We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
- Mother Teresa
With particular emphasis on …
…led by the unknowing
Enjoy.
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Okay,
Father Luke
I sometimes imagine if I had friends they would be asking me:
Why?
Why do you isolate yourself away from the hustle, and the excitement
of one of the most bizarre streets scenes in America, and maybe even the world?
Yes. The person in pink is a man, and the person next to him is a woman.
And, no your eyes do not deceive you, the man’s umbrella is lined with foil.
Why don’t you get out of the house, do things, see things, meet people,
and my favorite: ‘Go to a meeting’ … ha, cha cha!
Well, maybe it’s because I like being inside, reading, searching the internet
for exciting things that can renew my mind and give me peace; maybe I like
isolating myself.
If there is a need for people to congregate, to mix, to enliven each other
with their bizarre-ness, then isn’t it just as true that there may be a need
to seclude, to cave dwell, and to enjoy the peace of solitude?
By fuck, there is for me!
I mean, Jesus, fuck, when I was driving truck, I was everywhere in America for
five minutes at a time! It’s nice to be home, and doing absolutely nothing.
Of course this is academic. I have no friends. None that would enjoy sitting
around, being silent for days on end, and watching the passing of time with
not so much as a cigarette to mark it. Let’s do something, they say.
The days move like waves, making powder out of stone.
Really. It’s enough.
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Okay,
Father Luke
I’m not a joiner. Occasionally some fucking asshole will “tag” me with some inane internet horse shit, and I will just as promptly shit can the fucking thing. I don’t do internet jokes.
M, over to the not just nouns and verbs blawg space, had an interview blog tag. Instead of tagging some poor, unsuspecting fuck-nuts with an invitation designed to encourage participation, community, and which in my case would end up with me throwing a god damned, slushy snow ball right straight back into their fucking face, her opportunity was left open to anyone ballsy enough to step forward to volunteer without being “tagged”.
Hi. My fucking name is Father Luke. I’m a first class fucking ham.
The idea is simple.
The rules follow the interview.
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Melanie:
1.) Why did you decide to become a priest? What was that mission all about and how long did it last?
Father Luke:
When I was growing up, I wanted to be two things. I wanted to be a Stand up Comedian, and I wanted to be a Priest.
I grew up in a farming community, on a ranch which produced fruits, and vegetables. Mostly fruits: Apricots, Pears, Prunes, and Walnuts. My father was a sadistic asshole.
My brother Chris, and I picked oranges one day. We had wanted to go to the movies, and we’d asked for money from my Dad. Money doesn’t grow on trees, my father said. My brother Chris, and I sat by the side of the road selling the oranges we’d picked, to who ever would stop. We each made five dollars.
We were fucking rich.
My Father wanted to know where we got the money. I told him we picked the money off the fucking trees. My dad built a fruit stand. Then he put my brother Chris, and I to work. He’d come by and take the money at the end of each day. Kids in school talked, and wrote about what they did on their summer vacations. I never had summer vacations. But I did learn something.
Now. I wasn’t good looking. Far from it, man, I was a fucking whale. A big, white, fucking whale, with bigger breasts than any fucking girl in school.
I was not smart. Not like the fucking egg heads in science class. I could solve most any mystery, but the biggest mysteries only left me wanting more… Death, Life, Love. What? You know.
I had no athletic ability. Eventually I began to run, and that was it. I could run for hours it seemed. I sucked ass at short distances, but long distance was like a vacation. Time would melt, and there would be just now. No matter how much I ran, I would always end up back where I started. As much as I loved running, being athletic would not be my ticket out.
Not smart
Not athletic
Not good looking
Every kid dreams of getting out, and this was where I dreamed of getting out of.
I saw a Woody Allen movie one year called Play it again Sam. I was amazed, in the truest sense of the word. I watched, and I laughed, and I just knew that I had found my ticket out. I was funny.
Funny thing is, there’s not much call for Comedians on a ranch.
I kept my mouth shut.
I come from old money. The Father of the man commonly known as my Father, was a hard working immigrant from a place once called Jugoslavia, and he was just another ignorant cocksucker who put in his time. Along with his wife, they made something for themselves. They were Serbian immigrants, when being Serbian meant being cool. Draza Mihailovic was saving Americans trapped by Nazis, Serbs farmed the valley. Life was a fucking party for Serbs. A fucking party.
My Grand parents came to donate land for an Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. I attended. I had no idea what any of it meant. It was 1963. It was all in another language.
Somewhere along the line Priests became my Heroes. They wore black better than Johnny Cash, they cussed more than my father, they drank, smoked cigarettes, and told dirty jokes. Priests were fucking cool.
In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Priests get married, and raise families. It’s required of them. Put that to the side for a moment, because another thing that there is not much a call for on ranches, besides comedians, are Priests.
Didn’t matter. I wanted what I wanted. I couldn’t be a Priest, but I could read philosophy, and study theology. I couldn’t be a comedian, but I could write like a motherfucker. When my parents were screaming at one another, usually my dad screaming at my mother, or physically beating her, I was nose first in some fucking book. Or I was writing something.
There is a story I like to tell about myself, self serving arrogant prick that I am. The story is that I was given a present when I was young. Look, I would say to people. Look at my present. Lovely they would say to me. It’s really a lovely present. Hugging my present, I lost my gift. I found my gift again as the paper on the present began wearing thin, and I saw the gift buried deep inside.
Doesn’t everyone want to be special? To have the dreariness of ordinary life replaced by the specialness which lives wrapped in the imagination of a child? I sure the fuck did. My gift was that I was funny. I was funny, and I was that calm something which people have told me they feel around me.
You keep me peaceful, I’ve been told. So many fucking times I’ve been told that, it’s like an urban legend to me. People say they experience it, and I think they are crazy. Many are called, few are chosen.
I was with my father, visiting a friend in the hospital who was fat. Once a year the hospital had to wring him out like a sponge. He’d spend a few days pissing, and watching his diet, and then he would be sent home. A few of the high and mighty from the Church came to brighten his spirits. Bishop whatz-is-name, and his five dancing monkeys. All dressed in black, and cheerful as fucking goth kids on Quaaludes.
My father button-holed the Bishop and led the fucker outside the hospital room. I looked at the fat man lying in the bed. He looked at me. We both knew my dad, and we didn’t give a damn what kind of trouble my old man was asking for. We heard yelling outside in about thirty seconds.
Outside, my father was standing inside of a circle created by five men dressed in long black robes. He was yelling at the Bishop inside the circle looking at my father’s finger on his chest. It could’ve been a prize fight. My father looked at me. Yelling in Serbian, he said very clearly that, on top of everything else, the fucking Church was starving for Priests, and would they lift one fucking finger to help me? Not on your fucking life. So where were the new Priests supposed to be coming from if they were alienating punks like me? Six beards turned in my direction.
He wanted to be a priest?
Time. Time has come today. Would I be a comedian, or would I be a Priest?
I chose The Priesthood. It was almost like flipping a coin.
Eventually I became a Monk.
Monks are to Priests as Private Investigators are to Beat Cops.
It works like this. Married Priests work for the Church under the Patriarch. Un-married Priests work for an Archmandrite, and the Archmandrite works for the Church.
Married Priests take orders from The Church. The Church says: Shit, and you say what color? You know. Monks hear: Shit, and they say we’ll get back to you. I liked that.
There were several factors which led me to actually commit to the Church. In 1988 I got sober. I had some changes in my personality which enabled me to recover from Alcoholism, and from drug addiction. Nineteen years in November, 2007. Anyway, it’s seems to be a start. Being a Priest was something I’d always felt called to; I was sober, and I did it.
Being a Monk:
1.) Celibacy - the only thing I hadn’t done in sex was M O R E. I’d done everything else in sex I’d ever wanted to do, and a few things I hadn’t. Celibacy was a no-brainer.
2.) Obedience to God - To me, all roads lead to fun. I’m down with that.
3.) Poverty - I looked around at the opulence of the Church. Poverty will be sufficient, I said.
In Monastic tradition there is a waiting period. Go knock on any Monks digs, and tell the Monk you want to be a Monk too. He’ll snort laughter, and slam the fucking door in your face. Go away, kid you bother me. It’s the same in any Monastery.
Eventually I was in, and I stayed for about seven or eight years.
There were several factors which led me to eventually thumb my nose at The Church. I didn’t like the politics the Church was entering into, and I told them as much.
Melanie:
2.) What is so life affirming about comedy? Why don’t you write comic poetry?
Father Luke:
You are getting two questions for the price of one. I don’t care what wisdom says, there are dumb questions. One of your questions is dumb.
Comedy shatters assumptions. When your assumptions get shattered you will cry like a fucking baby, or you will laugh. Those are the only two choices as I see it.
My Archives begin here: H E R E
Follow the « — — » on the bottom.
There are several years worth of unfunny poetry, stories, ramblings, half truths, and out and out lies. There are also a few rip snorting, shit your pants, puke on yourself, throw the baby out the window funny items.
Melanie:
3.) What has been your biggest regret about your choices in life?
That I have but one life to give for my Country?
Neil Gaiman wrote: Never apologize, never explain. I sort of stand by that motto.
Melanie:
4.) You say you are a loner, but that is a choice. Why do you think people are put off by you? or you by them?
I don’t think that people are put off by me. But, what other people think of me is really none of my business. As to what I think, feel, intuit, and believe about other people, that’s pretty much on a case by case basis.
Maybe like anyone else, I’ve been betrayed. I’ve been beaten, and left for dead. Seen things, lived life full, and woke up the next day to have another big bite of this shit sandwich called life.
I’m not put off by people so much as I’m sometimes disappointed by them. But compared to what? You know. We’re all just people.
Melanie:
5.) You write lyrically. Do you sing or play a musical instrument?
Father Luke:
Does eating pussy count? I used to sing in the Church. My voice changed completely when I gave up smoking. It went from a nice throaty bass to some kind of fucking retarded squeaking. I couldn’t carry a fucking tune if you paid me. I bought a harmonica when I was a kid to give me something to do when I got lost coming home from school. The neighbors would shout out their front doors to shut up with the Nazi music. So, if that tells you anything.
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Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to my questions to you.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
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Okay,
Father Luke
Coastal fog is ordinary, and welcome during the summer months. It’s rare that Santa Cruz gets much over a very comfortable seventy some odd degrees. Nice.
With school starting, this time in September marks the end of Summer vacation. With the end of summer vacation, tourists begin slowing to an occasional weekend. Then not at all as the rains come.
This is the summer vacation for those of us who live in Santa Cruz. Aloha, you know? Hello, and goodbye all in the same word.
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Okay,
Father Luke
Name: Joe Mamma
Email: JoeMamma.com
Message: What a waste of web space. Another egomaniac. Great. And your site sucks.
And my response:
Joe:
Thanks for visiting.
Keep that fan mail coming.
Here is another…
Name: Hello
Email: fromthedepthsofhell.cum
Message: You’re not a writer you’re a sick twisted old man. You’re not a priest, you’re the devil in disguise.
To sum it all up, you’re not much of anything and everyone knows that.
The only person you are fooling is yourself.
And my response:
Hello:
All I can do is laugh.
Thanks for a breath of fresh air in an otherwise dreary day.
All my best wishes,
Father Luke
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Okay,
Father Luke
Hate mail seems to create joy for my readers.
Here’s some more.
It’s a bit old, but I enjoy it.
I hope you will too.
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LUKE
Do not write about me anymore, especially the crappy Bukowski BS. You do not know me, you do not have a single clue who I am. You just know what I let you know, certainly not what you decide to make of me. For a man of soul you sure do not have much insight.
Thank you very much BirdBrain.
Other than that, you seem to have a good gimick as a street poet, a bit too polished and a bit too oriented for my taste, but really who am I to say, me the regular little sex doll!
Remember:”Poets are never young … Their delicate ear hears the far off whispers of eternity” (Oliver Wendell Holmes), and besides seeking recognition like any other artist, they deal constantly with dilemmas and torments as such beings in their desire to renew and achieve themselves as whole.
“Thirst departs with drinking.” (Rabelais)
“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” (Albert Einstein)
“A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market” (Charles Lamb)
“Suspicion is the poison of true friendship)
“Adventures accomplish great things” (Montesquieu)
“Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the conciousness that we deserve them” (Aristotle)
SYLVIE
APRIL 27/05
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Okay,
Father Luke
The Onion has never jumped the shark.
Here. Have fun.
I’ll be at work.
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Okay,
Father Luke
Tom Spanbauer wrote:
It’s the responsibility of the survivor to tell the story.
Who’s responsibility is it if no one survives? is a logical question.
Of course writing goes beyond logic.
I had a conversation with a man who lives in my building today. He has written several books, and has had his art work published on the cover of The New Yorker on several occasions.
I don’t want fame, he’s said to me. I don’t either, I’ve said back to him.
Staring across that abyss that separates two people, I smiled, and he smiled back.
I just wish that there was some way to turn off the creativity. I spend all day creating. I want to be ordinary, he said. I asked him what it meant to be ordinary.
He said that to be ordinary was to have no worries, to just go through the day without thinking about anything. I suggested to him that dead people seem ordinary in that regard. He disagreed. Ordinary isn’t like being dead, he said. Being ordinary is having no greater purpose than to exist.
He finished the decaf I had poured for him, and he went off about his day.
In that regard I’ve survived him.
And that’s the story I have to tell.
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Okay,
Father Luke
