Posts
http://www.subgenius.com/scatalog/new_crap.htm
takes you to
12 Hours of Slack in MP3, Volume 21: Shows # 998 - 1008, plus XXX-Rated Hour of Slack #7
(June to August, 2005, including much 8X-Day live stage radio with Dr. Howll, Philo and Stang)
HoS 998 - X-Day
HoS 999 - "Bob" and X-Day
HoS 1000 - Special Episode!
HoS 1001 - Secrets of The Conspiracy
HoS 1002 - 8X-Day
HoS 1003 - 8X-Day/Starwood
HoS 1004 - The Con Vs. 8X-Day
HoS 1005 - Philo & Hal Vs. The Con
HoS 1006 - Sex, Drugs and Keywords of 8X-Day
HoS 1007 - early man vs. the drug war
HoS 1008 - - Ask Dr. Howl
X-Rated Hour of Slack #7
Nifty covers on the jewel case by Heart Ignition and IMBJR
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Monday, August 22, 2005
Ton o' Luv on alt.binaries.multimedia.slack
Thanks to the Gription Clench donation of a REALLY high-end computer, the Bombies and Zomboes here at Bulldada Time Control Labs have been cranking out video. Eventually we will probably attempt to make actual money off these videos, by selling DVDs of them, but in the meantime, they're free on our binaries newsgroup in very high quality DivX avi format, usually with an alternate in old-fashioned MPEG video. If you burn them to a CDR, they play and look pretty much like a DVD.
I have also been posting the teeny-tiny, jerky-movement, tiny screen-sized "Internetty" versions on alt.binaries.slack, where we keep the smaller files like single-song MP3s and nonmoving graphics.
ALSO, I have begun posting entire Susie the Floozy radio shows in MP3.
Last X-Day Drill, Susie gave Pater Nostril copies of a several dozen of her incredible shows, in MP3 on two data DVDs. He gave them to me to put on a.b.m.s., since I have a faster connection. So far I have uploaded four of these shows… I'll probably put another one or two up every couple of days for the next few months. Being hour-long shows, the MP3s are a little too big for alt.binaries.slack in the quantities I'll be uploading.
You KNOW, of course, that the Puzzling Evidence shows are also downloadable, archived in MP3, from
http://matrix.csustan.edu/Negativ/
Susie's shows are also archived for a while on wrek.org, as are the Lymph Node Institute shows.
VIDEOS on a.b.m.s.:
DOBBSEDELIASTESES
Not all of them, but some of these short animated music videos have been reposted in SVCD-style mpeg-2. These probably WON'T be posted again in this form, because I plan to add more spiffy effects to most of them for their next incarnation.
WINTERSTAR 2005
This is just me sitting at a table, talking to a big room full of people who are mostly NOT dues-paying SubGeniuses. Because of this I was able to get lots of words in edgewise. There are dozens of videos like this, except this had a) unusually good video and audio (a 2-camera shoot) and b) an unusually good performance by me, or else an unusually understanding audience, maybe both. The audio is available on a CD in our catalog, but this is the first whole sermon by me that I thought was good enough to go on a DVD. Main subjects of the rant, besides a brief into to the Church, are SubGenius "kooks," and the ease with which a fairly "unenlightened" individual can come to believe itself to be "enlightened." In other words, ALL BELIEF SYSTEMS are politely but very conscientiously trashed.
STARWOOD 2005
Although I was working from some of the same notes as the Winterstar sermon, this one is a completely different animal. I was speaking on an outdoor stage to a much larger audience, with a special video projection behind me made from the instrumental Dobbsedeliasteses music videos, with the credits and titles removed. (Thus in some ways, you're getting two videos for one.) My camera was shooting from the side (and getting excellent sound) but there was also a professional crew shooting and live-mixing two cameras. I was able to intercut between these two sources, so the end result is like 3-camera coverage.
Mayjickians, Maygggishens, and students of the occult will recognize the female authors of several of their fave witchcraft books, walking past the stage during wide shots, TOPLESS. New game: IDENTIFY THE OCCULT AUTHORS BY THEIR TEATS.
8X-DAY IN PROGRESS:
I'm editing this footage bit by bit, in discreet chunks, like a bunch of little shorts. The first one is the least explicable, least doctrinal, least identifiable as in any way inspired by "Bob" -- the Ritual Teabagging of Gov. Rocknar. For this I had footage from two cameras, operated by Wei/I and Frop/Dec. Includes Dok Frop's bizarre "facehugger" bagging.
"TEABAGGING" is only 7 minutes long. Don't ask me to explain or excuse it.
"AMERICA, FUCK YEAH" cover by Lonesome Cowboy Dave and The Mondo Retardo Band, also includes "SUBGENIUS ANTHEM". Princess Wei is actually the main singer on "America, Fuck Yeah" (from the movie Team America). This video is just one long shot, with me operating camera, zooming and panning appropriately. I had the advantage of having seen the rehearsals. The sound is a mix of the board recording by Pater Nostril and the video sound -- not too bad for low tech! 6 minutes total.
Almost all the ASK DR. HOWL audio from 8X-Day has been posted to a.b.m.s. in MP3, also to a.b.s. This is all from the hours of live "stage radio" recorded by me, Dr. Howl and Dr. Philo Drummond. If you are familiar with Dr. Howl, then I don't need to tell you anything. If you aren't familiar with Dr. Howl, especially his "Ask Dr. Howl" performances, please believe that this is some of the best, most highly faluted SubGenius material you'll ever encounter. Despite me and Philo.
Also on a.b.m.s. are several Hours of Slack and ARISE! The video, in DivX avi -- and, just today:
KEEP IT SURREAL by Lamprey Systems (lamprey-systems.com) -- a collection of all the collage music videos so far by this great SubGenius Arteest. The videos aren't specifically SubGenius, but they are about as SubGenius-y as you can get. AND YOU CAN GET THEM MAILED TO YOU FOR FREE!
Yes. I was about to download this 2-DVD set when I found DVD copies from Lamprey System in the Sacred P.O. Box -- with a letter from St. Robert Carr stating that any DUES-PAYING SubGenius minister who emails him at lampreysystems@cableone.net and is gullible enough to tell him their snail mail address can have their own personal copy!
And I thought I was being generous by giving my videos away on the Internet -- he's even paying the POSTAGE, and MAILING you free copies!
Now that alt.binaries.multimedia.slack exists, poverty cannot stop you from getting SubGenius videos and audio. Only a refusal to read the instructions can prevent your downloading. The lazy and/or ignorant can always BUY these videos, needless to say.
GLOSSARY:
"DivX avi" is a video format that will play on most new, cheap DVD players but not on most older, expensive ones. It will play on any computer that can play video, but it needs the latest version of the DivX codec, which involves a quick, painless, free operation at www.divx.com.
"alt.binaries.multimedia.slack" is on Usenet. Here are some clues about Usenet binaries newsgroups:
http://subgenius.com/usenet.htm
You can learn much more by googling.
Boy, is that an understatement.
Here at SubGenius Foundation we believe in BOTH "open source" AND the evils of piggish capitalism. We see absolutely no reason why the two can't co-exist, as long as lazy or ignorant people can't download the free stuff too easily, and must buy it to see it. PRAISE "BOB" for the lazy and the ignorant, for they pay MY MORTGAGE, among other things. And, like "Bob," they seem to make more money than the rest of us.
I have also been posting the teeny-tiny, jerky-movement, tiny screen-sized "Internetty" versions on alt.binaries.slack, where we keep the smaller files like single-song MP3s and nonmoving graphics.
ALSO, I have begun posting entire Susie the Floozy radio shows in MP3.
Last X-Day Drill, Susie gave Pater Nostril copies of a several dozen of her incredible shows, in MP3 on two data DVDs. He gave them to me to put on a.b.m.s., since I have a faster connection. So far I have uploaded four of these shows… I'll probably put another one or two up every couple of days for the next few months. Being hour-long shows, the MP3s are a little too big for alt.binaries.slack in the quantities I'll be uploading.
You KNOW, of course, that the Puzzling Evidence shows are also downloadable, archived in MP3, from
http://matrix.csustan.edu/Negativ/
Susie's shows are also archived for a while on wrek.org, as are the Lymph Node Institute shows.
VIDEOS on a.b.m.s.:
DOBBSEDELIASTESES
Not all of them, but some of these short animated music videos have been reposted in SVCD-style mpeg-2. These probably WON'T be posted again in this form, because I plan to add more spiffy effects to most of them for their next incarnation.
WINTERSTAR 2005
This is just me sitting at a table, talking to a big room full of people who are mostly NOT dues-paying SubGeniuses. Because of this I was able to get lots of words in edgewise. There are dozens of videos like this, except this had a) unusually good video and audio (a 2-camera shoot) and b) an unusually good performance by me, or else an unusually understanding audience, maybe both. The audio is available on a CD in our catalog, but this is the first whole sermon by me that I thought was good enough to go on a DVD. Main subjects of the rant, besides a brief into to the Church, are SubGenius "kooks," and the ease with which a fairly "unenlightened" individual can come to believe itself to be "enlightened." In other words, ALL BELIEF SYSTEMS are politely but very conscientiously trashed.
STARWOOD 2005
Although I was working from some of the same notes as the Winterstar sermon, this one is a completely different animal. I was speaking on an outdoor stage to a much larger audience, with a special video projection behind me made from the instrumental Dobbsedeliasteses music videos, with the credits and titles removed. (Thus in some ways, you're getting two videos for one.) My camera was shooting from the side (and getting excellent sound) but there was also a professional crew shooting and live-mixing two cameras. I was able to intercut between these two sources, so the end result is like 3-camera coverage.
Mayjickians, Maygggishens, and students of the occult will recognize the female authors of several of their fave witchcraft books, walking past the stage during wide shots, TOPLESS. New game: IDENTIFY THE OCCULT AUTHORS BY THEIR TEATS.
8X-DAY IN PROGRESS:
I'm editing this footage bit by bit, in discreet chunks, like a bunch of little shorts. The first one is the least explicable, least doctrinal, least identifiable as in any way inspired by "Bob" -- the Ritual Teabagging of Gov. Rocknar. For this I had footage from two cameras, operated by Wei/I and Frop/Dec. Includes Dok Frop's bizarre "facehugger" bagging.
"TEABAGGING" is only 7 minutes long. Don't ask me to explain or excuse it.
"AMERICA, FUCK YEAH" cover by Lonesome Cowboy Dave and The Mondo Retardo Band, also includes "SUBGENIUS ANTHEM". Princess Wei is actually the main singer on "America, Fuck Yeah" (from the movie Team America). This video is just one long shot, with me operating camera, zooming and panning appropriately. I had the advantage of having seen the rehearsals. The sound is a mix of the board recording by Pater Nostril and the video sound -- not too bad for low tech! 6 minutes total.
Almost all the ASK DR. HOWL audio from 8X-Day has been posted to a.b.m.s. in MP3, also to a.b.s. This is all from the hours of live "stage radio" recorded by me, Dr. Howl and Dr. Philo Drummond. If you are familiar with Dr. Howl, then I don't need to tell you anything. If you aren't familiar with Dr. Howl, especially his "Ask Dr. Howl" performances, please believe that this is some of the best, most highly faluted SubGenius material you'll ever encounter. Despite me and Philo.
Also on a.b.m.s. are several Hours of Slack and ARISE! The video, in DivX avi -- and, just today:
KEEP IT SURREAL by Lamprey Systems (lamprey-systems.com) -- a collection of all the collage music videos so far by this great SubGenius Arteest. The videos aren't specifically SubGenius, but they are about as SubGenius-y as you can get. AND YOU CAN GET THEM MAILED TO YOU FOR FREE!
Yes. I was about to download this 2-DVD set when I found DVD copies from Lamprey System in the Sacred P.O. Box -- with a letter from St. Robert Carr stating that any DUES-PAYING SubGenius minister who emails him at lampreysystems@cableone.net and is gullible enough to tell him their snail mail address can have their own personal copy!
And I thought I was being generous by giving my videos away on the Internet -- he's even paying the POSTAGE, and MAILING you free copies!
Now that alt.binaries.multimedia.slack exists, poverty cannot stop you from getting SubGenius videos and audio. Only a refusal to read the instructions can prevent your downloading. The lazy and/or ignorant can always BUY these videos, needless to say.
GLOSSARY:
"DivX avi" is a video format that will play on most new, cheap DVD players but not on most older, expensive ones. It will play on any computer that can play video, but it needs the latest version of the DivX codec, which involves a quick, painless, free operation at www.divx.com.
"alt.binaries.multimedia.slack" is on Usenet. Here are some clues about Usenet binaries newsgroups:
http://subgenius.com/usenet.htm
You can learn much more by googling.
Boy, is that an understatement.
Here at SubGenius Foundation we believe in BOTH "open source" AND the evils of piggish capitalism. We see absolutely no reason why the two can't co-exist, as long as lazy or ignorant people can't download the free stuff too easily, and must buy it to see it. PRAISE "BOB" for the lazy and the ignorant, for they pay MY MORTGAGE, among other things. And, like "Bob," they seem to make more money than the rest of us.
DEVO Art Show
Aug. 20, 2005
In alt.slack, Pink Liberation Front wrote:
>
> Stang thats the price of fame, ya know I put up the pic of abo'bob at work
> today and no-one even noticed him
>
>
That's what you think.
Like none of those millions of schoolchildren noticed him when he was
on the wall of Pee Wee's Playhouse.
YOU didn't notice the Dobbshead the first time, yourself -- THAT YOU
KNOW OF!
I managed to edit the Ritual Teabagging footage yesterday. The fact
that I did so is PROOF that I am a SubGenius. YOU'LL SEE... it is truly
MOST fucked up. Fucked up and inexplicable. I am gonna put titles on it
today and probably post it to abms tomorrow. This is one of those
situations where I'm GLAD that many people "can't" get abms. (Actually
anybody with a computer and a phone line can, but it might cost them
$10/month for EasyNews or Giganews or whatnot.)
Also on a.b.s. are the first full-length rants by me on video that I
thought were worth sitting through visually (i.e. more than one camera,
and a video backdrop) -- Winterstar and Starwood both from this year.
I'll put these on DVD eventually, but for now there's an excellent free
DivX avi of each one on a.b.m.s. -- each exactly fits a 700 mb CDR.
Last night we attended the Mark Mothersbaugh art show in Kent, and
performances by The Spudboys and the actual real life School of Rock
kids. It seems that the Jack Black vehicle, "School of Rock," was
loosely based on a real situation. That school exists and the kids are
taught to rock. Currently they are being taught to rock by the people
who are in Stinking Lizavetta. Anyway these high school kids cover a
couple of dozen DEVO songs so well that I honestly enjoyed them and The
Spudboys, the DEVO research and emulation band that forms ONLY during DEVOtionals, MORE than I enjoyed the actual DEVO concert the night before.
Reason being, when DEVO does their old songs, it sounds EXACTLY LIKE
THEIR OLD SONGS. And they can't help but sound like they've played each
big hit song a thousand times. The Spudboys and School of Rock however
DON'T sound like they've played these songs a thousand times, they
sound like they're really enjoying playing the songs THIS ONCE.
The DEVOtional starts in Akron at noon today... Wei is yard-saling, and
I'm teabag-titling, but but tonight we'll go and videotape the bands at
the Lime Spider.
I now wish I had brought my DV cam to the bar last night because those
PRETTY TEENAGE GIRLS covering songs like "Wiggly World" and "Big Mess,"
you had to see it to believe it. Especially the ... well... let's not
go there. Suffice it to say that the knuckles on my right hand are well
gnawed.
According to Gerry Casale, The Disney Channel is working on some show
called DEVO 2.0, about the adventures of a teen or child band that does
DEVO songs.
GOD ONLY KNOWS.
Rev. Mothersbaugh's art show was fun enough, but it wasn't the
hand-drawn sicko postcards or the blacklight poster paintings; this
time it was pretty elementary Photoshop tweaks on antique photos he
found -- simply mirroring one side of the image right down the middle,
producing an odd symetry. I like Mark's hand drawn art a whole lot, but
if he posted this stuff on alt.binaries.slack under a fake name, they'd
congratulate him on successfully running a Photoshop filter, the same
way we all did when we first got Photoshop, and then ignore him. If
they even replied at all. I love his nutty writings a la My Struggle
by Booji Boy, and his cartoons and drawings, but this Photoshop filter
stuff... EH.
I'll bet it impresses the rich, though.
But then, who am I to act like Mister High Faluting Art Critic. I'm
making a SUBGENIUS TEABAGGING DOCUMENTARY which won't impress ANYBODY
except the absolutely most Sub of SubGenii.
But, yet, that damn footage is still cracking me up EVERY TIME.
In alt.slack, Pink Liberation Front wrote:
>
> Stang thats the price of fame, ya know I put up the pic of abo'bob at work
> today and no-one even noticed him
>
>
That's what you think.
Like none of those millions of schoolchildren noticed him when he was
on the wall of Pee Wee's Playhouse.
YOU didn't notice the Dobbshead the first time, yourself -- THAT YOU
KNOW OF!
I managed to edit the Ritual Teabagging footage yesterday. The fact
that I did so is PROOF that I am a SubGenius. YOU'LL SEE... it is truly
MOST fucked up. Fucked up and inexplicable. I am gonna put titles on it
today and probably post it to abms tomorrow. This is one of those
situations where I'm GLAD that many people "can't" get abms. (Actually
anybody with a computer and a phone line can, but it might cost them
$10/month for EasyNews or Giganews or whatnot.)
Also on a.b.s. are the first full-length rants by me on video that I
thought were worth sitting through visually (i.e. more than one camera,
and a video backdrop) -- Winterstar and Starwood both from this year.
I'll put these on DVD eventually, but for now there's an excellent free
DivX avi of each one on a.b.m.s. -- each exactly fits a 700 mb CDR.
Last night we attended the Mark Mothersbaugh art show in Kent, and
performances by The Spudboys and the actual real life School of Rock
kids. It seems that the Jack Black vehicle, "School of Rock," was
loosely based on a real situation. That school exists and the kids are
taught to rock. Currently they are being taught to rock by the people
who are in Stinking Lizavetta. Anyway these high school kids cover a
couple of dozen DEVO songs so well that I honestly enjoyed them and The
Spudboys, the DEVO research and emulation band that forms ONLY during DEVOtionals, MORE than I enjoyed the actual DEVO concert the night before.
Reason being, when DEVO does their old songs, it sounds EXACTLY LIKE
THEIR OLD SONGS. And they can't help but sound like they've played each
big hit song a thousand times. The Spudboys and School of Rock however
DON'T sound like they've played these songs a thousand times, they
sound like they're really enjoying playing the songs THIS ONCE.
The DEVOtional starts in Akron at noon today... Wei is yard-saling, and
I'm teabag-titling, but but tonight we'll go and videotape the bands at
the Lime Spider.
I now wish I had brought my DV cam to the bar last night because those
PRETTY TEENAGE GIRLS covering songs like "Wiggly World" and "Big Mess,"
you had to see it to believe it. Especially the ... well... let's not
go there. Suffice it to say that the knuckles on my right hand are well
gnawed.
According to Gerry Casale, The Disney Channel is working on some show
called DEVO 2.0, about the adventures of a teen or child band that does
DEVO songs.
GOD ONLY KNOWS.
Rev. Mothersbaugh's art show was fun enough, but it wasn't the
hand-drawn sicko postcards or the blacklight poster paintings; this
time it was pretty elementary Photoshop tweaks on antique photos he
found -- simply mirroring one side of the image right down the middle,
producing an odd symetry. I like Mark's hand drawn art a whole lot, but
if he posted this stuff on alt.binaries.slack under a fake name, they'd
congratulate him on successfully running a Photoshop filter, the same
way we all did when we first got Photoshop, and then ignore him. If
they even replied at all. I love his nutty writings a la My Struggle
by Booji Boy, and his cartoons and drawings, but this Photoshop filter
stuff... EH.
I'll bet it impresses the rich, though.
But then, who am I to act like Mister High Faluting Art Critic. I'm
making a SUBGENIUS TEABAGGING DOCUMENTARY which won't impress ANYBODY
except the absolutely most Sub of SubGenii.
But, yet, that damn footage is still cracking me up EVERY TIME.
DEVO Concert and DEVOtional in Cleveland
Aug. 19, 2005
Much to my surprise I'll get to attend the annual DEVOtional services after all.
That's at The Lime Spider in Akron, a nice bar that has sponsored DEVOtionals and also devivals before. Here's the blurb on the DEVO fan site:
http://www.devo-obsesso.com/obsesso/html/news_pgs/devotional05.html
And tonight, in Kent, Ohio, Mark Mothersbaugh's traveling art show opens. I guess Wei and I will go to that as well. It'll be the first time I've ever actually been to Kent.
Princess Wei and I bought the expensive floor tickets to the DEVO show at the last minute, by email, went to the outdoor Scene Pavilion, met Rev. Chris Lee and Rev. Prostata Contata, as planned, and also encountered many other SubGenii, the more insane WCSB DJs, and otherwise devolved friends and acquaintances, including the ubiquitous Rev. Steve Scynic.
The show started on time and, what can I say, it was a DEVO concert. I've seen about ten of those, and the main thing that distinguished this one especially for me was that everyone in the band is ten years older and fatter. Performancewise they were the same young spudboys, which is exactly what DEVOtees want.
For the first half they wore the classic first-album yellow radiation suits, then they tore those off to reveal their new black T-and-short-pants minimalist uniform.
They noticeably stuck to songs from the early albums. A stagehand who was a Princess Wei admirer gave her the actual filth-besmeared set list print-out after the show:
(DEVO Concert Video Overture)
THAT'S GOOD
GOING UNDER
GIRL U WANT
WHIP IT
SATISFACTION
UNCONTROLLABLE URGE
MONGOLOID
BLOCKHEAD
JOCKO HOMO
SMART PATROL/MR. DNA
GATES OF STEEL
FREEDOM OF CHOICE WIGGLY WORLD GUT FEELING/SLAP YER MAMMY
COME BACK JONNIE
There were no big changes to song structures, no weird versions, although "Freedom of Choice" began with an "America the Beautiful" intro and a sarcastic rant about the current state of American politics.
Throughout the whole last half of the show I was wondering what Mark had stuffed in his crotch that made it bulge cartoonishly. It was a giant sack of multicolored marble-sized SuperBalls, which, during the climactic number, he emptied by bouncing handfulls of the balls all off the stage into the audience.
For me a high point was when Gerry Casale addressed the crowd to say that de-evolution has turned out to be, if anything, much more real than the band had suspected when they were young. He declared, "I'M SORRY WE WERE RIGHT."
After the show, partially thanks to his nephew, we found our friend Rev. Michael Pilmer, the DEVO archivist who is now in their employ. He was handing out decal stickers with pictures of Energy Domes that you can punch out and plaster everywhere. "Spread 'Em Like a Virus," it says on there.
Holy shit, I just now noticed the credit line on this sticker: copyright 2005 DEVO Dome Illustration by Krk Ryden
Well I be damn. Rev. Krk Ryden (brother of Mark, also an illustrator) just joined the Church this year.
We met the band's new drummer for the first time. I asked DEVO guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh how his kids were, all grown up by now, and he said, "See that blond woman in the red shirt over there? That's my daughter Alexi, she was on the Shout cover," and I realized, I had met her when she was a 6 year old! We kept her up too late filming the R. U. Experienced? video. (She's the little girl sitting with a little boy when the TV explodes -- the little boy was Dr. Tim Leary's son.)
Much to my great horror, Gerry Casale now looks YOUNGER than me by about 15 years. He must have struck a deal with The Elder Bankers or the Gnomes of Zurich or somebody. Satan maybe. Mark Mothersbaugh, thank god, looks his age. In fact he and Rev. Bleepo Abernathy could now pass for twin brothers. I got to introduce him to Princess Wei. The last time I saw Mark, I was married to someone else. Unfortunately, he won't be at his own art opening in Kent, nor will any of the current DEVOs be in Akron for the DEVOtional, because COMMERCIAL MUSIC PRODUCTION CALLS. They have to run back to Mutato in L.A. to do a commercial or tweak a movie score.
I didn't see Rev. Bob Casale after the show, darn it. He's the only member of the band who actually PAID HIS $30. His wife Lisa is duly ordained too.
Much to my own ego gratification, and as heartening examples of continued DEVO-SubGenius crossover, six or seven people who were complete strangers to me approached and said nice things about the Church or The Hour of Slack. Three DIFFERENT complete strangers -- handsome young studly fellows -- approached Princess Wei and asked if she was "the space princess." One of them said, "Weird how the Internet can make you famous, huh?" This prompts me to envision dozens of studly young men happily wanking to digital photos of Wei on computer screens. Disconcerting. SHE probably thinks it's "COOL".
Anyway, hordes of newly-discovered Wei-stalkers aside, I was gladdened to see DEVO playing to a nice healthy-sized arena crowd, obviously making good money, while inspiring the geeks, abnormals and Beautants to resist surrender for another day or year. And in Cleveland, yet.
We will join our fellow enhardened DEVO fanatics at the DEVOtional geek-in on Saturday. But we won't be there until the evening; there's a street-wide mass yard sale on our street during the day, and we have several previous lives and families worth of excess material crap to get rid of.
Today I hope to edit an 8X-Day teabagging conga-line video. Yes, an 8X-Day teabagging conga-line video. For, NOW IT CAN BE TOLD -- WE'RE ALL DEVO!
By chance I have started reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond, which comes to the same basic conclusion that a DEVO concert does: de-evolution IS real.
"DUH."
Much to my surprise I'll get to attend the annual DEVOtional services after all.
That's at The Lime Spider in Akron, a nice bar that has sponsored DEVOtionals and also devivals before. Here's the blurb on the DEVO fan site:
http://www.devo-obsesso.com/obsesso/html/news_pgs/devotional05.html
And tonight, in Kent, Ohio, Mark Mothersbaugh's traveling art show opens. I guess Wei and I will go to that as well. It'll be the first time I've ever actually been to Kent.
Princess Wei and I bought the expensive floor tickets to the DEVO show at the last minute, by email, went to the outdoor Scene Pavilion, met Rev. Chris Lee and Rev. Prostata Contata, as planned, and also encountered many other SubGenii, the more insane WCSB DJs, and otherwise devolved friends and acquaintances, including the ubiquitous Rev. Steve Scynic.
The show started on time and, what can I say, it was a DEVO concert. I've seen about ten of those, and the main thing that distinguished this one especially for me was that everyone in the band is ten years older and fatter. Performancewise they were the same young spudboys, which is exactly what DEVOtees want.
For the first half they wore the classic first-album yellow radiation suits, then they tore those off to reveal their new black T-and-short-pants minimalist uniform.
They noticeably stuck to songs from the early albums. A stagehand who was a Princess Wei admirer gave her the actual filth-besmeared set list print-out after the show:
(DEVO Concert Video Overture)
THAT'S GOOD
GOING UNDER
GIRL U WANT
WHIP IT
SATISFACTION
UNCONTROLLABLE URGE
MONGOLOID
BLOCKHEAD
JOCKO HOMO
SMART PATROL/MR. DNA
GATES OF STEEL
FREEDOM OF CHOICE WIGGLY WORLD GUT FEELING/SLAP YER MAMMY
COME BACK JONNIE
There were no big changes to song structures, no weird versions, although "Freedom of Choice" began with an "America the Beautiful" intro and a sarcastic rant about the current state of American politics.
Throughout the whole last half of the show I was wondering what Mark had stuffed in his crotch that made it bulge cartoonishly. It was a giant sack of multicolored marble-sized SuperBalls, which, during the climactic number, he emptied by bouncing handfulls of the balls all off the stage into the audience.
For me a high point was when Gerry Casale addressed the crowd to say that de-evolution has turned out to be, if anything, much more real than the band had suspected when they were young. He declared, "I'M SORRY WE WERE RIGHT."
After the show, partially thanks to his nephew, we found our friend Rev. Michael Pilmer, the DEVO archivist who is now in their employ. He was handing out decal stickers with pictures of Energy Domes that you can punch out and plaster everywhere. "Spread 'Em Like a Virus," it says on there.
Holy shit, I just now noticed the credit line on this sticker: copyright 2005 DEVO Dome Illustration by Krk Ryden
Well I be damn. Rev. Krk Ryden (brother of Mark, also an illustrator) just joined the Church this year.
We met the band's new drummer for the first time. I asked DEVO guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh how his kids were, all grown up by now, and he said, "See that blond woman in the red shirt over there? That's my daughter Alexi, she was on the Shout cover," and I realized, I had met her when she was a 6 year old! We kept her up too late filming the R. U. Experienced? video. (She's the little girl sitting with a little boy when the TV explodes -- the little boy was Dr. Tim Leary's son.)
Much to my great horror, Gerry Casale now looks YOUNGER than me by about 15 years. He must have struck a deal with The Elder Bankers or the Gnomes of Zurich or somebody. Satan maybe. Mark Mothersbaugh, thank god, looks his age. In fact he and Rev. Bleepo Abernathy could now pass for twin brothers. I got to introduce him to Princess Wei. The last time I saw Mark, I was married to someone else. Unfortunately, he won't be at his own art opening in Kent, nor will any of the current DEVOs be in Akron for the DEVOtional, because COMMERCIAL MUSIC PRODUCTION CALLS. They have to run back to Mutato in L.A. to do a commercial or tweak a movie score.
I didn't see Rev. Bob Casale after the show, darn it. He's the only member of the band who actually PAID HIS $30. His wife Lisa is duly ordained too.
Much to my own ego gratification, and as heartening examples of continued DEVO-SubGenius crossover, six or seven people who were complete strangers to me approached and said nice things about the Church or The Hour of Slack. Three DIFFERENT complete strangers -- handsome young studly fellows -- approached Princess Wei and asked if she was "the space princess." One of them said, "Weird how the Internet can make you famous, huh?" This prompts me to envision dozens of studly young men happily wanking to digital photos of Wei on computer screens. Disconcerting. SHE probably thinks it's "COOL".
Anyway, hordes of newly-discovered Wei-stalkers aside, I was gladdened to see DEVO playing to a nice healthy-sized arena crowd, obviously making good money, while inspiring the geeks, abnormals and Beautants to resist surrender for another day or year. And in Cleveland, yet.
We will join our fellow enhardened DEVO fanatics at the DEVOtional geek-in on Saturday. But we won't be there until the evening; there's a street-wide mass yard sale on our street during the day, and we have several previous lives and families worth of excess material crap to get rid of.
Today I hope to edit an 8X-Day teabagging conga-line video. Yes, an 8X-Day teabagging conga-line video. For, NOW IT CAN BE TOLD -- WE'RE ALL DEVO!
By chance I have started reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond, which comes to the same basic conclusion that a DEVO concert does: de-evolution IS real.
"DUH."
Psytopia Still Not Yet As Cool As X-Day
Aug. 17, 2005
True, Psytopia is held at a posh resort in Jamaica where you get to live like a rich person, and X-Days are held at a campground where you have to sleep in a tent.
But X-Day has never been CANCELED. Even if the saucers didn't show, we at least held the DRILL.
Psytopia AS SUCH has been canceled, because the $ fell through at the last minute. And I do mean the VERY last minute! We almost left for the airport without reading the cancellation email.
Didn't I keep saying it sounded too good to be true? The people who bought $1000 tickets and flew to Jamaica will surely have a GREAT time at a SPLENDID resort, because their rooms are still reserved for them, but the Psytopia part of Psytopia is shut down totally.
I feel very sorry for the producer, and wrote him a letter saying I'm not upset and that surely it'll happen next year because it's such a great idea, and chin up, etc.
Then I immediately priced a Burning Man trip (about $2000 for the two of us, including a rented camper-van for a week, and a $650 plane ticket), but Philo and Wellman AREN'T GOING. Dr. Howll is. But the great thing about Psytopia was, it was ALL FREE for we the now-canceled bands, arteests and ranters.
We thought about spending only some plane ticket money, and flying to a place where we can PRETEND it's Jamaica or Amsterdam, and have Couchstock. (Dobbstown is out of the question, since it's hurricane season in Malaysia and three planes have already gone down.)
But in the end, we decided the Slackermansion and SubSITE need redecorating more than we need yet another festival. It's just that we were ALMOST ALL PACKED, and the act of UNPACKING now just seems so SAD. If we keep these bags packed, we'll be INSTANTLY READY for the next trip. ANY trip.
Talk about everything coming to a screeching halt. We got so much done in preparation for this trip, that just NOT HAVING TO DO ANYTHING for a while is like a vacation. I got AHEAD on Hours of Slack, bill paying, swag-mail-out, ALL that daily chore type crap -- for the next week we're FREE AND CLEAR! Starting last week, I'd been pulling my standard pre-trip last-minute all-nighter frenzy. I re-edited the psychedelic Dobbshead background projection video that I use behind my rant to distract and implant the audience (the music previously switched from instrumentals to bobsongs too soon), and made a new DVD of it. I got three MONTHS worth of Membership packs and ARISEs assembled. And then, just for the pure emergentile fuck of it, and to bone up on my lines, in the two days before the trip, I edited the two two-camera shoots of the Winterstar and Starwood devivals, AND made menus and put them on DVDs! And made DivX copies and RARred them! So there. And about that time I got the long sad email.
I was really looking forward to that warm ocean. Oh well. We have a beach nearby… SORT OF. And this DOES mean that I get to EDIT ALL THAT VIDEO, which is what I most have been wanting to do, really, if you get right down to it.
And Princess Wei is STILL off WORK, so it's not like I won't be in HEAVEN no matter what. This just means I won't have to share her for a WHOLE WEEK.
*************
That was yesterday. Since then we've seen the third Harry Potter movie on TV, and we went to the actual movie theater to see Willy Wonka, which is splendid. Tim Burton has finally made up for Planet of the Apes with this one. The score is so Elfmaniacal that one could almost suspect it of being a parody of Elfman scores. Johnny Depp creates yet another great comic character. What a stud. The art design is INSANE. I wasn't attached to the earlier film version and I like this one better. If anything it's much WEIRDER. I can't wait to see the Cinefex article on the special effects. It's a DAHLing movie, rally it tis.
There was NO ONE ELSE in the theater. I don't think there was anybody else in the whole multiplex.
Christopher Nolan's Batman movie is at 7… hmmm. And we haven't seen that Once Upon a Time in Mexico disk yet.
Our work is cut out for us!
I thought about making a fake "OUR TRIP TO/AT PSYTOPIA" photo gallery. Like, a blurry photo of an ashtray -- "THIS WAS OUR ROOM, MAN! IT HAD AN INCREDIBLE VIEW!" A blurry close-up of some striped fabric: "WEI WORE THIS WILD BATHING SUIT, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?" Blurry photo of a blur. "WE BOUGHT THIS "TREAURE CHEST" FOR ONLY $50, TEN MINUTES AFTER WE GOT OFF THE PLANE, FROM A CRAZY DUDE NAMED RASTAFUS! MONEY WELL SPENT!" Photo of a grinning young man with long hair. "OUR NEW FRIEND REV. 420 THUNDERFUCK-BEARER!" Photo of a plate with food on it. "EVERYTHING IN THIS RESTAURANT WAS TOTALLY FREE, EVEN THE DRINKS!" Extreme close-up of Wei smiling. "WEI AND I COULDN'T GET ENOUGH OF THIS BEACH -- OR THOSE FREE DRINKS!" Blurry streaks of red lights -- some out-of-focus band. "OZRIC TENTACLES ROCKED! WE PARTIED WITH THEM BACKSTAGE RIGHT AFTER THIS SONG." Bad close-up of a gir's face. "YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE THIS DANCE CLUB. SHE WAS WEARING ONLY BODY PAINT AND A BOA CONSTRICTOR!"
But, I didn't.
I think the problem with Psytopia may have been that some of it it was set up based on gentleman's agreements, with little on paper to speak of in the way of contracts. A backer suddenly changed its mind, plus, 20 of the people who signed up never actually got around to PAYING up. Too small a margin for catastrophe, and no insurance against it.
And then there's the "X-DAY JAMAICA" notion which got to burbling in our heads. You must admit, it has a ring to it.
True, Psytopia is held at a posh resort in Jamaica where you get to live like a rich person, and X-Days are held at a campground where you have to sleep in a tent.
But X-Day has never been CANCELED. Even if the saucers didn't show, we at least held the DRILL.
Psytopia AS SUCH has been canceled, because the $ fell through at the last minute. And I do mean the VERY last minute! We almost left for the airport without reading the cancellation email.
Didn't I keep saying it sounded too good to be true? The people who bought $1000 tickets and flew to Jamaica will surely have a GREAT time at a SPLENDID resort, because their rooms are still reserved for them, but the Psytopia part of Psytopia is shut down totally.
I feel very sorry for the producer, and wrote him a letter saying I'm not upset and that surely it'll happen next year because it's such a great idea, and chin up, etc.
Then I immediately priced a Burning Man trip (about $2000 for the two of us, including a rented camper-van for a week, and a $650 plane ticket), but Philo and Wellman AREN'T GOING. Dr. Howll is. But the great thing about Psytopia was, it was ALL FREE for we the now-canceled bands, arteests and ranters.
We thought about spending only some plane ticket money, and flying to a place where we can PRETEND it's Jamaica or Amsterdam, and have Couchstock. (Dobbstown is out of the question, since it's hurricane season in Malaysia and three planes have already gone down.)
But in the end, we decided the Slackermansion and SubSITE need redecorating more than we need yet another festival. It's just that we were ALMOST ALL PACKED, and the act of UNPACKING now just seems so SAD. If we keep these bags packed, we'll be INSTANTLY READY for the next trip. ANY trip.
Talk about everything coming to a screeching halt. We got so much done in preparation for this trip, that just NOT HAVING TO DO ANYTHING for a while is like a vacation. I got AHEAD on Hours of Slack, bill paying, swag-mail-out, ALL that daily chore type crap -- for the next week we're FREE AND CLEAR! Starting last week, I'd been pulling my standard pre-trip last-minute all-nighter frenzy. I re-edited the psychedelic Dobbshead background projection video that I use behind my rant to distract and implant the audience (the music previously switched from instrumentals to bobsongs too soon), and made a new DVD of it. I got three MONTHS worth of Membership packs and ARISEs assembled. And then, just for the pure emergentile fuck of it, and to bone up on my lines, in the two days before the trip, I edited the two two-camera shoots of the Winterstar and Starwood devivals, AND made menus and put them on DVDs! And made DivX copies and RARred them! So there. And about that time I got the long sad email.
I was really looking forward to that warm ocean. Oh well. We have a beach nearby… SORT OF. And this DOES mean that I get to EDIT ALL THAT VIDEO, which is what I most have been wanting to do, really, if you get right down to it.
And Princess Wei is STILL off WORK, so it's not like I won't be in HEAVEN no matter what. This just means I won't have to share her for a WHOLE WEEK.
*************
That was yesterday. Since then we've seen the third Harry Potter movie on TV, and we went to the actual movie theater to see Willy Wonka, which is splendid. Tim Burton has finally made up for Planet of the Apes with this one. The score is so Elfmaniacal that one could almost suspect it of being a parody of Elfman scores. Johnny Depp creates yet another great comic character. What a stud. The art design is INSANE. I wasn't attached to the earlier film version and I like this one better. If anything it's much WEIRDER. I can't wait to see the Cinefex article on the special effects. It's a DAHLing movie, rally it tis.
There was NO ONE ELSE in the theater. I don't think there was anybody else in the whole multiplex.
Christopher Nolan's Batman movie is at 7… hmmm. And we haven't seen that Once Upon a Time in Mexico disk yet.
Our work is cut out for us!
I thought about making a fake "OUR TRIP TO/AT PSYTOPIA" photo gallery. Like, a blurry photo of an ashtray -- "THIS WAS OUR ROOM, MAN! IT HAD AN INCREDIBLE VIEW!" A blurry close-up of some striped fabric: "WEI WORE THIS WILD BATHING SUIT, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?" Blurry photo of a blur. "WE BOUGHT THIS "TREAURE CHEST" FOR ONLY $50, TEN MINUTES AFTER WE GOT OFF THE PLANE, FROM A CRAZY DUDE NAMED RASTAFUS! MONEY WELL SPENT!" Photo of a grinning young man with long hair. "OUR NEW FRIEND REV. 420 THUNDERFUCK-BEARER!" Photo of a plate with food on it. "EVERYTHING IN THIS RESTAURANT WAS TOTALLY FREE, EVEN THE DRINKS!" Extreme close-up of Wei smiling. "WEI AND I COULDN'T GET ENOUGH OF THIS BEACH -- OR THOSE FREE DRINKS!" Blurry streaks of red lights -- some out-of-focus band. "OZRIC TENTACLES ROCKED! WE PARTIED WITH THEM BACKSTAGE RIGHT AFTER THIS SONG." Bad close-up of a gir's face. "YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE THIS DANCE CLUB. SHE WAS WEARING ONLY BODY PAINT AND A BOA CONSTRICTOR!"
But, I didn't.
I think the problem with Psytopia may have been that some of it it was set up based on gentleman's agreements, with little on paper to speak of in the way of contracts. A backer suddenly changed its mind, plus, 20 of the people who signed up never actually got around to PAYING up. Too small a margin for catastrophe, and no insurance against it.
And then there's the "X-DAY JAMAICA" notion which got to burbling in our heads. You must admit, it has a ring to it.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Off To, and At, Psytopia
I guess I had better check in, or I might get in trouble with you-know-who. My head has been buried in Hours and Hours, weeks really, of Slack. Due to 8X-Day Drill and Starwood, Hour of Slack production had fallen behind while stacking up. After getting the new Gription 620 supercomputer up and running, and after then pretty much disappearing into it, like Professor Challenger into The Lost World, I have managed to catch up and even get ahead. In the last week I got shows numbers 1005, 1006, 1007, 1008, and 1009 up and running, and/or mailed to stations and subscribers. These particular Hours of Slack bear EXTRA SLACK, for they all feature the great Dr. Howll and the notorious Dr. Philo Drummond as special live guests, along with fabulastical new musical doktors, and our unusual usuals.
You can hear those shows in all manner of formats via the Hour of Slack page on SubSITE.
Next week, Princess Wei and I are lucky enough to be attending Psytopia, a sort of consciousness convention at a fancy resort in Jamaica, the prospects of which STILL seem too good to be true. In theory, I will be preaching on Sunday night on a beach stage, with a machine projecting the new Dobbsedelia II mind-control video behind me, with a crowd of the UnSaved, all naked, young, rich and SEEKING... and boy howdy, have we got a seeking-stopper for them! Well, a temporary plug, anyway. A plug with a PIPE in it!
There are still a few tickets available for Psytopia, and if you share a triple room with 2 others, it's a lot cheaper.
Having gotten these Hours of Slack out of the way, according to my Sacred Scribe Orders from Dobbstown, I am supposed to answer about three months worth of email. But I gotta admit, all I can think about are these hours of video and graphics awaiting editing and animation.
If you're into downloading movies, I posted more SubGenius video than I can list here on alt.binaries.multimedia.slack during the last week or two. Nothing brand new besides the radio shows and some 8X-Day stage recordings, but many nice mpeg copies of various Dobbsedeliasteses, ARISE!, short SubClassics, etc.
I still hang out at alt.slack and alt.binaries.slack. If you prefer the blog method of communicating important messages to fellow SubGenii, remember http://slackoff.blogspot.com/
If you think you might like to read some SubGeniusly essays by a great SubGenius Hierarch from the Olden Days, try starting with this article about Yetis in the movies, and then back out from there to see Nensletic opinions and discoveries in many other fields of the arts and sciences.
You can hear those shows in all manner of formats via the Hour of Slack page on SubSITE.
Next week, Princess Wei and I are lucky enough to be attending Psytopia, a sort of consciousness convention at a fancy resort in Jamaica, the prospects of which STILL seem too good to be true. In theory, I will be preaching on Sunday night on a beach stage, with a machine projecting the new Dobbsedelia II mind-control video behind me, with a crowd of the UnSaved, all naked, young, rich and SEEKING... and boy howdy, have we got a seeking-stopper for them! Well, a temporary plug, anyway. A plug with a PIPE in it!
There are still a few tickets available for Psytopia, and if you share a triple room with 2 others, it's a lot cheaper.
Having gotten these Hours of Slack out of the way, according to my Sacred Scribe Orders from Dobbstown, I am supposed to answer about three months worth of email. But I gotta admit, all I can think about are these hours of video and graphics awaiting editing and animation.
If you're into downloading movies, I posted more SubGenius video than I can list here on alt.binaries.multimedia.slack during the last week or two. Nothing brand new besides the radio shows and some 8X-Day stage recordings, but many nice mpeg copies of various Dobbsedeliasteses, ARISE!, short SubClassics, etc.
I still hang out at alt.slack and alt.binaries.slack. If you prefer the blog method of communicating important messages to fellow SubGenii, remember http://slackoff.blogspot.com/
If you think you might like to read some SubGeniusly essays by a great SubGenius Hierarch from the Olden Days, try starting with this article about Yetis in the movies, and then back out from there to see Nensletic opinions and discoveries in many other fields of the arts and sciences.
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