:::CP014::: VAN GUMBY - MASTERS OF PANIC

:::CP014::: VAN GUMBY - MASTERS OF PANIC

"Dateline 2026. "To what can we attribute the current state of popular music?" ask the dyspeptic masses. Drivel-spewing automatons that have handily replaced music critics contend, "Van Gumby, circa 2009". To which the blithering morons might reply, "Who(m)(z)?"

Truly, little is known about this lyrical outfit. Its origins are vaguely understood, if at all. Its disappearance at the apex of fame is absolutely inexplicable. Top scientists have divined that the so-called "troupe" employed between three hundred and fifteen hundred people at any given time, each tasked with toggling a specific switch on a massive mainframe affectionately known as "GORLAC". Theories abounded as to how this behemoth machine produced a warbling humanoid voice and emulated the dulcet tones of feedback-bloated guitar work and sharp, cutting percussion. The last of these theorists was put to death in 2017, and theories have since ceased to abound.

Yet the all-encompassing legacy of Van Gumby is indelible, if not singularly stupefying. Not a single new artist or band distributes a shred of music without giving "mechaprops" to Van Gumby in the liner notes of their latest Compact HyperCube Holo-vessel. Not a single musical performance begins without the now-cliched primal scream of "all glory to Van Gumby and his army of lobotomized minions!" So can you really blame the modern-day "layfan" for not knowing Van Gumby the band from Van Gumby the ancient mythical creature? Local idiot Dr. Julian Fader IX told me, through his feeding tube, "Van Gumby is a band? WTF (sic)! Considering the number of small rodents and wildfowl that have been sacrificed in his name before shows, who would have thought that he was anything other than some sort of gargantuan manifestation of death itself?" Truer words have never been spoken by a full-bore mongoloid.

So it is that Van Gumby, at some point in its opaque history, transitioned from an actual musical production system into a post-pop-cultural faux-reference. How and when this transition occurred is currently being processed on a large machine purportedly capable of calculating the meaning of life (that question is second in queue). I am apprehensive of the result of this procedure, as perhaps it is best for future generations if we were to remain shrouded. A Unified Van Gumby Theory (UVGT) has long been assumed to portend the immediate destruction of the universe. I shall perish this thought and leave you instead with another gem from the famous inbred barbarian Dr. Julian Fader IX, who, upon my egress from his feces-laden steel cage, exclaimed without provocation, "You call these bagels?""

- Prasad Patil, 9/9/09