Oh god, Matt Taibbi infiltrates John Hagee’s ridiculous church, and pretends to be one of the broken souls that gravitates towards these frightening churches.
“Well, uh, OK, then,” he said. “Matthew, do you want to tell your story?”
My heart was pounding. I obviously couldn’t use my real past — not only would it threaten my cover, but I was somewhat reluctant to expose anything like my real inner self to this ideologically unsettling process — but neither did I want to be trapped in a story too far from my own experience. What I settled on eventually was something that I thought was metaphorically similar to the truth about myself.
“Hello,” I said, taking a deep breath. “My name is Matt. My father was an alcoholic circus clown who used to beat me with his oversize shoes.”
The group twittered noticeably. Morgan’s eyes opened to tea-saucer size.
I closed my own eyes and kept going, immediately realizing what a mistake I’d made. There was no way this story was going to fly. But there was no turning back.
“He’d be sitting there in his costume, sucking down a beer and watching television,” I heard myself saying. “And then sometimes, even if I just walked in front of the TV, he’d pull off one of those big shoes and just, you know — whap!”
Awesome. And if you were unaware of the modern fundamentalist, um, tradition of casting out demons, read the whole thing. It’s fucking frightening.
30 Responses to “I can’t completely hate the Rolling Stone”
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I’m no fan of Rolling Stone in general, but they will occasionally do shockingly good investigative journalism, especially into fucked up Christianist stuff.
Last Easter the Westboro Baptist Church came to Orlando to protest a church that was flying the American Flag. One of my hobbies is taking photos at various protests around the Orlando area, and since I head that there was supposed to be a large counter-protest to the Westboro guys, I got up at 7:00 in the morning and drove an hour capture the event.
…And I was the only guy there at the intersection…besides the Westboro people; they were one middle-aged guy with a flag that he’d drag against the ground, two teenage girls standing to the side with “GOD HATES AMERICA” signs on the side and two little kids also holding signs. Since I was the only guy there and they scared the shit out of me, I kept my distance until the middle-aged guy yelled out;
“Hey buddy, you a Yankees fan?”
“What?”
He was referring to my Yankees hat.
“You a Yankee’s fan?”
It was then I began to get closer to him, and explained that it was just a hat and I was a Red Sox fan. Then he began to jokingly have a friendly conversation about the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry.
“Thanks goodness, I can’t believe how anyone would like those Yankees” (or something in that ball park)
Just then a guy drove past the intersection yelling
“JESUS LOVES YOU”
The Westboro guy’s face turned bright red and he held up his “America is Doomed” signs and screamed on top of his lungs.
“GOD HATES FAAAAAAAAAAGS”
I can’t wrap my mind behind those people’s MO
Rolling Stone is in many ways a pretty good magazine. I’ve actually thought about subscribing, as a matter of fact, except that whoever they’ve got writing about music is so damn worthless. They really need to get someone who’s really into music if they’re going to make it a regular part of each issue.
I generally like Rolling Stone in spite of Matt Taibbi–he’s so obviously trying to be Hunter S Thompson and failing miserably that it’s a bit pathetic to watch, and the sad thing is that there’s usually a lot of good information in his pieces. It’s just hidden behind the uber-macho misogyny and is easy to miss.
The clown shoes bit was precious, though.
The bit about the clown is hilarious, but I’m pretty sure I could come up with a better cover story.
I generally like Rolling Stone in spite of Matt Taibbi–he’s so obviously trying to be Hunter S Thompson and failing miserably that it’s a bit pathetic to watch, and the sad thing is that there’s usually a lot of good information in his pieces. It’s just hidden behind the uber-macho misogyny and is easy to miss.
The clown shoes bit was precious, though.
Rolling Stone has two consistently good items in almost every issue: Matt Taibbi’s column and a longform reported piece.
OK, that article was just fucking scary.
The whole idea that these people are conditioned not to think…
…it’s no wonder the reality-ased community can’t get through to them. They really don’t give a shit about reality.
Were talking past each other, and nothing will convince them that W isn’t a great guy and that we’re winning in Iraq. They don’t remember Afghanistan, but if they did, they’d know we won it.
Their music reporting isn’t that hot. They are stuck in the past and completely owned by the industry. Very stale.
Politics is the only thing left they can report freely without advertisement threatening to pull out. Muic blog eats The Rollingstones for lunch.
I can’t get past the incredible misogyny that permeates every issue of Rolling Stone. I refuse to give them a dime. If there’s an article I want to read, I read it online.
For some reason I found myself most surprised by the bit at the end where the pastor tells him to practice speaking in tongues. Practice?? And here I honestly figured speaking in tongues was a spontaneous sort of craziness. I feel somehow disillusioned–a feeling I never would have expected to have with respect to something that I already figured was hoax-y.
I laugh about it now, but once he chased me, drunk, in his Fudgie the Whale costume. He chased me into the bathroom, laid me across the toilet seat and hit me with his fins, which underneath were still a man’s hands.
Reminds me of the scene in WKRP where Herb Tarlek is dressed in the fish costume fighting with the WPIG pig! Funny stuff!!
Looks like Taibbi took a leaf from John Safran’s book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Safran_vs_God:
There’s a demon of anal fissures? Miss one meeting…
What’s misogynist about Taibbi? I’m not trying to be snarky, I’m just curious.
As I was reading the article, I kept thinking about how much it reads like other articles that describe how cults suck people in. About the only thing missing was the demand that the victims cease contact with their friends and family members who are not in the cult.
Perhaps the scariest part, however, was when the preacher was talking about his nephew who, when his kids “had fallen on the ground in respiratory distress, half-conscious, writhing around, gasping for air,” didn’t call 911 but instead called the preacher. Either that nephew is a fucking idiot or the story isn’t true. It wouldn’t be the first time that some godbot failed to handle a medical emergency properly, nor would it be the first time that a preacher lied.
The story states that the politics begins not to matter when you’ve gone this far. But for the leaders of this church, the politics matter very much. They control these people’s votes - and they will ALL vote for McCain when ordered. And McCain loves them back.
Kinda’ reminds me of the Dr. Evil therapy speech in the first Austin Powers movie where’s he’s talking about his typical childhood summers in Rangoon wearing meat helmets.
Cue Amy Sullivan telling Democrats that they have to ignore most of their key issues and principles and pander to these people because they’re sensible, moral and ready to be convinced (and everybody else isn’t) in 4, 3, 2, 1…
I love Matt Taibbi’s columns, as well as his appearances on “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
My only issue is that he seems to take an awful lot of swipes at fat people. (…And yes, I am sitting on a fairly generous ass as I write this. Maybe I’m being hyper sensitive.)
See, here’s my problem with his article.
I grew up in a church like this. We had “Spirit blankets” which were used to keep a lady “Decent” when she passed up from the holy spirit so evildoers wouldn’t see up into their lady business when they were on the floor.
We had routine services that got so rowdy or devolved into Jericho marches (you can probably imagine what that is).
This idea of militant Christianity was drilled into me. I guess the problem is that, while I think it’s laughable, his article comes off as mocking. Mocking them only reinforces them. And it mostly just makes me sad because this infiltration is another little pebble they’ll use against the evils of our media leading us down the path to Armageddon.
“What’s misogynist about Taibbi?”
I don’t know what he’s up to these days, but his book about his time in Moscow fairly drips with misogyny, if I remember correctly. To be completely fair, I think his co-author did more of the crowing about having sex with 14 year old girls. But I’m pretty sure they were both pretty psyched about sexually harassing their secretary (who liked, of course!).
Accusing a Rolling Stone writer of trying to be Hunter S. Thompson is almost as cliched as trying to be Hunter S. Thompson.
“What’s misogynist about Taibbi?”
In this article alone, he mocks women multiple times - almost every time he wants to make fun of the preacher’s content or impact on the crowd. From comparing the preacher talking to the crowd about their wounds to Tony Robbins talking to upper east side women about their wounds (he actually indicates that those women’s worst problems would be their husband taking away their Saks card) to comparing the preacher’s stage emotion to menopausal housewives, to mocking an overweight woman (her bag smelled and looked like a sack of cheeseburgers) while fat men had bellies like bulls and something to be proud of, Taibbi certainly comes of as misogynist to me.
Note that this is the only writing of his I’ve read, but I imagine that if using analogies that mock women to bring the humour is his standard modus operandi, then there really is no question. He is a misogynist.
You really need to watch Real Housewives of NYC if you don’t think that statement is acccurate.
Deanna, I’m sorry but you’re reading way too much into this. Sometimes being descriptive requires one to appear insensitive of people’s feelings - on the flip-side, the article isn’t dismissive of them either. It simply points out absurdity - one absurdity being that such people will put whatever kind of crap into their mouth only to puke it out a few days later. Where you get misogyny from I don’t know; it seems he’s making fun of everyone in this, including the uber-military life coach. Seems rather anti-guy if you ask me.
I was a member of a fundamentalist church in Michigan (East Bay Calvary Church in Traverse City Michigan) and have never, ever met a group of people with such burning hatred and self-righteousness than they were.
The ‘pastor’ at the time was a grade-a prick. He gave me the willies when he looked at me. And he liked to look at the young girls…
He hated movies. He hated John Denver (for being a druggie ‘Rocky Mountain High’ indeed). He hated me for pointing out that he was so full of shit as to burst.
Children were ‘programmed’ to spout bible verses at random. Children were programmed to know the books of the bible, frontwards and backwards. They were given prises if they could start at a random chosen book and either go forward or backward from there.
They spent so much time learning about the bible that they didn’t actually learn the bible. Treat others, etc…
I remember one of the Hill daughters actually going out of her way to block my car at the local grocery store. God but she hated me…
That experience alone worked a great deal to turn me away from their god. And god that would support that kind of hatred wouldn’t blink an eye at one of them killing me or beating me to a pulp.
One other thing. The Hills lived on an old dirt road next to a field that had a major trail through it that crossed the road. I used that trail at one time to get back and forth to a summer job. Well, the Hill’s decided to string a stretch of barbed wire across the trail. Thank god it wasn’t attached or it would have done a lot more damage than it did.
Spiteful, hateful, negative and ‘kissed by the all mighty. Never has a more toxic soup been concocted… That ‘church’ still exists, BTW… They even have a web site: http://www.eastbaycalvary.org/
I was a member of a fundamentalist church in Michigan (East Bay Calvary Church in Traverse City Michigan) and have never, ever met a group of people with such burning hatred and self-righteousness than they were.
The ‘pastor’ at the time was a grade-a prick. He gave me the willies when he looked at me. And he liked to look at the young girls…
He hated movies. He hated John Denver (for being a druggie ‘Rocky Mountain High’ indeed). He hated me for pointing out that he was so full of shit as to burst.
Children were ‘programmed’ to spout bible verses at random. Children were programmed to know the books of the bible, frontwards and backwards. They were given prises if they could start at a random chosen book and either go forward or backward from there.
They spent so much time learning about the bible that they didn’t actually learn the bible. Treat others, etc…
I remember one of the Hill daughters actually going out of her way to block my car at the local grocery store. God but she hated me…
That experience alone worked a great deal to turn me away from their god. And god that would support that kind of hatred wouldn’t blink an eye at one of them killing me or beating me to a pulp.
One other thing. The Hills lived on an old dirt road next to a field that had a major trail through it that crossed the road. I used that trail at one time to get back and forth to a summer job. Well, the Hill’s decided to string a stretch of barbed wire across the trail. Thank god it wasn’t attached or it would have done a lot more damage than it did.
Spiteful, hateful, negative and ‘kissed by the all mighty. Never has a more toxic soup been concocted… That ‘church’ still exists, BTW… They even have a web site: http://www.eastbaycalvary.org/
I was a member of a fundamentalist church in Michigan (East Bay Calvary Church in Traverse City Michigan) and have never, ever met a group of people with such burning hatred and self-righteousness than they were.
The ‘pastor’ at the time was a grade-a prick. He gave me the willies when he looked at me. And he liked to look at the young girls…
He hated movies. He hated John Denver (for being a druggie ‘Rocky Mountain High’ indeed). He hated me for pointing out that he was so full of shit as to burst.
Children were ‘programmed’ to spout bible verses at random. Children were programmed to know the books of the bible, frontwards and backwards. They were given prises if they could start at a random chosen book and either go forward or backward from there.
They spent so much time learning about the bible that they didn’t actually learn the bible. Treat others, etc…
I remember one of the Hill daughters actually going out of her way to block my car at the local grocery store. God but she hated me…
That experience alone worked a great deal to turn me away from their god. And god that would support that kind of hatred wouldn’t blink an eye at one of them killing me or beating me to a pulp.
One other thing. The Hills lived on an old dirt road next to a field that had a major trail through it that crossed the road. I used that trail at one time to get back and forth to a summer job. Well, the Hill’s decided to string a stretch of barbed wire across the trail. Thank god it wasn’t attached or it would have done a lot more damage than it did.
Spiteful, hateful, negative and ‘kissed by the all mighty. Never has a more toxic soup been concocted… That ‘church’ still exists, BTW… They even have a web site: http://www.eastbaycalvary.org/
*sigh*
Sorry…