Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves

Yes Men Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, both university professors, pose with their imposter-edition of the New York Post outside the United Nations on Monday morning. Copies of the edition were given to people attending the international climate change summit that opens tomorrow, as well as to New Yorkers all over the city.

Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves

Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum (Jacques Servin) sends out a news release announcing the New York Post stunt to 80,000 recipients outside the United Nations — logged into the an unsecured network called “UN World Headquarters” that was available from the street. Meanwhile, all around us, hundreds of police and Secret Service attempted to secure the area, apparently from anything other than infiltration of the network. Everyone seemed to agree — especially the people with swipe-cards — the UN is a little disorganized.

Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves

Yes Men Ben and Ben work the side entrance to Grand Central Terminal on Manhattan’s East Side as morning commuters begin to trickle into the city. They offered passers-by “free copies of the New York Post” without mentioning that it was a fake. More than 2,000 people volunteered to distribute the newspapers in an elaborately organized online and on the ground operation. If an area was short on volunteers, Jacques would send out a “textcast” and they would mysteriously appear in the stated location.

Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves

Tourists in the queue for studio audience at Good Morning America in Times Square don’t know what to make of a the fake New York Post created by the Yes Men. The newspaper reveals an actual City of New York expert study warning of dire consequences if climate change is allowed to continue. Organizer Andy Bichlbaum (Jacques Servin) of the Yes Men said the edition was fact checked many times, and that headlines such as “Pentagon top brass warn: act now, or pay later with lives” were accurate statements of news unreported by the real Post and other media. About 100,000 copies of the edition went out in midtown Manhattan, at the United Nations, at major train terminals, in the Wall Street Area and at other locations on Monday.

В Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves.

Meeting at 4 am at the Empire State Building, the first wave of distribution was intended for morning show television producers on the way to work. When I arrived, none of the 20 or so people gathered had a clue what they would be distributing; then organizers arrived with a carload of fake “special editions” of the New York Post and basic instructions for what to do. They were taken to a variety of studios and media offices that are located in the area, such as Good Morning America, as well as the New York Daily News and the Associated Press. Even New York City is pretty quiet that time of morning — the idea was to get the newspaper into the hands of people who would be covering the Climate Change Summit that was warming up at the United Nations. The contents of the Yes Men’s edition of the Post were factual and researched; it was not actually a parody in the true sense but impostering, in the Yes Men tradition. In other words, an authentic fake, with a message.

The fake edition of the Post is available at nypost-se.com

Dear Friend and Reader:

Good morning and welcome to the last day of Virgo, along with Venus in Virgo trine Pluto in Capricorn. The Sun is void of course, and that is a day that unusual things can happen. Mercury is still retrograde. It might be really, really unusual.

In other news, many of the big boys and bigger wigs and corporate honchos and oil rabbis are arriving in New York City for the opening of Climate Change Week, ready to convince us how great fossil fuels still are. So, too, are The Yes Men, who have spent months doing a parody of the New York Post. [Here is a Planet Waves article on the Yes Men from 2007.]

Today’s spoof (by the way, they insist it’s not a parody) on the Post is a ‘special edition’ that writes to and about the world from an alternate reality wherein everyone just gets it and we deal with the issue of the world heating up. Somehow, I am not sure how, the Yes Men got to me and asked me to write a horoscope for the project. We went back and forth with various shades of satire, lots of lucky you’re a Pisces cause of all the flooding and Sagittarians defend the high ground with their bow and arrow kind of jokes, and finally they asked me to write them a lively, straight-on horoscope for the day.

It didn’t make the final cut, but I can share that with you now that the ultra-secret wrapper has been taken off the project. This horoscope has a bit of bitchslap to it, rather than my usual velvet glove approach to psychology. There are no climate change jokes. Climate change is not funny. We need to save the world. For what, I am not sure, but it seems like the thing to do.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken up my second role as a Yes Man and (as you read) I’ll be photographing the distribution of this lovely piece of literature, and getting a behind-the-scenes view of the World of Yes. I’ll be in New York City on Monday (Manhattan in the morning, Brooklyn in the afternoon), stationed at United Nations Headquarters (the perfect assignment for Planet Waves). You can reach me through Chelsea, especially if you have a place where I can take a nap in the late afternoon. I left my studio at 2 am Monday (with a day’s worth of gluten free food, charged batteries and a Chinese fortune I just got that informs me, The time is right to make new friends), to report for muster call at the Empire State Building at 4 am, before proceeding to the UN.

These people get up early. With any luck at all, the world will not sleep late.

Yours & truly,

PS, to see my photo stream, if all goes according to plan, at around noon or 1 pm New York time, check my Flickr page. Other photos will be available by searching the keyword newyorkbigevent in Flickr. They are planning nearly instantaneous coverage. There may also be more photos here.

Your Daily Horoscope for Sept. 21, 2009 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
It seems like the more you work, the less you get done. You have your strategy running backward. You’re not doing what you want to do; you’re acting like a child who is being told what to do, and who has no idea he can get away with saying no. This is vividly different than your childhood, when one of your two most dependable skills was defiance of authority. Now you worship the stuff; you’ve become like the rest of us, and look where we all ended up.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
What was it you said you would never do? Or rather, who was it? On the long list of people you wanted to get groovy with but for some mysterious reason refused, you now have an opportunity that has returned from the land of the improbable. What will you do? Unless I specifically instruct you to tear off your clothes, you will spend long enough thinking about it that the person will get bored waiting for you. At least send a kinky text message.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Your feelings are so scrambled you’ve invented a catalogue system to keep track of them. You put the catalogue in a notebook, but you can’t read your own handwriting. You tried an Excel database, but it crashed twice. The only solution is to take up drinking. You’re the type who has to be cut off after one pony Miller, but you’ve gone and drank an entire pint. This led you to have an actual idea, but you can’t find a pen. Face it, it’s gonna be one of those days.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
If you’re such a genius, why does everyone take advantage of you like this? Maybe it’s because you’re sensitive and they are not. The funny thing about callous people is they bear an uncanny knack for discerning who is the most emotionally vulnerable. In 45 minutes, you will consider becoming a cunning, heartless shrew that your mother once accused you of being when she was having one of her narcissistic episodes. Five minutes later, you will reject this possibility without understanding why.

Continue Reading »