Quick Start Guide

OK, for those of you who like to just rip open the package and start playing with the toy, and those of you who find it challenging to focus on any one squirrel for very long, here is the quick, concise 411 on Reverend Skunk. As the saying goes, more of this is true than you might think…

Reverend Skunk is a skilled engineer and cosmological theoretician who has – sorry, folks – gone a little bonkers. He got his hands on an old reel-to-reel audio tape that was part of some weird LSD experiment in the 1960’s. He claims that there is digital information on the tape that has mysteriously replaced the original analog recordings. He claims to be in contact with interdimensional beings who put it there. One of them he calls “Carl”.

The Reverend will not talk about Carl, or these beings. Carl told him not to. We only know about Carl from the clinical sessions in which Reverend Skunk was placed under hypnosis for several hours on several occasions. During those sessions, the Reverend spoke freely, but did so as a different person, who calls himself “Otto”.

As Otto explains it, Carl has advised the Reverend that the Zombie Apocalypse is under way, and that mankind is doomed, but that it’s cool because that’s all supposed to happen. What wasn’t supposed to happen was a series of isolated genetic mutations brought about by a microscopic organism that hitched a ride from the Moon to the Earth on Apollo 11. That critter – Carl calls it “Voot” – made it through the quarantine undetected, and is not very nice. It had previously been to Venus, and now Venus is not very nice.

Carl and the others were able to neutralize Voot, but the mutations have been a bit of a bother. There are 144,000 folks who are supposed to survive the Zombie Apocalypse, and Carl says they can only find 17 of them. All of them were (and are) experiencing severe psychological symptoms. Several are homeless. One is in a gulag. Carl says if they can’t find the rest – the “Handful” – they go down with the ship.

Enter the Reverend. Apparently. The Reverend is supposed to help Carl find the rest of the Handful, but the Reverend and millions of others have been hit by the Voot mutations too, not to mention the zombie stuff. Carl says that if and when any of the Handful are found, he still can’t tell the Reverend who they are. There are safety rules. Carl just needs the Reverend to help draw the Handful out, and he didn’t really say how. 

He just gave the Reverend “the Tape”.

According to Carl, according to Otto, according to the Reverend, according to the hypnotherapist, the Tape is the key to finding the rest of the Handful. The Tape – the one from the LSD experiment – is magical. Or rather, it is musical. Encoded within the digital stuff that the Reverend allegedly found on the old tape are rough, demo-quality recordings of songs that Carl says are from a parallel universe. He says some of them were hits there years ago.

And get this: The songs were – in that parallel universe – done by a rock band comprised of the Reverend and some of his siblings. (They didn't call him “Reverend” there. Actually, we don’t know what they called him there.) Apparently in this other world, the Reverend and his brothers were kind of a big deal. Here, they’re all ass clowns. By the way, Carl says that other parallel universe imploded magnetically in 2018, for unrelated reasons. There were no survivors. Our universe wasn’t actually needed before. Now it is.

Not only that, but the songs – at least some of them – seem to be about certain events in Reverend Skunk’s own past. In some sort of interdimensional reverse osmosis, the Reverend (or whatever they called him there) was apparently inspired to write the songs based on goings-on here in this universe. It made him famous.

The Reverend, to hear him tell it, has been blessed with a momentous task, and cursed. Ill-suited as he is for the rock-and-roll lifestyle, let alone for acting in music videos, Reverend Skunk is a dingbat who is in many ways in over his head. The Reverend has nonetheless taken on the task of reverse-engineering the Tape, re-recording the songs, and bringing them to the general public, in the hope that this may somehow lead to the discovery of the rest of the Handful.

Remember, Carl won’t say who is in the Handful, or even how to spot them. So don’t even ask. Even the Handful doesn’t know who the Handful is. If someone tells you they are, they’re not. And the Reverend? He is probably not in the Handful himself. He was partially zombified years ago. Carl just sort of tolerates him.

This is important because Carl won’t let the Reverend even speak of him. Carl certainly won’t let the Reverend sign anything on his behalf. As a consequence, the Reverend has been unable to register this endeavor as a religion or ministry in any official way, and he is not a real “Reverend” at all. Please be aware, if you speak with him, that this is a rather touchy subject. Especially the part about not getting one of those clergy parking permits (even though they only reserve spaces for them at hospitals and such).

The up-side, for the rest of us, is that the Reverend can’t preach. So don’t even worry about getting preached-at here. He can’t talk about Carl. So, like the rest of us, the Reverend is supposed to just focus on the music, and to attend to those who attend to it.

Anyway, that’s about it. That’s the Reverend Skunk story – the front page at least. We’re glad you stuck around for it. Please, if you haven’t heard the songs yet, give them a listen. Or if you know someone else who hasn’t heard them yet, please send them by for a visit. And please, oh please, watch for updates to this website – new musical releases, tips on dealing with the Zombie Apocalypse, and with any luck at all, eventually some live musical performances by Reverend Skunk himself (such as he is) in these 3 dimensions.

Thank you! Oh, and please be nice to the zombies. They will eat your brains if they get a chance, but most of them are basically nice people.