Posted in category "Humor"
George Carlin passed away over the weekend. He was a funny guy. I’ll miss him and his outrageousness. Bill Maher, another ex-Catholic comedian, could take a cue from him to be sharp but not slashing. It’s funnier, and even more devastating, if you really want to nail institutions and people.
Carlin’s dissembling of the “Ten Commandments” is one of the most entertaining, uplifting scriptural explanations I ever heard. I always played whenever I needed to lighten-up a deary mood, especially from bad organized religion news. Anyone who took the Bible literally–or totally respectfully–probably would pass out if they heard it.
“I Used To Be Irish Catholic” from the Class Clown album is still my favorite.
He was also “Cardinal Glick” in the comedy, Dogma. The movie is set in my old home state - New Jersey! (You know, that was a good choice!)
“This is a truly naughty book, but it is also a strangely moral one.” Talk
That was the description of Joe Eszterhas’ book, American Rhapsody, with its globs of dirty gossip about Hollywood celebrities and the Clinton presidency, including the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
But the point isn’t about the book, its about the writer. It seems to me, that many times the person who leads an envied sex life, has all kinds of colorful exploits, drinks, smokes, ingests, lives life like a wild man or woman, ends up with religion. Look at St. Augustine. Or, a person who makes a living writing about these people. Look at Anne Rice.
Joe Eszterhas has written screenplays for 16 films that have made more than a billion dollars at the box office. Among them are Basic Instinct, Flashdance and Showgirls.
A former editor at Rolling Stone, he is the author of six books, including American Rhapsody, Hollywood Animal and Charlie Simpson’s Apocalypse, which was nominated for the National Book Award.
Joe Eszterhas looks like his reputation. Thick, grizzled mane of hair, biker brawler face, ex-boozer–my father would have called him, “a man’s man.” 
Eszterhas left Hollywood and returned to the home of his youth–Ohio. He lives with his second wife, Naomi, and their four sons just east of Cleveland.
He has just finished a book about himself and his relationship with Jesus, called Crossbearer. The title refers to himself, not Jesus; Eszterhas carries the cross at Mass at his church.
He came close to dying from his additions to drinking and smoking. The contracted cancer, struggled with a tracheotomy. He had an epiphany. It is this transformation that he describes in his new book, along with differing on what he sees as the church’s “wimpification” of Jesus.
“I didn’t even really know how to pray…Part of it was that I felt myself to be presuming God’s favor in our new relationship. I thought to myself: Yeah, right, I reject Him so long ago, and then, after forty years of not just ignoring Him but trashing Him in my writings, I’m suddenly back and talking to Hi as though nothing had interrupted our relationship, syaing “How ya doing, God? Haven’t seen you in a while..what up? Everything cool?…”
“And now here I was trying to speak to God whom I had marginalized and mocked and lampooned. How do you approach someone to whom you’ve done that? I didn’t know what to say, so one of the first things I said was ‘I’m sorry. I’ve acted like a colossal A-hole. I’m really, really sorry. I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but please try to forgive me.”
“I have a theory that all addiction is, at bottom, a search for God. Think about it: the blackout–a crude form of mystical union; the willingness to sacrifice reputation, family, money, health, one’s very life–a twisted martyrdom. Sometimes I think anyone as drawn as I am to suffering would have to become a Catholic,” King writes.
“Maybe God uses even our illnesses, our compulsions, the defects we can’t fix no matter how hard we try, for the greater good. As for the wounds other people inflict upon us–maybe he uses those most of all.”
King reminds us that “when Christ appeared to his disciples after the Resurrection, he still bore the wounds. One of the things this seems to say is that our suffering counts.”
King articulated the spiritual dimenson of addiction perfectly.
I am still in a quantry if Catholics are drawn to suffering or if we are just accustomed to it; thanks to ever-present crucifixes, tales of saints meeting grusome ends with praise, not screams; and scary stories of the eternal torment and pain of Hell or Purgatory if saving grace slips through our fingers.
Suffering can make us compassionate, but it can also make us cruel and manipulative. Some sufferers use their suffering to lash out at the world and cause pain to other people, especially those close to them.
I am intrigued by her statement that Christ’s wounds survived the Resurrection. Perhaps our wounds help define who we are, both in this world and the next. What comes in through them, as well as what goes out of us.
Dan Barry is a reporter for the NY Times. His regular columns included “About New York” and “This Land.” His book, Pull Me Up, is a memoir of growing up an an Irish-American family in Long Island, and his struggle as an adult with cancer.
Barry wrote a wonderful article for the Times that appeared just before Pope Benedict’s visit. “The View from My Pew” beautifully articulates what many American Catholics feel about their faith and themselves. I especially loved his description of himself as “the classic stumbling, grumbling, trying-to-sort-it-all-out American Catholic.”
William F. Buckley, Jr., founder of National Review magazine, and a driving force in the rise of conservative politics in the post-war era, had his memorial service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on April 4th. The recessional piece, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, was also the theme for “Firing Line,” Buckley’s long-running syndicated television show. All 2,200 seats in St. Patrick’s were filled. His memorial, announced weeks in advance, was open to the public.
Politically, Buckley described himself as a “conservative controversialist.” But unlike some of his right-wing heirs, he did not interrupt his political opponents. Rather, he gave them time to articulate their positions during his debates. And Buckley’s provocative remarks were mostly ameliorated by humor, elegant diction, and a mischevious smile.
During one memorable encounter on ABC with Gore Vidal, however, Buckley lost his temper - responding with a homophobic slur and threatening to sock Vidal in the face when the author called him a “cryto-Nazi.”
The two never made up, and Vidal kept throwing darts at Buckley and his politics.
“Granted, Buckley’s brand of conservatism, especially in the early years, had its ugly side,” Hendrik Hertzberg wrote recently for the New Yorker. “He embraced (Sen. Joseph) McCarthy and McCarthyism. He conflated liberalism and communism. He dismissed the civil rights movement….But he did his best to purge the right of anti-Semitism, overt racism, xenophobia, philistinism and anti-intellectualism.”
Here’s my take: I liked Bill Buckley the way I liked John Cardinal O’Connor. I liked them for their character, and the fact they were multi-dimensional human beings with a sense of humor. What I also appreciated about them was their graciousness. They spoke with irony (how could they not…they were Irish), but without any meanness.
There is a quality of meanness in many conservative Catholic bloggers that is a big turn-off. If you express a differing opinion from the Magisterium and/or Republican Party, you get bulls-eye’d–not engaged as a fellow human being. Particularly spiteful posts are often accompanied by a vultures’ chorus of “Blessed Mother protect us” type of sentiments, or heart-felt wishes the Pope will whack the hell of whatever miscreant(s) are getting kicked. Folks, what happened to the Gospel?
For the other side, offer an opinion that can be perceived as one millimeter over the line of political-correctness, and you will find yourself frozen in intellectual and social Siberia. Forever. Folks, the mind and the spirit need to be free to roam. Creative solutions don’t come from lockstep views.
What happened to just having a discussion? You can be passionate; you can get heated, but is it necessary to have contempt when you disagree?
Buckley spoke in sentences, not platitudes. He is a good role model for every Catholic that takes up the pen, and values a good “turn of the phrase.”
