RS / FC / FS?

Since the passing of Robert Anton Wilson [see January 11], I have been looking at some items he sent out in recent years, as well as a few things I wrote mostly to amuse him.

It's been awhile since I developed the "Carlin-Leary Personality Assessment Matix", but it could have been useful these last few years. Print out a copy, read the instructions, and try it yourself.

What my brain does when I'm not using it....

So last night I'm sleeping, and in a dream, for no reason that I can remember, I am challenged to compose a limerick. I don't remember the exact terms, but apparently using the word "giganticus" and referring to classical Greek mythology were among the conditions.

A classical scholar from Roma
Fell into a deep lasting coma.
They brought in some winos
and Giganticus dinos
To read him selections from Homah.

The key was realizing that I could make a play on the name "Homer" -- after that everything fell into place. The winos appeared without a bit of struggle.

It was only today, in looking up these images, that I learned that the genus name for the dinosaur species giganticus is Achillobator, which comes from Achilles, hero of "Homah's" Iliad.

The reason I can tell you all this is that, soon after finishing the limerick, I realized I was asleep and dreaming, and that if I didn't write this gem down, I would lose it forever. So I began to write it down. Then I said to myself, "No, you're only dreaming that you're writing it down. Wake up and really write it down." So I did. But then I thought, "No, you're only dreaming that you woke up and are writing it down. You have to really wake up and really write it down." After a few iterations (makes one wonder how often P.K.Dick had that sort of conversation with himself), I did finally really wake up and really write it down.

I think.

Progressive Talk Radio in Boston? You'd Think So...

The Boston area had a progressive talk station (simulcasting on two AM frequencies) for about a year and a half, before the owner, Clear Channel, switched over in December to a format they're calling "Rumba" -- which offers a variety of Latin music, though, oddly, not so much rumba.

Having a progressive voice on the radio was kinda fun, especially during the long run-up to the mid-term elections. The programming included Al Franken, Rachel Maddow, and others (it kept shifting) from Air America, as well as Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller from the Jones Radio Network. The management never really went after local programming or local advertisers in any meaningful way, and I don't recall seeing much print advertising for the station, although Clear Channel owns a ton of billboards around here. It didn't help much that their signal was quite weak, especially after sundown. "Hey Boss, I got a great idea! Let's offer a progressive talk format, with call-in programs, that nobody can pick up all night long. Most lefties are early-to-bed / early-to-rise types anyway, right? No night-owls in that crowd!"

Still, people responded and some became loyal listeners, grateful for something from the blue end of the political spectrum.

Since the Rumbafication of WKOX and WXKS, Boston has no outlet for progressive talk. The folks who appreciated the progressive format are fighting to get it back. They have a petition at their website and who know? maybe it will accomplish something.

RAW Rising

I just received word of the passing of Robert Anton Wilson -- author, futurist, optimist, cranky old man, philosopher, "guerrilla ontologist", teacher, and friend...

Robert Anton Wilson Defies Medical Experts and leaves his body @4:50 AM on binary date 01/11.

All Hail Eris!

On behalf of his children and those who cared for him, deepest love and gratitude for the tremendous support and lovingness bestowed upon us.

(that's it from Bob's bedside at his fnord by the sea)

RAW Memorial February 07

Bob left behind an remarkable body of work including his most famous Illuminatus! trilogy (with Robert Shea), the Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy, The Cosmic Trigger series, the play Wilhelm Reich in Hell, recorded lectures on James Joyce, and the astonishing Prometheus Rising. That was the first book of his I ever read, and I can still remember the night a dear friend put it into my hands with a mischeivous grin. "Here's something you might like." It was very much the kind of grin you might see when one friend gave another their first taste of LSD.

A first acid trip isn't a bad analogy. Better: coming across one of his books unexpectedly could be the philosophical and spiritual equivalent of getting kidnapped by pirates, or running off to join the circus -- you might get home again eventually, but you wouldn't be the same person who left.

Wilson asked questions that no one else ever thought to ask, and suggested answers that no one had ever thought of to questions that everyone has asked. But he always preferred the questions to the answers.

I'll add more later. It's not going to be the same without him. But, then again, after you'd begun to read his stuff, it wasn't ever the same anyway.

Mistakes Somehow Managed to Occurify Themselves

"Hey Iraqi, watch me pull a Victory Plan outta my ass!"

"Oh Bush-winkle, that trick never works!"

This time for sure... Presto!

[ka-boom!]

"Hmmm... musta misoverestimated my own smarts!"

"And now for something really disastrous..."