Gorm the Old and Sleepy Memorial Norswedish Community Center of Oakland, CA

Flag of Norsweden

Overview

Gorm the Old & Sleepy Memorial Norswedish Community Center of Oakland, CA (a.k.a. "The First King's Hall", "The Viking Love Shack") is a mead hall/event center in Oakland, CA that has been in consistent operation since opening in 1995. It is owned and operated buy The United Norswedish All-Thingy of Oakland, CA. It serves as a meeting place for the All-Thingy, and a center for their efforts at gaining Norswedish citizenship and, someday, for their hall to be recognized as elided sovereign Norswedish territory and secede (peacefully) from the United States, as well as host speakers on the subject of Mad Political Science.

It is a popular site for weddings/receptions among the local medieval reënactment community, as well as hosting regular viking-themed swingers parties and filming Scandinavian-themed porn.

Description

From the outside, the Center looks like just about any other old 2-story building in downtown Oakland. On the inside, the members of the Oakland All-Thingy have gone to great efforts to decorate in traditional Norswedish motifs, designs, materials, and artifacts.

But since the All-Thingy are a trio of abject knuckleheads, what they have come up with is a combination of movie sets from The 13th Warrior, The Vikings and Conan the Barbarian, Ikea furniture with stark white Swedish Modern design accents, with axes and winged helmets everywhere.

The Troll is considered the spirit animal of the Community Center, and troll dolls and imagery also abound.

Main Feasting Hall

Basement

Upstairs

Activities

Cultural

Beer

See Catering

Norswedish National Tartan (As proposed by the All-Thingy of Oakland, CA)

Holmgangs

Every year, Gorm's closes down for a week so that all the members of the All-Thingy can attend the Oakland Scottish Highland Games and Dueling Festival. Duels (a.k.a. "Holmgangs") are considered "Hella viking" by most Oaklanders.

All members of the All-Thingy wear kilts in the Norswedish National Tartan to the Holmgangs.

Porn

''Main Entry: Chronic Sisu Productions

Since erotica is considered a traditional (and lucrative) Swedish cultural export, Gorm's is the site of a successful niche-market porn studio that produces several ongoing viking/Scandinavian-themed internet porn sites, including Norswedish Erotica, Valkyrie Sluts, Oaktown Longship Swingers, Viking Man-Lust (gay), and Bongs, Blunts, and Blowjob Babes.

The signature costume accessory for all ongoing performers who are on contract as part Chronic Sisu Productions is the blond wig. Performers without a blond wig are not part of the CSP stable. The Norawedish tartan also features prominently as a lingerie/underwear pattern.

Catering/Events

Catering Menu

Gorm's is equipped with a large kitchen and a beer/wine license. Parties and events renting the space are welcome to hire outside caterers, and the All-Thingy maintain "preferred providers". Hiring a catering outfit off the PP list requires special permission from the All-Thingy via unanimous decision.

Beer

Beer is considered by the All-Thingy to be essential to proper Norswedish social and cultural activities. Brands regularly kept on hand (bottles) include

And during the Yül season,

Live Music

Gorm's is a popular live music venue for small to medium sized concerts in Oakland do to the ridiculous amount of sound insulation that resulted from the cosmetic "Norswedifying" of the Main Feasting Hall and the Basement. This has allowed particularly loud and abrasive acts with not huge followings to play live and not get shut down by the cops.

Shortly after it opened in 1995, Gorm's hosted the band Mince for a 48-hour non-stop concert, parts of which which became the now infamous Oaktown Mindeater Session bootleg.

Swingers Parties

One of the ways the Oakland All-Thingy do to help pay the rent is sublet the Main Feasting Hall and basement out to a local swingers group for a viking-themed "Lifestyle Longship: Consensual Sex & Pillage Party" held on the second and fourth Fridays of every month.

Attendees wear erotic and suggestive norse-themed costumes usually hire a DJ. The basement is set up for group and private play areas, while the Main Feasting Hall is used as the open social area, dance floor, and snack table.

There is also a segment of the basement play area set aside for video which is turned into fodder for the Oaktown Longship Swingers website. Party attendees who appear on the website get their next party's cover charge comped, as well as earning the party organizers a percentage discount on the next month's hall rental fees.

Domino masks are available for the shy exhibitionists.

Political

The Community Center hosts gatherings of the Oakland All-Thingy, where they discuss their efforts to contact the nation of Norsweden and get some sort of response. This is considered an elemental precursor to gaining Norswedish citizenship and, eventually, recognition of their hall as elided Norswedish sovereign territory.

So far, Norsweden has shown no evidence that it even understands that the Oakland All-Thingy exists.

Criticisms

Critics (and just about everyone who encounters the All-Thingy or the Norswedish Center) point out that not only do they seem to know nothing at all about Norsweden, Gorm the Old (a.k.a. "Gorm the Sleepy") was the first king of Denmark. The axes they have decorating the mead hall are all double-headed labryses acquired from the East Bay lesbian community, and not even the single-headed axes that the vikings actually used. And it is pointed out regularly that the vikings never wore winged helmets.

On the catering front, not a single beer among their offerings comes from Norsweden. All of them except Lapin Kulta (Finland) and Linden Street Common Lager (Oaklad, CA) are Danish beers.

Also, the All-Thingy have yet to demonstrate that any of it's members know what the word "elided" means.

Category: Mystical Oakland

Published under the terms of the CC BY 3.0 license.

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