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I'M IN A TEXAS UFO
SEX-DEATH CULT -- AND I VOTE!
An Interview with Rev.
Ivan Stang of the Church of the SubGenius
By Bob Ignizio
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The world is changing faster than ever today, yet most religions remain rooted in beliefs that
date back centuries. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with that for many people, there
are others who feel the need for a more contemporary ideology. Enter the Church of the
SubGenius, often described as being either a clever joke disguised as a religion, or a religion
disguised as a clever joke. One of the primary shapers of SubGenius theology is the Reverend
Ivan Stang. Stang’s ministry started in Texas, but he now resides in a suburb of Cleveland,
Ohio. “The best looking, best cooking girl in the world lives here,” says Stang. “Eventually I
will probably steal her away to Texas.” I recently had the pleasure of corresponding with
Reverend Stang via e-mail, and he was kind enough to answer my questions.
It would take a whole book (actually, at least two; ‘The Book of the SubGenius’ and
‘Revelation X’) to even begin to fully explain the SubGenius worldview. In brief, however,
members seek to regain the ‘slack’ that has been taken away by ‘The Conspiracy’ or ‘The
Con’ for short. All you have to do to become not just a member but a fully ordained minister
is donate thirty dollars. That small one time fee guarantees eternal salvation or triple your
money back. You’ll also be assured a seat on one of the pleasure saucers when the earth is
destroyed by aliens on X day, which was supposed to be July 5th, 1998. At least that's what
their prophet, super salesman J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, predicted.
As with any good doomsday cult, such seeming errors of prophecy are easily explained away.
“According to Dobbs Prophecy, godlike aliens were supposed to arrive in 1998 to magically
solve all our problems,” says Stang. “Obviously, the Con has been messing with the dating
system since prehistory, just to throw off ‘Bob's’ promise. Either that or this whole thing is a
lesson that we shouldn't necessarily depend on preachers, prophets, aliens or salesmen.”
As for those who would say that the Church is just a big con job, they’ll get no argument from
Reverend Stang. “Dobbs is the GREATEST con artist. In fact he was voted Fraud of the
Century by Time Magazine's online poll.”
As Reverend Stang tells it, “[Church founder/prophet J.R. ‘Bob’] Dobbs was Emaculated in
1953, but he didn't get organized about releasing his Word until the late 70s. If you want to
call this ‘organized’. Dr. Philo Drummond, Dobbs' drinking buddy, thought I was a likely
candidate for the Sacred Scribe (or Flack-Catcher) job, being the only person that desperate
for work, and we printed the first pamphlet in January 1980. ‘The Book of the SubGenius’
credit page is a fairly accurate list of who to blame.”
With regards to the present, Stang says “[Some early members] were released by the Dobbs Art
Demon at some point, and don't whip out a song or collage every week like they used to in the
80s. The slack got taken up (so to speak) by others who were snared by the Internet traps, and
caught the Dobbs Art Demon themselves.” According to the good Reverend, “Dr. Philo
Drummond, Dr. Howll, Puzzling Evidence, Rev. Susie the Floozy, Papa Joe Mama, and myself
are examples of olden-times preachers who never stopped. Dr. K'taden Legume, Jesus and
Magdalen, Fernandinande LeMur, and Chas and Dave of ESO would be examples of people
who came aboard in the 90s and had huge impacts on the material output of the Church.”
A steady flow of new blood (not to mention $30 checks) has kept the Church a thriving
enterprise. As for the kind of person the Church attracts, Stang says it’s a pretty varied group.
“Over the years there have probably been something like 20,000 SubGenius ministers actually
signed up, dues-paid, etc., but they drift around so much that at any given time we can only get
our hands on 6 or 7 thousand of them. It really is a cross section, from tiny little rich male
children to huge poverty stricken elderly ladies,” he explains. “Of course it's a bit more
popular among the college kids who have spare time, and the baby boomers who never grew
up or are hitting the ‘Middle Aged Crazy’ point.”
Unlike many religions, the Church of the Subgenius pays its taxes. “The SubGenius
Foundation, Inc. was set up as a novelty manufacturing company in the State of Texas.
The reason we aren't tax exempt is not that we're especially noble, although ‘Bob’ doesn't
believe that taxpayers should have to help support religions they might not happen to believe in.
It's that we really are a novelty company that sells stuff for a profit. That might not be ALL we
are but it saves the headache of a certain type of bullshit paperwork that I am simply not able
to fill out without puking,” explains Stang.
With regards to the Church’s belief in ‘The Con’, Stang says, “EVERY religion has its
‘conspiracy’. Every religion, every political party, damn near every philosophy is based on
distinguishing an ‘Us’ from a ‘Them’. In our case it's very simple. If you gave "Bob" your $30
for salvation, you're saved and one of ‘Us’.” For the SubGenius, ‘The Con’ goes way beyond
such minor conspiracies as the JFK assassination or crashed saucers at Area 51.
“The Conspiracy that Dobbs is concerned about is capitalized,” Stang explains. “It
encompasses all other conspiracies, because it is essentially what philosophers call Human
Nature. It is the unthinking conspiracy of all the people who think they are ‘normal’, that
‘normal’ is good, and therefore that ‘non-normal’ is automatically bad. The SubGenius on the
other hand seeks out the non-normal, out of pure curiosity.”
When it comes to suggesting a course of action, however, Stang says don’t ask him. “Youths
who don't know any better have been asking me, ‘How can we defeat the Conspiracy?’ My
most sincere answer is, if you want to weaken ‘Them’, do what makes YOU STRONGER.
Take care of yourself first, and then start worrying about how you're gonna’ fix everything else.
Move out of Mom's basement, or off the government teat, even if it means (gulp) getting a job.
(I can't BELIEVE I'm saying that!!).” Stang continues, “The situation in my personal life
improved a lot in the last few years, and I've been amazed how much less agitated I am now
about the rest of the world. ‘If you want to change the world,’ Voltaire is said to have said,
‘cultivate your garden.’ I had been so dismayed with the way things were going, wars-wise,
that I had been seriously looking into moving to another country. But, after a two week long
spate of house cleaning and yard work, I decided that America IN MY IMMEDIATE
VICINITY wasn't so bad after all. So I decided to stick around for awhile.”
With all their talk of conspiracy, I wondered if the Church had ever been investigated by the
government. “They wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't,” says Stang. “The Secret
Service came to my house and interviewed me at length in 1982 on account of our
Kennedy-Dallas jokes. I myself contacted the FBI to make sure their file on us had the
RIGHT kind of disinformation in it.” Still, at this point the Reverend isn’t too concerned about
any WACO style raids on his home. “I am not especially worried about being carted off to a
re-education center, because what we do is not political,” he explains. “Officially we see
human politics as a dead end. PatrioPsychotic AnarchoMaterialism, the SubGenius platform,
basically means ‘Every Yard a Kingdom, Every Checkbook a Queendom, Every Doghouse a
Serfdom’. This has not stopped us from making fun of political assholes on all ends of the
spectrum, of course.”
Stang further states, “We have been described by a legitimate protest group as ‘...certainly no
credit to any legitimate protest group,’ and to tell the truth, I'm kind of proud of that
characterization. Legitimate protest groups often strike me as being a mirror image of what
they're supposedly against. Seems like they all turn out to be a bunch of fascist assholes with
just another rule book. Assholes that can't take a joke. PHOOEY!! This is not to discourage
people from working for what they believe in. My point is that we're not going to tell anybody
what to believe in, except to be skeptical of those who ARE telling you what to believe in.
That may be the one reason why you CAN believe in US, you see. Impeccable logic isn't it.
Because we admit we're full of shit, we're the only ones being truthful. A sad paradox that
could only happen in a world overpopulated by humans.”
But what about more traditional religious concerns? Does the Reverend Stang see the Church
as a way to fill the basic need for spirituality and ritual without the tired old dogmas of
mainstream religion? “Nah, fuck the spiritual experience,” says the Reverend. “SubGenii don't
need "Bob" or other SubGeniuses for that. That happens, or not, regardless of what we do.
But we LOVE the ridiculous dogmatic nonsense. Rock bands handle the "ritual" part just fine
these days. You kinda had it backwards.”
Stang also defends other religious groups, regardless of their beliefs. “What we're saying is,
don't stereotype people based on their religion. ALL the religions ‘suck’, to each other, or to a
scientific secular humanist fanatic,” he explains. “But just because, say, Scientology is stupider
than even the most outrageous SubGenius blather, and Christianity causes as many problems as
it solves, doesn't mean that a given Scientologist or Christian is a bad person. YOU CANNOT
JUDGE BOOK BY ITS COVER unless you're ‘Bob’, is all we're saying.”
Of course, SubGenius dogma differs considerably from that found in most religions. One area
where that is especially evident is their approach to sexuality. When asked what the Church’s
position on sex was, the Reverend replied, “Every position in the Kama Sutra and about 3 dozen
more that its authors had not invented at the time of Sir Richard Burton's translation.” Continuing,
he added, “The X-Day Drills and devivals have become a nice way to meet other weirdos
interested in sex for sex's sake, or to meet a decent conversationalist for a change, sometimes
even both. That was not always true. SubGenius devivals used to look like GWAR concerts: a
sea of bespectacled nerdy boys. Like me. We spent half the 90s trying to change that by
sweet-talking hard headed women, and succeeded in making the Church into what we had
previously been misrepresenting it as. Last X-Day Drill I got to legally wed two women... legally,
because one of them had previously been a man, and still had a male's driver's license.”
Those of a more pagan persuasion may be wondering what the church has to say about ‘Magick’
and other occult subjects. “I know many people who say they are ‘magickians,’ and their
example has generally led me AWAY from that direction as fast as my little peg-brain would
carry me,” says Stang. “There's plenty of ‘magic,’ but there's nothing magical about it. Just shit
that we don't understand yet. And there's nothing in the rule book that says we ever WILL
understand a lot of things. For that matter, there's no god damned rule book at all. ‘Bob’ is not
THE answer, and neither is anything else. However, because he is the Greatest Hypocrite, King
‘Bob’ teaches 5 Keys to Maygickkk, which begin with ‘Get Off Your Ass’, and end with ‘Wash
Your Ass’. It is amazing how one's dreams start coming true when one applies that very first
Key. That Ass Key. Hey, a computer joke!”
If you’re still confused after reading this, but would like to know more, buy ‘The Book of the
Subgenius’, attend a devival, or check out the official church website. Even if the whole thing is
a joke, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from it. For starters, you can ponder these
final thoughts from the good Reverend. “If you drink, remember to pee; if you eat, remember to
shit; if you wake up, remember to sleep. You'd THINK that kind of stuff would be obvious,
but these are SubGeniuses we're talking to.”
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