In, I think, 1988 or 89, I mailed hundreds of letters to all of the freaky organizations and crazed loners listed in Rev. Ivan Stang’s classic book on oddball culture, High Weirdness By Mail.

I sent the exact same form letter to all of them (“To Whom It May Concern, I am interested in more information about your organization, Thank you, Richard Metzger”) and within a very short period of time—about two weeks—my mailbox was overflowing daily with completely insane shit from some extremely marginal individuals. I used to have boxes and boxes of it. I’m sure that the current tenants of my former East Village apartment still to this very day get whimsical, creepy and outright alarming things addressed to me.

Among the high weirdness highlights were these people in Kentucky who sent me several homemade cassettes featuring some seriously demented (and low IQ) “alien channeling” sessions with “The Commodore” that became more and more paranoid and racist with every tape. This stuff was out there, existing in a parallel continuum of irrationality far beyond anything heard then on Art Bell’s radio show. With each cassette they’d send me—there were dozens sent for my one single letter of inquiry—there would be a crude drawing of their house and an appeal for money so that they could build a “UFO landing lookout” (something that you and I might call it a “porch”).

Equally persistent, but no less nutty, was the curious assortment of incredibly stupid items I received from disgraced TV televangelist Peter Popoff. Popoff—who was exposed as a fraud a long time ago on The Tonight Show and many times since—must assume that the people who contact him are the dumbest people on Earth and for the most part, maybe he’s right. Among the nonsense I got from him were a “prosperity prayer rug”:  You were instructed to kneel on the “prayer rug”—a cheap paper poster with a dotted line circle—and put your wallet in front of you and pray for money (for a monetary donation, Popoff would also personally pray to God on your behalf) and a Handi-wipe type thing with supposed “holy water” that would make your debts vanish by supernatural intervention. Or something.

(He’s still around. The last time I saw Peter Popoff on TV, he was on BET and had re-invented himself as a sort of preacher/debt councilor)

High Weirdness by Mail has been out of print for a long time, but a Sub-Genius named Friar Synapse has lovingly recreated the book online, after discovering that nearly ALL of the groups and individuals listed there are still around!

The zaniness is broken down into categories like Weird Science, UFO Contactees, Jesus Contactees, Weird Religion, New Age Saps, $chemes & $cams, Cosmic Hippie Drug Brother Stuff, Weird Politics, Rantzines, Comics, Badfilm & Sleaze and Rudeness & Sex Wars.

You’ve got your slack cut out for you…

Honestly, I must say, spending 3 or four hours writing to all of those kooks was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I highly recommend High Weirdness by Mail. No really, in some ways, it changed my life! Praise Bob!
 

“In, I think, 1988 or 89, I mailed hundreds of letters to all of the freaky organizations and crazed loners listed in Rev. Ivan Stang’s classic book on oddball culture, High Weirdness By Mail.”

Mea Culpa.

Mid to late 80’s I moved to San Diego (from Texas, apex of slackdom) and found a career in the printing trades.

I would save up sticky paper/label stock and print up band stickers for my friends when the boss wasn’t around along with a large stack of illicit Slack/SubGenius/Dobb stickies.

Visited a night club to see the Butthole Surfers (opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and passed out about 500 Bob stickers to the audience.

Gibby comes out, bare chested, slaps a Dobbs onto his bare chest and his first note of the night is SSSSSLLLAAAACCCKKK!!!!!!

Then proceeded to see Bob on taxi trunks, light poles, stop signs, etc. all the way back to the border.

Good times. Weird, but good.

Nice reminiscence, Richard. Nothing gives you hope (or terrifies you) sometimes like making contact with random lunatics who should really be under care somewhere. Used to be a hobby of mine too.

I did the same thing.  We used multiple fake names. Our Postie reported us to the Feds.

This was pre-computer days, but my buddy and I created a one-sheet newsletter in the spirit of HighWeirdness linking together all sorts of disparate things into a mega-conspiracy we christened Why Bulgaria? We mailed it to loads of the folks listed in HWBM as well as counter-culture luminaries like Burroughs, Wilson, Harry Matthews.  Some of them wrote back.

Oh to be young and under-employed with enough time to engage is such shenanigans! Pack rat that I am,  I still have some of the crazy stuff.

During the holiday break, I will definitely enjoy spending time with the online repository of Weirdness.

HWBM an Loompanics catalog were my internet back then.

I opened a PO box just to correspond with weirdos from that book.

Bobdamn you puny humans who won’t cough up $30 for salvation.

I was just a bubble gum chewing brat when I recieved the call. I was in the city with a good buddy of mine and we had just walked out of a a novelty shop and noticed a dishovelled looking gentleman placing leaflets under under car windshield wipers along both sides of the street. The man walked up to me, placed some Dobbian literature and some stickers in my hand, smiled at me and my friend, said nothing, and continued on his way. Ever since that day I’ve been in praise of Bob.

artwork with actual Subgenius stickers I recieved on that fateful day

>

http://oi43.tinypic.com/2iktlxh.jpg

My plan (which never materialized, due to youth and lack of re$ource$) was to place an ad in the back of, say, Fate Magazine, and say:

“Send us YOUR theory.
P.O. Box ****,
Boston, MA 02134”

Then, just wait to see what kind of material arrived. I think this article pretty much answered my question!

I’m still a card carrying Genuine and Authorized Pope of Discordia

“FART” International
send no money now
po box 23478.

well, 1 out of 10 af these links actually work

Ha… yeah I think I got some of you guys’ shit!

I picked up this book at a second-hand store a few years after it came out, and I can tell you for a fact that my parents still receive strange mailings from some of the folks I wrote to one summer when I was thirteen!

Damn, I still have that book on my shelf - I thought for sure that most of the addresses in it would be no good now. Yet you say most of them are still good, and to be sure there are now probably thousands more!

I didn’t correspond with anyone in that book though; for new contacts I used Factsheet Five and documentation from mail-art shows (I was doing my own postal shenanigans in those days - my mailman was pretty cool about the weird stuff I got).

Mail-Art! I remember those days too!

My goal was to have regular oddness coming from each continent. Worked for awhile but I never heard back from the Amundsen-Scott Station at the south pole. I guess regular mail service was iffy there.

“Give me Slack, or give me food, or KILL ME!”

hi www.dangerousminds.net-ers xmas greetings   to every one -  matt-mays

I did the same thing, Richard, in the late 80s/early 90s.  My pre-internet source for strange shit in an isolated, rural burg.  I got the funniest looks from my mailman, Glen.

Www.crank.net is one of the great sites carrying on HWBM’s work.