A PERSONAL HISTÓRY oF FLOMM so far PART 10 of 10
“It’s because of [Carrie] Fisher’s perfectly-balanced performance that a whole generation of men grew up never thinking twice about women being leaders. Why wouldn’t they?”
—Jason Malmberg, DER TUNG, 2016
A lot of horrible things happened in 2016.
Deaths.
Bowie in January, preceded by Pierre Boulez, then Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Harper Lee, Umberto Eco, George Kennedy, George Martin, Keith Emerson, Garry Shandling, Zaha Hadid, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Robert Vaughn, Leon Russell, John Glenn, George Michael, and Carrie Fisher + Debbie Reynolds.
In November, I attended my first protest against the new President of the United States, and then braced for a huge tax cut throwing money at THE SUPER RICH who hate anyone who isn’t RICH like them.
Like, WAT I’d read about in books on Weimar and the establishment of Hitler’s government – was happening here. With a bad forward combover fake tan, insecure self-centered celebrity in the White House – determined to enact a bunch of revenge just because he can. And even if he can’t, he’s got them lawyers to help get things done. With a VP in place to do even worse if possible.
“My empathy … for someone who is being victimized goes immediately to the victim. And any empathy that is left over is still going to go to the victim. And I’m not going to empathize with you because you are … too fucking dumb to change the TV channel.”
—Jason Malmberg, RADíO FLoMM, [consternation] episode, 2018
the push back against the nü
Traditionalists were in place. The New Order was back and in the first attacks, the Rebellion lost a few planets, Han Solo and most of its ships.
And I used to work for Republicans, tho these were NOT Republicans.
“Last night a woman asked me if I was really sure I experienced racism from someone. I told her to never ask another POC that ever again.”
—neo FLOMMIST, irritated
And yes, I actually believe in both the Democratic AND Republican Platforms cause they make fucking sense.
And while my views tend to veer Left, I don’t believe there is one All Encompassing Absolute Philosophy that we all must abide by. Cause philosophies come from humans and humans ain’t perfect. I change my mind A LOT, especially when presented with a nü way to look at things. I think it leads to a mor interesting life – far away from the playing it safe lifestyle that many enjoy.
The ‘Checks and Balances’ concept is brilliant. Each side fights, compromises, collaborates and hammers out wat works best – because we have these two major views in the United States, we should have a balance of both, no? (Balance of mor than both, but whoa, that’s too much for some folk)
“When the fuck will you realize that humans are assholes and need regulations to behave?”
—Louis Warfield, DER TUNG, 2018
Unfortunately, humans are selfish. And will abuse watever system they are in to get the most for themselves. And our system needs to evolve. Because humans are also easily manipulated.
“We should make all Popeyes locations polling places and tell people that they only get their goddamn chicken sandwich after they’ve voted.”
—Emily Duchaine
another trip to the 80s
The seeds for FOX News were sewn back in the 1980s.
And in ’89, I wandered into an Alternative Media Think Tank (whose name I do not remember, of course) that was funding student-produced newspapers at colleges across the United States. I didn’t kno it was a right-thinking group, my experience was I started out editing a rather liberal college zine – I had transferred to a University that ALSO had a similar alternative tabloid publication. And I got involved before I knew wat I was doing.
With the help of another radical – kid named Eugene – we sort of ended up running the tabloid for a few issues, and we simply saw the Republican staff as just having a totally different POV than us.
That was until we ended up at the Conference for the Think Tank. Which existed to support and educate journalism students across the country into building a counter to the Liberal Media that ‘Were Destroying Democracy and Controlling Everything at the Time.’
They gave speeches about how their POV must have its media equal and everyone was eating it up. Because ALL Media Was Run by Evil Liberals At The Time. And the only thing on regular television on their side was Morton Downey Jr. – who was finishing up his final year of painting swasticas on his face; but the loudmouth conservative show host idea was out there and ready for business.
A blowhard AM radio guy from Sacramento – Rush Limbaugh – captured JUST wat this group wanted to say – and wat conservatives wanted to hear. His TV show premiered 1992, he went too far by 96, but his radio program was national at that point.
I tried to make friends in the group, but you know, they were kind of stiff. Like, a Student Republican hotel room party was: Kids in business attire/ whole Gordon Gekko cosplay thing. A bag of Doritos and an ice bucket emptied in the bathroom sink, with a six pack of Coors Light, sitting on top.
“Would you like some beer?,” we were asked.
“Oh, by the way, we’re going to have to charge you five bucks if you want to drink.”
Like, they didn’t even have red cups.
And – pretty sure – our publication lost its funding right after they saw some of the content Eugene and I were doing, which was a mix of radical liberalism peppered amongst their Republican Values.
And today, I’m convinced this well-funded, passionate, speechifying organization may have been behind the ability for FOX News to exist – cause if anyone was going to be working for FOX in the late 90s/early 00s, it would be the student journalists in this group.
Like, they had the talking points. Free Speech, Balanced News. Back in the 1980s. And today, this Propaganda is doing its job. Very well.
“You just don’t understand. There are powerful people in this town and you have to learn to keep them happy. If you don’t, nothing will ever get done here.”
—A local, who was not quiet that I am seen as a ‘Bay Area born’ outsider
sacramento politics
A question I was finally asked was: Why isn’t FLOMM just a local Sacramento thing?
And I did make a conscious decision to not keep FLOMM local.
It’s because of The Art Scene and the Powerful Ones, as I call Them. Sacramento is the Capital of California, the Star on the Map. And it IS a government town in history, community and attitude. This includes the State workers, I constantly hear to become one is the Holy Grail of Employment.
“When I grow up, I want to be a bureaucrat. And stop everyone from doing what they want to do.”
—byproduct of all this
I don’t get it. Since I’ve moved here – OMG – I’ve met SO MANY PEOPLE happy to be roadblocks to others. And several years ago, I had a guest speaker at a design talk I organized – marketing genius named Julia – who did a great job explaining the difference between entrepreneurs and The State. I paraphrase:
State workers HAVE to play power games in order to survive. And this ends up screwing over others, but it’s really the only way they can enjoy their jobs.
And a couple state workers in the crowd agreed. My head exploded.
And Sacramento is AWESOME at shutting AWESOME UNDERGROUND ART things down. I saw Fools Foundation flourish after I moved here – and it was killed by city codes.
But a few years ago, we got nü mayor. And he’s an advocate for the arts.
Like, he actually has a guy on staff that helps deal with the bureaucracy.
And cool stuff started to happen here, like, The Red Museum reopened quickly after it was discovered they weren’t up to code. And nü creative energies in Sacramento started to bring me back into the local mindset.
And the next generation in this river town – despite the Powerful Ones – was starting to come into its own. Even if they have to do it quietly.
“I work for that person [who runs an important art organization]. And I keep my mouth shut, just do my job. And after work’s over, I leave it all behind and go and do my own stuff.”
—neo FLOMMIST, making and doing
art hotel
A scheduled to be razed vintage tenement hotel converted to an awesome art space. It was temporary, but it was amazing.
And I didn’t see it coming, others did. And it did something: It brought the street level artists to the surface. The underground eventually ends up above ground. And it was literally in this Hotel. Among others, of course (ART HOTEL also included artists from outside the area).
But ART HOTEL was important.
The next year, ART STREET appeared in an abandoned warehouse. And artists no one knew about were everywhere. With local writers, performers, designers, writers, and historians.
And this was so inspiring, I decided it was time to do a FLOMM event. Multitrack, at an odd location. With some of the artists that were now part of the FLOMM movement: Makers, silkscreeners, performers, bands with a LOT of hands on things to do.
“We’ve gotta have a great show, with a million laughs … and colour … and a lot of lights to make it sparkle! Oh, can’t you just see it … ?”
—Judy Garland, Babes in Arms (1939)
flomm 423
I scheduled 423 on 23 April 23 2016, a Saturday. Gave it a number just like historical 291 and 391.
It would take place about the same time the San Francisco TYPO conference would be happening, but that ended in 2015.
And TYPO was where I attempted to recruit Cara Delevingne into FLOMM. Because I’ll talk to ANYONE.
Also in the above shot – lettering artist Erin Ellis who now makes awesome organic abstract art and introduced me to James L. Tucker – featured on RADíO FLoMM’s [lub] episode – and everybuddy has stickers and fliers and some buttons and does cool shit.
(Oh, that’s not Cara, it’s Fiona.)
Without TYPO happening, I concentrating on getting people to Stockton for 423.
“423 follows the DADA concept of an unpredictable night of entertainment – art, art making, printing, dress-up, mor art making, mor entertainment – as part of the FLOMM movement. and it just sort of happened. like everything else that is flomm. inspired by history … in stories of Berlin Cabaret, the salons of the DADAists, (this book irreverently explains how to do DADA) unexpected evenings in ny as part of the great Performa series, and locally in the incredible ART HOTEL and ART STREET that changed the Sacramento creative landscape forever! So that’s wat 423 is. A hands-on an evening party where participants can experience and create art using a few supplied materials. a night of FLOMM.”
—Me, 2016
Like, check out Stockton, there’s far mor in town than the horrible things you hear on the news. And I love visiting places people usually don’t think to visit. Because there’s usually real people to talk to, no tourist prices, and frankly Stockton has the best collection of J.C. Leyendecker art ANYWHERE in their museum.
“I want to do a FLOMM event – someday – in BARTLESVILLE, Oklahoma. Because there is COOL there too. Even if it’s just ME sitting there by MYSELF.”
—Me again, 2016
We set up 423 in the Art Department at University of the Pacific because they have a beautiful post-modern building – and the event became a party for the students and anyone who wanted to MAKE their own ART.
Away from the politics and procedures of Sacramento.
We had silkcreening of FLOMM-designed Kandinsky images on thrift clothing – my tattoo artist on board for consultations, open mic performances, MOR from Bwargh von Modnar and a band called Vanity Nights.
Rone helped a lot – pointing out bad recordings of 1920s jazz will not go over well, so we mixed some awesome music. And had plans for almost every section of the building.
And it was about time I brought Bill Mead formally into FLOMM. He’s been boss, confidant, fan and inspiration – I first met him when he wrote an awesome review of the show I did back in 2006.
And he’s been playing with creating random art using HTML – which we were able to premiere on the first 423 microsite. And project live at the first 423 event – and later at 423 RED – it was possible to upload your own images to work with his code.
Just add foto and text via this interface link:
The first 423 actually did well. We had a güd crowd, with only a few blunders – but something did happen: I broke even on the event. Not wat I was used to in all this, even tho it wouldn’t ever happen again.
A couple of friends from High School showed up – one was the Defender champion from the early ’80s that would just put a quarter in and play for hours. Felix Marcelino spent his career in printing technology and was one of the founders of the Illist brand. He helped with take down, and catching up was really cool.
I used to collaborate on comic strips with Robbie Edmonds. And over 30 years later, we’re collaborating again.
Lauren Richardson from Dolls Kill did makeup – and is still conspirator + collaborator on FLOMM today (turns out Dolls Kill’s brand was designed by another former student).
The always brilliant Aaron Winters had a rare poster exhibition AND made a rare collectible print for the event itself.
Next year, the 2017 version was planned and run by students in the advanced design course at University of the Pacific itself.
Gerry O. Simpson’s ART WEAR recycled denim line was on our 423 runway in 2017. Predating the 2019 shows.
And to date, we’ve had five 423 events, each taking on a life of its own in different locations.
Starting in 2018, we colour coded the themes and added [problematic due to technology] live feeds in Europe:
4.23
april 2016 stockton [LINEUP] [RECAP] [FOTOS]
countdown to 4.23
april 2017 stockton [LINEUP] [RECAP] [FOTOS]
423 yellow
april 2018 sacramento [LINEUP] [RECAP] [FOTOS]
salty : 423 red
june 2018 paris + sacramento [LINEUP] [RECAP] [FOTOS]
423 blue
april 2019 sacramento + antwerp [LINEUP] [RECAP] [FOTOS]
“Something our audio guy said to me the other day talking about the show, ‘It sounds like you are planning things out.’ I laughed because this season has taught me more about that; more of what it takes to make a good show, rather than putting one on.”
–Alley Scheffki, creator of FLOMMCAST
flommcast: independent, opinionated
Alley said she wanted to do a Podcast. I asked if she wanted to do a FLOMM podcast and threw out the concept that I would not be involved – because at the time, I was teaching at four schools and most of my time was spent in a car, sitting in traffic, stuck behind giant trucks.
If this was going to happen, I cannot be involved. So this became the first FLOMM project that my hands were not in.
FLOMMCAST premiered 7 May 2017 and jumped with both feet into the local underground art scene, with Alley interviewing artists who would become the local FLOMMISTS, as well as talking about their own projects or watever seemed to fit each episode.
Milk Surface stepped in as a guest host first season was promoted to co-host in season two, because everyone felt the two worked well off each other. And they did.
And as season three was starting, while we were getting our official FLOMM Press Passes laminated (by FLOMMIST Cassidie Wages) so Milk could interview a bunch of people at an event, he brought up that Alley was thinking of quitting and starting her own podcast.
And that’s when I mentioned to Milk – who has previous radio experience –
“Would you be interested in carrying on with something after she’s gone?”
“But FLOMMCAST is her thing.”
Me: “It doesn’t have to be FLOMMCAST, it can be something else. Like, we can actually have a few podcasts. And you’re güd enough to create watever you want to. Hell, you could even eventually teach students how to do their own podcasts.”
He is. Like, his interview with Kainan Becker was one of my favorite episodes.
And FLOMM was growing. Steadily. We ended up with a philosopher and another. Poet and critic, entrepreneur, another poet and another artist, of course amongst others.
Tho it was only a matter of time until some of the artist stuff that doomed Theo van Doesburg would happen here.
And it did, but not on the same scale as he’d experienced.
“In the early [1920s], when Van Doesburg had fallen out with most of his original collaborators, he tried to involve other artists and designers, many of them outside Holland … Some, like the Russian artist and designer El Lissitzky (1890–1941) and the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957), were included more because Van Doesburg admired their work and ideas.”
—Paul Overy, De Stijl, 1991
rise of the narcissists
This started happening in 2016. And I wasn’t ready for it.
Artists don’t get along, like bands don’t get along – and then they break up. And people in relationships don’t get along, they also break up.
And while the original FLOMMISTS have moved on to other projects, I still keep in touch with most of them. Chelsea and I still collaborate today while Kaylah is busy running a duck empire over in Minnesota.
I found myself surrounded by old souls and new souls – and then the Narcissists show’d up. And there were a few of them.
Self-centered. Selfish. Strings attached everywhere.
“Well, I saw wat you were doing here and you kno a lot of important people so I want to be involved. Also, here. (poses) Take my photo.”
—This one Then proceeds to tell me everything I’m doing wrong with FLOMM, constantly
“You know what you need to do here? You just do not understand how it works.”
—gives advice, has no idea wat I’m doing at all
“I told everyone about your podcast.”
Me: “Did you listen to it?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“I hope you are very successful with your endeavor. But you really should get a real job like I have.”
—One miserable narcissist telling me, again, wat to do
“You’ve confused my cat. No one is ever nice to her so now you’ve confused her. I am so pissed off at you.”
—HORRIBLE cat owner
“Oh I still have these fliers you gave me. Do you want them back?”
“Do you know what your problem is?”
—Goes into a really long diatribe about how I’m just not helping THEM enough
I attract narcissists like ice is made from water. They run in my family. So I’m used to them, kind of? And they were showing up all over.
At one point, I came up with a solution: I’d like to take all the narcissists and put them in a room together and let them fight it out.
Whoever walks out alive, we worship. Because we’d only have ONE TO DEAL WITH. (And I got the idea cause one of the Narcissists in my life did actually go into a small room and battle it out with someone empathic who was having issues with them. And guess who won?)
Narcissists should battle narcissists. I mean, it IS fun to watch when it happens cause they usually cancel each other out.
“I did NOT like that person. They were too high on themselves.”
Me: “You mean like you are?”
“I am NOT like them. They’re rude. And you should be happy I’m doing anything at all with your FLOB thing. I’m doing you a BIG FAVOR here.”
I kept finding FLOMMISTS who were doing me BIG FAVORS. I mean, if I want a BIG FAVORS, me personally, can you make my car payment, or pay my insurance, drive my mother to her doctor’s appointment?
“I was your biggest supporter with this crazy project and you’re doing all of it just to promote yourself!”
—from someone who I wasn’t promoting enough
Helping FLOMM helps others, that’s how I see it.
Hard to explain that to a selfish person. And if I asked for a favor in return, I’d get insulted, laughed at, told how useless I am. Whole range of techniques developed over years of collecting their flock.
“You’re one of the weak ones. Because you care.”
—FLOMMIST said this to me, in a moment of clarity
And people who USE other people assume they are the ones also being USED. And we hate when we see ourselves in others.
Do I ask favors when it comes to FLOMM? Yes.
“Mention FLOMM to my followers?? I have companies that pay me to do that. Ha ha ha.”
Do I get fed up and cut off contact with the self-centered? Definitely.
“Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And my advice for dealing with anyone who has it as bad as this person in my life: Hang up the phone. And leave. Never talk to them again, and never look back. You do not exist except to serve them. And they’ll move on to the next mark.”
—Rone
“Decisions terminate panic.”
—Old cookie fortune my wife gave me when we met
Humans freak out when you do their own shit to them. To them I wasn’t promoting them, worshiping them, making them FAMOUS – like, it’s a given, that’s wat I’m supposed to do always – and it became they were lending their name and honor to me and FLOMM.
But FLOMM isn’t me. It was a game, it’s now an art movement. And some of them were even making FUN of me. As the confused old guy in charge who doesn’t kno wat he’s doing.
Gaslighting, like, a lot.
So I made a critical decision that pissed off some FLOMMISTS: I started concentrating on the nice people. Because they’re out there. They’re honest and they’re willing to be part of this group without the horseshit.
Do Narcissists need to put me in my place for having the nerve to walk away from them? Of course. They are in pain, I mean Narcissism comes from something traumatic. And it can lead to the person experiencing it to lash out and make others miserable as well.
Like, I’ve had enough therapy and bad family garbage to see this dynamic as a major part of my life. And I do NOT like it. And starting in 2016, it was happening with FLOMM.
And frankly, it was ruining FLOMM for me.
I had two incidents where I was ready to shut it all down. And one of those incidents led to a FLOMMIST tearing me a nü one for even suggesting I’d ruin THEIR LIFE this way.
Me: “I just want people to Think.”
Jason Malmberg: “Good luck with that.”
speaking of mental health
The constant thread running through FLOMM since day one has been brain health, starting with me trying to find myself after my father’s death – and there was my wife’s odd brain diagnosis, which about 4 other doctors and 6 therapists later, may even be something else entirely.
“Anyone is capable of a complete psychotic break. Anyone.”
—My psych teacher in college, who reminded me of Hannibal Lecter
He also said, “When bullies grow up they become cops.”
—And publishing that quote in our college zine caused a shitstorm
I’ve heard it several times that the brain is an organ, and it can fail like any other organ. This makes a lot of sense as I’m getting older, far beyond that indestructible age where nothing can stop me. My recall is getting slower and today, I walk with a cane. And most of the artists around me, who’ve joined FLOMM are dealing with some major issues – from PTSD to personality disorders – that may be diagnosed or not.
And the peer pressure of “You’re a total freak” and people who’ll throw things at you for being different is still out there. With Mental Health services decimated by budgets and poor access to care. Some are fighting our system to keep our most important organ in check.
“There are no normal people. The normal people are just people who are trying really hard to be something they’re not.”
—Me, after dealing with the ‘normals’ all day
Just kno that everyone has something. Because we’re not perfect. And not only has Self Care become an important phrase, it’s going to be something we have to practice mor and mor as our media-based soundbyte world continues to overwhelm us.
Humans are not built (evolved) for the complexities we have to deal with today. I believe ‘multitasking’ is a myth created by businesses to get you to ‘work smart’ – another one of their terms. We can do a lot, but we need our down time. And it is okay to not be okay.
Despite the promise of The Machine Aesthetic – we are not actually machines.
In the years since 2016, I found a lot of rather gracious FLOMMISTS who I chat with a lot whenever I can, both in Sacramento and Around the World; conversations with Aeylyealle – when he’s in and out of the pysch hospital – are always, ALWAYS interesting. And he doesn’t put his shit on me, and he has a LOT of shit.
Today, our community is filled with awesome people that really do make all of this worth all the effort.
guerrilla’ng the addy® awards
Starting in 2017, I was working on a font based on woodtype used by the DADAists and I wanted to use the beta version on something fun. (It should be available commercially this fall; maybe.)
A bunch of my students were looking for something to do on the side to beef up their portfolios. So I came up with one. A series of ‘DADA Playbill’ fliers – typography only – promoting FLOMM.
And they thought I’d lost my mind. Like, just type?
Where’s the creativity? The colors? The pictures? Well, I did that. Thousands of them, not sure if they ever really worked. Did the kids at Coachella posing with the fliers actually kno wat was on them?
I wanted fliers that people actually might read. Might actually keep. Not something creative, but something DADAist.
I realized this wasn’t a gig for a designer. It was a gig for a really funny writer. And we have a few of them: Bwargh von Modnar stepped in – and we just kept writing and writing, rewriting and writing lines and lines of goofy copy.
We entered the final product in the local Addy Awards – for guerrilla campaign – and apparently lost the award by one vote (FLOMMISTS were volunteering at the event, so I guess I’m not supposed to kno that).
I’m not sure who actually won the guerrilla advertising award in 2018, but we guerrilla’d the Addy’s themselves. FLOMMISTS at the event covered everything with FLOMM fliers, stickers and any propaganda they could.
Like, I didn’t even kno they were doing this. Showed up and was, like, WOWWW.
Like, we are FLOMMISTS! We were not going to lose quietly.
And this was happening mor. At another event, FLOMM was tagged on a wall. And another.
“I was on FLOMMCAST. I showed up at the right time, had a beer and was told to record something. Then I left. That was it.”
—Devon Parks Cloutier, co-creator RADíO FLoMM
radío flomm
2018. Devon (above, left) was back from Philadelphia.
He had an idea for a podcast and he was determined to talk me into doing a nü FLOMM podcast. Which I’d been thinking about, but wasn’t sure wat I was going to do just yet. I knew I was going to invite Milk on board, but that was about it.
So we had a late night dinner at Sammy Hagar’s place in Citrus Heights (one of the few 24 hour restaurants in Sacramento with güd food) and hashed out wat we wanted to do. Over hash, I believe.
My main school was closing at this point and I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. FLOMMCAST ended rather abruptly back in April when Alley quit – with a few episodes that never aired. I was still paying for hosting, so okay. Let’s do this.
“I was kinda hoping FLOMMCAST would have been, like, NPR but with swearing.”
—Bwargh said at one point
Okay. Well, let’s start there.
And I want to mix everything. And do sound collages and 70s style top 40 radio, a bit of Old Time Broadcasting and a WAT THE FLOMM calendar and Devon had a million ideas.
He called it ‘RADíO FLoMM,’ which fed my love of radio that goes wayyy back. I spent a bunch of free time working on a PALAKSTIL-like logo with subtle Morris Code (replicated on air, of course) and went thru about 2 dozen iterations until we had our working radio bolt.
My final students at school became my sounding board and test market for the RADíO FLoMM collateral. They critiqued each iteration until I had something that worked. It’s really cool to have the ones you destroy in critiques return the favor.
It really helped, got me out of my own head. Collaboration is AWESOME.
Then Chelsea Davis was available and she did yet another iteration of the FLOMM theme music. Then she did another iteration of that iteration. I mean, we might just have enough for an album of FIRE remixes at this point.
For the premiere cold open, Cabrina Robinson recorded a spoken word performance of Chelsea’s original FIRE lyrics. And as with everything we do, this was not going to be introduced or explained. (oh shit, I just did)
And like SEPTt EXPÉRIMENTo in 2015, RADíO FLoMM felt right.
Finding our footing, we came up with a way to edit interviews into shorter chunks than most podcasts, and starting exploring a whole bunch of other things.
Milk came over from FLOMMCAST as producer, with Devon. And today, Milk calls the shots and keeps me in line.
Because abruptly, Devon vanished. Like, last thing he said to me was
“Lemme get back to you in a sec.”
And this wasn’t the first time Devon did this, so we made fun of it on air. We made fun of everything on air.
Audrey Daggett (above) was talking to a friend, I heard wat I thot was her accent (tho she said it was a speech defect) and I asked her to record some lines. And Jeni Soto just loves to say stuff. Bout things.
At school, Thomas Fritchi was now teaching the final quarter of the audio course, and he helped with setup, advice and additional talent.
Then we blew up Sacramento in our recreation of Orson Welles’ WAR OF THE WORLDS (1938) on its 80th Anniversary to the date – and we did a few other things: See item 4 in this updated STATES of the FLOMM post.
RADíO FLoMM returns 1 October 2019.
“Being risk-adverse does not an art movement make. It’s that simple. If you cannot take risks you cannot have an art movement. Art, by definition, is an exploration of the beyond. If you cannot explore the beyond you cannot create art, and when your ideology is based on eliminating the beyond you are unequipped to engage. You cannot expect to eliminate the very core (an exploration of the beyond) of art and have an art movement. That is the definition of insanity.”
—Rachel Haywire, FLOMMIST, U.S. Presidential Candidate
And FLOMM is still going, evolving because – as noted, Change is Constant and We are living today in a world that could be so much better.
And BUSINESS PEOPLE will keep fucking things up – like the school I worked at, ruined from the top on down (listen to your employees, maybe they kno their job better than you?) – or there’s the whole Tumblr debacle.
Like, I wonder if the dude who made the decision that ruined tumblr – where we were EFFECTIVELY and discreetly spreading education – put all that on his resume and managed to snag another job where he’ll make another bad decision like that.
Or was his parachute just large enough that he never has to work again?
Eventually THE SUPER RICH will DIE OUT.
And you kno, people THAT OBSESSED with MONEY never have a decent end, do they?
But we’ll still have to fight their followers, who feel cheated by Gay Marriage and Health Insurance. Because that’s wat the adorable, plastic blonde gal – who doesn’t really understand fashion – told them to think.
And the world will continue – with horrible weather, shitty temperatures, poisoned food and, oh, we’ll lose our ability to breathe, and prolly expect Matthew McConaughey to save us from having to eat nothing but GMO corn in a universe inspired by the work of László Moholy-Nagy – but The ThWINGh and his ilk will eventually fade away as future generations – made from evolved cockroaches and tardigrades (who fight each other about totally different issues) – look back and say,
WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING??
This concludes my look back on the last 10 years – regular posts will resume next week. Thanks to Jeanne, Bill, Amanda, Briauna, Milk, Randi + Aeylyeaelle for their edits, help and support. Additional fotos swiped from Danielle Steers, Clair Carr, ZFG and FLOMMISTS at large, of course. Plus, if there’s anyone I may have overlooked in my delirium – pls send me a note, or just bitch at me in the comments below. A few of the posts in this series have been updated as I run across additional fotos and scraps.
· · · back to PART 9
—steve mehallo
Flommist Steve Mehallo is a graphic designer, illustrator, font designer, educator, foodie and gadfly. He is the creator and founder of FLOMM!
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