Y'ALL WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I JUST DID. For the last three days.
As I've griped in the past, the production of REVELATION X ate up ALL of 1994 for me, and I had to IGNORE a lot of stuff that I used to at least TRY to stay atop -- like THE STARK FIST Church magazine, the MAIL, an INCOME, a LIFE, you name it. The dutiful, hard-working Rev. Will O'Dobbs kept the mail-order biz going, such as it is, but all incoming PERSONAL mail to me, as well as the endless flow of oddball publications, was thrown into ONE VERY LARGE BOX for several months... a box big enough for some families to live in.
Well, now we have all these new Members thanks to Revelation X and alt.slack, not to mention the old-timey Members from years past, and ALL are wondering about this mythical "Stark Fist Magazine" that some have reportedly seen, in ancient days, not unlike Loch Ness Monster sightings... we did get an 8 page Interim Mailing out last year, but that was just a stopgap, not enough to keep us out of mail fraud court. So it's very definitely STARK FIST time, now that the book is done, and since that minor little process of "figuring out this Internet stuff" is far enough along for now.
Furthermore, if I don't start selling articles and reviews like crazy to magazines or otherwise "get a job," my dogs and kids will starve, and my wives will throw my ass out of this nice new Cult Commune Complex we built here, 100 miles north of Waco.
And on top of all that, my HONOR is at stake. I must make good on my promises that The SubGenius Foundation will ALWAYS DO EVERYTHING, PERFECTLY, FOREVER.
So, having painted myself into this corner, and with Dobbs and Philo off partying in the Holy Land, I came up with YET ANOTHER SURE-FIRE MONEY-MAKING SCHEME --
THE ALL-PURPOSE HIGH WEIRDNESS REVIEWS.
The idea is to get back to the kooks-and-great-weirdos reviews on a REGULAR BASIS, MAKE A BUCK OFF IT, and SLAUGHTER SEVERAL SPECIES OF BIRDS WITH ONE NUCLEAR WEAPON. As follows:
1. Make several samples of a COLUMN for ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WEEKLIES (a la the good Chuck Shepherd's NEWS OF THE WEIRD etc.), and SYNDICATE it, so that my many evil wives quit worrying about the MONTHLY BILLS.
2. Later turn it into another HIGH WEIRDNESS BY MAIL book... Vol. 2.
3. Immediately print the material in a STARK FIST so I don't go to jail, and so as to repay all these nice publishers and kooks and musicians who sent me keen free stuff and plugged the Church.
4. Put it here on alt.slack as it gets done, which also prompts feedback, suggestions, contributions and etc.
5. Stash it all in the BULLDADA leg of the Official SubGenius Web Archive-Spider.
That way I get paid, the snailmail SubGenius Ministers, MinSisters and MinSinsters get what they paid for, and YOU INTERNUTS get it for FREE.
So the task was, EXTRACT THE WEIRDNESS THAT HAS PILED UP. (The High Weirdness type material that has appeared here on alt.slack, such as the hideous things which that kool kat Modemac drags in, are mostly already in fairly COMPILED form.) Will and I attacked that ONE GIANT BOX of old mail. Will broke it down into 3 slightly smaller GIANT BOXES: letters and biz stuff to me that I really should have dealt with long ago; audio & videotapes & disks; and the MAGAZINES AND MANUSCRIPTS. The biz and letters, and the audio-and-video etc., are still in their BOXES. BUT!!
I have spent the weekend SORTING INTO CATEGORIES all the DAMNED WEIRD PUBLICATIONS... and in many cases, seeing them for the first time.
JESUS H. "FUCKING" CHRIST ON 14 CRUTCHES!!! (Pardon my language.)
It made me remember why I STOPPED DOING THAT after finishing the High Weirdness book. IT LAKS TO DRIVE YA NUTS!! -- the sheer MASS OF INPUT, and from so many corners of extremism and fringeness! The process was both an ORGY OF SLACK and a SEEMING ETERNITY OF HELLISH TOIL. You get to examine all this COOL SHIT, but never closely enough to totally sink into any given ONE "ZINE" or article, because if you did, you'd never get it all sorted, and the stacks of ratty-looking mags would disfigure the dining room table FOR PERPETUITY. It's a monstrous TEASE, is what it is.
The 1994-5 "High Weirdness" collection is now in THREE BOXES.
BOX 1:
SERIOUS KOOKS (the most WEIRD category)
OTHER FRINGE SNOOPS (like FringeWare, Crash Collusion, Excluded Middle, Kossy's KOOKS book, etc. etc. etc.)
UNUSUAL MAGAZINES AND NEWSLETTERS -- you can just imagine the range of subject matter.
No, you can't.
BOX 2:
WEIRD GREAT AUDIO & VIDEO (old hat only to Hour of Slack listeners)
CATALOGS (You can buy a Hadrosaurus skeleton, if you have enough money and one of these catalogs.)
SLEAZEMEISTERS & POP TRASH CULTURAL UNDERGROUND (stuff like Brutarian, Answer Me!, all our good buddies)
WEIRD ART (More of our good buddies -- comics, books, stuff you can't live without. Example: SCHWA.)
BOX 3:
PROTEST STUFF (Anti-Conspiracy material that's not normal, but not "kooky" either... a judgement call on my part)
SUBGENIUS ZINES
"ZINES" (Anything that didn't fit into the above categories)
And at this point, I once again feel like the whole world is one big MENTAL WARD where THE DOCTORS ARE EVEN CRAZIER THAN THE PATIENTS.
And on top of that, I'm once again BEHIND on HOUR OF SLACK.
I have my work cut out for me, friends.
In the time it took for me to write this little diary, I could have done one whole weirdo review. I just wanted to make these BIG PROMISES HERE IN PUBLIC so as to paint myself even further into that corner, where I CAN'T GET OUT OF DOING IT.
YOURS IN THE SOLIDARITY OF DIVERSITY,
(yeah RIGHT),
Rev. Stang
Original file name: New High Weirdness
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