Friday, November 30, 2012


Chapter 7: The Joy of Cussing

There is certainly no more satisfying form of expression than cussing. Vulgarities bring those of us who respect the working man closer together. If you have never wielded a shovel or cut a mitered edge into a two by four you probably have no idea what it means to be a part of the working class...a cusser. But Catholics have populated the factories and sweatshops of the American workforce for decades. Their contributions to the union cause are as endemic to their culture as bingo and fish fries. And if you work hard for a living like these people, you cuss.

So let's get something straight. It ain't no goddamn sin to cuss. Any mother fucker who says it is can get up off his white fluffy ass and take me on. The fucking ten commandments say absolutely nothing about cussing. Now don't get me wrong. I don't think you should walk into church and let any fucking word fly out of your mouth. Little old ladies cannot tolerate that kind of talk. It is not okay to cuss around grandma. But cussing is like Neosporin. It soothes and cleanses.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Bullshit. The language police were alive and doing well in Biblical times. It won't surprise you to know I cannot exempt Moses from my theory of embellishment. Just imagine how easy it would be for a story about Moses staring at fire embers to be turned into the burning bush story. I just don't buy the ten commandments and neither did Jesus. He boiled them down to just two.

If I want to say a few well placed goddammits, nobody is gonna tell me it's a sin. When I say goddammit it is no more blasphemous than saying motherfucker. In fact, it is far less offensive than motherfucker. There is nothing vain about my use of that phrase. And it is never intended as a slam to God. He already knows that. All of us old school Catholics cuss all the time every day and God is right there with us. Hell, Jesus was a fucking carpenter for crying out loud. There is no more expert cusser on earth than a goddam carpenter.

Now just hold on a minute. Don't get excited. I just wanted you to take a minute to see what it was like to treat God like a friend instead of a megalomaniacal monarch. If he is friendly, he is at least as friendly as I am. Right? And if he is like my father then he loves to tell dirty jokes and make me laugh. Right? After all, who invented sex? Who invented humor?

The point I am trying to make is that the Catholic Church has done an excellent job of formalizing God to the point of turning him into something distant and condescending. And of all the stupid ideas promulgated by the Church that one is the most destructive. I treat God like a friend. I yell at him when I am mad and ask him frank questions. Why don't you? Why not put him on the grill every now and then? Hey God, would you mind paying attention to the Palestinians for a few seconds? Would it kill you to send them some guidance? Hey God, I know you are busy making Tebow's life a fucking NFL dream but would you mind helping my neighbor with her chemo treatments?

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

(Marijuana addition)



Later that week I went home to Louisville. Since I had sold my car to Dad to pay for my college tuition, I had to hitchhike. Just outside of Bowling Green I was picked up by an old farmer in a rickety old truck. (One of the lessons I learned about hitching a ride was that nobody in a nice car ever stops for hitchhikers. Ever.) I climbed into his truck and sat back to enjoy the ride. It was a clear winter day in January and I enjoyed watching the fields flow past the window.

Jeff was at least seventy years old. He had a scruffy white beard and dirty hands. He was a slow mover but he talked a lot. And he was a very interesting person. After we got to know one another he asked me to open up the glove box. Inside was a little baggie full of weed. He asked me to roll one for us and I obliged. As we passed it back and forth the time began to slow down and it looked to me as if he was slowing down. I glanced over at the speedometer and he was doing 45 mph. It worried me very little because it was 1979 and the speed limit was only 55 mph.

Suddenly old Jeff pulled onto an exit ramp and pulled over. “Well, this is as far as I go,” he told me. I had to get out of the truck, high as a kite, and go back to hitchhiking. The beautiful afternoon turned dark. If I knew he wasn't going far I would have passed on smoking the dope. But there I was in the middle of nowhere trying not to go paranoid.

I didn't walk far before a large tractor trailer pulled over to give me a ride. There were two men in the seat. One of them got out and motioned me to get in. I didn't like the idea of sitting between these two guys. They were rough looking. I pushed my fears aside and climbed up into the seat. We hadn't gone far before they started passing a bottle back and forth. The driver ask me to hold the steering wheel while he took a long pull. It just totally freaked me out. I began to form an exit strategy but unfortunately I had already told them I was heading for Louisville and they were going well beyond that. I resolved to hunker down and try to nap. I figured I could close my eyes and everything would get better. But no such luck. When I do dope, I have what is sometimes referred to as racing thoughts. My brain goes into overdrive.

Those two assholes kept trying to lure me into the conversation. The more they tried, the more I resisted. And the atmosphere turned sour. We bounced along for a couple of miles before the driver weaved completely out of his lane and into the fast lane. When he realized his mistake he jerked the wheel back and nearly lost control as the old truck shimmied and shook. That was all I could take.

“Let me out!” I yelled over their laughter.

“What?” the little one said.

“I said let me the fuck out of this fucking truck,” I said, trying to sound tough and confident.

They looked at each other. Then the driver said, “Alright by God. I'll stop the goddamn truck and let your sorry ass out.”

And with that, he stomped on the brakes and pulled over. I climbed out and they slammed the door and took off, cussing me as they pulled away.

My heart was beating so fast and so hard, I could barely get my breath. I watched the truck as it slowly weaved into the distance, half expecting it to stop and back up. I was so grateful when it finally disappeared over the horizon.

I began to shake. I sat down on the side of the road and put my hands over my head. I told myself to calm down. I told myself that there was nothing to be afraid of. I told myself I was just high and I would come down soon. I slowly regained composure, picked myself up and began walking again. As I walked, I looked up at the sky and said a prayer, “God, I know you and I don't get along but I sure would appreciate it if you would send me a little help right now. I am just about to lose my shit here. So please. A little help.”

Never in my life had I ever prayed for something and got an answer immediately until that day. I no sooner finished my prayer than one of my college buddies drove up and pulled over. He picked me up and took me all the way home. And I thanked God for the help.     

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Capital Punishment revision



Chapter 6: Why I am against Capital Punishment

When I was about six or seven I was playing with my Erector set. I wanted to play with the motor so I reached behind my bed to plug it into the wall. I decided it would be a good idea to put my finger on one of the prongs so that I could find the hole and guide it in. Well I sure found the hole. And my finger found an electrical current running at about a hundred volts. Since I was grounded to the bed the jolt was not nearly as bad as if I had been sitting on the floor. But the charge was significant and I held on to it long enough to notice that I could not breath.

Of all the pain I can remember as a child, that was the most intense. It frightened me so badly that I immediately began to wail. I ran around trying to catch my breath as my mother tried to console me. She searched my body frantically, looking for a wound or a burn. She had no idea why I was creaming but the intensity of my cries totally unnerved her.

What is wrong? What have you done? Calm down. Stop crying. Where are you hurt?”

I electrocuted myself. I put my hand in the socket accidentally and it shocked me.”

That was an intense lesson. I had been warned over and over again by my mother and my grandmother. But I pretty much ignored them.

A few days later I saw an episode of Superman. Superman was my favorite show. I used to tie a towel around my neck and fly around the house with my arms outstretched, making a swishing sound like the one in the series. In this episode, Superman was rescuing an innocent man from the electric chair. At the last second, he broke through the concrete wall and put his arm between the electrodes of the main switch. Never mind that it would have made a lot more sense for him to merely stop the guard from pulling said switch. But the sparks flying around him made for a dramatic climax.

Even though I understood only the rudiments of electrical conduction, it seemed hokey to me that Superman's arm didn't conduct enough juice to send the poor man to his death. But I never let hokey crap keep me from enjoying my favorite show. But this one sat with me for a long time because I remembered the pain involved in electrocution.

I became ghoulishly mesmerized by methods of execution. As a fifth grader, I bought all the monster models. There was Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Phantom of the Opera, and all those great monsters. As each new model came out, I saved up my allowance and bought it. I spent hours carefully painting and assembling each one. But the one I remember most vividly was the guillotine model. It was an odd addition to the series because there was no Hollywood movie featuring this instrument of death. In fact, there was no other model in that series that was based on an invention instead of a character.

I was walking down the aisle looking over the car and airplane models when I first saw it. It was in a box with a lurid picture depicting the moment of execution. I was absolutely spellbound by what I saw. The prisoner is strapped to a table while standing and then rotated 90 degrees and lowered under the blade. A stock is then placed over his neck to insure a clean cut. Then the blade is dropped. There is something theatrical about that sliding table. I tried to imagine the feeling of being strapped to that device and the terror of waiting for the blade to fall. Of all the horrors I explored as a child, this one truly terrorized me. To this day, it still frightens me.

One of the little known facts of that era was recently revealed in a documentary produced by the History Channel. It seems that most of the victims of the guillotine went to their deaths quietly and with dignity. But in the later years, when it's popularity was waning there was an execution that did not go by the script. A young woman who was to be executed broke free from her tormentors and ran about the scaffold trying to get away. As she was finally subdued, she screamed and plead for her life. Her screams pierced the air as the drama played out. It was the beginning of the end of the reign of terror. The heretofore blood thirsty masses lost their taste for murder as the inhumanity of that instrument was laid bare.

To this day, I still dream about being put to death. It is almost always by electrocution. In my childhood, the dream always ended with me being led to the chair kicking and screaming. But more recently I am resigned to my end. And lately, there has been a disturbing evolution in that recurrent nightmare. Now I am part of the execution team. I am being forced to perform the task and I am powerless to stop it. It reminds me of the protest signs I have seen at executions that reads, “Don't murder in my name!”

As a child, the cruelty of capital punishment and the methods of state sponsored murder seemed incompatible with Jesus and Christianity. As an adult, well, let's just say it's one of those things fundamentalist Christians are willing to ignore. Any way you look at it, frying a man over a period of about three minutes is just barbaric. The idea that it is instantaneous has been proven false over and over again as botched electrocutions produced burned and miserable victims screaming for help. It is exceptionally cruel and unusual punishment by any standard. The fact that our Christian society tolerates it, and encourages it, shows just how primitive we are. It is nothing more than revenge. The fact that it has been rendered humane is probably the most disturbing new twist in this macabre saga. Lethal injection has made state sponsored murder seem palatable. It is ironic in the extreme.

I believe it goes against one of Christ's most important subjects. It 's called forgiveness and it is a virtue sorely lacking in the fundamentalist community. Thank God the Catholics have distinguished themselves in this field by staunchly advocating for the abolition of capital punishment. It is one of the few social issues in which the Catholic leadership has followed the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. When I see nuns and priests gathering at executions to demonstrate on behalf of the condemned I am reminded that Catholicism is still a powerful force for goodness. If more Catholics would participate in that protest we could do away with capital punishment for good.


You cannot say that you believe the teachings of Jesus and believe in capital punishment. Hypocrisy of this sort exposes fundamentalist Christians for what they are. The murder of these people, often innocent, is the worst sin of our times. America is one of the few remaining civilized countries that still resorts to this thinly veiled instrument of revenge. I have deeply held gratitude to Catholics who work every day to eliminate the scourge of capital punishment from our society.



Sunday, November 18, 2012



Now please don't misunderstand me. I am not trying to say that the Bible is evil or that it has no meaning. I am trying to draw a distinction between blind faith and informed truth. One need not be a person of faith to accept the moral veracity of certain parts of the Bible. But taken as a whole it is, to say the least, lacking in credibility.

There are millions of non believers who stick to their religious affiliation for cultural reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with their sense of logic. They are the truly silent majority. They sit through hours and hours of mindless ritual, waiting for church to end so that they can pal around with their buddies. They have learned to sit quietly while the dull witted ones dominate the conversation.

If we could somehow free them up so that they could become vocal within their own communities instead of constantly acquiescing to the dull witted ones, we could spark a movement that would revolutionize religion. It would not be a new religion. It would be a renaissance within the entire religious community. Think about it, a religion that agrees with science instead of fighting with it. Think about what that would mean for progress. Think about the political ramifications if we could stop trying to go in two directions at the same time. All we need are a few Michelangelos or DaVincis to make it happen. Et voila! Synergy!

And there would be no need to destroy the Bible and the Koran. People would finally be free to accept them for what they are; beautiful allegories instead of history books. And people would be free to go back to them and find new meaning, examining them more critically. Instead of dispensing with the myth entirely, we would be placing a new meaning over it. We would actually be adding new chapters to those great books, opening them up to revision, keeping the old while evolving toward the new. The Bible would lose Leviticus and the Koran would lose Jihad. And all the stupidity wrapped in warfare would finally start to dissolve.


Think about it. For the first time in the history of civilization, the religious world would be aligned with the secular and scientific communities. Our progress would be synergistic. We would be capable of vastly more rapid evolution. Our species would thrive on logic and reason instead of myth and hucksterism. Our political systems would become more efficient as we throw aside our more primitive instincts. War would become unthinkable. The capitalist model would be free to evolve into a more compassionate system of checks and balances based on morality and fairness instead of greed greed greed.  

Saturday, November 17, 2012

(Insert for section on sin)



Priest were not always celibate. In fact, there are biblical scholars whose research has cast doubt on the supposedly celibate life of Christ. And once again, people who are willing to use common sense are going to conclude that Jesus had some kind of human sexuality. To deny that would be to deny him the most important part of being human. Not surprisingly, every Christian Church of nearly every sect claims Christ to be a virgin. Let's face it. Their rules about human sexuality preclude any other possibility. So we are left to believe Jesus had no sexual encounters and no lust in his heart. Even Jimmy Carter had lust in his heart.

Okay, lets say we are willing to swallow this nonsense. What is the precedence for priestly celibacy? There were no clear and absolute rules until 306AD when the Council of Elvira created regulations regarding the unholy act of touching pee pees. So for three hundred years after the birth of Christ, it was okay to screw. To any logical, sane human being this would beg the question, “Why did they get to do it?” And why don't we? Did God suddenly decide that his representatives on earth, the priests, had to stand outside the candy store?

You can imagine what a horrible rift this might have caused within the Church. You can also imagine that with a controversy like this, popular opinion would vacillate. You would be correct.

The act of love is allowed only within the confines of marriage and only for the utilitarian purpose of procreation. So don't be having fun in bed. At the core of Henry VIII's feud with the Church was sex. He wanted to have lots of it and with whomever he wanted. When the Catholic Church said no, he picked up his concubines and executioners and formed his own evil corrupted misogynistic Church.

We can always go to Paul if we want to see a completely perverted view of human sexuality: “He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife: and he is divided.”

Hate to break it to you Paul, but he who is without a wife is solicitous of pussy. In fact, he who is without wife is much more free to think than he who is with wife. He who is without wife in constantly in search of that which only a wife can give.

This kind of sexual repression sort of made sense in the days before condoms. It reminds me of the aversion to pork. We now know that improperly cooked pork can cause trichinosis. So it seems fortuitous that primitive Jews made it sinful to eat pork. They had no idea why they were doing it. They just knew there was something unclean about pork. Sex is even more dangerous than pork. So it sort of makes sense that primitive people would attempt to make a set of governing principles designed to make sex safe.    

Thursday, November 15, 2012


(Marijuana continued)

I was always paranoid when I smoked and I have no idea what I was thinking by smoking a jay before work but there I was staring at the mirror with a wig on my head. It was the most comical looking thing. It looked like a helmet and the bangs went around my forehead like a comb over. Hilarious. But I was so high all I could think about was what people were going to do when they saw that thing on my head. I have no idea how long I stood there staring at myself but it must have been a while because the manager came storming into the bathroom to roust me out.

There was a nice couple ready to be waited on. I asked them what they wanted. It was something simple like a couple of burgers and fries and drinks. But every time I turned around to get their order, I forgot what I was doing. I stared at the shake machine for a while then came back to them and asked them to repeat their order. In the old days, you had to remember the order and add it in your head. It was just too much.

I went to the boss and told him I had to leave. He told me he would fire me if I left. He put me on the grill, hoping I could redeem myself. But I totally screwed that up too. He walked back to the grill and told me in a very low voice that if I could survive the shift without leaving, he would not fire me. I handed him the wig. An old lady in line gasped when I took it off my head. Then I walked outside, grabbed my bike and went home to my dorm.

Nothing good ever became of me when I smoked dope. It just made me paranoid and stupid. And the paranoia often lasted for weeks. I think there is something about weed that triggers depression in some people. In fact, after one particularly nasty episode, I nearly committed suicide. In fact, I actually got into the car and drove downtown to find a building to jump off of. Fortunately, I turned back home again and slept it off.

I went to work the next day and I was scheduled to run camera for a live news feed. I prided myself in being able to set up and shoot in very little time. But this time, I just stood there and stared up at the sky, asking God to show himself to me, to give me a sign. It was snowing and the white flakes fell about me as the chief photographer watched me in astonishment. He ran around like a madman trying to get everything done so that we wouldn't miss our broadcast window. He placed the backpack on me and handed me the camera. All I had to do was point it in the right direction and hold it steady.

When we arrived back at the station he called me back to his desk and asked me if I was alright. I just stared at him. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me to go home. He looked me in the eye as if he were my father and told me he would cover for me. I was struck by his kindness.

I went home and spent a very long night with racing thoughts. But I finally fell asleep and went back to work the next day. It was the last time I ever smoked marijuana. I have never been suicidal since. For me, smoking weed is truly a mortal sin.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Insert for "SIN" section


And speaking of libido, there's no better way to enjoy casual sex than to get high before getting laid. Marijuana is one of those evil drugs we've been told to avoid. I tend to believe it does a lot more good than bad. So it must be a sin.

I still remember my first high. I was in high school. One of my best friends, code named Corndoggie, took me down into his basement and shared a joint with me. At first, there was absolutely no effect whatsoever. A few hours passed and we did another. Then Corndoggie turned on “Yes” and plugged me into the head phones. Those first few guitar pings in “Roundabout” blew me away. I had never experienced music this way. It completely filled my head. I was staring at the ceiling but I was completely unaware of any visual input. I actually saw the music. I was not hallucinating. I was imagining all the instruments as they played. My ears were able to pick out each solo and each accompaniment. It was as if I could see every player picking every note. The only thing I can compare it to is the experience of eating ice cream while high.

Corndoggie knew what to do next. Once he was sure I was high. Once he saw the stupid grin on my face and my wide reddening eyes, he slowly took the head phones off my head and said, “Come on. We're gonna get some ice cream.”

I struggled to get the phones back. (like a baby missing his bottle) But Corndoggie reassured me. Don't worry. This is gonna be better than the music. Trust me. And off we went to Dairy Queen. I don't remember how many of us crammed into his car but I do remember getting out of the car and walking up to the door at the DQ. It's an odd thing to remember but just about everyone who has ever been high can empathize. As I walked toward the door, it seemed like we were stuck in slow motion. Every step took a long time. The door just seemed miles away. I finally spoke up, “Hey, this is taking way too long,” I said. Everybody stopped and looked at me. Then they all started laughing. I started laughing. But I had no idea what was funny.

Then Tom said, “Hey Rod, if you'll go back to the car and get my jacket, I'll pay for your ice cream.”

I looked back at the car, which was probably less than 50 yards away. Then I looked back at Tom. I struggled to make a decision. Everyone waited while I thought about it.

“I don't know, Tom,” I said, as seriously as if my decision was life or death. “It's just too far.”

And bingo. Everyone fell out in a fit of laughter. I have no idea how long we stood there and laughed but it seemed like we were drawing attention to ourselves. Tom spoke up. “Look man, you have to learn not to act high when you're high. You have to be cool.”

I stopped to mull this over then I said. “What's the point of being high if you can't act high?” I asked. Then Corndoggie spoke up. “It's okay to act high when nobody can see you. But when you are in public, you have to be cool. People will stare at you.”

I turned to look around and sure enough everyone was staring at me. The people inside the Dairy Queen, the people in the parking lot, my buddies, everyone was staring at me. I suddenly became very uncomfortable. It must have been obvious because Corndoggie said, “Hey man, don't worry about it. We'll take care of you.”

By now, I imagined that every person inside the DQ was staring at us. I imagined what they might be thinking. “Those assholes are high. I'm calling the police.”

We were obviously attracting attention to ourselves. What may have looked like a few teenagers standing outside of DQ having a silly conversation became a dangerous drug conspiracy in my mind. But suddenly we were moving again. I tried to look nonchalant as we strolled up to the counter. I looked up at the menu and tried to make another difficult decision.

After ordering and trying to remain “cool,” our ice cream arrived and we walked to a booth to eat it. The musical experience was still vividly spiraling about in my head when I took the first bite. My expression must have registered the ecstatic sensation because Corndoggie looked at me and put his hand over top of his head. He raised his fingers while hinging his palm on the back of his head, sort of like a beer stein with a swivel top. The metaphor was not lost on me. It was as if the top of my head had just come off in an explosion of pleasure. “My God. This is the best ice cream I ever had in my life,” I said.

Tom was quick to chime in. “Now Rod, all you have to do is learn how to enjoy it without acting high.”

Of course! Makes perfect sense! And utterly impossible.

Later that night they brought me home and we all got out of the car to shoot the breeze. I was still high but beginning to come down. Somebody said something about a turtle and I decided to imitate a turtle. I got down on the ground and crawled around as I began to laugh. Then I flipped over and rolled around as if I was trying to right myself. We were all howling with laughter.

Unbeknownst to us, my 12 year-old sister and her best friend were watching us from the house across the street. The recreation room was ground level and the window was down to let the summer breeze flow through. They could see us clearly because we were directly underneath the street light. We heard them giggle and we stopped to look around but then we fell into laughter again for another minute or so.

That was the first and only time I ever had a good high on marijuana. Although my friends continued to enjoy it for many years, I became terribly paranoid any time I smoked. They eventually learned to pass it around me when the joint came out. They didn't want to be around me when I was paranoid. In fact, I usually turned to suicidal thoughts whenever I did a dooby. So eventually I stopped trying it, but not before I wrecked my grades and lost my job.

I had a job at Burger Queen in Bowling Green. My hair was long and the manager agreed to hire me if I would cut off my hair. I agreed to cut it off but conveniently forgot to do it for weeks. Then one day, I walked in to start my shift and the manager gave me a wig. He told me to go into the bathroom and put it on. He told me he would fire me if I didn't wear it. None of this would have been a big deal if I hadn't smoked a joint before coming in to work. So the idea of putting a dead rat on my head was almost as frightening as it was humiliating.


Sunday, November 11, 2012



Now that’s what I call embellishment.  The second story is a steamy novel that would sell like hotcakes.  The first story is true.  Boring.  

What absolutely blows my mind is when you start talking with a conservative about embellishments and overt lies and they try to tell you that you are misinterpreting the scriptures.  One of my favorite embellishments is the story of Jonas and the whale.  You remember it.  Jonas is swallowed by a big fish and he lives inside of it for a couple of weeks.  Now if you talk to fundamentalists about this story they will stop you as soon as you say the word “whale.”  They point out that it was not a whale and then they launch into a diatribe about how you cannot interpret the scriptures unless you understand them.  

Now you and I know that whether Jonas was swallowed by a whale or a goldfish, the story just simply ain’t true.  It is laughably false.  It is a cartoon image with a man in a rocking chair surrounded by the ribs of the big fish building a fire so the fish will sneeze and blow him out.  Hilarious.  How on earth can people swallow this crap?  Yet people who are otherwise intelligent will argue as if their lives depend on it being literally true.  God can work miracles.  

Catholics have learned to steer clear of stories like Jonas.  They really don’t want to admit that the Bible is full of nonsense.  But they also don’t want to admit that they don’t believe every word.  It is the single most enormous bit of doublethink in the world.  Let’s be frank. This story is utter tomfoolery.  And the Bible is full of stories like this.  Most Catholics have moved on.  Why then, has the conservative leadership not purged these stories from the Catholic Bible?  

Can you say “slippery slope?”  If you get rid of Jonah, you have to get rid of Adam and Eve.  You have to let go of Lot and his curious wife.  And then what do you do with Moses and Noah?  Yep.  The slippery slope should be one of the Sacraments.  

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Part 5:  Embellishment

The Bible was recounted by campfire for thousands of years before it was actually written down.  If you pass a story down from generation to generation without writing it down, you end up with a much better story than you started with.  The truth gets embellished.  

The following story is true.  

Mrs. Lochner was my third grade teacher.  I first encountered her in the hallway at Sts. Simon and Jude while I was in second grade.  I thought she was very mean.  She whipped her kids into line and barked like a drill sergeant.  But once I entered the third grade I got to know her and I loved her.  It was the first time I had a lay teacher.  I love the nuns so much.  They were always sweet to me.  Mrs. Lochner was rough as a cob.  But I loved her just as much.

One thing I noticed about the third grade.  It was strictly business.  No more laying our heads on the desk while Sister Cornelia Marie told us a story about Jesus.  No more talk of religion except during religion class.  No more discussions about what a good Catholic would do.  Lots of math drills and English lessons.  I did well.  In fact, I had perfect scores in every subject.  Mrs. Lochner said I was the only student who achieved that during her tenure.  After that, it was all downhill for me.  But I was, once again, teacher’s pet and popular with the girls.  In fact, I remember one day being chased around the playground by a bunch of girls who ran after me screaming, “Rodney!”  Yes, I peaked in the third grade.  

My true love sat next to me.  Her name was Roberta.  It was perfect, innocent puppy love.  She always wore a ponytail and she had big luscious red lips.  What a babe!  Every day Mrs. Lochner would make us exchange our spelling homework with our “neighbor.”  And every day, Roberta corrected my spelling paper and I corrected hers.  As Mrs. Lochner spelled each word aloud, Roberta and I would bob our heads to indicate that the word was properly spelled on the page in front of us.  But one day, Roberta shook her head instead of bobbing it.  I panicked.  I looked directly over at her.  A smile crept across her face and she put her finger over her mouth.  Just kidding.  


Now here’s that same story after a couple of generations of campfire retellings:

Mrs. Leadblochner was my high school teacher.  I first encountered her in the hallway at St. Judas while I was in reform school.  She was a total bitch.  She loved to whip her male students  with a two by four and barked like a drill sergeant.  But once I entered sophomore year I totally feared her fat ass.  It was the first time I had a biker for a teacher.  Her rosary was made of a Harley drive chain.  She kept it in a sack purse and used it to swipe you up side the head if you cracked wise.  She had a sick crush on me.  Once she put me on her lap in front of the whole history class and whiskered me like my dad used to.  Her beard left a big red mark on my jaw.

One thing I noticed about being in a remedial school.  It was strictly business.  No more sneaking out to the parking lot for a smoke.  No more class discussions or study time.  No more discussions about how to roll a joint.  Lots of math drills and English lessons.  I did great.  In fact, I had perfect scores in every subject.  Mrs. Leadblochner said I was the only student who achieved that during her tenure.  All I had to do was keep her stocked with heroin and life was smooth.  But I was, once again, teacher’s pet and popular with the girls.  In fact, I remember one day being chased around the garage by a bunch of bimbos who ran after me screaming, “Rodney!”  Yes, I peaked in reform school.  

My true love sat next to me.  Her name was Roberta.  She always wore a low cut halter and had the nicest ta tas you ever saw in your life.  What a babe!  Every day Mrs. Leadblochner, who was too lazy to correct our essays would make us exchange our tests with each other.  And every day, Roberta corrected mine and I corrected hers. If there was a mistake, we fixed it so Leadblocher wouldn’t know squat.  But one day, Roberta brought down the house.  Instead of fixing my paper, she acted like she had an ice cream cone.  She licked it and bit it with those enormous red lips of hers.  When she was finished, half the guys had to go to the can.  Wow.     
Part 4:  Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus was certainly no conservative.  Not by a longshot.  Jesus was a thorn in the side of his contemporary conservatives, the pharisees.  They truly hated him.  If he came back to us in this time, he would be hated by the conservatives and murdered all over again.  His message is universally radical and unequivocally liberal.  The most astounding makeover in history was the great Jesus makeover...the makeover that turned him into a conservative.  And if you listen to them, they will tell you how they did it.  

Jesus Jesus Jesus!
Go ahead brother, say his name.  Say it loud.  Tell him you love him.  That’s right.  Cause he gonna raise you up and bring you to heaven.  This is the evangelical dream.  Jesus is a rock star.  You say his name over and over again and you ignore his teachings.  You go to Church two or three times a week but you worry more about your bank account than your family.  You disobey every one of his commandments but you believe that all you have to do is declare Jesus your lord and savior and everything else will take care of itself.  Just believe, brother.  

The Jesus freaks are all about form and completely devoid of function.  They believe in believing.  They believe in confessing.  They believe in testifying.  They believe in revenge.  They believe in praising.  But they don’t believe in cussing.  And they especially do not believe that non christians can get to heaven.  

These people are the very same people Jesus attacked during his life.  They worry about all the little things.  But they ignore the big ones.  They are die hard capitalists.  They want lots of stuff.  They yell at their kids and fight with their neighbors and hate their marriages.  They hate peaceniks.  They love America.  They are proud people.  The meek better steer clear of them.  It’s their way or the highway.  They are ignorant of all religion other than their own.  They think poor people are poor because they are lazy.  But boy do they love their Jesus.  Gimme some Jesus.  Jesus is the answer.  Jesus Jesus, oh I can’t say it enough, Jesus.     

Humility, kindness, peace making, forgiveness, love, generosity...these are concepts they don’t have time for.  It’s so much easier to yell at your husband for not taking out the garbage.  It feels great criticizing your best friends new dress.  Fooling around with your secretary is something you just can’t resist.  But all you gotta do is shout out Jesus when your shallow life exposes itself to you.  Just get a quick religion high and then get back to reality.  Confess your sins and then go right back and commit them all over again.  Don’t worry, I got Jesus on my side!  

Why doesn’t it ever occur to these people that Jesus was man, not a slogan.  He was a peacenik, a humble, meek, socialistic, anti-wealth hippie who roamed the earth without a job or any ambition whatsoever.  So please, stop calling out his name.  It is disheartening to think that he would lift a finger for you while ignoring the evil that permeates this land.  

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Chapter 3:  Demons

Adam and Eve have gradually evolved into metaphors.  There’s the good news.  Moderate Catholics recognize evolution.  They have learned to reconcile the Genesis story with history by relegating its passages to what can readily be described as poetry.  Even the conservative leadership of the Catholic Church is gradually coming to grips with Darwin as they did with Galileo.  

They have finally stopped demonizing science.  They are gradually coming around to the truth.  The problem starts with Adam and Eve.  Once we agree that the creation story is a lovely myth...once we realize that Adam and Eve never existed...we must make the necessary adjustment to our core beliefs.  We must admit that the Bible was an oral tradition passed down by primitive people.  (Bob’s religion is not that far off.)  Although there is wisdom and truth permeating those pages, there is also absolute idiocy.  Leviticus is rife with outrageous commandments.  A farmer who plants two different crops in the same field should be executed.  Really?  

Not only is the Genesis story a myth, it is wrong minded.  It creates a god who is petty and egotistical;  a God who creates humans and then immediately tempts them and exacts disproportionate justice upon them.  This god is seriously flawed and imperfect.   He is not worthy of worship.  But for millennia humans have been afraid to question the personality traits assigned to God by our primitive and misinformed ancestors.  Our concept of God has long been dominated by our allegiance to those woefully uneducated people...a people whose concept of God was molded by their observations of their own earthy tyrants.   

Early monarchs were the model for early gods.  They were all too human.  The early Jewish God did not escape that model.  In fact, the Greek and Roman mythologies invented gods who epitomized the passions and frailties of humankind.  It seems probable to me that early Jewish ideas about God were influenced by those myths.  

But of all the ancient stories of the Bible, the story of Abraham and Isaac is the most damning
evidence that the early authors were mistaken about God’s true nature.  

The story goes like this.  God wants Abraham to prove his faith and love.  God tells Abraham to take the life of his son, Isaac, killing him on an altar of sacrifice.  Abraham reluctantly obeys but at the last minute, God stops Abraham before the death blow.  

It reminds me of a scene in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.”  Brian is in a line of prisoners waiting to be executed.  A man sits at a small table organizing them into different groups.  He asks each man the same question, “What is your sentence?”  Each man says, “Crucifixion,” and is told to move on to the right.  One by one, each man is told to move to the right.  When Brian arrives at the table, the bureaucrat asks, “What is your sentence?” and Brian replies, “I’m to be set free!”  with a big grin.  Without hesitation the bureaucrat says, “Move to your left.”  

Brian starts to walk away, then says, “I was just kidding.  I’m to be crucified.”      

It was the funniest line in the whole movie for me.  And now, every time I read the story of Abraham and Isaac, that line pops into my head.  Just as Abraham raises the knife to kill his beloved son, God grabs his arm and says, “Just kidding.”  And God and Abraham enjoy a good laugh.  

Jewish Rabbi Yoseph Ibn Caspi, writing in the 14th century made an observation about the story. “How could God command such a revolting thing?”  But to this day, Catholic clergy continue to preach the idea of the ultimate sacrifice; the ultimate act of faith and love.  Imagine what would happen if people were allowed to act on such nutty delusions today!  Do you see what I mean when I say that Catholics should read the Bible more critically?  

Can you imagine a priest who points out the flaws in this story from the pulpit?   Do you think such a priest would be able to speak out freely?  Well if you thought so, you would be wrong.

The old Testament God simply does not pass the smell test.  His lack of compassion, his refusal to take responsibility for his own creation, his utter lack of humility;  these are not the traits of a loving God.  My fundamentalist brother is quick to remind me that I should fear God.  I say bullshit.  I can understand why he disagrees.  Fundamentalist Christians voluntarily place themselves into a straight jacket when they try to profess the idea that every word of the Bible is literally true.  Their arguments about carbon dating are laughable to anyone who understands the process.

So instead of worrying about people who cannot differentiate between well intentioned poetry and actual historic fact, we need to move the Catholic Church into the 21st Century...even if they kick and scream all the way.  

We can do this by speaking truth to power.  But now I am getting ahead of myself again.  

I was talking about demons.  Let’s see now.  Demons.  Demons.  What other demons do I want to talk about here....hmmmm.....  Oh yeah!  Satan!  

The whole story of the angels and Satan is the most unbelievable fairy tale ever perpetrated on the faithful.  Many of the traits we now attribute to Satan came not from scriptures but from Dante’s Inferno, a piece of fiction.  It just goes to illustrate, yet again, that a juicy story passed down from generation to generation will evolve from fiction to lore and eventually to accepted fact.  If you ask the nuns or priests about all of that, you will almost always get an educated, informed answer.  The problem is this.  Those facts don’t get put into the sermons.  So Catholics go on thinking the old doctrine is Bible.  

In fact, if you had the time and the money, just about any Divinity school in America could easily disabuse you of the nonsense that has pervaded Christianity for centuries.  I once heard a Baptist preacher say he tried to forget everything he learned at Divinity school because if he tried to pass what he had learned to the congregation, he would be fired.  

Recently, Catholic seminaries across the country found a solution to the problem.  They stopped teaching the truth.  They handed control back over to the conservatives and the conservatives cleaned house.  Liberals and intellectuals were replaced with obedient ideologues.  So now the priests coming out of seminary school have no problem reconciling what they have been taught with traditional Catholic theology...and modern Catholic theology is simply ignored.

To put it succinctly, the most pernicious and dangerous demon will always be ignorance.

Saturday, November 3, 2012



ORIGINAL SIN
This is the Granddaddy of all sin.  This is central to the core of the conservative ideal of Catholicism.  When measured against the message of love conveyed by Jesus, it necessitates the existence of a depraved Deity incapable of forgiveness; a God so callous that he sends his own son to be tortured and executed in order to satisfy his own sadistic sense of justice.  So how do you rescue Catholicism from this premise?  How does the life of the Nazarene and his legacy have any relevancy if we discard the notion of original sin?  How does mankind exorcise himself from a God created by our less than enlightened forbearers?

I believe it is easier to understand this if we can remove ourselves from our own culture and look at it objectively.   

In another Universe far far away on a planet called Glob, there was once a Neanderthal humanoid who called himself Bob.  Bob was a good man.  He was dearly loved by his incredibly ugly Neanderthal wife and his equally apelike children.  Bob invented stand-up comedy around the fire one night by telling the first joke.  

“Why does chicken cross road?” he asked.  
“Me not know, Bob.  Why chicken cross road?”  said his best friend, Jim.  
“To keep Bob from eating!  Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!” bellowed Bob.
“That funny!  That make me pee a little bit, Bob.”  said his Uncle Kogar.  

Bob began to spend his days thinking up hilarious anecdotes so that he could regale his witless peers at fireside by night.  Gradually, his hunting companions began to excuse him from his role in the daily predatory necessities and Bob became the first man of leisure.  His skills at the campfire were valued so highly that he was given extra portion of food and drink and a chair was fashioned for him that would recline at the touch of a stick protruding from the base.
As his popularity grew, Bob found himself the object of desire for the most beautiful Neanderthal in the tribe, Marilyn.  Marilyn was subtle.  Instead of getting down on all fours and waving her posterior at Bob, Marilyn merely drooled in his presence.  Most of the other women recognized her advances but the males were unable to recognize this new, understated form of flirting.  Soon Bob and Marilyn were sneaking away, making the beast with two backs while the rest of the clan prepared the food.  Bob’s wife left him and took his club, shoes and shaving kit.  

To put it mildly, Bob was full of himself.  He began to think his shit did not stink.  He decided he was a philosopher.  And he began to weave moral lessons into his jokes.

“How does Neanderthal screw in light bulb?”  he asked one night.

“What light bulb?”  said Kogar.  

And for the first time, despite inventing the first anachronistic joke, Bob’s act bombed.  He was just too far ahead of his time.  

“Tell chicken joke,” demanded Reek.  

“How chicken cross path?”  Stubby tried to grab the stage.

“Not tell right, WHY not HOW.  Joke not funny if say HOW.”  Bob jumped up.  

“Me tired of joke.  Me want to tell story.  Me want to tell what me learn today.  Me talk to Mr. Big today,”  Bob tried to explain.  

“Mr. Big talk to me in river.  Mr. Big talk to me.  Tell me how we get here.  Tell me why we here.”

“What he talk about?  We know why we here.  We here because Monkey tribe kick asses.  We here because Bruce fight like woman,”  said Kogar.

Bob tried to get them to understand.  “Me talk to Big Man.  Big Man who make us all.  Big maker.  Me talk to him.  He talk to me.  Him tell me to tell you what he tell me.”

The tribe pretty much sat in stony silence wondering what Bob was trying to say.  Where was the punch line?  Then Bob realized how to get through.  

“Big man make magic.  Big man make water go away.  Big man make creek dry up.  Big man pick up fishes and give to Bob.  Bob eat them.  Big man make fire fly from fingers.  Big man big magic.”  Bob could not stop himself.  The longer he talked the bigger the lie.  But the tribe was so completely absorbed in his story, he dare not stop.  Bob had made the transition from performer to preacher.  

Later that year, Bob was killed by his wife in the middle of copulating with Marilyn.  Marilyn was stoned to death by the women in the tribe.  

But Bob’s stories lasted long after his last sniff of forbidden marital fruit.  In fact, as the years passed, Bob’s stories became bigger, longer and more sophisticated.  The magic was embellished and Bob’s stature in the tribe was exaggerated.  Less than a hundred years after Bob’s first stand up act, he had been elevated to the status of a sage prophet.  For thousands of years, his stories were told and retold by the campfires.  His progeny evolved into a complex civilization and his stories were finally written down and stored on holy scrolls.  Wise men studied the book of Bob and concluded that Bob was actually Bigan’s direct translator.  

Bigan was the god unwittingly created by Bob in his stories about Big Man.  As generations passed, Bigan was named the Lord Creator, and the humanoids on Glob worshiped him and made sacrifices to him.  Bob’s jokes were turned into prayers.  Bob would never have recognized them.  The chicken story became the book of Rooster.  It was translated and retranslated into so many languages that it taught different morals to different cultures. Two very similar cultures adapted the story and called it by different names.  One called it the Bigle and the other called it the Kogan.  In fact, two of the largest sects went to war over the holy campfire site, both claiming the land and caves for themselves.  

It would have stunned Bob to learn that he had created not one but two religions and that those two cultures hated one another so much that two thousand years after his death, they destroyed their entire civilization in a nuclear holocaust.  

Thank God we humans are much too sophisticated to make such stupid choices.  Yeah.  


In fact, when it comes to mortal sin, or serious sin, the Church almost always has it backwards. The act of adultery is pretty harmless in and of itself. It's the lying and cheating which inevitably accompanies it that devastates our lives. Sin almost always boils down to one thing. Honesty. There simply is no sin you can commit without lying about it. So now it's time for me to jump back up on my soapbox for one tiny little page. You can skip it if you want.

Honesty should be the primary directive. If we were incapable of lying the world would be a wonderful place. Now I am not talking about the strictest definition of that word. In fact, a more accurate word would be forthrightness. Being honest is pretty easy, even if you have the mind of a criminal.

“Did you murder your wife, Mr. Wadsworth?”

“Of course not.”

“Did you poison her?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Did you put poison in the sugar bowl.”

“Yes but I was trying to kill rats.”

“Did you warn your wife about the poison in the sugar bowl?”

“I don't remember.”

“Don't remember warning her?”

“Yes, I mean No.”

“Did she eat the poison?”

“I don't know.”

“What did she die of?”

“I think she stopped breathing?”

It really is a lot like wrestling an eel. This man can easily claim that he is telling the truth, even though all of us know he is obfuscating. Instead of being forthright, he is being evasive. So although we might be able to say he was being honest, we could not possibly say he was being forthright. By any common sense standard, he is a slimy liar.

So if I were allowed to write the commandments, they would be delineated in positive terms.

  1. Dedicate your life to others
  2. Tell the truth always

That's really all you need. It covers everything imaginable. Do those two things and everything else just melts away into insignificance. It covers all the bases. If you choose to worship the wrong God, these two rules keep you out of trouble. So you do not have to choose a religion if you choose to obey these two rules.

I know. You Jesus lovers tend to believe the conservative line that insists on acceptance of the Christian God. And you try to pretend that you get to decide who is and who is not a Christian based on your exclusivity test. Gotta believe or gotta go to hell. WWJD? Indeed.

Throughout my life, it has been my observation that fundamentalism is almost exclusively the realm of dim witted people. These are people who must have a universe that is purposely just. Only one problem with their mantra. It is empirically false. The universe is random, not just. If you deny that most basic truth, you deny reality.

Now you know why conservative pharisees were uncomfortable around Jesus. He was truly a radical lefty. His ideas about adultery and peace and love were not only revolutionary, they got him killed.

Okay back off the soapbox and back to the funny.