the global holiday that will replace Christmas:

PIZZA PUNX OF ALL NATIONS-
UNITE on DECEMBER 26TH

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

THE HISTORY OF A NEW HOLIDAY

For 7 years running now punk rockers and various weirdos in Switzerland, Scotland, England, America, and now New Zealand have been replacing the holiday of Christmas with INTERNATIONAL PIZZA PUNK DAY, usually held the day after on what is sometimes called Boxing Day- the 26th of December.

"Spun into the air in '97, International Pizza Punk Day supercedes the regressive christian holiday and blasts off towards a world based on mutual aid and cooperation.

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 flake topping 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: 2002 - 2003!

WHAT TO DO-

• Mark the 26th of December in your diary as INTERNATIONAL PIZZA PUNK DAY...
• Tell your friends and family, neighbours, the kids in the local scene, people on the bus that are trying desperately not to meet your gaze, the man who's always looking for coins in the park with that flippin metal detector thing, anyone that will listen! about the new holiday.
• Aquaint yourself with the ancient art of vegan cooking.
• If there is not already a pizza-making (and eating!) party in your area, arrange one!
• Use a variation of the "potluck" or "potlatch" method (where everyone brings food to a dinner) and invite folks to all show up with at least one ingrediant to use in the making of pizzas

  (tomatoes, sauces, vegetables- especially onion and mushroom and peppers, flour, yeast, garlic, herbs, spices etc).

• Invite everyone to bring the stuff you'll need if you don't have it handy- baking trays, rolling pins, plates, instruments to play, a P.A. system for the gig in the living room, etc..
• You do have an oven, right? You'll need one (or two)
• Gather copious amounts of alcohol (or grape juice for the straight-edgers) and old punk tapes

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."

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."

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@ekno.com

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

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!