J E S U S C H R I S T , I N C .

Did you ever see the movie Jesus Christ Superstar? Great movie. I love that movie. I wish organized religion were more like that movie. Harmless hippie shit, all singing and dancing. Plus, Jesus and Judas both encore from the grave, singing a duet. Fantastic. No one really dies and everyone sings in key; perfect. 

I was raised in a Catholic household. I went to Catholic school for four years. Technically, I still am a Catholic. I've done all the rituals, the baptism, the communion, the conformation, the supreme ass licking. I was even an altar boy for a short time until the accident. 

Catholic school was bizarre. We all looked like Mao's young pioneers dressed in our  little uniforms. We were real easy to pick out of a crowd on field trips; we were the ones the nuns were herding. Nuns. Who grows up dreaming of becoming a nun?  In the old days, becoming a nun was punishment, or banishment. Nuns are sadistic old weirdos in Darth Vader costumes that live for knocking the shit out of young, impressionable minds. 

Look at a textbook in a Catholic school if you want to revisit Stalin's Russia.  There  isn't much science going on in the science book. Under evolution, see "God's Will."  The Periodic Table has a big angel standing next to it, with a flaming sword. There was so much religious dogma we had to learn in Catholic school, shit I scarcely need to know now as a rock-n-roller. Like the Twelve Stations of the Cross; that's a real Catholic thing. We had to memorize all twelve fucking stations or our fingernails were torn out by loving nuns, in God's name. The Ten Commandments were fairly easy, but the stations . . . I'm sorry, I forget Christ fell on his left knee before he turned the corner of the second exit before the Pottery Barn . . . so shoot me. 

Confession was easy. I was such a fuck-up I could confess for hours. I could even  lend other kids' sins so they wouldn't feel awkward. I just didn't like the idea of confession. It's not like the little screen in the confessional is gonna hide the fact that it is ME in there. By the fourth grade, I was voted most likely to be possessed. 

Churches are meant to intimidate people. I've been to cathedrals in Europe that were downright scary. I didn't want to spend my precious days off lurking in some catacomb, gazing at the crypts. Yeah, let's go to the crypt-town to see the crypts. Acres of crypts. Bishops and bakers and candlestick makers all immortalized in ghastly yellow marble. There is even a little series of hash marks on each crypt for every witch burned.  

But Catholicism isn't the only culprit. The Jesuits were a pretty hardy lot. They certainly turned in their monthly quota of horror and misery, in God's name. As a kid growing up in California, we were taught to believe in the benevolent Dominican Friar, Father Junipero Serra, and his lovely missions. It's funny, my text book clearly stated that the missions were there to help the Indians, not enslave, torture, and murder them. Yes, come work for me, brother. Or die.  Your choice. 

When I toured the UK years ago, we played a hall that also doubled as a school for  Muslim children. And I had a chance to read some of the sit on their bulletin board and it freaked me out. It seems that non Muslim people, like you and I, are really devils in disguise. You mustn't talk to the devils or eat with them, this sort of offended me. I am not a devil, nearly devil-ish. 

Rastafarians seem okay. They don't want to burn people at the stake or cut off people's hands for stealing. Bahai's seem cool. Although their doctrine is a little vague. The whole New Age thing is harmless, although every Christian channel will tell you otherwise. If some hippie chick thinks that wearing a crystal necklace will ward off herpes, so what? Burn some incense, chant your ass off, I don't care.  

Buddhism seems cool, but it's a bit deeper than I want to go religiously speaking.  I don't need religion to chant, speaking in tongues on ten beers in more my thing. Yes, I can glossalize with the best of 'em.  

For awhile I got off watching Christian TV. "Scrutinize" the lyrics of heavy metal music. They do have their own particular slant on things. Years ago Judas Priest was the Antichrist, now it's Manson. I admit he is a little scary, but certainly not Beelzebub. 

When I toured with AC/DC in 1990, Christians were protesting. And why?  'Cause of that stupid (Highway to Hell) record cover. Don't people have anything better to do with their lives than stand out in front of an arena touting religious slogans and  waving signs? Fuck, if you want to be truly Christian, feed the poor, help the blind,  bake some bread into nice gospel shapes, do something constructive.  

As you know, I'm touring with DIO right now. Back in his heyday, people thought he was the Devil. Holy Diver, what does it really mean? Does he want us to dive into Hell? Does he want us to join him in his hellish game? It's all right there in the lyrics,  plain as day; Ronnie Dio wants YOU to kill your parents and remember Helter does not have an A in it. So spell it right when you smear your victim's blood on the wall,  in Ronnie's name. And mine, since I'm touring with him and obviously under his evil spell. The concessionaires are damned as well, for selling beer and evil  Chipwiches and pentagram-shaped Twizzlers.  

All these things go through your mind when you're sitting in a van in Milwaukee, two  hours walk form any 7-11 or QuickStop. All I want is a Diet Coke and some beef jerky  and an antidote to the beer I drank last night, Oh, and a blow job, please.  

Birds are singing, leaves are rustling, Cordell just let go another Taco Bell fart, the world is going according to plan. See a show, drink a beer, forget about the approaching Apocalypse, and the pollution, and the senseless shootings, and the facts that the rain forests are being cut down to make room for cattle grazing to make the Whopper you just stuffed in your mouth. 

Some day, there will be no Whoppers, no cows, no cars, no boob jobs, no Metal Edge, no Union, no mother's pat on the back when you do something good, no gigs, nothing. Enjoy all while it lasts.