Uke Man Musings

Hey Folks,

Some of you may wonder why I commented below on Our Lady of Perpetual Rust. Am I sacrilegious (Webster: “2. gross irreverence toward a hallowed person, place, or thing”)? Might I be anti-Catholic? Insensitive? Ethnocentric? Xenophobic? Could I lack family values? Hate America? Love Satan? Am I severely cynical?

Well, the answers are, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yes!”

Mary is not crying. A STATUE is rusting. Mary is hallowed by millions of people. Concrete and re-bar are revered by thousands of architects and engineers. Even though I’ve heard some Protestants grouse that Catholics worship statues, any good Catholic knows that that is an unfounded slander – and that’s OFFICIAL! I know; the nuns taught me.

I can’t be anti-catholic. My Mom’s Catholic, and I love my Mom! And what’s to be anti-Catholic about? Most Catholic-haters are either psychos like the Koo Koo Klan or demented religious nuts who think the Pope is Satan. There are so many different religions to choose from; how does one determine it’s Catholics that need to be hated?

Either leave ‘em alone or hate ALL religions. This is America, for God’s sake!

And I’m NOT insensitive! If I were, pathetic lunacy like Our Lady of Perpetual Rust [OLoPR] wouldn’t get under my skin.. I wouldn’t be ranting on this blog. I’d be working on building a fantasy football team and dreaming of “March Madness.”

Maybe I’m just so caught up in my “western” ways that I can’t appreciate that “superstition” is a valuable aspect of other cultures – OLoPR, after all, IS doing her thing at the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs Church. Perhaps I’m xenophobic and disrespecting some Vietnamese cultural reality. If only I were Vietnamese, I’d understand and appreciate the phenomenon.

Nope. Superstition is a HUMAN matter and is not restricted to any ethnicity or culture. One doesn’t need to be Vietnamese or Catholic or American to see Jesus in a piece of toast, Mary on a silo, Satan in the “Mr. Ed” theme, Allah’s name in a tire tread, Buddha in a twelve-year-old boy, or filth in “Louie, Louie.”* One just needs to be foolish.

As for family values, I learned values from my family; and I don’t need Silly Billy Bennett or Silly Billy O’Reilly to help straighten me out – standing on a ladder, those two morons wouldn’t come up to my Dad’s ankle.

The values I learned were those that fit pretty well with what we all were told America stood for. So, I don’t hate what America SAYS it stands for; I hate the reality that venal, self-serving monsters are making of America. And as for Satan or Santa – however you spell it – I don’t believe in either one, much less LOVE them.

But YES!! I AM cynical. Several people have defined a “cynic” as someone who sees the world as it is rather than how it’s supposed to be.

It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

- Uke Man

* Check out: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tdg/lyrics.html for the “Louie Louie” story.