in re:

missionary position gets uncomfortable after a while...

...or...

nobody expects the turkish inquisition!!

so a priest, a rabbi, an imam, and a monk walk into a bar. 5,000 years later their offspring are still killing each other over the ensuing argument. HA! HA!

i love that one.

but i heard this new one. it goes like this...

10 atheists are on a vacation in istanbul. they end up on a game show where a priest, a rabbi, an imam, and a monk try to convert them for prizes.

i guess that last one wasn't really a joke.

seriously, though, turkish television station, kanal T, has developed a show called tovbekarlar yarisiyor (penitents compete), in which the big four religions have a single representative competing to convert as many of the ten atheist contestants as they can in the alloted time. even though they aren't actually the ones competing, the atheists are considered the contestants because the competing religious representatives get their prize in the journey: a chance at fresh converts, whereas the atheists get both the prize of a free trip to the holy land of their new religion, and the ultimate prize: their soul's salvation. give me a break... so i can go on the haaj that i won by pretending to be a muslim convert.

first of all, they are rewarding a trip (to mecca, tibet, or jerusalem) to whomever is converted at the end of each episode?

look at me i'm so jewish! oi vey with how jewish i am. can you believe it with me? how jewish? what, i should tell the truth and miss out on this free trip? the chudspah on you! that me, a jew, would pass up something free. oi gavault!

of course, kanal T claims that they follow up with the contestant to make sure they were truly converted. oh yeah? how? and what if you do catch me not being jewish, somehow. what are you going to do, take my soul back? ooh, i'm shaking in my yarmulke and ridiculous sideburns.

kanal also claims that the show is designed to help the largely muslim population of turkey understand other religions. i suppose what they want people to understand about atheists is that they are not real people until they have embraced a silly, made up religion, with happy happy stories about clouds and virgins. in fact, what is most likely to happen with this show is that, in the spirit of competition, the members of the religions may see a little bit of something that they like in each other. that thing? hatred of nonbelievers. so where does this show leave atheists and agnostics? shit out of luck, and probably persecuted, in turkey, anyway. at the very least atheists will most likely soon find it very hard to get anything done in turkey with members of every major religion no doubt quoting lines from penitents at them all day. god help the turkish atheists if there are any snappy one liners, or catch phrases on this show.

i can see it now. just trying to get his work done at the office, ahmed the atheist is constantly bombarded with asinine comments. he stops at the coffee machine for a cup, but here comes margie, "is that your soul's final destination? ha haha ha ha!". upon admitting that he doesn't know where zayed keeps the toner, steve asks ahmed, "would you like to phone your infidel friend? get it? like on the show? it's funny because your soul is going to burn in hell for all eternity". telling mohammed that he's going to knock off early today, mo replies, "i'm sorry, ahmed, but you didn't phrase your confession in the form of a question. HAHAHA! you're not laughing. didn't you watch tovbekarlar last night? everyone watches tovbekarlar". the mail boy pushing his cart down the row of cubicles, "marge, mail for you. mo, something from corporate. zayed, here's that toner you ordered. uh oh, mail for ahmed. ahmed khoti! come on down... to hell! because that's where atheist blasphemers go!"

the beauty of this show is that it encourages direct competition between the major, already warring, religions, this time for even stupider, more arbitrary reasons, as well as declares a jihad on the non religious. so really it can only last until the all the atheists in turkey kill themselves or move away to avoid the staggering pain in the ass it will be to listen to people belittle their beliefs using sound bytes and catch phrases from a popular gameshow. that, or the religious community of turkey descends upon the nonreligious in a brief, but nonetheless tragic holocaust (seriously how many atheists can their be in turkey?) of course there is always the option that turkey collapses under the weight of a religion based 5 sided civil war.

i only pray that i can get on the show and convince them to award me a trip to tibet before that happens.

circus: OUT!

pink clouds? face transplants? come on, people, we're trying to have a civilization, here!

when i heard that san francisco district 8 supervisor, bevan dufty (not a stage name) had rehashed the idea of creating a giant pink cloud over the intersection of castro and market streets in san francisco, i went through a range of emotions.

first i thought, enough already. i get it castro. gay people live here. we all get it. can't we all just go about living our lives already? besides which, this just reeks of artistic failure. i couldn't quite imagine a way in which this thing turns out looking good.

but as an artist, i mulled over some concepts in my mind, and started to really think they could pull off something cool with this idea. i thought, well, as a tribute to harvey milk, i suppose they ought to do something in the neighborhood in his memory, and you know, i do really love random public art. the painted hearts around the city, the giant bow and arrow on the embarcadero, the cows in davis, the enormous drafter's eraser in seattle, that freaky, possessed ragdoll statue on california street in palo alto, graffiti in general. and i love art deco stuff way more than any straight man should. so i think that i could actually really enjoy a giant pink cloud erected over a major intersection in san francisco, and this particular intersection is a primo spot for some aesthetic shenanigans.

then i heard, $9,500 feasibility study, and suddenly i was back outside. $9,500 feasibility study? i can tell you the results of that study right now: it's feasible. for pete rose, people, we put a monkey in space, we put a monkey heart in a man, we put a man on the moon, and we put a perpetual motion research and analysis robot on mars. i think we might be able to erect a giant sculpture of a pink cloud.

i'm just imagining the scenario that these people are scared of. some artist in a darkened room sitting at a drafting table, taking belts of whiskey straight from the bottle, a big pile of crumpled up designs and proposals all around him, "pink cloud? pink cloud?! what does that even look like?!!! clouds are white, you stupid government bean counters! i'm just a man! what do you want from me?!"

then, way way down at the end of the article, they got around to the questionably feasible part: they aren't erecting a giant pink art deco cloud sculpture, they are attempting to create a permanent, "natural" pink cloud by erecting steam exhaust pipes that will be lit with pink lights, around a very busy, intersection, in a very windy and foggy city, that is enveloped in daylight approximately half of the day.

first of all, do we really need to be using the money, water, and energy to be creating a giant steam cloud in the castro? think of the hair that will be frizzied, think of the mascara that will run. secondly, that cloud is just going to blow right the fuck down market street, pissing people off and unwrinkling all those hipsters' shirts. third, it's hard enough to drive in the city, let alone down market street, let alone when it's foggy, let alone when there's an additional giant cloud of pink steam obstructing one of the larger intersections. fourth, what about when the novelty wears off, and people just want to walk down the street to work, or to the corner store, or whatever, and all of a sudden, ew gross, hot moist cloud all over your body! if i wanted a warm, slimy memory of harvey milk all over me, there's plenty of ways to get that done in the castro, already, and if i wanted to walk through an obnoxiously painted, gay, tourist neighborhood, engulfed in hot, humid air, i'd move to miami. and fifth, its going to be lit with pink lights, eh? you know, part of the nature of light is that it's kind of hard to see when its being out-shined by larger, more powerful light sources, say for example, that other giant ball of brightly colored gas over the castro, the sun.

i guess i'm not so appalled at the limits of human achievement conjured up by this story, as i am with the limits of common sense (as larry david says, "common sense really isn't that common"). i mean, at first i thought, pink cloud sculpture? hey, we invented aerospace technology, and the internet (well, al gore invented the internet...), i think we can handle a little pink cloud sculpture. but now i'm more on the side of, hey, look, we really screwed things up for that face transplant lady, maybe we should be taking smaller steps toward unnecessarily attempting to recreate nature.

i don't know about you guys, but i really feel like, same as there must be a few city planners out there who are thinking, "pink steam cloud? pull your heads out of your asses!", there have got to be at least a few doctors out there who could have done a better job with face transplant lady. i mean, look at her, how did they get her nose and lips done so well, but manage to screw up her jowls which she didn't really seem to have a problem with in the first place? was it a matter of pride between the organ transplant doctors and the plastic surgeons? because i have got to tell you, i think we let the plastic surgeons have this one. it's not quite the same principle as swapping out a kidney or a heart. you don't just stitch it on and hope for the best. it's as though cosmetic surgery is a rubik's cube that the medical world has been working on for decades, and they just have this one move to make to finish it, one move and cosmetic surgery becomes a legitimate field of medicine. and while trying to make that last move, they instead fumbled the cube off the roof of a forty story building where it plummeted toward the street and hit some lady in the face. then they fucked up her reconstructive surgery. damn it! so close!

such is the castro. for decades it has been a great neighborhood; alive and active with people simultaneously living with purpose and abandon. making a place for an important culture both locally and the world over, all while trying to build a reputation, not of novelty and kitsch, but of respect and regard. now they have this chance to put a little cherry on top, to mark their territory with something that the city is willing to foot the bill for, and support the development of, something that says, we are legit and we are here to stay, and they come up with giant pink steam cloud?

let's just dial it back a bit here, people. when you're one step from the finish line, and two from the edge of the cliff, try to avoid taking any huge leaps forward.

facial reconstructive surgery? sounds plausible. botched face transplant? out of the frying pan, and into the fire. giant cloud statue? i'm in. giant fake steam cloud? sounds like a whole lot of, guess who's never going to the castro again.