So I just got over a stupid intrusive cold that laid me out for a long weekend and pretty much ruined my whole attitude on life. But today I’m back and feeling like a superman!
One of the things I do when I’m out of commission and avoiding major updates to the site is I instead do minor little updates. Like for instance a couple extra letters got tagged onto the end of Claire Grace’s collection on page 415. I realize that correspondence was a while back, but maybe it took being away from Union and Claire for this many months to find inspiration and reply to her last.
Also, it had been brought to my attention a controversy that happened with Jesus Dressup that I didn’t know anything about! Focus magazine apparently published something about Jesus Dressup then got in trouble with The Media Ethic Council back in November ’08. You can read more about that here. If you know anything else about it I’d love to be told.
Oh, and also while I was sick I kept adding new costumes to the latest Final Justice JDU, so I invite you to go take a look and see who you can name! Christ, I adore that version. It’s so much fun!!
Anyhow, I’m back to work today with more hate mail, stranger people, comics and surprises on the way so do not stray.
Christy Christ, circa 2008 digitized in Adobe Illustrator
A few weeks ago, just before Halloween, I went to Texas to visit Super Chic Christy, her friends, family and the city of Austin. On the last evening of my trip we were invited to go to an authentic Hell House, Texas style! So a whole bunch of us piled into vehicles and headed for the event. It was all very last minute.
It ended up not being quite what we expected as it was laid out on a stage which we sat in the audience of and watched, like a play. It was a HUGE church. A “Megachurch” as they say, and the place was packed. We were shown our seats off to the right of the stage. Everyone was very polite and helpful. And there before us was heaven! A giant castle shaped mound of draping white sparkling fabric everywhere, with a doorway in the middle, and angels perched randomly around it, wings, dresses, blond wigs and all. It was the gaudiest heaven depiction you could ever imagine. Actually, it’s just how I’d always imagined it. From one end of the stage to the other. It was a sight to behold.
So the show was what you’d expect. It was a series of skits about people doing things that were going to get them damned to hell. There was a suicidal girl who was being taunted and degraded by Satan until she shot herself in the head. Oh! And their Satan was a complete rip-off of Skeletor. Undoubtedly the best performer of the night however. Anyhow, there were gangbanger kids who did a drive-by shooting then crashed their car and went to hell. I believe there was a drug skit too. They didn’t however touch on abortion or homosexuality which I thought were standard churchie lecturedom. It surprised me.
But it was the last story of the evening that was most amazing. It was the moral of the event’s plot. It was about a Christian family being held prisoner in Iraq …possibly communist Russia. Or it could have even been Nazi Germany. It was hard to tell exactly. The accents of the soldiers were all over the place, and quite frankly their uniforms looked American, except for the berets, which was the “foreign” element of the costume I assume.
So here’s this family- father, mother, teenage emo son, and 9 year old little girl, all being held at gunpoint by these enemy soldiers. The commander is screaming at them, “So! You’re all Christians, huh? Believe in Jesus and think you’re going to heaven for believing in Jesus, huh?!”
“Yes, me and my family are Christians and we believe in Jesus!” The father replied.
The guards responded to this by pointing their guns in their faces while the commander continued, “We’ll just see about that! If you do not denounce Jesus Christ we’re going to execute you! Each and everyone of you! You will die here tonight if you do not reject Jesus!!!”
The mother and daughter fake cried into the shoulders of dad, while the insecure kid playing the emo son did his best to look like he was part of the acted drama.
“Each of you will be shot dead if you do not reject Christianity and Jesus Christ right here, right now! I will give you 5 minutes alone together to make your decision!”
And the soldiers walked away.
So the family was there fake crying and such. “Acting.” The wife cried “Oh Peter, what are we going to do? They’re going to kill us if we don’t denounce Jesus!”
“Elizabeth,” the father consoled, “Jesus has always been there to get us through the hard times. He promised us in the Bible he would watch over us and guarantee us eternal paradise if we believed in him. We will not denounce him, because we all have unwavering faith he is our savior!”
“Oh Peter, I completely agree! I love Jesus! He’s always watched over us, and I believe he’s watching over us all here, right now!”
“Kids? Do you agree? Do you believe in Jesus and trust him?”
“Daddy, I love Jesus and would never deny him! I believe in him, mommy and daddy! I believe!” the daughter cried. They all cried.
Then the soldiers returned, pointed their guns in the family’s faces, and the commander yelled, “So, have you made your decision, Anderson family?! Do you denounce Jesus Christ, or are you going to DIE?!?!”
To which the father stood and said, “My family and I have discussed it, and we WILL NOT denounce Jesus!”
The audience cheers.
“THEN YOU WILL EACH DIE!” And the solders shot the father, the mother, and the son, who all dramatically fell to the ground, dead. Then, the commander with his handgun pointed at the 9 year old little girl and shouted angrily, “Little girl, are you sure you do not denounce Jesus Christ!? Are you prepared to die like your family!? You have one more chance to change your mind!!”
The daughter stood and she stated, “I will……….. NEVER denounce Jesus! He is my savior and I love him!”
“THEN DIE!” And everything goes black. There’s a gunshot with a flash of light, and quiet.
When the lights come on we’re all back at that gaudy heaven display I described earlier, with the angels, and Gabriel at the doorway in front of a giant book. Then up comes the Anderson family, casually strolling into the scene.
“Look daddy! Is this Heaven!?! It’s more beautiful than I imagined!” the little girl joyfully cried.
“See?” Daddy said, “I told you Jesus’ promise was true! This is heaven! We made it to heaven!”
Then the angel Gabriel, with his book open in front of him said, “Is this the Anderson family?”
“Yes, that’s us!” the father responded.
“Peter Anderson!” Gabriel boomed. To which the father stepped up from his family and did a dance. No kiddin’. He did a little dance like a middle aged man who’s making a joke about how he can’t dance. The audience laughs, cheers and whistles.
“Peter anderson! You did NOT denounce Jesus and you were a good Christian! You are here in the Book Of Life and get to come into Heaven!”
The father does a fist pump “YES!” and returns to his family.
“Elizabeth Anderson!” The wife steps in front of the angel and she does the middle-aged woman dance. The audience whistles, cheers and laughs some more.
“You too were a good Christian and believed in Jesus until the very end! You are in the Book Of Life and get to come into heaven!”
She then returns to her family.
“Jonathan Anderson!”
The emo teen comes into the spotlight and does a typical insecure looking dance, raising the roof and such. The audience laughs and cheers.
“You too are in the Book Of Life and get to enter heaven!”
Then finally the daughter is called forward, she dances cutely, gets into heaven, the audience cheers and laughs, and so fourth.
Then, quite abruptly, Gabriel says, “Anderson family! We have one last surprise for you! Do you remember many years ago little Suzy, your other child who died so young?”
And the mother, with her hands covering her face, nods and says “Yes! Oh yes I do!”
Then Gabriel motioned towards heaven’s doorway with his hand. “Little Suzy, come out here and be with your family!”
And out of that doorway appears a cute little three year old in a white dress and angel wings, bashfully stepping out into the spotlight. The crowd goes bananas with “awws” and cheers and clapping. The works.
And they all run up, group hug and stampede into heaven. The End.
All of us left at that point to go have delicious mexican food. We kind of had to hurry out of there before the restaurant closed. Everything in Austin closes at 9, but we made it in time, and the cheese enchiladas there were truly amazing.
It’s hard to find good Mexican food in New York City.
I realize I’m not the originator of this, I do not know who made the one I first saw, but when I did I knew it was good. So the other day I couldn’t help myself, stopped off at my local rubber stamp store and had one made just for me! My very own GOD IS FAKE stamp! And Christ, it’s FUN!
So after stamping all the bills in my wallet and my secret stash under my mattress, all my friends’ bills, and asking everyone I came into contact with for a dollar, which I’d stamp & return, I withdrew all my savings, stamped it, every last one, and redeposited it to guarantee my money was branded MY MONEY!
But my peace of mind was short lived.
After a long day of stamping every bill I encountered, I remembered what I always remember: The Bible. THE BIBLE!! And immediately I got to work stamping out God verse by verse, page by page, all night long until the sun came up.
I can’t say enough how satisfying blotting out the word God can be. I’ve even started accepting tracts from proselytizers again just to show off my new stamp to them!
I’m still not entirely happy with the legibility of the “IS FAKE” portion so I’m stopping back at the stamp maker’s with a thinner, simpler font. I’ll be sure to let you know how that all goes. Also, to be quite honest, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to be doing this, so please, let’s keep this between you and me. I suppose that also explains why it’s so much fun. And best of all this takes care of my stocking-stuffers for everyone on my shopping list this Xmas (emphisizing the “X”).[Available as of Nov. 19th, 2009]
So, I am at ASU and really having a good time. It’s been super freaking hot, especially considering they had snow yesterday morning back at home. And even more so if you’re the one dressed up in full red devil make-up and a tuxedo.
When I think about it there’s really been a lot accomplished this week. I’ve been getting tons of footage of the campus preachers and the craziness that abounds when they get to the square. They set up right in front of the atheist booth… or is it the atheists who set up across from them? I got the most amazing footage of a preacher fight! No kicking or punching, but about 8 minutes of verbal bitch slapping between two fundie preachers that’s just priceless. And I have to admit the students here do a fine job on their own handling the never ending onslaught of wacky preachiness, and don’t need my help at all in putting them all back in their place. Yeah, there’s lots of footage I need to go through, and I;ll be posting it in the days and weeks to come. You’ll love it.
We also had a couple showings of Bob Smith, USA. One at the Anarchist’s Library and the other on campus. The one night before last on campus with most of the club members was the most enjoyable for me. Everyone was excited to see it, there was lots of friendly story telling before and after the film, and the accommodations were exquisite! It was an extremely nostalgic viewing of it for me. I’m sure that had everything to do with the fact that the first time I ever saw the movie it was in a theater almost identical to the one we were in. It was a luxurious viewing room with sofa seats, mood lighting, and at that time, the director, a bunch of fancy industry big wigs, and an extremely hot/crazy girlfriend. Oh, the memories.
On Wednesday not only did I have a wonderful photoshoot with Broken Image Photography in downtown Phoenix, but I also finally got to meet Super Chic Rix who drove up for the shoot and drinks afterwards! She’s so unbelievably hot and sweet, and I’ll soon be reposting her in Super Chics in all her glory. RIx, me and Melenie (the girl who’s letting me sleep on her sofabed) all went out and had some of the best burgers ever and, later, some beers at Monkey Pants. I have the most unbelievable picture of me looking like the biggest fuckin’ pimp in Arizona… no offense to the lovely ladies!
Last night the Freethought Group has a kind of “town meeting” that included not only everyone from the group but also the preacher Brother Jed (brojed.com) and his family, and several others from their side of the fence. Brother Jed gave a speech explaining why he thought believing in his god fit squarely with reason. Then I gave a speech (which is not my specialty) and there was Q&A afterwards. I was told later that I said something that made some of the group cringe. During my Q&A I was asked by someone from the religious half of the room how believing the universe came from nothing is any more reasonable than believing it was created by a Supreme Being. In my response I stated that it seemed obvious that a magical wizard coming from nothing was far more unreasonable than a pebble coming from nothing (or something to that extent). I realize now looking back why that would make the group cringe, and it didn’t come out like I meant. Part of me knows not to ever make any claim or statement in answer to “how did we come from nothing?” question. Needless to say, I was a bit embarrassed that I’d made them wince, and I don’t want to make that mistake again.
Anyhow, tonight they’re having an “Unholy Army” party that I’m looking forward to. I wonder if there’s anything I can do or bring that’d show them all how much I appreciate this whole experience? I’ll have to think.
So I just got over a stupid intrusive cold that laid me out for a long weekend and pretty much ruined my whole attitude on life. But today I’m back and feeling like a superman!
