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X-Day XII, Part 2: Friday Night

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Modemac

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Jul 10, 2009, 10:36:38 AM7/10/09
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My main job was to make certain Pisces' schedule was adhered to, and
that required me to do a lot of walking back and forth. But this was
a SubGenius event, and the overall rule governing the schedule was
SLACK. If a performer was late, so what? We'd be able to fill in the
extra time. We had at least three performers on Friday night, as well
as the Un-Costume Ball and the Live Hour of Slack with Reverend Stang
and Dr. Hal. The best thing to do was sit back, let the events
happen, and give them nudge to ensure that they would stay on track --
and they did!

For this year, Dr. Hal had what was probably his greatest and most
appreciative audience ever! A number of the newcomers to X-Day said
they were big fans of this mighty philosopher, and they took part in
his "Ask Dr. Hal" show with great enthusiasm. And then came the
annual Bulldada Auction -- where wallets were opened, bidding wars
were seen, and the Bulldada flowed like an oncoming tide. It may be a
result of the current economonic situation in our country (the history
books will no doubt refer to this as "The Economic Crisis of
2008-2009"), but the decreasing financial state of the United States
gave rise to an INCREASE in the amount of kook crap available for the
Bulldada Auction. What's more -- the kooks have gone multimedia! We
had classic books ranging from original copies of "Worlds In
Collision," "The Making of Kubrick's 2001," and even a copy of "High
Weirdness By Mail" (which auctioned for $40!); we had prints of
obscene R. Crumb artwork (courtey of Dr. Dark); we had Victorian-era
written erotica (courtesy of Nickie Deathchick)...and we had LOTS of
videos and DVDs! Christian videos ("Jack Theist Meets Dr. Secular"),
political conspiracy theory videos ("The Next Plague -- Avian Flu!"
"The ACLU's War On America!"), cartoons (the complete animated series
of ''Spawn,'' all in one box), movies ("Hard Candy," "Teeth," "The
Adventures of Mark Twain")...not to mention original artwork, a HUGE
collection of CDs donated by Rev. Pater Nostril, and much much more!
And Dr. Hal took it all in stride, auctioning off the finest material
and the crudest waste with a gentleman's touch...at least, until the
Auction was ended for reasons of beer. Quijibo had its annual Beer
Tasting event, which took precedence over everything else (naturally),
and the Auction was continued the next night.

Then came the Un-Costume Ball -- which turned out to be the best
Costume Ball we've had at X-Day in YEARS! There was no "theme" this
year, and everyone was encouraged to just go crazy, enjoy the music
(provided by the legendary DJ Shaver), and dance -- and dance, those
Yeti did. Heck, they even got me to dance on the floor a bit, for
what might have been the first time in my entire life (other than my
wedding). And the costumes ranged from the bizarre, with appearances
by "Bob" Dobbs himself and the creepy Burger King from those TV
commercials, to the outright obscene (Popess Pantiara in a sexy
negligee and a staff showing Barbie crucified on a Dobbs Ikon)...not
to mention the NAKED. For it was here that Bunny Day and Dildo Val
became X-Day superstars by attending the Un-Costume ball in two Un-
Costumes -- totally naked, except for cords connecting each other.
(Their theme was "two babies who had given birth to each other." I'll
leave it to you to guess where the cords were connected...) There may
have been a time when the Church of the SubGenius was a complete
sausage fest, but those days are long gone. Indeed, lovely naked
bosoms blessed us for the entire weekend, though this appearance by
these two delectable Sex Goddesses ranks as one of the best moments of
X-Day for MANY mutants who attended. (The pictures from this event
are being secretly traded by sundry SubGenii, who know better than to
post them to Facebook or Myspace where they will be promptly deleted.
See the secret SubGenius meeting space at IRC #subgenius for more
information about that.)

Pisces had taken the ingenious step of moving the Costume Ball up so
that it merged in with the first of the bands that night, John Deere
Tractor Beam. Reverend Angry Larry and his band belted out 1960s
surfin' tunes, and even a cover of the "Batman" TV show theme (with
the name "Batman" replaced with "'Bob' Dobbs"). But after this came
one of those musical miracles that seem to happen every couple of
years at X-Day, when a newcomer arrives from out of nowhere and
proceeds to stun the audience and win new fans. And lo, we at
Brushwood were graced with the presence and singing of PHAT MAN DEE!
Towering at a height of about four and a half feet and dressed in a
golden gown with shoulder pads, this sultry diva has actually been a
member of the Church of the SubGenius since 1995; what's more, she's a
good friend of Dr. Hal and Puzzling Evidence. But despite this, most
of us had never heard of her -- but after this X-Day, she will
certainly never be forgotten. She has a simply wonderful singing
voice, which she used with aplomb as she gave us operatic covers of
Black Sabbath tunes, bluegrass songs about Buddha, and even closed the
show by shoving her entire fist in her mouth and warbling "The Star-
Spangled Banner." She stayed the entire weekend, and she has gone
down in history as one of the legendary X-Day singers.

And from there, we even saw the return of ANDREW THE IMPALED! Those
who remember his self-mutilating shows from ancient times were
reminded of those days as he proceeded to insert nails and 8-inch-long
screwdrivers directly into his skull; though he eschwed from the old
days when he would eat broken glass and sew his own lips shut. He
also treated the audience to a lengthy musical interlude, with the
assurance that he would be back again some day (much like Frosty the
Snowman).

And lo, in the midst of this revelry, "Bob's" promise came true and
THE RAIN ENDED AT LAST! The moon rose amid a star-filled night, and
the ambient techno punishment of DJ 2B wafted across the fields of
Brushwood as the SubGenii enjoyed a night where they could at last
walk without umbrellas (but their shoes were still soaked by the dew
and the thick fog that arose).

Then things began to get weird.

On Saturday morning, I woke up (wow!) to the sound of drumming from
the Roundhouse. I figured the pagan drum circle had not ended yet;
but when I looked out and saw the Roundhouse, I saw three people
drumming. Two of them were SubGenii - Reverend Brainleak (Eggplant's
son), and the SubGenius who was dubbed RevAnon last year when
Anonymous attended X-Day. There were a few pagan folks in the
Roundhouse circle, so I decided to head over and check it out.

Along with the piles of Bulldada I'd brought to Brushwood to get rid
of, I also had a box with several pagan items - crystals, candle
holders, a knife, a set of runes, and a couple of sculptures - which
had been donated by my wife, especially to get rid of at Brushwood. At
this point, I thought it would be a good idea to take something from
my wife's donations and bring it over to the bonfire. So I looked
through the box of stuff and settled on a small sculpture: a ten-inch-
tall column with images of Brigid, the Celtic goddess. (According to a
label on the bottom, this column was made of clay from India.) I
headed over and said hi, and it was at this point that I met the guy
who was to be my other ShorDurPerSav for this X-Day: Brian, the High
Priest of "Tha IS." He was a big, burly, black dude with long
dreadlocks in a headband, and he was one of those guys who you can
instantly get friendly with - laughing, smiling, ready to greet
everyone with a big hug, and always looking for and pointing out "the
magic" in everything going on around him. Brian was the one who had
Brainleak and RevAnon doing the drumming, and they were actually doing
a decent job of it. They'd been going at it for a long time, and they
were obviously starting to fall asleep while drumming; however,
whenever they stopped drumming, Brian would say to them with a smile
on his face, "Hey, have you joined the union yet?" Their response
was, "No, not yet." And then he'd say, "Then keep drummin'!" They'd
go on drumming for another ten minutes or so, then the same thing
would happen. "So, you in the union yet?" "Nope." "Keep drummin'."

The other drummer was one of the regular pagan drummers, and he was
helping them keep time. Every so often, one of the pagan guys would
give himm a mouthful of water - at least, I THINK it was water -
though when offered a drink, Brainleak refused. I said to him, "Dude,
when the only black guy in a place full of white guys offers you a
drink, you should take the drink." Brian got a big kick out of that;
and he said, "Yeah, I feel safer about that here than out there!" We
exchanged names and got to talking, and he told me what he was doing
with the two kids on the drums. He said, "The secret to joining the
union is to say, 'Fuck you, Brian, I'm done!' But they're not doing
that, so they keep going on and on!…How long do you think they've been
doing that?"

I said, "Well, I've been here about an hour now."

He smiled some more and said, "Try FOUR hours."

As we talked, I showed the folks there the column of Brigid, and I
said that I wanted to give it to them. Brian pointed out the three
different altars there at the Roundhouse, and said I should find a
place at one of them and place the column there. "But be sure to talk
to her as you're putting it down," he said.

The main altar there at the Roundhouse was a fashioned from the stump
of a huge tree, and the Brushwood denizens had placed various items on
it over time. They were weather-worn (especially considering all the
rain we'd had over the past few days), with the most notable being a
big sculpture of Buddha placed in its center. I took the column and
found a spot on the side of the Buddha, and in respect for Brian, I
said as I placed it down: "Thank you for having a lovely place here."
And when I placed it down, the wood underneath collapsed, and the
column sank into the stump for a good two or three inches. This
caught me off-guard, and I pointed it out to Brian by saying, "I think
it answered me." His reply: "Dude, show me!"

After seeing the column sunk into the wood, he then said, "Dude, that
was exactly where it was meant to be! Now, no one's going to want to
move it. It belongs right there!" So, thanks to a donation from my
wife, the image of Brigid now sits at the right hand of the Buddha, at
the main altar of the Brushwood Roundhouse. They even asked me to
pose for a picture, saying that this moment was okay to take one.

Meanwhile, at this point, Brainleak got up from his drum and headed
out of the Roundhouse. Brian asked, "Hey, where you goin?"

He replied, "I gotta pee!"

"So, this means you joined the union?"

"YEAH, I joined the union!"

And there were laughs and smiles all around.

--
The High Weirdness Project
http://www.modemac.com

Rev. Ivan Stang

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Jul 10, 2009, 12:11:54 PM7/10/09
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Thanks for another detailed report. Makes my fingers hurt just
thinking about it.

I know Brian. He turns up at many ACE events. Very effusive fellow.
Usually it's Rev. Dennis Murphy who is up all night turning SubGenii
into drumming pagans wearing skirts instead of pants.

I'm ALMOST to the point of posting our best 200 or so photos.
Examination of those will soon provide me with a fairly comprehensive
list of all the events that Wei or I must have witnessed.

I haven't even started in on the audio or the videotapes. I better
soon, though. TWO Hours of Slack are due out by this weekend. I might
well end up having to use mainly just a replay of the first hour of
the Synesthesia show we did Sunday night after the Drill, for the
simple reason that they won't require much editing to speak of.
Onliest problem: we didn't really talk about the damn Drill all that
much!

Thanks again. These reports of yours are amazingly linear and
therefore important to the detective work of piecing together just
exactly what "Bob" did to us this time.

Rev. Back It On Up 13

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Jul 10, 2009, 12:14:20 PM7/10/09
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> Thanks again. These reports of yours are amazingly linear and
> therefore important to the detective work of piecing together just
> exactly what "Bob" did to us this time.

That's what amazes me about Modemac's report. I have no recollection
at all of the order of things this year. I think it went:

1. rain
2. campsite setup avoidance
3. dinner
4. sit around fire
5. sit around trailer
6. campsite setup in pitch black storm
7. ...
8. Tearful goodbyes

Rev. Ivan Stang

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Jul 10, 2009, 12:28:43 PM7/10/09
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I think we will have 7 mostly filled in by the end of the month, if we
all put our heads together -- but we must put our heads together
SLOWLY, in a non-Stooge-like way.

Come to think of it, there was a lot of truly Stoogely activity. The
Oreo-Filling-Eating Contest... the Pinata of Wasps... the SubGang
Flinging-War... bits and pieces are slowly coming back to me as I
gradually scrape the evidence off the various parts of my body.

Rev. Back It On Up 13

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Jul 10, 2009, 12:42:47 PM7/10/09
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Most of my experience was also colored by a brutal and weird ache in
my leg that made the first two or three days a total blur of pain and
painkillers.

I thought for sure some deity was fucking with me, giving me this
weird vacation destroying misery. The same entity that made sifu
switch to a job that refused his time off requests, and made him hit a
deer with the truck costing all our vacation money to repair, and made
storms appear over new york for an entire month prior to x-day. It
seemed to make sense that SOMEBODY didn't want us there.

That deity can go and fuck itself.

I probably snubbed a whole bunch of people in those first few days. I
wasn't myself. Oh well.

Next year will be tremendous!

Modemac

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Jul 10, 2009, 12:54:33 PM7/10/09
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On Jul 10, 12:42 pm, "Rev. Back It On Up 13" <eviel...@aol.com> wrote:
> I thought for sure some deity was fucking with me, giving me this
> weird vacation destroying misery.  The same entity that made sifu
> switch to a job that refused his time off requests, and made him hit a
> deer with the truck costing all our vacation money to repair, and made
> storms appear over new york for an entire month prior to x-day.  It
> seemed to make sense that SOMEBODY didn't want us there.

That deity seems to have screwed with a lot of us this year. In
addition to the poor souls who weren't able to make it out there to
the pouring rain, for a while it seemed as though Doc Frop, Sister
Decadence, Dr. Hal, and Popess Pantiara weren't going to be there as
well. But, as you did, they overcome the Conspiracy demon and were
able to make it.

> I probably snubbed a whole bunch of people in those first few days.  I
> wasn't myself.  Oh well.

You signed my walking stick (damn, I haven't mentioned that stick in
my report yet!) as follows: "Why Don't You Go Fuck Yourself? -- BIOU
13" I'll treasure that signature for as long as I have that stick.

Rev. Back It On Up 13

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Jul 10, 2009, 1:01:49 PM7/10/09
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> You signed my walking stick (damn, I haven't mentioned that stick in
> my report yet!) as follows: "Why Don't You Go Fuck Yourself? -- BIOU
> 13"  I'll treasure that signature for as long as I have that stick.

You understand that that inscription is pure love and affection, I
hope. Here in the Bronx, that's practically the same as a marriage
proposal.

It's also what we say to people that we want to go fuck themselves.
It is usually up to the recipient of the sentiment, to determine the
intention behind it.

In your case, it means love.

Zapanaz

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Jul 10, 2009, 3:12:00 PM7/10/09
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On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:36:38 -0700 (PDT), Modemac <mod...@gmail.com>
wrote:

cool story.


--
Zapanaz
International Satanic Conspiracy
Customer Support Specialist
http://joecosby.com/
I'm so ugly the Speed of Light can't slow me down

:: Currently listening to 6/4 Jam, 1976, by Jaco Pastorius, from "Jaco Pastorius"

Zapanaz

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Jul 10, 2009, 3:12:19 PM7/10/09
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On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:14:20 -0700 (PDT), "Rev. Back It On Up 13"
<evie...@aol.com> wrote:

>
>1. rain
>2. campsite setup avoidance
>3. dinner
>4. sit around fire
>5. sit around trailer
>6. campsite setup in pitch black storm
>7. ...

>8. Profit!

heathen

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Jul 10, 2009, 6:01:44 PM7/10/09
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brian was a most amazing fellow.
i had never seen anyone tear down a sizable fire, rearrange it into a
triangle and raise it 8 inch off the ground on little log supports.
then take a shovel and scoop all the remaining fire onto the top of
it.
it was a thing o beauty!!

Lord Cyclohexane

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Jul 10, 2009, 7:51:15 PM7/10/09
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On Jul 10, 12:11 pm, "Rev. Ivan Stang" <st...@subgenius.com> wrote:
> I haven't even started in on the audio or the videotapes. I better
> soon, though. TWO Hours of Slack are due out by this weekend. I might
> well end up having to use mainly just a replay of the first hour of
> the Synesthesia show we did Sunday night after the Drill, for the
> simple reason that they won't require much editing to speak of.
> Onliest problem: we didn't really talk about the damn Drill all that
> much!

Regardless, for those of us who missed Radio Syneesthesia that night
(for reasons such as driving home), I think many of us would be glad
to hear the fun conversation between you, Wei, Hal, LCD, and Rocknar.
As such, I don't think there'd be any complaints... (Or at least not
from me...)

Lord Cyclohexane

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Jul 10, 2009, 7:53:29 PM7/10/09
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On Jul 10, 12:28 pm, "Rev. Ivan Stang" <st...@subgenius.com> wrote:
> ... the Pinata of Wasps...

Awww, shee-it! I completely forgot about that! Along with Angry
Larry's beautiful taunt of, "C'mon! Those BEES aren't going to sting
THEMSELVES!"

Rev. Ivan Stang

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Jul 10, 2009, 8:21:04 PM7/10/09
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On Jul 10, 7:51 pm, Lord Cyclohexane <LordCyclohex...@gmail.com>
wrote:

What I really need to track down, now that I have divested myself of
the photo uploading responsibilities for the nonce, is whatever the
hell Lonesome Cowboy Dave recorded on my new porta-corder outside the
bath house while the Bobtism was going on inside. Several people have
told me there is some real funny lip-flappage on that audio file. All
those files are still on that recorder.

"I used a different folder for each day so the one I most need should
be in the middle of FOLDAR 'D,'" Stang reminded himself.

Last year I took huge unedited gouts of sound from the sound board
CDs, converted them to MP3s of up to 80 minutes in length, and,
whether I'd heard them or not, posted them on a.b.m.s. -- hours and
hours of it, like the entire Bulldada Auctions, Bobbie Awards,
dreadful jams, everything.

I guess I should start to extractifying the audio files and THEN get
to rewinding and naming the 15 videotapes.

But there is ONE very special video shot that I MUST locate and
duplicate A.S.A.P.! It's one that truly sums up the very essence of
the 12-X-Day Drill.

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