Seeing Satan in the smoke & the story of Daryl, the forgotten 13th Apostle

(724 words)

The tragic incineration of Notre Dame Cathedral had the faithful around the world peering through the smoke to see the faces of hope and redemption.

Not me.

I studied the smoke to see if I spy the face of  — brace yourself —

Satan!

It’s a habit I picked up through years of reading the Weekly World News. 

You can have “The Onion,” “Mad,” and other hipper sources of satire. To me, the funniest periodical ever printed was ‘the WWN. 

Sample headlines: “Scientists Reveal Saturn is a Giant UFO!” “Man’s 174-mph Sneeze Blows Wife’s Hair Off!” and “Sadam and Osama Adopt Shaved Baby Ape!”

They never skimped on the exclamation points. Never!!!

The News was the paper that provided some of the most comprehensive coverage of the life and death of Elvis Presley — in 2006. He was 71.

I started reading the WWN in college, never dreaming my “career” would lead to friendships with swashbuckling staffers. The Weekly World News was until it closed in 2007 a sister publication of National Enquirer. Their offices were separated by a simple partition.

So when I finished doing my wacky Enquirer stories during my visits, I’d stroll around the partition to revel in the preposterous. It was a storyteller’s paradise.

But it wasn’t all fun and games. When global tragedy struck, they were like other more sober news organizations in that they were ready to detail what happened and assign blame.

Unlike those prissy brethren they held nothing back when it found blame. And their quoted experts usually laid the blame at the hooved feet of …

Satan!!!

Yes, any calamity inevitably led to a front page picture of smoking ruins with a sinister headline: “Face of Satan Seen in Smoke …”

Of course, being fair and balanced before there was a fair and balanced, they devoted ample coverage to Team God.

That’s how I learned about the existence of Daryl the 13th Apostle. I recently found a copy of the story in box of old keepers. Headline: “Christ’s Forgotten 13th Apostle Was an Idiot!”

The story says a maverick researcher learned that the Apostle named Daryl was an “obnoxious jerk” and a constant embarrassment to the Savior. Church fathers believed dopey Daryl detracted from the solemnity of the Bible and edited him out of the Gospels.

British historian Dr. Chad Norton-Chestwell is quoted as saying, “Daryl was rather like a drunken party guest who clowns around thinking he’s funny when he’s really just annoying.”

He said Daryl showed up drunk at the Sermon on the Mount and actually heckled Jesus, shouting things like “Borr-ing!”

He demolished the dignity of the occasion of Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem by mooning the crowd and telling Jesus, “How’s that for turning the other cheek?” Jesus had to stop His followers from beating Daryl senseless.

The story about how Jesus turned water into wine when the wedding party ran out? Take a wild guess why they ran out.

He couldn’t even keep his yap shut during Jesus’s miracles. When He brought back Lazarus from the dead Daryl pinched his nose and declared, “The man still stinketh.”

No realm was too sacred for Daryl to satirize. One time a chair Matthew was sitting in collapsed and Daryl said, “My Lord, you may be the Son of God, but you’re one lousy carpenter.”

“At the Last Supper, he started a food fight. The other 12 apostles constantly urged Christ to give Daryl the heave-ho, but Jesus being who He was, he could only forgive the idiot.”

Yet, at the crucifixion, it was Daryl alone whom He called to be at His side, Norton-Chestwell said, adding, “Daryl stayed at the foot of the cross, making light of the situation with pratfalls and one-liners, to keep the Lord’s spirits up.”

Now, I suspect some — just some — of the WWN’s stories were made up (“Baby Born with Wooden Leg!”). 

But I hope the story of Daryl the Forgotten Apostle is factual.

I like the idea of a Savior with whom you could sit and enjoy Leslie Nielsen in “Airplane!” and “Naked Gun” movies. 

Because some probably did see the face of Satan in the smoke above Notre Dame.

But if you look closely enough, you just might see the Face of God every time you see someone you love smiling back at you.

Related …

Weekly World News & the baby born without a nose

Long live National Enquirer!

What’s the big idea? Read this

72 hours handcuffed to wife

Remembering Elvis, again

Drummers & getting our arms around rock economy

(770 words)

I was in an otherwise good mood talking with a drummer friend when another drummer sat right beside him and ruined the whole thing.

I so can’t stand the idea of bands with two drummers in them I object to bars with two drummers, too.

Who knew Latrobe had so many drinking drummers?

The one guy’s an old buddy of mine and keeps the beat in a popular local cover band. He was very reverential of the newcomer in the way only one drummer can be to another.

I respect anyone with musical talent so I’ll make no drummer jokes here.

I’ll instead repeat just three:

• What do you call a drummer after his girlfriend breaks up with him? Homeless.

• How can you tell if your stage is level? There are equal amounts of drool coming out of both sides of the drummer’s mouth.

• What’s the difference between a drummer and a savings bond? The savings bond will eventually mature and earn money.

I asked them who is the greatest drummer. Both said John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.

I asked them if a $100 drum machine for sale at Best Buy could without missing a beat replace their hero. Both became sad.

Because I was feeling oddly antagonistic, I pointed out — and this is true — that in ’75 when Zeppelin was at the height of their popularity, Playboy readers said the greatest drummer wasn’t John Bonham, but was Karen Carpenter.

If they’d have had their drum sticks with them they would have likely beaten me to death with an accelerating tempo.

I told them it makes me angry when bands like the Grateful Dead have two drummers. It’s such an unnecessary duplication. So much extra equipment. Did the Dead hate their roadies?

They said each Dead drummer made vital contributions. One keeps the beat, the other the melodic fills. Blah, blah, blah.

Of course drummers are going to argue bands need multiple drummers, but there are reasons why they ridicule men who wear belts and suspenders.

“Well,” they said practically in syncopation, “who do you think is the greatest drummer?

Rick Allen, I said. 

Who?

He’s the drummer for Def Leppard, the 80s hit powerhouse better known for rocking than proper spelling. I say this because Allen lost his left arm in a 1984 auto wreck. Yet he overcame the disability and continued to perform.

I always wondered if after the loss of his arm his bandmates tried to impose a pay cut.

I like a little economy in my rock.

That’s why I’ll never forget a performance in a Palm Beach restaurant in about 1994. I was there spending a couple of weeks working at the home offices of the National Enquirer. They’d bring stringers like me into meet editors and schmooze.

After work, we’d all meet at some bar and it was always great fun. But on this night I was all alone. The next day they apologized and said they had to attend to an important breaking national news story I no longer recall. Maybe Ricki Lake went off her diet.

But in the bar was a true one-man band. He sat at a piano, had a banjo, a rack of tooter horns arrayed before his face, cymbals strapped between his knees, kazoo -- the works. He made this tremendous racket that sounded like a drunken marching band tumbling down a long flight steps. And he was singing at the top of his lungs like he wanted people in Orlando to hear him.

He’d play Beatles, Elton John — I remember a particularly raucous version of ELO’s “Can’t Get it Out of My Head.”

In between songs he’d talk to me, the only one in the bar. I told him how much I appreciated his unusually diverse skills. For some strange reason, he invited me to sit next to him on the piano bench.

For some strange reason, I accepted! He even gave me some headphones so I wouldn’t miss a note.

What was funny was I remember the angry owner coming by and repeatedly telling him to turn it down, that it was bothering his dining room customers. And there I was sitting right next to him with it being amplified right in my ears.

But it’s a performance I’ll never forget. He played like seven instruments, sometimes all at once, a true virtuoso.

I think I tipped him $5.

I told my drummer friends that story and how limb-for-limb he was one of the greatest performers I’ve ever seen. They called me an idiot.

Told me to beat it.

What do you expect from a couple of drummers?

Related …

Let’s resurrect another Carpenter (Karen)

Daughter, 7, says God is dead. Is Elton John to blame?

Oh! Man(dy)! My night with Manilow

O.J., me & National Enquirer

RIP Prince & which rocker deserves resurrection

Beds of nails, gator rasslin': My stunt stories

(1,159 words)

The way you hear our president talking about the “dishonest media” you’d think he’d want us fed to the alligators, heaved from airplanes, shackled, made to lay on beds of nails and smashed with sledgehammers.

In my case, it’d all be redundant.

Been there, done that.

Of course, I’m no longer part of the actual media. I’m some kind of oddball hybrid. I write, but mostly it’s for myself, so it’s like a presumptuous sort of hobby.

It’s been more than 25 years since I did any real reporting; i.e. covering council meetings, checking police reports, using deliberately enigmatic Latin abbreviations like i.e.

But all but one of those adventures befell me during the 10 swashbuckling years I wrote for National Enquirer, back before it become so political.

I was reminded of them the other night when I had drinks with a former student of mine.

You didn’t know? Yes, I from 2006-2010 taught creative non-fiction at Point Park University. They canned me when they realized — experience be damned — I was less credentialed than the grad students I was teaching.

It’s a pity. Many told me I was an outstanding professor and I enjoyed the opportunity.

Many of them have gone onto stellar careers in journalism, not an easy feat in these tumultuous days of shifting media outlets. Many are working at newspapers, some at magazines, some at feisty startups.

I’m proud of the guy who told me he’d recently been tased!

We met for drinks last week. He’s a truly great writer/reporter and the recipient of the only “A” I ever bestowed.

He just scored a book contract about how tasers are affecting law enforcement and as part of his research agreed to be a victim.

Spoiler alert: It hurt!

His tale had me recollecting all the foolhardy experiences I endured for the sake of a story. To say I did it to earn a buck (usually $1,000 of ‘em) would be untrue. I did it all because I knew I’d one day want to be the kind of person I was destined to become.

A really swell bullshitter.

I guess the first true stunt story I did was skydiving for the Nashville Banner. I remember the jump master being this big mean dude, a U.S. Ranger who’d served two tours in Vietnam.

It’s scary being in a perfectly good airplane cruising at 3,000 feet when they open the door and tell you to step outside and stand on the strut. But disobeying Sgt. Slaughter after a day of drills was scarier.

When he said jump …

Geronimo!

I clearly remember two sensations: silence and testicular agony.

It’s shouting loud being in a plane when the door’s open. But it becomes instantly and completely quiet when your static-line chute deploys.

As for the pain, they’d cinched the ball harness super tight, assuring me it was all procedural. I imagine they were cackling about it because for the entire two-minute descent I sky danced kicking my legs right and left trying in vain to find an illusive comfort sweet spot.

It hurt so bad I didn’t get to enjoy the jump.

So went a second time. And it was spectacular.

Would I go again?

Probably. I did the Skyjump in Vegas in ’13 and it was a similar thrill.

What I won’t do again — ever — is lay on a bed of nails and have an Ohio mystic put 50 pounds of concrete on my chest and smash it with a sledgehammer.

That was an Enquirer stunt story supposed to demonstrate the power of the mind over pain. The mystic was Komar the Great. He in 1997 was in the Guinness book of records for various feats of strength including longest barefoot fire walk, ascending knife-edge ladders and having 825 pounds placed on his chest while laying on a bed of nails.

His real name was Vernon Craig. He was a Wilmot, Ohio, cheesemaker and for a guy renown for hot feet, he was pretty cool.

I once had my leg broken in three places on a high school hockey breakaway. That hurt.

But nothing in my life hurt like the bed of nails. Now, the point of the story was to demonstrate the power of the mind over pain. So I’m either really smart or really stupid because it hurt like hell.

I remember praying the photographer wouldn’t screw up and demand an encore.

The story became the only Enquirer feature I did that was totally false. The headline: “I lay on a bed of nails and took a sledgehammer blow — but I felt no pain!”

I later complained to the editor about the lie.

“Well,” he said, “it wouldn’t be news if we wrote, ‘Enquirer reporter lays on bed nails — and feels incredible pain!’”

So in their eyes it was a victimless crime.

The alligator wrestling is a fun one to knock off the bucket list. I had a keen interest in gators ever since the Miami Herald ran my story about a blind Everglades gator wrestler. 

So my buddy George and I were one day day-tripping across central Florida when we saw signs for Gatorland. We pulled in and I asked the office if I could do a story about the attraction that had been around since ’49.

Well, they couldn’t have been more accommodating. A mirthful guide took George and I on a behind-the-scenes tour, even taking us on a field stroll amidst all the big monsters, some as big as 12-feet. It was exhilarating although I never felt we were in danger.

The gators had no menace and behaved like they were sedated, which was only fair because I’m sure George and I were.

The picture above is from later in the day when they put me on an island pen in front of a group of spectators and let me “wrestle” a feisty 7-footer. I snagged it by the tail and struggled to keep it from dragging me into the moat. They’re very strong.

The match didn’t last long and critics will point out it wasn’t true wrestling, but for story purposes I was in a pen with a real gator and only one of made it back to the parking lot.

I’ve worn kilts through construction zones, been shackled to my wife for 72 hours to test our love, and once gained 20-pounds in one week eating just like Elvis.

It’s been a lot of fun. The best part wasn’t so much what I did, but with whom I did it. Writing stories has led me into the lives of a carnival of characters and that includes all the ones who were characters in carnivals.

That’s what I’d tell journalism students if I was ever asked to advise those interested in the art of storytelling.

Being part of what is being derided as the “dishonest media” is both fun and noble.

It sure was for me.

Honest.

Related …

Enquirer Greatest Hits!

Teaching at Point Park: Justice & John Grisham

Eats like Elvis

The summer I ran away with the carnival

What happened when I spent 72 hours handcuffed to Val

In odd we trust

Everglades City: The blind alligator wrestler

Enjoying a good long jump with Playboy Playmate Claire Sinclair

Election leftovers and other random thoughts

• When I read that Janet Reno, our first female attorney general, died Sunday at 78, I thought, man, I hope she was an early Clinton voter. I wonder, if you’ve voted already and subsequently croak, does your vote still count? If I had time, I’d look into it. I do not. In fact, the election is tomorrow and I have about five or six related stories I won’t be getting to. I thought that was as good a reason as any to dash off a scattergun random post today.

• A question I’m hearing from several wise friends is: Why would you even want your candidate to win? Why, indeed. No matter who wins, bad things are going to happen and this will be one of the great I-told-you-so elections of all-time. As “Art of War” author Sun Tzu points out, it’s much easier to attack than defend.

• Having said that, I like to point out if you know more Sun Tzu quotes than you do quotes by Fred Rogers you’re probably an asshole.

• I tweeted this last week and am chagrined I didn’t have time to write a whole blog post based on it: “I'm a traditionalist and never thought I'd enjoy early voting. Wrong! It was my most satisfying vote ever. I wrote in the Rodell/Rodell ticket for the 2048 election. And the girls are ahead!” Tweet was illustrated with a picture of my darling daughters, ages 16 and 10. 

• Pollsters are still pondering over the idea that there are Trump supporters too “shy” to be detected. In my experience, shy is one thing our nation’s Trump supporters most definitely are not. We’ll find out late tomorrow if they’re a majority, but they’re certainly not a silent one.

• Our local Trump tourist attraction — the red, white and blue Trump House decorated with a 15-foot one-dimensional Trump — had a huge rally Friday that altered the Tin Lizzy political demographics for my happy hour. I became momentary buddies with a great guy, a die-hard, pistol-packing, Hillary-hating Trumpster. We had a great time. He showed me his Glock. I showed him a trick I do with my fingers that makes it look like I’m removing a digit. We spent about two hours BSing. We agreed on nothing, but still departed as friends. I wish the rest of America could get along as well as me and Jeff did. Maybe America needs to drink more.

• For balance, here’s a Fred Rogers quote: “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”

• It’s taken nearly 15 years, but I’m finally ashamed to have been associated with National Enquirer. When I worked there, The Enquirer was utterly pure in its pursuit of sleaze. It produced stellar scoopson  John Edwards, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Dole, Bill Clinton to name just a few. Now, one of the most scandal-rich candidates in history is getting a free pass from the Enquirer owner/Trump pal David Pecker, spawning a popular hashtag: #TrumpLovesPecker.

• The Enquirer’s ethical collapse means there’s only one real newspaper left. That’s the Weekly World News (sample headline: “Baby Born With Wooden Leg!” Above is the WWN’s 1996 “expose” of what the late Janet Reno looks like beneath her business duds (it drove Japanese businessmen mad with lust). The News, by the way, revealed just this week that an influential illegal alien is defying conventional wisdom and is endorsing Trump. Understand, this alien isn’t from Mexico. He’s from Kepler-22b, about 600 light years from Earth!

• I’m surprised we haven’t heard “Build that Wall!” chants from our Northern neighbors. With so many Americans threatening to move to Canada after the election, you’d think they’d demand some security.

• Sold 14 copies of “Last Baby Boomer” at my Saturday book signing at Greensburg Barnes & Noble! I am thrilled to hear so many people enjoying the book and hope you’ll consider getting in touch about gift copies for reader friends.

• I’m still feeling good about the Cubs victory, even though I was rooting for Cleveland. Maybe the reason is because the win meant all America is getting to bask in the joy that is seeing Bill Murray so happy in public. He was great on SNL. Coincidentally, we just that day had watched him in “St. Vincent” (2014). It’s fantastic and might be his greatest role.

• I hope you’ll check out the blog tomorrow when I intend to re-post my ’12 satire about the pretend 10 hours I spent in the voting booth as America’s last truly undecided voter.

• Be sure to vote tomorrow!

• Be sure, also, to smoke some weed, have some sex, enjoy a cocktail, splurge on a nice meal and do something to calm the hell down. I’ve never seen Americans acting more obnoxiously to one another — and I lived through the ’70’s! It’s better to live a life consumed by sloth and gluttony than hatred..

• Me, I’m going to try and do all five. All at once. It might not productive, but it’ll make Chris feel great again!

The prisons we construct around ourselves (from '12)

It was 24 years ago this weekend I quit my last job and began shacking up with Val. I last wrote about it in '12. Still feel the same so it's today's re-run.

I thought about commemorating the 20-year anniversary of my doing mostly nothing by doing more nothing, but that seemed too obviously redundant.

This weekend marked 20 years since I quit the last salaried job I ever had. 

There’s more. It wasn’t just the last day I ever had a steady paycheck. It was also the last day I had what I guess you could call a steady girlfriend. This weekend in 1992, I took the step beyond steady.

While I was becoming less committed to stable employment, I was becoming more committed to the fair Valerie.

If you judge my life on the wisdom of those two life-altering decisions undertaken within 24 hours of one another then I’m an absolute genius.

First, I left daily newspapers, an industry that in the next 20 years would shed profits, payrolls and prestige.

Second, moving in with Val was the best decision of my life. Our 3-year shack-up commenced on July 1, 1992, and led to an escalating progression of love, marriage and eventually our two darling daughters, Josie and little whatzzer name.

So in one 24-hour period I went from being a single guy with a job to being an off-the-market guy with no job. Everyone thought I was crazy, including the woman who today is, in fact, diagnosed with a form crazy herself.

My mother was flabbergasted that I would leave what seemed like a stable newspaper career to work full-time doing oddball features for America’s most notorious publication, The National Enquirer.

Why would I even consider such a thing? What will I tell my friends? Aren’t you worried about your reputation?

“Mom, you just don’t understand,” I said. “This will make me a much more interesting person.”

“But you’re already interesting enough,” she wailed.

She was mistaken.

From 1992-1999, I wrote more than 1,000 swashbuckling features for Enquirer, many of them involving the world’s most fascinating people and places. You can check out a nearly 4-year-old recap here.

It’s impossible to calculate how much prestigious and profitable work I passed up in favor of work that would be fun and interesting.

This has been to my financial detriment, but will I in the long run be better off?

I remain surprised I’m not yet a successful novelist. I have for five years been pitching a novel that gets great reaction from top people throughout the publishing hierarchy. I reprise the premise here in case any of you are powerful literary agents or publishers who’s been reading my blog strictly for the fart jokes.

The book is called “The Last Baby Boomer: The Story of the Ultimate Ghoul Pool.”

It’s about a 117-year-old man who in 2079 is identified as the last baby boomer. By then people are so sick of baby boomers they will put him in a museum suite and charge contestants $25 each to spend 15 minutes with him in the room.

If they’re in the room when he dies, they win the jackpot.

One problem: He won’t die.

It’s a coming of old, old age story.

Because everyone has to die, but only one of us gets to die last.

I know what you’re thinking: I can’t believe that’s never sold. I can’t believe it either.

Maybe I should rewrite it and add parts where the old man has sex with zombies.

But “Use All The Crayons! The Colorful Guide to Simple Human Happiness” is showing signs it may flourish, and I’m getting interest from important people on two non-fiction proposals.

“We are born free and spend the rest of our lives constructing prisons around ourselves.”

That, I believe, is the most profound line I’ve ever written. It sounds almost Biblical, or like something that could have been written by ageless sages like Plato, Socrates or Jeff Probst.

But it’s mine and I truly believe it. In fact, I live it.

The prison I’ve constructed for myself has no security. It’s cheerful, nurturing and filled with love.

Ironically, for a place with no security, it has a lot of bars. For the last four years I’ve done most of my writing right above one of them.

As I look back on the last 20 years, I thank God for the decisions I’ve made.

My life has been interesting with interest compounded.

It takes my breath away to think the next 20 years could be even more interesting. 

I’ll be content if it’s even half so.

And it’ll be nice if it pays just a little bit better.