I have been a BAD Sacred Scribe. I have been BAD about reading alt.slack, producing HOUR OF SLACK shows, answering mail, and eating. A BAD SUBGENIUS.
I have, however, been a very GOOD SubGenius when it comes to the gigantic Stark Fist/SUBsite-WEB project(s), whereby we take the best of alt.slack (and everything else ever done under SubGenius auspices) and turn it, first, into the 10,000-page full-color web site, and, next, turn it into a somewhat shorter STARK FIST magazine and/or BOOK. A third stage will involve turning some of it into a CD-ROM "game" that INTERACTS with the WEB SITE!! (More on that later, when I UNDERSTAND it.)
I have been an HTMLin' fool for the past 2 weeks. And a volunteer-coordinatin' fool. Gigantic files of "FIST CATEGORIES" copped from alt.slack have been prepped and emailed out to the 9 DobbsDrone Volunteers... "The Stark Fist Nine" -- and are starting to come back as tidy little file folders full of a jillion carefully edited text files... folders that I can drop into a miraculous html conversion program and VOILA! -- entire SECTORS of the Web Site are DONE but for index-tweaking and ART-adding. (And a few thousand other nigling details, but we won't worry about that now.)
Rev. David McConville at SUNSite and his pals have done a STUPENDIFYIN' job of getting the SUBSite started, with the interactive online Short Duration Marriage, Rev. Marshall's downloadable SubGenius Mac games, and the astoundingly link-ridden Online Pamphlet #2... if you're new to this, that's:
http://www.subgenius.com
... but it's now up to US to fill in the rest, and by Gobbs we're DOING it. We're dealing with such a massive amount of material that it must be "automated" as much as possible, and it looks like the conveyor-belt system I busted my ass last week to get running, IS INDEED RUNNING. Starting next week or so I should be able to start changing the official SubGenius web site by leaps and bounds. Thanks to the toil of The Stark Fist 9, a revisionist version of the last 6 months' worth of alt.slack is becoming an E-Z-2-Read, interlinked ENCYCLOPEDIA of Slack, and thanks to the html editing programs created by UNPAID GENIUSES, all the old back-issue Stark Fist text (what was on disk, anyway) is being Webbified for your RENEWED enjoyment. You won't see big changes this week, but (the devival schedule permitting), very soon I should be able to start planting vast "trees" of text and color art at the web site, and were one to tune in every week or so, one would see the branches growing and spreading at a geometric rate. And meanwhile, McConville and his road gang will be adding in the TRICKY programming that will make navigation through this web site HELLISH INDEED, and INFURIATING to other html programming experts, who will whip themselves for not having come up with these gimmicks first.
BUT WE NEED MORE HELP!
My subtle call for volunteers a couple of weeks ago roped in several of the alt.slack gods and goddesses -- GREAT DOKTORS who have lowered themselves to HUMBLE TEXT EDITING in this great pyramid of DobbsWord. And, while time-devouring, it's been FUNNER than HECK, both for the compulsive techno-twiddling aspect and for the extra personal interaction -- for instance, I spent an hour on the phone today with Muthah TARLA! (Who has the most sexifully hoarsened voice... she actually sounds a little like Connie!!) But I can only exploit these SubGenius MadMen and that one SubGenius MadBabe SO FAR. We could use a couple more DobbsDrones to thin out the work load. It doesn't matter what kind of gear you're using, since this stage of it is pure unformatted text that can be transfered back and forth by email attachment. But I'll warn you, the INSTRUCTIONS ALONE are 8 pages long. It's more than just header-chopping. You actually have to make CREATIVE DECISIONS.
SCANNERS NEEDED
What we need more than text-editing DobbsDrones are ART-SCANNING DobbsDrones. I haven't even started sorting through the color art available, but there's a HELL of a lot of it (including the sacred Snapshot Collection, which was unsuitable for grainy print-Fist reproduction, but PERFECT for the Web), and WE HAVE NO SCANNER HERE with which to convert these masterpieces to JPEG.
So -- IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO A "GOOD" SCANNER and lots of free time on it, EMAIL ME BACK and volunteer. I know from sitting there watching Vreedeez lay out REVELATION X how long scanning takes... that's why we need LOTS of help. I'll mail you the art, and you'll email me back the encoded digitized scans, which I'll place on the SUBSite (with full credit and glory going to you, OF COURSE!). Needless to say, we're all doing this for NO PAY AT ALL, so far, but I swear, if the CD-ROM deal happens like I hope it does, I'll pay you the MANY PENNIES you're owed for anything you helped with.
Ironically, my gear has already been pushed to its limits. I can only see this web project in little bits and pieces at a time, until it's all uploaded to the SUNSite machines. And once the art starts coming in, my Mac LC will be little more than a funneling device. I've already realized I'll HAVE to buy a more modern machine ON CREDIT (the path to perdition) pretty soon in order to keep going. Or get DONATED another 100-meg HARD DRIVE (hint hint)... but I'm still reeling at the miracle whereby we can publish EVERYTHING, even the full sound-and-video MTV-SubGenius COMMERCIAL, on the Web, if I can just manage to coordinate and funnel everything right, and not get in trouble for the copyright violations.
(Imagine that colorful little video being played out postage-stamp-sized on your screen! With almost-in-sync sound! WOW!! CUHL!!)
It's also reassuring that we are able to transcend equipmental variations. As I suspected, the transferring of files works differently to and from each DobbsDrone. But surmounting the technical problems hasn't been hard. I keep patting myself on the back for having come so far in the 9 months I've been online. But you know what's so DAMNED MADDENING? The fact that, once I finally get this html and Web and art-format thing down, THEN I have to move on to learning MULTIMEDIA! And to think, there was a time that I felt like some kind of hot shit because I knew how to load an Arriflex BL 16mm camera and edit the film on a Moviola flatbed. The nice thing about it is that the sprocket-holes, gears and grease are still there, they're just ELECTRONIC versions, and frankly, the digital gear assemblies don't seem to break down nearly as often. Life is so much EASIER when it's all just VIRTUAL life.
Later, of course, comes the NEW exploration... the search for just the right way to charge 'em $2.98 a minute to see the SPECIAL parts of the Web site... eh eh eh... TARLA can tell you about the SPECIAL sections... eh eh... oh god, but that reminds me of my OTHER modernizing chore, whereby I upgrade our entire mail order system to taking CREDIT CARDS and using UPS instead of the treacherous P.O.... but that's another story, one best suited for the SubGenius Small Business Manager Volunteer, if one ever shows up. ITS COMING WAS FORETOLD...
SUMMARY:
IF YOU HAVE A SCANNER, EMAIL ME ABOUT HELPING US OUT WITH THE ART AND PHOTOS.
-- and if you're another great alt.slack regular who happened to miss the first text-editing-volunteer call, there's more of that to do, too.
For that matter, any of you who are good at html layout are welcome to volunteer to tweak up the FLAGSHIP ARTICLES and SPECIAL SECTIONS. For instance -- just to familiarize myself with the programs, I've been taking old Stark Fist print articles (highly formatted MS-WORD documents) and jacking with them to make 'em look as slick/chaotic as possible on the Web. The old DOKSTOK report is my main toy. I've got that thing changing fonts, blinking at you, jumping around in size, etc. But there are DOZENS of such nifty text pieces that would make EXCELLENT PRACTICE SUBJECTS for you otherwise directionless would-be html experts in search of portfolio demos to show off. And I know you're out there. The great thing about this Church is that the established style is: INCONSISTENT STYLES. If somebody has a "wild hare" to push the limits of html oversaturation, well, I've got plenty of files for you to work with and a nice place to display your efforts. And as you know, we're GOOD about CREDITS. (That reminds me, there's some credit-adding I need to do on the existing public SUBSite stuff. Suffice it to say that Rev. Numens Remissionis is the SubGenius digital-art REIGNING MUck-A-MUcK.)
((This Mac LC of mine is giving out. The shift key has gone all glitchy. But -- ya know? -- one of the MAIN POINTS of all this is that one lone SubGenius with the crappiest equipment can do better work than a whole committee of highly paid Pinks with open expense accounts. WHY? NOT because we're smarter. If we were smarter, we'd be getting paid. But because we're BETTER!! BETTER I say! Even in its evil, ambiguous, round-about way, the output of this Church is MORE TO THE POINT than those poor baffled humans can ever hope to GET. And WHY is that BETTER? Not because poverty is noble, nosirmaam. Because UNDERSTANDING is EVERYTHING. Their idea of Hell is so limited, so abstract. They fall right into the trap no matter how much RAM their machines have. But we have WISDOM. Even in our blindest, most Rain Man-like dumbness we have the KEY. We know what SLACK is for. WE GET IT!!!))
Ahem.
Oh yeah, and ORIGINAL ART. I was looking at various Web sites and thinking, boy howdy, how do they get their TITLE ART to look so cool, and they have all these keen little customized buttons to push that are really just little JPegs. And then I realized, WHAT AM I SAYING? Hell, I've got Photoshop down there on my wife's GOOD computer. I could probably jazz up some headline text and stick it in a nifty box with a psychedelic background! That's all them slick guys so. But the fact is, I'm no Photoshop expert. In fact, my 14 year old daughter is way better with it than I am, because she's had the time to FIDDLE with it. And I started recruiting her. But THEN (this is how my brain works, as if syrup has been poured into it) I finally thought, HELLFIRE, 90 percent of this whole CHURCH is composed of FRUSTRATED ARTISTS!! What kind of idiot AM I? Too proud to BEG? Nope, I'm not that dumb or that polite. Any of you graphic-minded weirdos who would be fucking around aimlessly ANYWAY are MOST WELCOME to volunteer to whip up some EYE-SEARING ORIGINAL GRAPHICS for this website. Most of this would be TITLES. I'd say, "We need a "sign" to go at the beginning of the MEN'S ROOM section of the web site. Maybe it would look like a cheap fake-wood sign nailed to a service station restroom door, with smears and graffitti around it, and a squashed fly. But if you have any other ideas, have at it. But it needs to be 7 inches across and not very deep because it'll take too long to download then." And you'd sit up late one night fiddling with the text, "MEN'S ROOM," and send it back to me as an attached ZIPped JPeg or whatever. And even if I thought it looked like SHIT I wouldn't tell you, I'd be so grateful. And you'd get a little art credit and neither one of us would get paid a DAMNED DIME. Unless it ended up being used on a commercial SubGenius CD-ROM. Then you'd become one of those tiny statistical percentages like everybody who worked on Revelation X. But think of the STATUS!
There are a couple of art pieces that need to be done that will be real centerpieces in the Web site -- the "MAPS" that contain the main "contents pages," the home index that you come back to whenever you finish browsing a section. The tricky part is that the viewer must be able to click on a defined part of the picture to link to something else. Say the map is a spider shape... you click on one of the legs to get to the Hall of Science section, etc. Somebody with experience connecting URL links to html-defined areas of the screen behind an art piece would be QUITE WELCOME on this. I understand it's kinda tedious.
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The other thing I need to say is that there are a whole bunch of promising Devival situations coming up.
July 14 - 15 -- Dragon Con
Atlanta, GA
This is a HUGE sf-fantasy convention, of which SubGenius devivals are usually the only nonfiction events. Last year's was one of the all-time great devivals, with The Swingin Love Corpses as the musical act. (Unedited StangCam video available.)
The line-up this time:
Fr. Joe Mama
Rev. Susie the Floozy
St. Janor Hypercleats
Dr. K'taden Legume
Rev. Ivan Stang
Rev. Mike Ro Phone
A supposedly "surprise" invasion by the "open mike" contingent of amateurs (as if I haven't been through this routine a thousand times!)
Dragon-Con is a bizarre enough display even without a Devival... if you've ever been to a modern, really LARGE sf-con, you'll know what I mean. It ain't JUST monsters. The Bettie Page Look-Alike contest... the resin model kits from Japan of obscure dinosaur species... the overweight mutant babes parading around in Princess Leah outfits... ahhh yes. Well, maybe it IS just monsters. But by Gobbs, if you love monsters... if you pop a full-on Yacatisma chubby from the more ESOTERIC monsters, you won't want to miss it.
Rev. Susie the Floozy and her "husband," "Lamar," used to run these things, and even today the mutated influence is felt. Consequently, the Atlanta Devivals have been among the most spirit-filled. This time we'll see Dr. Legume DOWN SOUTH!!! Papa Joe Mama's NEW COSTUMES and pent-up, unrecorded RANTS! Susie's BRAIN, TITS and LEGS!! JANOR HYPERCLEATS!! JANOR HYPERCLEATS!! 'Nuff said.
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July 21-23
THE CHICAGO UNDERGROUND FILM FEST
Congress Hotel, 520 S. Michigan Ave., in downtown Chicago.
Special Guests Kenneth Anger and Rev. Ivan Stang
(talk about promo sentences you never expected to see!)
For info:
2524 N. Lincoln, Suite 198
Chicago, IL 60614
phone (312) 866-8660 fax (312) 489-3468
e-mail clark@interaccess.com
Their first one was reportedly a HELL of a party, so I'm looking forward to that aspect of it. This will not exactly involve a devival per se, BRAISE POBS, but just general spewing and spouting on my part about BADFILM. And I can rant chapter and verse on that subject, believe you me. They'll show the sole existing 16mm prints of my crumbling ancient "Let's Visit the World of the Future" (HATEFUL enough to get me the gigs with Dobbs and Devo) and REPRODUCTION CYCLE (porno claymation) and maybe other more recent video. The best tales I have to tell about low-budget movie making are not my own, but recitations (from the oral tradition) of True Facts about other terribly underfunded Dallas and Hollywood filmmakers. Mars really DOES need women, folks. And "SCARLET LOVE" (directed by Palmer Rocky)... FILM THREAT should give me ownership over their whole domain just to tell THAT story.
I strongly suspect that this event will be an ORGY of SLACK for badfilm afficionados, those obsessed with the bizarre aspects of motion picture production, and "weird scene culture" nuts in general.
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Aug. 5 -- Old-Time DEVIVAL at Peabody's Down Under
and
Book Signing at Mac's Backs
CLEVELAND, OHIO
My evil plan WORKED!
Steve Bevilaqua of THE FLYING LEMUR BOOKSTORE in Cleveland CAME THROUGH AGAIN. The circular logic of it is PERFECT.
HEAR:
Rev. Stang try to come up with a new rant that every weirdo in Cleveland hasn't already heard a million times!
DANCE FRENETICALLY TO and PICK UP STRANGE SEXUAL PARTNERS BY:
The music of INDIAN ROPE BURN, ONLY SubGenius band with a chance of "making it big time" --
PLUS
the WORLD PREMIERE of their music video "RED LIGHT" edited by Rev. Ivan Stang with BADFILM CLIPS collected by mega-badfilm-expert St. JOE RILEY!!!
SEE!
The reactions of the Local SubGenii, who would never otherwise set foot into a trendy club like this one, to the MINDLESS DENIZENS OF THE GROOVY SCENE!!
BUY!--
Anything and everything at the SubGenius Sales Table!
CROAK!
-- at the BRILLIANT yet INSECURE GROPINGS of LONESOME COWBOY DAVE, CHAS, and Einstein's Secret Orchestra as they come up with the best sick improv since The Firesign Theater's Dear friends shows, AGAIN!!
SPEW YOUR WAD
all over Forms of Insanity's 57th version of "Hey Bob a Re Bob"!!
HOPE! AGAINST HOPE!!
That Dr. Legume and Fr. Joe Mama, Pennsylvaniates, will LOWER THEMSELVES TO ATTEND!!
DIE IN HORRIBLE AGONY --
as you swallow the PILS that DOBBS' CALLED MINISTERS DOLE OUT!
AND expect a world premiere guest appearance
by
none other than alt.slack silverback
DR. DYNASOR
bringing YET ANOTHER REDNECK ACCENT to the SubGenius Ranters' HALL of FLAME!!
(I know I'm forgetting something)
OH YEAH!!
BOOK SIGNING at Mac's Backs bookstore in Coventry
1820 Coventry (phone 216-321-2665)
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
This would probably be a good place to hang out and give that famous celebrity, Ivan Stang, tapes of your band. The "book signing" concept has turned out to be useful in that respect. The weirdos get a real-life gander at each other. The crowd isn't all that big, and some modicum of human interaction occurs. It can make all the difference. HINT: We super-celebrities are PAINFULLY AWARE that the people we'd MOST like to talk to are the VERY ONES who are being too POLITE to butt in and PESTER US amidst our patient blitherings with PUSHY INANE ASSHOLES.
Aug. 19
ROBERT ANTON WILSON
Dallas, Texas
The site isn't set, although the Scottish Rite Temple seems likely... Rev. D. Lee Lama is bringing Pope Bob back to Big D for a lecture/rave, and your prayer partner Rev. Stang has been invited to MC and generally rant. (And I think I got hired as a video cameraman along with Rev. Zepol.) Details are still a bit wiggly, but this one may well be just the thing for which Dallas is sorely overdue. Ideally, there would be the co-rant, the lecture, and then the GIANT PARTY somewhere else.
PROBABLY will happen. Stay tuned to this channel for further details.
Incidentally: rich families in Dallas or Fort Worth in need of competent video documentarians should never hesitate to hire REV. ZEPOL and REV. STANG, those video-shootin' fools who can turn your disastrous deb party or graduation into an event to fondly remember. Our rates are PROOF of our expertise.
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MORE UPDATES
I understand that there is a BIG DOBBSIAN BBS at 810-792-0032.
RADAR LABS 23 has a nifty website at http://www.unicomp.net/prysm/cuthulu
ICEKNIFE is serious about the infomercial.
According to Sivet Stang, my teenage daughter who sees and memorizes ALL infomercials, we need only stick to this BASIC plan:
There has to be a Pink lady who asks all the questions and isn't "supposed" to know about the product.
There has to be a Pink man who answers all the questions about the product.
They have to build up to the part where they say, "And you think, 'This must cost at least $100!' But no. You might think it would cost at LEAST $75. But it's not $59.5... it's not even $49.95.... it's NOT EVEN FORTY DOLLARS!! But it is ONLY.... TWENTY NINE NINETY FIVE. That's right. It's ONLY $29.5. FOR ALL THIS.... " (etc.)
It has to look like it's a show that's on every week, and this time it JUST HAPPENS to be about the marvels of The SubGenius Church.
It has to have testimonials from satisfied customers. Just regular folks.
And it has to have an audience. An appreciative audience. In the case of most infomercials it's an audience of nice Pinks. In our infomercial it would be an audience that seemed to inexplicably combine "BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE" and THE HOMELESS... gorgeous looking L.A. yups sitting with flea-bitten, reeking rag-wearing bums. AND NOTHING IN BETWEEN.
But they BOTH love this "BOB" thing.
Okay, I'm whupped. Back to the email and html. I DREAM in html now.
I'm quite serious.
Thanks and
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
John Searcy
Tarla Star
"Dad" Townsend
Dynasor
Clavister
Anarch
NotR
RevMac
Radar 23 Labs
John Woods
Pastor Craig
Original file name: SUBSite Web & Coming Devivals!
This file was converted with TextToHTML - (c) Logic n.v.