Slack is a cruel master, leading me to piece together leavings from my clipbox.

Playlist

Cheep Cheep Suite
Don’t Even Ask
Welcome message
Alleee 1
Tommy Johnson * Big Fat Mama Blues
If Carl Sagan Were a Christian Apologist 1
After1
Gus Brendel * Night Clipper
Bob Ayala * Who Will be the Next to Go
Boyfriends with God
Anything for my Princess
Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Christian Apologist 2
Mike Rozakis * She Knew No Other Way
Andy Williams * Ajinomoto
The Greatest Thieves on Earth
Gershon Kingsley * For Elise
Arlen Kearce * Sandy the Go-Go Girl
Manson/It Tastes Good
Egg * Fugue in D Minor
Hellbound Alleee * Bugs Bunny vs the Violet Flame
Normal Bob Smith Angry Phone Messages
Enoch Light * Frenchy’s Tune
Jackson Blue Boys * Sweet Alberta
Bad Rap/You’re My Favorite Customer
The Art Van Damme Quintet * Lover
Don Knotts * Pre-Natal Anxieties
Star Trek Anti-Drug/Interesting Story Savers
Ukrainian Highway to Hell

Download

“Bob” jest, był i zawsze będzie, “Bob” jest tobą, “Bob” jest mną, “Bob” jest Kama Sutrą, Id, światłem iskrzącym w sercu i umysłem WSZYSTKICH wolno-myślących SubGeniuszy. I “Bob” jest człowiekiem.

To “Bob”.
To zawsze tak działa.
Albowiem “Bob” to LUZ.

A LUZ jest tym czego pragniesz. LUZ jest tym czego potrzebujesz. Tak jak Papież Całego Nowego Jorku rzekł do tłumu:

Wraz z PEŁNIĄ Luzu ZMIANY nastąpią;
Luz WSTĄPI w twe życie,
Luz SPRAWI, iż PRZEJRZYSZ NA OCZY,
Luz cię UWOLNI!
Luz JEST! Luz ŻYJE,
Luz CZEKA NA CIEBIE, och TAK! Wyślij nam $20.

Luz jest tym, co zostało odebrane; Luz jest tym, co odda nam “Bob”.

(Fragment Księgi SubGeniuszu, s.15, “The SubGenius Must Have SLACK!!”)

E venne il giorno.  Il giorno X.

E anche il terzo post consecutivo dedicato agli alieni.  Curiosa coincidenza.  Comunque abbiamo ancora 18 ore (in California non sono nemmeno le 6 di mattina) per vedere se si realizza la profezia di J,R. “Bob” Dobbs, il profeta della Chiesa del Subgenio, che ha profetizzato per oggi l’arrivo di una flotta di dischi volanti, che salverà solo gli adepti della Chiesa del Subgenio, che verranno prelevati da astronavi con un equipaggio di Dee del Sesso (immagino che per le adepte ci saranno degli Dei del Sesso, ma è una mia deduzione).

Gli alieni sono ancora negli anni '50

Oggi 5 luglio 2009 è il dodicesimo giorno X (X Day XII), perché agli undici precedenti gli alieni hanno mancato l’appuntamento…  Ci sono molte teorie per spiegarlo, dal fatto che la Cospirazione abbia scambiato la Terra con Marte ingannando gli alieni, o che abbia modificato  i calendari e che quindi quello che noi pensiamo fosse il 1998 era un altro anno, fino all’ipotesi che la profezia sia stata letta al contrario (e allora la fine del mondo è rimandata all’8991).

Per salvarsi, però è sempre necessario entrare nella Chiesa, previo pagamento della quota di 30 dollari.

La Chiesa del SubGenio, il cui simbolo è la faccia sorridente di Bob con in bocca la pipa, è aperta soprattutto ai membri anticonformisti della società, come miscredenti, burloni, i ribelli, hacker, pornografi, disadattati ed emarginati.  La base della religione, originariamente diffusa su musicassetta, è la ricerca dello Slack, ovvero il senso di libertà ed indipendenza che si prova quando si raggiungono i propri obiettivi,  eche ci viene rubato dal conformismo della società.

I culti della Chiesa del Subgenio sono chiamati Devivals, e sono un misto di preghiera, concerto rock, e gag comiche; d’altro canto la Chiesa promuove ironia, comicità e satira, oltre ad essere essa stessa la parodia di altri culti.

Secondo la Chiesa del SubGenio, Jehowah 1 in realtà un alieno che ha asservito l’umanità, che invece viene aiutata dagli Xisti, una razza aliena benefica che da sempre aiuta l’umanità.   Secondo una dottrina (non so se ufficiale), i SubGeni discendono dall’unione tra una donna e uno yeti, abitante di Atlantide, in un tempo in cui gli esseri umani erano schiavi degli Atlantidei.

Punto fondamentale della dottrina ufficiale è l’esistenza di una Cospirazione dei Normali, che ha occulato la verità sulle Piramidi, Atlantide, l’isola di Pasqua e i sentieri di Nazco, e di cui farebbe parte anche l’FBI.

E ora gustatevi il video pubblicitario della Chiesa

La salvezza è garantita, altrimenti ti restituiscono tre volte tanto.

The Chapman Family Collection. Photo: Stephen White

I sometimes wonder why I find myself in art galleries so often when I find so much about contemporary art so irritating. With an article hardly finished, I’m jumping on the bus to Tate Britain to see Classified, just because they’ve got seven new rooms of recent acquisitions. Perhaps I should get a hobby, go for a walk. It’s a nice day.

Actually, to be honest it’s mostly just the writing that I find irritating. Take this, from an interpretative label:

“[Rebecca Warren's Come, Helga] questions our assumptions about sculptural tradition.”

This is a classic piece of nonsense, committing the twin crimes of a vague assertion about ‘us’ and mis-ascription of agency. Firstly you assume that you and I, Ms gallery label-writer, share a set of common assumptions about sculpture, which I doubt (I’m actually just not very interested in sculpture), and secondly that an inanimate lump of dried clay is capable of questioning those assumptions. It’s a jumped-up hyperbolic claim of importance for the work that gets in the way of understanding or even seeing it. It’s not even something that the Tate are universally guilty of: the Tate Collection’s own description is much better: it starts off with a physical description of the work, draws some parallels and finishes up with the question of the artist’s ‘concerns’. Comprehensible without being patronising.

Maybe I shouldn’t bother reading the labels and just look at the art. Maybe I should just be grateful that I don’t have to wade through the tedious sheaves of pretentious pseudo-theory that blighted Bourriaud’s Altermodern. At least this conceit is simple. ‘Classified’: artists, like everyone else, enjoy messing around with the taxonomic systems of organisation that characterise post-Enlightenment knowledge. Aggregation and differentiation; Comte; Linnaeus: Same same but different. Take Ceal Floyer’s Monochrome Till Receipt (White), a Morrison’s receipt for a trolleyful of shopping that’s all literally white: goats cheese, face cream, tampons, etc. It’s about classification, and it’s about process, because this is a new till receipt: the work has been re-created specially for this show.

But this show is actually less about classification than it is about recognition: the recognition of what has seeped into and out of popular culture from the hallowed white cube. It’s not the experience of ’signature style’ you get wandering through MOMA (screenprint: Warhol, check; smudgy stencil work: Jasper Johns, check; bricks on the floor: Carl Andre, check); it’s more like hearing someone in a British New Wave film utter the words that should be coming out of Morrissey’s mouth.

The first two immediately recognisable works are Jeremy Deller’s The History of the World (a mind map linking brass bands and rave music) and Simon Patterson’s The Great Bear (a map of the tube in which station names have been replaced by those of historical figures), which belong on the wall above my sofa, and in the inlay tray of my Acid Brass CD respectively. It seems odd seeing them in a gallery: they’re both flat works made for reproduction, so there’s no extra aura to be felt or detail to be seen in the ‘original’ (the Patterson edition is a little larger than my copy). Deller’s taken a vernacular form, seen on flipcharts and in management meetings, and given it an unexpected social content. Patterson’s schtick of relabelling tube stations has become a popular genre in itself, enough to fire the ire of TfL, ‘owners’ of the original. Both works are so familiar in such a way that it feels like they don’t belong in an art gallery at all, that placing them on white walls imposes unnecessary restrictions on our contemplation and understanding.

Tacita Dean’s Michael Hamburger is a short film of the venerable poet and critic talking about the varieties of apples he grows in his Suffolk garden. According to the interpretation label this is a poignant substitute for talking about his childhood and escape from 1930s Germany (in fact Hamburger seems to have written a memoir about just this), but I notice that W.G. Sebald, whose translator Hamburger was, is mentioned: Sebald is unfinished business for so many people; and I wonder whether Suffolk, through Sebald and Hamburger is talking on the kind of mystic qualities that Iain Sinclair used to mine from the East End. In any case, I learn from Hamburger that russet apples became unpopular because of the rough texture of their skin.

Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy is recognisable from fashion magazines and general Hirstiana. The medicines also: scanning the shelves I recognise ones I’ve taken or applied, and wonder why the Zirtek is shelved on the opposite side of the room from the Clarityn. (Should one be tempted, at this stage, to have a Stuckist moment of derision for the persistent taint of Conceptualism, rest assured that the paintings are easily the worst things in the whole show. The best among them, Phillip Allen’s Beezerspline is a prettyish painting of something like rainbows, bludgeoned to death by its own description, explaining the concepts of both the Beezer (an old comic) and spline (a mathematical formula for drawing rainbow shapes).

The last room of the show is the Chapman Brothers’ Chapman Family Collection, an assortment of Papuan/Pacific-looking masks, figures and fetishes, supposedly an ethnographic assortment belonging to the Chapman family for some years (complete with pisstaking interpretation). There are even joss sticks burning to give the room the feel of a dusty authenticity, but these are of course the works of the Chapmans themselves. If the repetitive use of vaguely vaginal seashells didn’t give it away, it doesn’t take long to see that these figures, artfully burnt, distressed and adorned with grasses and animal hair, are in fact Ronald McDonald, and other figures from the McDonald’s advertising pantheon like Hamburglar. One chubby little pipe-mouthed fellow clutches a coke and fries; elsewhere a hamburger is being crucified. The Chapmans are basically the fine art Banksy: admirably bloody-minded creators of recognisable iconographies (cocks, brains and bottles; chimps and rats), with the same basic message: don’t take your pretensions too seriously because base humanity and mere commerce underlies all. It’s no bad thing, either, and though this doesn’t have the gobsmacking brilliance of Hell, it’s better than the Hitler stuff.

And so Classified comes across something like Now That’s What I Call Contemporary Art 2009. There’s the classics you’ll always love, a few properly duff ones doubtless included for contractual reasons, and some slow simmerers that you might be hearing more from.

A short and peaceful boat ride away, at the other Tate, there are more recognitions. In George Maciunas’ Fluxus newspapers I can see precursors of the Church of the Subgenius (“send those $ to Fluxus”); in Jeff Koons’ colour- mirrored animal faces I recognise the table from the ICA workshop. In Stutter in the second floor gallery, there’s Michael Riedel’s Filmed Film Trailer, a trailer for a film of super-fast compressed films. I briefly recognise both Anger’s Eaux d’Artifice and Duchamp’s Anemic Cinema.

But best of all, Fischli and Weiss’s Untitled (Tate) has returned. Part of the Tate Modern’s original 2000 hang, it consists of a room apparently filled with left-over builders’ junk: pallets, wood, ashtrays, toys, cigarettes and other rubbish. What looks like a one-dimensional installation joke is in fact a work of painstaking craft: each object is made from polythene foam and painted in acrylic to look like a ‘real’ object. There’s an uncanny gap: get close enough and you can see the brush strokes on a carton of milk. Step back and it’s a real carton of milk again. Reconfigured for a smaller room, most of the same objects are still there, save for a Lucozade bottle which I remember clearly but can now see no trace of.

CZŁOWIEK NARODZIŁ SIĘ Z LUZEM PIERWORODNYM, jednak nie wierzy w ten fakt większość ‘cywilizowanych’ ludzi, a najlepsi uczeni nie są nawet w stanie tego pojąć. TO jest powód, dla którego bliżej do Oświecenia jest Idiocie, a “Bob” jest chwalony bardziej za poczucie humoru, niż za czyny. Jeśli nie uwierzysz w Luz, nie będzie ci on dostępny.
Przez 200 lat lud tubylczy Haiti, starożytni szamani z długimi, prostymi Fajkami, kosztowali Luzu. Nazywali go Bobjuju. Mówimy o nich, że byli prymitywni, ale kto o tym decyduje…? Spokojnie palili Frop i konwersowali z Jah. Czy to nie my bez końca biegamy po mieście i polujemy na własności? Kto jest barbarzyńcą, krwiopijca? Kto poskromi moc Bobjuju? Widziałem człowieka, który urwał kurze głowę własnymi zębami, pił jej krew i kopulował z dwu i pół metrową tubylczą albinoską kobietą z białymi włosami i srebrnymi oczami… susz Fropu był taki drobny, że mógłby przepaść na powierzchni dywanu… żaden policjant nie mógłby przejść w pobliżu tamtego miejsca… nagły przybytek wiedzy o potędze Luzu usmażyłby mózg Szarego Człowieka wewnątrz czaszki.

Ponad wszystko, niezależnie od kosztów, LUZ MUSI BYĆ NA PIERWSZYM MIEJSCU w życiu każdego Inicjowanego… do momentu, aż on sam stanie się Luzem.
Kto jest bogaty w Luz, ten jest bogatszy niż najlepiej sytuowany człowiek Konspiracji.

Luz to Lampa Alladyna, która otwiera inne pięć zmysłów. To miara, którą powinniśmy się mierzyć. To jedyny dobry powód, by wstawać rano z łóżka. Jeśli w to wszystko nie wierzysz, jesteś zgubiony.

(Fragment Księgi SubGeniuszu, s.63, “What is he telling us?”)

While at X-Day last summer, I had the opportunity to participate in “Ask Dr. Hal”, where people wrote down a question for Dr. Hal to answer. He is very good at giving 3-minute answers to 3-second questions. I cheated and slipped in a “two part question”, that was really 2 questions.

1) Why is the sky?
2)Why does The Conspiracy value cleanliness so much?

Awesomely, Dr. Hal managed to talk for six minutes to answer these 2 questions. Eventually, the Hour Of Slack radio show broadcast my answers. I extracted them and re-hosted them for my personal posterity. Now presenting: Dr. Hal Answers Clint’s 2 Questions:

This podcast includes clips from an album called “Psi-Kick” by Oscar-Miro Quesadilla. I mean, Quesada. I downloaded the album from the cool sharity blog, A Basement of Curiosities. On the entry, “Grey Calx” writes,

On side A, Oscar explains how you can enhance your ESP powers just by relaxing and meditating. Yes, just by relaxing and meditating. On side B, Oscar teaches you how to do Uri Geller moves by using your psychokinetic powers that you should have to bend forks. Curiously, there is no information on how to develop your ESP or psychokinetic powers on Oscar’s website.

I’d also like to say that, regardless of my rant or what the awesome Mr. Stang says, the Church of the Subgenius welcomes nonbelievers as individuals who are too different to be the same. Otherwise it would seem like I was some kind of idiot.

Playlist

Psi-Kick 1
Alleee 1
Alan Parker & Mike Moran * Mr. Smooth Man
John Anderson * Cage of Freedom * from the Giorgio Moroder version of Metropolis 1927
Psi-Kick 2
Flintstone Classic Underscore
Ronnie Self * Bop-a-Lena
Psi-Kick 3
Devo * Beautiful World * E-Z Listening
Bruce Haack & Ed Harvey * Snow Job
Psi-Kick 4
Harry Breuer * Moog Foo Yong
Flintstones * Rockenspiel Jingle
Psi-Kick 5
Bernard Estardy * Vertigo Leitmotiv
Sippie Wallace * I’m a Mighty Tight Woman
Psi-Kick 6
Jean Jacques Perrey * Gossipo Perpetuo
Weird Child Abuse Ad
Psi-Kick 7
Wolfgang Kaltenbach * Party Shaker
Japanese Commercial 1964
Psi-Kick 8
The Jetsons Underscore
Doctor Destro * Oh How I Love Ted
Psi-Kick 9
Johnny Quest Underscore
Alleee and Normal Bob Smith’s “Fans” * Grinch on the Cross, Grinch in a Dress
Psi-Kick 10
Let’s All Head for the Refreshment Stand
Magilla Gorilla Underscore
Psi-Kick 11
Alleee 2

Download

Be saved! Be an Ordained Minister! Just 30 dollars for salvation or your money back! Click Here! Now!

Clint w/candy fangs, then giving SubGenius salute

So yes — we went to another SubGenius event. The Baltimore Devival #2. This time, we actually got a friend to join us: Tabbitha! I’ve always considered her the most latent SubGenius out of all of my friends anyway. (I’d say John The Canadien too, but he’s already found “Bob”!)  I wore my psychedelic / optical illusion shirt, pimp hat, green sparkling smoking jacket, and camouflage pants. Almost wore a space-themed tie, but decided against it, despite the cold, by assuming the venue would be too hot for a tie to be comfortable, and too dark for space tie to be visible.

refrigerator podium – to be used for preaching later

We got off to a late start due to generally being punk-ass slowpokes. Baltimore is a long way away; over an hour’s drive. And poor Tabbitha had to drive to our place in addition to that. Then there was the whole detour on the way back to pick up my car, but I’ll talk about that later. We managed to blaze in town just around the opening time, so technically we were 15 minutes or so late. There was one good sign pointing out that we were in the correct place: A huge projected Dobbshead, obscuring a woman’s health advertisement. It was a sign from “Bob”:

projected Dobbshead (by flickr user RadioFreeMountairy)

The parking itself was really weird. You basically had to park in a lot that said you’d be towed if you parked there. But it was pretty much empty. And this seemed like a quiet neighborhood. Not a good neighborhood; but a quiet one. Not so busy that tow trucks were on the prowl.  And since Baltimore is a city full of douchebags (I got a ticket for not feeding a meter at 11:30PM on a Saturday fucking nite!), we weren’t sure if we could park there. We finally drove away, circled around, and came back a second time when we realized there was no where else to park.

The Motor Morons – a power tools band

Dammit Janet and Tangent were asking us — “Have you seen a power tools band before?” … I really was totally clueless when they asked that. I finally learned the meaning of “power tools band”, and it was quite literal. And the great thing is, since SubGeniuses hate rules… You could walk right into the sparks if you so chose. And that’s what I did (almost)… I eventually wound up right next to the “sparks girl”, where I could get a good vantage of the carnage. At one point, she lost her spark thingies (they flew forward from the force of the power tools), and pulled these aluminum squares from her pockets to spark up in an emergency!

The Motor Morons -  side view

Anyway, here’s some crappy (because my camera sucks) video of them playing:

(Yes, it’s 2 copies of the same video, one on flickr, one on youtube, just in case the other goes down.)

Anyway, beer was a consideration for us. The first Baltimore SubGenius Devival occurred in a church, which obviously did not have a liquor license. Tons of people were drinking (and thus huge lines for the bathrooms), but they all had the foresight to bring their own. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of last year, we bought beer on the way — part of why we were late. We also enquired about the beer when we arrived. Princess Pisces was outside, and I asked her, and apparently it was a donation to get beer — like at Art-O-Matic. Except without fixed prices. (I always wondered how ArtOMatic could “cheat” this by “suggesting” a specific “donation”.)

And what is the most slackful donation to make? $1. This seemed to be fine with everyone. We drank a shitload for $1.

Tabbitha & Carolyn

The place it was at – Load Of Fun – was a very strange warehousey kind of venue. Not much of it was properly maintained. There were 3 bathrooms, but one did not have a working sink:

The Worst Sink In All Of Scotland

There was a lot of graffiti in various places as well:

charming

I of course decided to explore. There was no security in any form whatsoever, other than various locked doors upstairs. I managed to explore every nook and crannie that could be explored without picking a lock. And there was some neat stuff… like… Stairs?!?!?!?!:

yes, stairs

There was all kinds of weird things up there… Including a dilapidated cart that really did not look safe to move any amount of actual weight on….

Once I got 2 floors above the main level, things got even more sketchy. The light was pretty much just the city light that came through the windows. There was a long narrow hallway and things were in such bad condition that I walked slowly to ensure boards didn’t break beneath my feet. Eventually I wasdeposited me into this strange area with caged books. I found it very odd, as well as a seemingly accidental social commentary on free speech in America:

free thinking has no place in modern america

keep the children safe

I also found a rogue “OH!”, this time not placed there by me:

OH!

The various bands (Motor Morons, Fat Free, Amino Acids) played, with various preachers (Rev. Ivan Stang, Princess Pisces, Rev. Carter LeBlanc) preaching in between:

Stang speaks!

Eventually, Susie The Floozy passed out candy fangs. These were arguably cooler than the candy eyeballs we got last year:

Tabbitha – fangs, \m/, Carolyn

We of course ran into several of the friends we made at X-Day, including 808 and Christie (with the Gashlycrumb Tinies tattoo). They may be at Assateague this year. The Asian chick in the background might be the subject of the “scrambled naked girl” artwork that I took back from this devival and put up on my wall. I’ll have to ask Reggie Zus.

Carolyn, 808, Christie

Eventually, Tabbitha had to explore the 2nd floor as well, since 2 of the bathrooms were on the “1.5th floor” (kind of a half-floor between 1st and 2nd floor), and most SubGenii are way too fond of slack to go up an additional flight of stairs without konwing for sure there is a bathroom. Anyway, it wasn’t long before she found a sign to disobey:

Even latent SubGenii are possessed with an urge to break any and all rules.

Finally we went out for a smoke break in the alley behind the venue, and checked out some of the cool graffiti:

“There!”

It got cold, so we went back in and resumed watching the bands / preaching:

watching bands

Stang’s jacket reminded me of my own, only silver instead of green:

Stang’s shiny smoking jacket

Stang preaching

Carter LeBlanc preaching

The last band to play is always the Amino Acids. They pulled Carolyn and some other females onto the stage…

Yes, that’s a theramin.

(some stage pics by flickr user RadioFreeMountairy.)

Stang – preaching (by flickr user RadioFreeMountairy.)

And of course… There was this guy. Note the bubbles. I didn’t take it, but this is a VERY strange picture:

weird guy, bubbles

(by flickr user RadioFreeMountairy.)

Anyway… A good time was had by all. We got to experience preaching, music, intoxication, unique people, as well as reconnecting with some of the cool people we had met at X-Day this year. Plus, Reggie Zus let me take home a piece of art that he had on display there. He said he printed it for free at school, so why not give it away for free? I don’t have a proper picture of it, but you can see it in the top of this picture, behind our cats playing with bubbles:

ANYWAY…. WE SHALL RETURN NEXT YEAR!

PRIASE “BOB”!

OFFICIAL PICTURES & VIDEO FROM DEVIVAL: www.subgenius.com/bigfist/fun/devivals/Baltimore_2008/

FULL DEVIVAL AUDIO: www.radio4all.net/index.php/series/Church+of+the+SubGeniu…

To view all my pictures (basically the same pictures as this posting) on flickr (in case you want to individually comment), go to my SubGeniusDevival20081115 tag on flickr.

(and yes, this write-up is several months late)

“It’s true that Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins. But I’d like to point out that, by indulging in Sloth, you’re pretty safe from the other six. I mean, who wants to run around being wrathful all the time? That’s just exhausting. And it’s pretty much required that you give up any desire for money or power (Greed) or to be more important or attractive than others (Pride) if you want to spend all day watching the Cartoon Network.”  —Kristopher Reisz

Can I get an AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN? Can I get a HABAFROPZIPULOPS?  Can I get a PrAISE “BOB”?  SLOTH, my brothers and sisters I’ve got sumpin to tells you about SLOTH, SLOTH is the most INSIDIOUS, OPHIDIAN, DARTH SIDIOUS, IN-CITY-US ways the Conspiracy, the GODDAMN “BOB”-FORSAKEN CONSPIRACY (literally, he ditched them for the Church of the SubGenius, because he knew there was a better way) has separated the good true people of the world from their SLACK since time immemorial, by DEMONIZING the very concept itself!

“They’re just your beliefs. They’re not real.” – Bill Hicks

“Death to all fanatics!” – Old Discordian saying.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

What people believe and how they act on the basis of their beliefs fascinates me. Consider the Flying Spaghetti Monster .

You know the story, I’m sure… a silly alternative to Xtian creationist ideas is created as part of a reductio-ad-absurdam defence against same, resulting in a wildly successful internet meme, a book, and a new ‘religion’ along the Zen-comedy lines of Discordianism and the Church of the Sub-Genius.

One of the truly great things about the FSM website is that they regularly publish examples of their hate mail. Shockingly, the vast majority of such comes from people who identify as Christians – and these missives can be roughly split into two types.

First are the straightforward haters – either vicious or condescending, they implore/cajole/heap scorn on the very idea of the FSM, having apparently undergone a satire bypass at an early age. Here’s a good example:

this is the dumbissst thing i have ever heard……..you think this is ganna make fun of christians then you are a fool! cause the god we worship is real…. and we dont eat him… by the way well pray for you your ganna need it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -brittany (sic)

(It seems ‘brittany’ is unaware of that whole transsubstantiation thing…)

The rest mostly consist of reciting Bible quotes and concepts in attempt to refute the position of the FSM ‘believers’. Like this:

“For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.” (1 Chronicles 16:26). “You shall not make anything to be with Me – gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves.” (Exodus 20:23). “What you have in your mind shall never be, when you say, ‘We will be like the Gentiles, like the families in other countries, serving wood and stone.’” (Ezekiel 20:32). “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3 (Deuteronomy 5:7, Judges 6:10, Hosea 13:4″ -Jerry

(The comment threads on the hate mail are tremendous fun. Often the Xtian poster will attempt to defend their position, with high-larious consequences.)

Here’s the part I just don’t get… why do people think that quotes from their holy book will convince people who are not believers of that holy book? I know the theory – their holy book is The Truth and all those who deny The Truth can (and should, and will) be eventually convinced. The theological version of going to a foreign country and believing the natives will understand you as long as you speak English LOUDLY. I just don’t understand this mindset.

That sort of certainty about your beliefs might seem just funny, or naive. But it’s precisely that sort of fanatical certainty which leads to such ‘righteous’ actions as killing women’s health providers to ’save’ foetuses. Or execution for apostasy.

Apostasy is a fascinating and horrible concept to me. Although it’s mostly known these days for quasi-judicial murders in Muslem (or Muslem-contested) countries, the less immediately fatal version – the outcasting and stigmatizing of those whose belief in the One True Truth of their family and culture slips – also has terrible effects.

(There seems to be a small spate of apostasy among the pagan community at the moment – several well-publicised examples of former pagan people converting either to Christianity or Atheism. I would note that the majority response of pagan commentators has been to respect these decisions and call for wider interfaith dialogue. No fatwas, no bombings. I prefer this.)

The entire idea of being punished for apostasy ignores (and condemns) the possibility that a person can have a genuine change of heart about what they believe. Of course those within the monolithic grasp of a single True Religion regard those whose personal beliefs change (and, dare I say, evolve) over time as having ‘weak faith’. I could get all Zen and say, “is the willow which bends in the wind weaker than the oak which breaks?” Or I could say, “fuck ‘em”. Or both. Depends on the mood.

I have always thought the problem isn’t what you believe, but what you do about it. For instance, my-Beloved-the-ex-neuroscientist-shaman went to college with a Fundamentalist Discordian. Back in her college days, her email handle was ‘eris’. Another student complained that this disrespected his deeply held beliefs. (My Beloved’s reply was to send him occasional emails saying, “Hail Me, dammit!”.)

Dealing with fanaticism and the many differing ‘deeply held beliefs’ in modern society is not going so well. Rather than trying to find a middle ground where those of different beliefs (incluuding the belief that belief itself is wrong) can talk like grown-ups is being pushed aside in favour of a spate of governmental and international initiatives to classify expressing disbelief or satire of someone elses faith as a ‘hate crime’. Especially, by pure coincidence I am sure, those faiths where the believers in question has a habit of killing (or sueing or protesting) those who make fun of them.

Apostasy, criticism and satire are not hate crimes. They are part of a person trying to understand what they and others believe and why. Sometimes that means showing disrespect and scorn for another belief. For that matter, believing one monolithic system is automatically going to be blasphemy to a different belief.

Though I dislike scorn for no reason, or purely out of xenophobia, scorn of fanaticism is utterly justified. I even think it’s necessary. But it can also be a trap – it can easily lead to exactly the same level of fundamentalism as those one is scorning. The best route, I think, is to apply the same humerous and scathing approach to your own beliefs as much (or better, even more than) those you disagree with.

(Oh – and feel free to express scorn for my beliefs. Just don’t expect a free pass when we debate because you have The Truth.)

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“Our motto is: ‘Sincerity is not enough.’ We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it’s true doesn’t make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn’t mean you are not doing harm.” – The Unitarian Jihad

“Criticism is the only known antidote to error.” – David Brin

(Thanks to the Metapagan news service for some of the links.)

PLaylist

Bob is Watching 1 from Bob Bob Brother Mix
Alleee 1
Howard Carpendale * Du Hast Mich
Bob is Watching 2
Gil Trythal * Yakety Moog
Katerine * Mon Coeur Balance
Bob is Watching 3
Enoch Light * Witchita Lineman
Roger Miller * You Can’t Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd
Bob is Watching 4
Dave Vorhaus * The DIY Machine
Wax Audio * Iron Maiden goes to Bollywood
Bob is Watching 5
I WIll Wait for You
Mad Mix Mustang * Don’t You Ever Give Up Wanting Me Baby
Bob is Watching 6
Bruce Haack and Ed Harvey * Fantastic Skullastic
The Who Boys * The In Crowd
Bob is Watching 7
Bongo Bash
A Cat Sings the Blues
Bob is Watching 8
Bagdhad Express
Jill Sobule singing Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God
Bob is Watching 9
Electric Coconut * Space Walk
Octo-Pipers * Roaring 20’s Medley
Bob is Watching 10
Alleee 2

Download

because i am a yeti descendant, and yetis are kin to Santa as seen here. if the santa gig doesn’t work out, i could be Satan, or Al Jolson!

someday, I will be easily able to tear apart a fully grown bear, like the speciment in this video

and thar be a sequel!

Zoog shall be our new dark lord in the coming year, approaching in the toothy depths of the winter months and not leaving us until winter is upon us once more.  I am, of course, speaking of 2009, which can be rendered as z009, or zoog, either way.  Since other bloggers are doing similar, i figured we must pay obeisance to the dread Zoog with a retrospective look back at its predecessor, ZOOB, 2008, Year of the Zoobies, the Year that Really Bites!

I had originally named the year in anticipation that it would really bite, as in suck, as in be not fun, because i was feeling bitter and drunk at the time I named it.  I had been brainwashed by horrendous mind-control propagandas transmitted via television that the end of the year is a time for romance and I, a typically happy-t0-be-single bachelor, was driven to madness by the conflict between what i know makes me happy and what teevee was telling me to want.  I was in a bad way, my droogs.

and I gotta tell ya, I still feel that way.  I hate public displays of affection.  I think “love” is something concocted by a marketing department to make people buy useless crap for other people (on top of the useless crap they buy themselves) and go to restaurants more often.  I’m just not as actually upset by it’s continued existence as i was back then, because something wonderful happened in 2008 – I went to X-day 11! I had so much fun, made a bunch of new friends, and was really able to clear my head of years of misanthropy and disdain for society.  I still hate most people, and have a low opinion of humanity in general, but it doesn’t get in the way of me having a good time anymore.

it was at X-day that i realized that what I wanted to do with the rest of my life was enjoy it by savoring lots of comic books and horror movies and so forth most of the year and road-tripping to Devivals and other weird festive events at least once or twice a year.

everything after that point has been a sort of blur of amusement and delight interspersed by food, naps, and occasional annoynace at the workplace (which only made me that much more appreciative to get back to the amusement and delight). I made a bunch of LOLcats over the months, drank some root beer with Charles Manson on the bottle (it’s Helter-Skelteriffic!), and discovered a latent fondness for death metal.

Year of the Zoobies bit at life with gusto, and gulped it down in large, unchewed mouthfuls.  it rocked.  and i gotta say, from here it looks like Zoog will follow in it’s footsteps.

The Taphouse Cabal

It all began one evening over many adult beverages in a bar called the Taphouse Grill.

Three patrons, enjoying their beer, decided to form a super-seekrit society whose aim (it would appear), was to experience and celebrate all the effects of drunkeness. Taking for themselves the secret latin motto “Bibere, Pervertere, Caedere” which they were certain meant something clever, these brave souls then went on to spread their message of whatever it was far and wide.

Born of too much Drink, the Taphouse Cabal meandered it’s way through the IntraWeb, settling at last on an IRC network protocol that encourages, amongst other things, freethought, black humor, white Russians, good beer, and bad jokes. 

learn/see/drink/more/here – http://www.taphouse.org/

Short version:  hunh?  wha?  aliens?  mmkay.  whatever you say.  too busy gazing into Jennifer Connelly’s eyes.  Good movie.

Long Version:  Klaatu Barada Nikto, do not expect to hear it.   This isn’t a flying saucer and giant cardboard robot movie.  This is the high-end model, with special effects by Peter Jackson’s crew of deranged half-orcs at Weta New Zealand.  It has strange luminescent orbs, silicon-based self-replicating nano-disassemblers with diamond-tipped everythings, and John Cleese with a Nobel Prize for being John Cleese.

With all that going for it, you think there’d be more to it, but, alas, there isn’t.  pretty special effects.  Alien shows up to “Save the earth,” and it takes scientists days to figure out that he is there to save the earth from humans, not save it for them.

Apparently the aliens are big fans of Bill Hicks, or maybe they’re just SubGeniuses – they agree that human are naught but vermin that are irreprably damaging their own home, one of the few planets in the known universe capable of sustaining complex life, but they’re interesting vermin, the kind that aliens grow to love, and in the end the end the earth is still doomed because humans are still on it, and the aliens must content themselves with a few samples of all the other species that are otherwise doomed to extinction in a few centuries when we finally kill the planet.

but don’t blame me, folks.  Earth-girls may be easy, but alien boys are pushovers.  All it took to save the planet was a brief chat with John Cleese, the grudging approval of a wise-cracking child with dreadlocks, and a few longing looks from Jennifer Connelly.  There’s something simultaneously very noble and very feral about her eyes.  I could stare at closeups of her eyes all day.  the rest of her is rather nice as well, but it’s those eyes that get me every time.

In summation, let us all give thanks to Crom, VALIS, Wotan, Xenu, “Bob,” and the Masonic Jewish Satanists that run Hollywood for Jennifer Connelly and the fact that Tom Cruise was not cast as Klaatu.

meme stolen from Vesper

1. Do you play an instrument?
not with any skill or regularity.  I make ear-mangling, suicide-inducing attempts at concertina and stylophone, and i can pick out a melody on a pennywhistle easy enough.

2. Do you like your name?
i have so many, so i suppose so.  different names for different things.

3. Who’s the most famous author you’ve ever met?
Ivan Stang, the satirical mastermind behind the Book of the SubGenius, Revelation X, and the Psychlopedia of Slack.  Of course, he had help from his various writer and cartoonist pals, and has used submissions from other SubGenii in the books, but he’s the guy who puts the finished project together and gets it into stores where people can buy it.  Hell, he’s even quoted me on the radio show several times, and I’m the new guy (most recent quote was on the Killer Teddy Bears Vs. Barack Obama episode of Hour of Slack: “The Church of the SubGenius – where today’s wisecracks are tomorrow’s divine revelations!”).  I also met Modemac, who maintains the High Weirdness project, an online version of the old High Weirdness By Mail book.

4. What qualifications do you have?
that depends on what you mean by qualifications.  I’ve been a collections agent for three years and not shot anyone or gone dangerously crazy, so i think that qualifies me for something.  if in terms of paperwork certifying my achievements and abilities, I have a Doktorate of Forbidden Sciences, BA in English, ordainment in the Universal Life Church and in the Church of the SubGenius.  in some states I can officiate weddings and funerals.  I can do faith-bludgeonings (it’s like a faith healing, but in reverse).   I also possess a driver’s license, a good credit score, and a Divine Excuse.

5. What’s the weirdest job you’ve ever done?
calling people to ask for donations to the Policeman’s Union.  it only lasted two days.

6. What’s the worst thing you’ve had to confess to doing?
I’ve never had to confess to anything, to my knowledge.

7. When did you feel really, really daft? when I got out of bed this morning.  I was warm and comfortable in a nest of pillows and bedding.  shoulda stayed there.

stolen meme from Vesper, rules as follows: Provide a list of books that fall in line with the categories below and state why they are important to you in 30 words or less.

-Fiction
-Autobiography
-Non-Fiction
-A Book of Your Choice

thirty words or less?  what the fuck?  I can’t wipe my ass in thirty words or less, let alone explain why a book is important to me, but I will try, oh how I wil try, but expect me to fail somewhere along the line.

FICTION:   Rant, by Chuck Palahniuk
This ties in with my non-fiction choice. It’s a case-study of self-mutation, becoming something weirder and more resilient than what you started out as.

Autobiography: Miscellaneous Writings by HP Lovecraft
HP lovecraft: paranoid, misanthropic, mechanistic-materialistic cosmicist atheist Nietzsche-fanboy. One of the greatest minds of the early 20th century, in my opinion. Humans, to him, were no more or less significant than any other lumps of matter in the cosmos, albeit a bit more entertaining at times.

Nonfiction is a set of two books: Book of the SubGenius and Revelation X, by the SubGenius foundation.
The Why and How of self-mutation, with a crunchy salty-sweet coating of space-opera and religious parody to make sure it sticks in your brain.

My Choice:  The Zen of Zombie, by Scott Kenemore. This is the one that’ll be more than thirty words if you count the disclaimer
Disclaimer: I don’t normally read books from the humor section, because they often come off as trying too hard to be funny, when there are plenty of uproariously funny things over in the Fiction and Sci-Fi/Fantasy sections of the bookstore that actually ARE funny without being a transcript of some aging comedian’s routine. Thankfully, Zen of Zombie is different.

Have you ever wondered how classic, shuffling, stumbling slow zombies, with the intellect of a cabbage and the athletic ability of an arthritic asthmatic nonagenarian, can be so damn hard to get rid of and often overrun the planet in classic zombie literature and cinema? This book explains how they do it, and how, by emulating some of their characteristics (persistence, working with what you’ve got, and not worrying, for example), you can be as effective, productive, and happy as a zombie. Allow me to share a quote: “By never worrying about whether or not you’ve gotten something perfect, you tend to experience a rollicking happiness that is, well, pretty darn perfect.”

This explains a lot about my Non-fiction choices as well.  “Bob” Dobbs, the grinning mascot of the Church of the Subgenius, is a door to door salesman who has died and come back so many times that he is effectively a zombie, but he’s a zombie that can’t be stopped because he has no brain (which is why he’s always smiling).

Some of you may be suprised that American Psycho didn’t make the list, given my recent happy ravings about it.  It IS a good book, and my favorite novel of the moment.  It’s an uproariously funny horror novel if you get the jokes – some people don’t realize that certain elements of it ARE jokes (like all the innacuracies in Bateman’s monologues about music, or his dinner-table diatribes about social responsibility).  it falls short of being important because the only thing it offers other than jokes and splatter is tightly-focused satire of a specific time, place, attitude, and subculture.  It does get honorable mention, though, because there’s few things funnier than a psychotic yuppie with a chainsaw.