The SubGenius Mailing List

Before all this other stuff, I want to mention that Hours of Slack 994 and 995 are now online.

(Started May 19, 10 am)

I'm entering new Members to the database, and moving Lost Members to the Lost Members file.

For teX-Day, I sent postcards to everyone in Texas and Louisiana. Out of 400 cards mailed, 40 came back stamped "Attempted Not Known" or "Not Deliverable as Addressed, Unable to Forward".

One came back inside an envelope, with this handwritten on it: "Carrie Dillon DOES NOT live here. I am a God-fearing Christian. Save your postage. (Get my address off this disgusting mail list)"

Joe Lansdale moved... Lewis Shiner moved ...Farley Scott aka "Rev. Bob" ... Rev. BARWELL, Rev. Cosmo Euthanasius moved... Need CODINI's new address in VA

Some post offices, when they slap on the sticker that says "Undeliverable," place it directly OVER the address so that when it bounces back to the sender, there's no way to tell WHICH address it was that was bad, without carefully peeling back the sticker, IF THAT IS EVEN POSSIBLE.

Chuck "Sexecutioner" Varga... Sister "Lords of the Highway" Sugar... David Apocolypse... current locations ALL UNKNOWN.

DEAD, DEAD, DEAD -- but still on the mailing list until now: Ken Kesey - Tim Leary - The Heavenly Morphodite - NIGHTFLIGHT - Kerry Thornley - POLYGRAM - PHENOMICON - Eris Pagana - Sverre Kristensen - MTV On-Air-Promotions - - Mike Saenz & Reactor - John Fudge - Russ Meyer - J'lahn's brain - yes, all of those were STILL on the list and had to be removed by me in the year 2005. Downright funereal. What I was told about the bad addresses being removed by virtue of nifty computerized mailing services apparently wasn't entirely accurate.

I LOOKED AT EVERY SINGLE MEMBER ADDRESS... YES, I, STANG SKIMMED THROUGH ALL OF THEM, SCANNING FOR PROBLEMS. When I finished removing duplicates, dead guys, drop-outs and shunned assholes, I still had 4,041. From the teXDay Formula we can guess that 1 in 10, or 400, of those are bad.

But I haven't yet added the new ones that came in since around October '04, when the list became my responsibility again.

First I had to merge my own private mailing list into the Official Church Mailing list, maintained by the previous administration. My list, "Doktors 1," covers everyone I know personally, and gets updated constantly. When adding mine to the master list, I had to be careful to remove duplicates, such as when somebody was on BOTH lists.

But there WERE ALMOST NO DUPLICATES -- almost everyone on my personal list had been DROPPED from the master list, or else they were listed under old addresses.

Years ago, when we were striving to clean up the list, and dump bad addresses, we mailed out a Stark Fist that had a POSTCARD in it that you had to fill out and send back to us, so as to VERIFY your existence. Unfortunately, many of the recipients, especially my pals, didn't mess with the card, assuming "Stang knows I'm still here," only it wasn't Stang who was asking, and it wasn't my list we were trying to update. So a lot of my friends were not on the master list (until now). Princess Wei for instance.

Then there's the issue of the little postcard that comes with your Membership kit. Jesus invented that thing so we could keep track of Members, even if the membership was sold by someone else, Café Press for instance, or if it was a Gift or Prank Membership. Jesus therefore didn't add addresses to the Book of Life when the $30 was sent in; He added them when that POSTCARD was sent in.

BUT!! Only about one in ten SubGenii actually mail in that card after they get their Memb Pack. I realized this as I was doing the Texas mailing recently. I saw that even though I had sold probably 30 Memberships to Texans during the last 6 months, there were only THREE POSTCARDS filled out by Texans from the same period. This would explain why, even though we sell a Membership a day, roughly, we didn't end up with 365 new Members per year on our list.

Yes, the artwork on that card (by Legume) is pretty, and the card is shiny. BUT YOU MUST SEND IN THAT CARD. Or, you can PHOTOCOPY the card, and mail or fax that in.

If you don't send in the card, or that info, THAT'S OKAY. It saves me TONS of work. It means I have only about 50 entries to type before the 8X-Mailing instead of 500. It means we got your $30, but we don't ever have to send you anything again after that first big package.

Actually in truth I intend to go through the sales records and go ahead and list everyone who sent their $30, WHETHER OR NOT they sent their postcard in. But I might not get around to it for this mailing. That will be a massive back-burner chore for a volunteer or poorly paid robot to do at some point in the unhurried future, or gradually.

So look at your old tattered Membership Pack, see if there's a nice full color postcard in there that you MEANT to get around to sending in, and SEND IT IN.

And if it has a Dallas or Austin address on it, CHANGE THAT to
PO Box 181417
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118

DID YOU MOVE since becoming a Minister? SEND US YOUR NEW ADDRESS (and also the name you signed up under). The PO won't forward stuff after about 6 months -- IF they bother to forward things at all. Sure, when you moved, you sent your change of address thingie to PC WORLD, and BARELY LEGAL, and LEG SHOW, but did you send it to your CHURCH??

PLEASE WRITE LEGIBLY! If we have to guess your last name from a drugged-out scrawl, chances are I'll guess wrong and the robots will dump you from the list later. People tend to print their names the way they say their phone numbers - as if I've already heard it as many times as they've said it. Here's a good example: what I read on the guy's card was "David Athehcar, 3005 161 St. ." I double-checked, by doing a search for "David A" in my orders file, and found him - but Athecar wasn't anything like his last name, and "3005 161 st" was nothing like the actual address. It was 300 S. 16th Street.

I am not going to be double-checking every time I come to an illegible scrawl. I (or Old Bessie's replacement) will be guessing. Don't make us guess!

WHETHER WE HAVE YOUR CURRENT ADDRESS OR NOT, YOU ARE STILL SAVED and will be RUPTURED UP onto the Escape Veseels of the Sex Goddesses on X-Day. That all works by magic (alien science actually); the SECOND you sent that $30 to "Bob," that was when you made the XIST list.

It's just we mortal mail order clerks who must be TOLD when you move, so we can mail you your devival alerts, and maybe even a Stark Fist Newsletter on paper, as soon as I finish paying off the debts incurred in previous Stark Fist and Dallas SubGenius Office situations.

If you told us your change of address during the years from 1996 to 2005, you might want to tell us again, just to be safe.

Believe it or not, I, Stang, feel some personal responsibility to anyone who sends us $30. Not much, but enough that I'm handling this mailing list mess myself rather than entrusting it to anybody else again. Live and learn. And then DIE, if you HAVEN'T EVEN YET sent in your $30.

IF you are coming to 8X-Day at Brushwood, and you bought your Membership before 2005, and you didn't send in that verification postcard - BRING YOUR MEMBERSHIP CARD or that VERIFICATION POSTCARD or something so we can know you're a dues-paying minister. You should carry your memb-card on your person AT ALL TIMES, ANYWAY, in case of Rupsture. If you bought a membership during the Jesus-Magdalen time, 1996 to late 2004, especially if from CafePress, and didn't send in your card, THE ONLY PROOF that you are a Member is the physical card in your hand.

If, however, if you bought your Membership from Bulldada Time Control Labs, you are covered umpteen ways of Sunday in several backed-up databases as well on paper. Your Memb Pack was probably addressed by me by hand, and your address is in my email-records, EVEN IF you didn't send in the card.

(4 pm)

STANG GOES NUTS, DOES ALL BOBBIE WORK


I just got a wild hare and I JUST THIS AFTERNOON ENTERED ALL NEW MINISTERS to the database, WHETHER OR NOT they sent in that postcard. Everyone who bought a Membership from Bulldada Time Control is SAFE. It only took me a couple of hours because I was in THE TYPING ZONE.

Yes, I just typed in a few hundred addresses. 1st NAME - tab-2nd Name -tab - church name- tab - street address - tab - city - tab-state abbrev (I know them all by heart) tab -zip - NEXT RECORD!! COME OWN, m'f'k'r! BRING THEM OWN!!

Although I'd rather be editing video, I get a weird kick from doing this clerk work, address-typing, because for each name and address, I get a clairvoyant whiffreading fly-by, not so much from the individual, but of the street itself, the general feel and smell of the neighborhood. I'm sure it's completely imaginary, but by Gobbs it certainly makes things more interesting. Most are just plain suburban houses or apartments, but every now and then you get one that imparts a sense of special weirdness, creativity or doom. "Crescent Way in Johnsville, CA" -- nothing much there. (Although the member's name is "HITTLER"!) Plain street like where I grew up. Nice guy who doesn't live up to his name. But PO Box 999878 in Oceanside, CA? For some reason that connects to a house filled with SPIDERS, and a really FUCKED UP meth-head! Don't ask me, I just get these visions, I can't vouch for their accuracy.

Rev. Phloighd had volunteered to do all this typing, but since I was already in robotic manual-typing address-entry mode, I just STAYED IN IT and whipped through the whole damn thing myself. Not that I don't trust Phloighd, I just NO LONGER TRUST ANYBODY! - you wouldn't either, if you KNEW! If your $30 went to CafePress, or SubGenius bfore I took back over, YOU STILL BETTER SEND IN THAT POSTCARD and any change of address that might have happened in your life since then.

FIFTY REWARDIAN VOLUNTEERS ARE NO MATCH FOR ONE INSANE EMERGENTILE!! AHAHAHAHA

Other details learned:
THE MOST COMMON MALE SUBGENIUS NAME IS "JOSHUA"

Strangely enough, the final tally of known good addresses for Memberships in the U.S. is now EXACTLY 4200.

But there are still some from April to add in.

(6 pm)

I went nuts and added in ALL of the US Members. Now I am working on the FOREIGN.

This is another area where you gave to be careful re: what volunteers do. Foreign addresses are FUCKING WEIRD unless you've dealt with them some.

HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF ESpECIALLY EVOCATIVE ADDRESSES:

"Dunstan's Rise"
"Calle de Guadenci"
36 SKETTY RD., UPLANDS
WEST QUAY , WIVENHOE, COLCHESTER
129 RUMBLINGWELL, DUNFERMLINE. FIFE
GEIR EGIL MYHRE, EBELTOFTVEIEN 8
59, AGBOYI RD. ALAPERE KETU LAGOS NIGERIA
NIEUWE HAVEN 57 DEN HAAG, ZUID HOLLAND
JACOB VERNH'J TRELDEVEJ 51 2, TH FREDERICIA

And... WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE FROM THE VALE OF GLAMORGAN, WALES??!?!?

**
It's ALL DONE.

FINAL (CURRENT) TALLY:

SUBGS IN US: 4223
SUBGS OVERSEAS: 680
LOST MEMBERS WE MIGHT SOMEDAY RELOCATE: 2919
LOST MEMBERS LOST FOR GOOD APPARENTLY: 23,978

These numbers do not include any Ministers who might have signed up via the CafePress catalog but did not send in any verification postcard.