<nettime> Pastry Action Roundup

[Biotic Baking Brigade <bbb@bioticbakingbrigade.org>]

The Daily Mail
Pie ruins Clarkson's top gear
September 12th, 2005
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=362135&in_page_id=1773

Sunday Times columnist Jeremy Clarkson's big day ended in tears this morning after
a protester hit him in the face with a custard pie at a degree ceremony.

The outspoken motoring writer of the year was at Oxford Brookes University to
collect an honorary degree in recognition of his "passion for engineering",
highlighted by his championing Isambard Brunel in the Great Britons BBC television
series.

But the decision has proved to be controversial, and protesters, including members
of Oxford's Green Party, assembled outside the presentation dressed in Clarkson's
trademark tight jeans and wigs.

Despite stringent security cordons and a massive police presence that outnumbered
the handful of protesters waving banners that read On Yer Bike Clarkson at the
gates, a woman managed to gain access to a media call after the degree ceremony.

She dashed out in front of the television cameras and, as Mr Clarkson posed in his
cap and gown, removed what appeared to be a custard pie from a wrapped-up
newspaper and hit him full in the face.

The startled presenter maintained his cool, quipped "good shot" and posed for a
few more pictures before beating his retreat.

Mr Clarkson has been criticised for engaging in stunts such as driving a 4x4
through an environmentally-sensitive peat bog in Scotland and inciting people to
break the law by hiding mobile phone use while driving.

Speaking shortly before the assault, he defended his record on environmental
issues, saying: "I do have a disregard for the environment. I think the world can
look after itself and we should enjoy it as best we can."

But while protesters outside denied any involvement in the prank, they said Mr
Clarkson was a "dangerous buffoon" who did not deserve any recognition.

Local councillor Elise Benjamin said: "We keep hearing about the damage caused by
yob culture and yet he is a yob culture advocate."

Protester Denise Lock said Mr Clarkson "makes a living out of offending people".

"While other universities are rewarding the likes of Nelson Mandela, Brookes is
rolling out the carpet for a dangerous buffoon."

Nearly 3,000 people have signed an online petition against Clarkson receiving the
honorary degree.

Editor's Note: great photos at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/09/323233.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/09/323121.html http://www.arbib.org/clarkpie/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Warsaw, Poland: Anarchist Action Against Homophobia and Repression
June 12, 2005

Activists from the Anarchist Federation Praga (Warsaw) pied the Vice President,
Andrzej Urbanski, in response to the city's homophobic actions and statements and
banning of the gay pride parade for the second year in a row.

The President of the city, Lech Kaczynski, is a raging homophobe who openly says
that we will not promote homosexualism and such sick social deviance by allowing a
gay march to take place in Warsaw. Officially, he tries to find many pretexts not
to allow these marches which had, before his reign, taken place in this city
without incident. Last year he banned the gay parade and was pied with a nice
vegan berry creation upon which he started yelling about faggots and threatening
our friends. He pretended to even by hurt by the pieing, wore a neck brace for a
few days and took off of work.

This year, Kaczynski started up again. At one point, he started to get in a little
trouble, which he doesn't really need being he's the forerunner presidential
candidate. So he sent in his vice-president to take over and make up some more
pretexts for not allowing the parade. In amazing streams of creativity, he even
came up with the pretexts that parades cannot be held unless the organizers pay
the city money to reroute all the buses. When a lesbian activist from Lambda
pointed out that other protests didn't pay this fee, the vice-president called her
a liar. In a few interviews and TV, Urbanski spun homophobia and bullshit and
pissed people off.

The organizers of the gay parade decided not to obey the ban and about 2500 people
showed up, despite heavy counterprotests. There was some violence organized by the
youth branch of League of Polish Families who even paid for hooligans to come to
Warsaw from Krakow. Lots of eggs flew, there were some small scuffles and,
unfortunately, two women were hospitalized when fascists threw bricks into the
crowd.

In all, about 20 applications for counter-demonstrations were made and the city
legalized a few. The Law and Justice (Guilianiist) Party (Kaczynski's) wanted to
make one too but officially stated that they were too afraid of anarchists and
leftists to go out in public.

At the end of the march, a very strange thing happened; the head of the security
services and the vice president appeared and stood in the middle of a small group
of anarchists. Most people didn't recognize them but a few did. The pie action,
which was totally unplanned, happened in an amazing way. One person actually went
up to the vice president, asked him if he'd be standing there long and then in
that case they were going to get a pie and pie him. (It was totally surreal
because even if the vice president couldn't recognize the anarchists, the security
chief knows everybody.) I suppose that the anarchists probably couldn't even
believe that they'd return after finding the cake to find the guy still standing
there, but there he was, so he got pied with a cream pie. The second pastry, a
large doughnut, never made its target as the anti-terrorists woke up and two
people were arrested.

In an statement made to the press, the anarchists call on pie-throwers of the
world to great Kaczynski and his people whereever they might go with such sweet
success.

We also are happy that friends held solidarity demos with the gay parade at Polish
embassies in different countries.

Homophobia, discrimination and repression - your days are numbered!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May 2005, England

A cheeky campaigner posing as a journalist, managed to smear carrot and orange
cake all over Alistair Darling's face on Tuesday in the latest pie-ing incident.
The UK's Transport Minister was at a launch meeting of the "Future Heathrow"
group, a powerful alliance "who seek to convince people that it is possible to
develop Heathrow in a way that allows it to retain its premier position and in a
manner that is sensitive to environmental issues and the needs of the local
population." How do they do this?  Well by building more runways, destroying local
villages, increasing traffic, and helping to cause climate change by encouraging
more air travel of course!

The mainly elderly residents demonstrating outside the conference were delighted
by the action. John Stewart, chair of HACAN ClearSkies, one of the groups
organising the demonstration outside, said "This was one in the eye for Alistair
Darling. It is quite inappropriate that any Secretary of State should so publicly
align himself with any pressure group. It really calls into question his
impartiality and his judgement." SchNEWS reckons the Darling of the climate change
industries got his just desserts.

Check out www.hacan.org.uk for more info.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We received the following dispatch, but have no further news:

"aloha BBB, i recently made an organic vanilla cream pie and i had to pie a
popular local comedian/dj who unfortunately recently became a military recruiter
with very offensive radio ads directed at high school kids.  direct action does
bring satisfaction but i was on my own, moments before his sold out show began. he
didn't handle it gracefully. sorry no pix but i think it's getting into the local
press. i will call him on his jingoism if he's pressing charges."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why throwing a pie at someone who deserves it is one of the most
celebrated traditions in our so-called culture.

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Gersh Kuntzman
Newsweek

April 18 - The schedule of lecturers on college campuses around the country has
begun reading like the police blotter: Conservative author Ann Coulter?hit by a
pie tossed by two attackers last year. Conservative editor William Kristol?hit by
an ice cream pie at a Quaker college in Indiana in March. Really conservative guy
Pat Buchanan hit by salad dressing two days later. Liberal-turned-conservative
author David Horowitz?hit by a chocolate cream pie a few days after that.

It?s disgusting, isn?t it? The salad dressing, I mean. Everyone knows that salad
dressing is simply not an effective medium for expressing dissent. But pie on the
other hand?

The last few days have seen the predictable lament that the pie-throwers represent
the worst thing about democracy?people so inarticulate that the only way they can
counter such toxic thinkers as Coulter is to seize the moral low ground by trying
to curtail their free speech.

That is far too simple an argument. Throwing a pie at someone who deserves it is
one of the most celebrated traditions in our so-called culture. History tells us
that the ancient Egyptians invented the pie?a mix of honey and nuts in a pastry
filling. Still, there is no recorded case of an ancient Egyptian throwing one at
another ancient Egyptian (although you?re not going to tell me that Rameses didn?t
deserve it!).

As such, the tradition lay dormant for millennia?until it became institutionalized
in the great slapstick films of the silent film era. Mack Sennett may have started
it, but the art reached its apotheosis in Laurel & Hardy?s 1927 short film,
"Battle of the Century." Four thousand pies were harmed in the making of that
movie. Encouraged by Laurel & Hardy?s success, pie-throwing remained a mainstay of
slapstick through the Marx Brothers, Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis and Soupy Sales
eras, and even survived being overused by TV sit-com legend Garry Marshall. "It?s
the essence of slapstick?the guy who needs to have his dignity deflated gets hit
with a pie," said Tom Raymond, also known as "Rainbow," a clown from Central
Wisconsin ("I?m no expert. I?m just a clown").


Like many forms of artistic expression, it was appropriated for political theater.
Levitating the Pentagon is all well and good, but in the 1970s, nothing beat
pie-ing a politician. And no single person was better than Aron Kay, a.k.a. The
Pieman.

He?s retired now, but Kay is still proud that he left former Democratic Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ex-CIA chief William Colby, conservative den mother
Phyllis Schlafly, liberal California Gov. Jerry Brown and so many others with egg
(and cream and fruit filling) all over their face.

Kay always took great pride in matching pie to recipient. Moynihan?s comments
about the black family earned him a mocha cream pie. New York mayor Abe Beame got
an apple crumb because "he was a crumb in the Big Apple." Homophobe Anita Bryant
got a fruit pie. Colby got a Bavarian cream pie (to link him, at least in pie, to
Hitler?s old stomping grounds).

"My mother was a painter and I believed in using the face as a palette," said Kay,
who was actively pie-ing from 1976-80. He?s had many imitators, including People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (whose activists throw drippy tofu cream
pies), Noel Godin, Belgium?s homegrown pie-man (he famously creamed Bill Gates in
1998), and a group called the Bionic Baking Brigade, whose agents achieved their
greatest fame that same year by hitting San Francisco mayor Willie Brown with a
three-pie, fruit-filled fusillade. They also pied economist Milton Friedman. I
called Soupy Sales, who has received an estimated 20,000 pies in his career, and
was surprised to hear that a man who spent his whole life honing this slapstick
routine did not object to this overt politicization of the pie.

"It?s OK as long as you?re hitting someone who deserves it," Sales said. "Nixon
would have been perfect. As long as it?s funny, it can be political."

Kay agreed: "Pieing is an essential tool for deflating the pomposity of these
politicians and commentators. I considered myself a defender of justice. But
believe me, I still have a list of people who need to be pied."

Horowitz, predictably, disagreed. "These attacks are sinister," he told me. "The
person who throws a pie is saying, ?I hate you. I don?t want you to speak.? A
university is where students are supposed to hear opinions on all sides." Horowitz
saw the recent pie-ings as just a symptom of a larger decline of academia, which
once stood for vigorous debate. "Larry Summers at Harvard raised an interesting
issue [about women?s scientific aptitude] at a meeting and the feminists stormed
out! They might have well have thrown a pie in his face. Now, instead of having a
debate, we have Summers, who is a respected thinker, apologizing and
backtracking."

Horowitz used an old World War II clich? to describe his pie-ing: "I never saw it
coming," he said. "And it took away my dignity. When you?re lecturing, you?re
supposed to have an authority. But a pie turns it into a food fight."

Horowitz said he encourages debate during his question-and-answer session?within
reason, however. "I like to discuss the issues, but there was this kid at a
different school recently who got up to ask a question and then read a long
statement. I interrupted him and said, ?Look, you?re young. You?re making the same
argument I made when I was your age. You have a golden opportunity to learn
something here, but your mind is completely closed.?" (Amazingly, no one threw a
pie at Horowitz afterward.)

Clearly, throwing a pie at a lecturer is anathema to serious debate. But what?s
worse is the quality of pie-throwing today. Coulter was barely grazed. A PETA
pie-hurler a few years ago hit Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman in the back (the
back!). Horowitz had more pie on his shirt than on his face. Perhaps, the pie
itself is the culprit.

Apparently, I was onto something here. During the last great wave of pie-ings in
the late 1990s, a British pie company, Tesco, actually tested all its varieties
for aerodynamics, crust dispersion and creamability. For best results, the company
recommended egg custard, lemon meringue and anything with a fruit filling. "All
our pies fly extremely well," company spokeswoman Melodie Schuster proudly told
The Wall Street Journal. "When they land on someone, they make a nice, clean
mess."

I still needed to conduct further research. As such, I called up well-known author
and lecturer David Shenk ("The Forgetting," "Data Smog," and a forthcoming history
of chess). I?ve always felt that Shenk?s prolificacy and back-cover blurbs from
guys like Dan Rather have made him long overdue for a pie to the face, so I was
happy he participated in this vital journalistic endeavor.

Encouraging the NEWSWEEK expense budget to demonstrate new elasticity, we bought
six tarts, including lemon meringue, strawberry shortcake, Boston cream, chocolate
cream, and a cheese cake.

First, I recalled Raymond?s advice: "Remember, it?s splat, don?t slam," he said.
"If you push too hard, you?ll break someone?s nose." And that?s when you go from
political expression to assault and battery (and the guys at Rikers treat
pie-throwers the way they treat child molesters). And then we began. Just as the
good people of Tesco suggested, Shenk had great success hitting me with the
strawberry shortcake, the gooey red filling covering my face with a thick ooze
that left me looking clown-like. Fortunately, I retaliated, readying a lemon
meringue with Shenk?s name on it. The guy who dressed Buchanan yelled, "Stop the
bigotry!" so I screamed, "How much money are you getting for this lecture, Mr.
Shenk?" and promptly slammed the pie into his kisser. The gooey filling was so
thick that I was able to push the pie tin into Shenk?s face a second and third
time?an important consideration for campus pie-throwers, given how lax most
security guards are.

Later, when I hit Shenk with the Boston Cream, we were both excited by the
results. As the thrower, I was happy that the molten chocolate icing covered
Shenk?s face like Al Jolson?s makeup in "The Jazz Singer." But Shenk was also
happy. "The feeling of being covered in warm chocolate is great. It?s not
humiliating at all." (He was so effusive, in fact, that I would not be surprised
if Shenk?s next book was called "Cover Me With Warm Molten Chocolate: A Memoir").

When we compared notes, Shenk felt no humiliation. "In fact, being hit by a pie is
liberating," he said. "Before the pie, a lecturer like myself is being judged?by
the audience, by himself. Everyone is wondering ?Who is this guy? Who died and
made him an authority on anything.? But once the pie hits, suddenly, there?s this
swelling of support for the speaker. The pie breaks the tension." (even Horowitz
admitted that "after the pie, I probably did have some of the crowd?s sympathy.")

For my part, I learned an even more valuable lesson: If you?re going to be
conservative and lecture on a college campus, bring a change of clothes.


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"Never doubt that a small and dedicated group of people with pies can change the
world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

-Margaret Mead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Look for "Pie Any Means Necessary: The BBB Cookbook" in fine (and not so fine)
bookstores, cafes, bunkers, caves, and police station lockups everywhere. Or order
it straight from the publisher, AK Press, via http://www.akpress.org

"The Pie's the Limit," a delicious documentary produced by the Whispered Media
video collective, features a cornucopia of political pie-throwings in San
Francisco and beyond; a brief history of consumable comedy; behind the scenes
interviews with real underground pie tossers; corporate media analysis, and
in-your-face politics. Watch in delight as a half dozen demagogues are served up
their just deserts! Order it via http://www.whisperedmedia.org/piepage.html

~~~~~~~~~~

The Biotic Baking Brigade.....coming soon to a pie-o-region near you.

bbb@bioticbakingbrigade.org 
www.bioticbakingbrigade.org

Friends of the BBB: c/o POB 40130, San Francisco, CA 94140, Amerika

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