Slack Is Back

Taking a break to use the restroom at the Euclid Tavern during one of his recent concerts, known as "devivals," the Reverend Ivan Stang has a rock-star-style encounter with a long-haired fan.

"Are you Ivan?" bubbles the excited fan. "Those SubGenius books changed my life! Did you write those?"

"Sort of," Stang says hesitantly. "They're the word of Bob, speaking through me."

"Oh, you're kind of like an apostle," gushes the fan, who's wearing a shirt with the Spam logo emblazoned on it. "That would be apostolic, or apostolish." He fumbles for the right word, gearing up for a religious reverie.

Obviously, he doesn't get the joke.

"Yeah, apostolic," interjects Stang. "You know what? I really gotta pee."

Praise Bob! The acolytes just keep on coming to the Church of the SubGenius, a mock religion so influential that, in a recent Time magazine online poll, it was voted "Fraud of the Century." The Euclid Tavern is packed with the faithful tonight, dressed in bizarre costumes, waving weird icons, dancing and drinking and staring transfixed when Stang takes the stage for one of his nonsensical rants.

Founded by Stang in Dallas in 1978, the Church of the SubGenius has amassed an official membership of 4,000-5,000 and a much larger international following by promoting a bizarre blend of salvation, humor, and a philosophy of slacking off instead of working hard. Celebrities such as Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh, writer Ken Kesey, actor Pee-Wee Herman, the Talking Heads' David Byrne, and director Jonathan Demme are all card-carrying members.

The SubGenius message, promulgated by mythical messiah J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, is simple: "Normal" people are the ones who are screwed up. It's the misfits who will triumph in the end.

Stang, who regularly performs with a Cleveland band called Einstein's Secret Orchestra, is equal parts preacher and rock star. Between music sets, he takes to the podium to deliver quasi-evangelical speeches filled with apocalyptic warnings and improbable conspiracy theories. Audience members raise their beers and chant "Praise Bob!", transforming seedy bars like the Euclid Tavern into places of cult worship.

It doesn't faze Stang that, on this night, the toilet in the women's restroom has flooded a hallway, overpowering the club with the smell of urine. He keeps preaching, flicking his throat occasionally to make a slightly obscene gargling noise. And selling. In fact, the back room of the club is littered with more T-shirts, CDs, and trinkets than a downtown street corner during baseball season. Strike up a conversation with one of the eager buyers, and you'll likely end up in a debate about whether L. Ron Hubbard was a prophet or just a good science fiction writer.

Cult, prank, pop phenomenon, rock and roll -- the Church of the SubGenius combines elements of all these into its own special brand of high weirdness. As Stang says, "It's a joke that makes fun of other religions, and at the same time is still a religion."

And now the center of the SubGenius universe has shifted. Like Moses leaving Egypt or Buck Rogers blasting off for Mars, Stang pulled up his tent stakes in Dallas last year and set out for a land of religious freedom and economic opportunity.

The road led straight to Cleveland.

Are You Abnormal?

Except for the faded image of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs on a mat, sitting on the front doorstep of a modest duplex in North Collinwood, you'd never know you're at the new headquarters for the Church of the SubGenius. But inside the two-story house, amid stacks of sci-fi books, VCRs, mannequins, and mismatched furniture, Reverend Ivan Stang operates the nerve center of the SubGenius universe.

In a small office space not much bigger than a cellblock, Stang sits at a cluttered desk and swivels in his chair to simultaneously operate a computer, fax machine, and phone -- the tools he uses to update the Church's website (subgenius.com) and record his radio program. Every week, he tapes the Hour of Slack radio program here, enabling him to reach out to fans who listen to the show in some 17 markets (Cleveland among them, Sunday nights at 9 on Cleveland State's WCSB-FM/89.3).

Despite the low-budget operation, and despite Stang's blatant admissions that the Church is a scam, it continues to grow -- and turn a bigger profit. In 1998, it brought in $100,000 in revenues. Stang maintains that, since he moved to Cleveland some seven months ago, on the heels of a divorce that freed him to join longtime collaborators and a girlfriend here, the Church has become better organized and more energized than ever.

His schedule bears that out. Last week, Stang staged a devival in Amsterdam. Over the next two months, he's scheduled to appear in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Columbus, where the bill includes Broken Circle Gospel Deluxe, a Columbus band that does a send-up of a religious revue. Stang will be back at the Euclid Tavern on May 26 and at the Starwood Festival in New York state in July.

He couldn't be better poised to take your money and introduce you to a world of strange, depraved behavior.