STARWOOD SLACKFUL DESPITE LEGUME'S BOMB MISFIRE

WHY DIDN'T WE GET SET UP TO TAKE CREDIT CARDS BEFORE????

It sure makes a dif at the sales table.

The Devival(s) at the Starwood festival at Brushwood in Sherman, NY (sponsored by A.C.E. of Cleveland) went very well despite the loss of Dr. Legume. Legume got there Thursday night but left Friday morning after burying a mysterious blue cylinder with red blinking L.E.D.s under the spot where the giant bonfire was to be built. I assume that it was a special effect of some kind -- Legume won't say, of course -- but apparently the timer was fried by the bonfire before it had a chance to trigger. Bummer. The bonfires at Starwood are always pretty spectacular -- literally as big as a large house, surrounded by hundreds of naked pagan drummers and dancers, and hotter than a witch's teat -- and this one had fireworks pincussioning it , but I'll bet it would have been a lot more spectacular had Legume's little surprise worked out.

I got to Brushwood at 7:55 pm Friday to find the organizers a bit agitated, since I was supposed to "go on" at 8 pm. I was not conducting a devival so much as MCing, introducing bands and doing sacred shtick during set-ups. Mostly winging it, with the "Involuntary Slack" rant thrown in. Two real famous Wiccans said they were converted.

It looks like I'll be saving souls at "Witchfest" or "Witchstock" or something like that, a big street fair in Columbus, Ohio around Oct. 24-25. You don't see CHRISTIAN preachers getting PAID to SAVE SOULS at WITCH fests very often, now DO you!?!? You hear me, Bob Larson? You hear me, WV Grant?

I also got to meet the famous druggee, Jonathan Ott, very briefly. He seemed like a regular redneck, for an "author." He was on a chocolate kick.

Jesus and I both spent most of our Starwood time WORKING... either running the Sacred Sales table, or in his case babysitting and in my case videotaping. (I'm the official videographer of the larger A.C.E. events). Poor Jesus. He had to watch over the TEENS at the event... as they swam nekkid in the pool, or underwent their weird "initiations"... I feel so sorry for the guy.

Lonesome Cowboy Dave and Papa Joe Mama were at their first Starwoods and I got to watch.

The main SubGenius event was an HOUR OF SLACK live show taping on Saturday morning. Mighty soundman Regis (who has BY CHANCE and DESIGN run sound at most of the SubGenius events in Ohio) set us up with a tape deck and mixer and 6 mikes so that we could "do show" in front of the crowd. Tag-team preachers included Papa Joe Mama, Lonesome Cowboy Dave, Bleepo Abernathy, Sister Velveteen Sly and occasionally Jesus. The edited version was turned into HOUR OF SLACK #539 yesterday. It is the greatest Hour of Slack ever produced, so you should definitely buy it. Between ranting we played "Dad" Townsend's mixdown of his pals doing THE PLEDGE OF THE SUBGENIUS, and a tape of L. Ron Hubbard himself, SINGING, a song called "Thank You for Listening" which Nenslo sent me. Nenslo's chipper instrumental collections were running in the background during the tag-team preaching which forms most of the show. $6.50 for the 60 min. cassette. The Face Fucking Bat discussion is not on the radio tape.

HOUR OF SLACK #540 is a solid uncut recording of an ESO Radio show with Einstein's Secret Orchestra. Every Thursday night at 11 pm, on WCSB in Cleveland (89.3 fm), Chas Smith, violinist/effects-mixer Michelle, Lonesome Cowboy Dave and various other band members do a couple of radio hours that rival God. I join that show every chance I get because each one is, like this one recorded just before Starwood, the greatest Hour of Slack ever produced.

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Every year at Starwood, the good A.C.E. guru Jeff Rosenbaum organizes a little rotating group of players called THE FIRESIGN CLONES, and we do stage radio-play renditions of old Firesign Theater bits. This year we did Temporarily Humboldt County, the one about the Indians, from their first album. I was Indian Two, Wagon Boss, and Government Agent. It's like playing air guitar.

It's weird, I can't remember my own rants well enough to work without notes, but I'll bet I could recite the entirety of I THINK WE'RE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS. That's really SICK.

(end of report)
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