The Land of Win!!! [a fable full of allegory]

[The Omega Concern]

The Land of Win


In the land of win
stood accused Pumpkin
the charge, time and space
the verdict, in the man's face

He wondered aloud
along with the crowd
was the pumpkin done
or had he just begun

It was never his intent
to peep through the tent
and now the man is content?
repent repent

The question is when
o when o when
he looked at his chart
and saw a Pop Tart

It was sweet, it was low
It had sugar, it had flow
but he wondered
when did this all start
o mighty Pop Tart

When did this start?

[The Omega Concern]

In the spring of 2000, there was a discussion on this board that was fairly typical for Netphoria back in those days; rich in the symbols of Machina and the archetypical themes the album posessed. None other than Spankarine suggested to me at the time to check it out, if I hadn't already, the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, supposedly one of the lost gospels from the dead sea scrolls.

I mentioned that I hadn't yet, but would soon. It was mid-March and my life had just transformed in a manner I was desperately trying to find the answers to.

A full week to ten days after that suggestion did I finally go to the library to check out the Gnostic Gospels. Not an easy find but I got it and brought it to a place I thought peaceful to read. A spot that possibly hadn't changed much for a couple thousand years. So I went to the Cliff House area in San Francisco and after walking through a long tunnel nestled myself along the rocks looking west to the ocean. Just 3 weeks prior I was contemplating suicide for the first and only time in my life, and now here I was reading a lost gospel where the view hadn't changed at all since it was written. It felt appropiate.

So I read the Gospel. It was Odd, but not without inspiration...and that was it. Other than the pristine view and contemplative aspect of the place where I read it, the moment came, went, was gone and nothing out of the ordinary seemed apparent. Until I got home.

Per usual, I checked my email, slightly cringing every time because some crazy shit had been going with that account back in March of 2000. I got hacked couple-three different times and the hacker each time left some crazy coded stuff. However, the nature of these curious emails I kept getting presumably could never be traced, so...more on that later.

The day I read the Gospel was March 26th. It was a Sunday if I recall correctly. I get home, check the email and recieve one from a "James 2000". the heading read: "You have been selected for this special offer"


I open the email...

"070"



that was it. "070"... In likeness to the other email anomolies, it was a puzzler. I sat and thought and thought and thought...and then had the "ah hah" moment.


The Gospel I just read was numbered in the olde english style. 001, 002, and so on. So, I opened the book and read the 70th line from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.


070. Jesus said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you."

[duovamp]

Gay.

[The Omega Concern]

thanks for playing duo...

I'm claiming Billy is a talented Remote Viewer...If the guy wants to play along with this, it's up to him. Me, I've already made my decision and have my "GodProof" which is an experience completely unrelated to anything Smashing Pumpkins.

[The Omega Concern]

I tell you this not to claim I know who sent me this email. I can only speculate. I have reason to believe it was Billy Corgan.

I am essentially left with no other choice to believe it was anyone but him. But cannot say for certain it was. Only he could do that. How?


well...


I don't know Billy personally. I understand him a little (or alot, depending on perspective) as a rock n roll archetype, like many of you. The experience I had with him appears to be of a dual antagonistic nature. I did make a thread one day in '99 asking Billy to speak in code to the fan base about Machina and the Y2K. I got a little more than I bargained for. I could of never guessed he decided to take the oppurtunity to antagonize me back and push me to do music.

The "070" was, in retrospect, one more big push from him, to me, to send me once and for all on the musical path. I can't describe to you how I know this to the extent you would understand why I feel I know it was Billy who sent this email. But I am going to ask you that if you care to continue reading my story, please suspend your disbelief and hear me out.

[hnibos]

go on

[The Omega Concern]

It was actually that 4-24-99 night that a rock concert inspired me to really want to do music. You know, BE in a band. Kinda odd cause my baseball career was behind me and I really went through a mid-life crises in my 20's as a result. My spirit was really restless and I'm sure like many of you during those days, it found solace in the music of The Smashing Pumpkins. I truly have never loved a band as much as this one during the heyday. Even my obsession of them caught me off guard at times.


later that year, in the fall of 1999, I started to post more and more and began to enter the general forum and riff on politics with whomever was willing to at the time. Like, in an internet far far away, on a forum long long ago...there was Netphoria before the Politics board. Well, one day I decided to sort of combine a political meme of the time, nay, thee meme of the day; the dreaded end-of-the-world double-zero known as Y2K, and interlock that idea with the new album the band was working on (Machina) with the idea of Billy speaking to the fan base in code.


as TheRoxyKid, I posted this thread here in the Pumpkins forum:


Dear Billy, please speak to us in code about the release of the new album and Y2K.


Please note. I emphasized "us", not me.



I can't remember exactly what I wrote and how I presented it, but basically it was an assumption of mine that Billy had Illuminati knowledge somehow, or at least privy to certain information we don't have access to. I think I was asking Billy to give hints with emphasizing certain lyrics or songs and whether the Y2K is gonna kill us all or whatever. I couldn't get over the sense Billy had some type of secret. It was more intuition working with a strong sense of curiosity and not without toungue firmly implanted in cheek.

As the brits say, I was taking the piss. Fuck, whatever. It was the internet '99. It was Netphoria. May as well been a saloon where they serve milk in a dirty glass. The internets Wild West. The halcyon days of Netphoria.

I also assumed there wasn't a chance in hell he would ever read the thing, let alone respond in code.

[The Omega Concern]

My belief was in the camp of "Rock Stars don't have the time" to do the internet. Let alone check crazy fan boards when at the time they were so many for the band. Talk about a virtual message in a bottle. Not to get too heavy here but I want to emphasize this: I figured the odds he might read and respond were the same as if I'd put a letter in a bottle, threw it in the ocean and have it reach Hawaii or Fiji or someplace while Billy is vacationing there and he picks it up and reads it. My realistic mind understood this little fantasy land corner of the internet called netphoria was about as remote as a pacific island. No way Billy reads it. Nonetheless, no thread mentioning speaking in code meant zero chance of something happening. So I had some fun being creative, writing a crazy thread and posting it, virtually putting the cork in the bottle and chucking it out to the cyber sea.


You know the saying "watch what you wish for, you just might get it". errrrrr...its true.

[Order 66]

he tweeted about some troll post of mine on the o-board but i forgot what it was about

[stumpycat]

OMFG LOL or troll. I hope the former because if true, this Omega Concern guy would be ridiculous.

I finally go to the library to check out the Gnostic Gospels. Not an easy find but I got it

ISBN codes are, like, so secret dude. What other crazy things do you know how to do?

[The Omega Concern]

Not all libraries carry the Gnostic Gospels, that's all.

[killtrocity]

Originally Posted by stumpycat

OMFG LOL or troll. I hope the former because if true, this Omega Concern guy would be ridiculous.

You must not be familiar with this omega concern guy!

[The Omega Concern]

Y2K comes and goes and the world survives. I do get in a fight that night over a girl I never met before when a bunch of her guy friends can't figure out how they spent 5 hours partying with her while I show up 15 minutes before the new year and she makes out with me instead during the countdown.

Crazy fun story that's partially pertinent here, but not in a pumpkin sense so much. More that it was weird what happened because I had been curious (alright, i'll admit it before you lovelies call me out on it -- i was paranoid to the Y2K for some 18 months prior to the moment, so much so I made that crazy Y2K thread here on the Pumpkins forum, and what ends up happening when I didn't expect it at all was my own little chaos.

ergo...I projected so much chaotic energy to the moment it ended up manifesting regardless. Not in the way I expected, but it was a clusterfuck nonetheless and it was a lesson learned.

That theme continued a mere month later.

[The Omega Concern]

a few days before the 2-6-00 Edge show in Palo Alto, California, I was driving to the Tower Records down the street there aaaaannnnd, wanted to get the latest Kerrang with the Pumpkins on the cover. Of course a pumpkin song plays on the radio as I park so I sit there and listen to the song and sure enough the DJ mentions the Arising Tour is on and coming to the Bay Area but nobody knows where just yet, so STAY TUNED. eeeegahds. that shit was so nerve racking that tour.


anyway I get in the store and grab the Kerrang and plop it on the counter and the girl behind the register says, "Oh? you like the Pumpkins?" I said ya and mentioned I just heard a song on the radio and how the secret tour was coming around and yadda yadda. She leans in and says to me, "You want to know something, Im kinda not supposed to say but... they're doing an autograph session here at the store on Sunday."


Whoa!!!!! I ask her immediately if she knew they were going to play at The Edge and she didn't know. She just knew the autograph in-store was at that Tower. Bam. next move I made was straight to the Edge, talk to the club owner, but don't get a straight answer. That isn't to say I didn't get the answer I wanted. I did. he just chose to honor the secrecy, used some choice words with an inflexion that let me know he knew I had figured out SP was gonna play there, and politely asked me to get lost.

boom. next email goes to CandyPotter and she flies up overnight to get in line because the Arising Tour aint coming to SoCal. Next post on Netphoria I tell folks here that I know the secret show location and if they want a head start, lets make a deal, all I ask is that I get the extra ticket in exchange for the info which allowed me to bring 10 friends and family to the show. They were several people that took me up on the offer on the info I gave them, mainly fans who wouldn't have been able to make it in time otherwise without the about 48 hour head-start on everyone else I was lucky enough to get.

[stumpycat]

Originally Posted by killtrocity

You must not be familiar with this omega concern guy!

I am, and he still sounds completely ridiculously fishy. Like there's no way someone's brain could work this way unless they were truly fucked in the head, or they were just choosing to be deliberately out there to try and solicit a rise out of people.

[hnibos]

stfu stumpycat and let the guy tell his story. jesus.

[pavementtune]

I don't want to interrupt you / this story, but I'd really like to know why you think that Billy has 'Illuminati knowledge' and what kind of knowledge would that be? Maybe you could exlpain that some other time.

[The Omega Concern]

I am, and he still sounds completely ridiculously fishy. Like there's no way someone's brain could work this way unless they were truly fucked in the head, or they were just choosing to be deliberately out there to try and solicit a rise out of people.

truth is stranger than fiction stumpycat. I can barely believe this shit happened and it happened to me and it was a long time ago at that, but obviously, I need to work through it still.

I'm quite used to the cynicism surrounding this, so don't feel out of place thinking I'm nuts. But you don't see me posting this on a facebook (not yet anyway)....this is something of a beta-test here on Netphoria. If anybody could possibly understand what I went through, It would be obsessed (or formerly obsessed) Smashing Pumpkin fans. Since this is where it started, here is where I will first tell the tale.

[The Omega Concern]

originally posted by pavementtune:

I don't want to interrupt you / this story, but I'd really like to know why you think that Billy has 'Illuminati knowledge' and what kind of knowledge would that be? Maybe you could exlpain that some other time

that was more my intuition working that he had some type of big secret without understanding what language to use. so, "Illuminati" knowledge is a bad term really, but, ultimately, my intuition was correct...Billy's got some secrets and he, for whatever reason, decided to flush them my way. I did sort of ask for it with the Y2K thread, after all...

[The Omega Concern]

back to the story...

The Friday before the Saturday morning of the ticket sale for 2-6-00 Edge show, I was the first person in line. I remember calling Live 105 and they let me on the air. good times. Moments later, 2nd person in line comes strolling up... It's Monte LDS...in full Zero shirt-silver pants outfit, "Hi, I'm Jonathon. Would you like a burned copy of Machina."

And so started the rather wonderful energy that filled The Edge all weekend. How Monte become host and introduced himself personally to every single person that lined up that night was mad genius. I loved it. Most folks in the back of the line thought he worked for the band. lol.

Im gonna mention the 3rd person in line that day and that was Travis Westover. Travis and I became fast friends. He was playing guitar real nice and it was really great to connect with him at the time. Travis' birthday was March 17th, St Patricks Day and something interesting happens to him a bit later.



...

o.k. showtime. I hope a proper pre-text has been set thus far to now properly dive in to the fuller context of what I'm tring to convey here. all this minutae is necessary from a writing perspective to best set up the money shot, if you will.


since I know Im gonna be front row at the show, I write a letter to Billy and James and jot down about a dozen lines. I can't remember 'em all but it was psychically themed.

I asked them if they had heard of Remote Viewing, something I had been studying.

and the other thing I remember was mentioning a Rush album, 2112, and how maybe they were 100 years off in the narrative.

Just a wonderful energy between band and audience that night. The show got probably the best reviews locally of any show they ever did around here, and for good reason. Early in the set Billy flicks a pick and I actually catch it, it angled back to me and I stick my hand out and it just happened to hit my middle finger and slide down into my quickly closed palm. I turn around to see if my brother saw me catch it. He did. But he was in the muck of the pit while I was riding the front rail just holding on, so he couldn't high-five me like I know he wanted to (it was a nice catch after all).

[vbshlofbvgos]

lesbian asslicking whores

[The Omega Concern]

about 3/4 of the way into the set, I Am One begins and the high E string immediately breaks on the SG and he's down a main string for solo's from the get on a song with a bunch of solo's. no matter, It's I Am One and the band is on high octane. Billy starts his rant:

"Through the eyes we penetrate" he starts and continues in a very preachy manner. It's very intoxicating to observe someone who's muse is so fused to the source of what splits musical atoms.

If you care, take a listen to this I Am One rant: 2-6-00

When he said, "Y2K my fuckin ass, the revolution is not in your motherfuckin computer, it's in your heart" I was stunned. My friend Craig who was on the balcony said he actually looked to me at that moment at that my jaw was on the floor, eyes shocked and he was a little concerned for me. He knew what I felt about the Y2K, I think he just assumed Billy speaking to it like that in the rant would have an affect on me. He didn't know anything about the thread here about asking Billy to the fan base in code.



I cannot help but wonder from this point if Billy had intended in some way to speak in code about the Y2K, but instead of playing along he essentially rips the idea to shreds and destroys it. "Y2K my fuckin ass, the revolution is not in your motherfuckin computer, it's in you heart." In addition to my curiosity if he's actually fucking with me, I got transfixed on whether or not Billy might have read my letter. It was short, 13 lines or so and in it I ask if he's heard of Remote Viewing and whether Rush was 100 years off with their 2112 album. As the band exited after the 1st set, I reached out with my letter and Billy grabbed it from me and immediately placed it on an amp and went off-stage. After the encore's I noticed it was still there, so it was tough to tell as yet if he really did 'read the letters to feel better', as mentioned in I of the Mourning.

[T&T]

should I post my Machina Mystery?

[The Omega Concern]

feel free to start your own thread. I'd love to hear it.

[The Omega Concern]

btw...the x-factor, golem in this tale is Fysche.

her and I became bandmates eventually and even though she was very receptive and aware of the psychic realm and all things Pumpkins and Billy, even she was skeptical to this experience of mine but I never bothered to explain it to her in this detail...it was too soon for me to write it out at that time.

btw...T&T, are you the same Tristessa and Tristan from the Symbols forum on the old Sony O-board?

[The Omega Concern]

to summarize thus far:

I came here in '99 and made a post asking Billy to speak to the fan base in code about Machina and the Y2K.

at the Edge show on 2-6-00, he appears to do just that. But I can't be sure...the story continues further...

and without being too cryptic...the strange Email I get from a James2000 that reads "070" I surmise was sent by someone who was watching me (telepathically) and when completing the reading of that Gospel, sends me the code via that email.

Can't say it was Billy. Like I say, only he can do that at this point. I can't imagine it being anyone else and that's why I've written the story so that you may see how I'm left with that conclusion. If Billy wishes to confirm via further coded rhyme and riddled communique at this point and time lo' these many years later, things could get interesting.

If he doesn't, no skin off my back. I already have my "GodProof" of a song that has shown me the power of the love harmonic through music and that experience is unrelated to this story...but I would never have become a musician if not for this experience so the "GodProof" song would have never been written.

to be continued...

[hnibos]

i thought you were a teacher?

[slunken]

interesting

[slunken]

Originally Posted by The Omega Concern

btw...T&T, are you the same Tristessa and Tristan from the Symbols forum on the old Sony O-board?

he is

[Trotskilicious]

none other than spankarine, guys.