Saturday with Robben

[Gravity Jim]

I'm in the resort town of Ojai, CA. Today I and about 20 other players are spending the day sitting at the feet of the master Robben Ford, my favorite guitar player and ShoDurPerSav (a term from the Church of The Subgenius... It means "Short Duration Personal Savior").

Class starts in 30 minutes. Whoohoo!

[mikehalloran]

Nice! There are a. Couple of clubs in the Santa Cruz area where I go to him. He makes my list.

[Shooshie]

I'm in the resort town of Ojai, CA. Today I and about 20 other players are spending the day sitting at the feet of the master Robben Ford, my favorite guitar player and ShoDurPerSav (a term from the Church of The Subgenius... It means "Short Duration Personal Savior").

Class starts in 30 minutes. Whoohoo!

Ha! The founder of the Church of Subgenus, Ivan Stang, a.k.a Doug Smith, lived near me. His wife was my daughter's 2nd grade teacher. (and a nice lady!) I used to see him at school functions on occasion. The first time I asked him what he did, he said, "I'm a writer." I was writing professionally at the time, so I pushed the conversation further in that direction. He acted a little uneasy, then finally said something like "it's hard to describe what I write." I said "try me." He said he was the ghostwriter for an imaginary character, "Bob Dobbs." Then he said he had founded a cult.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Of course I was completely familiar with the Church of Subgenius. This was about 1995, and they had been one of the first internet websites. Smith's online and offline presences composed a study in paradoxes, incongruities, and oxymorons. Among his followers, he was literally a cult figure. I say that when you can command crowds of ladies to get naked and play games outdoors, pretending to idolize you as a cult figure, you're actually a cult figure. Then Mrs. Smith would show up with cookies. Well, anyone who knows the Church of Subgenius would expect nothing less.

Glad that there is a musical icon from the group who stirs you. That's one thing the Subgenius guys always did very well: provide excellent music and musicians at their gatherings.

Long live Bob Dobbs/Ivan Stang/Doug Smith!

Shoosh

[Gravity Jim]

Give me Slack or kill me!

I came to the Church through the backdoor, having read Doug Smith's High Weirdness By Mail, a crazed chronicle of batshit ideas you could get for just one dollar or a SASE. The research for this book led to The Church, which led in turn to some people taking it all a bit too seriously, which led to The Reverend Stang's exodus to another city.

I doubt that Robben Ford knows the Word of "Bob," but he's my ShorDurPerSav anyway.

"Yes, The Church is a joke. But it's the joke you can believe in."

[cuttime]

having read Doug Smith's High Weirdness By Mail, a crazed chronicle of batshit ideas you could get for just one dollar or a SASE.

That book got me in trouble many years ago. I heeded the warnings given in the book's forward, yet one day I started getting past due notices for a company I never heard of in my mail. Demands for thousands of dollars coming to my address for no apparent reason. This continued for about a week until Postal Inspectors (i.e. Federal Agents!) showed up on my doorstep with guns and badges demanding that I show identification and grilling me on why I had skipped town with so many debts left unpaid. I told them that I never heard of the company in question, but they weren't really satisfied with that answer. I said that the company probably just picked a random address out of the phone book. This back and forth went on for about twenty minutes and I think they were slowly coming to the conclusion that I was relatively harmless, but they were really A-holes about it and demanded that I keep in touch with them if I got any more mail like that. This continued for about a week before they finally blew me off. I could never prove the link with the "high weirdness", but the timing was just too close for it to be a coincidence. Of course these days the atmosphere is much more serious, and I'm not so sure that I would have gotten off so easily. Also the nut jobs have moved on to the Internet by now and most of them probably couldn't even pay the postage fees any more.

[Gravity Jim]

This is Robben playing my SG before the clinic got underway. We were chatting about it, and he asked enough questions that I handed it to him. He really liked it!