Today’s Christopher Walken Dose

Walken, on the Imus flap.

The hook that pulled me into the Imus mess was my buddy Mickey Rourke. As you may know, Mick scrambled his brains trying to be a professional boxer. I remember telling him after his third bout, “Mick, sweetheart. I love what you’re doing. But if you like sleeping on canvas that much, quit boxing and have some sheets made from it.”

Mick is not doing well. His ADD is off the charts, he sometimes calls me “Aunt Susie,” and he claims my ferns laugh at him. But I love the guy, so I let him live in my shed. And when he has trouble sleeping, because the ferns are hurting his feelings, I have Benny or Seymour go out there and tune in a pirate Imus podcast on the laptop. It’s a soft droning sound that doesn’t mean very much, and it knocks Mick out faster than an obvious punch from a fifty-year-old club fighter who lives on food stamps.

That was before the ho thing. Up until then, Imus had been pretty consistent. “Muh muh muh muh weasel muh muh muh muh ranch muh muh pipsqueaks.” You know the sound. It worked so well I had Seymour go out to Mick’s shed and remove the baby monitor. But after? I never heard such shrill whining and pleading. Well, not since I told Tom Cruise he was no longer allowed to eat or mention placenta.

For a Second I Almost Felt Significant

I can’t believe it. I can now say I’ve known two Pulitzer winners. And I’m not including perennial winner Jonah Goldberg, who had to rent a storage unit to hold his statuettes or whatever it is they give you.

I sort of knew Dave Barry back when I freelanced for The Miami Herald. He knew me well enough to shake my hand and back away slowly when we ran into each other at the elevators. And now my old editor, Gene Weingarten, has won a prize for writing about some fiddle player in the subway. He probably deserved it. He wrote very well when he ran Tropic, the Herald Sunday magazine. Tropic had a lot of good contributors, but I always thought he and Barry were the class of the operation.

Am I jealous? Not at all. Let’s see those losers make Quote of the Day at Kim du Toit’s blog.

I truly suck at name-dropping. I barely know anybody.

Blogger Down

I just got a shocking email.

I have a reader named Leah Friedman. She has a blog. She’s 18, and she lives in Israel. I didn’t know anything but her name and that she was very pretty, until I received this message:

Sorry for the “send all” but we are exhausted. I would like nothing more than to send a personal note to each and everyone of you and will do that as time permits.
Today is a good day, the doctors are encouraged and have put Leah on an as needed ventilator.
She is frustrated and hates the machine, good! She cries but is not in pain.
She can squeeze your hands and will follow you with her eyes. I asked her to wiggle her toes and she moved her legs.
We read to her, sing to her, she has her ipod, and her favorite CD’s. I even told her that I ate her entire stash of chocolate!

It may be weeks before we know how much if any brain damage she has suffered.The doctors said ‘this is not an illness one gets over”
not knowing how long she was not breathing is difficult. One day at a time.

Thank you everyone As I said in my blog post I truly believe it was ya’lls prayers and G-ds grace.

B’Avahav, Mish

I don’t know how I ended up on the email list. I used Google to find her blog, and I located this post. It says she has a heart condition, and evidently something went wrong, and she has been in the hospital since April 3rd.

Do me a favor and say a prayer for her. And maybe you could leave a comment on her blog, so she’ll be able to see it when she feels better.

Even a Chicken Needs to Show Respect

Forgot today’s dose of Christopher Walken. I think these things are best presented out of context. One of these days I have to PG the Walken pieces up. Some are over the line.

This chicken was wandering around the compound, and I was sitting on the deck trying to enjoy a Bosco while Benny buried a midget under my poinciana tree, and I kept yelling. “HEY. CHICKEN. DON’T DISRESPECT MY YARD, MY FRIEND. DON’T TAKE US TO THAT PLACE THIS EARLY IN THE DAY, WHILE THE HOLE UNDER THE POINCIANA TREE IS STILL OPEN AND I HAVE YET TO FINISH MY BOSCO.”

And the chicken looks right at me and drops a giant load on my salvia divinorum. Which Mickey Rourke was planning to make into a refreshing salad.

Mick still lives with me. Out of necessity. You want some more Latin? “Dementia pugilistica.” Sounds like one of Caesar’s girlfriends or the name of a gaudy shrub, but it’s actually the sad, sad aftereffect of Mick’s tragic infatuation with the squared circle. He wanders around under the mango trees, in his rollerblades and bikini briefs, feinting and bobbing and occasionally pawing at the cobwebs, to remove them from the foliage. And of course, the cobwebs aren’t really there. Any more than the giant orange hamster named “Morris” that dances in the living room of the caretaker’s shack while Mick hangs from his gravity boots, trying to watch MTV Cribs.

Salvia divinorum is highly hallucinogenic, so it exacerbates Mick’s delusions, but Mick says it’s crunchy and delicious, and I figure, what’s the harm? Mick likes it, and Morris says he enjoys the company. The other day Mick said he was having a tea party for Morris, Abraham Lincoln, a guy in a diver’s suit, and a talking beaver. I don’t know whether they drank the tea or smoked it.

One more:

I am not an Imus fan. I want to admit that up front. If I want to listen to a mean old fart ramble for three hours, I’ll call my Uncle Sid and ask how he feels about childproof caps.

I’m not even sure if Imus talks. Have you ever seen his lips move? I have a theory that Imus went into a coma in about ‘89, and ever since then, the voice has been coming from a speaker in his cowboy hat, attached to a wire. At the other end? Wilford Brimley. And an empty bottle of Robitussin.

Someone help me. I can’t stop.

Anyway, when I realized April was going to be one of the coldest on record, I collected my perennial houseguest Mickey Rourke, and I told him to double up on the Ritalin and get the ’62 De Ville ready, because we were going to Punxsutawney again.

It took a little longer than I thought, because at one point a jamook in a uniform had the stones to ask me to pay a toll.

“Oh, no, my friend,” I told him, as Mick held his head in the door of the De Ville and applied the appropriate amount of pressure, “Christopher Walken does not PAY tolls. He COLLECTS them.” And I shook him down for a fin. Unfortunately he had no cash on him. So I went in the toll booth to see if he had anything to hold as, you know, collateral.

And now I have a very nice Thermos. All metal, baby. Old school. Keeps your coffee hot, and in a pinch it can be used to break an uncooperative jaw.

I Have Company

I wondered what people would think about what I wrote last night. I’m not all that surprised to see positive comments. Blogs are funny; they reach out into the world like the tendrils of a climbing plant, finding like-minded people and putting them in touch with each other.

Let’s see what we have.

“Ever think about Eastern Orthodoxy? It is the Church of the apostles; pretty much the same now as it was then.”

Don’t know much about it. Aren’t some of the guys who look after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Eastern Orthodox? I can tell you this. I could never join a church that requires praying to saints. Not after reading the story of Saul and Samuel. I don’t know if the Eastern Orthodox Church fits that description. Another thing that bothers me about the older churches is that they seem very bound up in rules and internal politics, so you end up with a lot of worshipers who think they can be Tony Soprano all week and then get clean on Sunday. Or, worse, Easter and Christmas. I think faith, a personal relationship with God, and inner renewal via the Holy Spirit get cut out of the picture, so the result is worldliness. I believe that explains the gay “mafia” in the Catholic Church, as well as disturbing radical priests who want to be rock stars.

“Facinating reading this. It seems like there is a tremendous pull being exerted on some very smart, savvy people. I’ve watched you get pulled into the divine orbit over the last year or so. The same thing is happening with vanderleun. Interesting times.”

I don’t know who Vanderleun is, but the thought you express has occurred to me, too. It seems like God has a lot of “sleepers” out there. People who have been less active than they felt they should, who are now gaining strength and trying to shape up and accomplish more. And the curious thing about is that even if it has become more obvious recently, I can tell you that it didn’t take place over the last year or two. Not in my case, anyway. I have been working on this for a long time. The thing that has happened over the last year is an acceleration in the payoff. Maybe something is going on that has been in the works for quite some time.

In addition to spiritual awakenings, I have noticed that an awful lot of the same people seem to be shooting these days. Don’t know what to make of that. Is it my imagination?

Unfortunately if you want to be a Methodist pastor you must mash your brain flat to dull any sense of politically incorrect thought while passing your body through five or six years of the Emory educational experience.

So today finding their so- called “leaders” going with the flotsam lifted by the anti-Israel tide is not surprising to me, but it is the very reason I’m religious but don’t attend services with a congregation regularly

I didn’t know academics were involved. That explains everything. Teachers corrupt our kids. They make up a huge percentage of DNC operatives. They espouse socialism because they’re all union members who work seven hours a day, nine months a year, with near-total job security, plus benefits and pensions. And to top it off, they don’t teach us how to read any more.

Maybe the best reason for homeschooling is to put teachers out of business.

“I think that I’m on the same spiritual path that you’re describing, though I concede that you seem to be a bit further along than me.”

I would not count on that last part.

Paul C, a Catholic, has a different take on rules and ritual:

Interesting comment as to how “Christians” and I quote that on purpose will change doctrine and idealogy and scripture to effectively match a viewpoint they have. I don’t speak as an expert and this may sound arrogant however as a Catholic we have a lot of rules people don’t like as it interferes with all the things you have listed here. Our Church has had many centuries to evolve and reform and with good reason and good effect and I believe it is strong because of the moral authority it brings to faith for all Christians . . .

Our civilization is decadent and decaying, we have lost too much from a moral standpoint, morally bankrupt if you will. I would have hoped that people within my church would not leave the congregation each Sunday and resort back to decadence through out the week it has been a thorn in my side since my father pointed it out. We can sit in church for an hour hear and respond to a wonderful homily and then fight like mad to be the first out of the parking lot.

I think a church can have too few rules and be too loose. On the other hand, when a surfeit of man-made rules comes to supplant faith and supernatural renewal, the kind of behavior you describe is probably inevitable. I think the older churches have blown it by giving up on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is intended to change people from within and “write God’s law on their hearts,” making it easier for them to behave. I was a fairly good person, by modern standards, in my own right. But that isn’t saying much. There were persistent moral flaws I could not beat on my own, and they were not minor, and they frustrated me very badly, and I am positive I am only making progress on them now because God is working inside me.

Here is some good news before I post this. As is often the case, World Vision is having a sale. Sort of. Right now, if you donate money to provide anti-parasite medications to children in need, they’ll get matching funds multiplying your gift by fourteen. That’s a fantastic deal. If you were planning to make a charitable donation this week, I can’t think of a better choice.

Might be Time for You to Change Churches

Here is appalling news. The United Methodist Church “will be considering divestment resolutions and other anti-Israel measures at its General Conference that takes place in Texas April 23-May 2.” And they’ve already done other rotten things, like putting out a children’s book that teaches kids Israel is to blame in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Funny, I thought electing terrorists and shooting an endless rain of rockets at innocent civilians might somehow be contributing to the problem.

I know other denominations claiming to be Christian have demonstrated this kind of hostility and unfairness. I am really ashamed. Of course, many of these churches are no more Christian than an EST seminar.

It seems like you can tell a lot about the validity of a “Christian” church by checking a few things. Acceptance of gay pastors? Bibles rewritten to support a feminist perspective, with no scriptural basis? Endorsement of other faiths, especially Islam? Where you see things like that, you can pretty much assume you’re dealing with a church that has nothing to do with faith or salvation, and which leads people farther away from God. And don’t be surprised if they tell their members Israel is evil. Jesus called the church of his time the synagogue of Satan, and these are the modern-day churches of Satan. Deny that the God of the Bible exists, deny that Jesus is the only path to salvation, deny the clearly defined morality of the Bible, and you have a fetid abomination that prevents people from finding peace and salvation, and from feeling the indescribable pleasure of being in the presence of God.

I don’t know if the UMC fits this description, but a whole lot of churches do. They fool ignorant people who think Jesus and Buddha and maybe Richard Simmons are interchangeable, and that nice people all go to heaven. Or that there is no heaven at all, and that Christianity is just a philosophy. All that stuff is nonsense. Christianity means believing there is a person we call God, and that he is an immortal spirit who rules the universe, and that He gave us one and only one Messiah, also immortal, and that Messiah is Jesus. It means believing a Gentile can only be saved by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus, and that there is an afterlife. And by extension, that Buddha and all the other non-Christian saviors were tragically ignorant and mistaken.

It must be very hard for Jews to figure out which Christians are on their side. The Catholics have always been a problem, and I think to many Jews, they represent Christianity. The general rule is, fundamentalists and charismatics are one hundred percent behind Israel. I used to think “evangelical” was a clue that a church preached the true message of Christianity and supported Israel and the Jews, but at least one church with “evangelical” in the name is attacking the chosen. So I don’t know how strong an indicator “evangelical” is.

It’s funny, but a lot of people want everything about Christianity except its essence. They want to go to church and feel like good people. At the same time, they want to have unlimited sex outside marriage. They want to be materialistic and arrogant and selfish. They want to make up their own commandments. And they don’t want to bum anyone out or seem less cool, by calling sin what it is.

You have to be cool! Cool is the only thing that matters! You have to have lots of sex and listen to immoral music and snort a little coke or smoke a doob once in a while. You have to have the option of killing your children in their mother’s womb, making it a sort of portable abattoir, so the uncomfortable subject of sensation-killing rubber devices doesn’t spoil your super-important fun. You can’t ever say someone else’s sinful behavior bothers you. You can’t even admit sin exists, or that shame is a good thing. No, no. You have to have your tattoos and piercings and vile entertainment, and you’re not allowed to judge anybody’s behavior. Except of course for people who try to please God. The actual, real God. Not the chloroformed, confused version your church talks about. God is fine, as long as you put Him in a box and make Him behave. Come on; you can’t let Him be a buzzkill! After all, He’s not important. He’s just God. And anyone who talks about Satan, angels, or demons is a psycho! The Bible mentions them over and over, but you’re not supposed to actually believe the Bible. It’s just supposed to make you feel good! Like dope!

Look, God is not something you can edit, regardless of what irrational people say. The other day I saw something on the web about a far-left nut claiming the Bible was “an open document.” What? That’s like saying the formula for salt is subject to alteration. There is nothing “open” about a book that was finished almost two thousand years ago. You may translate it differently, if you have sound linguistic arguments. But you can’t just cross out “Jehovah” and write “Gaia” or, worse, “Me” all over the pages. It is what it is, and God is what He is. Salvation, sacrifice, sin, eternal life, hell…these things are realities. If you disagree, that’s swell. But you’re not a Christian, and if your church disagrees, it’s not God’s church.

God is what He is, and one thing He is, is a Jew. God is a Jew. And regardless of how many Gentiles accept Christ, the Jews will always be closer to His heart than we are. That’s in the Bible. And Eretz Israel is in the Bible. God promised the Jews a nation with Jerusalem as its capital and center of worship, and it’s bigger than the nation they have now, and they’re going to get it, and I support it wholeheartedly. Every Christian should. I don’t want to hear the secular arguments. Number one, they’re filled with error and tacit anti-Semitism and hostility toward Christianity and God. Number two, I don’t care. God is right. Everyone who disagrees is wrong. I will not oppose God. Your opinion on this matter means nothing. End of story. You will die, and your opinion will die with you, and God and the truth will still be here. Why should I care what you think?

Funny coincidence: I’ve been considering investing in Israel. I want to bless the Jews, and I want to link my fortunes with theirs. I’ve been thinking about buying Teva Pharmaceuticals stock. Great company. And it’s outside the US, where Hillarycare can’t do much to destroy it. It’s amazing how liberals want to destroy pharmaceutical companies and take their profits. Here’s a question. How many life-saving drugs have come out of the USSR and Communist China?

Vodka is not a life-saving drug, before you say it.

I keep trying to improve myself. I was born into a miserable family followed by misfortune, and over the last few years, I have been striving to pray and obey my way out of the curses that seem so hard to shake. And things have improved, slowly but surely. I once compared constant prayer to the stone-cracking force of a plant growing between rocks, and I still think that’s a good analogy. Things don’t change overnight, but the trend is clear and unstoppable. I feel like the dividends are really rolling in now. The other day I realized I was finally losing all desire to be cool, and I was losing my fear of being good and of being perceived as religious. I feel like I dropped a backpack full of lead. And I know it was not me, but God working within me. Giving me exactly what I asked for, I should add.

It is becoming more clear to me what I need to fix in my life. Here is something I just came across tonight, from the book of Galatians, chapter 5: “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.” That’s really helpful; I found it a little disturbing, as a matter of fact, because I saw little pieces of me in there. It’s easy to think you’re okay if you try to observe the Golden Rule and avoid the obvious sins, so a list like this is literally a godsend.

I think I’ve mentioned the fact that I’ve had concerns about being too hostile; it has been on my prayer list for quite some time, and possibly on the prayer lists of people at whom my hostility has been aimed. Between Internet rage and road rage, it’s a wonder any of us have a moment when we’re not furious and consumed by contempt. I think my moments are becoming longer and closer together.

It’s funny, but back when I was going to a charismatic church, I thought I was being diligent, but I really didn’t read the Bible nearly enough. I listened to preachers a lot, and unfortunately, a lot of them were self-serving, greedy, and completely lost. Lately I have found that there is no substitute for going to the source on your own. And again, here is a great website where you can do it. A computer tends to become an instrument which distributes and feeds lust, anger, greed, pride, and so on. But it can also be a tool for learning about and pleasing God. You can study online, you can write things that are helpful to others, and you can even vet and donate to ministries and charities. That’s fantastic! That is real power; beating the devil with his own weapon. Finally the web is truly good for something.

I feel very different from the way I felt a few months ago, even though I was pleased with the progress I was making at the time. With regard to some issues, I look back and feel as though I used to be brainwashed. I can’t believe I thought as I did. That’s growth. And if it happened to me, it can happen to you. Pray regularly, and try to remember, it’s not all about asking for things you want. Ask for wisdom and knowledge and help with obedience. Use a list, so you know you’re being consistent and persistent. Set aside time in the morning and time before bed. It works. I know. I was right about homemade pizza, wasn’t I? It’s not a hard job. The more you change, the more you want to change, and the easier it gets. Have faith that in the future, as you improve, you’ll want and enjoy the things God wants you to have. Don’t expect a perfect life. But do expect more peace. Relief. Comfort. And more satisfaction with yourself. And of course, help with your problems.

If you’re as disgusted as I am by the anti-Semitic propaganda coming from churches that aren’t really churches, maybe you’ll want to do something about it. Invest in an Israeli company. Write something positive about Israel on your blog. Give money to the IFCJ and help an oppressed Jew move to Israel; that would really hurt the enemy.

Israel will win in the end. Eretz Israel will be established. The only question is, whose side will you have to say you were on when it’s over? I’m very, very comfortable with my choice.

Hurry up With That Bosco

I think that every morning for the foreseeable future, I should post a memorable quote from a Christopher Walken story. I’m going to get a head start on tomorrow.

Anyway, I recently contacted his manager and got the dope on Wesley by applying a Vise Grip to the end of his left index finger. From Sears. A real Vise Grip. Not some cheap Chinese knockoff. The Chinese ones tend to twist off just when the information is starting to flow.

Let me tell you one thing. One piece of knowledge you can cherish and utilize until your dying day. Which will not be soon, let’s hope. Unless you aggravate me. When you’re applying pressure to a man’s fingernails to find out, say, the location of a dead midget you accidentally offed in a moment of high spirits, you really need American quality. However the Chinese ones are fine for smacking people in the mouth.

Mr. Hughes, Your Toilet is Working

Don’t you love having plumbers around? I sure do. I can’t get enough of it. And they always want to shake your hand, which is great. One “Monk” moment after another.

I think I’ll go outside and try to photograph my produce.

Here, watch TC cook.

Shameful Omission

I can’t find any pictures of Maynard on this site. So I’ll post one.