Portland Devival 2009

RE: PORTLAND REPORT October 10, 2009 - Photos by Stang-Doe, Bro. JessBone, "Corvin"

"1Portland_Devival"	"Devival-BroJessBone"	"Devival-Corvin"	"SubGenius_Portland"
	Click on each photo to bring up the next one!

Lest we forget, this is the true story of the Portland Cyclone of Slack of 2009:

I flew out to Portland cuz "Bob" was in town
My hair was combed nice and my shoes were dark brown
I had my "Bob" t-shirt just bulging with fat
and all chicks get hot for ridiculous hats

I walk kinda funny cuz I wear orthotics
Like a handful of fucked-up ugly old white psychotics

I went to the bar and met Ivan Stang there
with a gap in his dentures and lice in his hair
He took all my money and my orthotic shoes
And I was as broke as if raped by the Jews

My butt's bleeding still but it's just episodic
From a handful of fucked-up ugly old white psychotics

There were preachers and pilgrims and retards and queers
And a dumbass who yelled and drank too many beers
There were fat girls and flat girls and girls with bad breath
And a pansexual goth who smelled like refried death

To one man they're beasts, to another, exotic
Or a handful of fucked-up ugly old white psychotics

Stang stormed the pulpit, his preaching like thunder
and the veils of deception were torn all asunder
I shook and I shivered, I gawked and I stared
and I wished that I had Ivan's fabulous hair

And Bob Dean's in the men's room doing something erotic
To a handful of fucked-up ugly old white psychotics

Now the preaching is over, everybody has gone
Money deposited, money withdrawn
The 'Frop for "Bob's" pipe had been paid for and bought
The sheep have been shorn and the lesson's been taught

"BOB" someday will arm me with deadly robotics
We'll be fucked-up ugly cyborg old white psychotics

And when that day comes, beware ye O Pinks
the fires will burn and the bodies will stink
Your mother and father, your spouse and your kids
will all fill the belly of my giant squids

Our cancer beams will turn your body necrotic
You'll be raped by fucked-up ugly old white psychotics

You'll be raped by fucked-up ugly old white psychotics
Raped and raped by fucked-up ugly old white psychotics
Raped forever by fucked-up ugly old white psychotics
Eternal rape toy of fucked-up ugly old white psychotics

-- inspired by this post to alt.slack from our full-time critic, "Michael Alcandor" aka ArchDeaconMalli

Firstly, all the performers and audience must thank Rev. Johnny Brainwash for basically putting on the show. If I understand it correctly, it was he and Rev. Frater Zirroneous (Cult of Zir) who kept the ball rolling after the Devival took on a life of its own independent of the Esozone Non-Conference, which it was originally to be part of. Johnny Brainwash's pal Katie looked to me to be pretty involved too. Portland Doktors Onan Canobite and Crawford Smith served as spiritual advisors and divine messengers.

I have said that although I am technically only working for at most an hour, devivals eat up a week ahead of time and a week after. I'll skip the tedious details and go straight to the important stuff: Princess Wei and I saw a moose in the Minneapolis airport on the way to Portland. Also, something about the Minneapolis airport gave my telekinesis a boost and I was able to project an image of my occult plan for world domination onto the floor of the concourse using my mind alone. Yet another mysterious, magnetic aspect of the Minneapolis airport is that it clung to our luggage. When Rev. Crawford Smith met us at the Portland airport, only the Sacred Swag Trunk had made it past Minneapolis. Our clothing and video gear stayed there until the next morning.

Crawford stopped at his bachelor pad, where we met my old, old, old friend Rev. Dr. Uncle Onan Canobite (youngest of the Original Doktors) and hashed over both bygone and future times. Crawford then deposited us at The Kooks Museum, palatial home of Rev. Orton Nenslo and Donna Kossy.

Alt.slack.fux are surely eager to hear news of Assassinated Nenmaster Nenslo and "the kooks lady" (so named because she literally wrote the book on kooks, KOOKS). I can tell you that she looks about 35 and he looks as old as me, and probably always will. He was, as usual, just as nice and pleasant in person as he is cranky and blunt online. I have been trying to cut down on devival gigs, but one of the main reasons I took on this one was because I wanted Princess Wei and the Nenslo-Kossys to meet.

I also wanted Wei to see a SubGenius house that is full of weird stuff yet is nicely kept and uncluttered, so that she would know it is possible. The Kooks Museum holds a vast treasure, not just in kook literature and The World's Worst Comic Books, but also in Nensletic Art. I took many photos, but am only making a few public, such as a Wings of Slack rug and various bizarre combinations of toys and sculptures. Nenslo also allowed us to admire dozens and dozens of watercolors and pen-and-ink drawings that he has completed since eschewing alt.slack and things like devivals.

The next morning, Saturday, the day of the show, Nenslo served up a Continental breakfast complete with Nenslo-brand strawberry preserves and even better-than-deli bagels that he'd made himself, as well as much fresh fruit including a perfect pear and some fine figs. Northwest Airlines delivered our lost luggage, and we started trying to organize our day around meeting up with our fellow preachers. This was Nenslo's cue to take a nice long bike ride. Donna dropped us into Rev. Crawford's and Onan's hands -- yes, the fabled dripping Hands of Onan.

Dr. Philo Drummond, Rev. Kaosmik Bobcat and their toddler daughter had driven from San Francisco to Portland in his brand new camper, a veritable house on wheels, and had met some friends at a gorgeous city park, where we found them. After a fine lunch at a Middle Eastern restaurant where we mocked the décor (as seen in photos), we wandered the streets of Portland for a bit. Onan and I indulged in more occult telekinetic power contests. Onan was able to make radiating lines crack open in the concrete around him. I held back because I was saving up my powers for the show.

We stopped at Onan's bachelor pad where he revealed to us his amazing CABINET OF CURIOSITIES. This was a small walk-in closet that had been devoted completely to the kind of cool knick-knacks and bulldada objects that every SubGenius seems to have. Few are presented so dramatically, however, with blinky lghts and painted shelves. I snapped many photos but Onan wisely asked me not to post the pictures. It would only provoke covetousness.

We all gathered at Crawford's again. The Duke of Uke arrived with his divine ukulele -- signed by Tiny Tim himself -- and we finally got to meet Johnny Brainwash and Katie, who drove us to the Ash Street Saloon along with our swag trunk, recording gear and stage decorations. These included the hoary but seemingly immortal Giant Vinyl Dobbshead -- a 6' x 8' hanging with a high-contrast Dobbshead created by Rev. Jesus Christ, smudged lightly with Burning Man playa dust, Brushwood mud, and SubGenius sperm -- as well as an excellent 2' x 3' or so classic bedotted Dobbshead printed up especially for the DragonCon show by Rev. CHUCKkey. This one I taped and tacked to the pulpit.

I am sorry to say that Rev. CHUCKkey's fine Dobbshead was stolen as the devival was ending. Some proud Bobbie must have it now.

The Ash Street Saloon has something that 95% of our nightclub venues lack: a competent sound person and general all-around techie, in this case "Heather." Heather was so helpful, on top of things, not insane, and good looking that Princess Wei was bird-dogging me for a change. SHE NEVER GOT SHITFACED! Unless you are in a band that plays out a lot, you have no idea how SEXY competence can be.

None other than Puzzling Evidence himself, Doug Wellman, had picked up Dr. Hal at the airport and brought him to the venue. Dedicated to The Nameless Mission (which he named, incidentally), Wellman busted ass videotaping the proceedings, and his edit can be seen on Puzzling Evidence TV.

never got a chance to meet most of the youngsters in the two bands, Nequaquam Vacuum and Power Circus, because set-up got hectic, and old friends were showing up, but I did get to discuss the show schedule with the extremely helpful and talented DJ, Nolon Ashley, of http://cultofzir.com. This was when I realized that the preachers and the bands had been working from two completely different rough schedules. We preachers had assumed it would be the usual band-preacher-band-preacher type of arrangement, but in the end we went with what the bands had evidently planned for months: all-preachers followed by all-bands. That worked out just fine, especially for me, since it meant I got to finish my job early and have drinks. (I never touch any kind of inebriant before a show, but 5 seconds after is never a problem.)

Because I was involved in setting up the swag table, the mics, the video camera, and the schedule, I didn't get as much chance as I'd have liked to yak with the many old friends who appeared at the show, some from very far away. I also didn't get to flirt sufficiently with the cute young lady who was acting as swaggart, nor the young guy. I have to admit I noticed her a lot more than the guy.

We met some alt.slack.fux for the first time, such as Rev. NeuroManson and Rev. JessBone, and were extremely surprised to see Rev. Scum, a serviceman we'd last seen in German. Just as in Hamburg, he appeared to have a whole posse of gorgeous young Connietites with him. It's possible that I simply got this impression from the photos. I wouldn't want to get him in trouble. We were also happy to see Popess Lilith, who came from Seattle despite a busted wrist, Rev. Alley Valkyrie, Rev. Scalpod, Rev. Alex and probably a few more people that I am criminally neglecting to remember. Rev. Alley gave me an eye.

There was a creepy stalker all swathed in bandages like the bad guy in TIMECRIMES or The Invisible Man. He hovered around, lurkingly, not speaking, but obviously wanting attention. People in disguises at devivals are usually dipshits, so I treated this person like one -- ignoring him -- until finally he couldn't bear it any more and revealed himself as… Dr. GARY G'BROAGFRAN! I should have recognized those wrinkly, gnarly surfer's hands. He had come all the way up from Santa Cruz with his wife Rev. Eohippus Lovechild. AND I BARELY GOT TO TALK TO THEM!

Suddenly it was 9:30 PM and the devival started. Dr. Hal, the M.C. as well as the Church Keeper of Braincells, opened things up and introduced me. I usually go on first because I specialize in explaining the Church to the unsaved. Also it means I don't have to blow out my voice hollering over loud music, I get to blow it out with actual preaching.

There was one overly enthusiastic audience member who hollered VERY loudly throughout the genteel sermonizings of Hal, me, and Onan. It's funny, but that one guy distracted me more than a roomful of yelling drunks does. If it's the whole room I can usually plow right on ahead. It's like my tinnitus, it's one big roar and I don't really hear them. This particular time the solo bellowing was loud enough and specific enough to really throw me off a couple of times. I addressed the situation in my rant but I don't think the hollerer was picking up on my gentle hints about "DUMBASSES WHO CAN'T SHUT UP." Maybe he thought I meant myself. I can see how that could happen.

It is a good thing that I was delivering SubGenius 101 and not Devival Sermon 2009 (which I did at Starwood), because the latter is mostly written by Onan and that's the rant HE delivered. I enjoyed getting to watch Onan rant his own lines, and get the laugh injection directly, for once. I am usually the only one I hear delivering those snappy lines. Before his rant he sang that great old SubGenius hymn by the long-lost Rev. Doug-4 of Houston, "I Want to Die for "Bob"," but to my ear Onan was a little off-key for this "take."

In his sermon, Rev. Crawford Smith used a miraculous $1 broom to prove the truth of "Bob". By the time he started preaching I had realized that the only way I was going to get to watch the show instead of answer questions would be to run up to the secret techies-only balcony where I had left my video camera catching a wide shot of the stage.

As I went up the stairs I heard Crawford say, "J. R. "Bob" Dobbs is the kind of savior who'll go down to 82nd Ave, get two blowjobs, then come back home and give you one of them."

I crouched up there watching the show and getting a more watchable zoomed-in view of the ranting, and drinking a beer. Philo, Wei or Doktor Hal, and various weirdos of the bands, would also occasionally take refuge upstairs.

So far the only music had been Cult of Zir's mixes behind Dr. Hal, and Onan's a capella song. The Duke of Uke was a welcome relief from the jeremiads. He performs covers of very famous popular rock songs of yesteryear, but in a very… DIFFERENT… style than the originals. He opened with The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K.," which is the only one in his repertoire that I really know, and it's a 1970s punk song. According to Rev. Alex the names of some of the other songs he covers are "Holiday in Cambodia," "You Oughta Know" and "Jane Says." I am only vaguely familiar with these, having heard them only in stores and in the background on TVs. When I stopped driving my kids to school in the 1990s, that was the end of my pop music radio listening. I AM familiar with the Duke of Uke versions, because I've heard so many Duke of Uke shows. When I hear the '90s songs he covers they sound to me like they're ripping off the Duke of Uke.

Dr. Philo Drummond's readings were my very favorite part of the whole devival. I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks at his "Who We Hate" list. That should be the first page of our next book. It is going to be quite a challenge to modify the audio in editing enough to make it legally or even sanely playable on broadcast radio. Some people might not understand where Dr. Drummond is going with this rant and get hotheaded about it before they give it a chance.

Dr. Drummond's next reading was about ten minutes long. To try to use this one on broadcast radio would be folly. Maybe it's time for another XXX-Rated Internet-Only Special. If I took out the objectionable material it would be about 10 seconds long. What he was reading was a text "jam" by Philo, Sterno, Rev. Brooks Carruthers and yours truly from the early days of word processing programs. Believe it or not, the version Philo's reading has already been severely edited from an original that was, impossible as this may seem, much, much more offensive. This is the "PG-13" version.

When the bands started, I left my hiding place on the haunted balcony (look at the pictures, it looks like a haunted house set) and went out to socialize. I ended up standing at the bar getting into conversation after conversation. Once or twice I went back to the stage to snap photos, and shovel the swag table twenties into my pocket, but I did not ever settle down to just watch the bands. However, I have seen the videos that my camera dutifully recorded. Unfortunately the one thing the camera missed was Cult of Zir, which had me intrigued.

The bands Nequaquam Vacuum and Power Circus were very different, but I guess you could say they both did antimusic. But not Doktor-style antimusic, because they both seemed to go at it pretty seriously. Power Circus had elaborate costumes and a jillion different instruments and sound transmogrifiers, and maintained some very dense caterwauling indeed. I could be wrong but I got the impression that a lot of it was sort of random.

Nequaquam Vacuum was way random. Seemed like the kind of thing you can't really rehearse, since the process of making the antimusic destroys the instruments. One guy beat a big metal drum so thoroughly that it was full of holes and all bashed in by the end. It reminded me of Drs. For Wotan on a bigger budget. They had a violin and an upright bass fiddle and a flute and a whole lot of tools and scrap metal meant for banging and clanging together.

While the bar was shutting down I packed up the swag and decorations. The fancy mounted Classic Dobbshead that had adorned the pulpit was gone, swiped, and a little padded black nylon case for my pocket digital recorder had disappeared. The swag sales were fair, not great, but enough to justify the Devival in the avaricious eyes of Dobbs.

Wei, Dr. Hal and I awoke at The Kooks Museum and were taken by Donna and Nenslo to a local chain restaurant accurately called Pigs-n-Pancakes. The pigs were us. Indeed, as we were leaving, Nenslo spotted an untouched strip of bacon on the abandoned plate of a stranger. He pointed it out to me. Then, after only the slightest hesitation, HE GRABBED THE BACON AND ATE IT.

Later on Sunday, Onan and Crawford escorted us downtown for the Onanian Tour of Portland. Onan's brain is a library and it has a very large section on the History of Portland, Oregon. He seemed to have a fact, story or lie about damn near every building , street or statue we passed.

We of course made the pilgrimage to Powell's Books, the biggest new-and-used bookstore just about anywhere. We also hit two much smaller indie stores selling weirdo books and geegaws. Among other things I came away with a nice STURDY book called FARMYARD FRIENDS for my grandyeti. It has pages made of board so he can gnaw it or fling it with impunity. I also scored Rev. Dian Hanson's huge, profusely illustrated THE HISTORY OF GIRLY MAGAZINES. The text, to make room for the full color hot pic reprints, and because it's all triplicate, in English, French and German, is about 6-point. That means it is REALLY tiny print. Princess Wei however has basically absconded with this book and is hogging it.

On our last night in Portland, we dined with Crawford and Onan at an excellent restaurant called Fire on the Mountain, which specializes in wings and hot sauces. We then met with Puzzling Evidence, Dr. Hal and a burner friend named Chloe at The Kooks Museum, and kept our clean-living hosts up a little later than usual, again.

t was Nenslo's birthday! Wei had the idea of getting everybody to sing "Happy Birthday" to him, but I got her to err on the side of caution. We did give him a nice birthday present though.

Katie and Rev. Brainwash took us to the airport the next morning. We had an uneventful but long flight home. I read most of Larry McMurtry's LONESOME DOVE on this trip. I've been on a Larry McMurtry kick since July and have charged through five of his novels so far. Most of his characters talk in ways that are fairly familiar to me. They speak God's language: Texan.

We got home to find Saran wrap on our toilet, my stuff hidden, our desk drawers peed-in, everything super-glued down, and my pants sewn shut, and there was ANOTHER Pontiac up on blocks in my front yard!

From: "St. Rev. Alex"
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009
Subject: Portland Devival A Crushing Success; Leaves Pinks Speechless.

The Portland devival was absolutely excellent, but it was not what I expected at all. For starters, Rev. Alley Valkyrie and I barely knew anyone there, except Lil, Stang n' Wei, Scalpod, Hal and Philo. I met Bro. Jess for the first time, as well as two of my SubGenius heroes, Onan Canobite and Crawford Smith. No sign of NeuroManson, although I have no idea what he looks like so I wouldn't know if I met him at all. Puzzling Evidence was hanging around recording the event for posterity, so I didn't really have a chance to introduce myself to him (although we're Facebook friends! Yay!). Even though we didn't know most of the people there, that's a GOOD thing because there were a hell of a lot of them and it's heartwarming to see a crowd of SubGenii who are "new" - at least to me. The venue was the perfect size, also. Alley and I couldn't stay for the main musical acts, but we did get to see the Duke of Uke do some kickass covers of "Holiday in Cambodia," "You Oughta Know" and "Jane Says." What was especially wild is that before he started, Alley, who was very tired, decided to sit down on the floor. I went to the restroom and when I returned, almost EVERYONE was sitting on the floor! This "cult for non-joiners" had a lot of people joining in on that one, sittin' round and swaying to the sweet sounds of a man and his ukulele.

The ranters were, naturally, fantastic. My favorite was Rev. Crawford Smith who ranted about Earth post-X-day and how this is now and ever shall be "Bob's" planet! He hit all the major points of life in 2009 and actually made me quite glad to be alive in these crazy times. Then Philo shared only a small segment of a very long story that he, Sterno, Brooks Carruthers, and someone known only as "Doug" had helped write. It was so obscene, so pornographic, so utterly, incomprehensibly disgusting that I dare not mention anything more about it except to say that it involved a lot of fuck, shit, and necrotic anal fissures.

This was a very surreal devival in that it had the feeling of an X-Day party with all the Old Doktors but there was an audience just sort of taking in the whole thing. In all, Portland was not only hit by the Cyclone of Slack - it was flattened and destroyed!

From: "NeuroManson"
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009
Subject: Updated Portland PDX Devival Review

It was an honor and privilege to meet everyone I had the chance to meet, Rev Howl was the epitome of gentlemanlyness, Puzzling Evidence got to play with my smoke ring blaster, the Duke of Uke was neeters keen, and everyone was extremely nice (scary!).

Mental note to self: Next devival, no booze! I'd likely been more coherent and would have enjoyed myself a lot more if I wasn't shambling around drunk. I certainly would have had more moolah to throw away on shwag as well. I'll just keep to 'frop and church air.

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