I ain't complaining. It's an incredible miracle that ANY of this works.
Got another show mixed, and this episodeI took my time, so it's more 'edited,' less me-blab, a more typical HoS. Some really good new/old tape came in the mail so my work was cut out for me.
The only downer is that now I have to remember to FLIP THE DUBBING TAPES every time I get up from the desk. SubIRC regulars will know what I'm talking about. For two or three days after a show is done, I have to go through this routine. If anyone has a spare $2000 stereo industrial dubbing machine, the kind schools have, and scam artists, with which one can run multiple copies high-speed with good quality, that records both sides in one swell pass, please sacrifice it to Dobbs. As it is, I dub the 20 copies of each show from one deck to another, manually. (Our Media Barrage tapes and stuff like those are done by Jesus using small dub-decks, but for broadcast we try to adhere to ABSOLUTE HIGHEST QUALITY POSSIBLE -- which ain't saying much... given the circumstances... such as it is... Tarzan's Radio Station, as we call it, is a pretty weird-looking set-up, kind of Rube Goldbergian. One has to reconfigure the patch cords behind the bank of cheesy gear to switch from show mixing mode to show DUBBING mode to just-playing-tapes-to-listen-to mode. No one knows the secret patch cord pattern but me.
Incidentally, the two decks I use were DONATED by St. @ndrew and St. Joe Riley.
SIDE ONE
Intro Collage by Papa Joe Mama, utilizing the soundtrack from a current TV commercial featuring the everyman name, "Bob."
Jesus's intro to his SubGenius 101 lecture... He describes how Christians get angry that He has returned.
Stang reads news item from page 14 of the Dallas Morning News, short paragraph mentioning that the U.N. weather service has determined that the ozone layer is "mostly gone." Sarcastic comments re: same and cataracts. Promises not to talk all Show about CIA like last time.
KPFA Berkeley Subshow from '84: Dr. Howll and Puz Ev. interview Rev. Mike Believe and British Guy re: Theme World amusement park. KILLER Firesign-like multilevel spew and superb fx mix bg.
Song "BOB" IS MY LOAD (cocktail mix) by Brother Cleve Dunkan and his Lush Orchestra.
Stang relates the relationships of Brother Cleve, Esquivel (epitome of Space Age Bachelor Pad music) and Byron Werner, coiner of the term "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music," and how Cleve sought out the 78 year old Esquivel in Mexico City and recorded NEW MATERIAL with him.
Esquivel/Cleve intro to Esquivel's new Xmas album rerelease, produced by Cleve with Combustible Edison members -- "JINGLE BELLS".
"FROSTY THE SNOWMAN" Esquivel original
More KPFA Dr.Howll/Puzzling Evidence, THEME WORLD show with guest Cordt Holland/Mike Believe.
SIDE 2:
Stang yaks.
Jesus lecture: "SEND $30"
Stang does credits.
Instrumental from Cleve, "MARCH OF THE XISTS"
Rants from Dr. Nolan Voydd on WREK, "VISION QUEST" segments
Lou Duchez "MORSE CODE OF LOVE" pyroflatulationay music
Stang does credits, Sivet barges in and comments that she must go buy contraceptives (presumably joking)
Song by John Bartles, "I AM A DEAD MAN"
Sister Susie the Floozy and Nolan Voydd, "Yard Sale" WREK show excerpts... how they were molested by Uncle Janor
Jesus lecture continues: "L is for Launch the Head."
R. Moon and the New Improved Night Nurses song, "NOT SEE," from Gender Bias album
Credits
More THEME WORLD from KPFA Subshow, Dr. Howll & PuzEv... excellent typical old-style Show mix
Stang does Sacred PO Box and experiments with headphones-mike feedback on cheesy gear
Auld Lang Syne by Brother Cleve and Esquivel
Misc. last-second Xian dumbass radio clips saved by Rev. Nick Nolan
(end)
Well, my job for Saturday is done. Show finished and dubbing, log typed. It was a relief to pause in my website tweaking for awhile. Last night was my 25th high school reunion. I went. 5 other guys showed up. (Guys because this was a private all-male school.) I can't fucking believe it. I had less "class spirit" than ANYBODY in my class. I have report card comments from teachers to prove it. And yet there I was, eager to "touch base" with all those (mostly) Pinks I went to school with... and ALL THOSE CHEERLEADER HALE-FELLOW-WELL-MET CLASS SPIRIT ASSHOLES STAYED HOME for the fucking 25th year REUNION!!! Man. What is this world coming to.
The five other guys who showed up hadn't changed much at all. 4 of the 5 were fellow bad hipster frop-boys like myself. They all work for the Con, but at least they mostly seem to work in somewhat anti-Con Con jobs... an eco- conservation group, a company for finding jobs for homeless bums, stuff like that. Liberals. They were the ones who showed up.
When one goes to a high school reunion one of course hopes to find everyone balder, fatter and more depressed than oneself. That hasn't been the case at my high school reunions. The guys who show up, like me, still have all their hair, aren't unhealthy looking, and have very presentable wives or girlfriends. Makes you wonder why the other guys hid out. SHAME?? I sure hope so.
Oddly enough, all 5 guys commented that I don't LOOK any different than I did in high school. And that doesn't make sense. I'm covered with scars, patches, swaths of gray hair, wrinkles. I mean I'm a city boy, I don't look like some weathered cowboy or biker. But I do look 43 and I did NOT have vitiligo or diskoid lupus when I was a kid. I also had short hair. I look like a back-up bass player for some nostalgia band now. My fucking hair is so huge now that I sometimes think possibly of cutting it. Very few women has as much god damned hair, and they express their envy all the time. There was an article about the X-Day Drill in Rev. Groovy G's subzine, and the ONLY THING it focused was how DUMB my HAIR looks to the reporter. Hey, I know I look like a human cartoon of a mad scientist SubGenius weirdo, that's the WHOLE IDEA! (That and the fact that old hippie chicks (and Miss Friday) LOVE it!) I'm in show biz, I'm SUPPOSED to look memorable and goofy. Mrs. Stang trims the top and sides every few months, but in 1990 I started JUST LETTING IT GROW, partly to see what would happen, partly because my DAD made an idiotic comment that my hair was getting too long (YOU'D THINK THEY'D LEARN!!) and partly because I was entering my second childhood/midlife crisis and having hair like my high school rock star heroes JUST MAKES ME FEEL COOL. I am fully cognizant that this is no different from guys 10 years older than me still wearing ducktails and greaser hairdos. SO WHAT! Fuck the norm. I wish I could be MORE of a "hippie" than I am. Hippies may look stupid to you youths, but keep in mind it's in retrospect. You weren't there. There was a brief period when we thought we actually had a chance against the Conspiracy. SURE, as Zappa and MYSELF for that matter pointed out, we WERE just the Alternate Conspiracy, but yet... but yet... the HOPE was there, and it ain't hardly anywhere now... for good reason.
I drove to that high school reunion listening to a RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE (modern day punk-rap-like stuff) and wondering if my classmates were listening to SUITE: JUDY BLUE EYES, the song I most hate out of all songs in the world.
A high school reunion is an emotional event. Just before I got to the school I pulled into a nearby BORDERS bookstore to assuage my potentially-damaged ego. (Actually I mainly pulled in there to PEE, since Borders stores have coffee shops and BATHROOMS.) At first it was a bad move. I looked in the humor section and there were NO SUBGENIUS BOOKS there. I thought, "Well that's it, if Borders isn't even carrying the Word anymore, that's the end... it's doom... I'm a loser and my highly paid Conspiracy-employed classmates were right all along." (Not that that's actually the case anyway, but I was in that sort of mood.) I was shuffling to the exit when what should greet my eyes but REVELATION X on DISPLAY, with the COVER SHOWING, and copies of BoSG next to it -- in a SPECIAL NEW SECTION called "Eccentric, Weird and Essential." Other things in the section were the ReSearch books and all the other books by people who are now my friends and, like me, don't make much in royalties but at least can lay claim to a little STATUS. The uncategorizable but "hip" stuff.
Not only that but there was a woman there adding new stock to the shelves, and noticed me, and I said, "I SURE am glad to see this section. I busted my ass on that book there" -- tapping REV-X -- and she said, "I thought I recognized you."
I am not a person who lives from compliment to compliment -- if I was, I'd be dead by now -- but I am human enough that that made me feel good, so I went into the high school class reunion WITHOUT a chip on my shoulder.
My two kids still live at home, but just barely, and their Homecoming game was last night. They're sociable kids so this weekend is a big deal for them too. They're TOTAL WEIRDOS, that's for sure, but their Ma and I have gone to some trouble to make sure as best we could that they were always able to pass for normal and function in normal society. I'm sitting here typing this while waiting for the Homecoming Dance to end and for a bunch of kids to come over here for a party. We try to make our house a "hang-out" for them damn kids... not very successfully, 'cause what teenager wants to hang out at its own house? -- but at least when they do choose to utilize the facility, we can keep tabs on 'em. I don't have to worry much about my kids and DRUGS. They're fuckin' prudes, it's their form of rebellion.
****
THEY JUST PILED IN. The SubGenius Foundation office facility is now full of teenagers all dolled up in Prom Dresses and tuxes. I must say, those 16 year old girls certainly do look different in make-up and dresses than they do in their usual slob garb. The lads all look laughably square. They're heating pizzas and drinking soda pop. Jesus just arrived from his temp job and is down there scarfing pizza and doling out sage advise. He's only 26 so he can get away with that. Mrs. Stang and I are trying to stay out of their hair. We're "parents," it'd be uncool for us to hang around, and besides that Mrs. Stang was the FIFTH GRADE TEACHER of half of these kids.
I value these times because my boy leaves the nest next year, and Sivet will follow soon after. Even though they've made it plain that they consider me a brain-damaged old bum, we still have better relations than most modern day parents and kids do. (That's the upside of freelancing. I was home a lot.)
This is another irony. The evil and depraved SubGenius house is the safest place these teenagers can be while also being left alone by oldsters. And another thing. I spent the morning at the elementary school. This nearby school where Mrs. Stang teaches is the first school in Texas to be officially "wired for the Internet" a la Clinton's big promo. Whoop te doo. The horrible thing is that not one teacher there besides Mrs. Stang knows what the Internet is.
As far as they know it's just a sewer of child pornography. The school will have a website, but the principal has declared that no child's name or picture can be displayed there due to the evil cyberstalkers who lurk everywhere. The fact that there's a school yearbook and phone book available at the library has no bearing on this. It's an insane situation, and I have volunteered to help put their website together, since the computer teacher at the school doesn't know what the Internet is, either.
Mrs. Stang and I spent the other evening examining elementary school websites. They were mostly pictures of principals that took half an hour to download. One would think that displaying the dopey artwork and goofy stories by the children, and links to educational/fun kids' websites, and little email pen-pal thangs with kids from other countries would be the OBVIOUS things to do. And Mrs. Stang's class will have just that. But the sorry fact is that she has to do this DESPITE the paranoid directives from above, and for a year or so she'll be the only one of 20 teachers who'll take advantage of the jillions of bucks worth of equipment that the school's been given. PINKNESS!!! Pinkness creeps into every nook and cranny of human society. Timidity and sloth. We shall make them all look as FUCKING DUMB as they FUCKING ARE.
But they STILL won't get it. Our hope is that maybe some of the STUDENT CHILDREN will pick up on the fact that if they bother to lift a finger, they might conceivably be able to direct their own lives in the direction they want to go.
While I'm bragging my ass off... just before the dance my daughter's clique of pals and dates came here to get their pictures taken by all their parents. We figured, why not get it done all at once in one place. They spent $25 each on the corsages ALONE. So all these (honestly) Pink moms and dads were in my back yard snapping away and making the kids pose. Our back yard is photogenic, it looks like a jungle and there's no fence, so it looks as if they're in the woods. I forced Sivet upstairs to pose for a special digi-picture -- snapped a PICT shot onto my Mac from my video camera. After she left I dropped that crappy low-light pic into a Mac program called KAI'S POWER GOO. This program is designed entirely for fucking up pictures of people's faces and making them cartoon-like. It's brilliant. (I did 6 Legume-face distortions last night just for fun, but then Legume already looks like he's been GOOed. He has a GREAT FACE.) I took the picture of my daughter's face and caricatured it -- like me she has a weak chin and small mouth, so I shrank those down to nubs, and then made her eyes just like Keene paintings -- great big huge soulful cartoon eyes. The amazing thing is that this program lets you do this kind of distortion very easily and intuitively, and maintains a photographic reality. Photoshop, Illustrator and other art programs have similar features but this one's specialized for FACE-WARPING. I printed out the funny pictures of Sivet and left them in her room.
AND HER BUDDIES WERE REALLY IMPRESSED! She was showing them off proudly.
You may be thinking, "JESUS! Stang is more insecure than I THOUGHT!" But you're not a parent. If a parent can do ONE or TWO THINGS that actually IMPRESS their teenage kids and the kids' peers, it's a FUCKING MIRACLE. Teenagers are inherently built to think their folks are dumbasses. (In MANY cases it's TRUE.) I can all too vividly remember my teenage years, and I PITY my old P and M. I pity myself, too. Those years were unspeakably horrible for the most part but let's not get into that, it's a Bonobo thing. I guess I wasn't too bad of a kid -- I only got jailed for drunk and disorderly once, and they didn't suspect a THING about the drugs until I was 18 and off at college... but I sure did everything I could to express my disgust at their failure to raise me as a PERFECT BEING. (TALK ABOUT AN UPHILL BATTLE!!) By comparison, my kids, for all the insulting shit they say to me, must not hate me nearly as much as I hated my parents back in the day.
My Mammy and Pappy are still alive and they're both good pals of mine. Thank God... we buried all our resentments, and we all understand that the Human taint fucks EVERYBODY up, and nobody's perfect, and we all did the best we could. I deliberately exagerrate my son's rebellion level to my dad, just so he can feel vindicated. It's the least I can do. He was a Nixonian Naval Intelligence officer and corporate lawyer while I was a dope-snorting, radical hippie filmaker weirdo. I can scarcely imagine his anguish. On the other hand, when I started working for Dobbs I think he began to understand that on a certain level we were in total agreement, as best he could considering the generation gap. He read the Book of the SubGenius and declared himself a SubGenius, bought his Membership and put his Excuse on his law office wall. He got kinda pissed off when we did that STARK FIST that had all the begenitalled Jesuses in it, and he still thinks a lone nut killed JFK and that the CIA is his friend and that the media is controlled by Liberals, but by Gobbs the old bastard has accepted the Truth of Dobbs and seems to understand the basic fact of the Conspiracy, our polarly opposite politics notwithstanding. In fact he's probably the one who unwittingly prepped me for Dobbs' message. From the time I was a small child he made no bones about the fact that some people, such as us, were vastly more intelligent than most others. What he left out was the possibility of total self delusion in this regard, but that's like wondering if you're crazy or not -- HOW WOULD YOU KNOW ANYWAY?? But his definition of intelligence was never class-based nor test-score based, but VALUES-based. (It could hardly be class-based, since we weren't eactly in the Queen's entourage.) I recall once he said, "Ivan, what makes a poebucker a poebucker is that they have no sense of VALUES. They don't value what they have. They get something and then let it go to shit, they let it rot. (Pappy rarely actually uses profanity around me, but you get the idea.) They don't make the effort to preserve what good they have." Think about the pick-up that's been up on blocks at your trailer-court neighbor's lot for the last 5 years and you know what he was talking about.
ABSOLUTELY it's an elitist attitude, AS WELL IT SHOULD BE. We could be WRONG that we're the superior race, but one must have PRIDE. And one must KEEP ONE'S SHIT TOGETHER. It's a tall order in this day and age but WE CAN DO IT. These conservative fucks rant about VALUES day in and day out, but actions speak louder than words. I'm the cartoon equivalent of a liberal pinko anti-establishment liberal hippie weirdo liberal sex fiend prevert cultist god-hating destroyer of American Values, but I made time to attend my high school reunion, and I made sure my kids and their crowd of pals had a proper after-Homecoming Dance hang-out to hang out in. I would vouchsafe that many of my SubGenius Over-40 peers are in the same position, maintaining through effort and thoughtfulness a family environment that's merely the FANTASY of the redneck dumb-ass conservative Limbaugh-heads who TALK BIG about family values but have had 3 spouses and never quite paid that child support... the anti-abortion fanatics who've had 3 abortions. FUCK THAT SHIT!!
****
MAH GAWD! My 16 year old daughter was MAKING OUT with a BOY... Jesus saw it, peeking out through the upstairs window, they were down in the street by the streetlight. Heredity... dammit.
Mrs. Stang is now driving the gang of kids to a hotel party and thence to another girl's house party... apparently, at 3 in the morning I will have to go pick them up and ferry them home. Normally we would never be so accomadating, but Homecoming is special... I guess...
Everybody in the Stang family seems to be determined to drive everything NORMAL, to the very HILT, AND also to drive everything WEIRD to the very hilt. An agitated crew. We're the kind of people that Valium was invented as a CURE for, and WE DON'T TAKE THE VALIUM.
At least one doesn't feel like one has wasted one's time.
SURE this world's going to hell, I'd be the last to deny that, but humans have been known to pull themselves out of the worst possibly nosedives at the very last minute by sudden flashes of brilliance brought on by stress. That's the ONLY time their flashes of brilliance ever come on, granted -- when they've painted themselves into a corner and are faced with certain doom. THEN they act like SubGeniuses and the day is saved. More or less. We can look down upon them, but never underestimate them. They CAN pull through if galvanized out of their stupors. Christ, think how many competing species "we" wiped out or drove into the Himalaylas. Ever see a Gigantanthropus jawbone? That Javanese Yeti thought he knew the score, but he ended up on his head ,just like you, me and every common Pink will. They Always End Up On Their Heads, you can take that to the BANK, brother/sister. The great equalizer of Death renders us all rats in the same maze. That "THE ONE WITH THE MOST TOYS WINS" is sensible on the surface, but a fallacy. The one that gets nearest to the end of the maze wins. But even then, its somewhat moot, since nobody CAN get to the END of the maze. That's the beauty of the maze. We should appreciate it rather than curse it and try to conquor it. But then... what else is there to do? Sit on our butts watching Mystery Science Theater 3000? I THINK NOT. I think that pursuing any halfway attainable dream within reason, and then some, is the way to go. Get off your butt and fight The Man By Any Means Sensible. The WORST thing you can do is FAIL and GO BROKE and be HUMILIATED. SO FUCKING WHAT?? They've ALREADY done THAT to you, the minute you applied for the job.
That's probably been your fate all along, anyway. It's when one shoots for the IMPOSSIBLE that one seems to succeed... according to physical laws that must've been set by NHGH Itself, so cruel are they. But by the same token, the very impossibility of a task is just what makes it possible, DUE IN FACT TO PINK DUMB-ASSEDNESS. Their complete acceptance of reality at face value as defined cooperatively, is exactly their ACHILLE'S HEEL, or opening, our venue for gaining access to the PRIME CODE by jimmying the lock.
Perhaps the key to it all is being able to adjust to the IRONY of it, the Catch-22 nature of it. But is seeing the world through Vonneguttian eyes simply another cop-out, a cheaper 'Frop? (WHO FUCKING CARES!?!?) But still one must wonder, and press the issue while gazing contemplatively upon the bellybuttons of the stars. Are we the SubGenii not meant for BETTER THINGS? Is our fate merely to strut and fret our brief hour upon the stop-motion puppetry platform stage, before the motion-controlled cameras that cost millions of dollars, our pathetic displays of angst to be rented on video and then heard no more?? Once again, if I may dare to repeat myself, FUCK THAT SHIT. We're here, we're "queer," get used to it. If we ACT like we KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING, the Pinks will acquiesce. They'll move out of the way just as if a cop told them to. We underestimate OURSELVES. We, every one, even Tiny Tim, that little crip, have vast mind control powers over The Others. We have but to suggest something and the dumbasses will do it, for lack of anything better. By default. Not always, but usually, if you use any discretion. The only thing that's more disgusting than how easily fooled they are is how easily we fooll ourselves. Our Moriarty-like cleverness at fooling ourselves would confound a Sherlock Holmes. And the REAL B-4 level kooks among us take on Sherlock's job as well, constantly explorting every possibility of self-delusion and trickery. We detectives only want to EXPOSE them, not REPLICATE them... but that's the trick, isn't it? Knowing thineself from the Conspiracy.
Well, SHIT. If you're even WONDERING THAT, you're probably NOT the CONSPIRACY.
In the meantime, we must wonder... aww, forget it.
Original file name: HoS 549/essay
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