There. I said it. Perhaps the singularly least original statement in the SubGenius cussing lexicon. But I feel like I've been The SubGenius Fix-It Man since... why heck, since X-Day! The premature X-Day, I mean, X-Day 1998. Any disappointments prompted by the 1998 "X-Day" should not reflect upon the validity of the upcoming definite Rupture, XX-Day, July 5 1999, as specified also by Nostradamus.
People, things and information systems keep BREAKING! And it seems like I spent all my time doing repairs. 1 step forward, 2 steps back. I know that's not the way it IS, it just SEEMS that way. (SURE Stang, SURE.) Heck, once I was finally able to sit down at my trusty old computer banks at all, first I had to completely flush my hard drive, JUST to WRITE, and since I was doing that I'd better install the new system, but after I did that, my mom-blamed PLAIN OLD WORD PROCESSOR wouldn't work! The oldest prog of all! (Turned out it was a corrupt font, after all the trial-and-error prob-isolating.)
But before all that there were the dog wrecks and human breakdowns and car deaths, and before that there was the SURGERY, and before that the SPINNING VORTEX THAT NEVER STOPPED, and in between, all the dag-flamed ROAD TRIPS and PREACHING! And you probably WOULD BELIEVE what-all I've been forced to PUT OFF! The sounds were all dead on SubSITE, AGAIN!! The GUTTERS in the BASEMENT LAB/RUMPUS ROOM must be cleaned before the cops come sniffing around! I must write out the "Starwood Devival CD project CUES and FIX-IT Notes," AND get new slaves and go to the doctor, and the plastic surgeon again, BEFORE we go to Austin this weekend for this Fringeware RAW thing, and that's all ABOVE AND BEYOND any PAYING jobs, "spec" jobs and potential jobs, the COMPLAINTS, and everything else that has to be done RIGHT NOW, GOD DAMN THE HOLIDAYS, AIEEEE!!!
Ahhh, well, that's my cue to SLACK OFF AS IF MY VERY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.
DID get some radio shows done, though. For 4 completely unrelated reasons, the copies of the four shows # 654 through 657 were TECHNICALLY or LEGALISTICALLY FUCKED UP, in 4 different ways. This embarrassed us into INVESTING IN NEW GEAR (better headphones and a new workhorse dubbing deck) and also into using METAL TAPE ONLY from now on. (And also I need to remember to cut the cussing out.) Luckily, for source material on #s 658 and 659, I had a beautifully recorded stretch of PLEDGE DRIVE HOLINESS from a bout of ESO live radio at the WCSB studios in Cleveland.
We also were able to record the Cleveland devival VERY CLEARLY, utilizing the 4 track Yamaha cassette deck donated by Rev. Volkerding. (Unfortunately, what we were recording so clearly often sounded AWFUL, because I, uh, "sang".) The 2 90 minute tapes (there's a lot of rehearsal tape added to fill out Side 4) are $12, I guess. Write me directly -- these won't be in the catalog.
We have also had a HUGE SURPLUS of excellent new tapes and CDs from independent SubGenius bands and collage arteests and so forth, most notably the great new Bill T. Miller works, "RULES" and "DRUM ARMY."
What's driving me crazy is SubSITE. The fact that I haven't been able to GET to it, appreciably. 100 megs of WONDERFUL art has stacked up since July, not to mention all manner of great text thangs. And GIMMICKS!
What am I sitting here telling you people about it for?? Must get TO it. After I do this email. And fix that other thing and that other thing and call those guys.
WOOOPS, there I go again. ONE THING AT A TIME. ONE "THING" AT A TIME!!! Jesus and I have both been going about half nuts. Too much to do, too many unscheduled explosions and earthquakes. Not a good first impression, for a church devoted to Slack. It isn't that we don't "party." Oh, we HAVE to do THAT. We HAVE to do all the damn orgiastics and debauchery and blah blah woof woof. We HAVE "lives." Oh LORDY do we have LIVES. But... It seems like we've ended up with so damn many irons in the fire, SubGenius-bizness-wise, that none of them are getting hot. The heat's diffused... too many irons and lives. But which to toss out, is the question. Certainly not the Home for Slackless Children. Nor the Home for Slackless Pets.
Speaking of which:
GHOST OF BEAST HAUNTS/GUARDS FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS!!
YES! A VAST HULKING SHADOW SLOUCHES AND SLIPS MIDNIGHTLY THROUGH THE ECHOING SILENT HALLWAYS OF THE FIRST MEGAFISTEMPLE LODGE GREAT-HOUSE... EYES THAT BURN THROUGH THE THICK HAZE OF FROP SMOKE, A DEEP RISING GROWL LIKE A ANGRY TRACTOR STARTING UP ON A COLD DAY AS IT PADS RELENTLESSLY RIGHT AT YOUR *FACE* --
FIRST there skulked THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES.
THEN... CUJO.
But those were PLAYFUL LOLLYGAGGING LOVE PUPPIES compared to what awaits any BURGLAR, BATF AGENT OR "BOB" STALKER unlucky enough to set foot uninvited onto SACRED GROUND.
GHOST OF BEAST.
(Or Ghost, for short.)
LONG LIVE BEAST! KILL GHOST KILL!
Yes, it was sad when the eldest and noblest of our stable of Guard Dogs, BEAST, passed away last month. My daughter and I had to drag his fatally old miserable half-alive 90 pounds on a blanket to the car, thence to the Kindly Vet with the Hundred Percent Solution. He died wagging his tail and groaning in pleasure. If only they let PEOPLE go that easily.
Afterwards, on Thanksgiving, we ceremonially devoured him. A mite greasy, but dog is always greasy. Thus we all, our little extended family of Dobbs EmpLoyees, gained for ourselves some measure of the courage of Beast, his craftiness and swiftness, his loyalty to Dobbs, his brilliant mind, his glowing coat. Hopefully not his congestive heart failure, his diskoid lupus nor his epilepsy (a condition that meant we had to feed him the finest and most expensive of dog foods lest he have "conniptions"). Come to think of it, I already had Beast's diskoid lupus... I probably gave it to him. But I don't lick the medicine off MY nose.
Beast, a large handsome mutt partyaking of Collie, Belgian Shepherd and Golden Retriever, served Dobbs longer and better than any Bobbie and most Doktors. His wild party trick of arterial bleeding from his diseased snout kept us all in stitches many an evening. He is almost certainly the main reason we were never robbed during all those years that we worked undercover, pretending to be starving artist types in that terrible part of Dallas. Beast was even the inspeeration for the concept of "pee-mail." More than anything else, though, Beast was a hairy retarded FAMILY MEMBER.
Beast is survived by his persnickety little auntie, the stuck up weiner-dog/shitzu combo, "Puddin".
Last weekend, the "vet" at the secret government lab way out in the boonies, where my folks live, introduced us to a possible replacement for Beast. He escorted us into a sort of dungeon-like concrete bunker, a cell in which the animal in question was kept chained down and sedated.
The first time I looked into the eyes of Ghost, I felt like I was peering into two bottomless black pits of implacable, rapacious EVIL.
That's probably because he is a POLICE DOG, or German Shepherd. A big one. Rather, his HEAD is HUGE, and absolutely wolflike. His body seems proportionately small, about the size of a panther's. He MOVES more like a large cat than like a dog, which is one reason the name Ghost came to mind. Also, he is black and white, and the white parts are very white. His HEAD comes at you like a big white freight train with a hideous beast-devil-mask painted in black on the front.
He was just what I was looking for -- about 2 years old, previously owned, more or less trained, implacably calm around human children, TERRIFYING TO EVILDOERS TO SO MUCH AS GLIMPSE, and UTTERLY, UNMERCIFULLY VICIOUS towards ALL FOES OF "BOB"!
All the beautiful girls who live in my house just adore him. He has only been here for a week and already, I'm sure that Ghost of Beast would tear the jugular out of any entity who threatened them.
I should mention Ghost's first reaction to "Bob," or rather to the petrified "Bob" mummy that sits on a barstool in our living room (the same one we haul around to events like X-Day, pictured in the Stark Fist recently). Ghost saw "Bob" sitting there and "about lakked to jump out of his skin" -- because the "Bob" mummy LOOKS human (to a dog I guess), but sure doesn't SMELL human. When Ghost's nose finally convinced him that this particular Dobbs might as well be a scarecrow, he finally did what the rest of us do -- fucked him, of course. Who wouldn't??
He sure fucked US!
Anyway, the main purpose of this little report is to let ya'll know that we haven't ignored your requests and contributions for any PERSONAL reasons. We've ignored EVERYONE, all very impersonally, I assure you. YOU, my dear dear personal friend.
******
Original file name: GhostOBeast 12-2-98 Church Repo
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