JOURNAL: 20081115: SubGenius Baltimore Devival #2 / 2008 SubGenius Balitmore Devival

Clint w/candy fangs, then giving SubGenius salute

EIEIEIEIEIIEIE!

So yes — we went to another SubGenius event. The Baltimore Devival #2. This time, we actually got a friend to join us: Tabbitha! I’ve always considered her the most latent SubGenius out of all of my friends anyway. (I’d say John The Canadien too, but he’s already found “Bob”!)  I wore my psychedelic / optical illusion shirt, pimp hat, green sparkling smoking jacket, and camouflage pants. Almost wore a space-themed tie, but decided against it, despite the cold, by assuming the venue would be too hot for a tie to be comfortable, and too dark for space tie to be visible.

refrigerator podium – to be used for preaching later

We got off to a late start due to generally being punk-ass slowpokes. Baltimore is a long way away; over an hour’s drive. And poor Tabbitha had to drive to our place in addition to that. Then there was the whole detour on the way back to pick up my car, but I’ll talk about that later. We managed to blaze in town just around the opening time, so technically we were 15 minutes or so late. There was one good sign pointing out that we were in the correct place: A huge projected Dobbshead, obscuring a woman’s health advertisement. It was a sign from “Bob”:

projected Dobbshead (by flickr user RadioFreeMountairy)

The parking itself was really weird. You basically had to park in a lot that said you’d be towed if you parked there. But it was pretty much empty. And this seemed like a quiet neighborhood. Not a good neighborhood; but a quiet one. Not so busy that tow trucks were on the prowl.  And since Baltimore is a city full of douchebags (I got a ticket for not feeding a meter at 11:30PM on a Saturday fucking nite!), we weren’t sure if we could park there. We finally drove away, circled around, and came back a second time when we realized there was no where else to park.

The Motor Morons – a power tools band

Dammit Janet and Tangent were asking us — “Have you seen a power tools band before?” … I really was totally clueless when they asked that. I finally learned the meaning of “power tools band”, and it was quite literal. And the great thing is, since SubGeniuses hate rules… You could walk right into the sparks if you so chose. And that’s what I did (almost)… I eventually wound up right next to the “sparks girl”, where I could get a good vantage of the carnage. At one point, she lost her spark thingies (they flew forward from the force of the power tools), and pulled these aluminum squares from her pockets to spark up in an emergency!

The Motor Morons -  side view

Anyway, here’s some crappy (because my camera sucks) video of them playing:

(Yes, it’s 2 copies of the same video, one on flickr, one on youtube, just in case the other goes down.)

Anyway, beer was a consideration for us. The first Baltimore SubGenius Devival occurred in a church, which obviously did not have a liquor license. Tons of people were drinking (and thus huge lines for the bathrooms), but they all had the foresight to bring their own. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of last year, we bought beer on the way — part of why we were late. We also enquired about the beer when we arrived. Princess Pisces was outside, and I asked her, and apparently it was a donation to get beer — like at Art-O-Matic. Except without fixed prices. (I always wondered how ArtOMatic could “cheat” this by “suggesting” a specific “donation”.)

And what is the most slackful donation to make? $1. This seemed to be fine with everyone. We drank a shitload for $1.

Tabbitha & Carolyn

The place it was at – Load Of Fun – was a very strange warehousey kind of venue. Not much of it was properly maintained. There were 3 bathrooms, but one did not have a working sink:

The Worst Sink In All Of Scotland

There was a lot of graffiti in various places as well:

charming

I of course decided to explore. There was no security in any form whatsoever, other than various locked doors upstairs. I managed to explore every nook and crannie that could be explored without picking a lock. And there was some neat stuff… like… Stairs?!?!?!?!:

yes, stairs

There was all kinds of weird things up there… Including a dilapidated cart that really did not look safe to move any amount of actual weight on….

Once I got 2 floors above the main level, things got even more sketchy. The light was pretty much just the city light that came through the windows. There was a long narrow hallway and things were in such bad condition that I walked slowly to ensure boards didn’t break beneath my feet. Eventually I wasdeposited me into this strange area with caged books. I found it very odd, as well as a seemingly accidental social commentary on free speech in America:

free thinking has no place in modern america

keep the children safe

I also found a rogue “OH!”, this time not placed there by me:

OH!

The various bands (Motor Morons, Fat Free, Amino Acids) played, with various preachers (Rev. Ivan Stang, Princess Pisces, Rev. Carter LeBlanc) preaching in between:

Stang speaks!

Eventually, Susie The Floozy passed out candy fangs. These were arguably cooler than the candy eyeballs we got last year:

Tabbitha – fangs, \m/, Carolyn

We of course ran into several of the friends we made at X-Day, including 808 and Christie (with the Gashlycrumb Tinies tattoo). They may be at Assateague this year. The Asian chick in the background might be the subject of the “scrambled naked girl” artwork that I took back from this devival and put up on my wall. I’ll have to ask Reggie Zus.

Carolyn, 808, Christie

Eventually, Tabbitha had to explore the 2nd floor as well, since 2 of the bathrooms were on the “1.5th floor” (kind of a half-floor between 1st and 2nd floor), and most SubGenii are way too fond of slack to go up an additional flight of stairs without konwing for sure there is a bathroom. Anyway, it wasn’t long before she found a sign to disobey:

Even latent SubGenii are possessed with an urge to break any and all rules.

Finally we went out for a smoke break in the alley behind the venue, and checked out some of the cool graffiti:

“There!”

It got cold, so we went back in and resumed watching the bands / preaching:

watching bands

Stang’s jacket reminded me of my own, only silver instead of green:

Stang’s shiny smoking jacket

Stang preaching

Carter LeBlanc preaching

The last band to play is always the Amino Acids. They pulled Carolyn and some other females onto the stage…

Yes, that’s a theramin.

(some stage pics by flickr user RadioFreeMountairy.)

Stang – preaching (by flickr user RadioFreeMountairy.)

And of course… There was this guy. Note the bubbles. I didn’t take it, but this is a VERY strange picture:

weird guy, bubbles

(by flickr user RadioFreeMountairy.)

Anyway… A good time was had by all. We got to experience preaching, music, intoxication, unique people, as well as reconnecting with some of the cool people we had met at X-Day this year. Plus, Reggie Zus let me take home a piece of art that he had on display there. He said he printed it for free at school, so why not give it away for free? I don’t have a proper picture of it, but you can see it in the top of this picture, behind our cats playing with bubbles:

ANYWAY…. WE SHALL RETURN NEXT YEAR!

PRIASE “BOB”!

OFFICIAL PICTURES & VIDEO FROM DEVIVAL: www.subgenius.com/bigfist/fun/devivals/Baltimore_2008/

FULL DEVIVAL AUDIO: www.radio4all.net/index.php/series/Church+of+the+SubGeniu…

To view all my pictures (basically the same pictures as this posting) on flickr (in case you want to individually comment), go to my SubGeniusDevival20081115 tag on flickr.

(and yes, this write-up is several months late)