BORG2 Bullhorn #8

[Frank Jones]

The BORG2 Bullhorn (B2B): No. 8, 2/23/05

BORG2 Info: http://www.BORG2.org

BORG2 Discussion: http://BORG2.tribe.net

BORG2 Email List and Voter Registration
http://saucer.spaceship.com/mailman/listinfo/bep

BORG2 Art Fund Donations: http://www.BORG2.org/Donate.html


BULLHORN #8: THE ~WHAT WOULD HUNTER DO?~ EDITION

WWHD?

"There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

WWHD?

=========================================
------VISUAL INSPECTION: MANIFEST-----
=========================================

1. NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S THE PILE 'O PENNIES ART GRANT DISASTER
2. New Website Goes Beta
3. Another "Final" Tally From FPSD Fundraiser
4. Flying Pig Videos and More
5. What in the World is the Art Council Doing Right Now?
6. Chicken John Escapes To Mexico
7. More BORG2 Talk in SF Bay Guardian
8. One More Try on the JRS Announcement
9. Even More Miscellaneous Than Usual



NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S THE PILE 'O PENNIES ART GRANT DISASTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------

The BORG2 Ad Hoc Action Collective, aka the people not voted into any kind of office, have been counting up all the change collected from the recent FLYING PIG SEX DISASTER fundraiser and rolling it into, well, rolls. And then depositing the rolls with the bank people. And now they're tired of all this rolling.

The delightful Marc came up with this idea (paraphrased for your convenience):

1. Gosh darn we still have to roll a ton of pennies
2. How can I convince someone else to do this?
3. Maybe the AC could GRANT this butt load of pennies to an artist so we won't have to roll them anymore and an artist could be supported to make their art, which is why we are here rolling all this god-forsaken change in the first place.


Thus was born: the NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S THE PILE 'O PENNIES ART GRANT DISASTER.

Here is the deal: BORG2 has a bunch of pennies and other misshapen but still legal US tender coins in its possession. Rather than spend about ten manhours each for every ten dollars of coins left, BORG2 is going to grant THIS HUGE PILE OF COINS TO ONE LUCKY ARTIST. An real art grant, immediate resource gratification, just like we've been talking about for the last six million years.

The rules and conditions:

- The dollar amount of the remaining pennies (and other coins) is somewhere around ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

- All those interested in receiving this grant have one week from today forward to submit a project proposal. Proposals will be posted publicly to the BORG2.org website in the order received.

- All submitted proposals will be subject to a vote by the entire BORG2 community, using the Demagogue voting software that was created by the mysterious Dr. Fiasco and used in the January elections, and is now new and improved, to the point where it can handle "millions of voters."

- The project deemed "most interesting" by the entire community, as determined through this vote, will receive all the remaining coins at a special ceremony, details of which to be announced.

Format of proposals:

The format used to submit a proposal is very important. Non-compliance with format will mark submitter as a non-linear thinker. Please comply with all following blank spaces:

Your Name:
Project Title:
One line project description:
Compose a DF1LM (http://dfilm.com/index_movie_start.html) explaining your project and submit link to it:
Submit a URL to an online drawing (optional):

Note that the primary vehicle for this application is DF1LM. Those who have been following the BORG2 tribe and various other tribes in the Outer BORGverse will know that DF1LM has, um, kinda become the communication medium of choice for BORG2 endeavors. In fact, the Art Council has been deep in debate as to whether all official AC communications should proceed through DF1LM, although there has been no decision yet. In the meantime, however, Jim composed a stunt grant application that found issue in several panties, and many DF1LMs flew here and there shortly thereafter, as well as before, through the rigors of time travel (news travels BEYOND FAST in the BORGverse). The record (or wreckage) can be found on the BORG2 tribe (http://borg2.tribe.net), and also on the DF1LM tribe (http://dfilm.tribe.net).

EMAIL IS DEAD. THE FUTURE BELONGS TO DF1LM. (Can we get a sponsorship?)

Remember, the deadline for proposals is Wednesday, March 2. Voting will take place Friday, March 4.

(WWHD?:

It's important to follow protocol, especially when you're counting pennies. And why not? Ben Franklin probably had something to say on the matter -- Ben had something to say for just about every goddamn thing, and that's why we put him on the flag. Not Nixon... he never did understand the worth of a penny, or much of anything else for that matter, at least anything decent or legal. Nixon threw his pennies into the trash, along with empty bottles of Old Grandad and Maalox and all the paper records from his orphan-purchase deal with the Chinese, and because of that he died homeless and penniless. They buried him in a cardboard box and tossed him on a junk freighter headed out to the Indian Ocean, which is exactly what he deserved, but that's beside the point: he didn't watch his pennies, and that's why we call it "penniless." Historians take note: dead presidents are amusing, but not nearly as funny as unshaven ones. Stand back!)


BORG2 AND THE NEW AMAZING TECHNICOLOR WEBSITE
---------------------------------------------

Up now for public review, comments, and criticism. Please do not direct your review, comments and/or criticism to this correspondent, who will lose it. Charlie Gadeken has asked the such comments be directed to: http://borg2.tribe.net/. Be nice to him when you do it, because he and the rest of the AC put a lot of time and effort into this while we sat back in our La-Z Boys and hollered at them for not having a website up.

Here is the temporary address for the new site:
http://66.216.120.27/index.php3

There is also a public wiki for BORG2 in the works, and it should break surface at any moment. More news as it comes off the wire.

FINAL TALLY FROM PIG DISASTER?
------------------------------

We appear to have a final score from the recent fundraiser, via the estimable G-Off, man on a mission:

$1,365 deposited today from the final rolling session
$980 deposited by Nesdon a couple weeks ago
$100 coinstarred by Nesdon a couple weeks ago
$550 in pennies waiting for a winner (includes ones in Jim's trunk)
Some other amount of rolled (and unrolled) coins that Jim still has in the trunk of his car.
-------
TOTAL COINS FROM PIG: $2,995 plus whatever is in the trunk.

So there you have it. Adding in the money raised at the door, through the bar take, schwag table, hyperwhiskey wheel, etc., the total is a little over $7000. Thanks again to everyone who donated or participated. A nice start. Who's next?

(WWHD?

Ye gads, more pennies! Who is "Jim" and why is he keeping Clearly Labeled Funds in his trunk? Thousands of coins... he'll wear out his shocks that way, and this is coming from someone who's destroyed many cars through creative overloading. The key is to balance the load: torso and arms in the trunk, head and legs in the front seat, etc. -- drive slowly and don't look from side to side much, or at all really. Important not to alert the authorities that anything weird might be going on... or have I said too much? Ignore all that. Just pretend the leech isn't climbing up your back and keep typing, at all costs. Can't reach it with my hands... need some sort of heavy type of swatter, with a long handle. Or perhaps something to just slow it down -- if I can keep it away from my central cortex I can keep working indefinitely, if not, perhaps, at _tip top condition_. It's worked for Dan Rather for many years, after all, and his leech is even bigger than mine. You can't see it, of course, because it's on his back, and the TV cameras only show him from the front. Wisely, because no one wants to see a giant, blood-sucking leech on network television, unless that leech is George W. Bush. But he only makes prolonged appearances once per year, every year, and his people have plenty of time to disguise his leech as a harmless podium, or Dick Cheney.

When did this leech business begin? Am I the only one who sees them? Must study their habits....)


FLYING PIG SEX DISASTER VIDEOS NOW ONLINE
-----------------------------------------

Two fine views of the flying fucking burning pig thing are now available.

From LarZ:

http://www.studiolarz.com/flyingpig.wmv
and
http://www.studiolarz.com/flyingpig.ram

And also from CTP:

http://ctpdesign.com/FPSD.mov

And here are some lovely photos by Jon Ross:

http://nephology.org/gallery/list.php?exhibition=16

Thanks and appreciation to the people who put these together.


THE ART COUNCIL SHOUTS THROUGH A BULLHORN
-----------------------------------------

Owing to technical difficulties, the minutes for last week's Art Council meeting are not available yet. The AC is working to make sure that the minutes are hereafter available to the public by Wednesday of the following week, so that they can be reported here in the Bullhorn.

Here are the previous week's minutes to tide you all over:

http://66.216.120.27/minutes.php3


CHICKEN JOHN FLEES TO MEXICO
----------------------------

No comment.

(WWHD?

Let's get one thing straight. There's nothing shameful about hopping in a 55-foot GMC bus and heading for the border, especially when that bus is filled with women and alcohol. Especially not when your name is Chicken John, and your whole life is a complex solution to an non-existent exercise in abstraction.

I knew of him once, back when he was cleaning booths at the old Regal Show World Theater in San Francisco. The Regal Show World, Where You Are King. And Chicken was king, after a fashion. No one cleared a booth faster than Chicken John Rinaldi. The strippers made fun of him, but the admiration from the clientele was palpable; no one put more into the job than that man. I was Night Manager at the O'Farrell Theater at the time and I wanted to hire him away from his current employers -- his skills were valuable within a certain sphere, and I was prepared to double or even triple his salary. But Chicken was a man of honor and refused to break his contract. That was the last time I ever saw him in person, and I shook his hand, even though I knew where that hand had been. But I've heard plenty about him since then.

The details are irrelevant. We can sit here and talk about the time he hijacked a van full of nuns and drove them to Disneyland, or the awful Backstreet Boys ticket counterfeiting scheme he got himself mixed up in -- but why bring up ugly incidents? I still believe he's a man of honor, and if he stole those people and drove them to Mexico, far from the reach of the San Francisco Sheriff's Department, well, he probably had a good reason. Better to think of him down there on the beach in Baja, wearing baggy tourist shorts and some sort of phony nose and glasses contraption, probably, and walking with a fake limp, enjoying the fruits of his horrible misdeeds. And why not? Who else works this hard at being inscrutable?

We can only hope that -- when he finally tucks his tail between his legs and aims the bus homeward -- the US border people go easy on him. They're tall boys, and their fun, theoreticallly, at least, mostly comes from the opportunity to hit people in the kidneys with the long saps they're issued as standard equipment. But my money's on Chicken. No one's mouth works faster when it's about to get hit with a bully club than Chicken's, and the man has a long track record of jumping ship just when the rats start to chew through the hull... these are the kinds of skills that keep a man afloat in wicked times. Not the sort of things that are appreciated by most people, or discussed at all in polite company, but there is a certain kind of book where these deeds are noted and saluted: the ability to grow more lives than a cat is not something to scoff at or discount, and the people who get good at these things live to cause far more trouble for far longer than people who manage stay out of it entirely. Just look at me. Selah.)


BORG2 MAKES GOOD; LOCAL PRESS ECSTATIC
--------------------------------------

Another fine article by Steven "Scribe" Jones in the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

http://www.sfbg.com/39/19/news_burningman.html

I understand there was a photo that ran in the original print edition. And that this photo was uncredited, and that the photographer remains uncompensated.

Just saying.

(WWHD?

I wrote this when I was alive, stand by it still. A very long time indeed, considering that every day spent in the afterlife is infinite. No one tells you that before you pull the trigger, though, do they? After long consideration, being hooked up to tubes and spoonfed oatmeal would probably be preferable to watching Johnny Carson tell dick jokes for the rest of eternity. Somebody get me out of here, goddamnit.

"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason."

We were talking about the TV business, right? Wait. Jesus. Whoops -- you have to be careful when you say that around here.)


NEW JRS ANNOUNCEMENT TO NOT MENTION SHIT OR PANTS
-------------------------------------------------

After Chicken John's miserable failure with the first BORG2 announcement in the Jackrabbit Speaks (maybe that's why he ran off to Mexico,) we've been granted another shot at it. After a laborious process of editing and passing from one committee to the next committee and back to the original author and then back through more committees, BORG2CO IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE LATEST RESULTS OF ITS MARKETING RESEARCH, DESIGNED TO OFFER YOU THE CONSUMER THE GRANDEST OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS RIGHT IN THE SAFETY AND COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME, keyed to Rapid Eye Movement studies conducted on federal prisoners, in accordance with state and federal law, and using Newtonian principles, NEW AND IMPROVED, no animals harmed in any way, TEETH BRIGHTER AND SHINIER, guaranteed to get you laid. NOT FOR RESALE AND VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. Also may not be legal in the following states: AK, CO, KY, NH, NV, RI, SC, SD, TX. Sales tax not included. Family members of BORG2 participants not eligible. Use only as directed.

I would show it to you, but it doesn't officially exist yet. Look for it in a JRS coming to your mailbox soon.


SO MISCELLANEOUS IT HURTS
-------------------------

The Network Girl would like to direct your attention to:

The Grass-Rootin' BORG2 Artist Tribe
http://grassrootborg2artists.tribe.net/

"This tribe has been established to get WAY back to basics of art-making before there was Burning Man grants or BORG2 funding. Focusing on meeting the call for more art thru non-monetary resource funding i.e. stuff for free that will give your art project the Whoo hoo for no bling bling or at least very little. This is a place for BORG2 Artists and ALL artist for that matter to list their in-kind donation wish list. This is for the artists who plan to get their Art to Burning Man 2005 no matter what. This shout out is for you"

And Charles Gadeken would like to draw your attention to the BORG2 Art Council's plan to create mad money from the fundraising process:

http://www.thenetworkgirl.com/Borg2Fundraising.htm

Input and suggestions no doubt welcome.

-------------------------

Questions? Complaints? Unsolicited manuscripts? Push the button and TALK LOUDLY: Frankenstein Jones at ([email protected]).

Got an event coming up or an announcement to make? Send them in. We
can't guarantee everything submitted will appear in an issue of the b2b,
however we will make every effort to accommodate your sincere desire to
yell at the general public. PLEASE SEND ME INFORMATION. I can't do this without the people who read the thing.

You can also sign up for the tribe.net thingy at http://BORG2.tribe.net,
where we talk about all sorts of stuff related to BORG2. This is
probably the quickest way to receive information and inform others on
topics related to BORG2.

"Please get me off this list as quickly as possible."

Ejection seat button:
http://saucer.spaceship.com/mailman/listinfo/bep

Go down the page until you see the part that begins with "To
unsubscribe". Enter your email address and that should effectively get
you out of the loop. You will no longer be eligible to take part in future BORG2 votes after you take this step, although you are welcome to re-subscribe at any time.

Frankenstein Jones, Handy Multi-Tool
Office of the People Without Offices
http://www.BORG2.org

Mahalo, HST, mahalo.