
most of us would have pro-environmentalism sympathies, and in many ways the
closest thing we have to an ethos - do something pointless, fuck things up a
bit but don't really change anything once it's all over - is in itself
strongly environmentally conscious, but we really weren't making a
statement. If people chose to read that into what we did, then let them, it
doesn't make any difference to us. We painted the skyscraper with vegetable
dye because we wanted it to wash off the first time it rained, it wasn't a
pro-vegetable statement. No statements. No anti-statements: we considered
doing something detrimental to the environment to counter the possibility of
any environmental statement, but that was too No Statements, and not enough
no statements - you dig?
We actually nearly painted a stone green instead of the skyscraper. "Umm...
let's paint a stone green."
"We did a stone a couple of weeks ago when we buried it next to that tree,
remember?"
"Oh yeah. Well, let's paint a skyscraper green instead." We don't
specifically aim to be different every time, but we do like randomness,
meaninglessness, so any form of repetition might be ascribed as meaning. We
have done our meaningless things with the same meaningless items before, but
we tend not to. We're not No Repetition, but just no repetition - you dig?
We do have a lot of members with a surrealist bent, so they tend to suggest
doing stuff with fish, jam and Belgium a lot, but there are only so many
times you can pour water on a fish and let a cat drink the water as it runs
off, or post a pot of jam to a random person from the phone book before
people start to look for deeper meaning. Draw meaning if you want, it makes
no difference to us, but we would prefer it if no meaning could be drawn.
We certainly wouldn't go out of our way to ensure there wasn't a meaning,
but again we'd like to think that just by our very nature we'd avoid
meaning. We're - and join in if you know it - not No Meaning, we're just
meaningless. You didn't know it. It changed. Slightly.