Subject: News from The Slackermansion

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

SUBGENIUS MANSION FOYER & LOBBY REDECORATION FINISHED!

WOT A RELIEF!

There is some SubSITE work to be done that's been breathing down the
back of my neck like a Balrog*. I even had major help on it from Revs
Two Beans, Phloighd and Temujin... but now the ball's back in my court,
where it has sat through X-Day, Starwood, this devival, that devival,
the weddings, the backed-up Hours of Slack, etc.

The one larger, more loomfull deadline that was left before I could
dive headlong into HTMLing has just been SUCCESSFULLY POSTPONED FOR
ANOTHER YEAR!!

This was the City of Cleveland Housing Department Point of Sale
Exterior Violations Reinspection.

Anybody who owns property or has built a house in the U.S. knows the
potentially monstrous labyrinth of FUCKING PERMITS and INSPECTIONS that
CAN, if your luck is bad, REALLY BOG EVERYTHING DOWN and double one's
costs. It depends more on the inspector and his or her mood than it
does on what you have actually done.

I just now lucked out!

When I bought this house there were certain code violations that the
city wanted addressed either by the seller or by me, the buyer. These
were minor but numerous. The seller agreed to do the interior fix-up
and I said I'd do the exterior. And I have fixed up as much as I could
on my own, and on the cheap... gutters, downspouts, windows, etc. Then
there was the exterior PAINTING that the previous owner didn't quite
finish... fascia and trim WAY WAY WAY up on the third floor, way past
where even ANGELS would dare tread, if they had Meniere's Syndrome,
wobbly inner ear balance mechanism, like I do. The vertigo rarely hits
any more, but I would hate to be up on the roof when it does. I could
HIRE somebody -- someday -- but I'm waiting to meet a SUBGENIUS HOUSE
PAINTER. Lonesome Cowboy Dave sometimes does that, but I need my weekly
Dave and I don't want HIM falling off the roof either. Besides, no
matter how you look at it, that's a hell of a lot of expensive sky blue
paint. So I have PROCRASTINATED.

The inspection deadline ARRIVED though. I busted ass the last couple of
days finishing all the OTHER things I had procrastinated, but I must
admit I was in some suspense. I had been told that the inspector would
be a lady, different from the two guys who had previously inspected,
and I was on tenterhooks all last night and today waiting to see if
this would be one of those smiling, joking, nice reasonable city
inspectors or one of those scowling, racist, hippie-hating inspectors
that can FUCK UP YOUR LIFE.

HAIL CONNIE, she was THE SWEETEST THANG and admired the goofy concrete
sculpture in our front yard. She said I should do that exterior
painting, eventually, but that they won't check again for FIVE YEARS!!
And my back porch only needs ONE railing on the steps, not two. She
APPROVED my SubGenius-rigged downspouts, the repairs I made to the
brick lower half of the house, and my SubGenius-rigged double garage
doors. She admired the GIANT FULL METAL DOBBSHEADS bolted to the front
door, and recognized "that face that's all over the Flats."

I was so happy I wanted to PROPOSE to her. Actually she was cute. Kind
of like a Black Friday Jones. But I digress.

What this means is, I can now get back to COPIOUS FROPPERY, this week's
Hour of Slack, and then the GREAT TASK. Well, the great task that I
have to get done before I move on to the NEXT great tasks, which have
also been on the back burner for like 3 years. (Fist, Fist Book, Book,
Book Reprints, Movie Script, and Documentary Movie Project.)

There's always those damn Hours of Slack. I haven't reran reruns in
months so I COULD... BUT... there's SO DAMN MUCH GREAT NEW SHIT that
just NEVER STOPS!

For instance the LeMur Sound Files. For a couple of months,
Fernandinande LeMur, generally known as the inhumanly prolific Old
Master of graphic spazzing on a.b.s., has been posting audio instead.
And mostly in this Ogg Vorbis format, which is fine, but requires
reformatting to edit it into a show. So I had been letting these LeMur
audio collages and cut-ups stack up in a special folder, without even
listening to them.

Last night, I listened to and converted all of them.

HOE... Leee... FUCK... king... SHIT!!!

I could let the WHOLE NEXT SHOW be nothing but LeMur tomfoolery! IT
WOULD TEAR YOUR LOBES APART. But, I could also intersperse it
throughout 3 or 4 shows, which I'll probably do instead.

Also got a rather slickly produced CD from "CONSORTIUM OF GENIUS",
which... well, you'll hear. Also, THE BRAN FLAKES finished a new CD.
For that matter, Negativland has some new things out. (Haven't heard
'em yet.)

One of these days I might even make an audio collage MYSELF again that
isn't, well, a whole show collaged from everybody else's collages.
Using smaller bits, in other words.

Also, ALL THE ARTWORK and ancestor photos that were stacked in the
corner of our living room since our house-warming party last year, is
FRAMED and HUNG. Not that WELL hung, but hey, we can't all be Johnny
Wadd Walhol. There's a wall of Gramps' etchings, an ancestral photo
wall of Stangs and Romanovs (including great-great grandpa Rasputin, OF
COURSE!) and a wall of Does and Weiardians. Framed prints of great
comic book covers and prehistoric mammal paintings line the kitchen.
The Tree of Knowledge poster and the Most Giantine Metal Dobbshead loom
over all.

The FIRST FLOOR of the SubGenius Mansion is DONE!! It looks like a
cross between Grandma's Cottage and Salvadore Dali's Doghouse. It is
already having profound psychological influence: I CAN'T WAIT TO MESS
IT UP AGAIN!!

The PSYCHEDELIC art is being readied for the second floor and the
REALLY crazed SubG art will eventually decorate my studio and storage
room. Right now I'm still enjoying the hospital-like blank walls. In
some ways that's weirder than having the weird art up. We moved the
cannisters of souls up from the basement to the attic.

*All the Zines of the 1980s* are in boxes in another storage facility
along with my safety duplicates of all electronic media.

This place would an almost literal orgy of intense sounds, shockingly
original music, and blinding art, if we never cleaned up. But everyone
who entered would risk mental illness.

You can already see what being in the vicinity of this much of YOUR ART
has done to ME.

OH MY GOD!! I just now realized. My house is (finally) becoming like
The Ackermansion, home of Forrest J. Ackerman, editor of Famous
Monsters of Filmland Magazine. I have seen many photos of the fantasy
film memorabilia MUSEUM that fills that house in L.A. Rev. Susie the
Floozie visited him once and I have a picture of her in there, pointing
at a SubGenius bumper sticker on his wall that had been modified to say
"THE SUBGENIUS MUST HAVE ACK."

Now I know what to call this house officially! (Besides The Fourth
MegaFisTemple Lodge of blah blah, I can't even remember the whole
fucking title, and it's in my sig.)

Stang (to house): In honor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, I chisten
thee: "THE SLACKERMANSION"

* Balrog: the monster of flame and smoke in Fellowship of the Ring that
whup's Gandalf's ass with that Neural Magick Whip as it falls into the
Bottomless Pit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: News from The Slackermansion
From: Legume <none@yerbiz.com>

Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:

> I was so happy I wanted to PROPOSE to her. Actually she was cute. Kind
> of like a Black Friday Jones. But I digress.

You mean there's a WHITE Friday Jones somewhere?

--
"A girl got drunk and balled the dead
and I gave empty sermons to my head"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: News from The Slackermansion
From: friday@fridayjones.com (Friday Jones)

Legume <none@yerbiz.com> wrote:

>Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
>
>> I was so happy I wanted to PROPOSE to her. Actually she was cute. Kind
>> of like a Black Friday Jones. But I digress.
>
>You mean there's a WHITE Friday Jones somewhere?

You have to turn me inside-out to see the effect.

I believe the children are our future: nasty, brutish and short.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: News from The Slackermansion
From: Legume <none@yerbiz.com>

Friday Jones wrote:

>>You mean there's a WHITE Friday Jones somewhere?
>
> You have to turn me inside-out to see the effect.

I think I could make that pleasurable for BOTH of us.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: News from The Slackermansion
From: nenslo <nenslo@yahooX.com>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:

> I could HIRE somebody -- someday -- but I'm waiting to meet a SUBGENIUS HOUSE
> PAINTER.

I painted our whole house and put on all new gutters last year. I got
good and used to being atop the 20 foot ladder and on the roof and way
up in the eaves and using a climbing harness to get paint into places
only a squirrel would see. You get me and that house in the same place
and I'll do it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: News from The Slackermansion
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

LADDER??? You're no SubGenius.

Bring the house to you and THEN you'll paint it? NOW I'm hearing a
SubGenius.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: News from The Slackermansion
From: friday@fridayjones.com (Friday Jones)

I'll donate $5 towards a packing case with holes in it, so's we can ship
NENSLO to the house to paint.

Stang and Nenslo under the same wet roof for two weeks - you can just feel
the love ...

Bob - "I eat what I like."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: News from The Slackermansion
From: "blackout" <blackout@404infomagic.net>

I did a bunch of hours on top of a 40 foot extension ladder painting the
part of this guy's house that he was shitting his pants over. I got up
on the roof the easy way and used a safety rope on a 14 inch c-clamp I
set over the fascia boards and clamped to a 2 X 4 over the shingles to
keep from damaging them. All day long with a climbing harness and a
jumar (rope holding clamp thingy) and a bucket and an extension pole and
a spray gun hose and up and down about 500 times and no help to bounce
the ladder over and back across the rocky ground I was working over
after I finished the 6-8 feet I could get to off the ladder. I was
toally beat and this pink comes home and says WHAT, YOU AREN'T FINISHED
YET? real serious like I was milking him for some serious cash and I
look him right in the eye and say I COULD BE and he says what do you
mean? I says well, I'm starting to HATE this SHIT *REAL* *BAD* and he
goes uhh ohhh uhhh do you want me to get you some pop or beer here let
me help you clean this off and gosh what a great job really looks pro
and smoochy smoochy slurp slorg slurp here I'll wash out your paint
brushes for you where do you want me to put them after I shine them oh
great and mighty man on the ladder jesus jesus jesus please don't let
him quit lord I'll never fuck you out of your 10% at church again if you
will just grant me this one favor oh master.

too bad you live in OHIO. I'd go there and give you a hand but I hear
the lampreys are migrating this time of year.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: News from The Slackermansion
From: glassgnost <dlindnerSPAMBLOCKED@socal.rr.com>

> Bring the house to you and THEN you'll paint it? NOW I'm hearing a
> SubGenius.

Indeed. You should've at least had the forethought to have the original
builder install a hydraulic lift under the thing so you could just lower
the house. Time control is your only recourse on that approach.

Then there's antigrav paint, but handle it carefully, or the house may
paint YOU.

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because I'm beautiful,
smart and rich."
- Calvin Keegan

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: News from The Slackermansion
From: Champion Jack Codini <Codini@subgeniusdot.whatever>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com> said:

>OH MY GOD!! I just now realized. My house is (finally) becoming like
>The Ackermansion, home of Forrest J. Ackerman, editor of Famous
>Monsters of Filmland Magazine. I have seen many photos of the fantasy
>film memorabilia MUSEUM that fills that house in L.A. Rev. Susie the
>Floozie visited him once and I have a picture of her in there, pointing
>at a SubGenius bumper sticker on his wall that had been modified to say
>"THE SUBGENIUS MUST HAVE ACK."

I went to the Ackermansion museum around 15 years ago. Pleasant Gehman
had just interviewed him for the L.A. Weekly and she set it up.
It's in the basement of his house and is pretty small and the stuff is
really crammed in there. They left me alone in the museum for about 3
hours, just me, a tripod and my trusty Bell and Howell 35mm 3-D
camera. I shot everything, with various degrees of success (since it's
pretty hard to get angles in there)
I shot probably 6 to ten rolls of slides, which I still have, since I
never throw anything out ...somewhere

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Original file name: News from The Slackermansion - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:44