Olde Reed is So Back: The Stimulants Table and Reed Kommunal Shit Kollectiv

The unofficial motto of Reed College is "Communism, Atheism, Free Love." Some eras and organizations take this motto more seriously than others, and in the early 2000s, one group took the "Communism" part of that motto both very seriously and not seriously at all. In 1999, in the Student Union, at questionable-decisions-o’clock in the morning, three Reedies gazed upon the pile of items in the Free Bin and began to plot what would eventually become Reed Kommunal Shit Kollectiv, or RKSK for short. 

Ezra Goldman '03, Peter McMahan '03, and Andy Wallace '03 were second-semester freshmen, and their idea started simple: free shit for everyone. McMahan chose the name "Kollectiv" with a ‘K’ to honor the pre-existing Motorized Couch Kollectiv, which constructed motorized couches and rode them around campus. RKSK’s initial activities followed the same general structure: grab some cheap shit at the Goodwill bins, spray paint a hammer and sickle on it, and set it loose on the Reed College campus. Goldman, McMahan, and Wallace were quickly joined by Jenn Dolan ’02, Ginny Griffin ’03, April Holm ’03, and Rose Spitler ’03, who would all go on to organize RKSK events. In the second semester of RKSK’s existence, John Saller '03 joined RKSK and "made it way bigger and stupider," according to McMahan. It is difficult to convey the true chaos of RKSK's activities and the scope of its impact on Reed culture, but for the sake of Olde Reed, we must try.

The Quest sat down with Goldman, then with Saller and McMahan, to discuss those early days. Their preferred Goodwill bin items were stuffed animals and kiddie bikes, the latter of which Goldman told the Quest made for a very inefficient, but very fun, way to commute to class. The bikes tended to disappear or end up in the lake after a few months, but with each bike costing under ten dollars at Goodwill, they were easily replaced. However, those were far from the only things RKSK provided—other items included a kommie bowling ball, which McMahan acknowledged was "a bad plan," a communal record player near the Mailroom, and communal romance novels "with the good bits bookmarked" in bathroom stalls. In addition to providing assorted Goodwill bin items, RKSK also coordinated events best described as large art projects. One was an attempt to make 100 pounds of Play-Doh, which was technically successful, but disappointing because it was supposed to be red and ended up more pink, according to McMahan and Saller. Another event was an attempt to build a large state of Lenin. The statue turned into a puddle that took a dozen Reedies a day to clean up, which McMahan said was "the punchline of many of these events." The life cycle of an RKSK event usually followed this sequence of events: the conception of a wild idea, the creation of a large puddle, the difficulty and complaints of cleaning up said large puddle, and the eager questioning of Reedies asking when the next event was. Other projects included a communal seesaw that never quite materialized and various large statues made of scrap wood. Other events were less construction-focused, such as one described by Goldman in which RKSK laid out a tarp, dumped paint on it, and started naked fights on top of it, or another event where RKSK members performed an a capella rendition of "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor. RKSK also hosted an occasional midnight pancake event, involving pancakes larger than a human head, as well as fire and booze.

RKSK regularly achieved the top spot in the fall Funding Poll, although they came in second to Renn Fayre in the spring. Since their activities tended to be cheap and relied mostly on the hard work of Reedies, RKSK often had extra money at the end of the semester, which other organizations could petition them for. Despite this popularity, RKSK was not without its enemies. According to their email archives, they once did battle with "evil Furbies" who allegedly destroyed a "scary kommunal baby" known as Evil Kommunist Leader. On a more believable note, they engaged in a bike battle with CHUNK, Reed's post-apocalyptic biker gang, on at least one occasion.

RKSK's activities drew on previous iterations of Reed’s communal spirit, and many of RKSK’s contributions to that spirit can still be felt today. Before RKSK, there was the Reed Refurbishing Initiative or Kollektiv (the Quest was unable to locate sources to confirm the name), which brought furniture to campus and bolted it to the floor in the Gray Campus Center. Today’s Free Bench and Swap Shop are the descendants of the Free Bin in the Student Union, which inspired RKSK’s efforts to bring more communal items to campus. Joyous Whimsy Club, founded in 2023 by Ivy Queen ‘25, aimed to bring back the whimsical spirit of RKSK events and art projects. The JWC founders even consulted with RKSK alumnus Sam Liebow '14 to get some help understanding RKSK’s work. While Noize Parade existed before and after RKSK, there was significant overlap between RKSK’s early membership and the organizers of Noize Parade at the time, and RKSK's mailing list advertised Noize Parade to its members. Between 1999 and 2003, Noize Parade included a shopping cart full of firecrackers and hitting pots and pans to make noise while parading around campus. Modern Noize Parades are similar, although with fewer firecrackers and more sacrificial Garfield stuffed animals.

RKSK also developed a very specific "style guide," presenting itself as a "quasi-Communist youth league," in Goldman’s words, which slapped Marx, Lenin, and the hammer and sickle on anything it could. RKSK communications replaced "c"s with "k"s, omitted vowels at the end of words, and made a general effort to sound as much like communist propaganda as possible. Emails sent out to RKSK went through phases of removing as many vowels as possible from communication, but this practice appears to have been far more controversial.

Throughout their interviews with the Quest, RKSK founders used prominent Soviet leaders as analogues for their fellow founders. Saller was compared to Stalin in the faux-communist mythos of RKSK for coming in later, and Wallace was a "Trotskyite" who abandoned RKSK to focus on the academic grind of Reed. According to McMahan and Saller, Wallace’s departure, while willing, needed to be mythologized, so they accused Wallace of "pissing on the plans for the RKSK windmill," when of course there were no such plans. This is likely a reference to a similar scandal in Animal Farm by George Orwell, in which plans for the farm's ill-fated windmill are destroyed and urinated on, since both Animal Farm and RKSK lore are structurally based on the early Soviet Union. After the expulsion, McMahan and Saller reported that Wallace made occasional menacing appearances through the RKSK mailing list or "nefarious postcards."

RKSK maintained a mailing list called "red-menace" that any member could post to, and past emails are still available today through Joyous Whimsy Club. The early emails include information on the structure, such as it was, of RKSK. The Red Army Officer Corp was a group of unclear authority that wore fuzzy hats and "did stuff," the Kommisariat was the administrative center of RKSK, and it appears that there was an espionage branch of RKSK known as RKGB, led by an anonymous head chief operative who used the email rkgb4@yahoo.com to communicate with her underlings. RKSK leaders often signed emails with elaborate titles. For instance, Goldman was known as "Exalted High Premier Ezra" or "Exalted High Premier Ezra of Amazing Verbosity," and Saller signed an email as the "Humble Minister of Red Tape and Bureaucracy." 

RKSK's emails in the days following September 11th, 2001, took on a more serious tone. Members shared information about how to donate blood to the Red Cross in Portland and discussed construction of a memorial on campus. They also discussed how to keep an eye on the Joint Terrorism Task Force following fears that it would be used to suppress activism. RKSK continued to discuss post-9/11 American militarism and be involved with Portland activist organizations and city politics until at least 2004, although based on the mailing list archives this was a smaller part of RKSK's activities than the kommunal shit and art installations.

RKSK began weekly meetings in October 2001, after the original inner circle realized that they could not continue at the pace they had been keeping without help and at least a little bit of planning ahead. According to Saller's recap email detailing RKSK activities up until October 2001, "The People have expressed interest in getting involved, but the frantic last minute style of RKSK events and the need for a big truck has meant that, until a few weeks ago, all the work of buying and maintaining kommunal shit fell on two of your RKSK signators. Last semester, these signators were young and had endless energy and enthusiasm. They could tap the madness lurking just below the surface of our collective psyche and go for days without food or sleep. Unfortunately, this lifestyle has made these signators into bitter, old men long before their time...unless RKSK is restructured it will soon suck them dry and leave them pathetic wrecks who mumble and twitch and try to bludgeon themselves with their crescent wrenches whenever they see a kommie bike. This semester we want to start weekly meetings where ideas can be discussed, tasks can be delegated, and stuff can be kommunalized and distributed. We hope to establish a world headquarters with a large world-domination-sized map and a chalk board and as many phones as possible."

After the founders graduated, RKSK persisted until approximately 2014 or 2015, leaving communal stuffed animals, bikes, and umbrellas spray painted with the hammer and sickle around the campus. At some point, RKSK developed the initiation tradition of renting a U-Haul, riding in it to Reed’s rival school Lewis & Clark College, and running naked through their library, handing out stuffed animals to confused Clarkies. According to Saller, the Reed vs. Lewis & Clark rivalry was quite one-sided in his day. Director of Community Safety Gary Granger told the Quest that this tradition had become more of a hazing ritual by 2015, with first-years pressured to participate. After two consecutive years of sabotage, involving locking the U-Haul and stealing its keys, the organizers stopped the activity, perhaps realizing that the event was becoming less fun and more coercive. RKSK initiation is covered in more detail in the Grail article "Reed in the Nude."

One RKSK event that lives on to this day is the Stimulants Table, which was founded in 2000 and revived in 2023 by Joyous Whimsy Club, Reed Traditions Club, and Boba Nation. The Table is currently run by Boba Nation. The RKSK founders had the idea for the Stimulants Table, AKA Stim Table, after observing that Paradox Café would hand out their last pot of coffee to anyone who needed it in the Student Union at closing time. Saller was particularly involved in the initial planning, and Holm recalled that before the Stim Table, the college provided vats of free coffee in the Library lobby during finals, which likely inspired the Stim Table. The general idea was to stimulate students suffering through Reading Week, and the definition of stimulants was loose. The first year, RKSK conspirators bought energy drink concentrate, candies from a nearby Asian grocery store, and dubious gas station energy pills. The table also served mate tea and coffee, as well as plants like ginseng and ginger. Snacks, cigarettes, and "pharmaceuticals" appeared and disappeared from the table quickly as students donated their preferred stimulants to the table, in keeping with the communal Reed spirit. RKSK members would wear lab coats and monitor the Stim Table for 24-hour shifts that they signed up for on a communal spreadsheet, playing "Eye of the Tiger" nonstop. 

In later years, the Stim Table became more established, in contrast to many of RKSK’s one-time events. Around 2001–2005, Dhyana Westfall ’05, Community Safety Manager told the Quest, the Stim Table was often unattended and possessed liquid caffeine or caffeine powder. According to the red-menace email records, RKSK often sourced the sketchiest stimulants they could find from gas stations and Asian grocery stores. It is unclear how sketchy the grocery store stimulants actually were, since most RKSK members who purchased them were unable to read the labels, but the gas station stimulants included ephedrine, or "trucker speed," which was banned by the FDA in 2004. There were also packets of instant ramen and an electric kettle available. By 2005, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, wasabi, and tobacco were common as well. According to the red-menace archives, there was debate early on about 12- vs 24-hour shifts, as well as debate about what music to play. It appears that the long shifts wore on everyone's nerves, as arguments about cleanup were common. During the first year, "Eye of the Tiger" was played 24/7, but in later years, other loud music was played between hourly "Eye of the Tiger"s. In 2002, the Stim Kart was established, and a shopping cart was used to deliver stimulants to thesis offices. 

While today’s Stim Table has many of the same offerings, including coffee, tea, and candy from Costco and H Mart, the schedule is much tamer and the Stim Kart is gone. The table is open from Library opening until Library closing time or midnight, whichever comes first, and volunteers work two- to four-hour shifts. Additionally, while Olde Stim Table sometimes lasted through Reading Week and finals, today's iteration only covers Reading Week. "Eye of the Tiger" is now only played once an hour, with no music in between, to motivate students to power through their studying or frantic essay writing. McMahan and Saller acknowledged that being at the Stim Table from 4:00 to 6:00 am wasn’t really helping anyone’s productivity, but expressed that midnight and 1:00 am seemed too early for the Library and Stim Table to close.

The RKSK mailing list was a popular forum for semi-ironic "Olde Reed is Dead" discourse. RKSK members could be heard grumbling "back in my day" as early as 2003, when the founders had barely graduated. Rapidly-established traditions warred with practicality, such as in the case of long Stim Table shifts. In 2004, an email referred to playing 24/7 "Eye of the Tiger" at the Stim Table "Olde Reed," despite the tradition being at most four years old at the time. In 2006, there were plans to write an RKSK manuscript and distribute it around campus, in order to preserve Olde Reed properly. This also included plans for a Stim Table manual, with the logic that "It is of vital importanse to the attainment of our kommunal goals that this week long feast of jitter indusing treats be konklusively dokumented on the printed page so as to transend the bounds of temporality and forever establish itself in the reed kollege subkonsious."

While its original idea was to bring more collective property to Reed, RKSK also became a vessel for creating community through silly events that brought Reedies together and encouraged them to help each other out. Reedies still love to snag free shit wherever they can, and are willing to volunteer their precious time during Reading Week to help deliver stimulants to their community. If you want to continue the RKSK tradition, reach out to Joyous Whimsy Club at https://discord.gg/shKzTmb3FW, volunteer for the Stimulants Table this reading week (Monday, May 5 to Friday, May 9), or come up with a wild idea for a communal resource or art project and make it happen!