George Aar

Recovering from one too many helpings of "Better Than Sex Stew"?

Georgio, Thanks for giving us the "kid's eye view" of WayWorld. Gawd, I'm sorry for the crap that we put you through, I really am. I don't think I know you but I had my own kids that we dragged all over the country in pursuit of the Yellow Brick Road, or whatever it was we were after. I do know Moneyhands, though - at least in passing. One would hope that Karma catches up with that dip$%&t REAL soon. Lordy, the needless hurt and deprivation that was handed out to you kids for absolutely nothing...

Maybe I'm the wrong one to be giving advice Sunny, but I really don't see the problem. Hell, just get HONEST with her. Tell her just what you've said here. Geeze Pete, it makes my head spin the amount of hoops we jump through so as not to say anything that anyone might find the least bit abrasive. Gawd, just tell the truth...

I just think it's funny that the picture of the band looks EXACTLY like every other band of the late 60s/early70s. Could be the Doobie Brothers, AWB, Crosby,Stills and Nash, or Rare Earth, only a really dedicated fan would know the difference. The uniforms were so similar - tee hee! The beards, hair, the thrift store clothes, and - above all - the arrogant, self-assured, know-it-all demeanor. - Oh to be 17 again... I gotta agree with the odd one though. The music was pretty tepid, trivial, MOR, MOS stuff, whudn't it? That's kinda why I slipped into jazz mode and never looked back...

Odd one, Tee hee! Yeah, ooooh for those halcyon days of WayWorld, when THE WORD really worked, and God still loved us...

Tom, Re:"Therein lies the power of speaking in tongues; it gives utterance to the inexpressible groaning we've all been subjected to. It is the expression of the absolutely empathetic intercession of holy spirit - expressing what neither we, nor the rest of all creation can express - although we all groan silently." Of course it that is true, then it would seem that somehow Almighty God needs some human to give voice to His own desires. That's what always seemed so peculiar to me. Why the hell would God need us to make noises that we don't even understand so as to - do what? So He would get to hear Himself think? The farther I get away from the whole idea the dumber it seems to me - though it never did make much sense to me even when I practiced it...

They had FIFTY people there? Man, was anybody armed? I can't imagine how they got that many people to attend short of at the point of a gun or somesuch. Glad you survived...

I knew Mickey Dolenz was suspect right from the beginning. I mean, he grew up as a carny (remember "Circus Boy"?) and had that evil mentor - wasn't it Noah Berry? - with those overlarge clown pants. Mighty suspicious... Honestly, "The Marxist Minstrels" was my first real shock, my first in-yer-face evidence that the top management at WayWorld weren't playing with a full deck. I never bought it, either by purchasing it or believing it. What nonsense...

http://www.decoratetoday.com/default.asp?si=7

The one ritiual that was there from the git-go and NEVER forgotten was: Passing the "Horn of Plenty"! Yes, that's right, you're not REALLY giving us your hard-earned (and probably desperately needed) cash to do with as we please with absolutely no accounting for how it's spent WHATSOEVER! NO! You're "tapping into the resources for the more abundant life!" Yeah, how foolish of me not to realize that...

"What do you do when you hit a dry spell?" I usually just give up. Works for me...

I keep hearing from folks who should know that Zappa was a near-genius musician. That could be the case, though I've always had a difficult time listening to any of his stuff for very long. He definitely took his own road, I'll give him that. Gotta admire him for his individuality if nothing else. We could use more of that I think...

I thought I was the only person on earth who actually saw "200 Motels". Not exactly a screen epic. "Centerville, a real nice place to raise your kids up!"

Well, actually the pain STARTS when the blisters go away. There used to be nothing much you could do (and NO, none of the alternative medicine treatments do much of anything near as I can tell), but there IS a vaccine now for Chicken Pox that I guess is very effective on shingles. It's still a new treatment and may be hard to find, but it IS out there. I plan on trying it, if my shingles ever flare up again. They are NO fun...

Waysider, INDEED. Trying to recreate or revitalize a spontaneous event or movement is doomed for failure from the outset. What these kids don't seem to realize is that the reason WayWorld grew and prospered when it did was a direct result of the TIMES. We'd just been through the turmoil of the 60s. We all had a profound distrust of authority and anti-establishment thought was rampant. We were in the midst of a huge cultural rift between the generations and concepts like the hippies came up with actually made sense to us (O.K. so we weren't terribly circumspect, know any kids that are?). Wierwille came along and made a serendipitous connection with the counter-culture kids, tailored his shpiel to appeal to their sense of alienation from the status quo, gave them a pseudo "cause" to give meaning to their lives, and added a strong dose of "license" for bait, and VOILA! WayWorld was born! You're not going to recreate that period of time. Something else may come along that clicks with the current crop of youthful, exuberant, and NAIVE young adults that is more appropriate for the times. But you're not going to breath new life into a stodgy, OLD, midwestern cornfield cult. It's time has come an gone - Thankfully...

Well, THAT was sure no big deal! Geeze, I was hoping for all sorts of lurid images of death and destruction on the news tonight. Does this mean I have to watch a rerun of "Survivor"?

And do you really want a "full-sized" table? Lots of folks think that the standard tavern-sized is a full-sized unit. Not so. A REAL full-sized table is 9' X 4&1/2', not the wimpy 8'X4' jobs that they have in the bars. And then of course there's the "snooker" tables, but those are for the real officianados...

Re: "(this situation seems exciting to me, allowing one to believe God while going door to door, a challenge, no doubt, in any neighborhood)" HA! Oh, gawd, Phil, that's just rich. I had no idea that you STILL subscribed to the "law of believing" nonsense to this degree. Maybe you could pull your head out every now and then and get a little sun? Really, it's gotta be unhealthy keeping it there ALL the time... And another thought, geeze if it seems that exciting to you (Lord knows I"M getting aroused), why don't you just DO it?

Then there's also a thing called "risk/benefit analysis". A thing that was entirely disregarded at WayWorld, near as I can tell. Like - a couple of girls hitchhiking alone through Texas in the winter. I can definitely see a markedly increased risk. But what were the benefits? I mean, other than the fact that it was a way to transport the girls somewhere at no cost to VPW? If people would've had the good sense to sue the bastards when things went wrong, I'd bet that WayWorld would've had a marked change of heart with regards how much jeopardy they required their minions to expose themselves to. They were MIGHTY sensitive to trauma to their pocketbook...

Why did they do this stuff? I think a lot of it had to do with the macho personna that the leadership wanted to portray - except with them it was usually "macho by proxy", in that the lives they were putting on the line were not their own. Plus the fact that it's a whole bunch cheaper to leave all the transportation and logistics to your vassals. Lord knows there were lots more toys that the MOG and mini-mogs needed. And the mindset of living recklessly WAS encouraged. I remember many teachings about "Renewed-mind recklessness", "cutting the safety nets", or "letting go and letting God". It was an integral part of WayWorld Dogma. Anybody who says less is being disingenuous, IMNSHO. And of course, when things DID go wrong they could quickly hush it up, paper it over, or - if all else failed - BLAME THE VICTIM. That always worked...

Just dropping by to clear up some deficiencies in the beer trivia: "From the Land of Sky Blue Waters" was/is the slogan for Hamm's Beer (from Minnesota -"the land of sky-blue waters) And Olympia Beer went broke a few years back. The brewery is sitting empty currently, but there's several plans in the mix about what to do with it. But "Oly" is no longer made (no loss there, IMHO). Jonny, you best stay in shape. Those two look like they'll be giving you a run for your money reeeeal soon...

First time through I got 38%, second try was 100%.

"Tell me something George. Would you put all those who sincerely attempted to help others while they were in TWI in the same pile with the illustration of the molester?" You're missing my point Garth. No, I wouldn't put those people (and they DID exist, I certainly don't dispute that) in with the molester, they were THE CANDY. The good, sweet, holy, enlightening, heartwarming relationships and experiences we had in WayWorld were the bait, the rewards that kept us involved. The goodhearted people were USED to keep us around and to swell the ranks. And I suspect that Wierwille and his closest aides did so quite consciously and calculatingly. And yes, I do think it's a healthy thing if we finally realize that. And certainly we should feel free to talk about those good experiences and friendships and the like, but we should also keep in the forefront of our minds what those good experiences led us into the dopey outfit in the first place, and KEPT us coming back for more. Just like an alcoholic talking about all the fun he had he first started drinking, or a drug addict talking about the greatness of his "virgin" highs, one MUST keep that stuff in perspective, if you want to stay healthy - IMNSHO...

The best analogy that I can come up with is that talking about the "good" times in WayWorld is like kids talking about how good the candy was that the molester offered them. I just find it inappropriate. Sorry, it's just how I see it. It was an ugly, debased, wholely worthless organization. And, though I think I'm pretty well recovered it's negative effects, I'll be damned if I'll wax poetic about some supposed periperal niceties. I'm just not going to try to paper over the ugly...

Well, out of respect for Garth's delicate sensibilities, I'll refrain from using the "c" word, but... I guess the point I'm trying to make is that reminiscing about the warm and fuzzy experiences we had in WayWorld often ends up deliberately overlooking what the organization really was. Sure there were some wonderful people there and I'm sure lots of us had fun drinking malteds down at Wally's Sugar Shack while one or another of us sought out some chump with a willing ear to listen to our Way-flavored dogma. But doesn't the reality of what it was that we were involved with taint all of those experiences? Do the good times one had while hawking Amway products still retain their lustre after you've finally figured out that Amway made a fool out of you? How about German soldiers sharing stories about the time they all got drunk and burned down the Jew's house on their street? Or maybe the UFO-logists remembering the great times they had waiting for the Mother Ship to come and rescue them? I think the context of our experiences DOES matter. And the fact that we WASTED years of our lives, money, resources, and our life energy pursuing a fictional, twisted, neo-fascist dream is more than embarassing to me. It's downright shameful and depressing. Sorry, that's how I feel about it...