Minutes of Weekly Meeting of the Conspire Collective

Minutes of Weekly Meeting of the Conspire Collective

I'd like to say that I didn't use real names out of respect, but sadly, as often as I go there I just don't know anybody's name from the Conspire Collective. Besides, if I used real names it would just become even more of a big inside joke.



At 8:15 PM, Trevor Star called to order the week's meeting of the minds of Conspire Collective and asked where members Val, Ernie, & Carlos "The Yucca" Tanner acquired the Nutella they were eating with plastic spoons.

They replied that they bought it from ...the store.

Trevor Star reminded them that they can't keep stealing Nutella from Jobot, it is wrong and they're eventually going to catch on.

Ernie reminded Trevor Star that "Property is theft", which Trevor Star agreed with but suggested that that the quote should not be used to justify actual theft.

Val requested that Trevor Star define "should" and "actual theft".

Former Chairman Mr. Horse addressed Ernie and said that Karl Marx would disagree with him using Proudhon's quote,. He reminded everyone that Karl Marx took it a step further and said that 'theft' as a forcible violation of property presupposes the existence of property in the first place.

Mr. Horse was advised to get the fuck off Wikipedia and pay attention.

Trevor introduced the first order of business: A letter of complaint was received two days prior. A customer entered the building at 8:30 in the morning and nobody was around to help him. In a letter he left sticking out of the cash register, the customer said that he could have done and taken whatever he pleased, but he looked around felt sorry for "whoever runs this dump" and left $20 for the muffin he took. Trevor addressed Val, who is in charge of the morning shift, asking how she plans to prevent this from happening in the future.

Val's first suggested solution is to set all the clocks at Conspire and in her bedroom ahead by twenty minutes in order to trick herself.

Carlos gave a rebuttal, saying that that was her solution last time, and it doesn't seem to be helping. It seems that she just subtracts "20" from whatever time is showing on her clocks, and sometimes she doesn't even have her clock set ahead twenty minutes at all.

Val's second suggested solution is to try setting her clock forty seven minutes ahead of time, that way it is an awkward number so when she looks at the clock to see if she is running late, she won't feel like doing the difficult calculation to figure out what the real time is.

Carlos said that she would probably just round up and subtract "fifty" from whatever time is showing.

Val admitted that was probably what she would do, so she agreed to change all of the clocks in her room and at Conspire to be random increments of time away from the real time.

Gus commented that time is an arbitrary mental construct, and Ernie added that we should always be striving to transcend its confines.

Trevor Star moved on to the next agenda item: upcoming projects and promotions outside of the gallery. Carlos suggested that they hit this new development near the US Airways Center, with all the lights and chain stores and ugly architecture.

Val proposed that they mock the establishment by pushing Slinkies down the excessive stairways to highlight the fact that nobody is interested in the development and it is a failure and a waste of resources.

Carlos moved to initiate a fund drive for the purchase of Slinkies and to design drop boxes for Slinky donations.

Ernie suggested that they not provide the Slinky corporation with free publicity. He proposed that they use an independently produced children’s toy to make their point.

Mr. Horse started searching for local independently produced toys to push down the steps, when Gus pointed out the conflicting symbolism of pushing independently produced toys down the steps as part of a demonstration.

Val refuted that, suggesting that there is an extra layer of symbolism that nobody was considering; symbolism regarding the destructive relationship between the proliferation of large national retail chains and the smaller local businesses.

Carlos and Trevor Star vetoed the suggestion as it would be wasteful and disrespectful to push local independently produced toys down the steps. Several comparisons to Al Gore using a private jet to travel to climate change summits were made.

Ernie suggested they find a bunch of independently produced toys that they don't like, and push those down the steps.

After many disagreements that were stricken from the records about which toys they don't like, they decided to intentionally build toys that they don't like and push them down the stairs.

Mr. Horse brought to everyone's attention that the flights of stairs in the new downtown shopping center aren't long/high enough to accommodate everybody at once. He suggested that they stagger the toy pushing runs into half-hour increments, two pushers at a time making loops up and down the steps with one box at the top full of toys they made that they don’t like and they aren’t done until they fill the box at the bottom, and on their last turn they carry that box up to the top.

Val reminded Mr. Horse that not everybody dislikes the same toys, and that she didn’t want to push any toys that she actually liked down the corporate stairs.

After arbitrating which toys can be used by whom, Trevor Star begun to develop a schedule. The first shift was to start at 11AM and end at 11:30, but Ernie and Gus reminded him that they no longer acknowledge time.

Trevor Star dismissed everyone for a food break while he figured out a solution.

As the food was passed around, Trevor Star explained the plan of action after clicking his pen and repeating "Not a problem, no big deal" several times. Everybody will take turns pushing the toys that they made that they don't like down the steps in line formation, two at a time, until Ernie and Gus decide to take their shifts, whenever and for however long they turn out to be. At that point they will adjust the rest of the schedule accordingly.

Trevor Star then asked Carlos why he bought Burger King double cheeseburgers.

Carlos explained that he read an article about how Burger King started offering the dollar menu double cheeseburger to compete with McDonalds, and that the offer was poorly planned and executed, so BK actually loses money every time someone buys a dollar menu double cheeseburger. So Carlos has been spending every cent he can find on BK double cheeseburgers, and then smearing them all over the windows of SUVs and any store that leaves its lights on at night when they're closed.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:12 PM, just as the nearest Starbucks closed for the night.