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Reverend Billy's Starbucks Invasionby Bill Talen Page 1 | Page 2 Takin' It To The StreetsWe walked to the Cooper Union Starbucks, on 8th Street and 3rd Avenue. We had a special customized action designed just for this place. Several years ago, Cooper Union lawyers (CU is an old art and design college) had persuaded the city to let them lease to Starbucks a bit of property that had been stipulated could only be used for "educational purposes." Once again, privitizing the public commons took place. The lawyers agreed that the Starbucks would be considered "educational" --- how? The lawyers agreed that since Starbucks paid rent money to Cooper Union, an educational institution, activities there could be called "educational," regardless of what anybody did there. It could have been a whorehouse, but it would have been educational if the rent was going to CU. So we devised a mock graduation ceremony, with the robes and square hats and diplomas. We had done this graduation ceremony from "Espresso U" - with "Pomp and Circumstance" accompanying the formalities, four times previously, marching to the cafe from the performance of The Church of Stop Shopping at the nearby Culture Project Theater. On this occasion, though, we were too public. We were hustled out immediately by the police. I preached as I was pushed, and tried to earn my congregation's love. But our plans were definitely abridged. Performing on the slippery stage of transnational private property is more easily done with the "invisible comedy," off the radar. Turn of EventsMeanwhile "invisible comedies" were already in rehearsal at two other coffee shops, the Astor Place Starbucks, the biggest one in Manhattan, and the second floor sippery at Barnes and Noble. I was interviewing Brother Derrick as we entered Astor Place. We were wearing lapel microphones, being recorded for a radio show we are hoping to syndicate. A radio show that takes places inside transnationals. The idea was to have our interview near a roaring bit of invisible comedy, and in this case the play was "Sex in the Bathroom." I DIDN'T KNOW THAT STARBUCKS WAS THE HOTTEST PICKUP PLACE IN TOWN!!!" But once again the police encircled us, and the moment the spat became operatic, the actors were surrounded by the Buckheads in green aprons. It was interesting to be surrounded by uniforms of two kinds; the spectacle of their synchronized enforcement became a vivid drama. The green of the Mermaid and the blue of the killers of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond, working in a kind of choreographed dance. They became the visible comedy, and I have to say, children, you did a good job. We pretended to break up. I took the 6 train down to Bleecker and ran up the east side of Broadway to sneak into Barnes and Noble the back way, but plainclothes cops were with us the whole way. When we got there they said, "Billy there ain't any episode of Law and Order that don't feature that move, for chrissake. What are we, chopped liver? You insultin' us." The play at the cafe in the anchor store of so many malls across the country, Barnes and Noble, was "The Neo-Liberal and the Happy Fetus." The actors in this case, Ben and Sara, really did a great job. Quite a nice gradual rise to a stand-up opera of an argument. It's a great moment when Sara belted out I AM THE MERMAID AND I WANT MY NIPPLES BACK!!! The ZoneThis was the one that worked best. The actors were clearly in the zone. Shamanism amidst the tchotchkes. We were all smiling -- so proud of them. They had broken through. Then, at the right moment in the script, I walked up to them and tried to pastor to them, like a kind of public couples counseling. Our audience was all turned in their chairs now. But I was having trouble giving pastoral care. The neo-liberal boyfriend kept shouting, "We need more Starbucks; one on every corner, one in every home, one in every mind!! Give the shareholders their value!!! Expand!!! Expand!!" while, of course, his girlfriend was losing the frappuccino habit before his astonished eyes. Then all of us, the radio people and anyone who laughed and applauded too much-- we were all ushered to the streets by the Barnes and Noble security. That bookstore must have as big a private police force as Disney. Rev Billy's Timing ProductIn our follow-up e-mail salon, we decided that the persona of the Reverend cannot enter a store surrounded by cops and expect to not become the dominating narrative. This is interesting -- a good lesson for us, because subverting the dominant narrative is the idea, and I'd become one. So we are learning that people having an experience together must be framed and cared for. Reverend Billy with bad timing can resemble just another product. The irony isn't lost on me, that's for sure. I'm humbled before the God of Stop Shopping. In a Town Near YouBut also, the participants in the plays in the three Starbucks were excited to try it again. In Washington on April 20, and back in New York in May. We're planning to march down Broadway, from Columbas Circle to Times Square, hitting each of the 10 Starbucks. Inside each coffeeshop a play will be raging. Ten Starbucks, Ten Comedies. Leave a trail of flyers with information about what the fastest-growing brand name in the world is doing to us.
The Oprah hordes say "Follow your Bliss." We say "Follow your Embarrassment." Learn to be a fool. The transnational planners have no idea what to do with the politicized Fool. That is something they all have in common, they are humorless. They know that our humor is their market. When the Starbucks scouts enter a neighborhood they cock their ear to the wind to listen for our laughter. That's where they try to set up shop. But our laughter will escape them and return to sour their milk and re-nipple the Mermaid in the window. Will someone say "FREE THE MERMAID!!. Amen" Page 1 | Page 2 |
