Aside from the obvious -- the world not ending, the Xists not showing up and Dobbs skipping out, and me getting tarred and feathered and publically humiliated like a sacrificial lamb -- it was the god damned best X-Day that one could sanely hope for. Nobody with Yeti blood got killed, and only the kooks that we wanted to cull out ANYWAY didn't enjoy some of the purest Slack of their lives.
"FAILED PROPHECY"? SO WHAT?? Dobbs could flub the exact date for the next 200 years straight and *I,* for one, would MAINTAIN DEVOUT and UNQUESTIONING, nay, perhaps even FANATICAL, faith in HIS WORD and HIS PROPHECY. If Dobbs says the world ends JULY 5 1998, then SO BE IT! If he changes his mind and it's July 5 1999 (like Nostradamus said), then "DOS EQUIS" is THE DAY! If Dobbs happens to say, "Well, I decided that the year 2000 has more of a RING to it," then TRIPLE XXX DAY is the Time of Arisal. AS IF IT WAS UP TO YOU OR ME!!!
And there SURE seem to have been a lot of DUMB SHITS who thought it was up to me. ME. I guess all that stuff about that "Bob" Dobbs dude went RIGHT PAST 'EM.
But I understand. The Halfway SubGenii had to have a scapegoat when they were disappointed. They never believed in Dobbs in the first place, so OF COURSE it was that dastardly front-man and highly paid flak-catcher, Rev. Stang, who got tarred and feathered and dunked and humiliated. FINE. At least none may henceforth say that Rev. Stang himself couldn't take a joke. I challenge ANY SINGLE OTHER SUBGENIUS to stand up to what I went through last weekend while retaining any vestige of a shred of the dignity that I did. Well, maybe I didn't retain much dignity. But at least I retained water and didn't pee myself, not that YOU could see, anyway.
For the last year or so I've been quoting this one Dobbs line to people: "The Mystery of X-Day may prove to be a lesson that some SubGeniuses desperately need to learn." And, judging from conversations overheard by Rev. Strange at breakfast Brushwood after the 7 am TOTAL ABJECT FAILURE, several individuals DID learn that lesson and, PRAISE "BOB," probably won't be SubGeniuses anymore. I bid them fond farewell and wish them the very best of luck convincing a judge that a book with the word "LIES" written all over every page, and the label "humor" (or "science fiction") on the back cover, is worthy of a class action suit.
But above and beyond all that.
I keep getting feedback about this "8661" thing, the so-called "upside-down bar napkin theory." HEY -- SORRY if any of you had to go to the TROUBLE of actually READING your religion's BIBLES, THE BOOK OF THE SUBGENIUS and REVELATION X, but last I heard from those two tomes, there were NUMEROUS PROVISOS for possible X-Day rescheduling... and this "8661" theory is no more true and certain than any of the other hypotheses that are being advanced by the nerdiest SubGenius scholars and monks.
I don't mind being the fatted calf, the sacrificial lamb. I understand that most of you super-geniuses have absolutely no real belief in "Bob" anyway, no more than the average PinChristian believes in God or Jesus. Many of you honestly believe that "Bob" is too good to be true, that there's only these devious hippies and bikers who came up with the Truths by drug-addled committee. FINE. You guys can "believe" or "pay" or NOT, I don't care. It's the real SubGeniuses I'm talking to.
HEY -- I KNOW *NO MORE* ABOUT X-DAY THAN YOU DO. Sure, I'm more privy to Dobbs' post-X-Day prophecies than most Subs, only because those haven't been published yet and I'm the Old Vault Keeper. But as far as WHY or HOW or even WHETHER this X-Day was as bad a fuck-up as it appears to have been, YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE. No doubt, for many months and years the Bombies will be debating the ins and outs and pin-head-square-dancing-square-feet-areas for dues paying versus non-dues-paying cowboy angels... and maybe one of the explanations and excuses for X-Day will make sense AND be right.
BUT GOD DAMN IT!!! DID YOU MISS THE VERY FIRST POINT OF THE VERY FIRST LINE OF THE VERY FIRST PAMPHLET THAT DOBBS PUBLISHED IN 1979?? And I don't mean "Still Only $1."
Dobbs said that the world ends TOMORROW.
The world ends TOMORROW.
THE WORLD ENDS, *TOMORROW* -- and you may die.
Now, I would venture to say that perhaps not every SubGenius has been living as if every day was the last day of the rest of its life. And I don't blame it. It's easier to act as if today was the middle day of the middle of one's boring dumb shit life. But GOD DAMN IT, IT AIN'T!!! YOU REALLY ARE GOING TO DIE.
EVERYBODY HERE, WILL DIE. And every prediction you make WILL come true, eventually.
WILL YOU BE READY??!? ARE YOU RIGHT WITH "BOB"?
Or are you gonna let his little TRICKS throw you off track? Are you that easily distracted? Will you accept such CHEESY, CHEAP special effects as THIS SO-CALLED "REALITY"??? --ANSWER NO, I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT!!!
Dobbs SAID you were gonna not only HAVE that whole god damned cake shoved into your face by topless sexy waiters, but that you would ALSO GET TO EAT IT TOO.
Well, maybe the delay in X-Day has something to do with that. Maybe Dobbs convinced the Elder Gods that he could breed up some better stash, given a little more time. Maybe the PACING was changed a bit to reflect YOUR OWN SORRY UNREADINESS FOR RUPTURE.
On July 3, Dr. G. Gordon Gordon related to me this parable.
Two bulls are standing on a hilltop, looking down at a herd of cows down in the valley below. It's a young bull and an old bull.
The young bull says, "Hey, Pops, let's run down there and fuck some of them cows."
The old bull looks at the young bull and replies, "No, let's WALK down there and fuck ALL of those cows."
Maybe that's what Dobbs is up to with this slight rescheduling.
IF NOTHING ELSE, we CERTAINLY have been granted BY DOBBS the PERFECT EXCUSE to hold X-DAY DRILLS AT BRUSHWOOD EVERY YEAR UNTIL THE SAUCERS COME.
Did the JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES quit coming to YOUR DOOR just because their End of the World happened to have fizzled out 6 or 7 times in a row? FUCK no. Did Teacher Chen and God's Salvation Church give up just because God wasn't on TV on March 17th? HELL NO! They just moved out of Dallas.
Well, my friend. I ain't gonna move out from Dallas. I ain't gonna close down the PO Box. I ain't gonna stop whacking together Hours of Slack. "Bob" really did sell it to me; I really did smoke it, all the way down to the nub; and that truly SETTLES it, motherfucker, and I'm UP FOR SCORING SHITLOADS MORE. As difficult as it is to believe that a PREACHER like J.R. "BOB" DOBBS might LIE or FUCK UP, BY GOBBS, MY FAITH THAT HE CAN REMAINS AS HARD AS A ROCK!!
LET the Discordians, Kibologists and Pink Human Race laugh at us. Most of these are the same people who were already laughing at us for believing in a Dallas millionairre that we had never met -- people who mocked us because of our faith in a man that THEY think is made only of halftone dots. (Not to bother mentioning that these same people worship dieties who haven't even been PHOTOGRAPHED yet!!) (LATE NOTE: Kibo (Rev. Kibo, actually -- he joined back in the early '80s) wrote me and said that his people were laughing at us for entirely different reasons.)
LET the especially "sub" of the SubGenii laff and laff and laff at us for spending all that money and time getting our physical asses to Brushwood, when we could have stayed at home like they did, watching X-Files reruns.
BOY, we must have REALLY FUCKED UP.
In fact, that's just what I was thinking every damn time those dozen or so bitches stripped me naked, threw me in the pool and jumped in to smother me with smooth-skinned humiliation and erogenous embarrassment.
I was thinking, "GOD DAMN, if only I had followed the advice of all those REALLY REALLY SMART SUBGENIUSES who said how BAD it would be here! Then I'd be SAFE at HOME in my BATHROOM, ALONE with "BOB"!"
I will admit that I was soundly trounced, totally humiliated, dragged through the mud and shown up for the fraud, charlatan and one-nutted wonder that I am. ON THE OTHER HAND... you know that common nightmare, in which you find yourself naked, slogging through mud up to your knees, running in panic without getting anywhere, while 400 people point at your dick and laugh?
You know that nightmare?
Well, next time I have that nightmare, it'll merely bring back FOND MEMORIES of a GREAT WEEKEND with TRUE FRIENDS.
AND... you know that DEATH shit? Well, when I was in that white limousine, circling Brushwood campground, there was an insane maniac keeping pace with the limo and pounding on the windows with the strength of a madman, screaming that he wanted to KILL ME -- GUESS WHAT?!?!? *I WASN'T SCARED.* That's right, ALL WHO WOULD MOCK STANG. HEAR ME. I was not SCARED at any point during the entire X-Day Morn. I TRULY DO NOT FEAR DEATH, NOR YOUR OPINION, nor even what anybody thinks of my dicks or lacks thereof. That's one of the gifts granted me by my time in Church service. Nobody who has taken as much LSD as me could fear death; and by virtue of my understanding of High Unpredictability doctrine as detailed in Neuronicus 5:19, I also TRULY CARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK. That is another thing that my WORST ENEMIES have helped me to develop. I am not afraid to be thought a fool. At all. There are many things that I fear (such as seeing other people on the edges of bridges) but among the things that I do NOT fear are DEATH, THE DEVIL, OR YOUR STUPID FUCKING IDIOTIC MAMMALIAN 3rd-DIMENSIONAL PRIMATE NOTIONS!
((NEXT: TAXES!!!))
So, considering, I'm actually pretty god damned proud of myself. And my evil power only grows with the mockery of fools.
Not only that, but I LITERALLY MUST NOT TELL YOU of the things that were for me the BEST parts of X-Day. The last laff? Heh. HEH!
**********
THINGS STOLEN FROM ME DURING X-DAY
MY HAT.
THE EINSTEIN'S SECRET ORCHESTRA PSYCHEDELIC SPACE JAM POSTER
My INWO/SubGENIUS GAME
My $40 BAG OF FIREWORKS.
I'll bet the same "Stangophile" stole all 4 items, all 4 of which held priceless sentimental value which I shan't give that asshole the pleasure of delineating. Rather, I shall now CURSE all those objects.
Let he who stole my GREEN HAT suffer every headache, every insecurity, every worry about money that I ever experienced while wearing that hat. Let every orgasm that I had in that hat be DENIED the thief.
Let he who stole that ESO Jam poster know that Nenslo and I, and Chas and Michele and Dave of ESO, can create while half-asleep what you can only steal while at your very best and most aware.
Let he who stole my INWO Game be the kind of person who steals, period. (You know, the INWO/SubGenius Game, aka, "That Steve Jackson rolling tray that comes with the 100 cool bookmarkers".)
Let he who stole my fireworks find those fireworks firing behind his eyes during all future times that he most needs to sleep.
***
SOME MEMORY HILITES (transcribed hurriedly from a tape to a friend)
Thursday night...
After escaping from a dozen women who had forcibly stripped me and pulled me naked into the pool with them, I walked the few yards to the pavillion where the rest of the SubGenii were gathered. There I saw 300 men watching another man describe what he thought Slack might be.
Onan, Jesus, Modemac, and Pee Kitty had jumped into the pool full of naked SubGenius women when they heard the giggling and screams. BUT NOBODY ELSE DID!!!! MOST SUBGENIUS MEN sat there and heard out David Lynch's admittedly FINE ranting -- while a planet of naked women were beckoning to them from OUTSIDE THE FRAME.
When we run these events we provide a "FRAME". You pay for that frame. That's ALL you pay for. And YET, the BEST shit is OUTSIDE the frame, happening RIGHT BEHIND YOU -- but you were looking up there where the spotlight was POINTING, RATHER than at the AMAZING PERPETRATIONS OCCURING PRACTICALLY IN YOUR BACK POCKET!!!
We hardly saw Sterno during the Drill.... DAMN! I keep wanting to say Drill. But... I guess it might as well have been a drill. The left horn light on the helmet of the Queen of All the UFOs, DIDN'T start flashing, and the Xists didn't show as planned -- that we know of.
SATURDAY NIGHT
SOMEONE ELSE RANTED AND BELLY DANCED!!! And she brought the house down! It was incredible! CONNIE WALKED THE EARTH!! When my wife first told me she had a little SURPRISE planned, I was worried that the SubGenii would eat her alive. But she activated her teacher voice, and she had those beligerent drunks eating out of the palm of her hand. They could NOT figure what it was about, *I* didn't know what it was about, but when she suddenly stripped off most of her clothes and started bellydancing, classical style, the house went apeshit! For hours people were telling me, "FUCK you Stang, you're the luckiest asshole in the whole universe!"
I was ruptured; I rode my escape vessel; and I achieved PURE ENSLACKMENT with the most beautiful of all the sex goddesses. We made love as if our very lives depended on it. "Bob" was gone, and it was X-Day. And I AM the second luckiest guy in the world.
One of the roughest and toughest looking hombres there, a guy we've not seen before, a guy who, like Legume in 1992, scared me at first, but by the end I thought he was a REAL FUNNY GUY, from New Orleans, El Gordo -- he said that after someone else did her speech and dance, and I hugged her and kissed her, he got a big lump in his throat (and in his pants.)... coming from such a wildman, THAT was a REAL COMPLIMENT. Some were happy to see that family aspect brought out, amidst the hellfire and sinning.
****
MY TRADITIONAL SATURDAY NIGHT BREAKDOWN -- when I'd been sucked dry and had to hide until the cathartic spew-release occured. I had to tell Bill T. Miller I was bowing out of his show so that I might recharge until X-Moment.
SUDDENLY, as I lay there in the trailer, vibrating, , the emotional realization FOR SOME REASON sunk in that after 25 years of battle, I HAD QUIT SMOKING CIGARETS!!! AND I cried and cried and cried. And then I cried about everything else, all my blessings, and all my curses. And then I found someone else with Nickie in the laundry room, crying, because someone else thought I was gonna sleep through her performance... but we together dragged each others' asses out there and DID WHAT MUST NEEDS BE DONE, NO MATTER!!!
SUNDAY MORNING --
THE PUPPET SHOW
This was one of the things that didn't quite happen as planned. I performed it myself for a crowd of 5 lads when I found the box of puppets while helping with clean-up.
After the world had not ended, after not having slept in days, with Bobbies pestering and questioning me while I proceeded with cleaning up and peeling posters down, I pulled out the puppets and displayed them. I grabbed the Elder God and the "Bob" puppet and acted out the Emaculation. I used the Pinks puppets and acted out "Bob" trying to sell them on their doom. I pulled out the "SubGenius" puppets and had them worshipping the "Bob" puppet until 1998, when nothing happens, then I pulled out the Stang puppet and had the SubGenius Puppets beat the Stang puppet. THE END. Only 5 saw it. It was a spur of the moment thing, but at least those 5 and me will remember that it was a pretty funny show!
I think the Church in general came out looking good; I came out looking good; everybody came out looking good except the shitheads that came and shat in the hot tub, and they weren't even SubGeniuses.
This year, the whole massive event was being covered not only by us jackanapes with our Shakycams, but also by Tom and Richard, the actual real filmmaker guys who'll probably turn the footage into a documentary on PBS by which all future generations besides the READERS will know SubGenius. They seemed like pretty cool Yetinsyny (albeit newbies) so I have high hopes for the eventual use of this footage.
******
Yes, we want copies of all video shot and audio recorded during this event. Those who send in copies of what they shot will be our friends.
****
I am going to go pass out now.
(END OF STANG REPORT)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: opalpeacok@aol.com (OpalPeacok)
(Too long and too powerful to quote)
Please, please turn down the charismojo machine. You pick my heart like a lock
and steal Captain KishMulutz' favorite firearm.
Here's MY money "Bob"
Headmistress
Branch Salacians
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Carl Guderian <carlg@pop.net>
Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
>
> We hardly saw Sterno during the Drill.... DAMN! I keep wanting to say
> Drill. But... I guess it might as well have been a drill. The left horn
> light on the helmet of the Queen of All the UFOs, DIDN'T start flashing,
> and the Xists didn't show as planned -- that we know of.
I got a good pic of Sterno at Sherman the next day. I'll post it. Watch
http://www.vermilion-sands.com/subgenius/xdaypix.html over the next couple of
days.
>
>
> SUNDAY MORNING --
> THE PUPPET SHOW
GodDAMN! Thanks for reminding me of this! I was one of those 5 lads. 9:30 or
so, my bloodlust (temporarily) slaked, I was sorta standing around looking for
something to do. AKA & someone else were picking up trash in the pavilion
since the Slack Martyrs got cold feet (or sleepy heads) and failed to show for
cleanup. So, whatthehell, I started picking up cans & butts, and got to hear
some great testimonials and see Stang's puppet show (which I'd've missed since
I got in late Friday nite and had to pick up my sweetie from da Eerie Airport
(and calm her down after a hair-raising flight). This was hands-down the
FUNNIEST and most POIGNANT thing I saw all weekend and NOBODY got it on film
as far as I know. I also found a fucking amazing Hand o' Glory-ish candle (if
someone really misses it, I'll mail it back to whoever describes it). So when
someone at X-Day asks you to temporarily give up yer Slack, do it. It'll be a
thousandth of what certain people had to put themselves through to make sure
you had a good time, but it will be appreciated. And who knows what you'll
see.
So everyone who writes about X-Day HAS to send in their stories to a central
archive because a LOT of great stuff didn't make it on film (and some that did
might not make it to the video, especially if the B'wood film developers
weren't able to black out the underage titty Phloigd accidentallycaugt in his
pix). So if it isn't obvious, REMEMBER all that happens out of the frame and
the people who quietly worked BEHIND the frame to make all yer pictures come
out nice 'n' fine. Chaos (the good kind) takes a LOT of planning.
My own story is that after seeing the pix from X-Day '97 I SWORE I would make
it to X-Day '98. I even bought a station wagon last year specifically to haul
my ass and those of a few friends (one of who flew in from England on what he
sorta hoped would be the biggest open-jaw flight in history) to Brushwood. I
missed half the events, and STILL had the best time in a year (and, no Legume,
I AIN'T needin' to tickle the roof of my mouth with a gunsight). At about 6:30
am, I stood outside my tent munching a banana, didn't see the big X, listening
to random popping of ordnance sounding like a Belgian farmer plowing a former
WWI battlefield, seeing the dawn rays cut through the fog and around the
buildings, no white limo just yet, and was damn glad to be there.
I'll be back. Hope the fireworks war didn't cause B'wood any trouble.
