From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Date: Tue, Sep 23, 2003
Firstly, it was another great Indyvival in the Quijiboean
tradition. An
all-around success.
However, there were A MILLION TINY, MOSTLY INSIGNIFICANT
FUCK-UPS -
mini-disasters - NHGH-nips. In the CONSISTENCY and STRANGE
REGULARITY
of these lies a funny behind-the-scenes story. Well,
maybe not that
funny. I will testify to them for their possible future
interest to
scientists.
Thursday, Sept.18, 8:00 PM
I was about to leave for the airport to meet Dr. Howll's
flight when I
checked my email. Although I had downloaded maybe two
hours earlier,
suddenly there were 70 posts from "Microsoft Security
Etc. Etc.,"
obviously a virus or worm starting up again. (The Swen
Worm, in this
case.) Before I could pick up Howll I had to quickly
do a bunch of
fixes to make sure that important mail like ORDERS didn't
get lost in
the worm-to-trash shuffle.
So I ended up running late to meet Howll's flight.
When I got to the airport, IT WAS CLOSED. Nobody was
allowed to park,
drive through, or, for that matter, leave. There had
been a bomb threat
or something involving the parking lot. Now half an
hour late, I had to
park at a hotel and take a shuttle in to the airport.
Where I found
that Howll's flight was an hour late anyway.
That terrorism threat affected the airport ONLY during
the one hour
time window I needed to pick up Howll.
We did an ESO Radio show that night and nothing terrible
happened. The
next day, Wei drove us to Indianapolis, and nothing
terrible happened.
We were late, though, and missed a midnight appointment
to be at an
Indianapolis radio station to talk up the devival.
So, from Rev. Chris Lee's beatnik pad, Dr. Howll and
I attempted to do
the interview by phone, using cell phones.
We ended up TRYING the cell phones of every person there,
because EACH
AND EVERY ONE went out of commission within 30 seconds
or a minute of
talking with the radio guys. It was a study in mysterious
technical
screw-ups. (None were out of battery charge.) One phone
after another,
Howll and I would connect to the station, get a few
words in about how
the Conspiracy must be trying to screw up this interview,
and then the
connection would FADE OUT. Not break off, but FADE OUT.
We must have
tried 5 different cell phones and they all behaved the
same way.
Rev. Chris Lee's attempt to record this extremely choppy
radio show was
itself frustrated by his minidisc recorder's odd refusal
to "finalize"
that particular disk.
When we got to the motel, they were one room short due
to a mix-up and
Dr. Howll had to sleep in the same room with Princess
Wei and I. This
wouldn't have been a problem, except that Dr. Howll
howls in his sleep
and he was loathe to inflict it on us.
We just sort of snored back.
The next day, we moved to another hotel closer to town,
where almost
all the other Subs were staying... but when we went
to check in, we were
told that the credit card number used by the Quijibo
Clench to reserve
our rooms was no good because it had expired.
Actually when Quijibo has reserved the rooms, the card
was still good.
It expired the day before we actually got there to check
in. All this
meant was a phone call and some number-juggling, but
it was weird that
the card's expiring happened to fall PRECISELY between
the time that it
was given and the time it was needed.
The toilet didn't work in the room we got and the thermostat
hissed
loudly. (I got the motel to knock $ off the room fee.)
When we left for the show, we got lost. This wasn't
a weird
coincidence, though, it was just me fucking up in my
navigating. THAT
IN ITSELF is a weird technical fuckup, though.
At the show, the VIDEO PROJECTOR... AND the DVD player...
were acting JUST
LIKE THE CELL PHONES HAD - they'd (BOTH) work for a
little while, and
then for some reason freeze up or overheat or something.
Also at the show, the drummer for one of the bands
broke. Destination
Earth is normally a three-piece surf-thrash band much
like The Amino
Acids or Los Straitjackets. But without their drummer
they could do
little more than "experimental noodling" -
which would probably be okay
elsewhere, but experimental noodling is something the
paying SubGenius
audience member can get at home. I'm not clear on what
broke their
drummer, but it kind of wrecked that band for the show.
AT LEAST WE HAD NO HURRICANE. Our friends in ACE were
hosting a big
drumming event at Brushwood the same weekend, and they
got rained out
badly.
On Sunday, we had planned to get back to Cleveland in
time to do a LIVE
Hour of Slack at 9 p.m. We might have been able to
do that had we
remembered the TIME ZONE CHANGE between Indiana and
Ohio... as it was, we
got to the station about 11 PM, and were still able
to go on the air,
because the show FOLLOWING Hour of Slack is ALSO a SubGenius-y
show,
hosted by Rev. Rob aka Dr. Sinister.
Lonesome Cowboy Dave had also expected to be part of
the 9:00 live
broadcast, and he drove all the way from Ashtabula to
do so - but for
some reason, when he called up to the station to be
let in (the doors
are locked after hours), there was a miscommunication
and Rev. Rob
never understood that Dave was waiting in the parking
lot to be let in.
Dave sat there waiting, lonesome, not knowing what
was going on, until
15 minutes before we happened to arrive, and he drove
back home.
From home, he called the station and discovered that
he'd missed us by
15 minutes.
At this point, we would have had about 5 minutes left
in Dr. Sinister's
show... but the person scheduled to do the NEXT show,
NEVER SHOWED.
Leaving Dr. Sinister, us, Howll, and Dave on the phone,
to do SOMETHING
until the next DJ arrived - at 2 in the morning... so
- and this is the
GOOD result of all this confusion - we were on the air
with Dave and
Howll for TWO MORE HOURS.
Dr. Sinister and I just sat back and listened - and
Wei slept - as the
two greatest Improvisational Spouters of the Church
of the SubGenius
traded off quips and quibbles in an ever-morphing conversation
that
didn't let up or stop being brilliant for two hours
straight.
So, in the end, the strange little fuck-ups paid off
in an extra 2
taped hours of ABSOLUTE JAW-DROPPING AMAZINGNESS.
All that said, the devival itself and surrounding parties
came off just
GREAT and everybody was happy!
When I was transferring the sound last night I was especially
impressed
with Rev. Nickie Deathchick's preface to her spanking
ritual. She has
gotten to be a real pro, one of our best preachers.
And jesus fucking
god damn christ does she look good in that tight nun
outfit. Lordy.
Hopefully I will be posting MP3s of some of this audio soon.
Wei's best pics, Mister Sister's pics, and Dok Frop's
pics are all on
a.b.s. now.
SPECIAL THANKS to Rev. Steve Psynic and Rev. Toth Wilder
for manning
the Swag Table! These men are TRUE Swaggarts!
Must do Hours of Slack now. THEN... maybe... the taxes.
--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath
of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Nickie" <nickie@subgenius.com>
"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
wrote:
> When I was transferring the sound last night I
was especially impressed
> with Rev. Nickie Deathchick's preface to her spanking
ritual. She has
> gotten to be a real pro, one of our best preachers.
And jesus fucking
> god damn christ does she look good in that tight
nun outfit. Lordy.
Shit, man, when I was an 18-year-old Bobbie living in
NYC, watching Arise
and listening to the HOS on WFMU and shit, I never,
never, never would have
thought such things would have been said about me. Dang
and shucks, my day
is made.
It's funny how life works. I also never would've thought
I'd be happily
living with a crossdresser named BOB WILD, but there
you have it.
I may find myself living in a shotgun shack.
-RevNickie