Dominating the Universe Through Silliness

Fairy dell (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:29:19 -0700

Fairy dell (Taken with instagram)

Stacy’s new back porch step, fashioned from Fix-It-All...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:50:23 -0800

Stacy’s new back porch step, fashioned from Fix-It-All (Taken with instagram)

What a perfect holiday gift! (Taken with Instagram at Berkeley...

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:06:35 -0800

What a perfect holiday gift! (Taken with Instagram at Berkeley Street Fair)

Mt. St. Hellacords (Taken with Instagram at Dickens Fair 2011)

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:32:25 -0800

Mt. St. Hellacords (Taken with Instagram at Dickens Fair 2011)

Shadows never lie…I am your father…. (Taken with...

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:28:48 -0700

Shadows never lie…I am your father…. (Taken with instagram)

The Gravel Spreaders’ uniforms have come in! Ya...

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:36:21 -0700

The Gravel Spreaders’ uniforms have come in! Ya can’t properly spread gravel without coveralls, so now members Bud Hole, Doc, Uncle Mungar, and Buzzy Do-Well have their very own. (Taken with instagram)

I guess it was a really hawt day. (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:41:28 -0700

I guess it was a really hawt day. (Taken with instagram)

My Trip to the City. This is an automatic crossing warning...

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:40:39 -0700

My Trip to the City. This is an automatic crossing warning system…no more pushing dirty buttons. Wonder how much this cost? (Taken with instagram)

It was a really hawt day, I guess… (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:21:40 -0700

It was a really hawt day, I guess… (Taken with instagram)

My Trip to Pick Up My Car From the Mechanic. An automatic...

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:20:07 -0700

My Trip to Pick Up My Car From the Mechanic. An automatic crosswalk warning system… No more pushing dirty buttons. Wonder how much this cost? (Taken with instagram)

With PreservaWood applied! (Taken with instagram)

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:18:27 -0700

With PreservaWood applied! (Taken with instagram)

Where are my curly slippers and smoking jacket? (Taken with...

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 18:50:05 -0700

Where are my curly slippers and smoking jacket? (Taken with instagram)

Unentitled

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:39:50 -0800

I Went To Tripoli, And All I Got Was This Bloody Hole In My T-Shirt!

REVERSE ENGINEERING - HOW DO THEY DO IT?

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 09:22:23 -0800

I’m not talking about the kind of reverse engineering like they do at Roswell and Area 51, where they take a captured UFO and figure out how to use its technology to build flying saucers for the military, or they take DNA from an alien, cross-breed it with beef jerky and a baboon and come up with Keith Richards. I’m talking about the technology at work right here at home in my kitchen sink. We have this drain basket; it has a strainer part, with holes in it, so the water can flow through but bits of food are caught before they clog up your drain. And it also has a plug part, which hangs down below the strainer. There’s a cam system so that, by rotating the plug, you can either have it in the down position so it blocks the drain and you can fill the sink with water, or you can put it in the up position, so that it hangs above the drain and water can still flow through. You probably have one at home yourself. The problem here is that this device has a 100% record for doing the reverse of what I want it to do. This is beyond Murphy. 100% of the time, if I want to fill the sink up with water, the plug doesn’t hold. 100% of the time, if I want the basket in place to catch food particles, it’ll instead plug the drain, and the sink will fill with water! HOW DOES IT DO THAT????

to badlava:

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:49:35 -0800

badlava writes: “I mean, no offense but…

I’m just saying, the song sucks. No matter what that “Iknowmoon” guys say (who wouldn’t know Moon if he bit him in the ass), I wasn’t saying so to hurt. MM’s just admitted he pretty much wrote the song to please his social circle at the time, and that therefore it’s crap as a piece of art. Wouldn’t surprise me if his negative comments about the UC are motivated by his current social circles in the same way, once a pleaser.., Or perhaps by his own desire to bury what once meant something to him - as ever, the line between love and hate is a fine one. But acceptance is more effective in coming to terms with one’s past than demonizing it IMHO..”

OK: you think the song sucks - you’re entitled to your opinion, no matter how differing from mine it is. I don’t happen to think the song sucks, I just said I’m done with UC members singing it…I think they wore it out…I’m certainly tired of hearing it, even in my memory. I’m retiring it.

I did NOT say I wrote it to please my social circle at the time; I wrote it as a gift to what I thought of as god, and the members, at the time. I believed, or hoped to believe, in the DP at that time. After a certain amount of trying to believe, of investigation, of fruitless patience, I left the church because it was a pile of BS with an upper hierarchy that had no problem treating me as a slave and living off my labors.

Yes: I changed my mind. I stopped going down the wrong road. I don’t really give a flying f*ck WHAT the church and its members do right now, but I do have compassion for those members who are suffering and need to grow some self-esteem and LEAVE.

I mean, no offense but...

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:35:55 -0800

Oh _please_ take the stupid song back!

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 07:43:17 -0800

By all means take the stupid song back, please please make it so! In The Hills And In The Valleys has to be one of the most insipid, cloying songs written ever, and that it reflected your faith at the time only adds to the pathos - although it is rather telling. For the sake of God and all of humanity, please PLEASE take the song back, it would be a mitzvah to all the Universe that it never sounded on the ear of any creature ever again!

re: loew01's comment re: hills & valleys

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:37:18 -0800

loew01 wrote:

This is the most distasteful thing I’ve ever heard from any artist… you write a nice song, but you don’t want people to sing it? Just because you no longer agree with the beliefs of the organization you were a part of when you wrote it? Silly…

Really? The most distasteful thing you’ve ever heard from any artist? I suppose I should be honored (“and the award for Most Distasteful goes to…”). On my own scale of egregiousness, that puts me in the same ranking as Madonna and Billy Squier!

And my actions are silly, just because I no longer agree with the beliefs of the organization I was a part of when I wrote it? Although I aspire to silliness - my business motto is “Dominating the Universe Through Silliness” - I can hardly think of a less silly action than to admit I was wrong, or a more appropriate reason to take such an action, especially when the organization is the hell-cult Unification Church! As creator of the song, I retain the right to regard it in whatever light I choose. Would you presume to tell a parent how to feel about their child?

You may feel that, because you have important memories associated with the singing of this song, that you in some sense co-created it. That may actually be partly true, since each of us re-creates a song in our own special way every time we sing it. But that it does not give you the right to judge me.

Do I actually expect people to follow my wishes and stop singing the song? Not really…that’s probably unrealistic; not all moonies read these blogs anyway. But I do want people to know that the song is hollow because I don’t mean it anymore, and haven’t for 27 years, and that if they sing it with their hearts, that simply means they are following their own fantasy for the sake of their own good feeling. If they can be unselfish enough to refrain from doing that, I thank them.

Re: Hills and Valleys

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:02:00 -0800

I was delighted to see the “restored” version of my song In the Hills and In the Valleys posted by Trueandgoodfamily…I enjoy a good perversion of a previously-existing song as much as anyone, and the fact that it was done to a song that I actually wrote is a rarely-experienced form of flattery.

A word about Hills and Valleys: I wrote it in 1975, in Boonville, California, when I was a member of the Oakland Family. Obviously, I was full of hope and enthusiasm at the time, and wanted to write a simple song with an expressive melody that could be remembered and sung by members. I was not concerned with myself or my own future at the time, and freely gave the rights to the song to New Education Development Systems, Inc. (the legal front group for the Oakland Family). For many years, I was humbled and pleased by the fact that it was sung by church members all over the world.

I left the church in 1983, and have never looked back. As the intervening 27 years have passed, my pleasure at the popularity of my song has waned, due to my increasing awareness of the horrible wrongness of the very existence of the church.

So at this time, I take my song back. If you respect the wishes of a living artist, you will stop singing Hills and Valleys from this moment on and never sing it again. This also applies to my other popular Moonie song, Someday My Love. I was a different person 27 years ago when I wrote these songs, and whatever generous feeling I harbored for SMM, his lackeys, the church, and its members has long since evaporated. The best gift anyone could give me right now would be for any memory of these songs to be wiped from the face of the earth.

Thanking you in advance,

Mark Ungar

PS: I don’t understand how the new version of the song could be attributed to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. I have been a big fan of the band for 38 years, and know for a fact neither Neil Innes nor Viv Stanshall nor any of the other members wrote this parody.

Perhaps you could insist that only the "restored version" be sung from now on....

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:03:39 -0800

Ha ha ha…good one! I like the new version…!