Qua Omsa La' Juwann!
If you've ever listened to Howard Stern with any kind of regularity, you have likely heard the name Riley Martin. Riley was a frequent guest on the show, and was even given his own show on the Howard 101 channel on SiriusXM Radio. Riley claimed to have been contacted by aliens and taken aboard an alien spacecraft. That by itself is not particularly interesting, many people have made such a claim. What made Riley stand apart from others was the amount of detail in his claims, and the manner in which he delivered this information.
This week marks four years since Riley Martin left this existence. I miss his stories of travelling aboard the alien mothership, and his encounters with other races, and especially his philosophical insights. Whether you believed Riley's claims or not, it is undeniable that he was a great storyteller and a master showman. So this week I've put together a little tribute to the Space Cowboy...
Riley Martin claimed he was first contacted by alien life forms when he was seven years old. The aliens took him to their mothership, located near the planet Saturn, to which they brought him for a return visit 11 years later. The alien who befriended Riley was named O-Qua Tangin Wann, or Tan for short. Tan was of a race called the Biaviians, one of several races that Riley would encounter in his travels.
"They can uh... set a headset on you, and download into your neurotronic syntaxes... uhhh various different... uh very complicated historical, uh and scientific equations and things of this nature... "
On that second trip, the Biaviians placed a sort of headset on Riley and began a transfer of knowledge directly into Riley's brain. This knowledge included comprehensive human history, alien knowledge, and 144,000 symbols which Riley would then be tasked with transferring to a physical format and distributing them to all who seek wayfarer status. Among the many benefits that come with receiving one of these symbols, such as attracting positive forces and repelling the negative, these symbols were to also reserve each wayfarer a spot aboard the Biaviian mothership should conditions on Earth reach a tipping point. Basically, these symbols are a ticket to the stars.
Of course, this all sounds rather fantastic. It's easy to dismiss as an attempt to sell marker drawings on sheets of paper, but if you listen to Riley for any length of time, you catch yourself thinking maybe there's something to this. Riley spent much of his airtime describing the alien races he met, explaining their space travel technology, personal conflicts with a reptilian race called Targzissians, and mating with human/alien hybrid women. If it was all just a story, he had his story straight.
Riley's voice carried a certain gravitas when he spoke. He wasn't trying to convince you of wild wild tales like so many other contactees, he was giving you important information. He was doing you a favor by telling you these things, and you needed to listen. Riley would get irritated when someone wasn't taking his message seriously. He did not suffer fools lightly.
Riley had a distinctive enough voice that he was hired to appear in several Squidbillies cartoons. The most notable being an episode from 2008 called Armageddon It On! in which he performed the voice of the Horseman of Pestilence.
“My experiences started when I was 7-years-old and ultimately I'm sure that my experiences happened at that time so that one day I would meet stupid motherfuckers like you.”
He was always quick with a comeback when a caller would try to goof on him. One of the more memorable exchanges was when a caller complained that his symbol was drawn on a McDonalds wrapper. Without missing a beat, Riley explained to the caller that he should take it down to Burger King and "tell them you want to have it your way."
This is not to say that Riley was always a master of words. There were classic Riley Martin mispronunciations like rhinosaucerus and Wiscinconscion. I'm not even sure what a suckamufagus is. The juxtaposition between those pronunciations and Riley explaining the propulsion of the Biaviian mothership is part of what made Riley so fascinating. That was how he presented himself as being legitimate, knowing the complex things he knows with the meager education he has, surely lends credence to his story.
"Show me the man who's never used a piss jug and I'll show you a woman."
I can't do a proper tribute to Riley without mentioning his merchandising. One bit of merchandise in particular. During one of his Howard 101 radio shows, in the home studio that was prepared for him to use, Riley was observed relieving himself in a jug. This, of course, became a topic of discussion on the Howard Stern Show. Thus, the official Riley Martin piss jug was rolled out in Riley's online store and remains a popular item when available. One side shows a picture of Riley with an expression that suggests he is using the jug, the other side is either a Biaviian symbol or a drawing of Tan taking a whiz.
"The mere fact that you are means you always have been and cannot stop being."
Riley left us on December 22, 2015. With Riley being who he is, I can't speculate on whether he's really gone or if he's still out there somewhere. Riley's people tell us he says he will see us again in the future. I'm not sure how, or where that will be, but I hope I'm there to see you, Friend Martin. Qua Omsa La' Juwann!