Preach

I'm here to preach to you today, but not like that guy. Do you know who he is? Why, he's L. Ron Hubbard, of Scientology fame. Why do I have a photo of him? Because he came into my house via the magic of television, care of my good friend P, who may just be my equal in weirdness. See, P was in Half Price Books and happened to notice this DVD on sale for 99-cents, and she just couldn't not buy it. Nor could she miss the chance to share it with me. We're the friends, after all, who have shared the DVD glories of Left Behind--The Movie and The Book of Mormon Movie, Volume 1. I suppose we can blame it on our Catholic backgrounds, but for whatever reason, we share a need to know about religions that vary so differently from our own.

L. Ron looks surprisingly like an aged Craig T. Nelson in bad makeup, and he talks as if he borrowed George Washington's false teeth. Very odd. Odder still is the things he says. Scientology is seriously weird. Like more weird than the religion I was raised with, where transubstantiation is accepted as a matter of course. The worst thing about Scientology, though, is a quote from L. Ron that we found on the official website, regarding Scientology and belief in God:

“No culture in the history of the world, save the thoroughly depraved and expiring ones, has failed to affirm the existence of a Supreme Being. It is an empirical observation that men without a strong and lasting faith in a Supreme Being are less capable, less ethical and less valuable to themselves and society....A man without an abiding faith is, by observation alone, more of a thing than a man.”

So atheists aren't people. You know who calls other people non-human? Hitler. And slave owners. And L. Ron Hubbard. Nice trio there.

So. P and I watched what we could stand of the riveting Scientology video. We continued feeding our odd fetish for watching weird things with a screening of Sherlock Holmes. Not the one with Robert Downy Jr., but the one with DINOSAURS. In London. Oh, and there's a Krakon that robs a ship. So the bad guy can use the gold the ship carried in order to be able to buy the dinosaur, so he could use it to steal a pipe from a fountain. And then a dinosaur killed a man in a rubber factory, apparently by metling his face. And that's not even the half of it. We laughed, we cried: It was better than Cats. Seriously. It's available on Netflix to watch instantly, and if you dig a good B movie, you won't be disappointed in this.

The evening wasn't pure junk, though (even though cheesecake was consumed in honor of the late Rue McClanahan), because we began our viewing with an innoculation: I made P watch the most recent episode of Friday Night Lights. I can't believe what a fantastic show this is, and why the entire country isn't in awe of it. I know I've mentioned it before, but this show is seriously great. You know I'm a big Joss Whedon freak, and I will state for you here that I think FNL is better than anything Whedon's ever done. There's no fantasy here, no metaphor, no need to suspend your disbelief; this show is about real people living real lives. They go to church. They pray. The stumble through pancake breakfasts given in fire halls. They get on the floor to play with their kids, one eye looking at a chewed up book that's been read a million times, the other eye on the TV. And they creak and groan and moan and sigh when they finally get up off the floor.

This show honestly raises television to the level of art: It makes you think about what it means to be a person. It makes you look at the humanity in others. It makes you want to make sure you're doing your best and living life and loving the people you love. It's not without its missteps, but I'm here to testify that it's the best thing I've ever seen on television, with the best actors, writers, show-runners . . . just the best of everything, showing how talented people who care about stories and life can make Art out of the idiot box.

Amen.