Blogger has changed to a new format that I must get used to. I may make some mistakes for awhile. Just so you know. It seems that the "Preview" button isn't working, so I won't know what my post looks like until it is posted.
I shared a new story today about cicadas that have become infected with a fungus that acts like LSD in their system, and while it destroys the bottom half of their body, they don't know it and they become little sexual demons who like to like to mimic the opposite sex like a lot of old gender bending, acid taking hippies (link). What I got back from an old pal who hasn't lived in town for about twenty years was interesting.
This reminds me, not sure why, of your counter to Earnest Angley and his send me Jesus money. You come on as the devil with a phone book in hand and randomly choose names from the book for eternal damnation if they haven’t sent tribute. You could have a daily blog distributing depressing or deeply troubling stories to start the day. You could also co-market with despair.com.
I've tried to keep most people I know from hearing about the blog. It would have done me no good at work, of course, and when people I know read the blog, I can't write about them. That really cuts out the majority of my interesting stories. Q faults me for "living in the Bat Cave," but for me, it is better this way.
I wrote back to my friend, "Uh. . . I'll use that on my blog today." Indeed, he is the one who should write a blog. He is far more clever than I. But so are most of my friends.
Here's a quick clip to Ernest Angely for those of you who never knew of him (link). I can't find any videos of him healing the sick, but man, that little fellow was something. When I first came across him back in the '70s, I couldn't get enough. That soft talking little fellow would fly off the handle and slap and punch the devil out of people. They would fall down into the arms of his "catchers" and be healed. The deaf could hear. The paralyzed could walk. I'd never seen anything like it. He was a forerunner of much to come. Later on, there was another healer, Benny Hinn, who was based right here in my own hometown. A fellow I hired to work in the video department later went to work filming his ministries around the world. An M.D. who I played basketball with (he played college ball and was really good) on Saturdays was a real Christian, and he went to work for Benny Hinn, too. Several of the fellows from the gym got jobs "catching" for him, too. He was probably the richest of all the faith healers up to that time, but I don't think he would ever have had a chance if not for Ernest Angley.
Of course they both got into trouble because they couldn't keep their peters in their pants, like many well-known evangelists, and they lost their flocks. Selavy.
But I was inspired, and I told my friends that I was going to start a t.v. ministry in which I held up the phone book from different cities across America, and I would randomly select names warning that if they didn't donate to Christ today, they would face eternal damnation. Tell me, now, would I not have made a fortune?
Oh, I used to be full of good ideas. I'm an idea man.
Fear, despair, and hope. These are the formula for taking money from the throng.
Or becoming president.
"There's a sucker born every minute." P.T. Barnum.
Everything you need to know about Trumpism and Evangelical Christianity is encapsulated in the lunatic con artist Earnest Angely whose operations are based in the place where I lived for the first 25 years of my life.
ReplyDeleteThe original Grace cathedral which was a 1950s monstrosity of gilt excess was a hike from our house, but my brother and I used to ride our bikes and get there in under half an hour. It sits right next to a cemetery where four generations of my family are buried, and I would have been planted there as well had I not moved away. It is also next to a family owned peanut brittle factory that has also been there since the 1950s as well. On our rides out there we would go over dirt and gravel roads coated with oily asphalt and coast down the many hills of the cemetery to arrive at the freak house.
As crazy as you have seen Angely the carnival side-show man is freakier in person and his hall of oddities dedicated to a pasty Jesus and a red eyed Satan with gilt and mirrors and the colors of a steam powered, barrel organ carousel ride. There is a fountain out front that changed colors even back in the sixties and in the foyer were two giant paintings one of the pasty Jesus and the other of ole Earnest himself facing each other on either side of the funnel doorways leading into the exhibit hall where they fleeced the rubes. My brother and I would go up there for the mischief of watching the freak show and to play some mischief, but those fuckers are serious. The doors to the hall were locked during the collection and no one got out until the body of Earnest lying prostrate on the altar floor was completely buried in money. That is not a metaphor, that is how it was judged that enough tithing had taken place.
He has since bought out an even larger facility previously owned by another charlatan Rex Humbard on the other side of town. My hometown was a hot bed of crazy television evangelicals.
To the right side of the Giant Cathedral of Tomorrow is has a huge cement tower that is no longer functional but is too expensive to tear down. This hulking decaying slab of towering cement is affectionately known as Rex’s Erection. In the 1950s and early 1960s before schools started taking the separation of church and state a little more seriously, they used to bus hundreds of children to celebrations there as field trips.
Of course after the pederasty scandals broke, he has taken his freak show on the road to third world nations. He may have finally settled those out of court and may be back in operation in Ohiah.
I will take some pictures of these monstrosities once the plague ends and I can go back to visit kin. You will like them in the way you find old Sideshow exhibits intriguing.
ReplyDeleteI was right there on the bike with ya c.c. Send pictures when you get there.
I used watch those guys too. Amazed as a kid when the wheelchair bound - after being yelled at "Get UP GET UP THE LORD IS INSIDE GET UP and WALK!" Would. I didn't believe it as a little kid even but it was sure something to watch.
I'm writing now because we have a tornado warning till 10 and I've already lost power since being home. Who knows what darkness will bring.
That bullshit - is American Jesus. Those evangelical sinners sit there on Wed and Sundays listening to hate - greed - preached by snake oil salesman and charlatans. Fuck them.
The Real Jesus Juice - is an energy of Love and Kindness - to the whores and the thieves as well as everyone in between. Of course - some doubt or don't want to rely on the faith of humankind. I get it. We are assholes most of the time. Self-centered and lacking grace - mercy.
It's a practice - like mediation or yoga but then it feels so good and right - it just kind of pours out of you - It definitely can't be banged into you by Benny Hill. ;)
I mean it doesn't have to be Jesus but I've got no real beef with that character - maybe he was a wise man - like so many who have tried to spread that way of living.
What the fuck do I know.
But I do have a lot of church experience. DM with any questions.
My old body is sore. I'm back on my ice mat. And it feels wonderful. I had to do some grocery shopping for Ma and then I had to bend down on the floor and dig 4 kittens out of a cupboard for their one and a half week exams. Dreadful. They are getting cuter.
Stay in your Bat Cave if it feels right. But write what you want to write. Hanging around writers is like hanging in a den of thieves.
OK. Confession.
I need to paint my nails. Do you know in over 10 years I've never made the decision about what color? I used to call T and ask him what he wanted me to wear. Every two weeks for 10 years. Gladly. Not because he was like "don't do this or don't do that." Of course - that wasn't him. I just wanted to please him. I loved showing up and having him examine. Is that fucked up?
I'm so out of practice here.
I didn't do my nails for the creeping up on 2 years T. has been gone. Hannah took me as a gift a couple of weeks ago and she picked for me. And it's time again. She thinks I'm somewhat of a mental case already.
I guess I have to make some important decisions. I'm a little scared. And I'm not scared of too much. But some things do scare me. What if I pick the wrong color?
What tornado? The wind blew it was nice - it didn't seem threatening - rather a warning of what was possible if we didn't start getting our shit together re: the environment. She will shake us off like the parasites we are.
ReplyDeleteWell that's what I kinda think.
So Hannah said she'd cover me. She got a lovely pink nude and said I wouldn't be biter if I got the same. Which is huge cause I often am a Hannah biter. When she was a kid she didn't like it - but now she's all about flashing whats hot and whats not in front of me.
I mean in my old age appropriate way. I take what little there is left of that youth that can be directly applied. She's prime right now. God I love her.
Anyway.
Because I smoke a shit ton of weed and I've been posting here since - G.W.? Could that be? I'm bad with years like that. I was wondering if I ever told my #metoo moment here. I must have. I don't want to repeat myself - but the hashtags are really wearing on me.
Raise awareness indeed.
But #'s are gonna be like - like let me search for a good equivalent - mmmmm. it's not good enough but for the sake of time - like fucking floppy disk. No. Not really good. There is probably something on a typewriter that would have been better - I loved typing class. I think I still like typing. hehe I made myself laugh.
Anyway. I was #metooed but not touched inappropriately or made to have sex - it went like this:
ReplyDeleteI ran a timeshare phone room. Do you have any idea what that is like? Course you do - you've seen "Death of a Salesman" x 100. Ever been on a timeshare tour? Yeah x 400. It was a numbers game. This company provided tours to the Timeshare place - got paid about $150 a tour. We offered some slimebag free airfare package. Good god I could write a book.
My boss cared about two things - Money & His Family. We made a lot of money together but I wasn't famil.
If I didn't book at least 150 appointments a night - the next day - I dreaded walking up the stairwell. His office was on the right and the "room" was to the left.
I'd open the heavy door - and he'd yell "Lisa get in here." He would yell at me till he had a ball of white spit on his lips. I took it - gave him the data - the number of new leads he had provided - the number of dialers I had on etc and so on. This went on for 4 years.
I had my son. Cause we were dialing for dollars at night - he asked me to come back early. So I started back 3 nights a week. Leaving the little breast fed collicky boy with his dad and I'd work for 4 hours a night.
Things had started to sour in the industry - bad deals - people calling about the bogus tickets (for the record I had to confirm every appointment and I told the people every restriction there was - I could always sleep at night even if I was covered with slime).
So the numbers are going down the shitter. One day I was walking up the stairs - my stomach already feeling queasy - (which was how it got to be every time I walked the stairs). We were young and I was making really good money otherwise we were mostly broke.
So I sit down and he is spinning up - raging - finger pointing at my face - I never once cried in front of that mother fucker - not once.
He says "And you know what your fucking problem is Lisa - you know why you aren't getting me the numbers I need - it is because you are breastfeeding that baby of yours."
I got up threw my keys on the desk and never looked back. I left a shitload of money. And I didn't give a fuck.
For the next 2 weeks - taking care of a newborn baby for the first time in my life - barely sleeping - nursing around the clock. Kid was a screamer.
He denied me unemployment.
I called every agency from Hyannis to Boston and told my story. About my boss who screamed at me and told me to stop breastfeeding my kid cause it was causing him to lose money.
Not one person said it was worth my time pursuing. Not one.
It's action.
I did *heart* Michelle & Obama. Those fucking earnest Community Organizers.
Ok. That was strange but I had been talking about Black Lives Matter with someone last night.
I'm going to get a rude box
I did.
That picture looks like a Cape Cod house.