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Santarchy History: The Early Years

posted by Santa Melmoth on December 21st, 2005

Dateline, San Francisco: Midget Dressed as Santa Disembowels Carmelite Nun with Teeth While Hundreds of Yobs Dressed as Santa Cheer

Now that I have your attention:

Santarchy: a brief history.
Santa names have been obscured to protect the guilty.

Talk about an absurd one trick pony event with a half-life of Strontium 90! The first â€œSantaCon” took place in San Francisco in 1994 and was sponsored by The San Francisco Cacophony Society. The original inspiration came from an earlier SF adventure club called The Suicide Club. The Founder and Avatar of The Suicide Club, Gary Warne decided to organize a non-political, purely surreal Santa prank event after reading a Mother Jones article about a Danish political group dressing as Santa’s and mobbing a Copenhagen Dept. store just before Christmas. Gary’s untimely death and the demise of the Suicide Club put the kibosh on this super obvious, (destined to be) Yule-time tradition. Gary’s idea, which was eventually given life years later by Cacophony was simply to play with the archetypal image of Santa using a barrage of many Santa’s (hopefully) inducing a psychedelic reaction from the public while the core of Santa’s had a real adventure and a lot of fun while goofing it up at various downtown X-mas locations. Had the Suicide Club organized the event it would have fit in nicely with other Club winners such as Clowns on the Bus (dozens of seemingly unrelated clowns going to work, all waiting at succeeding bus stops along the Geary bus line on a commute morning,) The Mud People (the mechanics should be obvious; this event was reprised with great success on Rodeo Dr. by L.A. Cacophony in ’94,) and many other public pranks pulled in the late 70’s & early 80’s. Alas, it was not to be. The Suicide Club, best known for climbing major suspension bridges, throwing insane costumed events in cemeteries, abandoned breweries and sewers, and for infiltrating cults such as the Moonies and the American Nazi Party left only a forlorn Suicide note from the Caliph of the North Pole.

source: http://santarchy.com/santarchy-history-the-early-years/