No, he did not just say that:

He’s so full of vitriol!
Should he come or should he go?
Baby, I just don’t know.

Well, back to reality. Time to put away the sticks of antipathy for the dreaded other. I got the unemployment paperwork today. The welfare state gives me six months at 250 per week to get a good government job. I’ve got a line on a catering thing to get some extra cash in hand. What with the election nonsense the past two days have been a wash so we need to make tomorrow count for something in our land war on poverty. I want to feel upbeat, but I’m not really there.

I was going to tell the funny gym church story, but after my anti-right wing pro-Christ anti-Christian rant I figured it wouldn’t play right. It’s not their fault that Paul fucked a good egalitarian love thy neighbor thing with all his dogmatic prudery and misogynist nonsense. Paul is where Christ’s “love thy neighbor” becomes “love thy neighbor unless…” One closet case begets a nation of them, manifesting their own guilt through denial of the other, ah well.

Wasn’t Paul persecuting the Christians, then he had a “if you can’t beat um join um seizure” and fell of his horse. He infiltrated, established a long tradition of guilt, and saved himself a lot of legwork by convincing Christians to persecute themselves.

Fuck it – Gym church the short version:

Suffice it to say that gym church happened in a place Bon Jovie could have played, with a horn section, a drummer, several guitars, a teleprompter for the hymn lyrics, and two bagpipers in full Scottish dress who played amazing Grace for the recessional. I had run into one of the bagpipers in the bathroom before the service and so I kept waiting to see how they would work him in; full kilt, white puffy socks, Sheppard to the nines. And you should have seen his dad; they both shop at Highland Fling Outfitters.

Part of the sermon was a dramatic performance of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. Everyone involved in the service wore headsets and the ushers were referred to as the “hospitality team.” Women were allowed to read the daily lesson. I love it when they allow the women to participate in some small way, you know, so they feel involved. Vick and Camilla left in the middle of the service to sit on the floor in the ladies room and laugh hysterically. After the service in the car my father apologized, he hadn’t known that a “modern” Lutheran service somehow translated into Amy Grant Penticostal. I just kept repeating, “I never expected bagpipes” as I shook with laughter and wept at the absurdity of gym church.

Vick said, “The pastor left out the part where Shel wrote for Playboy and was the drummer for Dr. Hook.” At first I thought the tree stump and the apples all around the stage were fall decorations, but no, they were props to help illustrate the story. The Giving Tree was introduced as the tale of Shel’s conversion to Christianity, but it was never explained how exactly that the story conveyed that… because it doesn’t. It’s about a tree that this user fucker kills and then he sits on the bloody stump of the decimated enabling deciduous.

The Pastor ended by telling us to vote our values and that abortion was a sin, as was looking at internet pornography and not loving your husband. What he meant by combining those three I can only imagine. In the middle of the part of the Sermon devoted to sharing our darkest secrets with the community of faith Vick leaned over and asked me if the Pastor was out to the congregation. Two words of stereotypical lisp and your gay-dar would have been screaming “catholic priest.” I hope he figures it out, or he’ll end up like that poor tree.