Hour of Slack 672

There is a "rant" about secular humanist science vs. religion at the bottom of this log.

This show is largely composed of Susie the Floozy's "BOB'S" SLACKTIME FUNHOUSE EPISODE 256 "CONNIE'S EVIL PLAN" (WREK-FM, Atlanta)and ESO Radio 12-17-98 (WCSB, Cleveland), with a bunch of misc. other stuff punctuating.

((SIDE ONE))

Stang translates the Cthuluian language in Eric Johnson's "Venus Isle" opening music-chant... seques with Sivet Stang/Mark Mothersbaugh "Bobaccato", title

Susie the Floozy intro to "Connie's Evil Plan" and the Sister Decadence mystery

Stang does XX-Day rant, intro (from new Stark Fist ms), ad blurbs, Brushwood details -- Eric Johnson background music "Camel's Night Out" instrumental

Einstein's Secret Orchestra, radio from WCSB Cleveland: w/ Chas Smith, Lonesome Cowboy Dave, Rev. Stang, Princess Wei, Rev. Bleepo Abernathy -- 12-17-98:
SUBGENIUS HOLIDAYS (from Book of SG); Rodents with Hands in the Walls; The Nativity of Kenneth Starr; the Nativity of Oliver North

SUSIE's show mystery play continued -- Rev. Susie's brain chain of command voices, all played by Susie.

(Unknown band)? Covering Devo's "GOING UNDER" (from Susie's WREK show)

KPFA Berkeley SubGenius show from 1986 -- Gary G'broagfran: great Space bit

ESO 12-17-98: "LUCIFERINA, babe down at the other end of the bar"; Dave and Presidential AIDS. Dave and Stang try on the spum-encrusted Blue Dress.

((SIDE TWO))

Lonesome Cowboy Dave and Rev. Stang re: Religious Nuts

Rev. SUSIE THE FLOOZIE: "Connie's Evil Plan" audio collage! -- with kick-ass blues song re: "My Girlfriend is in the Insane Asylum" ; Susie collage re: "woman" with Annie Sprinkle's "Sluts and Goddesses" retarded brain damaged New Age videotape soundtrack

INDIAN ROPE BURN: "Technoboredom" (from "Sex Party" CD)

ESO 12-17-98: Lonesome Cowboy Dave in terrible distress

THEATRE OF TRAGEDY ((I think -- from semi-labeled Scandinavian deathmetalrock collection sent by Sterno)) -- incredibly cool song using clips from MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH -- Vincent Price ranting about Christianity being a cult of a DEAD GOD... reality being the product of SOME OTHER THING.

Susie's great Connie audio collage, continued;

ESO 12-17-98 to end: Stang's singing; CHRISTMAS songs and Good Thoughts -- wonderful Stang and Dave discussion of sex with HYDROGEN BREATHING "GAS BAG" LIFE FORMS -- Stang's Hydrogen-Breather WIFE. Which Phylum, which KINGDOM are the Sex Goddesses from? Who cares? Great Hydro Sex rant and sign-off.

***NOTE: Whichever sci-fi novel I happen to be reading that week, I incorporate into these improv radio sermonizings and debates. The Hydro Sex routine is based on the climactic ending scenes of David Brin's final "Uplift" trilogy, in which oxy-breathers and hydro-breathers join forces as the Universe is changed forever. I think I actually gave Brin credit this time.

I will take this opportunity to heartily recommend David Brin's sci-fi novel "EARTH" to anyone and everyone. It is an extremely educational and, oddly enough, optimistic look at our near future from a scientific ecological viewpoint. It's right up there with John Brunner's STAND ON ZANZIBAR and THE SHEEP LOOK UP, only not as depressing.

EARTH takes place in 2040 whereas Brunner's books, written in the late 60s, take place in the 1990s.

Brunner's books read, NOWADAYS, just exactly like a newspaper. Same content. When I read them in the 70s, I thought of them as HORROR novels. Now, what he predicted is NORMAL, and it doesn't even seem especially horrible.

Not compared to what comes next.

That's what's REALLY so horrible: that they don't even seem horrible anymore. For that matter, my sledgehammer-subtle underground movie LET"S VISIT THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE seems far less like a cartoon every year. (Note within a note: Bleepo sent me Orson Welles' little-seen film THE TRIAL (based on Kafka's story), which I hadn't seen since my year of college -- WHEW DOGGIES! I had no IDEA how much I had ripped off that obscure film, location-and-composition-wise!)

Working with ESO's Chas Smith on radio prophecy is a GAS for me because of our shared love of hard science. Chas has a near-term NASA/space-travel fixation that dovetails well with SubGenius predictions as well as with all the "hard sf" reading that was assigned to me by my sf tutors, Friday Jones and G. Gordon Gordon. Ever since I lost my faith in all religions, UFOs, ghosts and psychic phenomena about 10 years ago, I have found a vastly richer source of that "cosmic consciousness" thrill from reading about what is actually known and repeatably provable about the physical nature of our universe -- and from logical extrapolations of it all, in "hard" science fiction. Earth human history, and science in general, BLOW MY FUCKIN' MIND. The TRUTH is as weird as ANY LIE.

I only regret that I paid so little attention to mathematics and chemistry, back when I had a real mind.

NOW I understand why they teach that boring shit. It isn't boring at all. It's realer than real. It's about what everything is made of, and how it all works. DUH! I GUESS some teacher probably tired to tell us that back then, but they sure must have done a shitty job of it.

Some would disagree with me about the Universe being made of chemistry and math; many believe that the Universe is actually made of PURE GRADE D BULLSHIT. At least, that's what most religious nuts seem to be trying to tell me -- not in so many words, of course.

Even on the most advanced scientific levels, the mathematical model of the universe they they're working on now is so god damned surreal-like and so hard to grok for more than half a second at a time, that in some ways you could almost say that it too was based on FAITH. In that, for instance, atoms (or the parts of atoms, rather) are not so much composed of THINGS as they are composed of POTENTIALITIES in a balance. They are merely patterns in the Skor and so are WE.

For some reason, it doesn't bother me in the slightest NOT to know of any life after death, nor does it freak me out NOT knowing how or why all reality came about. What makes me so important, that I would deserve to know such things? And, do I REALLY want to "know," were it even possible? PROBABLY NOT. The "answer" might turn out to be INFINITELY SIMPLER than what we would all PREFER. It might not, after all, be "fair."

My wife and I are in philosophical disagreement over this. Although she is way better informed regarding science, medicine etc. than the average Jerry-watching American, she believes that we all have "souls" or something like that, which continue somewhere after the flesh dies. On the other han,d she'll admit that submolecular physics and the vast scale of astronomical bignesses all leaves her rather cold and confused. Well, my (no doubt half-assed and misinformed) concepts of crap like supernovas on the big end, and electrons on the other, seem to fill that need for me -- the need for "SENSE," that nutty human urge to EXPLAIN shit. The chemical and electrical bases of life and consciousness make pretty good sense to me.

I am FLABBERGASTED at how much has already been very reasonable explained! IF, the day that I die, I find myself in an aetheric Light Body flying down the Tunnel of Light into some wonderful now-incompresensible leval of awareness, well, GREAT -- I'll be VERY PLEASANTLY SURPRISED. If, on the other hand, I'm just plain DEAD, then I won't exactly be complaining about THAT, EITHER!

I admit that if I die and discover that Hell is real, and I fucked up just as badly as all those retard Baptists say I have, then FUCK THAT PARTICULAR GOD ANYWAY and I guess I'll just have to take my LUMPS for ALL ETERNITY. That WOULD be a bummer. But it would only convince me of the existence of "SATAN". Not "GOD." Only "SATAN." Hell, it would PROVE that God never WAS in control.

But... I give "GOD" credit for being able to take care of himself. I think "GOD" will do JUST FINE without my help. Apparently most religious people don't think nearly so highly of their Gods. Most people's God appears to be something like a child who desperately needs the help and prayers of grown up human believers, or else He'll dry up and blow away like Tinkerbell if the kids don't all applaud loud enough.

That concept of God makes me fuckin' SICK if you want to know the truth. It's totally dependent on the supression of knowledge, thought, and logic. What a WEENY GOD. What a CRYBABY, PUSSY-ASS GOD. A SISSY god. A god more scaredy-cat than *I* am.

If I was that "God," I would be PISSED at my followers. I'd be a lot more impressed with the SubGenii, who at least are willing to take responsibility for their own actions, and aren't constantly trying to tell GOD how to run Its and their lives.

I mean, pardon my language. But Jesus Fucking God Damned Christ. How dumb ARE these people.

I'm sorry if, as Sacred Scribe, it's unseemly for me also to be a secular rational humanist, a regular poebucker Carl Sagan or Isaac Asimov.... but, darn it, I have already been quite a fur piece down the "mystic" path. For which I'll let the REALLY SPACEY parts of THE BOOK OF THE SUBGENIUS speak. But the bottom line is, I've done both to the hilt, and the one with somewhat repeatable experiments JUST SEEMS A FUCK OF A LOT MORE HONEST. Not more honest with YOU. More honest with ME.

I have HEARD the voice of the sand. I have, IN POINT OF FACT, IF YOU MUST KNOW, "SEEN" the division between earth water fire and air. I HONESTLY, TRULY HAVE SEEN THE WHITE LIGHT.* *I HAVE DIED AND CROSSED OVER AND COME BACK.* I have gazed TOTALLY FREAKED right into the great big dilated pupil of GOD while He gazed back at me. And I'm not even talking about the LSD trips. Those all came MUCH MUCH LATER.

And I still don't believe in any of that bullshit. I don't believe in magic, I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me. Yoko and me. That's reality.

HARRUMPH!!

*** Princess Wei just called about the Winterstar ESO show... I guess there might actually be one, since Pope Bob A. Wilson had to cancel. She and I discussed the two different types of "SPACE CADETS." When most of us use that term, we mean it rather metaphorically. It usually means nice flibberty-gibbet types who mean well but have smoked so damn much pot that they literally can't remember what they were doing or saying from one 10-second stretch to the next. But then there's the kind of Space Cadet that CHAS is. Literally, cadets at the academy of SPACE TRAVEL -- "GROUNDED IN SPACE." Not that old farts like me or Chas (whose actual day job is as a professor of rock and roll(!) at the state university) will ever leave Earth orbit without Xist help. But we can at least try to keep alive the HOPE, KNOWLEDGE and most importantly the COURAGE -- among the YOUTH. And Lonesome Cowboy Dave can keep it FUNNY and Princess Wei can keep it FUN.

We do this for THE CHILDREN. So that, like the old farts that sent my generation off to fight their Vietnam scam for them, to lose their legs and save the world from North Vietnamese Communism or old farts being embarrassed, Chas and I can sit on our asses and watch while the kid risk their FUCKING LIVES in tin cans lined with explosive bolts, hurtling at a million miles an hour through frozen vacuum, the most hostile environment imaginable.

To boldly go where no human has gone before.

In all seriousness -- I don't expect to see any kind of productive space travel in my lifetime. However, I do believe that well-funded PURE RESEARCH into the various disciplines required for space travel will teach us more about the spaceship we're already riding than we can EVEN GUESS, until we TRY it.

The ship we've already stolen is a HUGE one and 7 billion years of design went into it. It's such a god damned cool spaceship that we take it completely for granted, and act like it's just gonna RUN ITSELF like it always has so far. Well, US MAKING DECISIONS is in fact IT RUNNING ITSELF -- this time around. We're the currently focused EYEBALLS and EARS of the bioshpere -- and among all those cute and hideous animals and plants, we're the ONLY ONES LEFT who can also be its HANDS.

HANDS. I was watching my dog watching me do things like open doors and shovel dogfood out of the huge sack into their bowls. And I wondered -- DO DOGS ENVY HANDS?

And I decided --

YES.

We are anything but helpless; we're the Tyrannosaurii of this world. WE are the monsters and the gods. We kicked ALL other species asses. We can't fool Mother Nature, but we CAN GROOM HER. That's what us primates got SO GOOD at, and it's the only GOOD reason my dogs have to envy my hands. I, a primate, can GROOM those dumbass canines better than their own fellow canines can. I can't exude the REAL DOGGY SLACK of "in heat" phermones, but I can make that dog feel well fucked just by giving him an ear-rub. By the same token, we clever primates can GROOM the planet or we can just be DUMBASSES and TRASH it.

Actually, in practical terms, only societies awash in luxury (such as N.America and N. Europe) can FRET over shit like this. When the so-called "developing world" starts using up resources at the rate that we are, I have a feeling they won't fret over the niceties like we do. They'll just GO FOR IT. And then it'll be GONE, baby, GONE.

I used to worry about my kids' generation. Now I don;'t even worry about my kids' kids' generation; for my kids' kids will be able to read, still.

It's the generation after that which I am kind of glad I won't be around to see. But then, they will enjoy some wonders that I cannot imagine, so... perhaps it's best not to make predictions, unless they're divinely inspired.

Which I ain't up to. So, adios.

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