On the last Sunday of the month starting in March 2010, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Break down of video for this salon by presenter.

• LAVA Visionary Jon Alloway talks about and previews his new documentary Into the Zone – The Story of the Cacophony Society, as recently seen at MOMA as part of the Juxtapoz “All the Wrong Art” show. This hilarious and exciting Dada-documentary follows the evolution of the prankish group from its origins in the San Francisco Suicide Club through the creation of the Burning Man Festival, the irreverent Los Angeles Cacophony Society and beyond. This is the history of a significant American underground cultural movement, featuring astonishing footage never before seen by normal people. The Cacophony Society is a national network of creative provocateurs serving as prototype for Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club.” Throughout the 1990s, the Society’s notorious Los Angeles lodge orchestrated hundreds of darkly absurdist culture-jamming spectacles ranging from the detonation of a pyro-charged 80-foot replica of Disney’s It’s a Small World ride to a Christmas face-off between a two-hundred-strong mob of Santas and a riot squad. The credo of the Cacophony Society is “You May Already be a Member!”

• LAVA Visionary “Reverend” Al Ridenour, the former “Grand Instigator” of the Los Angeles Lodge of the Cacophony Society, will be sharing insights into his years coordinating Cacophonist activities. Al will also be talking about his current project, The Art of Bleeding, a performance collective that gathers together a number of former LA Cacophonists for absurdist medically-themed stage shows and events. The Art of Bleeding produces ego-destabilizing programs on safety and medical education for both live and video presentation. Often staged from an actual ambulance, their performances utilize a perturbing mix of cartoonish costumes, puppets, vintage educational films, animation, and thinly veiled medical fetishism to create a sort of “paramedical funhouse” in which the groping ego may ultimately experience TRUE SAFETY CONSCIOUSNESS.

•From his music-biz research archives, LAVA Visionary Gene Sculatti presents TALES FROM THE FLIPSIDE, a recounting of some of the more colorful and outrageous scams, tricks and stunts used by promotion men to get their records played. Hear some of what it took to land some of your favorite artists on the charts. Featured: the Peter, Paul & Mary riots, the consequences of being the fake Duke of Earl, and the saga of the singing cop Saverio Saridis.
Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com