MDC

We are activating the OMSA [Obsolete Monuments Space Agency] MDC mission.

Our Phone Call from "Avid Listener"

In March of 2025, we received a phone call on the KDZU Red Phone from a person identifying themselves only as “Avid Listener,” sharing details about some OMSA [Outlaw Mechanics Sabotaging the Afterlife] members who had resided in the Southern California area in the 1990s. By itself, this information isn’t news to us. We knew members spread out pretty far after the Great Raid on the Memphis Pyramid in 1994. There are little bits of written evidence and word-of-mouth tales that members of the group scattered to St. Louis, Minneapolis, Baton Rouge, and out west to Tucson, Denver, and Goldfield, Nevada. So… Los Angeles does not seem very far-fetched. But there was not, to our knowledge, any existing evidence of OMSA [Our Memory Survives in the Aether] missions that happened in Southern California. That is, until Avid shared bits of an actual mission in the Los Angeles area. Yes, in Los Angeles, where we have a station!

A black and white photo of the Memphis Pyramid in the 1990s.
OMSA [Our Methods Seem Abstract] squatted the Memphis Pyramid and conducted their RAD (Research, Artmaking, and Development) work in the top of the Pyramid during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Members scattered across the country after the Great Raid, possibly to the Southern California and Los Angeles regions.

Here is a summary of what Avid described as the mission. Avid is incarcerated, so our phone call was interrupted multiple times by the prison's automated collect call interruptor. But we will do our best to glue together all the moments of our conversation here.

The NASA JPL "Rocky" Inspiration

Avid told us that a group of OMSA [Our Mostly Sometimes Always] members, who lived in the Pyramid, had become intrigued by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) “Rocky” series of robotics projects, which were developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Based on our research about the collective’s RAD (Research, Artmaking, and Development) happening in the Pyramid, this seems plausible. The group had been interested in the JPL's orbiter and lander work. It seems reasonable that some RAD on rovers and terrestrial robotics would be in that same set of enthusiasms and tasks.

A black and white photo of the Memphis Pyramid in the 1990s.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's "Rocky" 3 rover prototype (1990) in the Arroyo Seco. Rocky 3 was designed to be lighter and more maneuverable than the previous Rocky rovers and driven on natural terrain such as the the Arroyo Seco and Avawatz Mountains south of Death Valley.
Image courtesy of NASA JPL.

Research, Artmaking, and Development (RAD)

NOTE: In the small pieces of writing we have read by group members over the years we noticed that they self-described their project development efforts as “RAD,” short for Research, Artmaking, and Development. We will use their terminology here to describe their working methods. Our use of “RAD” is intended to be respectful of the group's word choices and also to provide more accurate descriptions of their processes. Inspired by this idea, we will also use the term “RAD” to describe our own working methods.

The Elusive Importance of Waterways

Avid Listener also mentioned, with some repeated statements, that the group was particularly interested in establishing research outposts at sites that felt psychogeographically harmonious with the working environment of the Memphis Pyramid and the nearby Mississippi River. The group squatted the Memphis Pyramid from around 1991 until the "Great Raid" in 1994. The Memphis Pyramid served as their architectural epicenter for their scientific research, artmaking, and engineering developments. The nearby Mississippi River waterway was important to the group both culturally and practically, serving as a venue for recreation, field testing, and transportation. Avid's details about the group's aspirational outposts currently seem anomalous, unless perhaps there's something we should consider about the Pacific Ocean, the Los Angeles River, the California Aqueduct, or some other Southern Californian waterway. This could have simply been Avid repeating themselves due to the constant interruptions from the prison's phone system. We don't know. But for now, we consider Avid's reasons for telling us this significant, if also elusive and inconclusive.

A satellite image of the Bass Pro Shop at the Memphis Pyramid.
The Memphis Pyramid is located on the slackwater Wolf River Harbor the banks of the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee. OMSA [Our Mississippi Smells Awful] had spiritual, creative, and pragmatic enthusiasms for the river. Members used the river for research, recreation, equipment transportation, and as an exhibition site for floating and underwater artworks.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

"I'll get you something."

Avid left our conversation that day with a brief statement of appreciation for our DJing, a statement of solidarity, and a vaguely worded “I'll get you something.” We didn't understand what this meant until a couple of weeks ago, when we received a letter in the mail from Avid sent to our KDZU Sonic Exoskeleton location in Goldfield, Nevada.

Avid's drawing.
Yes. This is it. A dead wasp. Yes. We immediately Googled the sentence. It is from the opening paragraph of GeorgeOrwell's "Notes on the Way."

Avid’s drawing of this cut-in-half wasp on its back felt completely esoteric until we (finally) realized we could be looking at a very clever note "on the way" to our destination, a map that is not meant to resemble a map, drawn by a system-impacted person who is not allowed to create, share, or mail maps to anyone. Also, the drawing is on a semi-translucent gridded vellum. So maybe this is some kind of tracing or is meant to be used as an overlay somehow.

Since receiving the letter, we are now neeeeeeck deep in this project (are we, though?), so we decided to create separate posts here, journaling our activities. We will be updating this page as we learn more.