THE PINK (Hour of Slack #64 rant)

Rev. Ivan Stang (written for spoken word)

Ah yes dear friends... Once again I've been answering MAIL all day and it really cheers me up, because there are a LOT of mutants out there, friends... a LOT more than the Conspiracy would have you believe.

It CAN be depressing, tho, when you're NOT dealing just with endless piles of amazingness created by thousands of SubGeniuses... sometimes, yes, even I have to go out into the world of the Pinks and try to make something worthwhile happen in THEIR world. And we often fail when we attempt this... it's like mixing oil and water.

Those of you who missed the SUPPOSED SubG video devival at MISTRAL, BE GLAD. You didn't miss ANYTHING although the people who DID show up, DID. They missed a lot. It was the absolute worst debacle in all SubGenius live performance history. Oh... I COULD have played it safe, I suppose... I could've just shown the Official SubG bootleg video, but half of you have copies of that. I wanted to really give the audience their money's worth, by using SOME of the old video, which is on a VHS master, with portions of the NEW video footage, also on VHS because the MASTER is being finished on 1-inch in California; mixed with the weirder of the commercial jobs by myself and many other SubGenii, which are mostly music videos and short films on 3/4"... mixed with THE most MIND-RAPING material from my personal collection of wild tapes, which is mostly on Betamax. Now that sounds a little complicated but actually, I have done this very thing at On the Air in Dallas, and various art museums and clubs all over the country... but.... at MISTRAL, for reasons as yet unknown, NONE OF THE HALF INCH TAPE would show on the BIG screen. It looked fine on the regular monitors around the place but the POLTERGEIST got to the big screen AFTER THE SHOW STARTED... like, 10 minutes in everything was working fine and suddenly, NHGH attacks! And the entire presentation was even more shot to hell than it ALREADY WAS BEFORE WE EVER STARTED, but I can't go into that without starting a lawsuit... The HORROR, friends, the HORROR...

If some of you called Mistral and were told it'd been postponed, BE GLAD... we should have known better than to think "Bob" would allow ANY kind of true Church of the SubGenius manifestation to occur in a veritable citadel of ultimate Pinkness such as Mistral... besides the, PERHAPS, unavoidable technical problems, it still could have been better but for certain... problems... best left undiscussed... Only myself and our NOBLE SubGenius video expert Chris Cave can know what REALLY went down in that video booth, and although we're not very dignified people, it would be far below our dignity to tell you the actual truth. It would be cruel, like kicking your dog for messing the rug when he had diarrhea.

Oh, well... we'll be doing this again at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston for 3 DAYS in April; DON'T expect us to EVER set foot inside Mistral again. But after all the work I put into this I am BOUND AND DETERMINED to show this video presentation to the Dallas SubGenii, FREE OF CHARGE if possible. All we need is a place... for about 50 people, where they can all see a TV screen that actually WORKS. I have been told of a place where we can party without having idiotic PINKS trying to tell us how to run our own show, but it costs a little money, so if you out there know of something large cheap and nearby, call 828-9500.

What was ACTUALLY happening half-hidden behind the scenes at Mistral was well worth it for its ILLUSTRATIVE value in showing CONCRETELY the difference between SubGenii and Pinks. Things that we recognize as convenient mental CONSTRUCTS are TOTALLY REAL to these poor humans. Working with them on what SHOULD be a very simple TECHNICAL job is almost more TELLING than, say, trying to write an ad foir them. It's hard for us to IMAGINE being so rigidly locked into old, unoriginal behavior patterns, and in our quest for truth we often wonder... NOBODY could really BE that way; it's GOT to be us that's crazy. But, friends, to feel that way is to give the Pink WAY too much credit.

Because just when I start to think, "Aw, the normals can't REALLY be that bad," it is proved more true by some BLATANT example such as... recently... having a video projector go on the blink was really just the ICING ON A CAKE that was ALREADY so rotten, you could only laugh. Seeing our people and the Mistral regulars in one place... it might as well have been denizens from two different planets. I guess I haven't been around real pinks in awhile... It's like being in a CARTOON WORLD, where the characters accept this OBVIOUSLY artifivcial environment as REAL, for the very reason that they ARE just that -- CHARACTERS -- just as the characters in Hamlet never mention Shakespiere, the Pinks cannot see to what extend they depend upon OUR FANTASIES for their entire STYLE of life. They don't know it's fantasy at all -- we see the bars of a cage they don't even know they're in, but to them we look STUPID because what we do -- indeed, what I'm saying now -- DOES NOT MAKE SENSE TO THEM, and NEVER WILL.

The real horror, to me, is when I think how dumb I myself am... if they are really THAT MUCH DUMBER than ME, then... I mean, that is DANGEROUSLY dumb, my friends. SO dumb, and/or DISHONEST, they they HAVE to think they're SMART!

If I were to judge them by THEIR OWN STANDARDS, I'd HATE them. And it's sort of frustrating to KNOW BETTER than that... I just can't HATE PINKS because... they have so little ABILITY to control their own lives, you really can't hold them individually responsible. I hate their SYSTEM, and the fact that WE have to live in it because there're so many MORE of them... but they continue to ASTOUND me more than anger me. They're just part of nature, they're just mindless SHELLS that are a fact of life like the weather.

Now, when I say they're pink and I'm a SubGenius, that's NOT a cutesy way of saying "I'm a GENIUS"... SubGenius really means, NOT a Genius. We are IMPLICITLY ADMITTING that WE CAN SCREW UP. So, big deal. But the PINK lives in CONSTANT FEAR of screwing up, and that's why WE'RE the INVENTORS and they're literally JUST consumers... food tubes, media tubes... A Pink naturally fears failure more than a SubGenius, because a Pink's sense of self depends ENTIRELY on his peer group's opinion of him.... whereas we could give a FLYING HOOT what the great unwashed thinks of us. And this us the incredible POWER to LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES -- simply because, WE DARE TO MAKE THEM. The Pink doesn't even crawl far enough out of his mental hole to RISK something truly NEW.

Yes, I'm proud to say, I'm a PRIDEFUL BASTARD compared to them, and so should YOU the true mutants out there also be!

What's ironic, is that the ones who most APPRECIATE SLACK, are actually the HARDEST WORKERS -- that sounds odd, but your true SubGenius is always GAME to GO THE DISTANCE, whereas Pinks, who ONLY care about money and status, are generally LAZIER than US! In that they're comfortable with bland work, and bland relaxation. Their range of FEELING is limited and when they see EITHER fun or anger unleashed at a SubGenius level, it scares them to death. As J.R. "Bob" Dobbs says, and I paraphrase, "Act like a dumbass and they'll treat you like an equal." They can't understand SLACK, because they also can't understand REAL WORK. The only time they're called upon to stretch their abilities is when they're FORCED to work with a SubGenius-- because the SubGenius is always looking for ways to improve things, to cut through the trivial crap, to add excitement to a thing in any way possible. He is COMPELLED to CUSTOMIZE the world around him.

Pinks can't LEARN the way we can. They WANT to be told what to do, but only by someone with "authority", meaning someone with more money or status than them. They're the ones who are compelled to measure IQ, but they REALLY do so in MONETARY UNITS, not in depth of meaning and fun like we do.

The idea of modifying the world around them is an ALIEN concept to them. They'll modify things according to the PLAN of a rich SubGenius, but they never take such things upon themselves because they FEAR responsibility. A Sub will TAKE THE RAP LIKE A MAN, but a Pink will go to the trouble of joining a LYNCH mob just to avoid admitting he might have goofed. Where that becomes DANGEROUS is when the safety of the entire PLANET is threatened, like it is now. They can't feel responsibility for their OWN ACTIONS, MUCH LESS the PLANET -- so they call us KOOKS if we dare to cry out about HOW BAD things REALLY ARE.

Now, your Pink always believes in POSITIVE THINKING. They do NOT want to face possible problems... they get really upset when you ask them to double-check something, because that implies that they might be doing something wrong. They call us paranoid, and then when our DIRE PREDICTIONS and UNHEEDED WARNINGS come true, they very conveniently forget you ever said it. And when you ask them to speak a little louder, they mumble more softly. Because they live in FEAR, my friend... in ULCER-RIDDEN FEAR of WHAT OTHERS MIGHT THINK.

SubGeniuses are themselves into BLOWING THINGS OFF, but we do so BEFORE telling everyone we're gonna do it. With Pinks, they tell you they're gonna do something FIRST, and THEN blow it off. (I hope some of those videodisco folks are listening.)

I'm aware that, even couched in polite language like this, what I'm saying may sound unbelievably nasty and arrogant. Once again I'll reiterate that a SubGenius CAN BE DUMB, VERY dumb... but the ways we apply what little brains we HAVE is VASTLY more beneficial than the jealous pursuits to which the terrified pink RABBIT people apply their boundless intelligence and SOPHISTICATION.

Pinks are great at ACTING smart.... they can IMPECCABLY imitate styles that a SubGenius would never BOTHER with. Pinkness especially lends itself to the grim, concerned intellectual facade. That's one of the easiest poses in the world -- let your rude, humorless behavior IMPLY that you're brilliant, without ever actually DOING anything to prove it... and this works for them, because their FELLOW Pinks FALL for it so easily.

SubGeniuses CAN be what are called Geniuses... Einstein was undoubtedly a SubGenius. The guys who invented nuclear power and weaponry were the Subs, but the ones who deployed it were PINKS... and you notice that those SUBS took the blame willingly. They were the BIGGEST OPPONENTS to the BOMB once they found out what the Pink beaurocrats, politicians and CLUB OWNERS had in mind for it...

How can I be so mean and vengeful? Well, it's my job to VERBALIZE common SubGenius feelings where possible, and I'd rather PEE off a bunch of Pinks than let my less confident fellow Subs go on feeling vaguely guiltybecause they have the FAIRNESS to be a little unsure if maybe the Pinks aren't right. I'm just reminding you -- they AREN'T!! There's just MORE of them... so the best way to look at them is as an unfortunate fact of life, a force of nature like DROUGHT... You can't do a thing about it,

(tape runs out)

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