Join My Cult!

 A first attempt at an indoctrination ritual performed by a cult that hasn't quite got its act together.  Give them a few years though, and then check in on them. . . 

Join My Cult Free Ebook

For the newcomers, and in preparation for the 1st edition release of Party At The World's End, here's a free version of Join My Cult:

Join My Cult is a subversive, satirical novel written by James Curcio and released by New Falcon Publications (publisher of some notable counter-culture authors such Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, and Aleister Crowley). It is a work of collaborative fiction based on real events. (Wikipedia)

Join My Cult

An interview with John Wisniewski about this book.

Praise Tarvu

Say Hebbo! from Torvakian on Vimeo.

Pron.'am-zam-ivvi-ram'.

Amzamiviram. Detail of a painting by Tony Curtis.

A very emotional man, Amzamiviram had been known to cry for days on end when he was upset or depressed. For example, when Tarvu left Amzamivirm and began Thelvol Hatty Haynu, Amzamiviram cried for 70 days, and his tears were said to have created the river Euphrates.

Little Known Fact - Why do Tarvuist women wear neckties?It is traditional for women to wear neckties, in particular, gold coloured ones on high holy days. This practice is very old, and stems from Tarvu's beautiful wife, Binni, who wore a gold-coloured piece of cord around her neck on the day of their wedding. (Amzamiviram was best man and the party got through over 500 chicken legs).
Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

Join My Cult! ebook introduction

Here is the new introduction to the Join My Cult! ebook presently available on Original Falcon's website.

Rewind the tape to 2000, suburban America. Our progress had reached an apex, and while it would in retrospect be seen clearly as Hubris, at the time, there was no end in sight. At this time, it seemed there was the beginnings of a second (or third?) wave American counterculture that never actually completely coalesced, derailed by the conspiracy theories and atrocities that defined the following near-decade.

1998-2000 is when the core of Join My Cult! was written, despite the publication date. I organized and wrote a great deal of it, but really it owes itself to a group of friends that shared a similar experience moving out of adolescence at that time. The bulk of the conversations in this book are real, derived from online and off-line interactions as we delved headlong into exploration of psychedelics, the occult, and sex.

One criticism often leveled at this text has been that "real people never speak like this." This makes me laugh because, although it is a perfectly valid criticism- sane people certainly don't- in this case, we did. And it is with a tongue-in-cheek mockery of our often overly enthusiastic, nevertheless earnest state that I left this material mostly as is, even though I shudder to think some might take it purely at face value.

It has been interesting, over the past six years or so, to receive letters from readers- most of them telling me, to my surprise, how much the book effected them or even "changed their lives." Of course, amongst these were also plenty of people who felt the need to tell me how truly awful it was, and the notable few who actually went so far as to threaten my life. (I take this as the highest compliment.) When I wrote this book, I was unsure it would ever be published, and certainly many of my friends told me it would be for the better if it wasn't. After it was accepted by New Falcon, I had some hopes of it becoming a break-away cult hit.

In the end, it was neither of these, remaining that odd book you might stumble across one day in the corner of an independent book seller. A puzzling, hilarious, train-wreck of an oddity.

I have come a long way since I wrote Join My Cult!, and (I hope) have grown a great deal as an artist and writer since. But there is an intensity that comes with the blind, youthful enthusiasm of a project like this that I doubt I could replicate. New Falcon never properly edited the first edition, and in retrospect, I'm not sure I can blame them. There are many things in this text that seem like grammatical mistakes, that are intentional (particularly changes between tense and point of view with psychotic frequency), and I can only imagine they gave it a go and threw their hands up at the prospect. I occasionally consider giving it a thorough edit myself, but that thought is quickly washed away when I plunge into the text. This edition does have some minor edits from the original which saw its way into print, and you will find some new additions in the appendix, but there is little I could see changing without possibly disrupting the oddly symmetrical whole of this book, which at first glance looks a lot like total chaos.

So I'm offering it for free now, warts and all, to whomever wants to come along for the ride- and I hope in the process I will introduce some of you to a repository of common experience that might seem strangely familiar.

James Curcio
2009

For more of my work, (writing, music, interviews & more) see http://www.jamescurcio.net This free eBook is released under a Creative Commons License. You can share and print it to your heart's content, though you must get my permission for any other use at jamescurcio at gmail dot com

Read the PDF:



(Link for the image impaired.)

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Join My Cult audiobook iTunes & more

The psychedelic prologue to Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning, Join My Cult! has been rewiring drug-addled brains for the past five years. Now, here, for the first time (because we never bothered to get around to it before), is an installment of the book in audio form.

Rather than post individual episodes on this blog, you can go here to get episodes as they run, or sign up via iTunes, Odeo or the reader of your choice:

Join My Cult! feedburner, episodes past and present.

Join My Cult! audiobook episode 1

The psychedelic prologue to Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning, Join My Cult! has been rewiring drug-addled brains for the past five years. Now, here, for the first time (because we never bothered to get around to it before), is an installment of the book in audio form. LISTEN (mp3)
Want to read it instead? :
Join My Cult! eBook (PDF)

Add this to your iTunes or check out all the episodes as they run


Episode 2 is also now live. Check back here soon for more.

Falcon, Falcon, Burning Bright

Joseph Matheny talks to Nick Thacher and Linda Miller about Falcon Press and why there appears to be two Falcon's selling virtually the same catalogs since the death of Dr. Hyatt.

Also in this episode:

A new In Your Ear with Psuke, and a special bonus track at the end: James Curcio presents the first installment of the Join My Cult audiobook, and releases Join My Cult as a Creative Commons PDF that you may download at Original Falcon. Also, as a side note, we were contacted after this show was recorded by an organization calling itself the New EII. Keep an eye open for an interview with them in the future.

Check it out!

The life of an independent director is not an easy one.

Micio will be making Join My Cult! into a movie- that is if he can raise the funds as he claims. I have no idea how a novel, which occurs primarily inside the head of a variety of narrators, all re-presented by a meta-narrator to his psychologists, could possibly make a decent movie. But then again, Naked Lunch came out alright. He might just be crazy enough to pull it off.
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"The life of an independent director is not an easy one. You can be led astray by the glitz and glam fantasy, thinking your pot of gold is just one more blowjob or can of tuna away. Even when it is, chances are you'll be so fucked out of your gourd you won't even realize it. The truth is generally pretty disgusting, and not in the way that'll likely get you hard. (Well, except for Stanko.)

Case in point: Slash would often get so drunk that he'd piss himself in his sleep. When he'd pass out, they'd often drag him into the garage and toss him on a mattress that was to be used for this express purpose. (I wonder if that mattress ever got sold on eBay?) There are also legends of him puking mid solo during the Appetite sessions. Think that's cool? You're not the one who had to clean off his Les Paul afterwards. You see my point: the myth often outstrips the reality, even if reality is far too weird to have been invented.

Let me share just a couple of the unpleasant and simply weird experiences that I've endured during my spectacular ascent to complete debauchery and general obscurity: READ ARTICLE ON POPPORN.COM.

The G-Spot 50

In this episode of the G-Spot, we bring you some Sleepchamber phone hijinx, an interview with Psuke about an upcoming podcasts of hers, some bedtime stories with the antichrist, and ranting dialogues with a group of criminals and scholars, including the always untoxicated Dr. Adventure. Enjoy!

Direct link to the audio

Words from an old Maverick

A word of advice to young writers out there: beware making your first a hallucinogen soaked, satirical, non-linear, generally plot-less nightmare. One day you might look back on it with a feeling of Jager-hangover nausea, and yet find that it continues to generally outsell later work that in your estimation better deserves the light of day.

Maybe at some point I'll do some colossal re-write of Join My Cult! and Fallen Nation for larger distribution. In the wake of some curious legal battles within the publisher of the former, re-gaining those rights would be easy. ("Easy" might not be the word, they've already been granted.)

More likely I'll run off to Thailand and say to hell with this writing thing.

In the meantime, for those of you who have read Join My Cult! but not the sequel- pony up. I don't even make a profit from those sales. I'll just sleep easier knowing there are people out there who still enjoy a plot along with their anarchy and group sex.

The G-Spot 32: fever dreams & transmedia litany

In this special one hour G-Spot, James Curcio builds a fragmented narrative through excerpts from various shows that he produced / co-produced over the past seven years, wandering through it as if displaced in time, in a fever dream. Also included is an excerpt from Transmedia Litany, with Genesis P. Orridge & Joseph Matheny. All of the music and content that makes up this podcasts is home-grown, recorded in various home & psuedo-professional studios.

Some links you may want to check out after / while you listen: ZenseiderZ, the rough version of the MHB informercial (c2000), the Join My Cult! eBook, Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning eBook, order Fallen Nation on Amazon, Babalon.

LISTEN here. We suggest you listen on headphones. Or while driving late at night. (Though we aren't responsible if you drive off the road.)