by Rev. Stang
I GOT A COOL CERTIFICATE!
"SACRED ORDER OF DEVIVORS" it says at the top. It's a fancy, suitable-for-framing document, lined with BobCo Hieroglyphs. The Sacred Order of Devivors "... Hereby Recognizes This Superior Mutant REV. IVAN STANG As an Exalted Member in Honor of His/Her/Its Dedication to THE NAMELESS MISSION and The Noble Sacrifice of Wallet and Sanity Thereof," signed, Popess Lilith von Fraumench, Founder.
COOL! And who better to award these certificates than Popess Lilith, multiple-devivor-syndrome victim/exploiter extraordinaire. I imagine she probably gave herself the FIRST one.
Sniff, sniff. So touching... I'm forced to recall those halcyon days of my first devival production, The 1981 World SubGenius Con'Vention in Dallas, which lost me $1500 at the depths of my poverty, because anyone who helped with the show got in free, and everyone who came helped, so everyone got in free. Perhaps now you can see why the X-Day events are just the opposite -- EVERYBODY pays, no matter HOW much they help.
We could have just shut the Foundation down instead, and whimpered bitterly about how everyone else sold us out.
Speaking of which, as I do every 5 years when some alt.slack street bum calls me personally a "sellout," I spontaneously composed, while having my toilette, a new "Church sell-out" rant, and whipped it out at the Seattle devival TO THUNDEROUSLY POLITE APPLAUSE -- and I never even mentioned the name of the whining weenie stranger whose probably drunken accusations on this newsgroup had inspired it. Last time this happened was the "SubGenius M-TV rant" that later got into the REVELATION X appendix. It's funny how our most knee-jerk criticisms come from people whose accomplishments in the anti-Conspiracy, pro-mutant arena are so subtle that they have no discernible effect anywhere, people mainly known for telling other mutants that they're "Pink." Blanket condemnations (OR condemnations of Blanket Ass, for that matter) from nonbeings shouldn't get to me, but they do, and they make me rethink what I've been doing. And CALL ME BIASED, but after much objective deduction and logic, I always decide that the accuser is full of shit, and that I've managed to hang in there pretty DANGED WELL under the cirumstances.
My fellow persecuted victim, and arch enemy, NENSLO, likewise got to walk away from the stage with a smirk, having concluded his sermon by getting the whole Seattle audience to sing along with a song about how much THEY AND THEIR CITY SUCK.
Darn that Seattle audience for taking a joke -- I had so wanted to fuck them, each and every one, individually.
And PRAISE POPESS LILITH, REV. BUNNYBOY, REV. OTIS F. ODDER, REV. BOBLIGHT, ST. KENNETH HUEY, HELLPOPE HUEY, LITTLE FYODOR, THE DUKE OF UKE, ASSASSINATED NENMASTER NENSLO, REV. JUDAS, REV. KALI D'ROUGE, THAT FINE FELLER THAT RAN THE SWAG TABLE, THE NUNUs and NARNHUGHUIOIDS, AND ALL THE MIGHTY MUTANTS OF THE MIGHTY SEATTLE CLENCH WHO MADE THE DEVIVAL SUCH A STUPIFYINGLY HUGE ARTISTIC TRIUMPH!! Well, except for that ONE moment, but hey, incontinence is a disease and you shouldn't make fun of me for that. SPECIAL thanks to JANE HUEY for being just the DANGED *NICEST* denmother! And "Valerie" and "Marcus" for bunking the Hellpope, REV. UNKNOWN QUANTITY, REV. UNHOLY PROTUBERANCE, REV. BEVO YOUNGBLOOD, and REV. AARON BURT, PRAISE 'EM ALL!
For THESE are the MASTERS and MASTRESSES who know and use "BOB'S" FIRST KEY OF MAYJICKK, which is of course "GET OFF YOUR ASS."
And PRAISE REV. DR. ONAN CANOBITE and VAGINA JONES for sitting back and exemplifying "Bob's" THIRD Key to Maagik, "GET OTHERS TO BUST THEIR ASSES FOR YOU."
And praise REVDRJACK for being crazy enough to come to this show from further away than ANYBODY!! And Kali's unseen housemates for letting us occupy their house for the after show party on Friday. And that one guy that suddenly started screaming like a maniac and had to be subdued when one of the performers went on "a little too long."
While in town, we also visited DR. GENE SPLICE, MARTIN "BIG SMOKE" PITTS and "LINDA" of the original Drs. 4 "Bob," who didn't get the postcard about the show in time. THIS WHOLE TIME, I want EVERYONE to know, I was trying like hell to keep my mouth under control and not bore Nenslo to death with my endless tales of people he doesn't know and probably won't know. Many will be glad to know that, with Onan's help, I FAILED, AND AM STILL FAILING NOW.
I will now proceed to mention fun things that Nenslo did, but that YOU DIDN'T. Nenslo helped us with photo-ops at such Seattle landmarks as the huge statue of Lenin in Fremont, the Fremont Troll, the Adobe Corp. parking lot, and Ye Olde Curio Shop down by the wharf, which is THE BEST FREE MUSEUM I've ever visited. They have two mummies and a BUCKET of shrunken heads in there. We didn't make it to Vancouver -- the Seattleites made me realize that it wasn't "right across the border like Tiajuana," but a 4 hour trip -- so we went to Bainbridge Island instead, to trudge and judge. That only costs $3.50.
The devival itself was productive of a LITERAL MESS of new liturgy and song, which will be lathered all over The Hour of Slack for the next month or so, and which is probably already being bragged about on alt.slack as I write this. The show flushed out a brand new young Dobbs channeller, the bizarre Rev. Wingnut of the Immaculate Screw, who handed me a WHOLE PAGE of completely VIRGIN DOBBS MEMOS!!! Obviously, I cannot release them all right here at once, but the LAST one on the sheet was:
"Braincells -- sometimes less is more."
My regret of the devival is that I STUPIDLY fucked up the hollering of my very favorite brand new slogan, "EVACUATE, OR VACATE THE EVACUATION CHAMBER." And it was hand written in great big letters right there in front of me. Of all the times for the left-right-rightleft brain fuckaround to kick in. Oh well. I just now noticed it while copying the video sound for Hour of Slack use. That audio, incidentally, sounds exactly like it did in the club -- fine, if nobody's yakking loudly right next to you. Some of the rant recordings are marred by audience chatter. The sing-alongs and music sound GREAT, though, and this was a 50% musical show.
OTHER MARGIC:
ON THE SEATTLE STREETS, THERE WERE FUCKING TRIPLE Xs EVERYWHERE AGAIN! Not deliberate XXXs like in Amsterdam, but graphic X-juxtapositions that were "COINCIDENTAL" (or, as we prefer to say, "ALIEN TECHNOLOGICAL"). Triple-X's that were part of somebody's LOGO. A hotel's logo, eXXtreme burgers. Three in a row in a 1 minute period. I have the video frame grabs to prove it. THE SIGNS, OMENS AND PORTENTS ARE EVERYWHERE. THE Xists must SURELY be on the very VERGE of exiting. Onan also found two Logo-Onans.
I saw a guy walking along the street who looked just like me. The RICH yet UN-SOLD-OUT Stang perhaps, like the mysterious "Popular Cowboy Dave" who has been sighted driving around Cleveland in a limo.
AND!!! I even got to see the Negativland show in Cleveland ANYWAY.
Negativland was supposed to play in Cleveland on Saturday night, when I was in Seattle (where much of Negativland lives). TERRIBLE ROAD DISASTERS WHICH HAVE PLAGUED THEIR TOUR, however, forced that Saturday show to be cancelled. Luckily, the Agora ballroom was UNBOOKED for SUNDAY, so The Neg Ones did it then... and Princess Wei and I were able to catch the last half of their show right after she picked me up at the airport.
Negativland fans will be VERY HAPPY with this touring-de-force 2.5 hour multimedia brainsmasher, which the band has been working on for 2 years. Mark Hosler, Don Joyce, Pastor Dick, and 7 others whom I met for the first time must have dragged every piece of equipment they own along for this, including at least 10 16mm projectors, which all play carefully orchestrated image loops from song to song. The first half of the show includes the NEW version of "A Big 10-8 Place", with Weatherman David's head narrating from inside a video monitor. In the second half, Pastor Dick's sermon utilized CHRISTIAN HAND PUPPETS (made for the band by real Christian Puppet Makers!) which really put our little X-Day puppet show to shame, I must say.
The permeating theme of the evening, visually and musically, appears to be built around the phrase, "THIS STATEMENT IS FALSE," so the recursiveness of it all is enough to drive one "LOOPY". (That's a joke. And me mentioning this fact, that it's a joke -- that's a joke too.) Indeed, the film guy "Pete" had created the most ingenius "film loop adjustment devices" out of car antennae and coat hangers that were attached to all the projectors in lieu of take-up reels, and at the climax employed a "controlled projected film frame burn" that is DEFINITELY a cheesy-dead-media first for me. He had a film of the printed phrase "FOREVER LOOP" which he slowly INCHED THROUGH THE PROJECTOR so that each frame would start to bubble and burn, and "bloom" in that cool way that film has when it sticks in the gate -- but then at the last second he'd pull ahead to the next, unburnt frame and let IT cook.
The show closes with the band getting the entire audience to read aloud a projected transcript of Casey Casem's infamous U-2/Snuggles intro, the thing they were famously sued for "appropriating".
NEGATIVLAND didn't perform it this time. THE ENTIRE CLEVELAND AUDIENCE broke the copyright laws, but Negativland itself remains pure and clean as the driven snow.
From http://www.negativland.com/tour/index.html
NEGATIVLAND TRUE/FALSE TOUR DATES
Sun. Apr 16 '00 --- Cleveland --- Agora
Tue. Apr 18 '00 --- Philadelphia ---Theatre of the Living Arts
Wed. May 03 '00 --- NYC --- Irving Plaza
Thu. May 04 '00 --- Washington DC --- 9:30 Club
Fri. May 05 '00 --- Poughkeepsie, NY --- Bard College : Multipurpose Room
Sat. May 06 '00 --- Boston --- Copley Theater
Mon. May 08 '00 --- Chapel Hill, NC --- Carrboro Arts Center
Wed. May 10 '00 --- Atlanta --- Variety Playhouse
Fri. May 12 '00 --- Clearwater, FL --- Club More
Sun. May 14 '00 --- New Orleans --- Howlin' Wolf
Mon. May 15 '00 --- Houston --- Rice University: Hammond Hall
Tue. May 16 '00 --- Austin --- Stubb's BBQ
Thu. May 18 '00 --- Tulsa --- The Other Side
Sat. May 20 '00 --- Denver --- Bluebird
May '00 --- San Diego --- TBA
Wed. May 24 '00 --- Los Angeles --- El Rey
Sat. May 27 '00 --- San Francisco --- Palace of Fine Arts
May '00 --- Palo Alto --- TBA