Emerson Takes a Walk: Self Reliance 2012
June 2 in Chicago, July 4 in Saugatuck, Late September in Brooklyn
RAPID PULSE FESTIVAL CHICAGO JUNE 2 AT 4PM (festival site)
RALPH WALDO EMERSON: …this new molecular philosophy goes to show that there are astronomical interspaces betwixt atom and atom; that the world is all out side: it has no inside.
WILLARD SCOTT: Here’s Doris McCall from Cedarsburg, Iowa. She’s 100 years young today, and boy doesn’t she look pretty.
EMERSON'S FINAL THREE WALKS. After Europe, we're back lecturing/walking in the USA. Once more for Chicago in early June. Oxbow (Saugatuck, Michigan) in July. September at Regina/Rex (Brooklyn). Join for lecture. Walk across the city, walk through the forest, walk to a bar. Sylvester and the war dead will accompany.
Walked, written and lectured by Michael Thomas.
"American Buddha - NOT ABOUT YOU*"
October 13, 2011 - Chicago
Let's talk about the similarities between active and passive nihilism - between yoga and terrorism. And then comes the list of references - pop culture, political and theoretical that must accompany any new Lucky Pierre performance. (Beyonce, racism, Adorno - or how about Truffaut, homophobia in hip-hop, Judith Butler?) This will be another lecture so Michael doesn't have to memorize anything.
"There are eight “quick-text” suggestions for the messaging program on my HTC EVO 4G Smartphone for the Sprint 4G Network. Sprint sez: “When you’re in a hurry, just scroll down to the message of your choice and hit enter.” The eight messages:
1. Where are you?
2. What are you up to?
3. Let’s catch up soon.
4. Just checking in…
5. I’m running late.
6. I’ll get back to you.
7. I’ll be right there.
8. Urgent! Please reply…"
And then there's this: "I bought a squirrel costume from the Chinese."
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE! Especially you.*
(*please note that this lecture is not about you.)
What We Don't Talk About
(a continuous 12-hour conversation/ presentation about the Afghan war) November 5, 2011, Chicago
October 10, 2011 marked the 10th year of the war in Afghanistan. October 13, 2011 was Michael's 50th. The US/NATO coalition has been conducting
operations in Afghanistan for 20% of his life. During that that time he has been happy, healthy, prosperous and productive. In that time he has been asked to make no sacrifice for the war. He seldom converses about the war. He goes for days or weeks without thinking of the war. He really knows very little about the war. To mark his half century he learned about the war. His friends taught him and learned with him.
On October 13, Michael spent his birthday with Mary Zerkel. Through readings, discussions and screenings, Mary helped him begin to understand the war.
On November 5 at the Lucky Pierre studio 24 guest presenters, having researched an Afghan war-related topic of their choosing gave a presentation of their findings.
(developed and organized by: Mary Zerkel, Michael Thomas, Bill Talsma, Holly Abney, Jeff Kowalkowski, Matthew Nicholas, Kevin Kaempf)
past projects:
Final Meals (ongoing)
Final Meals is an ongoing video installation of volunteers eating meals requested by Texas death row inmates. The piece is based on the Texas 
Department of Criminal Justice website, listing the last meal requested by each prisoner executed by the state since December 1982. Lucky Pierre prepares each requested meal and then videotapes a volunteer eating the meal.
The piece has been in progress since 2003, to date we have completed 145 of the 378 presently listed meals.
The project starts with meal number 1: T-bone steak, French fries, catsup, Worcestershire sauce, rolls, peach cobbler, and iced tea.
This is Meal Number 113 - April 16, 1997: Bowl of butterbeans, mashed potatoes, onions, tomatoes, biscuits, chocolate cake and Dr. Pepper with ice.
This is Meal Number 237 - December 5, 2000: 2 grilled cheese sandwiches, French fries, ketchup
This is Meal Number 53, May 4, 1993: Steak, baked potato, garden salad, tea. Hard boiled eggs, 2 cinnamon rolls with icing, 2 cans of grape juice with coffee.
This is Meal Number 248. June 26, 2001. One coconut, kiwi fruit juice, pineapple juice, one mango, grapes, lettuce, cottage cheese, peaches, one banana, one delicious apple, chef salad without meat and thousand island dressing, fruit salad, cheese, tomato slices - and one Chocolate birthday cake with seven pink candles and the date 2/23/90 written on top.
This is Meal Number 62. God’s saving grace, love, truth, peace and freedom.
This is Meal Number 209 Justice, Equality, World Peace.
Rock and Roll: Impatience
Interviewer: Mr. Bon Scott. What did you do after you died?
Ghost 1: I became a single PowerPoint slide in a presentation at the Boeing Company. It was called “Vision 2007: Global Corporate Citizenship.”
Ghost 2: I became nature.
Ghost 3: Fuck rock and roll.
2008 was a raucous beer-fueled sold out run (not really sold out, but certainly beer-fueled) at The Hideout Bar Chicago. "Watch as Lucky Pierre resurrects long-dead AC/DC front man Bon Scott. (he choked on his own vomit after a night of drinking) Listen as they sing the categories of clip-art from the Microsoft Office PowerPoint software. There are ghosts and guitar solos and choking. There’s Boeing Company's Chicago arts funding and its ties to illegal rendition flights and torture of suspected terrorists. It’s "[t]he kind of beguiling, enigmatic piece that has made them Chicago's most entertaining performance art troupe." Chicago Reader, Critic's Choice"
Mary: When I think about you this is what I think about. I am passed out in the backseat of a car after a night of drinking and I am preparing to choke on my own vomit or maybe - there it goes – and there – did you see that? I’m choking on my own vomit right now, like this and this and this is my final message supertitle “How many times are they going to kill me before they get bored? Lucky Pierre that is. Ouch. And when people die in cultural product, grand thoughts seldom make an audience sad, groceries, porches, t-shirts, tyvek – accumulation becoming verse. Ouch. But you in the backseat. Point are conjuring up the Microsoft office suite of software. Rock and roll rock and roll Entourage, Word, and Excel 10 for Mac. Sadness flashes across your brow east to west east to west, moving like everything east to west. Click here a graphic arrow points to a diagrammatic horizon line. And Microsoft PowerPoint of course the industry standard software for business presentations. Chest tightens now, gasp. You think a clip art highway, a clip art nature, a clipart glass of clipart water, a clip art middle age, a clip art mid-career, a clipart middle America.
All: Hips like this. Feet like this. Mouth like this. Hips like this. Feet like this. Mouth like this. You think I have become a clip art table full of multi ethnic businessmen pointing and saying this. This. This. This. Etc.
We were beguiling. We were enigmatic. We were entertaining. We died in the war. (created and performed by Mary Zerkel, Jeffery Kowalkowski, Tyler Myers, Karen Christopher and Michael Thomas. Direction: Michael Thomas)
How To Manage Fear
(2002 – 2004) How to Manage Fear is a performance recreation of a car chase from the Steve McQueen film Bullitt, read through Milton's Paradise Lost and the dancing Backstreet Boys.
"This is a picture of you similing and pointing at your watch and your eyes are closed."
"This a video about these two guys I don't know."
"
This is a picture of us chasing Steve McQueen. I've been carrying a photograph of him and I know his face by heart."
"This that picture where we drove to the ocean and you started to cry. Look at you - all thin like a lost animal, like an idea. You're kind of beautiful there."
"This is a picture of you punching that guy in the face just to feel the pleasure of shifting bone at 15303 Ventura Bolevard, 9th floor, Sherman Oaks, California."
"This is apicture of me satisfied, but conflicted by that satisfaction - like in the erotic life. I really like that shirt I have on."
"This is a picture of us right before that big error in what - judgment? Remember? Where we're forced off the highway and we crash into that gas tank and it explodes and we're trapped upside down in the car and the car is burning and the horn is stuck and the sound of the horn fades into the next scene. Remember that? Hey. Sport. Remember that?"
How to Manage Fear has been performed at the Eurokaz International Theatre Festival in Zagreb, Croatia; the Kana Nahk Festival in Rakvere Estonia; the Belluard Bollwerk International in Fribourg Switzerland; the Performance Studies International Conference in New York; and the PAC/edge Festival in Chicago.
Automobile accelerates quickly then brakes into 180 degree skid.
(Created and performed by: Holly Abney, Jeff Kowalkowski, Tyler Myers, Bill Talsma, Michael Thomas, Mary Zerkel. Music: Jeff Kowalkowski. Choreography: Tyler Myers. Direction: Michael Thomas)