…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
From Joey Skaggs:
Rain or shine, The 26th Annual April Fools’ Day Parade kicks off from 5th Avenue and 59th Street Friday, April 1 at noon.
Alert: We have so many Charlie Sheen look-alike volunteers that we’ve added a Charlie Sheen look-alike contest in Washington Square Park right after the parade. See you there!
Update, April 3, 2011: You can now listen to this 30:00 radio show here on Joey Skaggs’ website.
This radio show, produced by Rob Alexander, hosted by Toby Amies and featuring Joey Skaggs, among others, aired on BBC Radio Friday, April 1 at 11:30 a.m. UK time. You can listen to it on the BBC Radio site until April 7, 2011.
The Artiness of Naughtiness
Friday 1 April, 2011 at 11:30am on BBC Radio 4
Toby Amies discovers how tricksters have turned the poking of fun into an art form.
What have Jonathon Swift, Orson Welles, Marcel Duchamp, Yoko Ono, Malcolm Mclaren, Jeremy Beadle, and Sacha Baron Cohen got in common? Toby Amies discovers how tricksters and pranksters have turned the poking of fun into an art form.
Pranking is such a part of society, we’ve got a specially sanctioned day of misrule in the calendar. Mark Twain described the 1st of April as “the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year”. But for some people April Fool’s day is just not enough; generally opposed to the status quo, they are determined to alter our relationship with reality by forcing us to question its veracity.
There are pranksters who have been determined to show us our folly all year round and most have philosophical, political and artistic reason to do so.
Toby investigates this reasoning behind pranking – discovering why people will risk consequences as serious as prison to make a point or get a laugh. Sometime the motivation behind a prank is not always only a good laugh at someone else’s expense. It can be a very serious business.
Toby draws a wobbly line from the court jester to the hoaxes of Swift and Welles to Yves Klein to the playful Marxism[!] of Debord and the Situationsists, through to the commercial modern pranking industry and the work of Sacha Baron Cohen, Improv Everywhere, Jeremy Beadle and America’s king of the prank, Joey Skaggs.
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4
From Joey Skaggs:
The New York April Fools” Committee Is Proud to Announce:
NEW YORK CITY’S 26th APRIL FOOLS’ DAY PARADE
“If It Wasn”t For Bad Luck I”d Have No Luck At All”
The 26th Annual April Fools” Day Parade will begin at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street at 12 noon, Friday, April 1, 2011. Rain or shine, the parade will march down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square Park for the post-parade festivities and selection of the King or Queen of Fools from the costumed marching look-alikes.
The theme for this year”s parade is “If It Wasn”t For Bad Luck I”d Have No Luck At All.” The parade will kick off with a Bob Dylan classic “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” sung by the very vocal WTF! Chorus including General Stanley McChrystal, ex-Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele, actors Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen, Representative Charlie Rangel, and deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek look-alikes. Color commentary will be provided by Governor Mike Huckabee. It may be inaccurate but it will be colorful.
This year”s floats will be lead by Grand Marshall Tony Heyward, whose Lap Pool float filled with crude oil will feature BP, Halliburton and Trans Ocean executives bobbing in the muck. Parade attendees are encouraged to bring stuffed birds, animals and fish to toss into the pool as the float passes. Next will be the corporate-sponsored Supreme Court float featuring justices completely covered with corporate logos waving banners proclaiming “Corporations Are People Too!” They will be followed by the Congressional Marionnette Show float with lobbyists pulling the strings of dancing elected officials. Next is the giant Royal Wedding Cake Piggy Bank driven by Elton John, featuring Prince William and Kate Middleton on top. Uniformed royal guards will be asking for spare change from the crowd to help pay for the wedding. And then there will be the Middle-Class Backyard Russian Spy float equipped with lawn chairs, a barbecue, and an above-ground pool. The beautiful sexy Russian spy Ana Chapman will be handing out hot dogs to the crowd. Next is the State of Arizona float driven by Governor Jan Brewer as a wall is being constructed by illegal Mexican immigrants. This will be followed by a motorized 30-foot miniature of the USS Enterprise commanded by Captain Honor projecting lewd and lascivious videos for the crowd to see. The Pope will make an appearance in his new decked-out Pimpmobile tossing colored condoms Mardi Gras–style to the crowd. Throughout the parade fleeing Arab Dictators and Tyrants will dash along carrying bulging suitcases overstuffed with American dollars. The Topeka Westborough Baptist Church float will bring up the rear protesting everything and damning everyone to Hell. Continue reading “Announcing: New York City’s 26th Annual April Fools’ Day Parade”
Moderator’s note: Joey Skaggs brought “Religion on the move for people on the go” with his mobile confessional booth, Portofess, in 1992. Now confessing has gone high tech.
Submitted by Alex Case:
Just when you think it can’t get any weirder… I think we should counter with I-dulgence: a new way to pay for your sins, as a small amount of money is regularly deducted from your credit card or bank account…
Catholic church gives blessing to iPhone app
BBC News
8 February 2011
The Catholic Church has approved an iPhone app that helps guide worshippers through confession.
The Confession program has gone on sale through iTunes for £1.19 ($1.99).
Described as “the perfect aid for every penitent”, it offers users tips and guidelines to help them with the sacrament.
Now senior church officials in both the UK and US have given it their seal of approval, in what is thought to be a first.
The app takes users through the sacrament – in which Catholics admit their wrongdoings – and allows them to keep track of their sins.
It also allows them to examine their conscience based on personalised factors such as age, sex and marital status – but it is not intended to replace traditional confession entirely.
Instead, it encourages users to understand their actions and then visit their priest for absolution.
Read the rest of this article here.
Submitted by Dave Camp, saying “Prescient again”? Dave is referring to a hoax Joey Skaggs did in 1981 called “Metamorphosis“. Skaggs said he was an entomologist who had discovered cures for all of mankind’s common ailments such as colds, flus, acne, anemia and menstrual cramps, by extracting and eating cockroach hormones. Is history repeating itself? Or, was Skaggs really onto something?
Here’s the article:
Cockroach Brains May Be a Source of Antibiotics, Research Says
by Simeon Bennett
Bloomberg
September 6, 2010
Cockroach brains may be a source of new antibiotics capable of killing deadly drug-resistant bacteria, according to research that suggests the germ-spreading pests may be good for something after all.
Insects such as cockroaches have a defense mechanism against bacteria, a “logical” development from living in unhygienic conditions, research from the U.K.”s University of Nottingham showed. Tissues from the brains and nervous systems of cockroaches and locusts killed more than 90 percent of MRSA and E. coli without damaging human cells, scientists said. Continue reading “A Cockroach Cure? Again?”