"Praise the Lord With Your Feet!": Deceased Artiste Carman

For close to 25 years now I’ve been paying tribute to Christian kitsch on Easter episodes of the Funhouse TV show. One of the individuals whose work I returned to a lot in the ’90s and a bit of the 2000s was Carman, the Christian pop singer, who died on Feb. 16 at the age of 65. Carman’s music videos were little marvels that contained imagery, tropes, and cliches from music-vids of many different genres (each video seeming to “capture” the genre it was mimicking) and demand repeated viewings.

But who was this guy Carman anyway? Born Carmelo Licciardello, he was a Sicilian-American from Trenton, N.J., who reportedly found Christ at an Andre Crouch concert and then became a proselytizing singer espousing Christian values in his lyrics and performances. (From this point on I’ll use the abbreviation “Xtian,” as it makes things simpler.)

The New Jerseyness generally disappeared from Carman’s public persona — he acquired a Southern accent when preaching, never performed songs that referred to his upbringing (his mother was part of a girl group that often played Atlantic City), and became an all-American presence who was as patriotic as he was Xtian. He was noted as “bringing Vegas to Christian music” but he also, according to his official website, had his own ministry. On the site you can sign up to be a “monthly partner.” (“Our partners are the lifeline of our ministry. Your monthly contribution allows us to win more souls to Christ.”)

He was also clearly a guy who worked out a lot — he appeared muscular and startlingly groomed even shortly after he recovered from a battle with cancer in the mid-2010s. In his songs and videos he often stressed fighting the Devil and depicted it as a physical fight. (An “enforcer” for the Lord, if you will.) Of his four acting roles in feature films, two were self-penned vehicles in which he played a tough guy — the more prominent of the two being Champion (2001), about a boxer who must come back to the ring for one last match (and ends up fighting more fiercely outside the ring – with MMA moves rather than the Marquess of Queensbury).

Rat Pack Carman.

Before I get to the catchy songs/perfect approximations of genre music videos that are Carman’s major legacy, let’s touch on his political side, since that fed into the evangelical tack he took in his religion. The best introduction to this aspect is “Revival in the Land” (a 1990 song), a spoken word piece done in full costume and a Hellscape set. A demon (voiced by Carman) checks in with Lucifer (also voiced by Carman) about how things on Earth are going. He mentions a problem (the spread of Xtianity, of course!), but the Horned One first must query his minion, “Is there something wrong with my abortion clinics?”

The response, “We eliminate human life in the name of convenience” and comparison of abortion to the Holocaust probably was a fusion of Carman’s holy roller adult beliefs and his Sicilian-Catholic upbringing. The video, directed by Stephen Yake (more on him below), is an Xtian Reefer Madness for the George H.W. Bush era. If the propaganda won’t getcha, and the fully styrofoamed Devil figure doesn’t, surely the end explosion will. (Satan’s throne blows up real good.)

 

Carman’s patriotic side was a strong component of his work. At these moments he would forget about singing — only a sternly-worded lecture would do. In “America Again” (a 1993 song; Carman is credited with writing or cowriting all of the songs from his “boom” period in the ’90s), one of his finest-ever complaint lines gets an airing: “When it gets to the point where people would rather come out of the closet than clean it, it’s the sign that the judgment of God is going to fall!” (I have gloried in that line for years — turning from a metaphor for queer identification to sanitary reality in the deft, deranged turn of a phrase, we learn that the downfall of this country will most assuredly be not only homosexual behavior but also cluttered wardrobes.)

 

Carman’s concern about people’s gender preference is manifested in depth in an episode of his 1993 series Time 2 (Dir: Stephen Yake, 1993). A full playlist of the episodes on YT can be found here. Most episodes were named after a societal problem — psychics, new age spirituality, single-parent families, drug abuse, cults, “singleness” (!) — and the most politically grounded is homosexuality, in an episode called “Confused Affections.”

Here, although Carman notes that it is possible to “separate the person from the sin,” he also declares that this sin is considered grievous (as illustrated by various Bible passages). In fact, “If God had a stomach, he would vomit at these practices.” The question thus becomes “Is it an alternate lifestyle — or a perverse and deadly sin?”

The buff Carman.

Here we learn about the fact (according to studies unmentioned) that most gay people had “very troubled childhoods.” An interview subject notes how he was called “sissy” and was indeed gay. Now, his lovely wife keeps on the (very) straight and narrow. It is even noted by this ex-gay man (this unbidden by Carman) that, if a naked man were to appear in front of him, he wouldn’t care. Carman closes out his earnestly sincere plaint by noting that gayness can result in a “physical penalty” — from altered speech and mannerisms to diseases like AIDS.

The episode ends with a rather curious footnote — a vignette in which a redneck Good Old Boy is seen crowing to his wife about how he and the local preacher “drove off” these two “light in the loafers… pansies.” We, the audience, realize that his wife thinks what he said is too cruel and against church teachings on loving one’s neighbor. 

But no such thought is expressed — we just see a “isn’t he a silly?” expression cross her face and a Bible quote appears onscreen (“Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother”). Thus, if you know an individual who is not acting Xtian to their neighbor and hating them for some aspect of their personhood — hey, just shrug it off!

 

Aside from his concerts (which were large, sell-out, stadium affairs in various cities — his website declares that his largest audience was 80,000 people in Chattanooga, Tenn.), Carman’s main vehicle for his pop ministry was the music video. And the best of these are indeed a wonder — as noted above, they not only seem like a performer trying out a “crossover” identity, but they work as encapsulations of the genre in question. If Carman made a country line-dancing video, it was the ultimate line-dancing video (every image, framing, and editing trope you’ve seen in those music-videos). The same for gospel, rock, white-boy rap, movie-soundtrack homages, bubble-gum pop, and even metal.

The young Carman.

The director of all the best of these videos is Stephen Yake, who has a quite lengthy videography of work for Xtian artists. His work with Carman is indeed extraordinary — and, even though I embarked upon showing these videos on the Funhouse TV show in the ’90s as a wise-ass Atheist confronting remnants of his Catholic past, I have always been impressed by Yake’s thorough “inventory of effects” (to quote the Big McLuhan) and the fact that his videos for Carman’s songs might seem like parodies of the genre (in the sense that a video for a Weird Al or Spinal Tap song is), but it was clear that, in each case, Yake would try to “grab” a genre’s music-video images and drop Carman in the middle of them.

A reviewer given to academic interpretations would, of course, call this kind of thing “deconstruction” of a familiar pop culture phenomenon; I will simply say that Yake and Carman knew how to target the demographic for each song. 

And the hooks! You can approach these videos as I do — again, wise-ass, intent on mocking the message of the songs and their visual presentation – but there is no way you won’t end up with these songs engrained in your memory for hours (and perhaps days) after hearing them. Thus, of course, the Xtian songwriter wins the battle, if not the war. Carman did indeed get the last laugh on me in the “hook so catchy you can’t lose the damned thing for a long while” department.

Celebrity Carman.

Case in point: his 1991 lamentation on the loss of prayer in schools, done as a metal song. This tune, credited only to Carman as a songwriter but performed with Xtian metalheads Petra, is basically just a hook with a song built around it. The video features Carman in an eye-grabbing blue suit that jars wildly with the nearly monochrome visuals of the “high school without Christ,” borrowed from any number of those damned metal and even grunge power ballads with little stories in ’em. (Yake puts in a number of evocative touches that would signal “hard rock” even in small snippets on “Beavis and Butt-head.”) 

Warning: You may indeed laugh at the earnestness of this message (again, the morals Carman taught us had a lovely Reefer Madness urgency to them), but you won’t easily discard the ersatz metal heard here.

NOTE: This embed works, but for some reason has no thumbnail.

 

And skipping straight to the most hook-heavy song Carman ever produced, there’s “Sunday School Rock” (Dir: Yake from this point on, 1993 song). The video is an “American Bandstand”-type 1950s affair, with all kinds of visual steals from Fifties and early Sixties TV clips and movies.

But the song! In an audio commentary with Yake found on YT, Carman notes he wrote it as a memory-aid for kids to remember the books of the Bible that had inspiring messages, but each verse is a little speech set to a catchy beat, with Carman at points reverting to his Sicilian NJ heritage (with tough guy hand gestures, even). The chorus is the dumbest, simplest thing imaginable — and thus it BURNS into the brain. In the commentary video, Carman notes it became a signature song he sang at every concert.

 

Jumping genres entirely, there’s “Satan Bite the Dust” (1991 song). It’s Carman doing “cowboy music” and acting out a “Sheriff cleans up the town” scenario in a bar setting. Again, Carman and his collaborators decided the hook was all that mattered, so the chorus is “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” with added-in snippets of very familiar Western themes — from The Magnificent Seven and “The Wild Wild West” to, of course, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”

The fact that the Muppet-like villain who purveys “false religions” is wearing a turban and playing a foreign-looking stringed instrument is a nasty bit of inter-faith racism. But the catchiness of the tune and the “borrowed” elements make it rewatchable.

 

Now, onto the inevitable: Carman’s rap white-boy rap music. Here again, Yake reproduces all the visual “cues” for softer rap (think the Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff) for a video featuring Carman (in shorts, even!). The lesser of the two Carman vids is “Who’s in the House?” (Answer: “JC!”) where he lets us know that “we’re kickin’ it for Christ!”

That video pales in comparison with “Addicted to Jesus” (1991 song), which Carman performs with the Xtian rap group DC Talk. If you want to take a time trip back to the early ’90s with a music video you’ve never seen before, this would be your ticket to ride. This time Carman wears a purple suit and the visual effects that signal “friendly rap song” flash by in very fast succession. He also dances with the DCT boys, showing off his steps and urging the slack-jawed viewer to “Praise the Lord with your feet!”

 

Now, the all-out strangest and most colorful video in this whole collection, Slam!” (song: 1998). This time out Yake delivered a powerhouse of strangeness — a video that takes Prince’s “Batdance” song and video and overlays “Rhythm Nation” dancing and imagery out of A Clockwork Orange. I will bet good money (well, at least five bucks) that this is the only Xtian music-vid that references that particular early Seventies classic.

It’s definitely the ultimate collaboration of the Yake-Carman team, since it’s a catchy tune showcased by a delightfully deranged video. This posting of the video has an audience clapping along (with girls cheering for sexy Carman), as it premiered as part of the anti-Halloween Xtian special Halloween 3:16, which Carman posted on YT in its entirety. (A show that really should have a Goth kid following, as it is the kind of thing that made them run away from church imagery and over to the darker side.)

Sample lyric, as the once again pugnacious-for-Christ Carman threatens to beat up the Old Scratch: “In my mind there is no fear/In my mind there is no doubt/Yes, I am that Christian that Hell warned you about!”

 

And while we’re on the subject of the Devil, one of Carman’s best-known videos is a spoken-word piece in which he, a Jesus-loving man of propriety, meets an evil witch-man (perhaps even… a warlock?) who wants to brag about his Fallen Angel rather than the Big G that Carman is pledged to.

In the piece, the witch — purportedly (per another preacher’s interview, found on YT) based on Isaac Bonewits, the only American to get a BA in Magic, from UC Berkeley (here called “Horowitz” to make him Jewish; Bonewits was an ex-Catholic) — invites Carman over to his stronghold. There Carman sees all manner of Evil Things: horoscope signs on the walls! A crystal ball!! A Ouija board!!! And (in case you needed proof this is the Eighties/Nineties) a “Dungeons & Dragons” book!!!!

The Devil-worshipping, pentagram-wearing, goateed nemesis of our man Carman taunts our hero with a scrapbook containing his accomplishments (including an article about a man dying of AIDS). Carman, naturally, tells off this sick 666-er and dramatically leaves his house. Illustrating once more the desperate Xtian need for the Devil — for if there is nothing to continually and persistently condemn as Evil, how can one continually and persistently show that one is Good? (Bragging rights count, you know.)

 

Although “Slam!” is probably the single most dazzlingly weird Carman video, I will end on the one that short-circuited my brain. Carman’s video “Mission 3:16” (a 1998 song) is a little mini-movie in which he is a James Bond-like spy called “Agent 3:16” who meets with his “M”-like boss and “Q”-like supplier of top-secret gadgets and weapons, then goes on a mission to topple a villain who is spreading a hopeless message (literally, with video billboards that say “There Is No Hope” and “Life Is Meaningless”) to the people of “the entire country” (which looks like an Eastern republic but is supposed to be America).

His mission is to defeat the villain by tapping into his “network” and supplying a different message. In this music video, the song is a nothing — a bunch of lines about being brave, punctuated by John Barry-like horn trills and Bond guitar chords The video, however, is an all-out action flick in miniature, with car chases, machine gun blasts, fistfights (more of Carman’s beating up evil), outrageous stunts, and elementary fx. The song is so unimportant to the final product that the audio from the chase-fight-defeat narrative nearly drowns it out.

But then – the guest star appears. Agent 3:16 (who never once kisses a woman — this is a very chaste super-spy) finishes off the bad guy and he hears the “message” that he was supposed to spread, as intoned by “Mission Control” (a Presidential seal, followed by a Presidential type in an Oval Office-looking room).

The message is John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world...”), and the messenger is an actual guest star — Tony Orlando! Yes, it’s the man who tied that yellow ribbon, who knocked three times, who ventured into the strawberry patch with Sally. Those who know me know that I have a great affection for Tony’s upholding of the old show-biz “give 110%” attitude toward showmanship and his fanboy appreciation of other artists — his NYC host segments for the Jerry Lewis telethon consisted of him bringing on his favorite artists from his era and later. (I in fact heard about Carman’s death from Tony’s WABC “oldies” show where he announced it and played a Carman song in the mix of Sixties and Seventies hits that have been long missing from NYC radio.)

To have this veteran of the Seventies TV variety show and the Vegas/Atlantic City lounge-nexis show up in a Carman video was without a doubt the ultimate sign that Carman was still, despite his ministry and preaching, an old show-biz type who basically knew, and proved, that packaging — well, it’s everything.

Happy Easter!

The Funhouse TV show this weekend will continue my pattern of exploring terrible modern-day Xtian propaganda cinema, but the blog needs a dose of the old Easter Blasphemy as well. So I hereby resurrect (ouch) this clip, which has meant so much to so many people. Especially the guy to whom it happened.

I was very glad to capture this item from a Spanish-language "Funniest Home Videos"-type show. Was equally glad it won a prize on the show (as I'm sure was the winner).
 

Where have you gone, Donut Man?

I've had a few Easter traditions on the Funhouse TV show, for my “Easter blasphemy” episodes. One of the most bizarre (recommended many years ago by friend Bob Fingerman) is “The Donut Repair Club,” an ongoing series of cwazy Kwistian kiddie videos.

Funhouse viewers are well familiar with the concept behind these vids, but for those who are unaware: Rob Evans, “the Donut Man,” tells children that “life without Jesus/is like a donut/'cause there's a hole in the middle of your heart.” Thus, you must fill your donut... er, heart and put Jesus right in there. The “repair club” thus literally “fix” donuts by putting munchkins into the center of the holed pastries; metaphorically they fill kids' hearts by sticking Jesus in there.

A lot of Donut Man clips are now on YT, but years ago I uploaded an “introductory” bit from the very first Donut Repair Club video:

Evans' tapes came out on a regular basis in the Nineties, and a daily TV show was spawned out of the concept. I have wondered every so often when I revisit his tapes on the show: whatever happened to the Donut Dude? Thankfully, the Internet holds the answers to most trivia questions, and thus I am happy to learn that Rob Evans is still convincing children to fill their holes [insert highly inappropriate joke *here*], while he also has a day job as a home builder (presumably a contractor). 

This article gives Evans' back story and explores his attitude towards his music. It's fascinating to know that his journey toward finding Christ began when he was experiencing the “drugs and rock and roll scene of the '60s and '70s.” This is reflected by some of his songs – he has one that duplicates “Maxwell's Silver Hammer,” and another song seems incredibly reminiscent (read: the melody is identical) to Buzzy Linhart's “Friends.”

The interviewer declares Evans' Donut Man to be “an almost Christ-like figure” in comparison to other children's Xtian entertainers. For his part, Rob lets us know that the musicians he played with on his Donut Man recording sessions were noted session men in the mainstream music industry. A bassist who played with him has also worked with Barbra Streisand, Stevie Wonder, and Madonna. The producer for his Donut Man albums later produced a Star Trek soundtrack and the score for Pixar's Up. One of his drummers also worked with Phil Collins.

The Donut Man's biggest step was his conversion to Catholicism. He notes that he did it because he believes that communion “isn't symbolic,” it's really happening. (The cannibalistic, blood-drinking portion of Catholicism always fascinated me when I was back in Catholic school, realizing that there are those who want to “drink the blood” of their deity....)

Evans and his interviewer discuss whether Catholicism is Christian... or even Catholic. (That part puzzled me a little. As much as I escaped the church, fleeing for my sanity, I would readily admit that the Catholic church is indeed very Catholic – with an uppercase “C.”) Says Donut Man: “To the degree that the Catholic Church is idolatrous, it’s not Christian so it’s really not Catholic.”

On that interesting theological point the interview fades away, with Evans noting he does 80 to 100 gigs a year. I found his Facebook page, and yes indeed, the Donut Man does still tour his act and involve local children in loading up them holes. He also is a granddad (he and his wife have been married since he was 20 years old and he's now well over 60).

Perhaps the oddest note on his Facebook “Like” page is that one comment (posted a few weeks back, on March 9) comes from a white-power person (who claims to be a Japanese soldier who fought in WWII) who argues that Evans' act is “a plot by the Jews.” It's an interesting addition to the page, which otherwise is all about brotherhood, love of Christ, and Evans' performances and love of family. Perhaps the people running his page don't realize there is a “delete” command on FB?

In any case, the Donut Man is still with us, still preaching to the youngsters about filling their holes with Jesus. What more can one ask for from a gent who openly admits his character's “costume” was inspired by “Mr. Greenjeans” on Captain Kangaroo?

A few extra clips... The one black girl in the group does a rap number about Christ.

A country-fried tune about the prodigal son.

One of Evans' songs that will NEVER exit your cranium, a ditty urging the listener to “skip and sing and dance and shout Hallelujah, shout Hallelujah!”

The Donut Dude in drag, doing his “Maxwell's Silver Hammer” riff:

And one more bit of exposition, explaining the donut-repair metaphor. Fill those holes, chillun!

My tour of Honest Ed's in Toronto

Viewers of the Funhouse TV show will know of my affection for kitsch palaces, junk shops, dollar stores, and assorted odd emporia. Thus upon introduction to Honest Ed's in Toronto, I felt I had to share the wonders within with viewers of the show, and now, the readers of this blog.

Honest Ed's does indeed sell cut-rate merchandise, odd trinkets, Canadian tourist items, and Xtian kitsch. The thing that stuns me about the place, however, is not only that it is literally a giant edifice running two city blocks (in which it is incredibly easy to get lost), but that it also serves as a sort of "Museum of Theater" (New York's Broadway and London's West End theater) covering the Sixties through the Eighties.

I explained all about the store in an earlier blog entry (found here), so I will not reiterate its history and its ties to the Toronto theater community. Instead I will just direct you to my little "tour video" of the place. Toronto, and North America, will lose something mighty precious and weird when the store does finally close up shop in December of 2016....

Avast, ye Christian pirates!

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, stranger than Christian children's enterainment (which fits snugly into the category of Krazy Kristian Kitsch, as I like to call it). I used to present it regularly on the Funhouse TV show on Easter weekend, but the new stuff just ain't as special as the older programs and home videos. One of the items I was happy to show on the program more than 15 years ago was a children's TV show that was first seen by most of us on a VHS compilation called “Perverse Preachers, Fascist Fundamentalists, and Kristian Kiddie Kooks,” created by the editor of the zine called “Zontar the Magazine from Venus” (whose blog is here). Please meet Captain Hook!

There are various sites that offer information about the good Captain, but it all boils down to this: his name was Von R. Saum, a gent from Scott, Ohio, who lost his arm and leg at the age of 17 in a motorcycle accident in 1960. This accident led him to Christ and a “Christian pirate” ministry (!) aimed at kids.

Various newspaper items online note that he officiated at various funerals and was indeed an ordained minister. The other piece of info I discovered is his mother's gravestone (the Internet is insane); the accompanying info lists Von's death as happening in 1993 at the age of 50. Thus his “Captain Hook Crusades” ministry is now shut down.

Happily for us, he left behind a kiddie television show (see below) and not one but TWO LPs. The second record was uploaded by the 365 Days Project at the WFMU blog. The first one (image at top of this blog post) was uploaded by the wonderful Baikinange on her blog; that one has liner notes by Colonel Sanders!

In this "intro" segment from his show, Capt. Hook tells us the story of his motorcycle accident. The show ran in Ohio and, apparently, Indianapolis; according to some online commenters this was in the Seventies, but the rap segment below definitely would signal the Eighties. He is ably assisted by not one but two pirate pals (Fish Hook and Seaweed Sam), and Mrs. Hook, who reminds us that “God is not a child abuser.” [Insert your own priest joke *here*.] The “Christian Pirate Puppets” are also on hand – most of which are Muppet ripoffs, but one is a ventriloquist's dummy (more on him below):

Can this get better? Of course, it can, it's triple-K, kats and kitties. The dummy, named “Sharkey,” performs a white-boy rap, while his two human-being shipmates dance around like idjits. Why is the dummy repeatedly saying “Look at all those cute girls”? I have no idea, but it makes the bit even creepier.

“Sail with Jesus and you'll never lose!”

The next item, uploaded by Zontar, has under 500 hits on YT, while viral-vids get millions and millions and are not one-millionth as weird or funny. The Captain and Fishook conduct an “autopsy” on a sinner (presumably the carcass of Sharky). The Captain instructs his assistant to cut the sinner apart and informs us of the potential sins that can be committed with each part of the human anatomy. Done with utter sincerity, and not a bit of irony – exactly the way it should be.

“Cut that ear off with that saw...”

Happy Easter, all!

Ratz leaving a sinking ship: the pope resigns

I am an ex-Catholic who takes great delight in making fun of the church because... well, it is so certain it is right, and it isn't. It also pretends to be moral and isn't, and is often about as far away from the teachings of Christ as it's possible to be and not be a Nazi. Oh wait...

I'll get back to the Nazi aspect of this latest pope below (“he didn't want to be – everyone had to join the party back then....”). I'll also get around to the fact that the guy knows more about sex abuse in the church than any other pontiff ever has and did nothing to stop it or to punish (or even just excommunicate) the guilty. That stuff just ain't funny, and this is supposed to be a humorous blog post.

So I'll start with the light stuff and then bring on the heavy material toward the end. First and foremost, the media attention given to the abdication... er, resignation of this high-hatted fool has fascinated me, in that it's always fascinating to watch the news media fawn over a leader who literally exists in a dimension where the past is always present and what “we” say is always right (and everyone else? Why they're ALL going to hell....). The coverage has died down, but is sure to be ratcheted up again when the cardinals do their arcane wizardry (puff of smoke, my ass).

I find it very hard to laugh about the cruel realities of the church, but I can enjoy those who speak about its rampant hypocrisy and its backward-looking mindset – and yes, I do think that the other key religions have their backward-looking, we-are-completely-right-on-everything sects, and I have as little regard for them. I was brought up Catholic, however, so I can personally attest to the stupidity and tunnel vision of that faith.

So what is there to laugh about? Well, there is one humorist who always mocked the Catholic clergy in a pretty friendly way. I'm talking of course about Don Novello, whose “Father Guido Sarducci” character I first encountered on a Smothers Brothers comeback variety series in the mid-Seventies (I believe Fr. Guido first appeared on a David Steinberg LP called “Goodbye to the '70s”).

Father Guido is a priest who talks common sense, a gent who will never be promoted to archbishop or cardinal (that stripe “gets you the good veal in restaurants”), most likely because he's been the “gossip columnist” for the Vatican newspaper for the past 35 years. Novello infused the character with brilliant bits like this one, explaining how we all do literally “pay for our sins”:

He also came up with a foolproof way to learn only the stuff that you're left with after a regular education is over. Novello's routines as Fr. Guido have always been impeccable (that sadly misguided bit at the what-was-all-that-about “Rally to Restore Sanity” excepted); Novello's other work, on the Laszlo Letters book and as a comedy writer, has always been spot-on.

With all the affection I have for the Fr. Guido character, I should be doing a whole mock campaign here to get Signore Sarducci to be elected pope. He reported on the selection of Pope Benedict for the Al Franken radio show on Air America; the segment heard here is actually the weaker of two appearances I heard – his explanation of how the pope was chosen was far funnier (as I remember it, the process included being hit in the head with a hammer), but that particular appearance on Franken's show has not been preserved online.

There you have it – there's one guy in a priest's garb that I do love and have loved for over a third of a century. As for my evolving religious beliefs – that went from agnosticism (a discovery made in Catholic high school, mind you) to atheism – I tend to side more with the angry ex-Catholics who know how to sum up the situation in a pithy way. Guys like George Carlin, who pretty much was the poster boy for an evolving consciousness (evolving away from the church).

George inspired many standups over the years, and one who has professed his devotion and debt to Carlin is Louis CK, currently helming the best comedy series being produced in the U.S. Louis has been directing short films for a few decades now, but one of his finest hours (well, four minutes) is this little item from 2007 about the true “point” of the Catholic church:

Yeah, Louis' contention that the church “exists solely for the purpose of boy rape” may seem like a comic exaggeration – but only a little. I personally never was never raped by a priest, but was taught religion in grammar school by a priest who was arrested on child pornography charges (he was arrested in an alley off Times Square, no shit).

He was not excommunicated, merely shuffled off to another parish. My parish was abuzz for a few days with this “outrage,” but all the crazy people who believed kept believing that the church needed our collection-plate dough and all was soon forgotten. (By the way, he had also been running the parish branch of the Brownies.) A small handful of the priests and nuns I was taught by in twelve years of Catholic school were exemplary individuals; the majority, though, were afflicted with alcoholism, sadism, or flat-out insanity.

Thus we arrive back at the soon-to-be ex-Benedict, a man who served in the Hitler Youth and who, according to many, was “complicit in child sex abuse scandals.” To quote a Guardian article from last week, Pope Benedict (according to David Clohessy, the executive director of the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests) “read thousands of pages of reports of the abuse cases from across the world. He knows more about clergy sex crimes and cover-ups than anyone else in the church yet he has done precious little to protect children."

Back when he was just Cardinal Ratso Ratzinger, the Pope was put in charge of investigating sexual abuse problems in different countries (among them Ireland and the U.S.; as Pope he also ignored major cases in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria). In each case, the perpetrators pretty much got off scot-free. To quote the Guardian one last time, I cite Jakob Purkarthofer, of Austria's Platform for Victims of Church Violence, who says that "Ratzinger was part of the system and co-responsible for these crimes."

So this pope is not a good, moral human being, he's a bureaucrat and administrator. And therefore I felt that the monologue and sketch about him from the first season of Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle needed to be online. The series in its entirety was up on YT at one point, but now exists only as small shards.

One would think the Comedy Vehicle sketch about Pope Ratz would be up online, though, since it interestingly enough links the Pope to Jimmy Savile. Lee and his producers are not accusing the Pope of pedophilia at all – the gag is that Il Papa wanted his strikingly garish red shoes and received them thanks to Jimmy Savile on his “Jim'll Fix It” TV series. But yeah, it seems like a fascinating link to make anyway, between a man who made a habit of molesting young folk and another gent who did nothing to stop the abuse he heard about.

Savile is played by the master Scottish comedian-provocateur Jerry Sadowitz, who did material on Savile being a pedo way back in the late Eighties – that material (less than two minutes worth) got his CD “Gobshite” completely pulled from distribution.

Lee also devises a commercial use for a likeness of Benedict's horrifyingly mean-looking face. (Those racoon eyes, man, those eyes....). Please enjoy:

Note: some of the illustrations in this piece came from http://www.gospelaccordingtohate.com/

Happy Easter! The “incredibly strange” Christian music-videos of Carman

Every year at Easter I feature an exploration of Christian kitsch on the Funhouse TV show. There are certain favorite subjects of fascination, and one of those is most certainly Carman. He is a mono-monikered Italian-American gent from NJ who has recorded music in every conceivable modern-day pop genre and created music videos that basically reproduce all the tenets (read: visual and editing tropes, and clichés) of each of the genres.

I’ll spotlight a mere three jawdroppers here. The first is solid slice of Nineties white-boy rap executed with the Xtian boy band DC Talk. It’s hard to pick my favorite gonzo line from Carman’s lyrics, but I think one of the finalists would have to be “Praise the Lord with your feet!”



Carman’s appropriation of pop-culture tropes is fascinating, and nowhere is this better illustrated than in his Xtian Western video(!). The clip is fascinating for several reasons, among them the fact that different classic Western themes (The Magnificent Seven, Bonanza and Wild, Wild West themes) were licensed for the video.

He also deftly blows away not only the notion of alcoholism, but also "false" religions (which include major world faiths — whaddya think that guy in the turban represents?). The melody is snatched from "Ghost Riders in the Sky":



And the oddest little item Carman ever cranked out is surely his weird “SLAM” video, which combines comic book imagery, A Clockwork Orange, the Batman TV show, and that goofy-ass synchronized Rhythm Nation dancing that was so popular in Nineties music-vids.



Yes… he is that Christian that hell warned you about! Carman is one strange and enthusiastic music-video maker. May we explore him for several Paschal seasons to come….

The Sixties + Christian kitsch = Easter gold

I’ve had a tradition for the past 17 years on the Funhouse TV show of being intentionally “blasphemous” by presenting Christian kitsch every Easter. This year, since my supply of 3K (krazy kristian kitsch) has reached a sort of temporary brick wall (I’m sure there will be more next year — the true believers never stop making the stuff!), I’m presenting a different sort of blasphemy — commenting on, and showing clips from, Jerry Springer: the Opera by composer Richard Thomas and Funhouse favorite Stewart Lee. It seemed only right, given the recent success of Thomas’ Anna Nicole Smith musical in London, and the fact that I’ve been moving through the careers of a few British humorists on the show, and previous episodes about Lee have gone over very well.

But I have not abandoned my Easter celebration of Xtian kitsch artifacts (crafted, of course, with very serious purposes in mind). Thus, I give to you two tracks (actually four, since the spoken word pieces are separate from the songs) from an extremely deadpan Xtian-themed album intended for teens called For Mature Adults Only (1968).

Usually that kind of title denotes a porn flick or, in the case of LPs, a “party record.” This album is neither — it’s an attempt by a doctor of theology, Norman Habel, to present the “voices” of real teens, complete with songs that trumpet the fact that all problems can be solved by the big JC.

From the liner notes:

Honest Teenage Cries, Poems and Prayers
Collected and Narrated by
Norman Habel
With Music by
Richard Koehneke

Incredible! Impossible! In!

These were a few of the reactions of people when they heard about a show with teenagers entitled FOR MATURE ADULTS ONLY. You can thank a teenager for that title!

Who ever heard of trying to bridge the generation gap by letting the teenager have his own say about life and faith and love? Who ever heard of a professor of theology loving teenage poetry and reading it in public? Who ever heard of a coffee house on stage?

All of these improbable situations were part of the experiment in youth communication entitled FOR MATURE ADULTS ONLY. We wanted the teenager to be heard. So we collected poems, cries, prayers and words of teenagers across the country. We met kids like Debbie, Mike, Jan and their friends. Then we let them be heard and felt in this show.

The cries and songs of these kids are honest, simple and sometimes painful. They are for mature people, people who can feel the soul of youth and listen with love.

The show was first presented in the auditorium of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis in March, 1968. The response was so dramatic that the International Walther League [the Lutheran young people’s league — .ed] invited the cast to appear at its convention in August, 1968.

The album is charmingly naïve in its view of what was happening in 1968, and so I thought I’d upload what are surely the most extreme (read: extremely quaint… and amusing) tracks on the album, the ones concerning psychedelic trips (don’t these kids know the best trips are ones taken with Xt?) and the alienation of black teenagers.

Please enjoy, and spread these relics from the decade that remains "the gift that keeps on giving" (and giving and giving...). Pass these items on to your friends, and have a happy celebration of Easter, Passover, or whatever other commemoration of something mystical, magical, and very unlikely that you choose to celebrate. Roll away the stone!

Take a trip, ’cause Jesus changes everything. Robert Edwin sings the tune:



A black teen’s lament (with Broadway-style funk goin’ on). Don Hunter sings “Adam Was a Man”:



Thanks to Jim G. for yet another discovery.

Do not forget to honor the Sabbath day

Easter is once again upon us, so I feel compelled to re-tout clips I put on YouTube some years back. First, "Jesus Gets Nailed":



And then, the world of crazy Xtian entertainment I love to cover on the show (and will be doing so again this year, tomorrow night!). A few slices from the wonder that is the "Donut Hole"



Christ rap by the token black child:


One of the many insidious songs you won't be able to get out of yer noggin:



I was very sad to learn of the demise of the "Christian supermarket" in the Times Square area that had ample amounts of this insane stuff on its shelves. I will feast off its bumper crop of weirdness for years to come....

And thanks to comic writer-artist Bob Fingerman for the first look at "the Donut Man" (oh, Rob Evans, where have you gone?). Bob's latest graphic novel From the Ashes is out now in book form, info is here.

Religious metaphors don't come any blunter: The Donut Hole

Each year at Easter I celebrate the Paschal season by presenting Christian kitsch on the Funhouse. I’ve found that Christian entertainment (now known as “inspirational” entertainment, in order to not scare away new converts) ranges from the purely ridiculous to the insidiously offensive to tender-hearted treacle. The most memorable kind, though, involves music — and not church music or gospel music, but that oddly all-inclusive label (which defines the artist rather than their music) “Christian contemporary” and (you want hooks? You got ’em) Christian kiddie entertainment.

Thus, in the spirit of the season, I offer six clips from one of the most memorable Christian kiddie creations, The Donut Hole. The Donut Hole series is the brainchild of a gentleman named Rob Evans, who plays the lead role, the “Donut Man” who leads “the Donut Repair Club.” In this group of children and one adult man (think of the original Mousketeers, if Roy or Jimmy really ran the whole show), the assembled group “repairs” donuts by filling their holes with Dunkin’ Munchkins (never named as such, so copyright is leaned on but not violated). Evans reasoning for this odd little bit of really blatant metaphor and almost obscene symbolism? That your heart, without Jesus, has a hole in it. When Christ shows up, our hole is filled. I am not making this up, and the footage below bears me out.

In the process, Evans and his fellow “Donut” producers use bouncy, jumpy, hooky tunes to drive home their point that Christ is, um, er… a hole-filler. The songs cannot be forgotten and haunt me long after I eject the tapes (yes, I’ve only seen these suckers on VHS). Like many things I’ve been proud to present on the Funhouse, The Donut Hole must be seen to be believed. The first clip below sells the concept, the rest were uploaded to show how mind-warpingly catchy the tunes are (and how the Donut Repair kids strut their stuff before and after this odd donut ceremony).

My thanks go out to comic book creator and kitsch connoisseur Bob Fingerman for his recommending Evans’ original mind-warp to me more than a decade ago.

The introduction to the hole-filling concept:



The little black girl in the group leads a rap:



A country-themed “prodigal son” song that goes for a long, long time (at two minutes):



From a later tape: the gang sing and skip and dance and shout “Hallelujah!”:



The Donut Man in drag doing a very “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”-sounding song. I cut this one down, so you’re missing his Monty Python “pepperpot” impression (believe me, it takes a long while to get to…):



And yet another, pithier explanation of the fill-your-holes-for-Christ concept:

The wonderful Christian world of Ron Ormond

When the great June Ormond died a few years back we did a nice tribute to her on the show. June was the "better half" of the "first filmmaking family of Nashville," the Ormonds. This week's Funhouse episode returns to the strangest and most extreme works they made, their Christian films spearheaded by preacher Estus Pirkle (apparently his real name).

This marvelous scene from the wonderfully titled If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?(1971) gives us the brilliant juxtaposition, Communism=bad/Xtianity=good (I never understood that candy part of the equation, I woulda done things differently back in Catholic school).



There are absolutely no limits in this kind of scare-tactic exploitation film. Here we see a kid get harmed, a definite no-no in mainstream moviemaking.



But when you need to frighten people to follow the Prince of Peace, it's perfectly fine to scare the shit out of the kiddies:



The Ormonds only made a handful of these suckers, but they are truly the furthest-out-there they ever went—and I'm talking about a filmmaking unit that created Please Don't Touch Me! and The Monster and the Stripper! This week on the show I present a few clips from The Burning Hell(1974), which is posted in its entirety on YouTube. The pic is only an hour, but I doubt that most of you will want to watch the whole thing, so I will just spotlight two clips:



Go to hell, man!


The greatest thing about this posting on YouTube is that the person who put it up labels it quite sincerely "The Everlasting Sorrows" and appears to take it very seriously, as do some of the commenters. I was quite interested, by the way, to see that my posts last year of Christsploitation and rapture thrillers got some great comments from YT viewers. Check them out: