Founded on the third anniversary of Terry Southern's death,
this fund has very high aesthetic yields, facilitated by the high
mind-share of its primary concepts.
Many of these projects have the brand name value-added of both Grand Guy
Grand, internationally recognized prankster, and Terry
Southern, author of the film Dr. Strangelove and an official
Library of Congress National Treasure. As Magic Christian Fund
Manager Nile Southern writes, "When contextually appropriate,
we will post episodes from The Magic Christian (1957) fit for enactment
against today's corporate power-elite who currently indoctrinate the masses
into their arbitrary systems of consumption-driven power and control."
"Dub this hilarious filmstrip about the racism of US drug laws over the previews of rented movies before returning the tapes to the store. To get filmstrip for dubbing, download and output file from above URL or order tape."
to "alter ordinary supermarket greeting card displays to reflect concerns that are never reflected in such displays, e.g. the virtues of eating free-range pork meat, the marriage of one's non-native boyfriend (for a man), or the execution of one's soulmate. Amount offered will depend upon specific project. Cards may also simply be added to displays rather than altered in manufacturing." Here are several examples received so far, including thumbnails and higher-resolution images ready for printing.
"Major radio stations and department stores only play and sell censored music. An alternative to this is a CD containing 'Inverse Radio Remixes': songs with all lyrics removed except those removed from censored radio remixes. The listener hears just the music track punctuated by the occasional 'that's bullshit' or 'so he shoots up his school.' Investment needed to press the already created remix CD for placement on store shelves."
"For a medical worker who leaks x-rays of George W. Bush's cochlear implant. (Why does he pause so long between phrases and words? Could that mole removal operation have been... something else?)"
"Establish National Lift Day, on which to go into targeted stores and steal clothes at random, then donate them to a charitable institution the next day. Variation: steal clothes especially targeted at the gay community."
"A urinalysis lab worker should save and return as 'corporate property' all tested urine of new hires in a mass mailing to the CEO of a major corporation. The return of urine to its 'rightful owners' should be made into a highly visible press event."
for "a worker at a film editing house or video duplication outfit to insert scenes of a shockingly educational nature into popular movies or videos. Viewers must see the scenes, and it must be reported in the media."
"Record the music for the Teutonic version of the Mickey Mouse Club anthem. Minor key, lots of heraldic trumpets, marching storm troopers, etc. Make an Mp3 of the song, and start distributing it under the Mickey Mouse Club name on Napster, Gnutella, etc."
"Create pornographic annual reports for Proctor & Gamble or Time Warner with charts pointing up and/or down utilizing various body parts as indicators. Replace large numbers of the real annual reports with the porno ones, and mail to stockholders."
"Rent a neighborhood grocery store that is going out of business, and offer to purchase his remaining goods and clear out his store for him. Announce 'New Owner--New Policy--Big Get Acquainted sale' and sell everything at ridiculous prices: six pack of Coke for a quarter, dozen eggs or loaf of bread for a dime, etc. Give advance notice to the media, as the store will be cleaned out within a few hours. Switch signs--'Moved To New Location'--and repeat."
"In a clandestine overnight action, replace the greens of a private golf course with edible living plants--corn, tomatoes, etc. The closer to the pro shop or clubhouse the better. Notify local food banks and media that fresh vegetable donations will be available at said courses."
"Distribute a large number of 'Out of Order' signs signed by something like the 'Aesthetics maintenance division,' for posting on ridiculously ugly objects, including clothing, cars, people, buildings.... Seeking suggestions for the text, and volunteers to print and distribute the signs widely."
"Switch the voice recordings in the animatronic American history figures at Disney's EPCOT center. The new recordings should reveal the not-so-self-evident truths about these 'forefathers,' such as their slave ownership, hemp growing, elections fixing, etc."
"Draw a Family Circus cartoon where Billy sits on front porch with family members all dead in the yard from gunshot wounds. Cop asks Billy, Who did it? Billy says, Chuck. Ghostlike Charlton Heston is seen running away with smoking gun. Get this faux cartoon to run in a major newspaper."
"Human volunteers present themselves at labs where animal experiments are taking place, offering to change places with the animals. After all: you are a better test subject and model; You are the reason for the testing. If refused, alert the media, sue the laboratory for discrimination and misuse of taxpayer funds, perhaps change places with the animals overnight."
to "any group of twenty people who hop the fence at Disneyland, at different points around the perimeter, and simultaneously make a run for the security office/holding cell to turn themselves in. Maps of area available to interested parties."
"Create a social movement whose ultimate goal it will be to manifest, through the power of popular will, genital warts on George W. Bush. The would-be president will be infected with this unpleasant condition through mass mailings, a web site, and the creation of art depicting Bush with the condition. In this age of plutocracy our aim is to point out the uselessness of the voting booth in actualizing real, material changes, and to explore new possibilities for democracy."
"Funding needed to launch a campaign to encourage the sons and daughters of the employees of the American Tobacco Industry to take up the habit of smoking so as to save their parents' jobs. Funds would be used to print materials, mail materials, and compile a list of addresses. To see a prototype of this material, visit freetheseed.com."
"Campaign for Student Council office in a public high school on the Communist Party platform. Establish a website where interested persons can learn more about your positions toward such vital issues as school lunch and senior parking. Plaster the school with your colorful campaign posters, and receive media coverage."
"I will put up a transparent plastic office cubicle in a public place in New York City, and sit in it naked to protest our mayor's strict enforcement of New York's outdated laws against public nudity."
"Replace a frequently aired commercial on a major market radio station with an announcement from 'station management' that the FCC has pronounced the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as being 'in poor taste. (The station's corporate owner) has been ordered to turn the station over to the public interest effective the first of the following month. Anyone with suggestions as to what to do with the station should call (the corporate owner's CEO) at (his or her private number).'"
"Find out which politicians voted for allowing drug testing in the work place, and lobby for them to have their urine tested too. Write letter as their constituents demanding they have their urine screened regularly."
for "a worker at a news bureau to substitute several minutes of old sitcom clips for news clips during a prime-time news hour. The clips must be shown, must be seen by a large number of television viewers, and must be extensively reported on."
"After George W. Bush says something weird, claim you hacked into the cochlear implant transceiver that Dubya's handlers use to prompt him, and that you were able to override their pre-fabricated sound-bytes with something of your own. Your story must be covered in the media."
"Amid the chaos of the current Fortune 500-sponsored election we should take a step back and, in the words of former Secretary of State James Baker, stop hurling. We will construct a website that would allow voters to recast their ballots in any election in our nation's history-- including the 2000 Presidential one. Imagine being able to recast the votes that you deeply regret now that you've had to live with the consequences of your choices. Even better, imagine readjusting your great-great-grandparents' miscast votes back in Eighteen Something, when the Whigs and the Anti-Masons seemed to be the elixirs of the moment. Doesn't every choice deserve to be revisited? Why not? It can only widen the eyes of the present day voter."
to "rent two top floor rooms each in three Times Square hotels on a busy weekend night at the height of tourist season in New York. From the hotel windows, hang giant banners which read: 'New York welcomes Saddam Hussein'. The banner must display prominently several logos of large companies or municipal entities. Alternatives would be to rent a plane trailing a similar banner, lay down an enormous Welcome Saddam doormat which could be unfurled next to football stadia (where the news helicopter could see it), project the image on the moon or on huge white buildings, etc."
"Buy old uniforms of targeted corporations from second-hand stores and pose as employees. Talk to customers and suggest they go to stores with better environmental, health, or labor records; set up fake customers and engage in fights with them; etc."
"Create a national web database of school childrens' homework, freely accessible, where any child can submit homework or retrieve others' homework. It will serve as an archive for future generations, while infuriating almost everyone."
for "an employee of one of the three largest car manufacturers in the U.S. who causes at least hundreds of cars to be shipped with gas tanks that have a capacity of between half a gallon and a gallon of gas only (the cars should be able to go about eighteen miles before refueling). At least some of the cars must be sold, and the media must report on it."
"Create a trend for the media to report on: the upward rise of housing costs in major cities leads corporations to lease unused office cubicles to workers who then live in them. Companies like it because workers have no commuting problems and work longer hours. Set up a few cubicles in a participating office building with personal belongings, cots, refrigerators, etc. Set up portable shower tents in washrooms. Show one guy's cube with his mountain bike parked outside and a bunch of his buddies gathered around the TV drinking beer and watching a football game."
"Grab some spiffy blue vests and start straightening up the isles at your local Wal-Mart (or other megastore). Aggressively help customers by pushing their carts for them, selecting products for them, and telling them the dangers of shopping without such assistance."
"We are working on a project here in Bristol, UK, to take hostage a number of letters from corporate billboards (i.e the letters that make up the name of the company above the premises) and photograph them to make a ransom note to send to all the companies we have taken from as well as to the press. We are still working on a list of demands for the release of the letters. If the demands are not met the letter of each company will be destroyed in a different way at random times and will be documented on film and sent again to the companies and to the press, with a warning to prepare for more letters to be lost."
for "a worker at a major metropolitan newspaper who significantly alters an issue (e.g. changes most of the article text) in an interesting way. A good number of issues must see the light of day, and the media must report on it."
"Using any hamburger fast food chain's cartoon characters, create a small booklet or sheet explaining with bright smiling faces, with graphic photos, and in vivid detail, how cows are drugged, abused, and slaughtered to make hamburgers. Add it to the food bag or, better, in the special toy package. If necessary, stage angry parent reactions so that the media covers the story."
"Successfully get George W. Bush's alleged cochlear implant 'prompter' mentioned with some possible credibility in major media. Bonus for the publication of a New York Times-style diagram of this type of technology."
"Find construction or logging sites that are known deer habitats (bonus points if site is part of a highly visible suburb expansion). Apply 'Buck Lure' ('Guaranteed to bring them in aroused'), available in any hunting section of any well known superstore, to all construction equipment. Film interactions between construction workers, supervisors, and horny deer. Submit to local news media."
"Create a corporate suicide website precisely describing to CEOs how they can kill their own corporations (for whatever personal reasons they may have)."
to each policeman in a major city no smaller than Chicago who "for at least five days, between the hours of six and eight oíclock, at least ten times each day asks a businessman in a suit and tie for his identity papers and then informs the businessman that there is a curfew of 6 p.m. for affluent men. The policeman must say, ëSo why arenít you home with your wife?í"
"A Hispanic person claiming to be a representative of a group of refugees should request asylum from Cuba--and also the United States and the State of Florida--at Walt Disney World. Written statement issued to press should highlight Disney's quasi-governmental powers in Florida. Statement should also avow that in exchange for asylum, the refugees are willing to work at the park for less than minimum wage. Written statement must appear either on a (Disney-owned) ABC news broadcast, or on the local broadcasts of a substantial number of ABC affiliates."
"Cut a block's worth of alleyway cable and phone connections during prime-time television in a middle-class neigborhood. The removing of stimuli will cause shock and confusion and cause some to panic to the point of conversation, reading, or even pensive thought."
"To highlight the cynical merchandising of rebellion and solidarity to disaffected youth (examples: grunge, rave, etc.), create a 'tribe' from arbitrary elements--manners, items of clothing, etc.--and establish it as a 'real' media presence. When revealing the plan, also reveal some secondary meanings of the distinguishing elements...."