Liars & Thieves

This is a piece I wrote and performed for a show called "THE LIT THING." The theme, as the title sets out, was "Liars and Thieves." If you've seen any of my stand up, you may recognize some of the stuff below.

------------------------------------------------------


I have a fair amount of experience with liars and thieves ... I live in los angeles, I’m a former attorney at law, and I’ve been engaged, but for this little ditty, I thought I’d focus on my relationship with a group of stellar liars and thieves - a group who had a very strong influence on my life, my thoughts, my neurosis. A group that many of you know and may even be fans of ...The Roman Catholic Church. Did you just hear that? He’s on the other side of the continent, soundly sleeping, but I just heard my father gasp.

The name alone begs to be mocked. ROMAN CATHOLACISM ... Mel Gibson’s testimony not withstanding .. didn’t the Romans kill Jesus Christ? Nail him up on a tree? Make it a crime to be christian? Funny isn’t it then that Roman Emperor Constantine woke up one day and said ... “I feel like changing things up a bit ...bring me that happy little hippy who turns water into wine, you know with the sandles and the beard ... oh he is? .. oh we did? ... on a cross, a bit dramatic? well, blame that on the jews and then lets join his club, but lets make it our club, let’s call it ROMAN CATHOLICS. We don’t want to get confused with the SPANISH CATHOLICS or the RUSSIAN CATHOLICS or any of those lower class of catholics.”

Despite this less than auspicious beginning my parents raised us Roman Catholic. They were raised Roman Catholic and their parents raised and so on and so on - its a vicious cycle. As such, Thou Shall Not Steal, Though Shall Not Lie (bear false witness) were pretty big commandments in our house - as were Honor thy mother and father - which is a pretty convenient commandment for parents don’t you think?

I don’t have a problem with most of these commandments, they make sense. The trouble I had was when I was trying to understand the severity of “though shall not steal” while my dad, an honorable, hard working, loving, catholic man, in an attempt to save what little money we had, would, instead of shopping for our school supplies at the local stores, “borrow” them from his office. This was perplexing to my innocent and still forming moral sensibilities. Why is that not stealing? Why is it borrowing if we’re not bringing them back? Why aren't we allowed to thank your boss for the supplies? That never sat right with me. It was also problematic because while my friends were off to school with trapper keepers and Star Wars backpacks, I was the only kid in the 4th grade using legal pads and a briefcase ... I later went on to become an attorney, not because I had a particular passion for the law, but because I already had all the stuff.

Another reason I became a lawyer, I liked to argue. Alot. All the time. My dad would often say “you’d argue with the Pope,” and since I’m writting unkind words about his religion, perhaps his statement was somewhat prophetic. But here’s the thing, I wouldn’t want to argue with the Pope because, first of all he’s a very smart man, and second of all, that hat would steal my focus and finally if I managed to make a good point, to disprove anything he could say, he’d likely follow up with INFALIBILTY .. yep, the INFALIBILTY POWER that the super hero who runs the Roman Catholic Church gets .. that would get annoying real quick, like the bad guy in Lethal Weapon II, he’d keep doing bad shit and then say DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY ... come to think of it, doesn’t the current pope kind of look similar to that guy?? Interesting .. except that instead of Mel Gibson being his enemy they are allies ... Mel Gibson and the Pope ... taking on the world, one Jew at a time .. where’s Danny GLover when you need him ... “just been revoked.”

But mom and dad felt the church was good for us. So we went. Every week. And on holidays. We never missed it. We couldn’t not go, to suggest even as much would be a sin of the highest order .. KEEP HOLY THE LORDS DAY, we were reminded. But much like the mixed signals of stealing office supplies, going to church was somewhat confusing, you see I figured going was supposed to be spiritually nourishing, yet for my family the experience often delivered healthy portions of stress, anxiety and indigestion. I remember many sunday mornings, sitting in the car with my dad and brother, while my mom and 4 sisters were still in the house getting ready for church and my dad having a conniption as my mom hurridly ushered my sisters into the car ... “JESUS CHRIST JOAN, YOU’D BE LATE TO YOUR OWN FUNERAL.” Which really wasn’t the spirit of love and acceptance I thought the church was going for. Never mind the fact that I couldn’t understand how someone could be late for their own funeral ... I would think that if someone were actually late for their own funeral they would be largely blameless for the infraction, punctuality being something no longer within their control, if they were late .. clearly the blame would lie elsewhere .. a shipping company perhaps, a tardy mortician. As a side note my mother wasn’t late for her own funeral, she was pretty early actually, by about 20 years .. I’m wondering now if she’s up in heaven getting a little payback at my dad, visiting him in his dreams, looking down at him, smiling, saying .. “who’s the late one now tough guy?”

My dad taught me that going to church was a serious obligation, a moral imperitive, and something I would never enjoy. I realized just how well I learned that lesson when I lived in Santa Monica and attempted to go to church regularly. There’s only one roman catholic church to go to in santa monica ... there are actually three Roman Catholic Churches in Santa Monica.. but there’s only “ONE” to go to, the cool one, the place to be seen, where the hip catholics go. They don’t have enough parking, so when you go to mass, you end up spending an additional 20 minutes looking for street parking in santa monica ... street parking in santa monica. It's easier to believe in the immaculate conception than it is to believe you can find street parking in Santa Monica. It did put me in a religious state of mind, as my frustration would build I would find myself screaming the lord to anyone in my way ... "JESUS CHRIST COULD YOU MOVE ANY SLOWER?" "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD no take your time, take your time .. I’m in no rush." When I would finally park 18 blocks away, I’d march quickly toards the church, which always led me past a certain park where I would make a strong effort to avoid the attention of the dozen homeless persons living there, standing around in annticipation of something, as if they were waiting for a Greatfull Dead concert to begin and no one's given them the bad news. I avoided eye contact in this final stretch before the Church gates because I knew, I just knew they would ask for some change, some cash, some hand out and I would be forced to say “Leave me alone man, I don’t have time for charity, I’m going to Church.”

When I finally got there, things were generally all right, until the end of mass. Until it was time for the Our Father, not my father, “OUR FATHER” the prayer. Nothing against the prayer, big fan of the prayer as far as prayer’s go ... its the one I’ve used most ofen in my life, except for those adolescent years when I had my self authored ... please, please make it bigger lord ... but the our father is a good one. Traditional. Classic. A golden oldy that still rings true ... story goes Jesus himself wrote this little ditty, and if he were still alive with those residuals ... man, he’d be so rich, he could start a church. but they’ve changed his prayer, in the spirit of being modern, of being friendly, of being .. i don’t know ... KIND OF GAY actually ... they sing it. Yeah they sing it. And not only do they sing it, but everyone holds hands ... everyone ... you can’t not hold hands, when the time is right the guy to the right of you and gal to the left of you raise their hands as if prepared to receive enlightenment, but they’re waiting for you for that enlightenment, to hold their unfamiliar, likely damp, sweaty, bacteria ridden hands ... and then sing with them. but it can’t be a quick, sing the words of the prayer to a steady beat and be done with it ... no we have to have a choral song with the church band ... "OUR FATHER" the choir leader sings, then we sing "OUR FATHER" ... "WHO ART IN HEAVEN," she sings, ... we repeat .. it goes on and on and on, as I’m holding hands and hoping I’m not the sweaty hand and this guy can’t sing for crap and who’s this girl and she’s kind of cute and would it be wrong for me to hit on her in church and does she think I’m creepy and holy crap this song is long and these people can’t sing holy crap. I go to church to feed my faith and forestall my fear to eleviate my guilt and end up a member of the chorus in a low budget weekly production of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR ... and Im surrounded by freakin amatures.

So I stopped going on a weekly basis. But, despite my problems with the church, a couple times a year I do go and the main reason for that is guilt. Guilt over the fact that my dearly departed mother would be mad at me, is mad at me, for not keeping the holy commandment .. keep holy the lords day ... but I have to figure, I’m not doing a good job at keeping the other commandments. No, thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal ... stuff like that I think I’m ok ... unless its stealing to take a couple 30 or so advil packets from the office first aid kit when I think I’ll have a rough weekend ... or if getting free cable, even though I didn’t ask for it, even if all i did was screw a mysterious cable cord that was hanging out of the wall into my new apartment into my television ... besides that ... no stealing. But coveting ... not necessarily my neighbors wife, or my neighbors stuff ... wife not that hot, stuff not that good. But coveting .. oh I covet, ALL THE TIME.

Isn’t that a great thing about catholics, making coveting a sin ... making it a sin to desire what you don’t have ... makes the whole SECRET thing, which previously I just thought a load of bs, a first class ticket to hell .... there’s a problem, well a couple problems with this logic .. its a sin to sleep with my neighbor’s wife, its also a sin to want to sleep with my neighbors wife ... so, if I find myself in the position of wanting my neighbors wife .. I may as well sleep with her, I’m already screwed I might as well get laid while I’m at it. And here’s the thing, despite how true and faithfull and honest your wife is .. she wants to be coveted, and lets be honest you want her to be coveted to, so we’re all sinners and that’s why the world has MILC’s, not MILF’s - that’s just rude.. but MILC’s .. Mom’s I Love to Covet.

OK, so I covet and I mean I never got the word from upstairs, officially, about impure thoughts ... I know its not a commandment, but ... well not just impure thoughts, acts ... both solo and with a partner ... oh yeah, if those rules weren’t made to be broken ... its a little to late for me. But I’m getting off point here .... let’s just say, all else being equal, my mother would want me to go to church. So sometimes I go. For her.

And maybe that makes me a hypocrite or a liar, because while I believe in God, I don’t believe in them. I don’t believe in the church. But I do take from them ... there are times that being in church does bring me some peace - at a wedding or a baptism or even a funeral. There are times when I go there when I actually believe that there is a higher power and that its a good place to be. The church also brings me joy, indirectly, when I engage in arguments about their policies with my dad. I like to watch him squirm when I debate him on the right to choose, gay marriage and most recently annullments. My sister was married to her husband for 9 years. They had 3 children. They then divorced. As my sister was about to get remarried, my father pressured her to get an Annullment from the church. A process by which the church, after hearing reasons for seeking annulment, considers them, carefully counts the money paid for such annulment, then decides to officially NOT RECOGNIZE the previous marriage, to declare “IN THE EYES OF THE CHURCH, THAT MARRIAGE NEVER TOOK PLACE ...” I have a lot of problems with that ... but this one really gets me ... if the church chooses not to recognize the marriage ... to decide it “never existed” ... how do they see the fruits of that marriage, namely my nephews? We all know how the catholic church views these kids ... the Catholics have a name for a child born to unwed parents, BASTARD ... or, the messiah .. I love my nephews, but if any of them are the second coming .. we are screwed.

Maybe still going to church makes me a bit of thief as well, because I do take some good things from the church, without taking the all the judging and the politics and the fire and brimstone crap that they tend to package it together with. And the church may not be too happy with me doing that, so maybe they can call me a thief and maybe they can call me a liar and that’s ok because as Jesus Christ once said to the pharisies when they accused him of being a charlatan .. it takes one to know one.