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On Friday 3pm we drove down Highway 5 to Los Angeles for the Survival
Research Laboratories show in front of Dangerous Curve Gallery. The
event was curated by Susan Joyce, who is also trying to organize a
New York SRL show in May--go to www.srl.org for updates on this.
We've heard that it's possible to do the drive in five hours, but we
didn't arrive at our friend Gary's house in Fountain Valley until
12:30 a.m. Well, we stopped for a meal at the Red Robin that seemed
to take an hour. And at 10:03 pm in Valencia right by Magic Mountain,
the freeway turned into a Friday night parking lot...
At the SRL show, we met an old friend, Kent Beyda, who worked on
Search & Destroy magazine circa 1977-79, and he remarked, "In Los
Angeles, every time you get into your car, it seems to take at least
an hour to get anywhere." To us this seems just insane. Of course, we
live in North Beach, San Francisco, where seemingly everything needed
for survival is within literally a three block walk, thanks to
Chinatown.
Because of the endless driving syndrome considered "normal" (not
psychotic) in Los Angeles, and because everything seems to take
longer in a stranger/warmer urban sprawl, we didn't arrive at the SRL
show location until almost 6pm--three hours later than our original
goal of 3pm. We were told this was near "downtown" L.A., and except
for a few shopping cart homeless folk, the neighborhood seemed oddly
deserted. As we first caught sight of the location, we noticed a
great "art car" parked by the road and knew we were where we should
be. Immediately the setting itself seemed pleasing -- the warehouses
on both sides literally "curved" along a full city block -- a welcome
relief from the usual rectilinear urban situation.
A huge "vintage" mahogany Trojan Horse looking like something left
over from the curvaceous Art Deco 20s era stood on wheels, and large
blow-ups of damaged or deranged soldiers leaned against the walls. (I
couldn't believe it when the Trojan Horse was later reduced to a pile
of cinders; it seemed like a genuine "antique"--it must have taken a
lot of craftsmanship to make it--and it seemed kind of, well, "cute."
Maybe it was a survivor from D.W. Griffith's "Intolerance" or another
silent sword-and-sandal movie. Oh well--as the Weirdos once put it,
"In this world, nothing lasts! It's got to Blow Up! Blow Up!") There
was a sort-of merry-go-round with four sheep-like creatures attached
(bleeding from their posteriors), and about eight "sneaky" soldiers
were being prepared to do battle. Other larger veteran SRL menacing
machines were scattered throughout, on the pavement. A very intricate
flame-producing setup (?) was at one end of the street. One warehouse
wall was covered with old mattresses to receive the beneficence of
the Pitching Machine ...
Dangerous Curve Gallery is described as "a new downtown Los Angeles
experimental exhibition and performance space located in the Arts
District on Fourth Place between Molino and Mateo Streets. We are
open Wednesday through Saturday 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Street parking is
plentiful." (www.dangerouscurve.org) Allegedly this will be the next
Yuppie loft neighborhood... On Saturday night it definitely still
felt abandoned; block after block of large dark warehouses and empty
streets can do that. Far in the background was a lit-up, high-rise,
city-looking landscape (the "real" downtown) under a huge expanse of
sky. This being Southern California, the temperature was
balmy--T-shirt weather.
The show was scheduled to begin at 8:30 but it probably didn't start
until around 9pm. Amazingly, just enough people showed up--probably
about a thousand total. The two viewing areas were at either end of
the closed-off street, and if more people had appeared things could
have turned "bad"--simply because there was no more viewing area.
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Then the show began somewhat unannounced, in fits and starts,
bringing the war in Iraq to Los Angeles, with unbelievably intense
sounds, explosions, lights, shockwave-cannon bowel-rearranging
blasts, etc. Every time an SRL show happens, it seems unbelievable,
just because no other show on earth provides such pure intense
sensation... And you can tell it is not perfectly orchestrated;
there's a randomness and slightly chaotic edge; things don't feel
100% under control, even though historically the 47 or so SRL shows
have had an admirably "safe" track record in terms of actual audience
casualties recorded (close to the zero mark). Nevertheless, one
constantly feels ready to duck, just in case that 2x4' piece of
lumber goes the wrong direction, or ...
One reason every single SRL show is worth attending is because an SRL
show provides a physically-measurable, pushing-the-limits, sheer
intensity of experience in two major sensory areas: sound and smell.
You can't experience this anywhere else, to our knowledge. The
frequent explosions must surely go off the dial of any db
meter--earplugs are 100% necessary. (And, earplugs are given away
free at every SRL show.) We were fortunate enough to see the show
from one of the warehouse roofs, and several times thousands of
sparks (from the rail gun, wielded by Karen Marcelo) narrowly missed
us, caroming off the wall of the higher building a few feet to our
left. We were told they were "harmless," but they certainly don't
**look** harmless as thousands of bright lights head directly your
way...
At two points we were so engulfed with huge swirling volumes of white
smoke (thanks, Kimric!) that we had to run away in the opposite
direction, just to be assured of finally breathing some fresh air.
The smoke was acrid and toxic-smelling and one almost had a moment of
panic (similar to when holding one's breath underwater), but then the
smoke seemed to disperse upward quickly. Take our word for it--you
did NOT want to breathe in deeply that smoke twice in a row...
So, ultimately, the **entire body** seemed potentially at risk...and
there's nothing like a **genuine** physical threat to paradoxically
create a genuinely pleasurable exhilaration when the threat has
passed -- a kind of **survival euphoria.** This glandularly-felt
experience gifts us with a much-needed counterpoint to the
suffocatingly **virtual** media-immersive universe we now seem to
inhabit 24/7...where everything is symbolic, electronic, digital
waveform-generated, and nothing is "analog" anymore...all our
experience is coming in the form of sampled digital bits. And
everything is too perfect, bright and shiny now, especially on TV.
One antidote is an SRL world where everything looks old, weathered,
distressed, rusting, recycled, mottled--anything but "modernist,"
brand-new and "slick."
A final word to thank Susan Joyce for navigating the bureaucratic
jungle to get the requisite permits, food and shelter arranging for
forty-plus people, and 1001 other details that made the SRL L.A.
4/2/05 show happen--seemingly without a hitch. And Cathy/Tim of
Dangerous Curve (possibly the most cutting-edge gallery in L.A.) for
hosting the physical location, the crew itself, etc, with hospitality
and humor. And the firemen (and the motorcycle cops too) who showed
up and didn't shut everything down, but instead listened to the Voice
of Reason. And lastly, all the mechanical-ability-gifted eccentric
individuals who did real work as part of the SRL crew, including
founder Mark Pauline...
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