We Cause Scenes Page #2

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You could just relax.

Well, that's apparent

'cause you won't show it to me.

And then the price was a quarter and you

charged $20 about the time I sat down.

Uh, I'll show it to you

when you're done.

All right.

Some of the early Improv Everywhere

pranks were kind of conflict based.

He's charging me $20 for that.

- Twenty dolla?

- It's a caricature.

$20 for this?

It doesn't look like me at all.

It's-it's a caricature.

But ultimately,

it's just so easy.

I mean, you could do that

over and over again.

I got excited about those

ideas were it was just like,

"let's just

do something positive,

let's do something happy,

let's do something that's weird

for the sake of being weird. "

When Charlie first brought up the

idea of doing an open subway ride,

that was probably one of those

times when I-I really...

I really thought "Wow, this is...

this is an amazing idea. "

I got a... random email.

It didn't even say from Charlie, it just

said "webmaster at Improv Everywhere"

saying... "there's a prank, we are gonna

ride the... subway with no pants on. "

The basic idea was, what would happen

if one guy got on in his underwear

and then... at the next stop, a different

guy got on also in his underwear.

And they wouldn't act

like they knew each other.

They wouldn't even

acknowledge each other.

I just wanted to see

what the reaction would be.

And I was able to get

six other guys

who were willing to come out and

take off their pants with me.

Rob Rosenbum, was manning

a hidden video camera.

We had no hidden camera

technology or strategy,

it was literally just,

the camera was in his lap,

and he had a magazine

lying on top of it.

And that was the extent

to which it was hidden.

I noticed that there was

a-a-a girl sitting on the train

who looked like

she was about my age.

I could maybe feel that she looked at

me or that they were looking at me,

but I didn't hear any reaction.

I knew that I was walking

right by her,

and I hoped that

she was end of frame

and that we were getting

her reaction.

And-and-and in fact we were

and it was great.

I positioned myself where I would kind

of be on the other side of the camera

and just hope that the camera

would also get Jesse Good,

the second guy,

when he walked-in.

I wasn't scared necessarily

of getting in trouble,

but there wasn't

a lot of explanation.

Initially, about what was gonna, what was

going on or what we were going to do.

There's a moment where the girl takes

her book and kind of puts it away

and decides to be

a little bit more alert.

You see her look

across the subway

at the two Danish guys

sitting next to the cameraman

and that makes her laugh.

I loved this

sort of change encounter,

where... the video camera just

happened to be pointing at her face.

My hope was hopefully this

girl,

you know, immediately went and

told everybody what just happened.

And hopefully she will always have that

experience of... this crazy thing.

It had to have

some sort of ending.

So, I came up with the idea

to have a pants seller.

We got pants!

I got pants for a $1!

Bring the pants down here!

I'll take some pants over

here, please.

At-at-at that point I felt

like, "Okay, good.

People are noticing

what we're doing.

This is working.

This is gonna be a success.

There were two guys,

who were really... angry

at the fact that... we've

come in not wearing pants.

Watch this.

I guess the first thing he

said was "Get a life. "

He starting saying that.

I think he said it

multiple times.

"Get a life. "

This is so f***ing stupid.

You guys better get a life.

A dollar?

You guys can get a life.

What do you mean?

You heard.

I... I hear every other word.

I don't understand

what by you mean by it.

I understand but why

"get a life"?

Please, look at yourself.

I was certainly not delighted

that this guy was pissed off.

We were not bothering him.

I was just standing here

in my underwear.

It was not our intent

to irritate someone.

I paid a dollar fifty

to get into this subway.

Okay, I mean, it's stupid.

Maybe in the 60's or 70's, I would

have thought it was comedy.

But today?

'Cause I woke up this morning and I

forgot to wear pants, I should take care?

You didn't forget

to wear pants.

These people need to

lighten up.

Watch your wallet.

There is a woman who's sitting right

here who speaks up and defends us.

I don't think this qualifies

as public nuisance, though.

I think this qualifies as a happening

or piece of performance art,

i.e.:
from the sixties.

That's exactly what this is and you

just have to accept it and move on.

Well then, bring to the theater

but not into a public place.

No, that's the beauty of it!

It happens in public spaces

like this.

There is no beauty in it.

- This is why we have happenings.

- Honey,

you're forgetting

this is not the opera house.

- This is a subway. - It doesn't

have to be in the opera house, honey.

We had an entire subway car

filled with strangers

debating about

the nature of art.

And all we had to do was take off our

pants to get them into that debate.

Watching that No Pants video

for the first time,

I was so excited about it.

But... there was nothing

I could with it.

You can't put video

on a website.

I typed up the story

and it was just text.

So I had that mini-DV tape

for years and years.

And the only way anybody would

ever see that No Pants video

was if there were

at my apartment.

I would say "Oh, you

gotta check this out. "

I thought that the video and the

experience had been so great that...

I decided that I wanted to do

it again the next year.

So about six months

after I moved to New York,

I moved-in with my friend,

Anthony King.

He was sleeping

on someone's couch

and I had an opening in my

apartment so we became roommates.

And then,

my friend Ken moved up.

I moved-in and like,

slept on their couch

and tried to do nice things

and keep it clean.

Having my two roommates

be Ken and Anthony,

accelerated what we could do.

It was never a visceral, like, decision

to be part of Improv Everywhere.

We would just do things.

Oh, okay.

You want to like, get on a fountain

in small, inflatable boats.

Yeah, we'll do that.

Big Mac, I paid for you fair and

square, you get back in my bag.

What?

There was definitely a shift and

I think Danny was an entity.

I was meeting

more and more people

and I was making friends

and getting email addresses

and then I would send out a

mass email for twenty people.

As I recall, it was a personal

like, old-fashioned group email

with like a CC list that is half

the body of the email or whatever.

Just saying like, "we're gonna

be doing this on this day

can anybody do it,

get back to me. "

- What do we want?

- Royalties!

- When do we want it?

- Now!

How are you guys doing

with writers get piracy?

We're here to stop the public

library system as it stands now.

Charlie knew

"Hey, I can go to this group

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