JOURNAL: X-Day, Day #4 & 5 (7/5-6/2008)

My Parody Religion Is Better Than Your Parody Religion … or: How I Survived X-Day XI [2008]
Days Four and Five

DAY FOUR: X-DAY

OH SHIT!! WE MISSED THE END OF THE WORLD!!! Attending The Rupture is sort of the point of going to X-Day! And it happens at 7AM on 7/5/1998. (But when is 1998? Obviously our current calendars are wrong.) And we didn’t get up until past 9… DAMN!

We remember the sound of Modemac’s bullhorn telling us it was 6:50AM, and that the Rupture was in 10 minutes. The Xists are coming, the Xists are coming!

Carolyn tried to rouse me — but in my extreme hangover state, I wanted nothing to do with it. And Carolyn wasn’t going to try very hard herself. So we missed the end of the world and went back to sleep. This happens a lot — The Xists are supposed to come at 7AM, and it’s quite hard for Subgenii to be AWAKE during such an odd hour. So we sort of missed the whole “point” of going there. But then again, so did the majority of people there. And then again, nobody truly missed the point of going there, did they?

Clint hung over, with leftover zombie make-up

When I did wake up, I woke up to the most Bobawful horrible taste in my mouth ever. Did I take jenkem? Hell no! It was that godawful absinthe at the zombie not-a-rave! The taste was STILLLL not out of my mouth! WTF?!?!?!

[Later, after eating, we went back to the camp area of the people we hung out with the previous night - Gypsy Prime & James, Tangent & his girlfriend, Rev. Panik, and Reggie Zus. Tangent said I was freaking him out, and it turned out I still had zombie makeup on. He said it disturbed him because he thought I was injured. Thus, I decided not to wash it off my face. It was naturally gone after another 24 hours.]

dead lighter shrine – we were told about this, an wanted to check it out

It was around then that we realized there was a food stand that was actually open during breakfast, lunch, and dinner — and that we could have a much better breakfast than a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. For $5, you get a plate with scrambled eggs, home fries, bacon, sausage, and pancakes. NOM NOM NOM.

We split this, and the absinthe taste was finally gone after the breakfast and some orange juice. Thank Bob! We ate the exact same breakfast, sans $2 O.J., the following day before leaving.

dead lighter shrine – close-up

The guy at the food stand talked about the cop that drove in to check things out. I asked him, “Isn’t this private property? Don’t they need a warrant?” He explained that Brushwood is one of the last bastions of freedom in the country, and that The Conspiracy (“The Man”) can basically shut it down whenever it wants. Which is messed up, since it’s private property and people should be able to do whatever the fuck they want in the land of the goddamned free.

So they make sure to have a healthy relationship with local law enforcement.

dragon tapestry @ [pagan?] seasonal campsite

The food stand guy also said that there’s at least 1 undercover FBI agent at every X-Day, since the whole “flying saucer cult” issue kind of grabs their attention after the Heaven’s Gate cult mass suicide in 1997. Despite this oppression, no activities of any sort seemed to actually be oppressed.

And there were a lot of activities going on that could have been oppressed.

pagan garden @ semi-permanent campsite

We then decided to check out Chas/Legume’s campsite, where the Zombie Not-A-Rave was previously held.

the famed bondage cross of anal glowstick yore

Oh look! A chipmunk!!:

chipmunk promptly ran under the stage

I’m not sure how I missed this guy the other night. He has a seroius case of wood:

weird thing

The “watchtower” that was mentioned yesterday:

Carolyn by the watchtower

And the X-Day 2008 shrine outside of the campsite:

skull shrine

At some point, we heard an interesting tidbit — that during the Baltimore Devival (which we attended, and will attend again on 11/1/2009), we had missed the opening ceremony/rant/sermon. It consisted of a SubGenius Reverend opening up his notes, and simply repeating the word “Fuck!” for 6 minutes or so.

Of course, he stopped saying it when he had to turn the page to read the next page of “fuck”. The anarchists that owned St. John’s Church in Baltimore, where the devival was held, apparently got a kick out of this.

We also got some new neighbors (you can see our truck and cooler behind the alien):

‘Like a homesick abortion…’

Modemac was on his bullhorn, telling people to get ready for the next event. The people in our group (which was the closets to the pavilion – about 200 ft away) were like, “Yea, we’re supposed to go over there.. But… It’s uphill! No way.”

When we finally got the gumption to go ourselves, we noticed that it was actually downhill.

A SubGenius must have SLACK — sometimes to the extent of seeing downhill as being uphill because you’d rather stay put.

With 200 in attendance, there were rarely more than 15-25 at any pavilion event. Slackers! We played a new rummy game for a whopping 2 hands. Carolyn beat me again, 265 to 130. As usual.

“Bob” mousepad at the swag shack — see the 2 girls making out?

They held another Bulldata Auction, but we had more fun reading the “Slack Is:” poster:

‘Slack is…’

There was a “Dress As A Song” ball in the pavilion, but we were too busy talking and drinking to make it out. Kate dressed for “Hot For Teacher”. Tangent dressed like an Arab, and some random person gave him the book “The World According To Al Queda”. Cuzbuggery’s girlfriend wore a Star Trek outfit, and also said she had made superior ones to the one she was currently wearing:

costumes

Meanwhile, Carolyn got teabagged by two huge testicles!

Carolyn gets teabagged

And of course, the “Why NOT A Goat?” goat was more complete than ever, now with fur legs and ears:

“Why NOT a goat?”

As mentioned before, this goat is a tribute to Mary Magdelen’s legal problems — she lost custody of her child for attending SubGenius events, but the judge eventually had to recuse himself after BoingBoing brought attention to his obvious religious leanings, abusive conduct, and failure to separate his religious views from his professional conduct.

people watching preaching / Hour Of Slack / Bulldada auction

Susie The Floozie’s rather revealing costume

OH!:

“OH!”

The day went on, and near dusk there was a funeral procession of sorts. I don’t know what that was about, but in retrospect, perhaps it was for Professor Chas. it wasn’t too serious.

They then had fireworks. There were a whopping THREE fireworks launched; 2 visible within this 30 second video:

Fireworks (30s)

At first I thought, “This is the least fireworks I’ve ever seen on a July 4th!”

Later I realized it was July 5th.

Night came we stopped at another campsite to talk to some people we hadn’t really talked with since Wednesday night – Nick Perry aka Rev. Madlib (my name for him, because he answered where he was from and who he was different everytime you talked to him) and Phil of the band Mike Bison, and Rev. Aerosmith and Amber.

Aerosmith, Phil + Aerosmith, Amber

So anyway, we’re at their campsite, hearing their stories about all the train-hopping they do to get from place to place. We heard separately from two people that one of their friends was drunk and doing this, and they were fucking around, and oops! She got her leg sheared off by a train. No more leg for her. Um, wow. That really, really, really sucks. One of the guys, Rev. Aerosmith, was going on and on in his drunkenness. They asked him “are you in storyteller mode now?” and he was like, “Yes! Give me a topic!”

So I said macroeconomics. He went on for a good 5 minutes. At least. And managed to corrupt the word “macroeconomics” more and more each time he said it. Things that barely made sense, and then — “that’s necronomics”. “That’s anonomonics.” etc. etc. Everyone was laughing their ass off; his intoxication was particularly entertaining.

He also went on a crazy tirade about slugs, and how they don’t do anything… They only eat tarps.. And they just “slug around”. You had to be there, but Carolyn is still laughing about it today. I did manage to get him to reprise his performance 30 minutes later on video, but of course nothing beats the original rant:

slug rant reprise (30s)

Right after the slug peformance reprise, we walked out of the Four Flushers, and Carolyn said, “Clint! Something is glowing in the sky!”

I looked up and indeed saw a fireball much larger than the sun and kind of freaked out for a half-second. Which I’m sure was the intended effect. You know those Chinese paper lanterns that they put in the water? This was sky version of those.

They were literally launching their campfire into the sky! I started singing “Fire In The Sky” by Ozzy Osbourne from the No Rest For The Wicked album out loud. It was amazing, and we watched it until it became fainter than the stars. What happens with the fire later? Who knows. Is this safe? Probably not, but I think the fire would probably go out before the balloon goes down, since the fire is what causes the balloon to go up. All I know is that this needs to be done again sometime! In a highly populated area. With lots of gas stations.

We then went to the main pavilian and checked out the Amino Acids show. It was short, but fun and completely packed. View video of the show HERE (Google Video).

The Amino Acids

Inflatable aliens were thrown among the crowd.

inflatable alien in mid-air

The hot blonde Allison from the Zombie Not-A-Rave rode the “Why NOT A Goat?” goat that Susie The Floosie made:

ride ‘em cowgirl!

I couldn’t hear the theramin as much as I wanted to, but in recordings of the show it sounds louder.

Amino Acids excerpt (30s)

This seemed to be the largest actual gathering of everyone during the entire weekend – including the Rupture, which we totally missed.

Amino Acids go into the crowd a lot … I do believe we have figured out one of their secret identities

There was a circle of people dancing, and we heard at least 2 songs that were also covered by Agent Orange. Surf instrumental type songs. But with a theramin, and possibly some samples.

Amino Acids playing

Amino Acids playing – Allison hugs Pisces

We also noticed that someone had shoved a toy plastic pipe into the “Why NOT A Goat?” goat’s vagina. Neat.:

even real goat vaginas can’t smoke a fake pipe

Finally, it was announced that the great bonfire would be had. The previous day I had been lured to the roundhouse by the beautiful sound of blowtorches, which they were using to light the logs. But tonite’s fire was “traditional” – no blowtorches.

Tron-esque costume seen at funeral procession and bonfire

The logs were probably too heavy for me to even lift, and were eventually stacked a good 4-5 feet high. Brushwood apparently has the largest bonfires in New York. Somethin’ like that. When the fire really got going, we had to scoot our chairs back. About 5 times.

preparing for the bonfire

They burned the wooden SubGenius symbol, and it leaned as it burned. This caused Rev. Ivan Stang to go on in a speech about how Bob is leaning, and what this means. A couple attempts were made to correct the wood, but it just kept leaning. Eventually, a piece broke off — flying, flaming, and spinning through the air right towards a dense pack of Subgenii watching it burn. Everyone managed to get out of the way, despite the alcohol in their bloodstreams. It was possibly the most fire violence I’ve ever seen directed at people:

burning of the SubGenius symbol

Some topless pagan women joined the crowd and stood near us. It was kind of weird turning my head and seeing nipple 2 feet away.

The 1-inch plastic aliens with real parachutes are something that follows along with the Amino Acids and with Fat Free, one of the other bands (who camped next to our site). They’re everywhere at SubGenius events. We have some in our house. Cats tend to love playing with the parachutes, once they are open. But with a bonfire, hundreds of these met their speedy deaths. Everyone would open up the parachute, and throw the alien into the bonfire. Usually the parachute would instantlly dissolve from the heat — before even getting over the fire. But out of 100+ attempts, about 5-8 of them (including one I threw) managed to catch the campfire heat and levitate for 30, 60, even 90 seconds. That was really cool! One guy even got the same one to levitate 3 times. It was the alien that wouldn’t die.

throwing aliens with parachutes into the bonfire

They launched 2 more airborne paper lanterns, putting even more fire in the sky. Attempting to photograph these things really couldn’t capture the amazingness of LAUNCHING FIRE. It seemed both incredibly destructive, and incredibly beautiful at the same time. I’d still launch 1000 if I could. They were amazing. Fuck the forest; it can burn for my amusement. (But it never did, and never has, in all the years I assume they’ve been doing this…)

launching fire into the sky

So between the parachuting aliens, and the launching fire into the sky — we did indeed see aliens and UFOs this weekend, as predicted.

We also saw a certain hot “Whateva’, man” blonde got naked and dance around the bonfire for a good 20 minutes. She had a stripper-quality body that was much appreciated by… well, everyone else that was there. When this was over, we called it a night and went to bed at 12:30AM — about the earliest we’ve gone to bed on a Saturday in 2008. It’s ironic that 2 of the 4 nights we slept there, we went to bed earlier than just about any other night of the year.

But we were WORN from it all, and are approaching our mid-30s. Even everyone else seemed to have a much lower energy level than on Thursday or Friday nights. So that was that. It was a bit upsetting, knowing that people were still up and having fun. But WE WERE TIRED. It had been non-stop partying for 4 and a half days, from 9AM to after midnight every day.

DAY FIVE

Sunday was simple. We woke up. We at the $5 breakfast again. We talked with Gypsy Prime & James, Tangent & his girlfriend, Rev. Panik, Reggie Zus for awhile … All the people we’d had the most conversation with out of the entire time. We walked around and said goodbye to whoever was awake and around. Some real annoying-but-friendly Canadien guy who was apparently not a Subgenius bummed a beer off us, gave us a smoke, and talked our ears off as we tried to pack and leave, complaining that some people there didn’t really like him. We weren’t sure why he was there if he was not a SubGenius, or what the deal was. He kept trying to offer me more beer, and I kept turning it down, as I was going to take first shift driving. But he didn’t seem to remember that I’d turned him down and re-offered every 30 seconds.

Versificators played after we left (pic by Scalpod)

We drove back out — around the bend. The sign that said, “once you around the bend, you’ll never be the same” was quite true. We stopped at registration and got $20 back from Brushwood — because we had accidentally overpaid by a night. How trusting that they give cash back for overcharging on a credit card; we’re not used to that.

Legume & Allison
from SubGenius.com

We made our way home, but it took about 30 minutes longer than the ride up, taking a total of 7 hours. It was only 5PM or so by the time we got back home, so we got to have a chill evening recovering. We didn’t have to go straight to bed, which was nice.

CONCLUSION

All in all: Good times! Crazy, unique, like-minded people. We survived. And we didn’t even take full advantage of everything — who knows what other craziness went on in the woods. Brushwood is truly an amazing place to camp, and despite the long drive … We’d both like to go there again. There was much we didn’t see, and much we didn’t explore.

Friends, I invite you to get ordained for $30, so that the possibility exists that you may attend such an event in the future. We have never driven so far in our life, and found the drive to be worth it. This is definitely something some of our weirdo, slacker, and latent-SubGenii friends could enjoy.

THE END

Praise “Bob”!

READ ABOUT DAY THREE HERE….

See also: Doktor Holocaust’s X-Day reviews: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4. And the official reports from SubGenius.com. Modemac’s X-Day report. Ivan Stang’s response to Modemac’s report (a good write-up). Official compendium of X-Day pics. Compilation of other people’s text-only post-X-Day reports.

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• JOURNAL: X-Day, Day #2 (7/3/2008)
• RELIGION: Praise “Bob!” The Church Of The SubGenius!
• I’ve changed my mind. You SHOULD be able to yell FIRE in a crowded theater.
• Fire the Grid