From Mark Pauline:
Oops! I almost missed it! Last week was the 45th anniversary of the founding of SRL. That was the week that the full page ad I created for Survival Research Labs in Boulevards Magazine came out.
Thanks to financial support from a couple of generous Bay Area benefactors in the tech world, we’ve been able to build some wild new machines, and refurbish many of the older SRL machines over the last 2 years. What we have not been able to do is acquire outdoor SRL performance locations in the San Francisco or the greater bay area.
Believe me we’ve tried hard, but without the usual Art Institutions who have provided a beard/locations etc. for us in the past, our proposals have been met with resounding NO’s.
San Francisco in particular was once a place where you really only heard the word YES when you would ask if you could do something wild. That to me is the mark of a great city and the initial reason I came to spend so many years in SF.
SRL was able to thrive in SF because for decades largely because every crazy thing I asked to do, using school playgrounds for show sites, indoor SRL shows in Kezar Pavilion, Pier 70 and the FT Mason Piers, SF MOMA groundbreaking ceremonies with the V1 in attendance, and so many more outrageous examples, was almost always met with a “sure, why not” response by the authorities in charge.
I can’t count the many times Ive heard that SRL was one of the reasons a person moved to the SF area. The usual rationale is that if we could get away with doing these things in public, just about anything was possible.
At a time when cities across the Bay Area are fending off claims of “doom loops” or worse, we at SRL are ready to provide the same extreme services that helped to draw hundreds of creative weirdo’s from across the country to the San Francisco Bay area.
Basically our formula for success is simple and unchanged, point us to a great location, and get out of the way.
Towards that end, I invite all concerned citizens, local or not, to write an email (or two) to the Mayors office in SF and let them know that there is a third way SF can return to a leadership position in worldwide weirdodom. Regular city-sanctioned SRL shows. What a fantastic first step towards a revitalized San Francisco!
We at SRL will be only too glad to play a role!
YT MPauline
PS: Also, If you’re simply someone with a lot of political pull or $ who’s fed up with the kind of events available to you in SF these days, we welcome you to push your weight around for the benefit of SRL shows in SF or perhaps even at your corporate HQ in the city….
