It’s not for me, it’s for my sister, seen above in an old glamor  photo. She still looks the same, only 30 years older, and without the glamor.

Rev. Ivan Stang here. Facebook and GoFundMe make me use my less believable human name.

Most of the folks seeing this probably already know about the tragedy in my family. My sister is serving a prison term for assisting in the suicide of her daughter, who had been suffering dreadfully from an incurable disease of the connective tissue called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. That happened in July, 2018 and critically impacted my whole lifestyle and hence my job of keeping The SubGenius Foundation functional and productive.

Due to the nature of the crime, my sister got the minimum sentence of five years. She will be eligible for parole in December 2020, when she will have served half the term. There is no guarantee that she will get parole. As crowded as the prisons are, and as much as the system would like to move nonviolent offenders back into the world, in the eyes of Texas law she is technically a murderer. So she’ll need all the help she (and I) can get.

This is a situation in which a Parole Attorney can make a big difference. After a great deal of shopping around, I have found one, a reputable lawyer in Fort Worth who specializes in parole, has an excellent record of success, and has a very straightforward method of billing along with a reasonable fee of $3,300. Believe me, I did a lot of research. After a couple of consultations by phone, I’m confident that this is the lawyer to go with. 

The lawyer needs $1,000 up front, and then $280 a month through December. Normally, $1000 is an amount I could pull together myself. But things aren’t normal here this year; our house in Cleveland is still on the market, hence I’m still paying for TWO houses (plus part of my sister’s house). We’ve had two very eager buyers, but both times it fell through because they didn’t actually have the money. And of course the current virus crisis has ground down business and house-hunting in general. My stock market safety net suddenly got a big tear in it, through which about a third of my savings just fell out.

I hate to drag my personal problems into SubGenius-Land, but I NEED MY DOG-SITTER BACK if I’m ever going to travel again, like for instance to X-Day or Starwood! If she’s not out of prison at the end of the year, and available to watch over our dogs and aged Mom, I’ll have to spend ANOTHER year NOT TRAVELING. PAID dog-sitters and Mom-sitters are incredibly expensive! I need my sister back if only so that Wei and I might once again leave Glen Rose for more than 10 hours at a time!

And also, I miss my bestie. When we moved back to Texas, my sister and her late daughter were our neighbors. Our buddies. We went to their house most Friday nights to hang out. We talked about movies and books and shows, and made sick, sick jokes. 

It’s so sad that my sister and niece never managed to make it to an X-Day Drill, or a Starwood. They both would have loved the weirdos, and vice versa. Maybe my sister can, someday. Her SubGenius name is Anti-C! The RubGenius. She is quoted in our first book: “Someday I will be a large scar.” That prediction from 1981 pretty much came true.

Dog-sitting and Mom-sitting aside, my friend/sister needs to get out of that horrible prison as soon as it can be made to happen. She is a tough lady, and she’s maintained an even keel through this ordeal (considering). She keeps a low profile, doesn’t antagonize guards or other offenders, works folding laundry, and reads a lot. But she is trapped inside a wretched hive of scum and villainy… with very poor health care, dangerously bad food, difficult hygiene, and no privacy whatsoever. And she’s almost 60. She has written us some very funny letters about the many extreme characters she has encountered and roomed with in this huge dorm of 100 women, but what novelty there might have been has worn off. My poor sister is trapped by law in a stinking, sweltering, madness-ridden room full of, well, criminals. 

The reason most of them are criminals is because they are ignorant, ignorant beyond the ken of most people reading this. Neither my sister nor I considered ourselves sheltered, but now we know that, by golly, we were. We were truly… IGNORANT… of the ignorance of so many of our fellow citizens. Example: “Why don’t Robin Hood just shoot ‘em with a gun?” "You men America wasn't always white people?" And of course the virus has them spreading dire and crazy rumors to each other.

She has developed her own prison identity that helps keep her out of conflicts. Word gets around that she “knows things,” like The Professor on Gilligan’s Island did. She can tell them the lyrics of pop songs that they’re struggling to remember. She knows what all the big words mean. She has a background in medical science. But, instead of “hanging out,” she reads books and does brain-teasing puzzles all day. This is actually so that she won’t lose her patience with the abysmal superstition of her room-mates and start screaming at them. 

She explains her anti-social, bookish behavior to them this way: 

“I have Asperger’s Syndrome, like that one guy in Big Bang Theory. I just can’t relate to people, because I’m “on the spectrum.” It’s not that I don’t like ya’ll. I just have this condition.”

So they go, “OH! Hey ya’ll, Cat isn’t a snob after all! She’s just mentally ill! She has that thing like that guy in Big Bang! It makes her all shy and all!”

Actually I don’t think they call her Cat now. In prison you eventually have your own Prison Name, sort of like a funny SubGenius name, except you’d normally want a slightly intimidating or mysterious name in prison, like “Crazy Eyes” or “Big Red” (like in that show, Orange Is The New Black). 

My sister decided her prison name is “SHOELACE.”

Utterly random. That’s my little sis!

As soon as it looks like I’ll be able to pay this lawyer — which needs to happen soon — I’ll shut down this fund-raiser. When our Ohio house finally gets sold, we’ll be able to take care of the monthly lawyer payments ourselves. 

I mentioned this situation at the end of my radio show last week and two listeners that I hardly know at all instantly sent me $300 total! So technically I only need a quick $700 to get this lawyer started. I will be supplying him things like photos, medical details and, most precious of all, my late niece’s vivid writings about her ordeal, which I intend to turn into a book to help people understand just how unthinkably horrible Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome can get… and what happens if the pain and terror drives you so crazy that you do ANYTHING to end the torment. And if you survive — which my sister had NOT planned to do — you learn how the state treats you for showing too much mercy without the state’s permission. (Most states, like Texas, do not allow assisted suicide under ANY conditions.)

Once she’s out, she has her house on the family property waiting for her, and probably her old job as a water tester too. We just have to get her out of the hell-hole before it’s somehow too late. Even if Texas starts releasing some prisoners due to the virus, she’s among the prisoners who probably WOULDN’T be released. If only! And by golly, were that miracle to suddenly happen, I’ll refund all contributions that didn’t have to be spent. The prisons have cut off visitations, which is a wise enough move, but… they also don’t have any testing kits. Heck, they don’t even have hot water! Much less alcohol-based disinfectant, lest the dumbass prisoners drink it.

In the meantime, we’re doing everything we can to keep her hopes up, and ours!

If you’d rather send me $ directly rather than using GoFundMe, you can use my PayPal account:

http://paypal.me/ivanstang

or you can use the “DONATIONS” button on the home page of http://subgenius.com.

Thanks for your attention!

Ivan Stang/Douglass Smith
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P.S. Where my wife and I, and her 90-year-old Mom, live — a house deep in the woods outside a small rural Texas town — is the best place old folks could possibly be during this time. They have pensions, I work at home and only have to go into town to mail things at the Post Office and pick up groceries (which are mostly unchanged here, so far, except of course for the toilet paper aisles). We were Early Hoarders, plus we live right next to my brother’s goat ranch, so we’re in good shape. We’re much more concerned about our many friends in the big cities, especially the ones whose paychecks stopped coming, and the ones who still get paychecks because they have to keep going to work.

So we TOTALLY UNDERSTAND that this is the worst possible time to ask for financial help! PLEASE don’t feel bad if you JUST CAN’T!