del Stango
Here's what I could REALLY USE for about a month:
A HI-8 VIDEO CAMERA OR VIDEO DECK.
Not permanently, I just want to borrow it.
Actually, what I really need is a frame accurate video editting system, a real one, to edit an X-Day 98 feature length video documentary/propaganda outreach onto Super VHS, High 8 or better. But I don't HAVE to have that. I can get by with a second Hi-8 camera and the faithful if inaccurate record-pause button. I am fiendishly skilled at working around the half second delay in the pause button before the clean edit actually takes place. In other words, I can use amateur equipment so skillfully that if I am being careful, you can't tell it wasn't done on a professional system. And that is what I've had to get used to for SubGenius video work these last few years. (It's ironic, because I operated very high end film and video editting gear for years, when I worked for the Conspiracy.) Luckily, we have lately been able to borrow an Amiga TOASTER fx and titling system, and several other small image and audio enhacement gizmos. I have the VHS, Video 8 and Hi-8 originals of the X-Day footage. So all I really NEED need is the one Hi 8 player. Or Super VHS deck.
I have finished a rough cut of the X-Day 98 footage, culling down the best from each camera onto Hi-8 master reels. Because of the limitations of this pause-button psuedo-editting system I have to use, I can't do "INSERTS," or picture-only drop-ins, nor can I do anything with any frame or sync accuracy -- so, while I can cut between cameras in ranting or talking scenes, I can't intercut during songs by bands. Nevertheless, it's a pretty watchable 12 hour "long cut" of the event. The climax, July 5 morn, is ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL even in this relatively crude edit.
My intention is to take this 12 hour Hi-8 master, and boil it down to the most intense 90 minutes or 2 hours possible or even imaginable, with tons and tons of sarcastic subtitles and occasional video transition fx as needed. I can THEN, hopefully with FUNDING from a DISTRIBUTOR, go back into it with PROPER equipment and replace each shot with the cleaner CAMERA ORIGINALs (as opposed to the Hi-8 rough-cut copy), smooth out the audio, etc. Same kind of shit I used to do for the Conspiracy.
When my son comes home from college at Xmas, he'll bring his Hi-8 camera, so I can do this job then, hopefully.
Before anybody offers, no, I cannot come to your video editting studio in another city and do it there. It would take too long and I can't leave home on non-paying jobs. Thanks in advance, anyway!
Another thing I need is, gulp, a job. Yes, a Conspiracy job or some kind of regular free lance work. Someone else has been a slave long enough and it's my turn again. I do all forms of business writing, commercial film and video producing, writing and editing, also commercial illustration and layout, radio voice acting, film acting, location sound recording and studio mixing, claymation, web design and writing. Other jobs I have done include moving man, handy man, grip, office boy, driver, yard man, gardener, elementary school teacher's aid, and secretary. I can operate all computers and office equipment, most 16mm motion picture cameras and editting machines, all common video editting systems, 3D computer graphics programs, most Internet applications, most printing presses and typesetting machines, and all motor vehicles except motorcycles; I have experience with most aspects of mail order and small manufacturing, have run small businesses, and I have a commercial drivers license, an FCC license and Conspiracy security clearance (believe it or not). I also do first aid, small appliance repair, plumbing, cooking, tax accounting, public speaking, psychological counselling and fortune telling. Have had considerable experience overseas and in other cultures. Some Spanish spoken.
I am a self starter and a team player.
However, I do not have a college degree, I have long hair, and I will not pee in any man's paper cup. That combination usually outweighs the experience and skills I just listed, in the eyes of most employers in this country, unfortunately.
This may sound like a joke to some of you, but I'm dead serious. I need to be pulling in about 3 times what I am now, and it's hard finding work when you never specialized in anything but Apprentice Overmanhood. Believe me, I'd MUCH MUCH rather be hollering at young people in nightclubs and colleges, updating SubSITE, or taking calls on on a paying radio program, than working for you on your company calendar or your brother-in-law's used car lot commercial, but I'd rather be doing THAT for YOU than working for THE OTHERS, if I can help it.
Come to think of it, another thing we REALLY NEED is help on SubSITE. We thought we HAD some, but the problem is, it turns out, we need the kind of help that actually HAPPENS. We certainly got lots of promises of help, but that's not the kind of help that HELPS, you see. I dunno, I guess it's an Emergentile thing.
Whoever downloads the source code of the Websites of the Gods and fixes it FIRST, wins the SECRET PRIZE. Anybody can do it! And many, OH so many have promised us they were ABOUT TO! That's become a kind of sick joke around here.
I shouldn't complain. I have actually been having a BLAST editing the X-Day 98 footage, overhearing the muttered comments by SubGenii who happened to be standing near the various cameras. (Also, I was on the pain killer Hydrocodone the whole time on account of my FACE INTERIOR SURGERY, which may have added to the fun, if only by negating the butt ache.) Hell, I was seeing half of the stage events for the FIRST TIME. But I was also seeing them up to 5 times in a row, from the various available angles, also, so now it's as if I was the Bobbie who was ALWAYS there and in fact sat through replays of the same show 5 TIMES STRAIGHT! I have deduced who a lot of the mystery people were, or got myself reminded which names went with which faces. The fact that most SubGenii have TWO names, one of which might change from year to year, complicates it. I have noticed certain especially bizarre spectators and watched their behavior in background crowd footage through the event. It's GREAT FUN! I get to be a lurker/voyeur TOO this way.
The footage from my orphaned camera, which patiently recorded everything that happened on the stage through that seemingly endless Saturday night, was the most DIFFICULT to watch. The wee hours, I mean. I have had battles with alcohol myself in the past, serious battles, and it is agonizing to watch people who are about to go through it themselves, if they haven't already. (Luckily, I don't think I ever got videotaped while I was like that. But I have posted to the Internet when I was, so I guess I shouldn't be too judgemental.) On the other hand, amidst the murk of the Saturday night footage, some "performances" come bubbling up which are just astounding, or else so out of place as to be notable. The Porn Addict from Houston, the Serious Insect Man... and Rev. Bill Z. Bub (formerly known as "TAHOOTI"). Rev. Bub had those college boys MESMERIZED, literally hypnotised, like the kindliest EGG EATING SNAKE, hypnotizing all the hens in the henhouse before he nabs their eggs! The LLF surely gained some Zombies that night. Bub made a sort of touching final statement that cut beautifully to the giant X in the sky the next morning.
REEL SIX of the X-Day long cut is the best reel. It doesn't have as much FEMALE NUDITY as the other reels, but it has the incredible 7 AM July 5 sequence (about 40 minutes from just before the limo arrives, to after Satan leads the naked, tarred and feathered ME out of the pond, although this can be compressed down to about 15 minutes in the slick short version). I swear, Papa Joe (and those of us WHO HAD SLEPT AND/OR COULD STILL TALK) winged that whole thing so well, you'd think it was all scripted and rehearsed. Even the AUDIENCE appears to cooperate! And all that drunken, insane Saturday night mess... I guess you might say I TIME LAPSED it in the editting. I used only the most TYPICAL COUPLE OF SENTENCES from each drunk ranter. The camera position barely moves, so it looks and sounds almost more like animation. You get to see all these idiots make fools of themselves, without actually having to sit through the tediousness of it.
Oh yeah, and Rev. VITO CODINI, Byron's friend who came to Brushwood, who works at MetaCreations, sent in a KICK-ASS 2 minute computer animated EXPLOSIVE X-DAY VIDEO TITLE SEQUENCE, complete with flaming eyeballs and bald Sex Goddesses with pulsating Poser Teats. I plopped this sequence onto the heads of Reels 4, 5 and 6.
(Log of the Long Cut is posted separately.)
OTHER NEWS
My oldest guard dog, Beast, finally died. Euthanized. Died in my arms, literally. On the way home I bawled like a baby, over that ratty old mutt. Oh well. The next in command guard dog, Puddin, a weird looking half-rat like creature that we inherited, will soon have a GREAT BIG DUMB PEEING MALE PUPPY from the POUND to boss around. We haven't picked the dog yet, but we think we have the name. "DOG." That's what Sivet and I like. It's to the point, like "Beast." Someone else suggested "Chupacabra", and I suppose that's it's formal first name.
AND my work is now cut out for me -- FIX SUBSITE. I have to stop mixing and recording and performing and schmoozing, and JUST GEEK. I have to redesign a client's website too, to pay the rent, and the stall full of Dependable Volunteers burned down, so it may take awhile.
PRAISE JESUS, however, the CATALOG is now almost completely a true "SHOPPING CART" program, at long last. JESUS did that. (Actually I'm not sure if He's linked it in or not yet, but I know He got it working.) WHILE doing eveything else. MUST JESUS AND STANG DIE FOR YOU OVER AND OVER AGAIN? The least you can do is order every single one of the new products advertised in the new 32 page STARK FIST OF REMOVAL that just arrived at your doorstep today. Tons of ORDERS would really MAKE OUR WEEK. Jesus would be able to buy FOOD for His little CHILD, God Junior Junior. And I would be able to buy enough Habafropzipulops to forget my tragic loss and get on with uploading and linking in all the cool QUASI-PORNO PSYCHEDELIA and OTHERWISE GREAT SHIT that ought to be on SubSITE.
ONLY 256 DAYS TO XX-DAY!! EVERYTHING MUST GO!!
And about this CLEVELAND DEVIVAL on NOV. 8 -- it'll be ALL NEW RANTS, ALL NEW SONGS, ALL NEW SUTURES... and, BLEEPO might even be there! OR KILL LONESOME COWBOY DAVE!!
In Denver I saw a guy selling a BUMPER STICKER featuring a variation on my "Earth First" turnabout gag. I guess that means it's time to stop doing the Earth Anthem rant.
****** MAJOR NHGH ATTACK NARROWLY AVERTED! ******
YOW!!! PARENTHOOD!
I was just finishing up this little whine/report when I got the phone call every parent of teens dreads. In fact, my wife and I were openly dreading just exactly this just yesterday, about this specific teen. "Mr. Stang, your daughter has been involved in an accident." LORDY LORDY LORDY, THANK "GOD," Kandle wasn't EVEN SCRATCHED, and is out on a date with some scroungy boy even as I type this. But her car was totalled and it was THAT CLOSE. (Kandle is a foster child that we've had around for a little over a year.)
She had JUST left for work when we got the call. She had been heading down the road going about 40 when an 80 year old blue-haired lady in a fancy car, who had been travelling in the opposite lane, SUDDENLY DECIDED TO TURN LEFT, RIGHT IN FRONT OF KANDLE AS IF SHE WASN'T THERE! Kandle slammed into this old biddy's car's side and pinned it against a light pole. When Kandle came to, she jumped out of her wrecked car, saw what looked like a DEAD OLD LADY in the other car, and tried to RESCUE her, but couldn't get the doors open! Luckily this was in front of some houses and 911 had been called, so the fire dept. showed up and got the old lady out of her car. She was bleeding some but seemed to be okay, miraculously enough! We arrived right after the emergency crews and poor Kandle was starting to get the post-adrenaline shakes.
I stood there comforting the kid and thanking IFNI that she was okay and not covered in 3rd degree burns. This wreck may have saved her life if it makes her drive more defensively. (My wreck about 3 years ago sure improved MY paranoia!)
I have already been through this with my two natural kids. I hope it NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN, and I hope it never happens to ANY OF YOU.
These are the sorts of things that interrupt one's Sacred Scribe work, if one happens to "have a life." UNEXPECTED things. SCHEDULE-WRECKING WRECKS. Well, if it means that SubSITE goes unimproved for YET ANOTHER DAY, then SO BE IT. It's shitloads better than NOT "having a life." Hell, ask BEAST or ELVIS!
So to the snot-nosed Bobbies that have been insultingly emailing all the four SubGenii who DO help on the website, telling us to hurry up and "update SubSITE," I must say, for us all, "Sirrah, please do shove it UP THINE HAIRY ASS!! SIDEWAYS and with HABANERO SAUCE!"
I'll do it when DOBBS decides I'm GOOD AND READY to do it!
If you had any GUMPTION you'd just go check out what's on ALT.BINARIES.SLACK! But "OH NO," they whine, "MY I.S.P. DOESN'T CARRY THAT NEWSGROUP! 'CAUSE I'M TOO LAZY TO ASK THEM TO! AND I REFUSE TO CHECK OUT WWW.NEWSGUY.COM!" I dunno what's gotten into Fernandinande LeMur lately, but the couple of hundred pictures he's posted to a.b.s. in the last couple of weeks is AN EYE-NUMBING ORGY OF GLORY, no SHIT! And some of the other maestros are frantically pumping along too. About once a week Nenslo posts some tiny illustration that kicks the crutches right out from under ya.
I'll put it all on SubSITE eventually. But it's GROWING FROM THE FUCKING TREES NOW if you would just give that tree a try.
I might also mention the Sunday night IRC devivals, 10 pm EST at irc.liii.com! Don't worry, those freeware chat programs won't BITE you.