ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

St. Paul Mavrides
(aka "LIES")

"Spam" is intemationally known for his acidly etched, vividly bleak view of life, as deluminated through uncounted sardonic paintings, writings, album covers, Church revival productions and so-called "underground" comics. Possibly the most prolific wordlart designer of the hundreds ofsubGenius contributors, he also polices the Church against all hints of cuteness or positive thinking. The veritable "Eeyore" ofthe early Dobbs Apostles, Mavrides is simultaneously both the religion's main heretic and its primary artistic buttress against Pinkness and normality. Though he enjoys his own quasi-independent life outside the Church, his emotional existence is still tied inextricably, ifreluctantly, to Churchly matters. And vice versa; as Dobbs said, "There can be no Truth without LIES." His otherwise handsome appearance is inappropriately punctuated by his trademark weird Egyptian-wedge haircut, tribal scars and Beelheartian chin beard.

Dr. Philo Drummond

This once-humble Yellow Poges salesman is now enthroned at the right hand of Dobbs, being not only His Primary Apostle but also the first "human being," so to speak, to be surgically altered, under Dobbs and his Tibetan lama buddies, into full Overmanhood-the "Adam" of our new race. Ofthe Twelve Original Fishers ofwallets, Philo is Dobbs' Right Brain Man and also most resembles "Bob" psychically and physically. A multitalented True Individual and Great Man, Philo is at once a consummate salesman, Slackhead, 'Fropmeister and dad, yet still finds time to lead St. Louis'fave mystery-jazz acid-surfer-rock band, the Swinging Love Corpses. He looks like a plainclothes policeman: Wherever he is, it seems to everyone else that he shouldn't be there. His renowned and inhumanly loud cough has, however, endeared him to all who dare take the time to buy from him.

Rev. Ivan Stang

"Bob's" Second Apostle, and unquestionably the hardest-working of Dobbs' permanent wage slaves. Film producer, stop-motion porno animator, and professor of crackpotology, Stang also hosts the weekly "Hour of Slack" radio show (heard in many cities), and preaches the War of Dobbs at Church Devivals everywhere. Though he is a bad actor, his performances are immeasurably aided by authentic schizophrenia and his total, unquestioning faith and religious mania. Resembling a bespectacled Clint Eastwood, he has been described as "sounding like Rev. Jimmy Swaggart on acid." He previously penned the Simon & Schuster nonfiction books High Weirdness by Mail and (with the help of almost all the other people listed herein) The Book of the SubGenius.

William S. Burroughs

The youngest ofour contributors, this newcomer shows great promise despite his lack of experience. (This is his first SubGenius publication.) In fact, his introductory piece was written before he heard the Good News of Dobbs-yet despite his literary handicaps, it bears as uncanny a pertinence to the subject as it does sales-bolstering name recognition among Humans. Burroughs has previously authored many obscure humor books such as Naked Lunch and Exterminator! , and is widely regarded by beatniks, hipsters and avant-garde policemen as the original 'Fropmeister and America's Greatest Living Writer. To us, though, he's still just "Young Bill," another fellow Midwestem good ol' boy with a sick sense of humor and a croaky, fucked-up voice.

Ipsissimus John Shirley

Coming to us from the world of science fiction (where he has been unfairly dubbed and drubbed as a founder ofthe rowdy and disreputable subgenre "cyberpunk"), John is also an undiscovered rock and roll star as well as a screenwriter ofchildren's Saturday morning cartoons. His spectacularly disturbing novels have run the gamut from horror to romance to horror/romance, including such bedtime stories as the Eclipse trilogy, Cellars, In Darkness Waiting, A Splendid Chaos, The More Man, and the short-story collection Heatseeker. (His Black Hole of Caroosa also features "Bob" Dobbs as a main protagonist.) Feared by all cyberpunk rivals, scourge of the SF fan "scene," this handsome satyriasis victim doesn't just write about the SubGenius universe-he lives it. And, unlike most of us, he gets paid for it as well.

Dr. Harry S. Robins
(aka "Dr. Howl")

Wielding the largest vocabulary and, consequently, most driven improvisational tongue in SubGenius radio, Dr. "Hal" Robins can be heard weekly on the KPFA-Berkeley program, "Less Than an Hour, More Than a Show." Expert in such diverse fields as paleontology, magazine illustration, Shakespearean acting and dowsing, Robins is now in great demand and finds it increasingly difficult to maintain his anonymity as he furtively prowls the streets ofhis beloved San Francisco Tenderloin district by night, searching for new story or rant material. He was born far too late and to too distinguished a family for this plebian modern world-his scholarly erudition, painstaking artistic skills and even his physical presence bring to mind the young H. G. Wells or Charles Fort, both of whom he also resembles sartorially. Robins can recite Dank in Latin and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine with equal ease, proving him a model SubGenius. In his spare time he collaborates with St. Paul Mavrides on the comic-book saga of Dinoboy, and narrates all SubGenius recmitment videos.

St. Larry Sulkis

This much-sought-after land all too often found) film/ video director is an Ascended Master of gray-matter manipulation in the bowels of Hollywood. You see his work, barely credited, on TV every month, no matter how infrequently you watch. He is, in point of fact, the real-life Golden Boy self-described in his Tale-a Tale which is not only true, but MORE than true: indeed, MOREAL. Sulkis is possessed of an almost supernatural ability to extract the most touching testimonials from whomever he is filming for whatever project, possibly because his easygoing but chameleonlike nature inspires (occasionally undeserved) trust from his subjects. But, like so many of the "worldly"-type SubGenii, the abilities for which he is most often hired ironically also provoke the greatest fear and jealousy in his employers, making his life an unending Hell of Contradiction assuaged only by his gentle and almost-all-forgiving nature. Having asked what the Conspiracy can do for him rather than vice versa, he's gotten the lucrative but often heart-breaking answer.

Rev. Lewis Shiner

Lewis Shiner was one class ahead of Ivan Stang at the same Texas private school from which they are now both banned, and twice purchased liquor for the underage Stang before they both swore off the hard stuff. However, that isn't why he's included in this anthology. Shiner, an accomplished mystery and science fiction writer, has been nominated for the Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards for such novels as Frontera, Deserted Cities of the Head, and Slam, and the upcoming collection ofhis shod stories, When the Musifs Over (a benefit work for the Gre.enpeace organization). He is also writing and designing a new character series for DC Comics. Witty and gracious, handsome and skinny, Lew's friendly exterior suggests no hint ofthe deeper sickness that lurks within. He seems like such a nice fellow that few would suspect his SubGeniusdom nor the broiling subpsychic forces which drive his writings.

Pope Michael Peppe
(aka "Pope Bubba Wee Im-Ho-Pep Innocent I")

Peppe's Tale is included herein only because of his bribes and wheedling, for it is against our religion to admit geniuses. Believe it or not, this "Aesop" of SubGenius fables TALKS even better than he writes, and he obviously writes loudly. He is best known for his "performance art" pieces, in which he transcends both performance and art completely through an incredible barrage of ranting, self-invented archetypal characters, made all the less credible by the fact that he has memorized each of those carefully prepared ten thousand spoken lines. To make things worse, Peppe also invented an entirely new form ofwritten verbal music, "behaviormusik," which incorporates all human grunts, gestures and body language into "concertos" of mind-blasting power. All other highfblutin conceptual artists are put to shame by Peppe's seemingly effortless, intensely meaningful, yet hopefully commercial spewings. He is a slender, good-looking biped of Italian extraction, and, like most SubGenius Hierarchy males, has more than three fairly large penises. A professional at LIFE, no doubt Michael Peppe will someday become equally proficient at DEATH as well.

Dr. Onan Canobite
(aka ____ ____)

The oldest SubGenius writer, Onan resides in a rest home in East Tennessee and, while seeing the past and future in his bedpan, is somehow able to psychically command people to think he's only in his early twenties. A mainstay of underground publishing and STILL a very polite, mannered old gent who has DESTROYED THE ENTIRE CONSPIRACY (in blueprint form) more than once, he is a hideously sensitive survivor-a rare but typically SubGenius (if there were such a thing) combination! Our favorite kind. Onan is also known for his music, which might be likened to earliest DEVO reworked through a late-1990s sensibility. At 6'9" he is also the second-tallest SubGenius, his giantism-afflicted height coveted by royalty of the European courts. He has unfashionably short hair and a sort of "all-purpose" face, which has helped make him the secretly famous media mogul he is today. Watch for Onan to become a superstar and idol of YOUR KIDS in the future simply by virtue of his highly reticent, unbragged coolness.

Rev. Brooks Caruthers

This gentle, conscientious resident of Little Rock, Arkansas, is being first published "big-time" here. That is to our honor. Too bad he couldn't have been paid more. Brooks' is the only play in recorded history that can be "seen" like a movie-without the reader even reading it! We at SubGenius Foundation Headquarters have swom to produce the play onstage, no matter our own lack of any experience, budget or schedule. It is rare, mayhaps even previously impossible, for any manuscript to Provoke out-loud laughter from SubGenius Hierarchites, but this one did. Moreover, unlike all other stories herein, there were NO MISPELLINMGS in the original manuscript. Brooks could claim to be the Youngest and best-looking of all the Drs.-for-"Bob"-associated Arkansanian SubGenii, most of whom are getting pretty seedy looking these days, but his sweetie Sandy "Bubbles" Laflame wouldn't want him to, nor would we.

Dr. Christopher Gross

The shy, visionary Philip K. Dick of the Church of the SubGenius, Chris relies on trances for his story fodder. (We do not recommend this method to beginners or anyone else unschooled in Invisible College tactics!) A Fortean researcher who has unearthed one secret too many, he is now troubled by nearly nonstop poltergeist and spontaneous-combustion phenomena which, luckily, seem to afflict only his bosses-but holding down a job has therefore become somewhat problematical. Besides writing, he also works as a cartoonist, video artist and composer with the band, Men in Black. He claims that his best tapes, however, have been erased by uncontrollable outbursts of his unwanted telekinetic gifts. Gross is primarily a dark humorist, yet herein he offers us two deadly serious Tales. Only he knows to what degree they are autobiographical.

Pope Robert Anton Wilson

"Pope Bob" might have been disqualified from inclusion in this volume as just another hopeful newcomer, but for one extenuating circumstance: Despite his abysmal ignorance of things Dobbsian (relative to the old-time Church Hierarchy, anyway), he alone among us has gotten drunk with Dobbs! This "close encounter of the fifth kind" has allowed him to intuitively comprehend the Dobbs Nature, as is obvious from a close look at his Tale-which is a big one. Some readers may also recognize his name as a primal co-sub-founder-in-law of the Discordian faith, a sort of good-natured little precursor to our present-day mighty empire of bad-natured prophecy. The author of some thirty or forty books, including the Illuminatus trilogy (to which many SubGenii owe their illumination), Pope Bob is probably the best-educated SubGenius, yet also the worst-accented- He's from Brooklyn. Despite this profound handicap, ANY BOOK with his name on it is mandatory reading for all Initiates.

Dr. Ahmed Fishmonger
(aka "Seth Deitch")

Dr. Fishmonger is the black sheep in a family composed entirely of black sheep (the Deitch cartoonists and artists). He has successfully transcended the strangeness even of his clan by inventing whole new art forms ofhighly alien natures, and by his development of the pataphysical theory of Retrocausality. Still, "Seth" likes to think of himself as, at the very least, the ugliest of his peculiar dynasty. His metal-reinforced bald pate and fantastically tweaked handlebar moustache make him an instantly recognizable figure on the streets of his native Boston, where he peddles his world-shattering scientific discoveries to the unheeding Pink-punk masses. He publishes artistic and scientific folios including Get Stupid, the smartest magazine in the world. His excellent taste in bad taste has gamered accolades from all quarters of the worlds of kitschmania and bulldada, as has his discovery of a new subatomic particle, the mutron.

Rev. Ken Devries

Despite his tender age (7 1/2 at this writing), this savant is a truly "hep," "with-it," sensitive but extremely secretive painter, anti-Communist, cartoonist, stud, poet and general all-around bohemian. Forceful, painstaken and poignant, his comics and essays can be seen in The Stark Fist and Get Stupid magazines, among many others. Rather more "serious" than most of his Churchly brethren and sistem, this cultural garbageman is a master of sheer and unadulterated hate (a prerequisite for SubGenius Doktorhood&although little "KDV" does tend to restrict this prodigious hatred to tool-using bipeds in the Conspiracy. He is a small, gnarled child benefiting from an accusatory gaze so intense and unblinking that most adult people avert their eyes in shame and fear. His main companions are the wraiths and spirits that share his haunted Boston garret; neighbors report that he may be heard conversing with these invisible "friends" at all hams of the night.

St. G. Gordon Gordon

"The Most Dangerous SubGenius." Gordon's head would fetch a high price in several Marxist countries where he is wanted for his violent "acts against the state" in defense of Slack and PatrioPsychotic AnarchoMaterialism. Never caught, always sought, Gordon is in real life a professional assassin and mercenary, ready at a moment's notice to perform whatever acts are necessary to the Church's Nameless Mission-for the right payment, of coursel One of Dobbs'few confidants, Gordon is also the Slackmaster's primary (if not always exective) bodyguard, and a dreaded "Deliverer of Eternal Slack" to all the Church's political and corporate enemies. He is the sole Hierarchite besides Philo Drummond to have undergone alien Xist surgery; the skills resulting from this enhancement are only slightly exaggerated in his Tale-which is actually a memoir, rewritten by him in a futuristic setting to protect the innocent. Gordon physically and vocally resembles a moustachioed Arnold Schwarzenegger, only louder, as do his lady concubines.

Prof. Mark Mothersbaugh

Mark "The Perfessor" Mothersbaugh is best known as the lead singer and songwriter for the freakish rock 'n' roll phenomenon, DEVO . . . but only a small,audience has had the fortune to experience his turgid, disturbed writings and doodles, such as My Struggle (a collaboration with his friend, Booji Boy) and What I Know, the book from which these pieces are excerpted and editorially mangled. The first big-media Adept adept at popularizing mutation in general, "Von Marko" must shoulder some responsibility for the continued existence of our persecuted Church. Though he is, technically, a rock star, he has the decency not to behave like one, and has consequently seen continued financial success in the scoring (and scouring!) of films, commercials and groupies. And this in spite of the fact that he is a shod, nerdy-looking, nearly blind mutant spud! He lives in seclusion in the Hollywood Hills with his computers, startlingly beautiful wives and the best-stocked refrigerator in SubGeniusdom.

To dispel certain rumors: While DEVO and the Church did evolve simultaneously and certainly parallel each other, both are equally loved by their mutual owner, "Bob."

St.2 Guy C. Deuel

A close personal friend of G. Gordon Gordon, Deuel was bom English, raised in South Africa and Texas, and has since lived on every continent. The most visible rich jet-setter ofthe Church, he and his "guileless" wife Autumn supervise the Dobbstown II and III encampments in Brazil and Bolivia, where new SubGenii are sent for regrooving and indoctrination. A professional writer, radio personality, gun collector and genital geneticist, Deuel has become something ofa historian ofthe long SubGenius crawl from the slime of obscurity to suck towering recent heights as our 1989 reception at the Great Vault in Rockefeller Center. A true "insider," Deuel writes gossipy reports on inner Church workings that have netted him as many paychecks as enemies. This tall, multicultured and multihued gentleman has served also as biographer to G. Gordon Gordon, and is the author of many upcoming spy thriller novels.

Admiral Doug Wellman
(aka PUZZLING EVIDENCE, D. Woodwell Atman, Überbrow, Unibrow)

Wellman: the Judas of the Original Twelve SubGenius Apostles. HE SHOT "BOB" AND KILLED "HIM" on the stage of the Victoria Theater in San Francisco, on January 21, 1984 ... proving rather succinctly that our High Epopt is at least intermittently mortal. Not that a brainpan full of bullets slowed "Bob" down! But-who other than "Puzzling Evidence" would have had the brazen GONADS to even consider such extreme unction?? Wellman's military background surely had much to do with it; he served in naval intelligence during the Vietnam years and has, since 1963, nursed an ill fascination with the Kennedy assassination(s). Strangely, after his own death, Dobbs apparently forgave Wellman for his act; "Puz-Ev" is still allowed to broadcast (with Hal Robins and Gary G'Broagfran) his weekly radio show on Berkeley station KPFA. And, despite his sins against Dobbs' cranium, this professional photographer, filmmaker and radio producer remains the official photographer and sound recordist at all major Church rituals. Whatever other organizations he may be involved with remains a matter of paranoid conjecture by Bobbies and other Church "conspiracy" fanatics.

Pope of All New York, Idaho and the Great
Pacific Northwest David N. Meyer II

Undeniably the greatest, most charismatic of SubGenius preachers, Pope Meyer is also an established critic, satirist and writer of, among other things best not discussed, historical fantasy-as vividly exemplified by his amazingly accurate "pirate Tale" herein. His books in the Dreamquest series (written under the pseudonym Lloyd St. Alcom) include Halberd: Dream Warrior, On the Shoulders of Giants, and The Serpent Mound. The Pope preaches at only, but at all of, the biggest Church Devivals, and his gut-blowout harangues and layings-on-of-hand are the stuff of legend. Tall and athletic, this sweat-besmeared "mad prophet" has rendered all his audiences either limp or joyously knuckle-walking to Jerusalem. He steals the show in the SubGenius video feature, Arise. The Pope is his own man, however, and in his sermons he has somehow managed to juggle orthodox Dallas-based SubGenius belief alongside foul and venal heresies entirely of his own making. Dobbs needs more like him. He also plays eardrum-busting drums with the Seattle band, the Hanks.

Pope Sternodox "Michael" Keckhaver

Sterno's importance to the Dobbs Outreach is as hard to define as it is unquestioned. Firstly, this Little Rock native formed (with Janor Hypercleats, Snavely Eklund, the late Drelloid Mutant and others) the mythos/concept/style of Doktors for "Bob": a "band" (for that is what "it" would be "called" by ordinary "third-dimensional" "persons") which has influenced all SubGenius output since the Church's decanting in 1953. He has overseen all known Launchings of the Bleeding Head of Arnold Palmer in this century; he has thrown every nearby Conspiracy agent into confusion through daring anti-Con real-world Bold Surrealist activism; and, as a family man yet unfettered by vile Normalcy, he has served as a model for SubGenius NonBehavior both to Bobbies and to his Hierarchy peers in the quest for True Slack. Although Sterno is more often the author of penultimately rude lifestyle statements, he nevertheless puts words on paper for the Little Rock weekly, Spectrum, designs logos for Pinks, sells diamonds to Pinks, sells Crystal Cages" to Pinks, does computer consultation for Pinks and otherwise takes vast, inordinate amounts ofmoney from Pinks. Always ready, like the Gocd Samaritan, to pee another's fuck, or even to hang a damn pack up their ass, Sterno represents a kind ofloveshit ofdickpussy and Slackfuck to all ofDobbs' children. He has soft, doelike eyes, eighteen working dicks, and plays killer bass for the Glands, Homicidal Briefcase, Drs, for "Bob," and (the original versions of) the Gun Klowns, the Butt Pluggz, Drs. for Wotan and the Shitty Beatles.

St. Janor Hypercleats

Janor, Janor . . . oh, Janor. Who can CHANGE JANOR??

Many, many SubGenius groupies have asked this question, for Mr. Hypercleats is truly the Rasputin of the Church-that one scrawny little nerd who FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON seems to "sum up" all SubGenius sexuality, at least to the gals who only see him upon Stage ranting, singing and dancing like an electrocuted puppet . . . until he gets them alone, that is. This poor dumb skinny hick, this rubber-jointed, gangly, unexplainably dynamic "idiot savant" of ranting and conceptual art-'n'-roll, this veritable Panzer attack of the funniest linw anyone ever heard anywhere, is . . . well, you might say he "begs description." For Janor is the veritable TONGUE of our Church, ultimately the most dependable trance medium for the Word of Dobbs, no matter that it makes no sense in this "linear" world. Anything he saw during whatever mundane manual job like lawn mowing or pizza delivery, is automatically rendered Orthodox Church doctrine. NOT!!!?! MY LEGS ARE ON FIRE. Though unable to function as a normal human being, Janor has nonetheless channeled his abnormality perhaps more purely than anyone else. EVER. He does stand-up "comedy" throughout the Southwest and has big if unfathomable followings on both coasts.

That Janor Hypercleats has lived this long is ULTIMATE PROOF that DOBBS EXISTS.

Connector Waves Forest

The Most Sincere SubGenius. Waves has been called by the Highest Powers to locate, preserve and circulate at some risk all scientific and medical information that the Conspiracy otherwise would suppress. He publishes news of these various boons to Earthkind in his newsletter Now What, each issue of which is sure to knock loose some cobwebby paradigms in ANY skull. When he turns to fiction, this wily Californian somehow manages to combine both crucial educational information with slyly seductive entertainment to create such stories as the undeniably controversial one included here. Watch for his upcoming novel, Corralberg. The most hardened skeptics would have to agree that if Waves is a crackpot, he's a damned good one; and if he isn't nuts, his work contains clues to solving practically every serious environmental (and just plain mental) Problem currently afflicting humanity. You may discover the truth by sending four dollars to: Waves Forest, Now What, P.O. Box 768, Monterey, Califomia 93940.

St. Byron Werner

Height: 6'1"
Weight: 150 lbs.
Color hair: brown
Color eyes: blue
Number of dicks: 36
# of functional dicks: 14
# of dicks over 2 feet: 3
# of prehensile dicks: 2

Byron is a "cummer" on the Los Angeles art scene, with his stupefyingly psychedelic paintings and sculptures seeing ever-increasing exposure and prices. His extraordinarily complex mandalas are said to possess magickal powers, as are his intricate collages and sick underground comics. Moreover, Byron has the largest collection of weird old records in the whole Church, and his warped audiotape montages have become crucial components of any Church radio program or Media Barrage tape. However, he is best known to his close SubGenius friends as one of the most merciless pranksters in this business of monstrous pranks. We could return the favor here by mentioning a certain "curwin," but we won't. He is married to a former Miss Bull Shoals, Arkansas, beauty pageant winner, and works in Hollywood as a highly paid special-effects craftsman.

Rev. Kenneth Huey

A heck of a nice guy, which is surprising when one sees his work. Originally a Yankee hatched from the Pennsylvania swamps, "Ken" has become one of Dallas' more successful commercial artists, even though he is also a main contributor to the comic book Commies from Mars as well as The Book ofthe SubGenius (for which he did the second edition's cover, a color portrait of Dobbs). His eyeball-devastating paintings grace many a gallery and product in the science fiction world, inspiring awe and amnesia in all who survey them. He lives with his lovely wife "Barbie" in a Dallas mansion surrounded by barbed wire, guard dogs and gun emplacements, venturing out only when necessary to fill his cupboard or to frighten Pinks for fun. At 7'6", that isn't difficult!

Sacred Agent Jane Jordan Browne
(aka "Multimedia Product Development, Inc.")

Jane Browne, as literary agent for the Church, has held our hands and upped our prices through seven years ofsubGenius "mainstream" publishing. From her offices in Chicago, she deftly negotiates all book and screen deals before Dobbs steps in, absentmindedly, to close them. Her savvy and wisdom are well illustrated by the fact that she has arranged things whereby she must only talk with the staid, conservative Ivan Stang, and not the dozens of eccentric Doktors and contributors. With years of distinguished work on both coasts behind her, she lends a false air of legitimacy to our projects, and translates the arcane jargon of literary/film contracts into the SubGenius language so that we might know on just what shaky ground we actually stand.

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