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Robert Anton Wilson May Die Broke and Homeless

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20:30 / 02.10.06

Help RAW

Heartbreaking.

21:21 / 02.10.06

I've followed the link. It doesn't really explain what's actually going on. Could you explain a bit?

23:26 / 02.10.06

Sounds like utter bollocks to me.

Destroy thread please mods.

23:35 / 02.10.06

And even if he is on his death-bed. He's about fucking 80 or so! What do people want us to send him?? A 'chin up'?

Fuck! This thread has got me angry!

GO AWAY!!!

23:53 / 02.10.06

And i'm pretty sure that Douglas Rushkoff, if he's such a huge fan of RAW, can put him up in his fucking spare bed and feed him grapes every now and then throughout the last few troublesome transition hours. What the fuck do they want.

Oh, yes, they want some money. There is an email address and post address to send it to. Maybe keeing RAW in print. Well, no, because RAW is constantly in print, quite right too as i like a lot of his stuff. Well, they want money for something. Oh, yes, it's because RAW is destitute on on his deathbed. With not a penny to his name and all his famous writer friends have to make an online petition to raise monies for a doss house for him to pass away in.

wankers (and that includes him) !!!

00:01 / 03.10.06

I always like typing (and speaking) the word wankers!

I'll do it again...

Wankers!

00:10 / 03.10.06

So, should we put you down for a tenner?

00:14 / 03.10.06

Tenner says that he goes before xmas!

December 16th i'd say!

This could really turn into a nice betting thread.

Can we do Paypal through Barbelith?

00:45 / 03.10.06

I really should have started my Enochian Betting thread.....

But anyway...

RAW...passes away....

16/1 - During October.

8/1 - During November.

4/1 - During December.

2/1 - During Jan

Bets on!

Maybe this should be in the Games threads. But i think it could work quite well here. Maybe need to flag it in Conversation.

Anyway.... anyone who wants to play...post up the date they think that RAW will start interacting with the Tibetan Book of the Dead and passing on, and at the end of it the person the nearest to the actual soul transference date will win. A prize. I'll work out a way of doing the odds later.

Like i said.. Dec 16th for me

01:03 / 03.10.06

Armed With Madness, at the risk of souring your enthusiasm, can I respectfully suggest that the preceding display has been in somewhat poor taste?

01:16 / 03.10.06

Of course you can Lep, if it has upset you, or made you feel that it may upset others. Can i ask what upset you?

01:24 / 03.10.06

Apart from that my previous post should have been in in the Games forum.

01:38 / 03.10.06

And bearing mind that i would count the opening thread post as SPAM.

02:20 / 03.10.06

And the bets are still on!! The counter-culture wrinkily is fading fast!! Go for a leafy solstice movement if i were you. Or a snowy spring-type equinox. It's up in the air!

*

04:21 / 03.10.06

Is the fact that his writings are overrated and hyped by some very annoying people the sole reason for a few posters seeming very cheerful about this man's illness? Or has RAW perpetrated some tangible damage on the world (more than just a crime of bad taste) that I don't know about?

08:11 / 03.10.06

What i found in slightly poor taste about the whole thing is the whole, 'he's skint and on his deathbed, lets pass a virtual cup around the world to help him out' that his more famous and better off writer chums are doing. Like i said, up the drunken thread a bit, i'm sure Douglas Ruskoff can help his hero out, if he is living on the street, by giving him a place to die peaceably.

Why the man needs a lot of money to die is quite beyond me. Perhaps they want the world to chip in to buy huge amounts of chinese firecrackers to shove up his arse when he goes and launch him into space.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:45 / 03.10.06

I'm going to ask to move ths to Convo. It's only tangentally related to the Temple and more people will see it there.

10:28 / 03.10.06

So this is the Barbelith thread that will mark the passing of Robert Anton Wilson? Well done Barbelith. Well done. A new low. how cruel and boring you have become.

perhaps his writings are beneath you now you've moved on to greater things and this is how you reject the teachers of your adolescence. how big of you. what a tough magician you are. how harsh your words. how unrestrained and angry. how little compassion. what excellent put downs. how terribly sad.

in case you don't know, Barbelith is over. it never recovers from this.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

10:33 / 03.10.06

So how about you start your own thread celebrating the life and works of RAW? (Preferably in a thread that didn't start with a one-sentence post, because those tend not to generate a lot of meaningful discussion.)

Instead of telling us how meen we are, why not try and express what you feel is significant about his work, what it's meant to you, why you think it's still valid and important today. Here in the Temple is fine, or you might want to start it in Books.

I mean, if hectoring people from your high horse is more fun you could carry on doing that, far be it from me to tell ya what to do...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

10:49 / 03.10.06

(PS: armed with madness/ghadis, I hope you will note that as the only poster to this thread who's actually said a single word against RAW you have, singlehandedly, killed Barbelith. Go and stand in the corner.)

11:35 / 03.10.06

That is right.

I AM BARBELITH! COWER PUNY HUMANS!

For what it's worth kim & mik, Robert Anton Wilson was never a teacher of my adolescence. I never got round to reading him untill i was well into my 20s.

My main teacher of my adolescence was Frankie Goes To Holloywood.

Now what was it that they used to say???

(yeah MC, to the conversation with it. Or burn it up. I don't care as i've had my wicked way with it now and i'm spent)

(also kim & mik, i would welcome a proper Temple thread on RAW and his works as, despite how you have decided to see it and despite me mentioning it above, i actually do enjoy, and am interested, in some of his ideas. Just please don't start it with three words and a link to a begging letter)

11:42 / 03.10.06

The olgaceline@gmail.com address is also mentioned as RAW´s paypal address on Wilson´s own homepage, so it doesn´t look as if Rushkoff wants to rip off people.

Wikipedia has this to say:
On June 22, 2006, Huffington Post blogger Paul Krassner reported that Robert A. Wilson is currently under hospice care at home with friends and family. [2] On 2 October 2006 Douglas Rushkoff reported that Wilson was in severe financial trouble.[3] As at 3 October the front page of rawilson.com contains an appeal for funds.

It took me about two minutes to research this, armed with madness. Maybe next time, you could do the same before you get upset about something, you presume to be the case?

11:58 / 03.10.06

I never said, or thought, that Rushkoff wants to rip people off. What are you on about Mist?

12:09 / 03.10.06

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:12 / 03.10.06

Mist: read the thread again. Really.

So this is the Barbelith thread that will mark the passing of Robert Anton Wilson? Well done Barbelith. Well done. A new low. how cruel and boring you have become.

If it helps, K&M, there's a thread about exactly this in books as well. I don't know how it's going, but you could drop in on that one.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

12:12 / 03.10.06

I can't tell the Sincere Candles from the Sarcasm Candles any more. Is there a field guide?

12:16 / 03.10.06

I never said, or thought, that Rushkoff wants to rip people off. What are you on about Mist?

You made this impression to me with these sentences:

And i'm pretty sure that Douglas Rushkoff, if he's such a huge fan of RAW, can put him up in his fucking spare bed and feed him grapes every now and then throughout the last few troublesome transition hours. What the fuck do they want.

Oh, yes, they want some money. There is an email address and post address to send it to.

12:20 / 03.10.06

I can't tell the Sincere Candles from the Sarcasm Candles any more. Is there a field guide?

Matt, this is Barbelith Convo. Now, what kind of candles might these be?

12:20 / 03.10.06

Armed with madness, pretty much all of your posts in this thread have been absolutely disgusting, and I can't believe the rest of the board is staying quiet on this.

I think you should give RAW a fiver to help redress your karma, or come your deathbed you may find yourself destitute with some ignorant fucker laughing about it on t'internet.

yes, putting this thread in the temple is not very clever, but I don't think that excuses your behaviour at all.

Icky nasty fic-suit, you.

12:23 / 03.10.06

Ha, and since I start writing the post, five people chime in... oh well.

12:24 / 03.10.06

Well, my indignant fury, which looks quite sad and petty now, all curled up on the floor the day after the drunken Barbelith destroying party last night, was more about why people may need much money to die. I didn't think that Rushkoff was going to pocket the funds and do a runner. These sort of public grieving threads also make me squirm a lot.

12:26 / 03.10.06

To clarify: that there's a sarcassm candle.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:28 / 03.10.06

Never mind, Mist, Everyone's wrong sometimes.

In case you don't know, ghadis is over. He doesn't recover from this.

I think the problem is that irritation at the poor quality of the post is being expressed by jokes at the expense of the subject matter. I'm sure that nobody is glad Robert Anton Wilson is dying or in discomfort. I would rather the person who wrote:

Those in the Know please help the prophet of anachist magick and 23 so he can have a peaceful end

Was in discomfort, but it's not a perfect world. Like Neil Gaiman, Friedrich Nietzsche and Peter Purves, Wilson has always suffered from many of those inspired by him not being inspired very far - instead interchanging uncritical adulation and credulous myth-making with thin-skinned hostility to any more.. reality-based approaches the man annd his works.

So, I'm sorry that Mr. Wilson is in such a bad way. It's a sad fact that death comes to us all, and I'm glad that he has reached a fairly ripe old age and appears to have enjoyed most of it. I hope that he recovers, or that his egress from life is as painless and as pleasant as possible. Could we possibly not turn it into another wedge issue? Ta.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:29 / 03.10.06

Yes, I'm sure what RAW would really want is a nice sycophantic whine-in where everyone tries to outdo each other in their love for Saint Robert, quoting chunks of his books like a bunch of undergraduates trading Fast Show quotes.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:30 / 03.10.06

(X-post with Haus.)

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