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The Tale of the Church of the SubGenius · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's over there wandering around in
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Speaker 1: circles and this is Stuff you should know, the podcast
0:21
Speaker 1: about Church of the SubGenius at Long Last. When did
0:27
Speaker 1: you become acquainted with the Church of the SubGenius Um.
0:30
Speaker 1: I had a group of friends that walked on the
0:36
Speaker 1: otter side of life, darker side of life, less, you know,
0:40
Speaker 1: less serious side of life. I'm not sure. Um in
0:43
Speaker 1: the nineties, and there was one guy who was big
0:46
Speaker 1: time into the Church of the SubGenius Um. What happens right, Yeah,
0:50
Speaker 1: that was my first introduction. Then I actually came across
0:54
Speaker 1: UM the Hour of Slack on Georgia Tech Student Radio
0:58
Speaker 1: once uh in the early two thousands and radio I
1:02
Speaker 1: never got into it though. Are you actually like a
1:05
Speaker 1: secret sub GENII? No, the same as you. I had
1:09
Speaker 1: a friend in college, a very influential friend actually, who
1:15
Speaker 1: turned me onto a lot of different things as I
1:18
Speaker 1: was just getting into college and exploring different ways of
1:23
Speaker 1: life and thought patterns and uh and sure sticks my
1:29
Speaker 1: buddy Jason. He turned me onto a lot of things
1:32
Speaker 1: in life and I've been able to tell him so,
1:35
Speaker 1: which is always a nice thing. And Bob Dobbs in
1:37
Speaker 1: the Church of sub Genius was one of them. Yeah yeah,
1:41
Speaker 1: And like if you might not be utterly familiar with
1:43
Speaker 1: the Church of the sub Genius, but I bet there's
1:45
Speaker 1: a pretty good chance that a lot of stuff you
1:48
Speaker 1: should know listeners are at least familiar with it without
1:51
Speaker 1: even being fully aware of what it is. But there's
1:55
Speaker 1: a very very famous, uh picture of a clean cut,
2:01
Speaker 1: mid century middle aged dude with a pipe clenched in
2:07
Speaker 1: his teeth and almost like a um Patrick Bateman psychotic
2:13
Speaker 1: look on his face, like almost Bateman meets word exactly, Yes, Chuck,
2:17
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone's ever put it better than that.
2:20
Speaker 1: And that is Jr. Bob Dobbs, who is the High
2:24
Speaker 1: Profit of the Church of the SubGenius. And he has
2:27
Speaker 1: popped up everywhere from the background. At Peebe's Playhouse, there
2:30
Speaker 1: was a Sublime record that had him on there. Um Like,
2:33
Speaker 1: he shows up all over the place. It's almost like
2:37
Speaker 1: code um And so you probably have seen it, even
2:41
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with the Church of the SubGenius.
2:44
Speaker 1: That's called the Dobb's Head right, gathered from clip art,
2:48
Speaker 1: which we will see. It's kind of one of the
2:50
Speaker 1: fun in jokes about a pseudo religion, a satire and
2:56
Speaker 1: parity of religion, and it's you know, it was formed
3:00
Speaker 1: by two guys. We'll get into the history, but I
3:02
Speaker 1: have a sort of a favorite definition, and I know
3:05
Speaker 1: you do, and maybe we'll just read both of them.
3:08
Speaker 1: Mind comes from Steve Davis of the Austin Chronicle and
3:12
Speaker 1: he said this in the late seventies. The Church of
3:15
Speaker 1: the SubGenius was intended as a dogmatic antidote to a
3:19
Speaker 1: re emergent mediocrity, embracing an aesthetic and confluence with evolving
3:24
Speaker 1: new wave sensibilities and tropes in music, film, and pop culture.
3:29
Speaker 1: It was an end joke with a half serious punchline.
3:32
Speaker 1: Very nice. That was great And what at yours was
3:36
Speaker 1: from Ed the Grabster himself. People kind of put it nicely,
3:38
Speaker 1: also from the Austin Chronicle. Yeah, so Ed said that
3:42
Speaker 1: it's that the best way to explain to the church
3:45
Speaker 1: is it is a joke. But to get the joke
3:48
Speaker 1: you have to see that it isn't really a joke
3:50
Speaker 1: at all, but it's actually getting at harrowing truths about
3:53
Speaker 1: the world, not bad, ed not bad. So the whole
3:58
Speaker 1: thing pretty scared at a little bit. I think so too.
4:01
Speaker 1: It's hilarious and cute, but the whole thing is that
4:05
Speaker 1: it is a parody of a religion, a parody of
4:08
Speaker 1: a cult, a UFO sex cult, if you want to
4:10
Speaker 1: get technical. Um it's a it's an absurdest in joke.
4:16
Speaker 1: And the whole thing is one big in joke made
4:18
Speaker 1: up of like millions of tiny little in jokes that
4:21
Speaker 1: anybody in the church can kind of generate and create.
4:24
Speaker 1: But it's all kind of hung on the skeleton of
4:27
Speaker 1: this um, this doctrine of the prophet Bob Dobbs, who
4:33
Speaker 1: is this the world's greatest salesman, um, who is basically
4:39
Speaker 1: carrying out the will of an alien god who may
4:43
Speaker 1: or may not love us or the subgenia as they're
4:47
Speaker 1: called in plural, And like either it sucks you in
4:53
Speaker 1: immediately and you're like, I want to know more about
4:55
Speaker 1: this because this is hilarious or repulses you because it
4:59
Speaker 1: is making fun of everything that you hold. Dear, there's
5:03
Speaker 1: not a lot of middle ground, although I would count
5:05
Speaker 1: myself as somebody in the middle ground to tell you
5:07
Speaker 1: the truth. That was so awesome, Chuck, nicely done. Yeah,
5:14
Speaker 1: what I just did there. And you'll see this at
5:16
Speaker 1: a lot if you watch the documentary, if you see
5:18
Speaker 1: any YouTube footage of people from the sub Genius Church
5:22
Speaker 1: hanging out at one of their uh de vivals. They
5:25
Speaker 1: don't call them revivals and call them de vivals. They
5:28
Speaker 1: will do this thing where they kind of juggle their
5:32
Speaker 1: throat with their hand as they sort of did this
5:35
Speaker 1: weird chant. And I didn't find much information on that specifically,
5:39
Speaker 1: but I did see them doing it all over the place. Well,
5:41
Speaker 1: it is a huge, huge rabbit hole, and as we'll see,
5:44
Speaker 1: like some people accidentally take it seriously and that's not
5:47
Speaker 1: the right thing to do at all. That is, that
5:50
Speaker 1: is a um that is an mentally unsound thing to do.
5:55
Speaker 1: That's not what the intention is or anything like that.
5:57
Speaker 1: The intention is is to basically point out how just
6:01
Speaker 1: warped our consumer culture is. And it made a lot
6:04
Speaker 1: more sense than the eighties before our culture ended up
6:07
Speaker 1: becoming the parody that the Church of the SubGenius was
6:11
Speaker 1: was carrying out. Yeah, it had. It had a very
6:14
Speaker 1: mad magazine vibe. Uh. You know something I know that
6:19
Speaker 1: you and I both grew up loving and cherishing, and
6:21
Speaker 1: I could see, like, you know, if if that's something
6:24
Speaker 1: as mainstream as you want to liken it too to
6:26
Speaker 1: help people understand. It's almost as if Mad Magazine started
6:30
Speaker 1: a religion and ALFREDY Newman was the God and it
6:34
Speaker 1: was all just one big joke about consumer culture and uh,
6:40
Speaker 1: and then if people end up taking it seriously, you
6:42
Speaker 1: can really see why, like that would be a very
6:44
Speaker 1: strange thing, Like, of course ALFREDY Newman is not God,
6:47
Speaker 1: and of course Bob Dobbs is not God or the prophet.
6:51
Speaker 1: But uh, these two guys founded this this kind of
6:55
Speaker 1: funny joke religion in the late nineteen seventies because they
6:59
Speaker 1: were like my into dudes, and what started as a
7:02
Speaker 1: joke grew into a I guess a mini phenomenon. I
7:07
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I think it's a major phenomenon. I
7:10
Speaker 1: would say major as far as cult, classic or cult
7:14
Speaker 1: phenomena go. And also we should also, I think we
7:17
Speaker 1: should preface all this, if it's not too late, to
7:20
Speaker 1: all of the Church of the Subgenious members out there,
7:23
Speaker 1: past and present, um and future. Um. This is one
7:27
Speaker 1: of those things where like if you explain what makes
7:30
Speaker 1: something funny. It is like, that's the least funny thing
7:34
Speaker 1: you can do. So if we trapes into that just
7:36
Speaker 1: by virtue of explaining things, we're sorry. I know, because
7:40
Speaker 1: it is a fun kind of cool thing that was
7:43
Speaker 1: created for people that felt like they were on the
7:45
Speaker 1: outside of things, for for outcasts and weirdos who didn't
7:50
Speaker 1: fit in necessarily. They found common ground before the Internet
7:56
Speaker 1: by writing letters back and forth to each other. They
7:58
Speaker 1: kind of had the Internet through pin and paper in
8:01
Speaker 1: these d vivals. And we have Douglas st Clair Smith
8:06
Speaker 1: and Steve Wilcox to thank for this. Yeah, the original
8:10
Speaker 1: outsider weirdos. That's right. Uh, you may not know him
8:13
Speaker 1: by that name. If you're familiar with the Church of
8:15
Speaker 1: the SubGenius, you know them as Ivan Stang and Philo Drummond.
8:21
Speaker 1: And these were two guys, like I said, who were
8:24
Speaker 1: Uh they were in Texas. I think Philo grew up
8:28
Speaker 1: in a religious family but uh and had a really
8:31
Speaker 1: good childhood. It wasn't some like stifling situation, but he
8:35
Speaker 1: was always sort of didn't quite fit in and felt
8:39
Speaker 1: like the outsider at school and was seeking outsider culture.
8:44
Speaker 1: And whereas Uh Staying was I think he described himself
8:49
Speaker 1: in the documentary as secular humanist scientists. In his upbringing,
8:53
Speaker 1: um super liberal family, whereas uh, well I'll keep on
8:57
Speaker 1: to Colin Wilcox, whereas Philos was um more conservative to
9:02
Speaker 1: be sure. But they found common ground when a friend
9:05
Speaker 1: introduced them. They said, you both love comic books, you
9:07
Speaker 1: both love Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. Get together and
9:11
Speaker 1: you might have a new friend. And they were immediate friends. Yeah. Yeah,
9:15
Speaker 1: they definitely hit it off, in part also because they
9:18
Speaker 1: both kind of just felt like they didn't really fit
9:20
Speaker 1: into Dallas, Texas at the time. That help. One of
9:23
Speaker 1: the other things they really had in common was a
9:26
Speaker 1: love of, like earnest bona fide extremist pamphlets, right, they're fun, Yeah,
9:33
Speaker 1: whether it's extremist religious groups, extremists like um, you know, uh,
9:39
Speaker 1: like white supremacist groups, which I'm sure Dallas, Texas in
9:42
Speaker 1: the seventies had quite a bit of like anybody who
9:45
Speaker 1: was just kind of off the rails and was trying
9:49
Speaker 1: to recruit other people to be off the rails with them,
9:53
Speaker 1: and and made a pamphlet about that. These guys would
9:56
Speaker 1: collect it and relish it, and um. That also included
10:00
Speaker 1: remember the jack Ship tracks in the Satanic Panic episode.
10:03
Speaker 1: They were huge into that. I had a huge influence
10:06
Speaker 1: on them as well, those comic strips about how somebody
10:09
Speaker 1: you know, um had sex before marriage and now they
10:12
Speaker 1: were burning in hell kind of stuff like that. They
10:15
Speaker 1: took all these things together and they kind of use
10:18
Speaker 1: them as the basis for this outlook on the world,
10:22
Speaker 1: which is humans are totally nuts in a lot of ways,
10:26
Speaker 1: and then even more than that, they can be dangerously
10:29
Speaker 1: nuts when they try to foist or impose their own
10:34
Speaker 1: crazy thoughts onto you and make you behave a certain
10:38
Speaker 1: way because of their crazy thoughts. That that's the danger
10:41
Speaker 1: that comes out of modern life. And I think that's
10:43
Speaker 1: one of the things that really stuck out to them
10:45
Speaker 1: and the thing that drove them to kind of kind
10:47
Speaker 1: of try to fight that however they could. Yeah, I
10:51
Speaker 1: have to say I see the appeal of what they did, because, uh,
10:55
Speaker 1: if you remember a few years ago, this is quite
10:58
Speaker 1: a few years ago now, our buddy Joe Randazzo and
11:02
Speaker 1: I wrote a TV pilot together about a um a
11:07
Speaker 1: scientology esque religion, and it never went anywhere. We even
11:11
Speaker 1: had a few pitch meetings and nothing happened with it.
11:13
Speaker 1: But in writing that script, we had to create our
11:16
Speaker 1: own religion for that pilot. And you can't just say, well,
11:21
Speaker 1: let's just call it this and it's whatever, like you
11:23
Speaker 1: have to really kind of explore the tenants of it
11:25
Speaker 1: and make it a real thing. And we did that,
11:28
Speaker 1: and I made a pamphlet. Joe and I made it together,
11:31
Speaker 1: and I kind of put it together, and we brought
11:33
Speaker 1: the pamphlet to the pitch meetings and it I'll send
11:36
Speaker 1: you one sometime. It's really funny. Our our religion was
11:38
Speaker 1: called bin Riism, and it was like numbers, this numbers
11:41
Speaker 1: based kind of scientology thing. But it was so much fun.
11:47
Speaker 1: And all I could think about when these two guys
11:49
Speaker 1: got together in nineteen nine and hatch this idea was, Yeah,
11:54
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun to create a phony religion,
11:57
Speaker 1: even for a screenplay. Yeah, And they were deaf to
12:00
Speaker 1: really inspired by um l Ron Hubbard and his success
12:04
Speaker 1: at basically founding scientology based on some science fiction ideas
12:08
Speaker 1: that he had and then becoming rich. There was a
12:11
Speaker 1: famous quote attributed to L. Ron Hubbard that you can't
12:13
Speaker 1: get rich writing science fiction, but you can get rich
12:16
Speaker 1: by writing or by founding your own religion and so
12:20
Speaker 1: so we should be really careful here. They weren't inspired
12:23
Speaker 1: by l Ron Hubbard in the sense like they wanted
12:27
Speaker 1: to take advantage of people. I think they were more
12:30
Speaker 1: fascinated by the fact that there are plenty of people
12:33
Speaker 1: out there who will buy into this, and I think
12:36
Speaker 1: they kind of wanted to explore that, not not in
12:39
Speaker 1: any kind of like it's weird, it's the whole thing
12:42
Speaker 1: is kind of a cynical It comes from a cynical
12:45
Speaker 1: place where you just have to be cynical to to
12:49
Speaker 1: be to be critical enough of society to see it
12:52
Speaker 1: for what it is. But it's also like a very
12:55
Speaker 1: humanist group as well, where like they're not trying to
13:00
Speaker 1: hurt you, they're not trying to exploit you. They definitely
13:03
Speaker 1: come off as superior a lot of times, especially if
13:05
Speaker 1: you're not in on the joke, because that makes you,
13:08
Speaker 1: by definition, part of the butt of the joke. Yes,
13:13
Speaker 1: but for the most part, they're not. They're not like
13:15
Speaker 1: a group of people who like hate or despise other people.
13:19
Speaker 1: I think they're fascinated by the fact that that kind
13:21
Speaker 1: of stuff exists, and they're also fascinated by just how
13:24
Speaker 1: um conformist the average person is without even thinking about it. Um.
13:29
Speaker 1: So uh, they were fascinated, I guess, is the way
13:33
Speaker 1: to put it. By l Ron Hubbard and his success
13:35
Speaker 1: with Scientology. And there was another quote that was attributed
13:38
Speaker 1: to Staying. I don't know if it was in the
13:40
Speaker 1: documentary that came out recently or not, but he basically said,
13:43
Speaker 1: if we figured that if Jim Jones can get nine
13:46
Speaker 1: people they kill themselves, we could get nine people to
13:49
Speaker 1: send us a dollar. And they kind of wanted to
13:51
Speaker 1: toy around with that and see, you know if that
13:54
Speaker 1: was the case, not to exploit people, but just to
13:57
Speaker 1: kind of see I think if there was anybody else
14:00
Speaker 1: out there, they're kind of shouting into the wilderness. And
14:03
Speaker 1: the way that you told them that you were out
14:04
Speaker 1: there was to mail in a dollar and say, give
14:07
Speaker 1: some of your pamphlet. Yeah, and here's the deal. Staying
14:12
Speaker 1: it looks like, by all accounts, is generally made his
14:15
Speaker 1: living doing this over the year. He's he's not gotten rich.
14:19
Speaker 1: It's not a Scientology thing where it's like and send
14:21
Speaker 1: me a hundred more dollars and we'll give you another thing.
14:24
Speaker 1: It's really just sort of mail us some money and
14:28
Speaker 1: we'll send you our comedy goods in the mail. Yeah. Like,
14:32
Speaker 1: and he still stuff's envelopes and he still sends pamphlets
14:35
Speaker 1: and CDs and literature today. It's like, you know, it's
14:39
Speaker 1: like paying for a Mad magazine or something, but it's
14:41
Speaker 1: just done from this guy's house. Yeah. I also get
14:44
Speaker 1: the impression that the far and away the vast majority
14:47
Speaker 1: of the people who understand the Church of SubGenius for
14:49
Speaker 1: what it is when they send money, and they're sending
14:52
Speaker 1: it out of like gratitude for what you're staying and
14:55
Speaker 1: um Philo have built together. That's that's what it is.
14:59
Speaker 1: They're not being duped in any way. They're in on
15:01
Speaker 1: the joke. They're just showing their support by um shoveling
15:05
Speaker 1: money towards those guys. All right, I think that is
15:08
Speaker 1: a great preamble. You're either turning off your Hi Fi
15:13
Speaker 1: system now, or you're or you're intrigued by what's to come,
15:17
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about uh the night at all hatched
15:19
Speaker 1: right after this. Alright, so these guys are hanging out,
15:51
Speaker 1: it's they didn't have I think Philo was the one.
15:56
Speaker 1: He always had a pretty decent job. He kind of
15:59
Speaker 1: had a okay career, and he always wanted to There
16:03
Speaker 1: were times where he kind of dropped in and out
16:06
Speaker 1: of his involvement because he did have a decent career,
16:08
Speaker 1: but he always supported it, whereas Staying was all in
16:12
Speaker 1: from the beginning and didn't have a ton of prospects
16:14
Speaker 1: for work. But they were hanging out and they were
16:17
Speaker 1: like kind of wondering why they, you know, didn't have
16:20
Speaker 1: more and why they weren't as successful as they thought
16:22
Speaker 1: they should be, and Staying said, you know, we aren't geniuses.
16:25
Speaker 1: You know, we must be subgeniuses. And he says in
16:29
Speaker 1: the documentary he was like, that's the moment. It was
16:31
Speaker 1: literally like a lightning bolt out of the sky that
16:34
Speaker 1: hatched this idea. So they kind of took all their
16:37
Speaker 1: interests and all these weird pamphlets and weird UFO cults
16:41
Speaker 1: and pseudo religions and New Age beliefs, and they made
16:45
Speaker 1: the original pamphlet. Uh spent sixty dollars on this original pamphlet,
16:50
Speaker 1: and we're just leaving him at dry cleaners and stuff
16:52
Speaker 1: like that until Stag's wife got mad and she was like,
16:55
Speaker 1: that's a lot of money for us. At least send
16:58
Speaker 1: this to some publishers and see if you can do
17:01
Speaker 1: something with this. So they sent it to every publisher
17:04
Speaker 1: under the sun and got rejected by every every publisher
17:07
Speaker 1: under the sun. But um, it's pretty funny that later
17:13
Speaker 1: they did end up having a fairly successful book. But
17:16
Speaker 1: early on book publishers didn't know what to do with
17:18
Speaker 1: these guys. Yeah, and you can understand why if you've
17:20
Speaker 1: ever seen what's called pamphlet number one now, which is
17:23
Speaker 1: part of the church doctrine. This is like the Sacred Writings.
17:26
Speaker 1: The The idea is that Um Ivan Stang is the
17:31
Speaker 1: sacred scribe who took down the words of Bob Dobbs.
17:35
Speaker 1: And by the way, Bob Dobbs, the Bob is always
17:38
Speaker 1: in quotes, not just when you say j R. Bob Dobbs,
17:42
Speaker 1: like even if you say Bob Dobbs or even just Bob,
17:44
Speaker 1: it's always in quotes. That's how you write his name. Um.
17:48
Speaker 1: And that Bob was getting his divine inspiration from Jehovah one,
17:53
Speaker 1: that alien overlord that that runs earth. Um. And this
17:59
Speaker 1: was kind of like the conceit of the pamphlet, and
18:02
Speaker 1: the front of the pamphlet said things like the world
18:04
Speaker 1: ends tomorrow, and you may die in all caps. Um
18:08
Speaker 1: it asked, Uh, do people think you're strange? Do you? Um?
18:14
Speaker 1: I know, I love that one. There was another one
18:16
Speaker 1: that said eternal salvation or triple your money back. So like,
18:20
Speaker 1: these are the things on like on and in the pamphlet,
18:23
Speaker 1: and they're they're going around to publishers being like, hey,
18:25
Speaker 1: you want to you want to give us some money
18:26
Speaker 1: for this, So of course everybody said no. The most
18:29
Speaker 1: astounding thing is that eventually somebody actually said yes, I
18:33
Speaker 1: think McGraw hill. Yeah. And then this was much later
18:37
Speaker 1: when they finally did get their book published, after they
18:40
Speaker 1: had quite a following and the sort of writing was
18:42
Speaker 1: on the wall with these, you know, fairly successful gatherings
18:45
Speaker 1: in live shows. But um, yeah, the book came later.
18:49
Speaker 1: Early on they got together and started, uh, just as
18:53
Speaker 1: buddies getting on the CB radio and doing and this again,
18:57
Speaker 1: this was like you would get on the internet today.
18:59
Speaker 1: By then it was the CB and they would do
19:02
Speaker 1: these sort of parody voices. Um basically hatched what was
19:07
Speaker 1: the beginnings of what would end up being the hour
19:10
Speaker 1: of Slack radio show, which is ninety minutes long. Part
19:14
Speaker 1: of the joke, and people started hollering back at them.
19:18
Speaker 1: He said they were trolls. Before they were trolls, you
19:20
Speaker 1: were kind of trolling people on the c B. And
19:22
Speaker 1: then other people would troll back and call them, uh, pinks.
19:27
Speaker 1: And that's where the notion of pinks or pink boys
19:30
Speaker 1: came up. And pink boys they kind of flipped it.
19:34
Speaker 1: In the church of the SubGenius. Pink boys are the others.
19:37
Speaker 1: They're the squares. They're the ones who just follow along
19:41
Speaker 1: and go to their nine to five job and spend
19:43
Speaker 1: their consumer money and you know, uh and on catalog
19:47
Speaker 1: items and anyone else outside is a pink or a
19:51
Speaker 1: pink boy. Yes, but but there's a distinction between uh, say,
19:56
Speaker 1: people like you and I. An actual died in the
19:59
Speaker 1: little pink ball ways, the kind of the like middle
20:02
Speaker 1: manager types who are like not only fully bought into
20:06
Speaker 1: the con, the great con that's going on, they actually
20:09
Speaker 1: like like almost violently defended in its existence. And it's
20:14
Speaker 1: it's rightness. Um, those are those are pinks. There are
20:18
Speaker 1: reparable There's nothing that's ever going to help them, and
20:20
Speaker 1: they're genuine humans. Now, there are plenty of sub genii
20:23
Speaker 1: out there who don't know their subgenii they haven't been
20:26
Speaker 1: exposed to the church, they've never seen a Dob's head.
20:28
Speaker 1: Maybe whatever reason, they're they're not aware that they're a
20:32
Speaker 1: SubGenius yet. And if you're a true SubGenius, then you
20:36
Speaker 1: have YETI blood coursing through your veins. Now, if you're
20:39
Speaker 1: an actual SubGenius, that means that you are a of
20:43
Speaker 1: YETI heritage. Who is who has basically become aware of
20:47
Speaker 1: the teachings of Bob and are now actively um working
20:53
Speaker 1: against the conspiracy and exploiting pink Boys anytime you get
20:56
Speaker 1: a chance, because again, they're they're hopeless. They're they're never
21:00
Speaker 1: going to be converted because they don't have any YETI
21:02
Speaker 1: blood in them, right. Uh. And to reiterate, I don't
21:06
Speaker 1: know if I kind of just tossed it off earlier,
21:08
Speaker 1: but Bob Dobbs is a piece of clip art. Literally,
21:13
Speaker 1: that face that you see was a piece of clip
21:15
Speaker 1: art from clip art catalog. And they loved clip art
21:17
Speaker 1: because it was free, and a lot of their early
21:20
Speaker 1: stuff was just collage from clip art that they had found.
21:24
Speaker 1: And this was from a clip art catalog. And now
21:26
Speaker 1: it's you know, one of the you know, arguably one
21:29
Speaker 1: of the most famous pieces of clip art there is, Yeah,
21:31
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it was a joke. It's
21:33
Speaker 1: so hard to tell, um what's a joke and what's
21:35
Speaker 1: not because they play everything so straight. Yeah, they're in
21:38
Speaker 1: character basically. Yeah, but that I saw on one of
21:42
Speaker 1: their websites that they said, reminder, this is ah, this
21:45
Speaker 1: is this is a trademarked piece of art now as
21:48
Speaker 1: part of like the SubGenius copyright SubGenius. So I don't
21:51
Speaker 1: know if they actually did copyright. I could totally see
21:54
Speaker 1: them doing that in real life. Um, or if they
21:57
Speaker 1: were just joking about it. Either way, Yeah, it's kind
22:00
Speaker 1: of great. So I think we probably can't go any
22:03
Speaker 1: further without explaining this concept of slack. I mentioned that
22:09
Speaker 1: the radio show is called The Hour of Slack and
22:12
Speaker 1: kind of the major I guess philosophy and tenant of
22:17
Speaker 1: their religion is us this concept of slack. Are you
22:22
Speaker 1: having trouble describing it? No? I mean they even say
22:26
Speaker 1: in the documentary it is not even to be described
22:28
Speaker 1: that they can't even describe it. So whatever we do
22:31
Speaker 1: is going to be our own attempt. Uh. Slack is
22:34
Speaker 1: different for every person, but the the definite idea is
22:37
Speaker 1: what you think which is being slack like kind of
22:41
Speaker 1: but not just being lazy. Having everything you need in
22:44
Speaker 1: life and being content while giving up as little as
22:48
Speaker 1: possible exertion wise, Yeah, exertion wise exactly, like like having
22:52
Speaker 1: done as little as possible to actually attain it. Um,
22:56
Speaker 1: that's one definition of slack for sure. Um. The point is, like,
23:02
Speaker 1: I think it's one of those things where you um,
23:06
Speaker 1: or what is not slack is easier to recognize than
23:09
Speaker 1: what is slack. And I'll give you an example of
23:12
Speaker 1: something that happened today. Okay, because I've been thinking about this,
23:15
Speaker 1: I'm like, how are we going to define slack? So? Um,
23:20
Speaker 1: I knocked over the toilet brush behind the the toilet
23:25
Speaker 1: in my bathroom, right, and you know, like the little
23:29
Speaker 1: drippings that end up in like the toilet brush holder. Yes,
23:33
Speaker 1: they spilled out on the floor. Those are the worst drippings,
23:36
Speaker 1: the worst drippings. I would have rather spilled like like
23:39
Speaker 1: like raw pork juice onto my floor than those drippings.
23:42
Speaker 1: And they're bad drippings, right. So I spent the next
23:45
Speaker 1: ten minutes not only like cleaning up those drippings, and
23:49
Speaker 1: I mean like cleaning it up like there's there's some
23:51
Speaker 1: floor missing. Now I scrubbed it so hard, and then
23:55
Speaker 1: also cleaning the holder for the scrub brush before I
23:59
Speaker 1: put everything back. And this is a totally unintentional, totally
24:02
Speaker 1: avoidable thing for me to be doing. That took up
24:04
Speaker 1: ten minutes of my life. I did not want to
24:06
Speaker 1: be doing it. It It was gross, it was yuck, and
24:08
Speaker 1: I realized, this is the this is the perfect example
24:11
Speaker 1: of what is not slack. It's the conspiracy. It was
24:15
Speaker 1: the conspiracy that probably had something to do with it,
24:18
Speaker 1: But the point was, like I was doing something I
24:21
Speaker 1: didn't want to do, and I was doing it. I
24:26
Speaker 1: was getting no reward from it whatsoever. I was a
24:28
Speaker 1: little stressed out about it. It was not slack. So
24:31
Speaker 1: slack is the opposite of that. It's where things are
24:34
Speaker 1: going your way. Uh, It's where you are content and happy.
24:39
Speaker 1: And that doesn't necessarily mean you have everything in life,
24:41
Speaker 1: like all the trappings of life. It very frequently doesn't
24:44
Speaker 1: mean that. Instead, it's just whatever it is that makes
24:47
Speaker 1: you content. And because it it's undefined herble, that means
24:52
Speaker 1: that it's up to every sub GENII to define what
24:55
Speaker 1: is slack for them. Yeah, and the conspiracy is are
24:59
Speaker 1: the things that prevent you from achieving slack. Originally, I
25:04
Speaker 1: think the conspiracy was literally like the man that kind
25:07
Speaker 1: of thing, But it evolved over the years to the
25:10
Speaker 1: point where one of the guys in the documentary said
25:12
Speaker 1: it evolved to you know, it was like when it
25:16
Speaker 1: rained really hard on a day you were going to
25:18
Speaker 1: do something like, that's the conspiracy. It's things I think
25:21
Speaker 1: conspiring against you. That toilet brush knocking over, that's definitely
25:26
Speaker 1: the conspiracy because it prevented you from, I guess, taking
25:30
Speaker 1: your your mid morning nap, right and the under the
25:34
Speaker 1: teachings of of Bob, the conspiracy is actually an acronym
25:38
Speaker 1: for clicks of normal secretly planning insidious rituals aimed at
25:42
Speaker 1: controlling you. That's a good one, I agreed. And then
25:46
Speaker 1: under the doctrine like this is an actual group who
25:50
Speaker 1: they don't know what slack is, but they know it exists,
25:53
Speaker 1: and they're bent on stealing as much of it as possible,
25:55
Speaker 1: and they start stealing it from everybody, Pinks and Yettie.
25:59
Speaker 1: From the moment, you're worn um and so it's up
26:01
Speaker 1: to you to um to steal it back to get
26:05
Speaker 1: as much slack as you possibly can. But the problem
26:08
Speaker 1: with the conspiracy is they're the ones running the show
26:11
Speaker 1: here on Earth. They're the ones who are behind consumer
26:13
Speaker 1: culture UM, and they've created this illusion that that what
26:19
Speaker 1: what normals and pinks um and uh non subgenia yetti
26:25
Speaker 1: who haven't figured themselves out yet UM buy into as
26:29
Speaker 1: life is all just this vast consumer conspiracy UM and
26:34
Speaker 1: that uh, they'll they actually offer what appears to be slack,
26:40
Speaker 1: but it's like false slack is what they call it. Yeah,
26:42
Speaker 1: it's manufactured slack. So it's like, um, the SubGenius wicki
26:47
Speaker 1: as awesome, and they give examples of UM like pre
26:52
Speaker 1: planned recreation UM, like days off from work that you
26:57
Speaker 1: earn or are given like these or this is all
27:00
Speaker 1: false slack, Like it's somebody else deciding what your slack
27:04
Speaker 1: is and you're buying into it. And that is the
27:07
Speaker 1: that is not slack. Slack is you have to decide
27:09
Speaker 1: what slack is, right, And there's original slack. We're all
27:13
Speaker 1: born with original slack, according to the Church, and the
27:17
Speaker 1: conspiracy chips away at that slack or sells you false
27:19
Speaker 1: slack over the years to degrade your your natural slack
27:24
Speaker 1: that you're born with. And then there's also involuntary slack,
27:28
Speaker 1: which is my favorite slack. And this is like if
27:32
Speaker 1: you if you lose your job or something, if you
27:34
Speaker 1: get fired, this is just involuntary slack. Uh, that Bob
27:39
Speaker 1: is sending your way to force you to take a
27:42
Speaker 1: little time off. Yeah. I saw a video from I
27:44
Speaker 1: guess two thousand nine or ten, and it called the
27:47
Speaker 1: Great Recession the Great Slack Session, and it basically said,
27:52
Speaker 1: like the financial markets have melted down, and I had
27:56
Speaker 1: like this real dramatic music. Um of millions of people
28:00
Speaker 1: are out of out of work. No one has a
28:03
Speaker 1: clue about what to do about it. Victory is at hand. Um.
28:10
Speaker 1: There's one other thing I want to say about slack. Two. Um,
28:13
Speaker 1: there are basically two groups, two approaches or philosophies as
28:18
Speaker 1: far as slack is concerned. And I think it's pretty
28:21
Speaker 1: interesting that, like the the whole concept has gotten this far.
28:24
Speaker 1: It's it's evolved into something. And I think this is
28:26
Speaker 1: a really good example of what happens with the church's teachings.
28:31
Speaker 1: Like these guys just wrote some crazy stuff like back
28:33
Speaker 1: in the seventies, eighties, even into the nineties, and then
28:37
Speaker 1: other people who kind of vibed on it came along
28:39
Speaker 1: and expanded it like I read I read an essay
28:42
Speaker 1: on the scissors of Sight and apparently that's mentioned off
28:45
Speaker 1: handedly and uh and pamphlet at number one, and somebody
28:49
Speaker 1: wrote a whole essay about how they're still trying to
28:51
Speaker 1: figure out what those are and they think it's from
28:53
Speaker 1: a crystal in Atlantis, and um, it was just just
28:56
Speaker 1: like that's just what they do. It's almost like they're
28:58
Speaker 1: putting stuff out there as like thoughts starters for other
29:01
Speaker 1: people's creativity to kind of sprout from. But anyway, the
29:05
Speaker 1: two um, the two paths for slack has kind of
29:09
Speaker 1: split between these two groups, the Rewardians and the emergent tiles, right, yeah,
29:14
Speaker 1: and the emergent tiles are getting their slack because they're
29:19
Speaker 1: getting the things done that they kind of feel like
29:21
Speaker 1: they want a need to get done, but it's under
29:24
Speaker 1: a deadline from someone else. But then they have their
29:26
Speaker 1: slack and then the Rewardians don't think. This is more
29:30
Speaker 1: like tell of Steve stuff. Did you ever see that movie? No,
29:33
Speaker 1: I need to, though I'm well aware of it. Sort
29:37
Speaker 1: of that was sort of that guy's deal. He he
29:39
Speaker 1: was just like he had this life philosophy and he
29:41
Speaker 1: would have really fit in with these with these folks,
29:44
Speaker 1: with the rewardians, They basically like slack off all the time,
29:47
Speaker 1: don't do any work until you absolutely have to write.
29:51
Speaker 1: I think there's quite a bit of pot involved every
29:53
Speaker 1: day kind of thing. Sure, Um, that wouldn't surprise me.
29:56
Speaker 1: And that's what I think most people would think of
29:58
Speaker 1: when they think of like slack king, Like, yeah, that's
30:01
Speaker 1: what you do when you're slack. You don't work, You
30:02
Speaker 1: sit around, you smoke pot. You're like never put on
30:04
Speaker 1: pants or anything like that, and you're just having the
30:06
Speaker 1: time of your life as long as like that's what
30:08
Speaker 1: you want to do. Um, emergentise you're like, no, no,
30:11
Speaker 1: there's another way to do this. Like I feel really
30:15
Speaker 1: good about accomplishing something about like setting a goal and
30:19
Speaker 1: meeting it about but that's my goal. Like I want
30:22
Speaker 1: to learn how to climb a mountain, So I'm gonna
30:25
Speaker 1: go learn how to climb a mountain and climb that mountain,
30:28
Speaker 1: and during that whole process, I'm slacking, Like that's my
30:32
Speaker 1: slack um. So those are kind of like the two
30:35
Speaker 1: ways of doing it. And apparently the two groups kind
30:37
Speaker 1: of pity each other and think they have it completely backwards.
30:40
Speaker 1: But the point is is neither group is right or wrong,
30:43
Speaker 1: because it's all up to the individual. What your slack is.
30:46
Speaker 1: I mean, what these guys really they it was. It's
30:48
Speaker 1: such a time and place thing. They were born out
30:50
Speaker 1: of this sort of spirit of the Mary Pranksters, sixties
30:54
Speaker 1: counterculture kin kis kind of thing. But they came along
30:58
Speaker 1: at a time where that had been bulldozed over and
31:02
Speaker 1: the eighties were being born, which was about as anti
31:06
Speaker 1: you know, sixties counterculture vibe as you can imagine. But
31:10
Speaker 1: these guys still had that sort of fun, playful idea
31:14
Speaker 1: and you know this this was their invention. I just
31:18
Speaker 1: I always think it's just so fun and so cool.
31:20
Speaker 1: I every time I see a UM D vible or
31:24
Speaker 1: a live show, I absolutely do not want to be there,
31:29
Speaker 1: but I think it's awesome. It was. I liken it
31:31
Speaker 1: too when I saw um Spinal Tap in concert. They
31:36
Speaker 1: actually toured when I was in college and I was
31:39
Speaker 1: such a fan of the movie. And when they played
31:41
Speaker 1: the Fox Theater and we all went and I had
31:44
Speaker 1: it was not fun at all because it was like
31:46
Speaker 1: it was funny as a movie, but you're this rock
31:49
Speaker 1: and roll show that is supposed to kind of be funny,
31:52
Speaker 1: but but there were also people that were really getting
31:55
Speaker 1: into the rock and roll and I didn't know. I
31:57
Speaker 1: was stuck in between worlds. I didn't know how to feel.
32:00
Speaker 1: And when I was watching these SubGenius live shows, I
32:04
Speaker 1: was kind of like, oh, that's like spinal Tap live.
32:06
Speaker 1: I don't want to be there, but I'm glad people
32:08
Speaker 1: are enjoying it. Yeah, it's kind of like, um yeah,
32:12
Speaker 1: and do they are enjoying it? The people who go
32:14
Speaker 1: to those are are genuinely having like the time of
32:16
Speaker 1: their lives, Like that's their time to like just like
32:19
Speaker 1: just be themselves as much as they ever have in
32:22
Speaker 1: their lives. Um. It's almost like I would compare it
32:26
Speaker 1: to um a uh, like a meeting of the Juggalos,
32:33
Speaker 1: a comic con, and like Guar Show all mixed together.
32:38
Speaker 1: That's what the devivals these days kind of seem like,
32:41
Speaker 1: just based on what I've seen on the internet. Yeah,
32:44
Speaker 1: that's good. I like it. And if you're if you
32:46
Speaker 1: think this is all really dumb, then you probably would
32:49
Speaker 1: not like their motto. They have a lot of sayings
32:52
Speaker 1: and mottoes, but they're chief one that they kind of
32:53
Speaker 1: yell out at these Uh, devivals is fum if you
32:57
Speaker 1: can't take a joke, or if they can't take a joke, right,
33:01
Speaker 1: And I mean it's right there like there. It's amazing
33:04
Speaker 1: to me that some people took this too seriously because
33:06
Speaker 1: the motto is literally, this is a joke, right, Yeah,
33:10
Speaker 1: And it is really kind of like this concerning because
33:13
Speaker 1: like if you do take it seriously, like you really
33:17
Speaker 1: have to go to great lengths to to get past
33:20
Speaker 1: all the winks, the nods, the absurdity of everything. It
33:24
Speaker 1: suggests that there's like you're you're you're more so off
33:29
Speaker 1: than the average cult member because you're actually taking a joke.
33:32
Speaker 1: Colt as a cult. It's like when fight Club got
33:35
Speaker 1: too serious you started blown up buildings and stuff. Yeah,
33:39
Speaker 1: I think so, except there was no violence involved in
33:42
Speaker 1: the Church of the sub Genius. Now they're they're peaceful.
33:46
Speaker 1: It's right because they're all stoned. Yeah, I think a
33:49
Speaker 1: lot of them are. I think a lot of them
33:51
Speaker 1: are like the Frank's Appa types, or they're just weird
33:53
Speaker 1: and they have nothing to do with drugs or alcohol
33:55
Speaker 1: or anything too, you know, those are they they were
33:57
Speaker 1: born with original stoned. Uh. Yeah, that's exactly right. Drugs.
34:03
Speaker 1: Apparently Frank Zappler was a real jerk to people who
34:05
Speaker 1: did drugs, Like he had that cafe or restaurant or
34:08
Speaker 1: club or whatever, and he would like kick you out
34:10
Speaker 1: if he thought you were on pot um. That's that's conspiracy. Yeah,
34:16
Speaker 1: he was a little pink from what I can tell. Interesting. Yeah, yeah,
34:22
Speaker 1: And you said also, if this kind of stuff seems
34:24
Speaker 1: weird to you or whatever, or you don't like it, like,
34:27
Speaker 1: that's a pretty like fairly normal reaction. It doesn't mean
34:30
Speaker 1: there's anything wrong with you. But one of the reasons
34:33
Speaker 1: that that it might make you feel a little wobbly
34:36
Speaker 1: or a little shaky, or like you're missing something, or
34:38
Speaker 1: like you're being made fun of. That kind of weird
34:41
Speaker 1: feeling in your stomach is because you probably are being
34:43
Speaker 1: made fun of. Like if you're not in on the joke,
34:46
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, by definition, you're you're part of
34:49
Speaker 1: the butt of the joke. You're a member of that
34:52
Speaker 1: that group. Um and if you actually are actively getting
34:56
Speaker 1: offended at what they're saying and doing, because one of
34:59
Speaker 1: the one of the threads of humor that they very
35:01
Speaker 1: frequently use is bad taste, shock value. Um, like like
35:07
Speaker 1: just basically the opposite of PC, Like they really don't
35:10
Speaker 1: care for PC very much. Um. And if you're deeply
35:13
Speaker 1: offended by this stuff and you actually like respond to it, um,
35:18
Speaker 1: there you're actually kind of proving their point that you
35:21
Speaker 1: are maybe a little two wrapped up in this culture
35:25
Speaker 1: that they're that they're basically saying, like this, this is
35:27
Speaker 1: a fraud. This is all a fraud. And and like
35:31
Speaker 1: you're you're proving that that there's problems with it by
35:34
Speaker 1: getting mad at something where you know, at a joke.
35:37
Speaker 1: Basically yeah, and you know, before you start feeling too
35:42
Speaker 1: sorry for these people because they're being made fun of
35:44
Speaker 1: his like squares who aren't hip to the joke and
35:47
Speaker 1: don't get the joke. I mean, the original reason this
35:49
Speaker 1: was started was because these very people were outcast and
35:53
Speaker 1: being bullied by those very people to begin with. So
35:58
Speaker 1: let's say your break man, we'll talk about out some
36:00
Speaker 1: of the lower points in the Church of the SubGenius
36:03
Speaker 1: that have happened across the years. Huh, let's do it. So, Um,
36:37
Speaker 1: if you went to a devible, one of the things
36:38
Speaker 1: you would find, Chuck is, especially an early one, is
36:41
Speaker 1: a lot of like put on preaching, like evangelical mock preaching.
36:47
Speaker 1: But the what the guy's doing is like doing a
36:51
Speaker 1: fire and Brimstone preacher bit, but what he's saying is
36:56
Speaker 1: espousing you know, bob stuff about you know, if the FM,
36:59
Speaker 1: if they can't take a joke or um, you know whatever, um,
37:05
Speaker 1: And that like doesn't sit very well usually with people.
37:07
Speaker 1: But also it never really sits very well with me
37:10
Speaker 1: because it's obnoxious even in its real form, and it's
37:13
Speaker 1: super obnoxious when it's like mocked. Because that's why I
37:16
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to be there. Yeah. Yeah, And and the
37:18
Speaker 1: anti music is another reason. That was the next thing
37:21
Speaker 1: I was gonna get to is like, if you, if
37:23
Speaker 1: you are not super into this and probably on a
37:26
Speaker 1: pretty decent amount of acid back in five for four, um,
37:31
Speaker 1: you the anti music would probably turn you off to
37:34
Speaker 1: I know, I don't like it at all either. Yeah.
37:36
Speaker 1: It's basically the idea is that they would get a
37:38
Speaker 1: bunch of instruments and you could just do whatever you
37:41
Speaker 1: want with them, and and the ideas that you're not
37:44
Speaker 1: you can't play these things. These are not skilled musicians
37:46
Speaker 1: or not even musicians at all, and uh, they would
37:50
Speaker 1: just make noise with them, and you know, when watching
37:54
Speaker 1: the documentary, you get the idea from some of them
37:56
Speaker 1: that it's it's sort of like the drums cole that
38:00
Speaker 1: finally everyone gets in synchronicity for a minute, you're like, oh, okay,
38:05
Speaker 1: something just happened. Uh. That would happen occasionally, apparently with
38:08
Speaker 1: the anti music, is that it would coalesce at a
38:11
Speaker 1: certain point. Or maybe that was a drugs talking, but
38:14
Speaker 1: basically it's a bunch of people making a lot of
38:15
Speaker 1: awful noise and screaming. Yes. Um. There was actually a
38:20
Speaker 1: time during the d at at d Vibles, I think
38:24
Speaker 1: during the nineties maybe where a schism in the church developed.
38:31
Speaker 1: Um was very much planned. Yeah right, so um. The
38:35
Speaker 1: idea was so that one of the big parts of
38:38
Speaker 1: the one of the tenants of the churches there the
38:40
Speaker 1: like the world's going to end eventually on X day,
38:43
Speaker 1: and X Day was originally slotted for July, and that
38:48
Speaker 1: came and went and there were no UFOs um driven
38:52
Speaker 1: by sex goddesses to come whisk off the sub genii
38:56
Speaker 1: to plan at x to to live out the rest
38:58
Speaker 1: of their eternity parting um and then but the fact
39:03
Speaker 1: that this was coming along this the church decided like,
39:07
Speaker 1: we don't know what's going to happen to the Pinks
39:10
Speaker 1: after that, so we need to decide. And the schism.
39:14
Speaker 1: Schism was formed between people who said, well, there'll probably
39:17
Speaker 1: be sub subgenia who want to stay and rule the world,
39:20
Speaker 1: and we can just let them rule the Pinks from
39:23
Speaker 1: there on out. And then the other group said, no, no, no,
39:26
Speaker 1: all the Pinks are going to be slaughtered on next day.
39:28
Speaker 1: There won't be any Pinks left. And apparently this um,
39:32
Speaker 1: this this differing opinion on basic church doctrine, like was
39:37
Speaker 1: a thread that was carried on for a very long time.
39:41
Speaker 1: It was and I think we just need to be
39:42
Speaker 1: really clear. A schism was written into the script of
39:45
Speaker 1: the Church of the sub Genius. It was nothing formed.
39:49
Speaker 1: It was they wrote a hell basically into their wrestling show.
39:54
Speaker 1: Uh with Papa Joe Mama, who was the leader of
39:57
Speaker 1: the holocaustles who believed um and again all in jest,
40:01
Speaker 1: but he believed like go out and shoot the rich basically,
40:05
Speaker 1: like kill these people. And I think it was staying
40:08
Speaker 1: was the leader of the Evangelicals, which was, yeah, let's
40:12
Speaker 1: just make enslave them basically and keep them alive. And um,
40:17
Speaker 1: two things here first of all, and that they they
40:20
Speaker 1: eventually had a big show in the eighties, kind of
40:22
Speaker 1: jumping back, uh in San Francisco. They had had these
40:25
Speaker 1: sort of small tent d vivals with a hundred people,
40:29
Speaker 1: and then in San Francisco they booked this theater for
40:31
Speaker 1: two nights, nine theater for two nights, and we're like,
40:35
Speaker 1: we don't really know if we can do this, and
40:37
Speaker 1: they had set builders and set designers and it became
40:39
Speaker 1: a real actual thing. The news covered it, and they did.
40:42
Speaker 1: They covered it, and they they had a fake assassination
40:45
Speaker 1: of Bob. Bob finally came out, he walked out on
40:47
Speaker 1: stage and then bang, he was immediately shot. But apparently
40:51
Speaker 1: they started doing this a lot Bob had. You know,
40:53
Speaker 1: Bob had many many lives and could be killed over
40:55
Speaker 1: and over again assassinated. Um, So there was that. And
40:59
Speaker 1: then after Stay, judging from the documentary is is when
41:03
Speaker 1: it seemed to like kind of go bad and not
41:07
Speaker 1: go bad, and that everybody really started believing and it
41:10
Speaker 1: became this really scary thing. But it sort of lost
41:13
Speaker 1: its judge a little bit, and there were some people
41:17
Speaker 1: and I think one person specifically even went up to Staying.
41:22
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was the X Day. I
41:25
Speaker 1: think San Francisco, Okay, And um, he was, you know,
41:33
Speaker 1: obviously someone who needed some real help because he thought
41:35
Speaker 1: this was all real. Uh. Was was livid that it
41:39
Speaker 1: wasn't being taken seriously and that people were laughing. And
41:42
Speaker 1: that's when Staying was like man like, kind of this
41:46
Speaker 1: was bound to happen. But it also made him sad
41:49
Speaker 1: because I never wanted anything like this and that was
41:53
Speaker 1: the reason why. So like the documentary that was made
41:56
Speaker 1: by Sandy K. Boone Um, who was involved in few
42:00
Speaker 1: other pretty pretty great documentaries recently, including Tower, I don't
42:05
Speaker 1: think it's the Tower, just Tower, the one about the
42:08
Speaker 1: the Charles Whitman, the shooting at the University of Sections
42:11
Speaker 1: back in the sixties. Oh, it's amazing. So I remember
42:14
Speaker 1: Waking Life that that whole thing link Letter did with
42:17
Speaker 1: the animation. They did that for this documentary and it
42:20
Speaker 1: really like had a yes. So Um, she was involved
42:26
Speaker 1: in that as well, But she made this documentary apparently
42:28
Speaker 1: her late husband was like what a great adherent and
42:31
Speaker 1: in the trips of the SubGenius, and she made it
42:33
Speaker 1: also kind of as an ode to him as well. Um.
42:35
Speaker 1: But in it Stang in Filo break character and like
42:40
Speaker 1: they hadn't broken character for thirty something years, right, Like
42:45
Speaker 1: they've done interviews, Uh, they've like like print, TV radio,
42:49
Speaker 1: like they've done the radio show. They've like written tons
42:52
Speaker 1: of books. Um, they just don't break character. That's just
42:57
Speaker 1: part of their jam. And for this document or they did,
43:01
Speaker 1: and they said the reason why at least Stang said
43:03
Speaker 1: the reason why he did, um was because they're kind
43:07
Speaker 1: of getting on in years and he wants to make
43:09
Speaker 1: sure that it's perfectly clear before he dies that this
43:12
Speaker 1: is a joke and that everybody knows it was a
43:14
Speaker 1: joke and it's always been a joke, and there's like
43:17
Speaker 1: you need to take it as a joke so that
43:19
Speaker 1: it doesn't accidentally turn into something like scientology down the
43:22
Speaker 1: down the line. Yeah, he said, you watched it, right, Yeah. Yeah,
43:26
Speaker 1: I didn't watch it right before this. I saw it
43:28
Speaker 1: several months ago. Yeah, he said, Um. And this kind
43:32
Speaker 1: of sums it up in the way that it makes sense,
43:34
Speaker 1: but it doesn't. And this is in relation to that
43:37
Speaker 1: that guy who really came up to him and other
43:39
Speaker 1: people that really thought it was real. He said, we
43:41
Speaker 1: wanted we always wanted to trick people, but we didn't
43:44
Speaker 1: really want to trick people, right, Yes, that's what I'm saying.
43:47
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. They were fascinated by the fact
43:49
Speaker 1: that people could be tricked, yea, and they wanted to
43:51
Speaker 1: explore that and make fun of it, and they invited
43:54
Speaker 1: other people to explore it and make fun of it.
43:56
Speaker 1: But it wasn't too hurt anybody that they were They
44:00
Speaker 1: weren't actually trying to exploit anybody. Like the idea of
44:03
Speaker 1: having having you become a part of become a member,
44:07
Speaker 1: sending your dollar, become or dained buying all that sales
44:11
Speaker 1: stuff was to point out that that's what was going
44:14
Speaker 1: on in the real world, you know. Yeah, And this
44:17
Speaker 1: sort of came to a head um in the nineties
44:20
Speaker 1: when they it was just after Columbine. They had a
44:23
Speaker 1: live show planned in Boston and Papa Joe Mama, who
44:26
Speaker 1: was again there sort of scripted heel agent provocateur, got
44:31
Speaker 1: on a think of radio show and somehow reference Columbine.
44:36
Speaker 1: It was a little unclear. I think he blamed Columbine
44:39
Speaker 1: on the Church of the SubGenius. Was that what it was? Okay?
44:43
Speaker 1: Because I couldn't quite tell what the reference was, but
44:46
Speaker 1: it was clear that that was over the line for
44:48
Speaker 1: for both Philo and Staying, and the show was originally
44:52
Speaker 1: canceled by the theater, and then a real church, I
44:55
Speaker 1: think like an Episcopal church stepped up weirdly and said
44:59
Speaker 1: you can have it at our church, and then they
45:01
Speaker 1: got bomb threats and they said, well, now I guess
45:03
Speaker 1: we can't do that, and then I think they ended
45:05
Speaker 1: up having it in a like a public park or something.
45:09
Speaker 1: But that was sort of like where it. You know,
45:12
Speaker 1: the nineties weren't too kind to the not just like
45:16
Speaker 1: the numbers, but you know, once the Internet was born,
45:19
Speaker 1: and that was like really when the consumer culture and
45:22
Speaker 1: the Internet boom happened for real, it was just so
45:24
Speaker 1: antithetical to the Church of the SubGenius. It seemed to
45:28
Speaker 1: kind of fade away um until later on when the
45:32
Speaker 1: Internet kind of helped revive it again. So my take
45:35
Speaker 1: is that the the what really kind of let it
45:38
Speaker 1: down hill, not to say that there's like like not
45:43
Speaker 1: to say that it's it went downhill on its own
45:45
Speaker 1: like that just just the world changed, yeah, and there
45:49
Speaker 1: was there like the world became the parody. Not it
45:54
Speaker 1: wasn't like straight any longer it was just a joke,
45:58
Speaker 1: but that was real life out So you can't satirize
46:02
Speaker 1: something that is the satire that you're coming up with.
46:04
Speaker 1: There's just no way to do it. No, that's absolutely right,
46:08
Speaker 1: and that's you know, America change quite a bit in
46:10
Speaker 1: the last like twenty years, and that the like what
46:14
Speaker 1: do you like how you just can't You can't satirize
46:17
Speaker 1: something when it becomes this weird version of itself that
46:21
Speaker 1: you were using before it encroached on your turf kind
46:24
Speaker 1: of thing, you know. Yeah, and then the last like
46:28
Speaker 1: ten minutes of the documentary sort of focus on the
46:31
Speaker 1: Trump administration and these fringe groups that started online there
46:34
Speaker 1: saying this crazy made up stuff, and uh that really
46:39
Speaker 1: puts a hurting, like you said, on something like the
46:42
Speaker 1: Church of the SubGenius Um as far as being and
46:45
Speaker 1: their their numbers were never huge, but uh, I get
46:48
Speaker 1: the idea from watching it that's staying still has people
46:52
Speaker 1: that right in that still send him some money. He
46:54
Speaker 1: told one funny joke about getting a payment upon receipt
46:59
Speaker 1: envelope that like he had to pay two dollars to
47:01
Speaker 1: even open this thing, and he was all perturbed about that,
47:04
Speaker 1: and there was a thousand dollars in cash, and he
47:08
Speaker 1: took half of it and immediately took it to a
47:10
Speaker 1: sick friend. Like that's the kind of guy he is.
47:12
Speaker 1: So that's cool. Yeah, he struck me as that as well.
47:14
Speaker 1: But he's still you know, paying his mortgage stuff and envelopes.
47:18
Speaker 1: Well yeah, because I think like if you go back
47:20
Speaker 1: and you read the original books and you know, even
47:23
Speaker 1: still I was reading like the wikia that explained all
47:26
Speaker 1: of the different stuff, um is hilarious and like totally
47:30
Speaker 1: worthwhile and still applies today. Um. Like it's like in
47:34
Speaker 1: a in a certain way, it's timeless even though it
47:36
Speaker 1: screams Reagan era, you know, but the the it's still
47:41
Speaker 1: it still makes sense because we still have like a
47:43
Speaker 1: consumer driven culture that is that has a lot to
47:47
Speaker 1: do with gender norms and conformity and um, exploiting people
47:52
Speaker 1: for their labor. Um, Like all that stuff is still
47:56
Speaker 1: going on. So the original stuff still still stands and
47:59
Speaker 1: still holds. Yeah, and they you know, Mark Mothers bab
48:03
Speaker 1: of Divo and um, I can't remember the other guy's name,
48:05
Speaker 1: and Divo, they were way into it. Pin Gillette, Nick Offerman,
48:09
Speaker 1: Richard link Ladder, Paul Rubens pee Wee Herman's playhouse had
48:12
Speaker 1: a Bob Dobbs on his big wall collage. These were
48:16
Speaker 1: all people that were attracted to it. It was a
48:17
Speaker 1: lot of dudes, of course, But they do interview a
48:21
Speaker 1: few of the women in the original group that said, like,
48:23
Speaker 1: we were outcasts and we wanted to meet these weirdo
48:26
Speaker 1: guys and this is where we did it. Like we
48:28
Speaker 1: went there because it was mostly guys and you know
48:31
Speaker 1: when we could meet these these dudes, but it was
48:35
Speaker 1: very male oriented, and um, I don't know, I just
48:38
Speaker 1: like I said, I never I always had fun reading
48:41
Speaker 1: about it and hearing about it, but never wanted to
48:44
Speaker 1: get too involved just because I too much of a pink.
48:47
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, yes, it is a lot of fun
48:50
Speaker 1: to read about, for sure. Like there's a lot of
48:52
Speaker 1: stuff out there on the internet to read, um, and
48:56
Speaker 1: this is like it I encourage. Yeah, there's there. It's huge.
48:59
Speaker 1: It's an enormous, huge rambling um. Like what do you
49:04
Speaker 1: call a group of beliefs in scripture and doctrine mythos?
49:09
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, cannon, that's what I was looking for.
49:13
Speaker 1: There's a huge, extensive cannon and it's a lot of
49:16
Speaker 1: fun especially the older stuff. Some of the newer stuff
49:19
Speaker 1: is not that funny because it's and I mean new,
49:22
Speaker 1: I mean like mid two thousand's, the mid aughts kind
49:25
Speaker 1: of stuff started to really lose its sense of humor.
49:27
Speaker 1: Some people lost their sense of humor and got real
49:30
Speaker 1: serious about it. The eighties and nineties stuff is hilarious. Um.
49:36
Speaker 1: I strongly recommend going to read. Uh an Explanation of
49:40
Speaker 1: the Male to Female Discrepancy in the Church of the
49:43
Speaker 1: SubGenius by Reverend Nancy Regalia. Um. And yeah, well, I
49:50
Speaker 1: don't think that was in the book. That was just
49:52
Speaker 1: supplemental stuff. It was an essay explaining it. But it
49:55
Speaker 1: also is more like a kind of a call to
49:57
Speaker 1: arms for those girls who never felt like We're always
50:01
Speaker 1: recognized that they were kind of being forced into certain
50:04
Speaker 1: gender roles and did never feel good about it. Um.
50:08
Speaker 1: She she had it quote, it's it's not enough to
50:10
Speaker 1: simply burn your brawls. Why stop there burn a few
50:12
Speaker 1: bridal boutiques in city Hall while you're at it. It's
50:16
Speaker 1: just it's good. It's a good essay for sure, totally
50:19
Speaker 1: worth reading. So, yeah, there's a lot more to say
50:23
Speaker 1: about the Church of the sub genius. But we'll just
50:25
Speaker 1: leave it to you. I feel like we should just
50:27
Speaker 1: part with it's a joke. It is a joke. Ultimately,
50:31
Speaker 1: it's a joke, and take it as that. Okay, and
50:36
Speaker 1: you got that down. You've got some YETI and you
50:38
Speaker 1: pink boy maybe? Uh? And since I called Chuck a
50:41
Speaker 1: pink boy, it's time for a listener mail. Uh. Keeping
50:46
Speaker 1: it short and sweet. Here with a quick correction from
50:50
Speaker 1: a new listener. Hi, guys, I'm a very new listener
50:53
Speaker 1: and I love what I've heard so far. However, just
50:56
Speaker 1: three episodes in about the Magna Carta, one of you,
50:59
Speaker 1: off handed suggested that William the Conqueror was a beloved
51:02
Speaker 1: English king because the annexed Normandy after the Battle of Hastings.
51:05
Speaker 1: That's pretty much backwards, guys. He was a Norman king
51:08
Speaker 1: who conquered England at that battle. Williams story would make
51:11
Speaker 1: a great episode. That is from Scott scatter Good in
51:15
Speaker 1: su on the Korea. Well, Scott, since you're new, you
51:18
Speaker 1: obviously don't know that most of the viewpoint that we
51:22
Speaker 1: give on stuff you should know is from the Vikings viewpoint.
51:27
Speaker 1: So we had it right, Okay, good? Uh, Scott, scatter Good.
51:31
Speaker 1: What a great name, right? Yeah? What happens if you
51:34
Speaker 1: scramble Scott around? Scatters Good? Uh? If you want to
51:39
Speaker 1: get in touch with this like Scott did, you can
51:41
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart radio
51:45
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