27 November 2018

IT WAS ALL HIS IDEA!

[note: most of this will only make sense if you were or are a member of the Church of the SubGenius]

[second note: this is a long post, so pop a squat and settle in]

Bear with me. I’m two margaritas and three tacos into the evening and I’ve been blessed with the news that Legume has died. Again? Again. I suppose this time it’s for real, but who can really be sure of that? That old bastard has died at least once. Maybe even twice. Do you remember when his heart tried to explode out of his fucking chest? They had to do 5 (five!!!!) bypasses to keep that thing inside him. I really thought after surviving that, ‘Gume would live forever.

I say I’ve been blessed with the news, because I don’t think I can honestly say I was hit with it. We all knew this was coming. It was only a matter of time. He had it coming. And other such platitudes when you hear someone you know is about to bite the big one. Anyway, I was on my way home from getting pleasantly buzzed when I looked at Facebook and everyone is posting about Legume dying. The news fell upon my tequila-addled head like a feather. “Oh, that old fuck finally cacked it? Well, we’ll just see about that,” I said to no one in particular.

But I guess this time it’s real. No putting a sheet over his head AT HIS OWN FUNERAL and wandering around going “oooooo.” Which would be funny at least twice, I think. But not more than that, then it’s just predictable.

Let’s roll back a few years. I don’t know how many anymore. A long time. I don’t even remember how I found the Church of the SubGenius. I guess like most people, I fell into a hole on the internet and landed in an irc (that’s internet relay chat for you youths [please google it]) room with a bunch of fucking weirdos. I didn’t mean to do anything but observe, and yet, Legume found me. I think there was probably some kind of inappropriate side conversations at first. But then The Idea was hatched: Stang was about to host one of his online SubG classes and how funny would it be if we tried to prank him? I was game – it felt like being handed a Golden Ticket to the chocolate factory. So I said, “yeah, ok, Legume. What are you thinking?”

“What if,” he said, “you pass yourself off as my long-lost kid?”

“That’s great! I can sell that. No problem. It has to be just vague enough for people to buy it.”

“Sure. What color are your eyes again?”

And wouldn’t you know it – it worked. I still don’t know, when I talk to fellow SubG’s and former SubG’s, if they know that I am NOT the long-lost love-child of Dr. K’taden Legume and my poor mother. But we sure fooled Stang. And we apparently fooled enough people to get me connected with some of the best and the brightest oddballs in the Church right out of the gate. That first X-Day was great. I went for a motorcycle ride with ‘Gume to buy booze and snacks, and it was amazing, being on the open road out in the New York wilderness with this giant bear of a guy. The original plan was to blow the cover by making out with each other in front of everyone during one of the shows at the Brushwood pavilion, but it turns out we respected each other too much, and Stang was SO CONVINCED that we were related, we thought it might blow his remaining nut clean off his body. So in the sake of keeping Stang mostly intact, we decided to see how long we could keep the ruse going.

It turns out – there are still people today, ten (fifteen?) years later, who think we are related. A very kind and wonderful SubG, whom I will leave anonymous here, sent me a message a short while back to let me know that my father was dying. I looked at that message for a long-ass time before deciding to tell him that Legume was not my father and that I hadn’t been in contact with him for quite a while, but I appreciated the news and hoped for the best. The response was great: “Whaaaaaat??? It was a prank? Wow. That was GOOD. Best prank ever on me. Longest running and most believable.” I couldn’t help feeling a little proud despite the sad news about my dying “father.”

At this point, I have to thank Rev. Bunny Day for keeping the secret as long as she did. She and I went to NYC several years ago, and when she dropped me off at my house and saw my real dad, I could tell that she knew whose progeny I actually was because I am the spitting image of him. I figured I was busted, but it seems she didn’t tell anyone.

Or maybe she did?!? I don’t know. No one ever said anything to me about it. I think that’s why the prank went on for so long: people just accepted at some level that I was the Seed of Legume and then we never talked about it again. Over the years, I lost contact with him, and then I never bothered to reach out, because I’d fallen away from the Church for reasons I don’t feel the need to talk about. For as much as I hate this phrase, it just is what it is.

I don’t regret my time of being balls-deep in it. And really, I have one person to thank for the time I was involved with the SubG’s, for all the weird and wonderful friends I made, and for the things I learned along the way – both good and bad. I’ll always remember him as My Favorite Ass Hole, even when I couldn’t stand him anymore.

Go fuck yourself, Ken Narouski.

Love and kisses, your daughter, Rev. Anna Dynamite