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the global holiday that will replace Christmas:

International Pizza Punk Day

PIZZA PUNX OF ALL NATIONS-
UNITE on DECEMBER 26TH

this page made by
S.London chapter- PIZZA (at) eroding.org.uk

THIS YEAR (2007) EVENT!!!
26 December 2007: Other-
“On International Pizza Punk Day, the division between struggle and pleasure, between total insurrection and festival, will be dismantled as we bake the pizza of our desires into reality”. Pogo will host a DIY PPD celebration along with punk rock films. Bring your own fave vegan pizza toppings! @ Pogo Cafe , 4pm - 10pm , Donations, 02085331214,
www.pogocafe.co.uk


YUMMY INGREDIANTS:
History - What to Do
SCENE REPORTS from International Chapters: 2005 2004 2003 2002

 

THE HISTORY OF A NEW HOLIDAY

For 9 years running now punk rockers and various weirdos all over the world (reported evidence in Switzerland, Scotland, England, America, and New Zealand) have been replacing the holiday of Christmas with INTERNATIONAL PIZZA PUNK DAY, usually held on what was formerly called Boxing Day- the 26th of December.

Spun into the air in 1997 by a group of orphan caravan punks in Switzerland, International Pizza Punk Day supercedes the regressive christian holiday and blasts off towards a world based on mutual aid and cooperation. It is a holiday for the orphans of the world, those orphaned from their parents or orphaned from society.

Like flying solidarity pickets, small cells take local action (preparing vegan pizzas according to anarchist principles) to form a global web of unstoppable pizza-punk resistance!! National borders and stereotypes melt like "cheesey" nutritional yeast flakes as we (if only for ONE day) UNITE as the pizza punx of the world!!!

Armed with a grain of salt and the cultural cookbook of the D.I.Y. and punk movement, we rise above the restrictive appetites of consumerism, sectarianism, geographical and ethnic backgrounds, alienation and dis-empowerment. We are left only with ourselves, the ingrediants for a full pizza-making workshop and THE STRUGGLE.


History - What to Do - SCENE REPORTS from International Chapters: 2004 2003 2002

WHAT TO DO-

Once United as a community cell, the true spirit of D.I.Y. should prevail, with people sharing skills and recipes, exchanging cooking tips, helping out, washing up, and getting to know each other a little better. It's usually best to have a few people making pizza dough earlier on, so that there will be some pizza bases ready to rock when all the people and other ingrediants show up.

On International Pizza Punk Day, the division between struggle and pleasure, between total insurrection and festival, will be dismantled as we bake the pizza of our desires into reality."

DOWN WITH CAPITALISM!

UP THE PUNX!!

History - What to Do - SCENE REPORTS from International Chapters: 2004 2003 2002

SCENE REPORTS- 2005!


Reading Hunt Sabs UK

yo,

reading huntsabs celebrated their second annual pizzapunk day on 26th december 2005. after a short day's sabbing, the crew retired to the teamhouse for the evening's entertainment via the local 'exotic supermarket' for some tasty toppings.

to a mixed background of punk, dub and hip-hop, the crew (including friends and kids etc) took it in turns to create and then present their offerings...from traditional hawaiian (cheatin' ham and pineapple) to innovative new-wave (spinach and tofutti cream cheese on chapatti), most forms of pizza were represented. an unwise purchase of a jar of 'the hottest chilis in existence' led to several members withdrawing from the event red-faced and choking. good fun was had by all (well, most...) and we're looking forward to next year's event.

take it easy,

daf

www.readinghuntsabs.org.uk

LONDON CHAPTERS

Hackney Chapter- there was some sort of International Pizza Punk event @ the Pogo Cafe on this day! http://www.pogocafe.co.uk

 

Sarf London Scum Chapter UK

Hi all.

Well thank fuck that the "holidays" are over. Shops and streets over-crowded with panicked consumer zombies scrambling for the material goods they'll need to celebrate the supposed birth day of their Lord.... People getting arsey and aggro with each other... etc etc.

Enuff moaning, here's my quick report: This year the South London Chapter of IPPD held its festivities in a squatted pub near Old Kent Road not far from the Elephant & Castle area and Burgess Park. The nice folks at Gloucester Arms gave us the use of their kitchen and roomy bar area for a marathon vegan pizza-making workshop; And was it ever! The kitchen affinity group were bringing the means of production to ever more unfathomable rates, with pizza base after pizza base being put out on the bar for punters to decorate with their favourite toppings. Then the uncooked creations were whizzed up a dumbwaiter to the awaiting oven upstairs. A few moments later they re-appeared fully cooked and were devoured in great haste.

It was a rush of creativity and confusion and made all the more bloated by a great over-quantity of beer- AND the fact that not that many people showed up and a handful of people were creating (and consuming) all of this chaos. Only about 35 people showed up in the end and we had expected up to 100, so I lost a bit of money on beer and supplies, but it was fun. The people who DID show up seemed generally INTO the spirit of the holiday and fully participated. Our sneak tactic of a door charge for people who DIDN'T bring any ingrediants for a vegan pizza was barely even necessary & only a handful of people had to pay (but we still lost money!) J.C. rocked the house with his DJ skills and a core of drunken old losers (like me) stayed until mid-afternoon the next day holding up the bar and talking shit. Good stuff.

A big thanks goes out to the Pogo Cafe kids who showed up with a late dispatch of vegan cheese and meats left over from the Pogo Cafe IPPD earlier in the day! xHCx unity shown even for us southern crusties! Also thanks to Gloucester squatters & everybody who formed "the crew" for the event and gave their time and enthusiasm (you know who you are!)

Em

 

SCENE REPORT(S?) FROM 2004

LONDON UK

Well, it was a strange and mysterious Intl. Pizza Punk Day this year... and one filled with an excess of ABBA and K.C. & the Sunshine Band to boot. There being no squatted social centre in south London that we know of this year, Intl. Pizza Punk Day was held in the house of friends who had a very large living room. Thus (it being in someone's house) there was not as much publicity distributed and not as many people knew about the event. Sorry if you are one of the people who didn't find out if you'd have wanted to come along.


I was in charge of the 'bar' and thus the music-dictator for the evening.. but there was no record player... so we could only play CD's and tapes and I hadn't brought very many... the bar had an extensive selection of bad 70's disco CD's (that skipped) thanks to a local Australian hesher replant who normally listened to crap like Rose Tattoo. But somehow tonight we were graced with an array of bass-driven disco boogie woogie. I think I chased alot of people away with the bad, skipping, unlistenable Saturday Night Fever drivel. I tried to alternate 70's tunes with apocalyptic yankee crust, but this seemed to only aggrevate the punters further!

The official 3pm start-time was a bit of a laugh as bevvie-frazzled punks could only manage to show up in the late evening... there was a bit of confusion about when people should show up, so I ended up hanging around like some sort of pizza geek-nerd, drinking bloody marys and wishing the punk scene could be more punktual (hah.) A small but committed crew of about 50 punx showed up eventually and most of them brought toppings for the pizza making workshop. Of course there were a few blaggers who just showed up with their plastic bags from the off-license and a greedy, slothful appetite for the fruits of the true DIY punk effort of others, but for the most part people participated and contributed. The pizza punk day is always an experiment into how much people put into the events of their counter-culture or, sadly, how much they just replicate lame consumer-society behaviour and expect things to be provided for them. Despite a few lazy punx who just strolled in with their expensive carryouts and made a b-line for the finished pizza table, alot of people spent the bit of effort and came prepared with some pizza igrediants, a keen heart for mutual aid and the ancient arts of vegan cookery at their disposal.

As pizzas go, there were loads of them being churned out but there was not always an amazing amount of variety... many had loads of toppings (all of them) on top of a thick layer of tomato sauce and thus alot of the creations seemed 'samey.' Personally, I liked the pies that had only a few well-placed classic ingrediants on them with a every-so-slight touch of sauce on the base. (Yes, I am a pizza purist now!) But, as far as weird pizzas go, Sean's BANANA PIZZA must take the cake for unusual creations of the night. It was sweet and yet savoury and I wanted to hate it and I DID think that it was wrong, but I found myself enjoying it anyway. I tried to make a MEXICAN PIZZA with refried beans and hot peppers but it wasn't as amazing as I wanted it to be... after going to Minneapolis, Minnesota and tasting some of the pizzas from Pizza Luce (a local chain of pizza restaurants at which alot of the punx work) nothing compares. Nonetheless, a fucking million pizzas were made, we made most of the money that we spent back from the bar & by the end of the night everyone was eventually drunk or relaxed enough to get up and dance to the Village People and the theme from Rocky.

And remember- that International Pizza Punk Day is a day for UNITING not FIGHTING. We'll try to have next year's S.London holiday in a place that is more public and accessable.

Up da punx, em

OTHER REPORTS

Oh, I am a nerd... I think that I'm the only loser that organised one this year. Is this true? USA? New Zealand? Where are you?

If you have a report from a local chapter of IPPD, then email: PIZZA (at) eroding.org.uk

History - What to Do - SCENE REPORTS from International Chapters: 2004 2003 2002

 

Scene Reports & Photos from International Chapters - 2003

WELLINGTON- AOTEAROA/N. ZEALAND

International Pizza Punk Day was a small but fun event this year in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand (or Aotearoa as it was originally named)... Being backwards colonial-types, alot of the pakaha (non-Maori) punx and active kids in Wellie go back to their parents' houses to celebrate the birth of one of the millions of people who got killed by the Romans. This, and lack of time to advertise that it was even happenning, made it an intimate affair; A few of us gathered at the GIRLIE'S PROJECT, a collective art-space on Cuba Street in central Wellington, and fashioned pizzas whilst drinking beer and listening to punk and Peeches. As usual, everybody got a shot to make the pizza of their dreams and the oven was kept busy with new creations coming and going from its warm belly.
We ended up making far too many pizzas for us to eat ourselves, so -as one does- we dressed up in drag/pink and went out onto Cuba Street Mall handing out vegan pizzas to homeless people and general passers-by. People were a little suspicious at first to accept food from random strangers, but I think the fact that we were dressed like the power-puff girls made them realise that it was all good spirited. A few people wanted to know what kind of mushrooms we'd put on the pizzas and a few people were a little taken aback by my cross-cultural Curry Pizza, but within 20 minutes the random punters we ran into had scarfed all the kai (food) that we'd brought out. It was a laugh.

Apparently this was the 2nd Annual Wellington Punk Pizza Day, as Ross of Padded Cell had held one the year before... let's hope that the seed of this new holiday has been firmly planted in the fertile soil of Aotearoa. Any kiwis who hold one in 2004, please send us scene reports and/or photos and we'll try to put them onto this page!

---Em

LONDON- UK

We're told that there WAS an International Pizza Punk Day in London this 2003, but we've not been able to find someone who attended who wants to make a scene report... slackers!

History - What to Do - SCENE REPORTS from International Chapters: 2004 2003 2002

 

 Scene Reports & Photos from International Chapters -
2002

Have you had a pizza punk event in the last 5 years? Email photos or scene reports from local chapters to us and we may post them on this page! <PIZZA (at) eroding.org.uk>

Pizza punk photos 2002 -

Welling UK
"Here's a bunch of Pizza punk photos from my folks today. They didn't enjoy Detestation but they enjoyed the pizzas. Rock on, x-chris."

(photos not available due to space constrictions... available upon request -Ed)

London UK
A highly personal scene report:

"International Pizza Punk Day went really well in London, despite a bit of scene sabotage in the form of a CHRISTMAS (yes, the birthday of Christ our Lord) Cocktail Party the night right before- organised by people in the same collective/scene that were helping with Pizza Punk Day... obviously this took alot of the wind out of the sails of "the punx" as most everyone (myself included) drank way too much on the 25th and were a bit worse for wear on the beloved holiday of the 26th.

Both parties were held in the newly re-squatted Old Bacon Factory, a dis-used building in South London formerly housing a bacon factory (I guess) and then a dot.com office and has since then sat empty for a long time, deteriating and having the occassional rave or whatnot held in it. There is some fucking pathetic K-induced grafitti all over the place, 'worms of doom' being my favourite.

I gave myself alcohol poisoning at the infernal birthday bash of christ, the layers of cheesy 80's pop, mad pogoing to disco and the odd skirmish between bacon factory volunteers and a group of polish guys who seemed to be getting themselves into trouble all blending into one mad, out of focus holiday mess. The next day (Pizza Day) I was incapable of performing the very basic tasks that many see as seperating us from beasts- the ability to use language, operating complex tools such as a tin opener, the use of logic, and opening up the bacon factory bar as I had promised to do. Luckily, as I laid rolling around in self-imposed misery upstairs in one of the bacon factory's rooms, other brave and proud punx were willing to do the bar and start making dough. I won't go into the details of the black, plastic bucket besides the bed I lay suffering upon, nor the various liquids and semi-liquids that were expelled into it, but let it suffice to say that I was sick on the big day.

An actual pizza punk, if an Italian is a pizza punk, presided over the dough making and was very precise and traditional with it. In fact, as the night progressed our Italian connection would become more and more disgusted at the travesties to the art of pizza-making that were slopped together before his eyes. He put himself in charge of putting the pizzas in the oven, and you could see him shake his head and roll his eyes or just grimace in disgust as 'the punx' handed him our creations over the bar. Such sacrilege!

After wallowing in squalor for a while upstairs, I finally decided to come down; I could hear the voices and music of the Day rising in celebration, and I wanted to be part of it... and I'd also promised to help and I felt guilty rolling around being sick from having been stupid and hung-over. I came down and about 30-40 people were in the space, ancient Motorhead was blaring out of a speaker and the bar/kitchen area filled with revellers. The tall counters of this area were covered with containers of all the various ingrediants people had brought- tomato sauce, tomato concentrate, onions, leeks (?), peppers, garlic, mushrooms, fake cheeses (!), artichoke hearts, herbs, + tins of corn, beans etc. On the counter opposite sat somewhere around 37 small leven balls of dough, ready to be rolled flat into pizza bases.

Despite a distinctly surreal sickness, I put myself to the job, taking an old Budva bottle as my rolling pin and going to work on the dough... rolling out from the centre, sprinkling it with flour, flipping the thing over, rolling again, thinner and thinner, until what was once a ball of flour and water starts to resemble a pizza base. My head was still in a state... and when friends joked that I should be careful not to make a PUKE pizza, I don't think they knew how close to becoming reality that was. As I rolled and rolled the dough, my hands suddenly started to tingle and fall asleep. I ignored it, but soon the tingling sensation travelled up my arms and my arms started to feel as if they too were asleep. Then my face began to tingle and I realise that I was not well... not well at all. I went to the tiolet and, by then, my whole body felt like it was vibrating and all I could do was lean my face against the cold glass of the mirror for support and drink handfuls of water from the tap, cursing my stupidity and headache.

Someone came out of the toilet and I went in and, shall we say, exitted out the oral entrance into the porceline bowl, worshiping reluctantly. I gathered myself, washed my mouth out with water (noone was going to want to snog me tonight, this was even more obvious than normal), told friends in the hall what was happenning but that I was okay, was advised to 'drink a beer', made my way to the bar, hid behind it for a while, then, eventually.... did what was unthinkable, but was really the only sensible thing to do= with practically un-usable, frozen hands (my thumbs had stopped being able to move properly) pried open a Grolsch and began taking baby sips from it. The dog that bit me. The horse that kicked me. The poison that sickened me being re-introduced into my confused anatomy.

By the end of the beer, everything seemed normal... normal, that is, if you've been drunk for the last 36 hours. I felt fine, just a little stoopid and intoxicated- from just this one.

Then the night became a marathon of punk rock, pizza making and merry making. Most of those balls of dough got converted into edible works of culinary art, and the whole thing operated on a chaotic but functioning level, with people just making pizzas when they felt like it, and then these same people hanging around the ovens in anticipation of the one that THEY made being produced... Then it was sharing time- we'd all rush up to the bar to experience the new creation, talking, giving little pizza reviews, planning for the next one. My personal favourite pizza of the night (and perhaps our dough/oven expert's least) was the BRITISH PIZZA, a base covered in pizza sauce, baked beans and mushy peas- delicious! Tragically, this pizza was made by a hippy (or at least a punk who's favourite band is Hawkwind!)

There were no fights unless you count the totally real, totally heated/hot wrestling match between two reasonably insane Quebec women (friends). These two franco-trouble-makers were also involved in the only food fight of the night, which, luckily, involved only dry flour as we had already taken all of the veggies and stuff away. I think everyone had a pretty good time despite their hangovers and the whole thing went well- Oh, yeah- it was also a benefit for the 56a Infoshop in South London, and we raised £60 for that project... The postive power of pizza punk.

I'm looking forward to hearing from other punx/cities that did Intl. Pizza Punk Days,
em (London Chapter)

WOMENS London UK

PIZZA NOT PATRIARCHY

2002 was a big year for wimmin's activism in London and it all culminated in a wimmin's punkApizza party at a wimmin's squat in South London! What an awesome party! Caz of the cakes brought TWO vegan chocolate masterpieces - a choco-hazelnut mousse pie and a beautiful chocolate Xmas log with real holly on top! Look out for the latter's recipe in the forthcoming 56A cookbook. My own chocolate-cranberry-biscuit creation hadn't held together so well but was eaten up within the first half our anyway. By late afternoon we had the wheat dough rising and the bases for gluten-free polenta pizzas! These were covered in lovely roasted aubergines, peppers and mushrooms in garlic & olive oil. No baked beans here! The women's party had some more refined tastes. Also less drunkenness.

At one point someone remembered it was meant to be PUNK pizza so we put on some riot grrrl music to rock out as well as Harum Scarum and the like. We played a fab game for radical folx involving pretty lavender cards and guessing each other's politics. I always got asked the vegan questions; 'What would you do if you saw a duck with it's legs frozen in the middle of a pond?'.

After the game it was movie time! One room had the XJulie AndrewsX classic 'Mary Poppins' and the other had the '90's remake of XHaley Mills'X old film 'The Parent Trap'. Meanwhile awesome diy xmas decorations were being made in the Mary Poppins room - paper skull & crossbones chains anyone?

After the films we had the singing including everyone's favourite Scottish number about a man who has lost his 'fulorum' and lots of old songs about coal mining and such like. Then the sexual health workshop. Then the disco started. Ace!

The picture is Marinella and myself with a polenta pizza. wheatfreeXpos!!

Laura xsynthesisx(an"at")ekno.com

Have you had a pizza punk event in the last 5 years? Email photos or scene reports from local chapters to us and we may post them on this page! PIZZA (at) eroding.org.uk
 
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