When I was a kid going to Cat'lic school, we used to get summer Movie passes to a local theater, and it included weekly cheep matinee showings. Sold a lot of popcorn and soda, I'm sure. They would show all kinds of fringe stuff in the matinees with an emphasis on cheesy horror and sci-fi flicks. (back when there were 2 movies plus cartoons and news reels) There was a movie I saw then that I would bet you've heard of - "The Mask". It wasn't the Jim Carey movie but the plot was somewhat similar - there was this African witch doctor kind of mask that would give the person wearing it wild hallucinations, visions of alternate dimensions which of course had a scattering of weird looking women in tights and tattered colored clothing, dancing around being menacing - I don't remember all the details but I've never seen it shown anywhere since then. It was so odd - it could have been an early reference to the coming DMT and LSD movements. It was in 1961 or so I saw it, and it's now available through some streaming services.
Anyway - I wonder if anyone else has ever seen it? AOS and all the undulating dancing "spirits" reminded me of that movie's look and feel when it goes into the hallucination sequences when the person wears the mask. So few have ever seen that movie it barely qualifies for cult classic status but it's really a fringe-gem. Anyway, figured you might like to know, if you haven't seen it, might be worth a shot.
To add: I'm sure there was but it doesn't ring any bells. It likely ran around 2 am, right after the "Shepherds Chapel" and the Bahai Events Calendar for that month.
Edited by socks It's your kids, Marty. Something's got to be done about your kids!
When I was a kid going to Cat'lic school, we used to get summer Movie passes to a local theater, and it included weekly cheep matinee showings. Sold a lot of popcorn and soda, I'm sure. They would show all kinds of fringe stuff in the matinees with an emphasis on cheesy horror and sci-fi flicks. (back when there were 2 movies plus cartoons and news reels) There was a movie I saw then that I would bet you've heard of - "The Mask". It wasn't the Jim Carey movie but the plot was somewhat similar - there was this African witch doctor kind of mask that would give the person wearing it wild hallucinations, visions of alternate dimensions which of course had a scattering of weird looking women in tights and tattered colored clothing, dancing around being menacing - I don't remember all the details but I've never seen it shown anywhere since then. It was so odd - it could have been an early reference to the coming DMT and LSD movements. It was in 1961 or so I saw it, and it's now available through some streaming services.
Anyway - I wonder if anyone else has ever seen it? AOS and all the undulating dancing "spirits" reminded me of that movie's look and feel when it goes into the hallucination sequences when the person wears the mask. So few have ever seen that movie it barely qualifies for cult classic status but it's really a fringe-gem. Anyway, figured you might like to know, if you haven't seen it, might be worth a shot.
When I was a kid going to Cat'lic school, we used to get summer Movie passes to a local theater, and it included weekly cheep matinee showings. Sold a lot of popcorn and soda, I'm sure. They would show all kinds of fringe stuff in the matinees with an emphasis on cheesy horror and sci-fi flicks. (back when there were 2 movies plus cartoons and news reels) There was a movie I saw then that I would bet you've heard of - "The Mask". It wasn't the Jim Carey movie but the plot was somewhat similar - there was this African witch doctor kind of mask that would give the person wearing it wild hallucinations, visions of alternate dimensions which of course had a scattering of weird looking women in tights and tattered colored clothing, dancing around being menacing - I don't remember all the details but I've never seen it shown anywhere since then. It was so odd - it could have been an early reference to the coming DMT and LSD movements. It was in 1961 or so I saw it, and it's now available through some streaming services.
Anyway - I wonder if anyone else has ever seen it? AOS and all the undulating dancing "spirits" reminded me of that movie's look and feel when it goes into the hallucination sequences when the person wears the mask. So few have ever seen that movie it barely qualifies for cult classic status but it's really a fringe-gem. Anyway, figured you might like to know, if you haven't seen it, might be worth a shot.
Btw, Socks, I appreciate your update with the secret subliminal message. :)
Might this be a trailer for the movie you were describing?
Yes, that's it! A very bizarre flick, and at 11 years old, seemed kinda kinky. Wacky!
AOS - We drove up with another couple for the premiere weekend showing. Stayed a night, and were back home Monday.
We all discussed it for a long time on the way home - and remember we were broadly pro-the-ministry, and weren't looking to trash it. I had friends involved, and really really wanted to like it, to learn something from it, to be encouraged the Ministry was moving in a healthy direction that we could all grow with. Plus this was seeing our new Pres Craig in action and saw it to be something of a harbinger of his future.
Buuuuuuuuuuut...outside of the dancers trying to do their best I thought it was a terrible production. It had no natural rhythm or flow that carried the viewer, no real story being told, no narrative quality, texture. Considering I was very well schooled in what they were trying to communicate I felt I knew less about the topic after seeing the production - seriously, the imagery was, to put it into a word, "corny" and took away from the realities being referred to. It removed all sense of horror from the reality of a rebellious adversary working contrary to God the Creator's will. It made it seem like an academic exercise - given Craig's failure and that he was about to have his defeated "Adversary" tying a plastic bag around his head while being drug into quicksand, he was being cavalier at an almost Shakespearean level.
In the Way we were taught to see God as the sum of the things He does for us. We lost the magnitude of His glory, the breadth of His will as Creator by reducing it to words and definitions we could parse. We knew the greek nuances of the words that told us that God was beyond our highest perceptions but ignored what that meant and how it might affect our actions and attitudes.
AOS was a perfect example of Craig's "flat earth" view of spirituality. Lacking grandeur and scope, but struggling with every wiggling drop of sweat to communicate.
Anyway, I'd never show that to anyone. We never watched it back home in our fellowship. It eventually was shown locally buuuuuuuuut I barely remembered it.
There was an incident on the road trip home from Ohio that has lived on our memories as one of the more hilarious travel stories we accumulated but that's another story.
Anyway. Yeah.
Edited by socks Testing new super secret code messaging - they're on to me!
For some reason, I was thinking that the premier was before VPW died. I was in residence at Gunnison in the spring of 1985, which was a horrible experience, and those that wanted to go were allowed to go straight to Ohio for the weekend, see it, then come straight back. As much as I would have liked to escape the gulag for a couple days, I did not think it was worth the effort. Earlier that block, in February I believe (LCM watched the Grammys with us), when LCM came to visit Gunnison, all he seemed to talk about was the costuming for the different categories he had determined of devil spirits. I found it extremely weird, and still do. I saw AOS once at the Rock of Ages 1985. It was a waste. I could not believe they made a coloring book of it for kids of the ministry to be exposed to it ...
AOS has to be one of the great highlights of TWI’s hypocrisy...the production was to reveal the wiles of the devil and how a believer can be strong and stand up against all the deceptions and temptations...meanwhile the “star of the show” believer boy (craig) is boinking the “wrong seed” chick...oh no, Obi-Wan we lost another to the dark side!
For some reason, I was thinking that the premier was before VPW died. I was in residence at Gunnison in the spring of 1985, which was a horrible experience, and those that wanted to go were allowed to go straight to Ohio for the weekend, see it, then come straight back. As much as I would have liked to escape the gulag for a couple days, I did not think it was worth the effort. Earlier that block, in February I believe (LCM watched the Grammys with us), when LCM came to visit Gunnison, all he seemed to talk about was the costuming for the different categories he had determined of devil spirits. I found it extremely weird, and still do. I saw AOS once at the Rock of Ages 1985. It was a waste. I could not believe they made a coloring book of it for kids of the ministry to be exposed to it ...
Dog, I couldn't believe what garbage AOTS was; I throught it was a huge waste of time, and money. But LCM was very proud of it; I guess he couldn't see how horrible it really was.
AOS has to be one of the great highlights of TWI’s hypocrisy...the production was to reveal the wiles of the devil and how a believer can be strong and stand up against all the deceptions and temptations...meanwhile the “star of the show” believer boy (craig) is boinking the “wrong seed” chick...oh no, Obi-Wan we lost another to the dark side!
T-Bone, I thought the whole production was dark. But perhaps that was why I slept through most of it; it was dark, and drealy.
AOS has to be one of the great highlights of TWI’s hypocrisy...the production was to reveal the wiles of the devil and how a believer can be strong and stand up against all the deceptions and temptations...meanwhile the “star of the show” believer boy (craig) is boinking the “wrong seed” chick...oh no, Obi-Wan we lost another to the dark side!
T-Bone I think you are my favorite movie critic!!!!!
I was out of TWI by 1985, or I might have been in this. Definitely dodged a bullet there. A couple of random thoughts for this thread:
the lead dancer/choreographer had already put together a version of AOS back in 1979-80 with a different male lead. Backstage after the performance, I recall Craig asking the choreographer if "we" invented the flexed foot! No one more surprised than I was to later learn that Craig became the lead. Perhaps he thought he was cementing his position as a ministry rockstar.
about this same time, asking if I could join Way Prod. as a dancer, I was asked if I knew anything about clogging, because VPW wanted cloggers (**sigh**)
AOL was a production of amateur dancers with a lot of money thrown at stage sets and lighting. I give the choreographer credit for trying to fulfill LCM's larger vision with the cast she had, but she just didn't have the cast that could work at that level. The choreographer carefully put the better dancers in front of each group of devil spirits to give them someone to follow, but the longer they danced, the weaker it all got.
Ditto the music. Maybe Socks can weigh in, but it seems to me that most of the professional-level talent was gone or going by then. The musical score is pretty repetitive and simplistic, nothing for John Williams or Leonard Bernstein to worry about. But there was also the problem that Wierwille wasn't much for complex music that didn't feature "rightly-divided" lyrics front and center, so there may have been a lot of pressure on the composer to not go too far afield. (Side note -- does anyone have any evidence, other than VPW's say-so, that he actually played an instrument? When he would warble with the singers or walk around snapping his fingers off the beat, it sure didn't look like it.)
back when I first saw the video production, I was struck by how much the demons were glorified, both in having the better dancers doing those parts and in the length of time they were onstage. Dancers simulating sex seemed unnecessary, but giving HQ's fixation on all things sexual it is not much of a surprise, I guess. It was a part of the doctrine, this fixation on the devil, that I didn't buy even when I was in. What happened to "greater is he that is in you...?"
I was out of TWI by 1985, or I might have been in this. Definitely dodged a bullet there. A couple of random thoughts for this thread:
the lead dancer/choreographer had already put together a version of AOS back in 1979-80 with a different male lead. Backstage after the performance, I recall Craig asking the choreographer if "we" invented the flexed foot! No one more surprised than I was to later learn that Craig became the lead. Perhaps he thought he was cementing his position as a ministry rockstar.
about this same time, asking if I could join Way Prod. as a dancer, I was asked if I knew anything about clogging, because VPW wanted cloggers (**sigh**)
AOL was a production of amateur dancers with a lot of money thrown at stage sets and lighting. I give the choreographer credit for trying to fulfill LCM's larger vision with the cast she had, but she just didn't have the cast that could work at that level. The choreographer carefully put the better dancers in front of each group of devil spirits to give them someone to follow, but the longer they danced, the weaker it all got.
Ditto the music. Maybe Socks can weigh in, but it seems to me that most of the professional-level talent was gone or going by then. The musical score is pretty repetitive and simplistic, nothing for John Williams or Leonard Bernstein to worry about. But there was also the problem that Wierwille wasn't much for complex music that didn't feature "rightly-divided" lyrics front and center, so there may have been a lot of pressure on the composer to not go too far afield. (Side note -- does anyone have any evidence, other than VPW's say-so, that he actually played an instrument? When he would warble with the singers or walk around snapping his fingers off the beat, it sure didn't look like it.)
back when I first saw the video production, I was struck by how much the demons were glorified, both in having the better dancers doing those parts and in the length of time they were onstage. Dancers simulating sex seemed unnecessary, but giving HQ's fixation on all things sexual it is not much of a surprise, I guess. It was a part of the doctrine, this fixation on the devil, that I didn't buy even when I was in. What happened to "greater is he that is in you...?"
Shaz, WOW!! Great post!! Thanks for the information.
I was out of TWI by 1985, or I might have been in this. Definitely dodged a bullet there. A couple of random thoughts for this thread:
the lead dancer/choreographer had already put together a version of AOS back in 1979-80 with a different male lead. Backstage after the performance, I recall Craig asking the choreographer if "we" invented the flexed foot! No one more surprised than I was to later learn that Craig became the lead. Perhaps he thought he was cementing his position as a ministry rockstar.
about this same time, asking if I could join Way Prod. as a dancer, I was asked if I knew anything about clogging, because VPW wanted cloggers (**sigh**)
AOL was a production of amateur dancers with a lot of money thrown at stage sets and lighting. I give the choreographer credit for trying to fulfill LCM's larger vision with the cast she had, but she just didn't have the cast that could work at that level. The choreographer carefully put the better dancers in front of each group of devil spirits to give them someone to follow, but the longer they danced, the weaker it all got.
Ditto the music. Maybe Socks can weigh in, but it seems to me that most of the professional-level talent was gone or going by then. The musical score is pretty repetitive and simplistic, nothing for John Williams or Leonard Bernstein to worry about. But there was also the problem that Wierwille wasn't much for complex music that didn't feature "rightly-divided" lyrics front and center, so there may have been a lot of pressure on the composer to not go too far afield. (Side note -- does anyone have any evidence, other than VPW's say-so, that he actually played an instrument? When he would warble with the singers or walk around snapping his fingers off the beat, it sure didn't look like it.)
back when I first saw the video production, I was struck by how much the demons were glorified, both in having the better dancers doing those parts and in the length of time they were onstage. Dancers simulating sex seemed unnecessary, but giving HQ's fixation on all things sexual it is not much of a surprise, I guess. It was a part of the doctrine, this fixation on the devil, that I didn't buy even when I was in. What happened to "greater is he that is in you...?"
1) Once he was in charge, lcm absolutely had to be in the middle of EVERYTHING. He was in "High Country Caravan" despite lacking talent. He showed up onstage when bands did musical numbers (not singing, not performing, just posing). So, of course he ended up in the middle of this. I'm fully convinced he hinted around until someone commented offhand that they thought he should be in it- then that was his excuse to say people wanted that, lack of dance experience or no. It sure explains why a football exercise ended up in the production, even if it made no sense. The previous male lead was still in the final product, if moved back behind lcm.
2) Does not surprise me that vpw's limit of understanding DANCE was limited to, say, square dance and clogging, and thinking that people with "dance training" and "dance experience" would be experienced CLOGGERS.
3) twi STILL billed AOS as better than the world could put out, because that's what twi has always said. So, no matter how much better trained dancers could have been, that was the party line, and that should surprise no one.
4) See previous point. Also, in answer to your question, someone here (JohnIam, IIRC) once posted he saw vpw at an ROA wandering around with a little guitar, a banjo-sized thing, and saw him/heard him play a little. Didn't say he was particularly good, but he gave the impression that he could do backup in a garage band or something. We knew vpw definitely could not SING, as in William Hung level can't sing. He apparently couldn't keep the beat, as you're saying. *checks* It was WhiteDove, who said of vpw's playing, "It was passable." (That was from a FAN of vpw.) (It was at a Family Table at a Sidney ROA, not wandering around.) It was A L P, among others, that said vpw was seen with the little ukelele sized guitar. dmiller later confirmed the size of the guitar ("Ala -- I remember that pic too. I think it may be in one of the old way magazines (roa edition -- mid 70's) I seem to remember that it was a Martin guitar he had. The reason it looks so small, is because it was a 00-18, or 000-18 size -- which is much smaller than the size one sees today.") Both posters saw the PHOTOS. WD was present when he actually played.
5) It's obvious in hindsight the obsession with sex would show up there. It was just plain uncomfortable every single time the video aired, especially if kids were in the room. The theology of the production was awful. The devils were given a LOT of time, and OUR goal was to "stand our ground." General Patton said "I don’t want to get any messages from the front saying that we are holding our position. We’ll let the Hun [Germans] do that. We are attacking constantly and we’re not interested in holding on to anything except the enemy." I thought we were supposed to go forward and witness the new kingdom so others would get born again. In the production, that happened for less than a minute in a 2-hour program. After that, we were smacking around devils or standing our ground. It was about devils and about US. Wasn't about Christ, the new birth, and so on. God was relegated to the role of background player and team mascot.
The guitar playing incident occurred at the one and only ROA held at the Lima Fairgrounds in Lima, OH. IIRC it was ROA 1975. It rained cats and dogs for most of that rock and the Lima location honestly, just sucked! During one of those late afternoon downpours, vic walked out on the main stage in his finest “dress” overalls with that small acoustic guitar reported previously. The crowd was trying hard to “be blessed”, but by now, the rain had become depressingly annoying.
So, vic comes out and thanks everybody for being so blessed, brings Ted Ferrell out, and they do like a little talk show leading up to vic performing his obscure old classic from childhood, “Ole Rattler”, a song about a dog named Rattler. It lasted about 1:20, was pretty piss- poor imo, but vic and Ted were out in the rain together doing their hoakie routine. Later on that night, again, under a steady, cold drizzle, da Forehead was the main teacher. He was out there in a suit and tie, with some poor schlepp standing next to him holding a big golf umbrella. Suddenly, out comes vic, yelling “I stood in the rain today, why can’t you??”. He takes the umbrella from the poor schlepp, throws it toward the drum set, and storms off the stage!
The pictures referred to above by WW were pictures of Vic’s afternoon performance of “Ole Rattler” from the main stage of the ROA ‘75.
vic walked out on the main stage in his finest “dress” overalls with that small acoustic guitar reported previously. The crowd was trying hard to “be blessed”, but by now, the rain had become depressingly annoying.
....comes out on stage, grabs an electrified mic and proclaims, "I'm still here."
I bet some people were hoping VPW would be electrocuted or that the gathering together would occur and poor Vic would be alone on stage with everyone else beamed up to heaven
I bet some people were hoping VPW would be electrocuted or that the gathering together would occur and poor Vic would be alone on stage with everyone else beamed up to heaven
The guitar playing incident occurred at the one and only ROA held at the Lima Fairgrounds in Lima, OH. IIRC it was ROA 1975. It rained cats and dogs for most of that rock and the Lima location honestly, just sucked! During one of those late afternoon downpours, vic walked out on the main stage in his finest “dress” overalls with that small acoustic guitar reported previously. The crowd was trying hard to “be blessed”, but by now, the rain had become depressingly annoying.
So, vic comes out and thanks everybody for being so blessed, brings Ted Ferrell out, and they do like a little talk show leading up to vic performing his obscure old classic from childhood, “Ole Rattler”, a song about a dog named Rattler. It lasted about 1:20, was pretty ....- poor imo, but vic and Ted were out in the rain together doing their hoakie routine. Later on that night, again, under a steady, cold drizzle, da Forehead was the main teacher. He was out there in a suit and tie, with some poor schlepp standing next to him holding a big golf umbrella. Suddenly, out comes vic, yelling “I stood in the rain today, why can’t you??”. He takes the umbrella from the poor schlepp, throws it toward the drum set, and storms off the stage!
The pictures referred to above by WW were pictures of Vic’s afternoon performance of “Ole Rattler” from the main stage of the ROA ‘75.
According to WD, he saw the pics of the incident you're describing, but said he saw a different incident. On the thread for "TW:LIW" Wonderland thread, he claimed the following...
"...it was a ROA family table. Yes I was there it was in Sidney toward the east end of the fairgrounds on the way out of the gate to the little grocery store at the edge of the grounds. If you want to pay the airfair I most likely could find the spot for you. The pictures I have somewhere in storage are ones I took with some sort of camera that I most likely would not want to admit I owned. " He claimed vpw played that same song. (I wonder if he only knew the one song.)
" As I said not being a player I will refrain from critique but he did play the guitar. He was not Les Paul,or Clapton by any strech but it was passable."
" I did notice that on the one that was from the Way Magazine, I think he did have another guitar player with him which most likely gave the song a better sound. "
(He was claiming he saw photos of the one you described, and it was a different incident.)
In other news, lcm's account of the rain on stage differs slightly from yours (I believe yours over his.) In the "vp & me in Wonderland" thread, he skipped any mentions of an umbrella. He said that vpw said "IF THE AUDIENCE GETS WET, SO DO YOU! " and pushed him onstage. Interesting how vpw becomes a nicer guy in the cleaned-up version.
I heard VPW play that tune a few times, "Ol Rattler" or whatever it was. Later years, on one occasion, he did it on one of the Saturday "Doos" on the "Asphalt Terrace" outside the Wierwille Home and the Barn. I remember dropping in and thumping out the chords behind him the second time through - C and G7. VPW had told me way back in 1971 when he was out on the West Coast that he played some guitar, just a few chords and had played a little when he was young. I was showing him my Gibson LP, a '67 Gold Top and one of the other members had a Gibby SG he liked too. He was interested in the way you'd expect, like okay, now what. But it's funny, while he'd play that tune with all of it's two chords, he could strum with his thumb and keep the beat. Not exactly a player but he could play that.
Shazdancer - the music was weak, I agree, but they had enough talent to do something decent. It seemed to be just all wired together wrong, the arrangements didn't sound coherent to me but there wasn't really any "story" for the music to follow. It was so abstract, yet struggling to communicate a complete vision. As I posted above early - it reminded me of that old 50's horror flick "The Mask". Today it would be one of those "so bad it's funny" movies, if you're doing a year in County. In fact, the only way I'll ever watch AOS again is if it's shown by Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Edited by socks Someday Sparky, this will all be yours. Really. Yes, everything.
I heard VPW play that tune a few times, "Ol Rattler" or whatever it was. Later years, on one occasion, he did it on one of the Saturday "Doos" on the "Asphalt Terrace" outside the Wierwille Home and the Barn. I remember dropping in and thumping out the chords behind him the second time through - C and G7. VPW had told me way back in 1971 when he was out on the West Coast that he played some guitar, just a few chords and had played a little when he was young. I was showing him my Gibson LP, a '67 Gold Top and one of the other members had a Gibby SG he liked too. He was interested in the way you'd expect, like okay, now what. But it's funny, while he'd play that tune with all of it's two chords, he could strum with his thumb and keep the beat. Not exactly a player but he could play that.
Shazdancer - the music was weak, I agree, but they had enough talent to do something decent. It seemed to be just all wired together wrong, the arrangements didn't sound coherent to me but there wasn't really any "story" for the music to follow. It was so abstract, yet struggling to communicate a complete vision. As I posted above early - it reminded me of that old 50's horror flick "The Mask". Today it would be one of those "so bad it's funny" movies, if you're doing a year in County. In fact, the only way I'll ever watch AOS again is if it's shown by Mystery Science Theater 3000.
AOS both terrified and fascinated me as a child. I saw it live as a young kid and then me and my way friends were obsessed with learning the choreography - of the seed of the serpent. She fascinated us the most. Very healthy. Ugh.
AOS both terrified and fascinated me as a child. I saw it live as a young kid and then me and my way friends were obsessed with learning the choreography - of the seed of the serpent. She fascinated us the most. Very healthy. Ugh.
She WAS the female lead, and she DID have better rhythm and more training than lcm, so of course you gravitated towards that.
It's obvious in hindsight that a group that strains at gnats should have figured out all the stage-time on devils and the superior dance skills on that side would end up as a promotional. lcm was too busy orchestrating new ways to have everyone pat him on the back to think of the consequences. (Really- there was a moment where everyone was patting him on the back. I even freeze-framed on it once. Raf pointed it out at the time.)
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T-Bone
AOS has to be one of the great highlights of TWI’s hypocrisy...the production was to reveal the wiles of the devil and how a believer can be strong and stand up against all the deceptions and temptati
shazdancer
Enjoy some excerpts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabmXuDN5Zg I was out of TWI by 1985, or I might have been in this. Definitely dodged a bullet there. A couple of random thoughts fo
Wanderer
How about a showing with audience participation like "Rocky Horror Picture Show", we could all yell "A$$hole" every time LCM shows his face?
socks
To add: I'm sure there was but it doesn't ring any bells. It likely ran around 2 am, right after the "Shepherds Chapel" and the Bahai Events Calendar for that month.
Edited by socksIt's your kids, Marty. Something's got to be done about your kids!
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WordWolf
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055151/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_(1961_film)
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Rocky
Btw, Socks, I appreciate your update with the secret subliminal message. :)
Might this be a trailer for the movie you were describing?
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socks
Yes, that's it! A very bizarre flick, and at 11 years old, seemed kinda kinky. Wacky!
Edited by socksAOS - We drove up with another couple for the premiere weekend showing. Stayed a night, and were back home Monday.
We all discussed it for a long time on the way home - and remember we were broadly pro-the-ministry, and weren't looking to trash it. I had friends involved, and really really wanted to like it, to learn something from it, to be encouraged the Ministry was moving in a healthy direction that we could all grow with. Plus this was seeing our new Pres Craig in action and saw it to be something of a harbinger of his future.
Buuuuuuuuuuut...outside of the dancers trying to do their best I thought it was a terrible production. It had no natural rhythm or flow that carried the viewer, no real story being told, no narrative quality, texture. Considering I was very well schooled in what they were trying to communicate I felt I knew less about the topic after seeing the production - seriously, the imagery was, to put it into a word, "corny" and took away from the realities being referred to. It removed all sense of horror from the reality of a rebellious adversary working contrary to God the Creator's will. It made it seem like an academic exercise - given Craig's failure and that he was about to have his defeated "Adversary" tying a plastic bag around his head while being drug into quicksand, he was being cavalier at an almost Shakespearean level.
In the Way we were taught to see God as the sum of the things He does for us. We lost the magnitude of His glory, the breadth of His will as Creator by reducing it to words and definitions we could parse. We knew the greek nuances of the words that told us that God was beyond our highest perceptions but ignored what that meant and how it might affect our actions and attitudes.
AOS was a perfect example of Craig's "flat earth" view of spirituality. Lacking grandeur and scope, but struggling with every wiggling drop of sweat to communicate.
Anyway, I'd never show that to anyone. We never watched it back home in our fellowship. It eventually was shown locally buuuuuuuuut I barely remembered it.
There was an incident on the road trip home from Ohio that has lived on our memories as one of the more hilarious travel stories we accumulated but that's another story.
Anyway. Yeah.
Testing new super secret code messaging - they're on to me!
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DogLover
For some reason, I was thinking that the premier was before VPW died. I was in residence at Gunnison in the spring of 1985, which was a horrible experience, and those that wanted to go were allowed to go straight to Ohio for the weekend, see it, then come straight back. As much as I would have liked to escape the gulag for a couple days, I did not think it was worth the effort. Earlier that block, in February I believe (LCM watched the Grammys with us), when LCM came to visit Gunnison, all he seemed to talk about was the costuming for the different categories he had determined of devil spirits. I found it extremely weird, and still do. I saw AOS once at the Rock of Ages 1985. It was a waste. I could not believe they made a coloring book of it for kids of the ministry to be exposed to it ...
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T-Bone
AOS has to be one of the great highlights of TWI’s hypocrisy...the production was to reveal the wiles of the devil and how a believer can be strong and stand up against all the deceptions and temptations...meanwhile the “star of the show” believer boy (craig) is boinking the “wrong seed” chick...oh no, Obi-Wan we lost another to the dark side!
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Grace Valerie Claire
Dog, I couldn't believe what garbage AOTS was; I throught it was a huge waste of time, and money. But LCM was very proud of it; I guess he couldn't see how horrible it really was.
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Grace Valerie Claire
T-Bone, I thought the whole production was dark. But perhaps that was why I slept through most of it; it was dark, and drealy.
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chockfull
T-Bone I think you are my favorite movie critic!!!!!
LOL
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shazdancer
Enjoy some excerpts here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabmXuDN5Zg
I was out of TWI by 1985, or I might have been in this. Definitely dodged a bullet there. A couple of random thoughts for this thread:
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Grace Valerie Claire
Shaz, WOW!! Great post!! Thanks for the information.
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WordWolf
1) Once he was in charge, lcm absolutely had to be in the middle of EVERYTHING. He was in "High Country Caravan" despite lacking talent. He showed up onstage when bands did musical numbers (not singing, not performing, just posing). So, of course he ended up in the middle of this. I'm fully convinced he hinted around until someone commented offhand that they thought he should be in it- then that was his excuse to say people wanted that, lack of dance experience or no. It sure explains why a football exercise ended up in the production, even if it made no sense. The previous male lead was still in the final product, if moved back behind lcm.
2) Does not surprise me that vpw's limit of understanding DANCE was limited to, say, square dance and clogging, and thinking that people with "dance training" and "dance experience" would be experienced CLOGGERS.
3) twi STILL billed AOS as better than the world could put out, because that's what twi has always said. So, no matter how much better trained dancers could have been, that was the party line, and that should surprise no one.
4) See previous point. Also, in answer to your question, someone here (JohnIam, IIRC) once posted he saw vpw at an ROA wandering around with a little guitar, a banjo-sized thing, and saw him/heard him play a little. Didn't say he was particularly good, but he gave the impression that he could do backup in a garage band or something. We knew vpw definitely could not SING, as in William Hung level can't sing. He apparently couldn't keep the beat, as you're saying. *checks* It was WhiteDove, who said of vpw's playing, "It was passable." (That was from a FAN of vpw.) (It was at a Family Table at a Sidney ROA, not wandering around.) It was A L P, among others, that said vpw was seen with the little ukelele sized guitar. dmiller later confirmed the size of the guitar ("Ala -- I remember that pic too. I think it may be in one of the old way magazines (roa edition -- mid 70's) I seem to remember that it was a Martin guitar he had. The reason it looks so small, is because it was a 00-18, or 000-18 size -- which is much smaller than the size one sees today.") Both posters saw the PHOTOS. WD was present when he actually played.
5) It's obvious in hindsight the obsession with sex would show up there. It was just plain uncomfortable every single time the video aired, especially if kids were in the room. The theology of the production was awful. The devils were given a LOT of time, and OUR goal was to "stand our ground." General Patton said "I don’t want to get any messages from the front saying that we are holding our position. We’ll let the Hun [Germans] do that. We are attacking constantly and we’re not interested in holding on to anything except the enemy." I thought we were supposed to go forward and witness the new kingdom so others would get born again. In the production, that happened for less than a minute in a 2-hour program. After that, we were smacking around devils or standing our ground. It was about devils and about US. Wasn't about Christ, the new birth, and so on. God was relegated to the role of background player and team mascot.
Nice to see you drop in, Shaz.
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DontWorryBeHappy
The guitar playing incident occurred at the one and only ROA held at the Lima Fairgrounds in Lima, OH. IIRC it was ROA 1975. It rained cats and dogs for most of that rock and the Lima location honestly, just sucked! During one of those late afternoon downpours, vic walked out on the main stage in his finest “dress” overalls with that small acoustic guitar reported previously. The crowd was trying hard to “be blessed”, but by now, the rain had become depressingly annoying.
So, vic comes out and thanks everybody for being so blessed, brings Ted Ferrell out, and they do like a little talk show leading up to vic performing his obscure old classic from childhood, “Ole Rattler”, a song about a dog named Rattler. It lasted about 1:20, was pretty piss- poor imo, but vic and Ted were out in the rain together doing their hoakie routine. Later on that night, again, under a steady, cold drizzle, da Forehead was the main teacher. He was out there in a suit and tie, with some poor schlepp standing next to him holding a big golf umbrella. Suddenly, out comes vic, yelling “I stood in the rain today, why can’t you??”. He takes the umbrella from the poor schlepp, throws it toward the drum set, and storms off the stage!
The pictures referred to above by WW were pictures of Vic’s afternoon performance of “Ole Rattler” from the main stage of the ROA ‘75.
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waysider
Saying WhiteDove was a fan of VPW is like saying the Pope is some Catholic guy.
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waysider
....comes out on stage, grabs an electrified mic and proclaims, "I'm still here."
(Not one of his more enlightened moments)
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
I bet some people were hoping VPW would be electrocuted or that the gathering together would occur and poor Vic would be alone on stage with everyone else beamed up to heaven
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Grace Valerie Claire
Thomas, great post. LMAO!!
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WordWolf
According to WD, he saw the pics of the incident you're describing, but said he saw a different incident. On the thread for "TW:LIW" Wonderland thread, he claimed the following...
"...it was a ROA family table. Yes I was there it was in Sidney toward the east end of the fairgrounds on the way out of the gate to the little grocery store at the edge of the grounds. If you want to pay the airfair I most likely could find the spot for you. The pictures I have somewhere in storage are ones I took with some sort of camera that I most likely would not want to admit I owned. " He claimed vpw played that same song. (I wonder if he only knew the one song.)
" As I said not being a player I will refrain from critique but he did play the guitar. He was not Les Paul,or Clapton by any strech but it was passable."
" I did notice that on the one that was from the Way Magazine, I think he did have another guitar player with him which most likely gave the song a better sound. "
(He was claiming he saw photos of the one you described, and it was a different incident.)
====================================================
In other news, lcm's account of the rain on stage differs slightly from yours (I believe yours over his.) In the "vp & me in Wonderland" thread, he skipped any mentions of an umbrella. He said that vpw said "IF THE AUDIENCE GETS WET, SO DO YOU! " and pushed him onstage. Interesting how vpw becomes a nicer guy in the cleaned-up version.
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socks
Some stuff to catch up on here -
I heard VPW play that tune a few times, "Ol Rattler" or whatever it was. Later years, on one occasion, he did it on one of the Saturday "Doos" on the "Asphalt Terrace" outside the Wierwille Home and the Barn. I remember dropping in and thumping out the chords behind him the second time through - C and G7. VPW had told me way back in 1971 when he was out on the West Coast that he played some guitar, just a few chords and had played a little when he was young. I was showing him my Gibson LP, a '67 Gold Top and one of the other members had a Gibby SG he liked too. He was interested in the way you'd expect, like okay, now what. But it's funny, while he'd play that tune with all of it's two chords, he could strum with his thumb and keep the beat. Not exactly a player but he could play that.
Shazdancer - the music was weak, I agree, but they had enough talent to do something decent. It seemed to be just all wired together wrong, the arrangements didn't sound coherent to me but there wasn't really any "story" for the music to follow. It was so abstract, yet struggling to communicate a complete vision. As I posted above early - it reminded me of that old 50's horror flick "The Mask". Today it would be one of those "so bad it's funny" movies, if you're doing a year in County. In fact, the only way I'll ever watch AOS again is if it's shown by Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Edited by socksSomeday Sparky, this will all be yours. Really. Yes, everything.
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DontWorryBeHappy
LOL SOCKS!
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outandabout
Ha ha ha! That would be great! I can see it now!
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BecomingMe
AOS both terrified and fascinated me as a child. I saw it live as a young kid and then me and my way friends were obsessed with learning the choreography - of the seed of the serpent. She fascinated us the most. Very healthy. Ugh.
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WordWolf
She WAS the female lead, and she DID have better rhythm and more training than lcm, so of course you gravitated towards that.
It's obvious in hindsight that a group that strains at gnats should have figured out all the stage-time on devils and the superior dance skills on that side would end up as a promotional. lcm was too busy orchestrating new ways to have everyone pat him on the back to think of the consequences. (Really- there was a moment where everyone was patting him on the back. I even freeze-framed on it once. Raf pointed it out at the time.)
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