Man Who Dumped Trash at Fort Bragg City Hall Feels ‘Absurdity’ Is the Best Art Medium of 2026
If you told Nicolas Kerttula that piling trash on the steps of Fort Bragg City Hall was absurd, illegal, or just plain trashy, he’d smile — because that’s exactly the point he thinks he’s making.
To him, that reaction means you’re getting it. Note- in the video he is referring to a tree that was removed, irritating him and others downtown, and a cone was put in its place. He made a sign that said “this is not a tree.” This is the origin of the tree branches in the protest.
The downtown antique‑store owner and self‑styled performance artist hauled together a jumble of debris — a pallet, snapped tree limbs, loose trash — and, dancing about, spun through it in loose, looping steps as a small crowd gathered to watch. For a moment it played like street theater. Then he lifted several boards, pressed them across the front doors of City Hall, and began nailing them into place. Someone in the crowd called police but only after it was all over. People watched and enjoyed the performance for quite some time, the cops not getting the call till about 10 minutes after.
When officers arrived to question him, Kerttula didn’t hesitate or deny what he’d done.
“When I was taking the trash down to City Hall, I cut myself on something and the blood ran onto my hands. When the police came, I said, ‘Look — I meant for you to catch me red‑handed.”
He said the Fort Bragg Police officers and the staff at the jail in Ukiah treated him with complete professionalism. “I realized they had to go through their motions after what I did. I love my police officers here.”
Why did he do it?
Finding this out quickly pulled Frank into the world of “Emperor Phoenix,” the name Nicolas prefers to be called. And the moment Frank told him the video was rolling, Kerttula shifted — slipping straight into performance mode. Off‑camera, he was a different man entirely: reflective, explanatory, offering a mix of riddles, political and philosophical parody, and something that felt a bit like the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Between performances and bursts of laughter, we spent a lively half hour talking about symbolism, absurdity, art, and what “crazy” might mean in 2026.
Much of what follows is my best attempt to translate what he performed — the words, gestures, and symbolic flourishes he delivered through his antiques and art.
We found mutual humor in coming from different worlds. While I suggested he bring some of his more interesting ideas to the Fort Bragg City Council in the form of an actual speech, he countered that the absurdity of the moment has rendered speeches ineffective. To make his point, he reached for a bust of Julius Caesar, a newly colorized life‑sized Colonel Sanders, and a selection of antiques and art, layering in subtle messaging and his own theatrics. I left puzzling over how to translate his performance — the flair, the riddles, the drama — into a story that captures the meaning he was reaching for without ignoring my own apprehension. How much of his crafted symbolism is deliberate communication, and how much is a mask for something more complicated beneath the surface?
One of my apprehensions vanished as soon as I met him: he wasn’t doing any of this as a publicity stunt for his business. Whatever he’s fixated on, it isn’t money. He comes across as non‑violent — someone who simply hit a breaking point with the present reality and the pressure to conform to it. In his telling, he acted because he felt he had to show people that nothing about this moment feels “OK.”
He believes America has crowned a figure so absurd that nothing Emperor Phoenix could perform would match it. In his view, he needed to strike at what he sees as an established order that, through silence, is condoning forms of cruelty and dangerous kinds of instability.
“Because of one man, every one of us is in danger. People are going to die, maybe lots of them, if we don’t see it.”
I said “Do you mean President Trump?”
“I am not saying the name. If you don’t know the name, there is probably no hope with talk. He posed and said, the man we are talking about, he looks just like this, he said , pointing at himself. And he looks just like you.”
The interview‑discussion‑performance kept looping like that, leaving me toggling between wondering whether the man was a genius or simply unmoored. That line of questioning delighted him, and the more I tried to pin him down, the more elusive he became.
The nattily dressed “Emperor Phoenix” comes across as more real — and more practical — than his Clark Kent–like Nicolas ever could be in what he sees as a world gone off‑kilter. In his telling, Phoenix has a kind of symbolic magic, free from the constraints he believes weigh on ordinary people, a counter‑force to what he describes as the darker forces shaping America right now.
He doesn’t hold the signs or shout the slogans of the No Kings protesters he sometimes resembles, only with a sharper edge of sarcasm and a deeper layer of intrigue. Emperor Phoenix isn’t about volume — his messages arrive in symbols, not shouts..
“Nobody listens to anything said or written much, I have to do it my way..”
He says he chose City Hall because he’s repeatedly complained about broken glass and garbage being left to sit, and felt those concerns went unanswered. In his mind, the performance was a way to force attention onto what he sees as neglect.
“It’s always somebody else job to do. Sorry, not my job. So I made it my job i took the trash down there.”
His message, he says, is all about listening. In his front window stands a life‑sized Colonel Sanders mannequin — one ear removed and placed on a plate. The figure now has only one ear left, a visual reminder, he says, that maybe it’s time to finally listen. “Nobody listens to us. We cannot survive if nobody listens.”
He says he doesn’t plan to do anything like this again and doesn’t advise anyone else to break the law. He chose a Sunday specifically so no one inside City Hall would be startled or frightened.
But he does hope others will find their own ways to confront what he sees as a world gone mad — meeting a little madness with a little madness of their own.
“One person can inspire 5 or 10 and they can inspire another 10 or 20. So much is wrong, so much but we have to get this one person out get them removed before we think about anything else.”
In the end, Emperor Phoenix is a man trying to make sense of a cascade of moments in a year that hasn’t stopped tilting — a year he believes reflects a world slipping toward something like madness. His protest was messy, theatrical, symbolic, and — in his own telling — necessary. Whether people see genius, folly, performance art, or simply a frustrated citizen acting out his alarm, he insists the point was never destruction. It was attention. It was listening. It was a plea wrapped in absurdity because, to him, absurdity is the only language the times still understand.
And maybe that’s the real story here: a man standing in the wreckage of a strange year, using props and riddles and a persona stitched from myth to say what he believes ordinary words can’t carry anymore. You don’t have to agree with him to recognize the urgency in his voice, or the loneliness in his insistence that someone — anyone — should hear him.
City Hall will sweep up the glass. The charges will run their course. Life will move on in Fort Bragg, as it always does. But for half an hour, in a room full of antiques and symbolism, one man tried to show what it looks like when a citizen decides the world has tilted too far and chooses spectacle over silence.
Whether his message lands is up to the rest of us.
Joe Wagner, who is one of the main people at KNYO downtown, added context to the protest.
I guess nobody told you that there were branches in front of KNYO where the city chopped out the tree that kind of leaned in a storm several months ago. then there were some boards there that read “i am a tree” or something like that. that guy at the treasure room see’s same thing as I and others do. the city budget allocates time for a watering schedule for planters up on poles?? allocates time to weed and remove the dead stuff from planters up on poles. It’s several layers of costs yet a tree that could have been just leaned back up was removed and the central business district put a traffic cone/stake thing in the hole. i told that guy that i was thinking about jamming a dead christmas tree in the hole out of protest. while i don’t agree with him attaching anything to city hall; i totally agree with his message sent. anyway the story is fairly incomplete.
MendoLocal found a photo of the actual trash pile, something we didnt get.
