Easter Churchin'

As Easter morning while in the company of a bona-fide septuagenarian super-Catholic who was born and raised in Ireland is not the time or place to take a stand re: not believing in God or religion, Sunday morning I gamely accompanied Brothatime!! and his wife/kid/mother-in-law to Mass. I go to Mass maybe once a year; at this point I amuse myself by seeing how much I still have memorized. Which is a disturbingly high amount, it turns out.

Anyways I was standing there while it was going on, whatevs whatevs whatevs, and a part comes when the priest asks us to renew our Baptism vows. I did't remember the first time, so I poked my ears up a bit, and heard a long stream about rejecting sin. And the Devil. And....The Prince of Darkness.

Wha? The Prince of Darkness? When did this happen - doesn't that sound kind of silly, coming from a Catholic Ritual Mass standpoint? "Devil" or "Satan" seems goofy enough - now we got some evil guy running around town in tights and a cape? THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS!! MWAA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!

For fuck's sake.

Also while sitting there I came up with the idea of sending people certificates announcing that their soul will be saved and sent to heaven for only $100,000. What the hell, right? I mean, you send something like that out to enough people, and SOMEbody will fucking buy it. And anyone nutty enough to do it is probably old, rich and eccentric; grateful to ship me $100k to save their soul. But then I started thinking of the legality of it, wondering if I could claim such a thing, how wrong it might be to do...of course, then I saw the ol' basket being passed around (TWICE), and I was reminded that that's what the fucking church does in the first place. Show up at church, give some money, and the church will see you go to heaven. I mean, did we learn nothing from when Dalton was looking for a place to stay upon hitting town to clean up the Double Duece?

Emmett: It ain't the money ya understand, but if I don't charge ya somethin' the Presbyterians around here are likely to pray for my ruination. How does a hundred dollars a month strike ya?
Dalton: Fine.
Emmett: Can ya afford that much?
Dalton: If it keeps you in the good graces of the church.
Emmett: Ain't it peculiar how money seems to do that very thing?

So fuck it, I'm gonna do this. I figure if I make one sale, then between the cost of a sheet of paper, toner ink and a stamp, my profits will be $99,999.53. Not too shabby.

Also, is there anything sadder than the whitest Catholic Church in the world trying to sing? Wow. And they made things worse by 1) instead of a simple organ they had a mini-orchestra, complete with a "conductor," and 2) insisting on singing as many verses as possible of each song. What the fuck? 3 seconds in I was able to realize "hey, this kinda blows." How have these people been doing this for years without realizing it? I guess it's like a girl I dated for two years who had no idea her bush was more like a forest and her pussy stank. She had no idea, until as we were breaking up and I whispered "and by the way, your pussy stinks." Right? And somebody needs to explain what a conductor does to me. Especially in a REAL orchestra - here you have the greatest trained musicians in the world, who have worn their fingers to the bone practicing for decades. They know the piece by heart. And they can read music anyways if the need. Yet they're supposed to be watching some dude jumping up and down "ME! ME! ME!" while practicing his cursive letters in the air with a magic wand? Really?

A good weekend, even while having to attend church. Happy Easter! (not late - that's for Easter 2010)