PRAISE "BOB" it's just a summer cold. I beat the systemic yeast infection that I'd gotten from licking "Bob's" boots too much. The night the leathery beak-like cracked chapped dead skin and strings of yeast fungus started sloughing off my mouth... ah, what a night that was. At the time I didn't know if I was dying, literally rotting away right before my own eyes like an Ebola victim, or if I was healing. Turned out I was healing. Within hours I was able to grimace again, and two days later the savage bright red ring of raw tissue that had circled my mouth like clown make-up in Atlanta and Chicago had subsided to a baby's-butt pink. I was able to get through the Akron and Cleveland book signings and the Cleveland devival WITHOUT looking like Darkman. I was able to use HOT SAUCE again and to once more EAT THE HELL out of a burger, rather than having to flatten it out to credit card thinness and feed it through the slit in strips.
So a sore throat, cough and constant sneezing is like a BLISSFUL VACATION by comparison. Funny how RELATIVE Slack can be.
I wish I could tell you which one of the cures did the trick. I was desperate and tried everything -- the Conspiracy cure (Nizoral lotion and pills) and three holistic witch doctor cures:
No sugar, bread, cheese, beer or other yeasty food in diet
Drinking hydrogen peroxide diluted in water
GARLIC PILS!!!
face fucking bat sperm antidote pudding
Biotin PILS 5 times a day
Nutri-Flax bran to ream the dying yeast off the gut-walls
mega-mega-vitamin pils -- tons of C & B-Complex, zinc, calcium-magnesium
Spilling the blood of a Christian baby chicken at midnight and burning it on an altar while dancing around it widdershins naked under the full moon at Dealy Plaza
Lacto-baccilus acidopholus PILS
Primrose Oil PILS
Pau d'arco tea (tastes like you're drinking tree bark)
****
The above was written right after I got back from Cleveland, days ago. My cold got a LOT WORSE since then. Turned into conjunctivitis in the left eye. All day Thursday, viscous yellow ooze was weeping out of that ravaged eye. By Friday the hideous orb was glued shut. My throat is so sore I can't return any but the most critical of the 30 phone messages. The 80 email messages that stacked up while I was in Ohio are TO LAUGH. I'm COUGHING too much to sit up at the computer. This is FUCKED. I must've really SINNED against DOBBS. I definitely worked too hard for Slack. It backfired. I got "PINK"-Eye.
Rule Number One: Whatever you do, DON'T work too hard for Slack. You'll end up like me, where you're too sick to do anything BUT "get Slack," i.e., lay in bed watching videotapes or reading cheesy sci fi novels, BUT YOU'RE TOO MISERABLE TO ENJOY IT. My nose feels like somebody SMASHED it, it's so bruised from within by sneezing. The corner of my eye is actually CHAPPED from tissue paper swabbing away the eye-snot. Like a Poe character I am acutely aware of every square millimeter of my interior mucous membranes and sinuses, because the whole area is constantly throbbing away, senselessly pumping out fresh slime -- TO WHAT PURPOSE??!?
First the Darkman-face Systemic Yeast Infection Hoof-and-Mouth disease, now this. Let that be a lesson to this old Scribe. Mustn't let Churchly duties -- especially nonpaying ones -- interfere with a good clean healthy lifestyle of 3 squares and exercise. Also maybe I better quit smoking cigarets. I CAN'T smoke now... lungs too raw. Cough hurts throat too much. Jerry Garcia and Frank Zappa DEAD. The specter of Spike Jones looms before me. Haven't hallucinated much at all yet, aside from that. Of course that 14 mg Nicoderm patch helps. And it could be worse. I could be like Vreedeez. I'm a regular Ewel Gibbons or Jack Lalaine compared to Vreedeez. Poor Vreedeez. Jerry Garcia was a BIG FAN of Palmer Vreedeez' art. A millionaire who could have bought Freak Brothers and Dinoboy originals for giant bucks and saved poor Vreedeez' butt. Could help buy lawyers for terrible Vreedeez tax struggle on behalf of all cartoonists. Now DEAD. Palmer is able to make hilarious black jokes about this sort of thing but it's beginning to scare me. I was a strapping, healthy fellow two years ago and the minute I turned 40 my entire immune system must have just said, "FUCK IT."
THE DECREPIT OLD MAN HOLDS FORTH
You kids out there, heed my words. Cigarets aren't cool and you'd be an IDIOT to start smoking. Eat your spinach and don't spend all your time on your fat ass watching TV. You heard me. And don't become one of the drinkers, they're loud and stupid. And if you 'frop, DON'T GET CAUGHT. And remember this: it ain't what you know, it's who you know. Always carry a Swiss Army Knife and don't drive around without a spare and jumper cables. Don't fear credit cards. Build up your credit. If something's worth doing at all, it's worth doing RIGHT. Shut your trap every now and then and LISTEN. NEVER forgive the Conspiracy, not for a second.
There. I've said my piece. I can drop over and die now. Or at least go curl up in the dark and think about Yeti Babes.
Wait, no I can't. I have to print out the COMPLAINTS email for ol' WILL O'DOBBS, the ADMIRAL of the MAIL ROOM. And I probably should at least call back Crux and Fringeware and the guy with the Atlanta tapes. But my throat hurts BAD, and my brain is misfiring in several cylinders. I have an excuse. Yeah. That's also why I can't put together HOURS OF SLACK today. Got TONS and TONS of great new TAPE for the radio, though. That Cleveland/Akron trip was MOST productive in that respect. It was the need for more Lonesome Cowboy Dave/Einstein's Secret Orchestra/SubGenius collaboration tapes that originally prompted that whole trip and by Gobbs, I GOT me them damn TAPES. 90 minutes of live radio with FULL orchestration, off the ESO show on WCSB, all of us in top form, my saddle-mouth just healed (we even did a song about it), Dave doing his finest whimpering, Chas and the band making the listeners think they'd TOOK TOO MUCH. Between this and the recent Susie the Floozie radio shows, and the live recordings from the devivals, and all the new weirdo music that's stacked up or been handed me on the road, why, I should have WAY PLENTY for HOURs OF SLACK #500 (order now, $6) through #504 at least. I've been so sick and busy and gone, we've only been sending out RERUNS of ancient shows. I'm SURE this illness will soon pass and I can CRANK OUT shows, CDs, Stark Fists, Stark Fist reprint books, magazine columns, the website art sections, the CD ROM proposals etc. It'll be EASY!!
CLEVELAND DEVIVAL WELL TAPED
... for once. Ever since my porta-decks were stolen and broken, we haven't been getting good devival recordings. YOU CAN'T TRUST THE CLUB SOUND GUYS. Well, maybe one in ten will not only go to the trouble of plugging a cassette deck into his mixboard, but will EVEN remember to FLIP THE TAPES! In this case, I did have to remember to run back there every 45 minutes and flip the tapes myself. But... WE GOT THE TAPES!! And they are of HALFWAY DECENT QUALITY FOR ONCE!!! Moreover, the devival was all WELL VIDEOTAPED by the lovely Princess Wei R. Doe, even though it meant she had to sit attentively up there on that SWELTERING DOBBSHEAD-BEDECKED STAGE longer than ANYBODY.
Why do we videotape these shows? So as to someday collage together the MOST BIZARRE MOMENTS from ALL the shows. This devival provided imagery of:
The single most HURRIED Bleeding Palmerhead Launching, using the NEW Pope Jimbo Replica Palmerhead, with REAL GLASS EYES!
THREE entirely different PIL dispensations: 1) gel-caps with tiny Dobbsheads inside, courtesy of Rev. Toth Wilder; 2) sour WarHead candies 3) rubber snakes and spiders from a gigantic Grey Alien-head pinata.
Dr. Legume's smashing of the alarm clock while groping his TWO (!) new slinky "WOMENS" sidekicks
A 12 foot long, massively thick PYTHON snake being carried through the audience by scantily clad S&M babes while this hippie band "Minstrels of Enchantment" had their belly dancers jiggling.
The smashing of the new Collapsible Pulpit by spazzed-out preacher Rev. Noel Contendere.
Andy of CIRCUS APOCALYPSE hanging a hammer from his dick by a hook, making a face-ka-Bob of himself by skewering his cheeks, and eating lightbulbs, all accompanied by mirthful patter
David of Circus Apocalypse escaping from a strait jacket, and breathing gouts of fire.
Other fine moments at the devival, and highly suitable for radio once the cuss words are blanked out, included:
DR. DYNASOR! Yes, the Grand Silverback of alt.slack proved himself a riveting ranter with his short but forceful FIRST EVER DEVIVAL APPEARANCE. I was most gratified to finally meet this Internet God and find that he did indeed (as I had guessed) look like just another battered 40-year-old Hippie, like me. He showed NO FEAR. It was the best FIRST-TIME devival rant I've seen in many a year.
(It has been fun for me, seeing Real World Church meet alt.slack Church head-on. It's unusual enough to be able to get more than two alt.slackfukz in one place physically, much less to surround 'em with a bunch of the non-Net "Old Timers." Seeing Dynasor, Rev. Lou DuChez (WarHeads Master), and st.@ndrew and so on in the same bar with Dr. Legume and Rev. Toth Wilder and Princess Wei and so on... well, it just TICKLES ME PINK. The Devival Trail, and alt.slack, are two very different gauntlets, composed of different TYPES of HUMAN CARTOONS, and I just enjoy the hell out of seeing one tribe of human cartoons encounter and interact with another bunch of human cartoons. )
Dr. Legume, The Preacher from the Black Lagoon, the "Bluto" of the Church, delivered a DAMNED threatening hellfire-and-brimstone X-Day rant, the kind of thing that'd be perfect for a CD but features the word "fuckin'" so much that editing it for radio will be a real challenge.
Einstein's Secret Orchestra (Chas Smith, Lonesome Cowboy Dave, et al) performed a few spooky and jazzy "songs" before I joined them for a rant-jam that mutated into the CON rant part of the Second Canned Stang Rant... everybody's heard it a million times, but the music was better than usual. This stuff sounds better on the soundboard tapes than it did live. Includes a Cajun Prairie Squid Gumbo recipe set to music, a sad Western song-confession about boot-lips and kissing "Bob's" butt too hard, and the poignant anti-drug ballad, "Take Another Pil."
Sister Melodious Chopps closed the show with her lovely gospel song, "My Wallet Belongs to "Bob"." Previous recordings of this song had all come off videotapes, so we are ecstatic to have a cleaner audio mix.
FORMS OF INSANITY and INDIAN ROPE BURN (inc. Mation@aol.com) both knocked themselves out whipping the more dancerly SubGenii into a frenzy. The World Premiere Showing of the Indian Rope Burn music video of their "RED LIGHT," which I co-edited using monster movie and stag-film clips, was a bit anticlimactic due to screwy video projection. (Why am *I* always the ONLY ONE at these club gigs that can FIX their DEVICES??) Indian Rope Burn is an almost commercial-sounding thrash-n-killin' rock band with a big repertoire of original Hate and S&M songs. I will reiterate that I think they're the only SubGenius-aligned band that could ever end up making big bucks off the Conspiracy. Call me cynical, but I can no more see Drs. 4 "Bob," The Swinging Love Corpses, O.B.E., Forms of Insanity, etc. etc., SIGNING WITH WARNERS/DISNEY/PARAMOUNT than I can see REVELATION X on the BESTSELLER LISTS. SURE -- we WOULD sell out; hell, we've been trying to for 20 YEARS -- but THEY JUST AREN'T BUYIN'!!
You know WHY don't ya? It's because Dobbs ain't doing the selling directly to THEM. He COULD HAVE. Almost did -- started to. Not anymore. Saw what happened. Doesn't want the product in the WRONG HANDS. I don't blame him for keeping us poor and punishing us with vile humours. It's so that when the Church suddenly gets "popular," we'll maintain our SLACK AWARENESS. Well, "Bob," if you're reading this, we've learned our lesson. You can let us get rich now. You could do it with one phone call, Dobbs. I know you will. Praise Dobbs.
Actually things are looking up in one respect. The little "tour" of the last month made money. Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland/Akron -- by Gobbs, the Sacred Sales Tables were hummin'. In Chicago and Cleveland, this was largely thanks to the diligent Sales Table Snake Oil Barker Volunteerism of st.@ndrew (spelled by Pope Phred and Dr. Dynasor), who obviously has medicine show in the blood. I actually got PAID for my efforts, too. Money, butt-kisses, and all the gut-yeast and mucous a feller could ever want.
And now the sponsor of the last 2 Cleveland shows, Steve Bevilacqua, of The Flying Lemur Bookstore, wants to produce a 15-CITY SUBGENIUS DEVIVAL EAST COAST SLACK JIHAD TOUR!!! In 2 WEEKS in OCTOBER!!! And there I was, in the middle of 18 different overwork-induced illnesses, my tongue hanging out, tired, BROKE, and he asks me if I'm interested, and what do I say? "YES." Jesus. What a fucking idiot. But, yes, it looks like we will try to do:
Detroit
Chicago
Madison
Minneapolis
St. Louis
Lexington
Columbus
Pittsburgh
Richmond
Baltimore
Philadelphia
New York
Boston
Buffalo
Toronto
And if you live in one of those towns and have a suggestion, WE NEED YOUR HELP! We need to know WHAT CLUBS, DIVES or PROMOTERS we should call. We need LOCAL LIAISONS. We need to know what LOCAL SUBGENIUS BANDS, PREACHERS or FREAK-SHOWS might be available! And we need to know NOW! So email me if you can suggest a good place in any of the above towns to throw a Devival, big enough for 300 people or more, in which papers to advertise, radio stations to pester, local weirdos who can help, etc. etc.
*******
I wrote that yesterday morning and just about passed out. So I went to bed and stayed there. I remained all shit-a-bed for 36 hours, praying that surely after that much immobility my fractured immune system would rev up enough to kick the flu. That's what it looks like now -- full blown Captain Trips. But no. It's Sunday night and I crawled out of my hole long enough to know that I am still FUCKED. I'm so weak I can barely COUGH, but I have to cough every 30 seconds, and each cough HURTS. I dragged myself up to the office hoping for good news, but there's only 10 more emails, 10 more calls, and 3 more faxes, all saying, in essence, "STANG, YOU'RE A LAZY, SHIRKING ASSHOLE!!! I ASKED YOU TO DO ME A SMALL FAVOR TWO WEEKS AGO AND YOU STILL HAVEN'T BOTHERED TO RESPOND!!! AND TO THINK OF ALL THE COOL 4-HOUR BAD SCI FI VIDEOS I'VE SENT YOU WITHOUT YOUR EVEN ASKING!!! YOU INGRATE!!! QUIT FROPPING AND PARTYING WITH YOUR RICH CONSPIRACY FRIENDS AND GET WITH IT!!"
BOO HOO HOO
Well, it's not THAT bad, but it sure SEEMS that bad. It's bad enough that I hope you people who bitched at me feel GUILTY AS HELL. You SHOULD. 99% of the year I bust my ass; I am FORCED to take a break for a couple of weeks and what happens? Suddenly I'm a REAL BAD GUY. All SOLD OUT and hiding in my RICH FRIENDS' IVORY TOWERS. The fact is, I should probably be in a HOSPITAL instead of propped up here at this dying computer trying to EXPLAIN myself on alt.slack. You pinkest-scenario-presuming fucks. Why don't you just go on and do your big SubGenius projects without me.
FOOEY! BAH!!! HUMBUG!!! I'm not gonna answer the phone, fax or email until I quit coughing. And if I DIE FIRST, then TOO BAD -- you won't get your little favor done for you. I've HAD it. I've about had it up to HERE. You wanna know what the REALLY nasty, penurious, sold-out Rev. Stang is like? KEEP UP YOUR HOUNDING and BITCHING and you'll FIND OUT!!! Only you WON'T, because I won't be where you can GET your phone message, email, fax or personal question TO me. I'll be too busy WHEELING and DEALING with PAID PROFESSIONALS in HOLLYWOOD, finally making a fucking MINT off this Church because I CEASED FRETTING OVER EVERY SINGLE SUBGENIUS'S MINOR PROBLEM and got down to BUSINESS the way the BIG BOYS do it. Who knows, maybe I could even learn to be another BOB DEAN, where I didn't have to talk to any SubGeniuses at all, just ONE RICH GUY, and get BETTER DISTRIBUTION!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
Hmmph. Ya ingrates.
Mind you, I'm not talking to everybody on alt.slack. I'm only bitching back bitterly to the few dozen who have decided to be IMPATIENT with ME on account of their FANTASIES of what life is like around here. I'll bet you bottom dollar, most of 'em are college boys livin' off Momma who haven't even the vaguest slight GLIMMERING of what it's like to have to make the house payments, raise the teenagers, have three lives, 4 tiny businesses and 190 huge art projects, all the while fighting HATE MELTDOWN, EXHAUSTION, DEPRESSION and PNEUMONIA, not to mention PERFECTLY JUSTIFIED PARANOIA!!
Ya bastids.
I know that this diary of horror that I post occasionally might not set a GREAT EXAMPLE of Slackfulness in action. I know that as main Church "spokesman" (i.e., interface with the Conspiracy), I should ideally be a SHINING EXAMPLE of the BOUNTEOUS SLACK that comes from DONATIONS TO DOBBS. I should be SHOUTING GREAT INSPIRATIONAL RANTS FROM THE ROOFTOPS with a 50-voice choir behind me, and flying around in a Leer jet, not mumbling bitterly and feverishly about my shitty health and how overworked I am and how it isn't fair, etc. etc... well, TOO FUCKING BAD!!! This is the world's only HONEST god damn lyin' CHURCH, and I'm an HONEST SUBGENIUS PREACHER!!! If I'm FUCKED, I SAY so. If I'm NOT FUCKED, but in fact happy as a pig in shit, then I hope that you'll believe me when I am finally able to SAY so.
I WAS happy as a pig in shit during the weekend of the Cleveland devival. The bootlips had gone away and the flu hadn't shown its snotty face yet. I was kickin' up my heels. I was pleasant and friendly. It CAN happen.
But unless you have the miracle cure for the common cold, man, for now, BACK OFF!!! Just... BACK OFF!!
Rev. *hak* *koff* Ivan *ak-ak-ak* *KAFF KAFF KAFF* Stang
*houek*... P-TOOEY!- *ding*
Original file name: Devival Aftermath
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