PRANKS!

Bands

Back in '96 a band arose in our local scene that was named "Oliver" and geez, they were so emo that it was seriously painful to listen to them. So as everyone knew at the time (this was way before Blink 182 and all that other crap), the best way to irritate a band and its followers is to associate them with MTV. So that's what we did. Here is the result of that...

So anyways, we traveled all over town the next night and put them on every car that we could, you know, to promote them. But I guess they wern't too happy with the fact that we directly targeted all of their girlfriend's cars at the time. anyways they never made it big and never gave me a free CD... Hahaha, guess I learned my lesson! Hahaha.

Hippies

I used to live in Arcata, a town so liberal that we have a green party majority on the city council. Back when Jerry Garcia was still alive, a few of us realized that the Grateful Dead had canceled their tour for the summer so that Jerry could go back into rehab. What a perfect opportunity for a prank. Usually every summer tons of traveling deadheads come into town and camp out on the city plaza. It's very disturbing coming out of a bar and being flocked upon by tons of migrant vagabonds bumming change (I'm not talking about the crustypunks, but rather the PC hippie/parents are from Marin/my VW bus is my only home kind of vagabonds).

Anyway, Myself and a couple of friends went up to two of the hippies and told them that we had just been watching TV, and that CNN had interrupted a presidential news conference with the news that Jerry Garcia had passed away of a drug overdose. CAN YOU SAY NAIVE? Incredibly, their drug dampened minds actually believed us! I cannot put into writing the chaos and anguish that ensued in this little community for about two days. There were prayer meetings, impromptu candle light vigils, crying hippie girls, and even a mention on the local CBS affiliate about the story, denying it, but hippies don't have TVs. Finally one of the hippies put a call in to the Grateful Dead fan club, and was told that it was a hoax (I heard all the details weeks later from a distant friend who knew some of the susceptible). All our friends have laughed about this prank for years!

When Jerry Garcia finally did die, I was in Santa Fe, but I called back up to where I live, and my friends told me that it was exactly like the hoax we pulled years before. I personally drove to the plaza of Santa Fe to watch the hippies there cry and mourn their rock-god. Hippies are pathetic.

Riot Grrls

When Riot Grrl mania had reached full swing in Arcata... by that I mean splintering the punk community into a fraction of what it had once been by their petty squabbling and pretentiousness. The local Riot Grrls started putting up flyers around town advertising "Riot Grrl Meetings!" This whole trend was started by Sassy magazine, which of course all the punks up there read for some reason. They wanted to be punk-elite in my opinion. In the course of one evening, we made up new flyers that looked the same as their flyers, but also said that they were going to sit around and watch the 49ers football game and compare makeup tips. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Some other people I know made up "Riot Grrlz Can't Spell" stencils and put them up on local business places and on the university campus where most of the older Riot Grrls went to school, and also where the Riot Grrl meetings were held. Needless to say, they couldn't hold their meetings there anymore.

These same people also made up stencils made to look like two balls and a penis and spray painted a trail through town passing by some of the Riot Grrls houses and apartments. It was like taking a walking guided tour of the Riot apartments.

Postnote, I just found those stencils, Maybe i'll post the image someday!

Adam

I have a friend called Adam who was put into juvenile detention for failure to appear alleging warrants which came from him running a stop sign on his bicycle and not paying the fines that came from that initial ticket. I made up stencils that said "FREE ADAM (Last name withheld)", making it look like he was a political prisoner -kind of like that Mummia guy-. For two weeks before Adam appeared in court these stencils were put up in every place possible, the whole city had at least one on every block. All of Adam's friends were in on the joke and when people would ask, different answers were made mostly relating to the fact that he was a political prisoner (total bullshit answers). So Adam appears in court, and the judge looks at him and says "So you're THAT Adam... (last name withheld)" The situation is explained to him, and Adam, by this time pretty flustered just keeps saying over and over "well I had an alibi, I was here, in Juvi". I still see a stencil here and there when I'm walking around.

TELEVISION

Well I used to work for Humboldt County CBS affiliate, and numerous times I'd do things to mess up the on-air news persons. I'd do things like play the same local news person's station affiliate ID tape over and over all evening during prime time programming, and scheduling Zena Warrior princess promo's into paces where they probably shouldn't play (i.e...serious programming).

The big one came during November sweeps, when I saw a chance to mess with the local newscaster... I saw a huge hole in the log where a one minute commercial was supposed to play, and I took full advantage of it. (You see, there is a difference between local broadcasting and national broadcasting. Local is regionalized, and certain segments of commercials that you watch have been scheduled towards local viewers. National commercials are basically programmed in by national advertisers, and are relatively unavoidable. Both Use tapes called PIs or Public Info tapes...These consist of those 1-2 minute tapes you see advertising Elvis plate collections, and Disco lives! CD collections.) Anyways, I specifically programmed in a PI for the "Dukes of Hazzard" during the eleven O'clock news, expecting the operation staff to get a chuckle.

What happened was way beyond my expectations...It came on right before the "sports" section of the news, and just to elaborate on that, I'd like to publicly state that the "Sports guy" at my local affiliate is a complete ass... cocky, and utterly sure of himself, to the extent that he can do no wrong in his eyes (except talk shit about others behind their backs...).

Anyways...that PI played, and he was watching, the operating staff was chuckling as the PI ended, and then The "Sports Guy" was up and supposed to do his stuff...He was laughing so hard at the end of the PI, that he just couldn't keep his composure, he stumbled, and laughed so hard that we had to take video while he was on camera as to make him look good on camera, even though it didn't help. He was pretty pissed, but couldn't pin the blame on anyone but himself for being a rookie. Anyways, The glory was that probably 3-4 thousand people were watching him make an ass of himself, hehehe. I love localized media.

Television II

Kenneth T. here - fellow CBS affilliate cohort from 1996-97. what's shakin? I'm down in LA now, livin' the high-life... well, if you call editing porn "the high life." the lady (Megan, you met her) and i will probably be moving up to SF within the next year, as we fucking detest the constant hot weather and smog.

Anyway, i'm writing because i was just at your site, reading the "pranks" page - I think I have another prank for you to add from that station's time era...

I can't remember exactly when it was, but i was either directing or TD'ing the 6pm news (You were Tech Directing - Sam - ), and you were doing the video loading. Around that time, the newscasts were ALWAYS coming up 30 seconds short, so we had to fill it. and, at that time, we made it a habit of broadcasting the risque, PG-13 rated "baywatch nights" promo! this pretty much happened every night for 2 weeks... i know it always gave me a boner! (this particular promo was exactly 30 seconds of Donna D'Errico running in slow motion toward the camera on the beach, it pretty much left nothing to the imagination and the entire tech crew would totally laugh every time it played -Sam-)

Well, one night, Sue (the head sales lady) must have gotten a little too aroused for her own frigid self - cause she came down to the station right after the evening news broadcast, found that "baywatch nights" promo, ripped out the tape with vengeance and disgust, and slammed it into the garbage can... so, no more "baywatch nights" promos for us... were you there that night?

-Kenneth T

I was so there, she did it right in front of me! It eventually came out that she had been getting complaints from the advertisers about that promo and since it had happened over... and over... and over... with warning after warning having been issued from the management, she finally got fed up about it and tried to teach the tech people a lesson. But it backfired and we eventually were allowed to play it and get it redubbed right before Baywatch Nights went off the air for good. - Sam -

Jolly Conspiracy

There used to be a local band in Arcata called the Jolly HOHo's, easily the best band in the local punk vein at the time. They had a following that was almost too perfect...Drunks, druggies, freaks, faggots, and weirdoes (to paraphrase GG Allin). I was a definite part of this following.

We did many things to the community (including a few of the before mentioned pranks...). The Jolly guys would dress up like cops and invade parties pretending to bust them up: free beer!, Spray paint cars: Insurance fun for all, Throw garbage on people's doorsteps: Retaliation, and ect...

The crowning achievement was the following...

After literally years of trying to get a local "hippie" venue to put on punk shows, They finally complied...but only after much annoyance in us having to deal with their stupidity in regards to booking policies...irritating is not the word. So we got the Jolly HoHo's booked, and another local band to play as to get more people to show (ever expanding the fan base). The band shows up, and the dumb-ass promoter says, "I can't pay you like I promised, but you can each get a beer if you want". Applause, and then laughter ensued... then talk about retalliation. The first band played to a small crowd, like most bands do up there in the emerald triangle, then the HoHo's went on...LOUD PUNK ROCK!

Oh No! What's a Promoter to do?!!! He pulls the plug on the power supply... CHAOS!!!! INSANITY! the kids go wild, and start ripping stuff of the walls, people dumped rotting festering garbage on the floors, pages of gay porn are strewn about the place, all in all, about 3-400 dollars of damage and chaos. Oh No, What's a promoter to do...he calls the cops. The cops pull up to a band putting their equipment away after a show and can't do anything, cause the band was booked under a false name and has no stolen goods on them, or any motive. Malicious? Evil? Yea, but oh well, it's all a part of the game. The following article appeared in the local School newspaper 3 weeks later, and we all just had a good laugh.

Well it was fun, and this isn't supposed to be a moral play or anything, but in retrospect it was a little much. I think of so many more devious things we could have done in retrospect, and it makes me a little bummed out, but that's what they get for not being cool with our scene in the first place.

Birkenstocks Punk Flyer Plot

Here's one you can pull on a friend or enemy, devised by myself, Adam, and Mike from Seattle...

We had a punker friend named Peyson who was going under an assumed name of John Fargo (see above) for a while, and he was into leather work cause he had used to work for Harley Davidson, sewing up their leather jackets in the early 90's. We made up a flyer which read roughly "Hi! I am a fellow deadhead who can do repair work on your busted Birkenstocks. I have 10 years experience on the repair of buckles, and frayed leather. I do work quick and cheap and just want to help my fellow brothers out. I can be reached at..." You get the idea. Just to make it look more deadhead-like, we put those fucking dancing bears that are on all the deadhead stickers and a bunch of hippie-dippy graphics on the flyer, and put it up at the co-op where they all hung out. For months, Peyson's house was bombarded with calls from people who would ask inane questions about clasps, glues, and sewing styles. finally 2 months later, we actually told him what we had done, and showed him a copy of the flyer, he was pretty amused, but irritated just the same. I'm still pissed that I didn't save a copy. But this can be done to anyone in any industry or social status, come on, get revenge in a funny way, and above all... Be creative!

Karin's Revenge!

So Karin has a couple of compromising pictures and video's of myself and a few friends of mine that she has archived, and she worked as a projectionist at a movie theater. So she invited a whole bunch of friends of ours to go see a secret showing of Hellraiser as a midnight show at the big theater she worked at. So you know how movie theater's show slides (usually commercials) before shows, well she slipped a whole bunch of these slides into the projector before we showed up. Imagine my surprise to see theater screen length pictures (facial shots!) of myself and my friend Adrienne NAKED during the previous year's Halloween as I'm waiting for the movie! Possibly one of the best pranks/revenge acts I have experienced. OH... There was about 100 people who we all knew in attendance, and Neither me or Adrienne even remember the pictures being taken in the first place. Kudos to Karin, but Karin... Watch your back.

"My Classmates!"

So I used to work at a semi-pro haunted house every Halloween, and back in 83? I got the chance to work with this wannabe tough 18 year old kid who just bugged me. He'd just sit around and drink beer, pretend to work, and generally cause problems. So I get the kid to act in my scene which that year was called TV Heaven, an all white room with rotting fetid meat, girls dressed in white gowns and about 13 TVs playing different weird pseudo-bondage films that were fake, but looked pretty graphic.

So one night we were a little short handed and needed another actor for my scene, so I got my friend Echo to play in my room, and he was just a little attracted to two of her assets. So she's in there with just a bra and white skirt on, and she volunteers to act, so of course he volunteers too. So between the two of us we somehow convinced him (with hard alcohol) that it would probably be an interesting scene if he would get naked for the audience as they cruised by the room. So Echo was kind of rubbing against him, so he was a little excited, that's when I snapped the picture. The whole situation ended pretty quickly, but at one point, a bunch of his classmates from school walked by and decided to investigate... He quickly got out of the scene yelling "My Classmates, My classmates!" hahaha. The Kicker of this is that during the final cast party, I made 3 X 4 black and white prints of him in all his glory and handed it out to all the cast members. He's still pissed at me, but I don't think he will ever do a production with me again.

Crusty irony!

So Me and my roomate Kristen were hanging out at the glass house on K street in Arcata, and somehow we had ended up inviting these crusty punks from the Hollywood scene back there from their squatish living on the Arcata plaza to come and drink with us at the casa. So One of them decides that he needed to hook up with this other crusty-punk/mohawk chick from somewhere else who was there too. So I'm sitting in my room and I start to hear wierd noises from the living room? I grabbed my vid-cam and started to stealthly film them doing toe deed on my living room floor. Hahaha. Minutes of laughter! So we ended up filming the whole thing and showing it to their friends the next day for their enjoyment. The wierd thing was I went to go see the Decline of Western Civilization III here in SF nearly a year later, and who should show up on celluloid? The same crusty-punk who was getting it on with that mohawk chick! If I get a chance I may make the video available to the masses, if I can find it in the debris that is my mission warehouse!

From Anderson Mar:

In Spring, buy about 10-15 packs of catnip seeds and seed the victim's lawn generously (this can also be done to soccer fields, lawns in front of public buildings, ex-employers, etc.) When lawn-mowing season commences, all the cats in the neighborhood will be rolling around in ecstacy on said lawn (this is especially effective in trailer parks)....

Another wonderful way to terrorize the highway populace: get a realistic looking mannequin (something the caliber of the "Annie" doll used in CPR training), dress it in bondage gear, throw a noose around its neck, and hang it from a highway overpass. Or you can dismember it, throw it in some rich guy's swimming pool with a couple of blood capsules for added effect.

Visit her site at Jay's House

Pearl Jam Follies! (Posted by "A Freak Named Peter")

By some turn of rock n'roll fate, and through the generosity and charity of Eddie Vedder's capacious bleeding heart, those blessed muck-raking grungsters Pearl Jam decided to begin their international tour in of all places Bellingham, USA. Imagine. The charity! Within a week, scalpers were making $1800 for front-row tickets. So, with the Pearl Jam philanthropist/rebel corporate DIY image in mind, I decided to create a fake surprise Pearl Jam concert, in which they would be appearing under their original name (Mooky Blaelock) in a benefit for a Free Tibet to be attended by only there most faithful fans, in the know. I made a flimsy little 8/ll copied flier with the litterl Pearl Jam stick figure, advertising where to get the tickets for the ostensible "Mooky Blaelock" show, and posted them around the University campus here, putting them on windshields and throwing them through open dorm windows on top of copulateing co-eds and things. The next day about 200 dumb college students showed up at the supposed ticket site, as I sat next store getting fucked up on cheap beer and laughing at the scene (tv coverage and all) . . . . Then, on the day of the 'real' P.J. concert, I got myself an authentic stool specimen collection vial, with warning labels, filled it with lentil soup, and made a big cardboard sign that said: "Eddie Vedder Stool Sample $1800." I got several money offers and a couple physical threats. People are really sold on the Pearl Jam saint's legend, or they're just bored. One lady said, "He [Eddie] would be very offended by that." She had a severe wedgy in her circa 1985 Guess jeans.

From: Eggmatters

The Roy Ball

I know of some kids in Couer D' Alene Idaho who were pretty bored and thought that it would be fun to invent a new drug. They started with the 'buzz.' Rumors began of some new substance out there that would just get you whacked. Dealers were cut in by unidentified sources about a suitable timetable when they could peruse and possibly peddle the stuff. Locker room gossip and idle chit-chat finally made its way to the intended sources: the cops and the PTA who, naturally, freaked. Then, It was time to unveil the actual substance. Enter 'Roy-Ball.' It was some amorphous glob of household products, each with no discernable pyschotropic effect. It probably had some placebo effects, but when people started getting busted and stashes were seized, tests found nothing but a harmless lump of baking soda, sweet 'n lo, flour and wheat germ. Or, something resembling a narcotic substance without actually being one. The whole town got behind it and tried to stamp out the scourge.

Bags were left in parks, school steps, police stations, sidewalks you name it. The only thing that confounded the cops was that they could never find anything illegal when they lifted a bag. Sooner or later, everybody caught on and the whole thing was filed as a disastrous civic embarassment. I think that the majority of the kids were wise and in on the prank and nobody really 'paid' for Roy-Ball. It just took a few brave souls to act all fucked-up to go to the Stationhouse and wait a while for the witless cops to figure out that they weren't really breaking any substance possesion laws.

From Carl,

I'm going to share a funny story with you - So I'm working on a project that requires some neoprene fabric.

I'm racking my brain trying to find a source for neoprene in Chicago, calling fabric stores, doing internet searches, asking stupid questions of hapless employees at outdoor outfitters, etc. Neoprene's sometimes used in bondage gear, but even the local fetish shops are no help. So I post a message to alt.sex.fetish.fashion because I figure somebody who reads that must make fetish wear. I don't wanna use my normal hotmail account to
post a message because of all the spam I'd get, so I create a fake hotmail account with "Sam McPheeters" as the user name. I get exactly one reply from my usenet posting - from some guy who works the loading dock in a fabric warehouse who can give me a hookup. I give the guy an address to send some neoprene to, and a few minutes later I get this -

"From: sam@addresswithheld.com

Hey guy - The next time you consider posing as me online, bear in mind that I now have your home address.

Sam McPheeters "

Sweet. Now Sam McPheeters is stalking me. Why would you go through so much trouble to smoke somebody out?

love, -carl

"Don't Walk . . . fucker."

So here's a prank that you can do in any city or town.

I made up a stencil and hit the streets with some black spraypaint a stepladder and a friend. The stencil fit over the "Don't Walk" streetlights with the hand held up. the stencil covers part of 3 of its fingers such that when the light flashes He appears to not be urging hasty pedestrians to halt their movement, but instead it appears to be flipping them the bird and bidding them to "Fuck off."

from eggmatters

ken thomas, here - fellow KVIQ cohort from 1996-97. what's shakin? i'm
down in LA now, livin' the high-life... well, if you call editing porn
"the high life." the lady (megan, you met her) and i will probably be
moving up to SF within the next year, as we fucking detest the constant
hot weather and smog.

anyway, i'm writing because i was just at your site, reading the
"pranks" page - i think i have another kviq prank for you to add...

i can't remember exactly when it was, but i was either directing or
TD'ing the 6pm news, and you were doing the video loading. around that
time, the newscasts were ALWAYS coming up 30 seconds short, so we had
to fill it. and, at that time, we made it a habit of broadcasting the
risque, PG-13 rated "baywatch nights" promo! this pretty much happened
every night for 2 weeks... i know it always gave me a boner!

well, one night, sue (the head sales lady) must have gotten a little
too aroused for her own frigid self - cause she came down to the
station, found that "baywatch nights" promo, ripped out the tape with
vengeance and disgust, and slammed it into the garbage can... so, no
more "baywatch nights" promos for us... were you there that night?

-kenneth thomas