Sunday, April 27, 2014

Deep Thoughts From My Hammock...

Comedy IS good medicine…

Mildly called to task this morning for “Mormon Bashing” which led to an interesting discussion… Deep thoughts… And sharing of a recent post show happening…

First, I make no apologies for any “religion bashing” that may occur during any exchange with me… Be it face to face… Text… Instant Message… Or comments on a post…

The “Rules” of all religions have certainly done more harm thru the centuries, than any help they may have provided… Yes, I bash Mormons… Most of the audiences I play to now have had it up to their eyeballs with them… 

Personally, I have had it up to my eyeballs also with their sense of moral superiority and knowledge of right and wrong…

But after 12 years of Catholic School… I don’t have a whole lot of good to say about them either… Unfortunately, because I’m currently living in Idaho I don’t get to use that material on stage as often as I’d like… The only Catholics I find here… Only speak “Canadian”… At least they tell me that’s where they are from when they find out I am from Neuva Jork…

But I digress… Recently I did have an opportunity to do some “Catholic Bashing” during a show not in Idaho… The Catholic School material was easily accepted and light heartedly laughed at… Or so I thought… Until coming off stage…

Standing at the bar greeting people after the show… I was timidly approached by an older woman who with tears in her eyes… Felt the need to thank me for “Bashing the Catholics” as she then proceeded to share with me the mental mistreatment she suffered at the hands of Catholic School nuns… 

For at least 50 years she had been carrying that pain around… I was more than a little stunned… All I could think to do was hug her…

“Catholic Bashing”… “Mormon Bashing”… “Religion Bashing”… 

Call it whatever you like… I call it talking about things people have tried to hide in the closet of a Penalty Box (confessional) for too long… Talking about things they were told not to talk about… Talking about things they were told not use their supposedly god given brain to question…

Richard Pryor changed this country by talking about racism… I make no claims to ever have the same effect… 

But comedy IS good medicine… If by making jokes… Yes, even by “Bashing”… I can cause a few people to stop… To think… To question… To change… Then hopefully they in turn can make a few others stop, think, question and change… 

And then maybe as John Lennon said… Maybe then we can “Imagine”…

The only heaven… The only hell… Is what they chose to create here… Maybe, maybe… Just maybe I can get them to think about creating more heaven on earth… And a lot less hell…   


Fuck… Too Deep…