A Tribute to Superbook, Kingpin of Discordians, and Kingpin of Trolls

I was kicking back a moment and was reminded of a joke between me and my old friends. If you've checked out the KLF tracks, you'll hear them giving the call-sign, "The Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu." There are lots of "mu," jokes, and my friends would always tell me that they could never remember the long-winded explanations I used to give when I'd try to explain why these "mu," jokes might be funny. I'll tell you, I don't try to be this weird, I just am this weird. So let's go back to Detroit.

It's the late 70's and America now is a heavenly bliss compared to America at that time. These guys have gotten done with their bowling league game, just some old manual labor guys in Motor City on a Friday night, and they order two pitchers of beer and some scummy bowling alley pizza. All of the league is going to this new happening mega-church, and they are talking all of their Christian jive. Everybody leaves and two old, balding men in ugly smelly 70's polyester clothes heave a sigh over the last slices of bad beer and scummy pizza, "Do you remember when you used to actually believe in that stuff? You know - guys flying through the air - bread that was meat? - that kind of thing?"

So the two guys get a bowling counter - they still had those back then - and they make up their own satirical religion. They created several lengthy pamphlets that mocked dietary regulations, happy and not-so-happy holidays, public and not-so-private confession, people flying through the air, and a little reference to the Goddess Eris, a rather un-popular and un-worshipped Greek Goddess of scandal and discordance. The best titled of the original pamphlets was, "How I Found the Goddess, and What I Did to Her When I Found Her."

The whole point of the pamphlets was to make a joke, and it was really not meant as too much more than that. They distributed them via a small printer, and it it wasn't for the 'Net, that would have been all she wrote. Oh, and I do have to mention that the principle "sage," of Discordianism was "Malaclypse the Younger," as opposed to, "Pliny the Elder." There were all of these funny mock-religious aphoristic quips by the great, "Malaclypse the Younger," and these two balding beer-drinking bowlers wrote some great material.

So, the original Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu were a satire on typical conspiracy theories. Usually some "Illuminati," or "Annunaki," or what have you is vying against the forces of the GREEN LANTERN for world domination. The Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu were a mock secret anarchist society, and supposedly if you followed the mock-religion of these pamphlets right, you might one day get a chance to join forces with them (RAHR!) against, tyranny - sanity - whateva.

So now we talk about superbook. Superbook was amazing as a 'Netizen on every level. Part one, everyone knew that he was an acne ridden, chump-toothed, obese college drop-out of 19, and he didn't seem to mind. He did mind, but he didn't seem to mind. Part two, he took the name superbook, not just to mock people who worshipped Scripture, but because he noted with his very erudite irony that it wasn't just Christians, everyone had a "superbook."

You know - your pillow book - Anne Rice's Queen of the Durned, or Harry Potter's Goblet of Fire, or Ayn Rand's Anthem, or whatever it happened to be. Part three, he was the worst troll on the Internet by a thousand times a thousand, and he was a catastrophic irritant on every site on the Web during his 2 or 3 year dominion. Part four, superbook used one and only one handle all 3 years, and never played characters, which any other troll would have done to the nth degree. Part five, he was a troll that always spoke in proper english, and he was actually funny and annoying, instead of just merely annoying. Part six, there was nothing superbook could not do with a computer. You did not mention "lost page," or "g/cache," in his presence unless you wanted to be very - very - embarrassed.

I know he is dead today, and the reason I know is that I could go to the front page of any site on the 'Net and find him using the same name, or at least doing the same exact thing that was driving everyone on the 'Net to homicidal and suicidal ideation. He most likely committed suicide, and it is no mystery that underneath all of that irony he hated being ugly, poor, fat, and a washout. He was the kingpin of trolls, and he also professed to be a Discordian. No one else did Discordianism like superbook, and rest-in-peace brother, it was not a good life from start to finish, but you could make even your worst enemies laugh.

I've got more stories about superbook - two really great ones actually - but we'll hang back from that for the moment. I think superbook was someone who considered me a true friend, because once or twice he did let all of the irony down and the thing was, superbook wanted romance, and he didn't have the personality or the looks for it. I did suggest that if he gave it some time he might find someone suitable - and that was real - but like I said, I'd spot the ol' troll from two MAC addresses away, and he is probably gone well over two years now.

More to come. I've got to hit the gas station for smokes! - I'll be calling Dad sometime around 7:30! LOL!