Ok, St. Mae here. I do a lot of large-scale pranking, though I haven't been all that active for a while for some personal reasons. Anyways, the VD event is something I've been doing for years, this year to be the fifth annual. I also do a lot of pranking and events with the San Francisco Cacophony Society, the local chapter of drunken miscreants that sort of got me into pranking to begin wtih, when I was seventeen. There is a fairly active SF-caco email list for planning events and spur of the moment stuff, so this year there has been some discussion of my VD event. People have a few darker events in mind like dressing like Cupid and passing out divorce lawyer business cards or fake gift certificates for fake breasts or the like. Surprisingly, it's actually really pissing me off. I thought about why, and wrote this in response to the mailing list:

Ok, well, for the past four years or some shit, I've been doing the Cupid Rampage. It started as a Denver Caco event, and then I moved back here and the event came with me.

So, the idea is you dress in red and pink and white with cheap looking wings and pass out candy hearts and shoot people with toy arrows. It's fun. It makes people smile. The first year, even as ghetto as we were with wings of old cardboard and duct tape, we managed to get into someone's wedding photos.

I guess I just think it's so easy to be negative about this. I mean, bah, love, I was hurt, broken hearted, etc etc etc. When was the last time we really made people smile instead of just chuckle ironically? It's fun to make people happy instead of bitter. I'm not down with corrupting it. It's corrupt enough already (hallmark? debiers?).

I don't need help to get depressed, I'm depressed enough as it is. VD is so much fake candy bullshit that I guess I wanted to put some real cheer into it, make it something genuine instead of just commercial and jaded. I sent out 32 little kid valentines to 32 people I don't know this year, just in the hopes of making them a little happier. It's a bad year, there's more than enough bad cheer to go around already.

So if you guys want to go do the divorce lawyers and stuff, sure, it's funny. But it's not what I'm about. VD is depressing enough already, I don't think we really need to add to that.

If you want to come to my event, it's still happening, even if it's just me and one other person like it was the first year in SF. I'm doing the Wharf area this year, figuring it will be swarming with people who for some bizarre reason think the area is 'romantic'. I don't know the area too well, so if you do and have suggestions on a good place for me to tell everyone to meet me, I'd be grateful.

Thanks.

Sincerely,

St. Mae
http://www.discordian.com

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Anyways, when you think that VD is just a bunch of sugar-coated garbage or fake plastic consumerism, try to think about the things I brought up. I mean, you're right, that's what it is, but it doesn't have to be. Consider this a plea for bringing more love and beauty into the world rather than hate and bitterness. Maybe I've gone soft, but sometimes the dirtiness and the grime and the plain selfishness of the world is just too much to bear, so the only way I can really save myself from it is to do things like this, to send out the little love that maybe I can show others, the little light through the darkness that I will always be. Help me shine brighter.