Fast Eddie Friday.......I wanted to be a Preacher, became a Con Man.... Close enough.

I have the occasional bout of sleeplessness, not really insomnia since I manage to grab a couple of hours, more like a hard fought battle to get to sleep, ending in the early hours as a draw. Last night was one of those nights. So I lay in bed, flipping through the channels, unable to focus on a single program. More often than not I end up spending a few minutes here, a couple of moments there, colon cleansers, shamwows, or my personal favorite, the Magic Bullet. The guy with the Aussie accent, making a veritable feast, complete with cocktails and muffins, all from one tiny little blender. Grandma even makes an appearance, cig dangling from her lips, bitching about the noise, while the fat guy urges the Aussie host to "hand over those nachos!" The pitchmen and women are mostly paid actors, patsys paid to sling the scripted hustle of the crooks who sell crap that is high on promise, and short on delivery. Infomercials really fascinate me, they are a high level hustle, big time confidence games, played out in the wee hours of the morning, they target the lonely, the vulnerable, and the gullible. They hawk their wares in a time slot that is sure to pull in the impulse buyers, the people who spend to make themselves feel better. While I detest preying on the weak and vulnerable, a part of me, the retired criminal part, gives props for a game well played.

M M, what the hell does any of that crap you just wrote have to do with the title of your post? "Shut your cake hole Corky, I'm getting to it". But it may take awhile.

When I was a kid I spent many a summer in Oklahoma. My mothers mother, Clara, was a devout Southern Baptist. A kinder woman you would be hard pressed to find, and probably the single most gullible person in the land of red dirt and rifle racks, and that's saying something. Clara spent many a Sunday morning wheeling the mile or so to her church, it took her about 30 minutes to drive that mile. Of course she drove a riding lawn mower, as I've already explained here. Clara didn't confine her worship to just Sundays, she was a 24/7, dyed in the wool christian, in the standard mold of the South. She was big on Oral Roberts, who must have sold her address to every huckster and weasel who ever cloaked their con under the guise of God and religion. Not a day passed when the mail man didn't turn up with a plea from some group. Feed the children, educate the Indians, prophecy to the the Africans, whose pictures always looked like the extras from a Tarzan movie. My grandfather Delbert would try to intercept the envelops, which usually contained a pot metal cross or some other 2 cent trinket, accompanied by a self addressed stamped envelop, with a convenient pouch for that much needed check. The employees at the first national bank of Marlow were instructed to call Delbert if any checks tried to clear his account from some suspect group or organization. This was done on the sly, Clara got to feel good for sending that check to feed the starving Indians, while Delbert got to keep his coin, earned hard mopping hot tar on some flat Oklahoma roof in the blazing summer sun.

It's little wonder that I would soak up some of Clara's admiration for Preachers, along with some of Delbert's justifiable distrust for these same men. So I went through a phase as a kid where I wanted to be a Televangelist. Not an Oral Roberts, who really didn't have much flash, and was always scaring the shit out of me with the hell fire and brimstone line. My idealized version of the Televangelist was a preacher whose name I've long forgotten. I believe he was out of Oklahoma City, came on after Oral Roberts, possessed of a Jimmy Swaggert / Benny Hinn type flashiness, before those guys ever set foot on the small screen. Clara couldn't stand him, he dressed to flashy, moved around to much, stalking the stage, and able to segue from a booming voice of righteousness to a tearful plea, and never miss a beat. As a 6 year old boy, I wanted to be That guy. Go figure.

A year or two after that initial infatuation, as most of you know, and if not you can read it here, and here, harsh reality stripped away the innocent naivety and replaced it with the harsh reality of the real world. I gave up church, took up juvenile delinquency, and started down the path that led to a lengthy and unadmirable criminal career. I didn't think about those childhood aspirations to be a preacher for the next 30 years or so, but I still crossed the paths of Televangelists, usually late at night, often alone and unable to sleep, in some motel room waiting for the sun to rise and the business day to begin, so I could ply my felonious trade. Oral Roberts and that now forgotten named Oklahoma City Televangelist, gave way to the Jimmy Swaggerts and Benny Hinns. small auditoriums were replaced by mega churches and stadiums. These guys hustled millions world wide, with impunity. Swaggert waved the bible in his bejeweled and manicured hand, Hinn slapped foreheads and cured cripples, from a con mans perspective, these guys were like the Micheal Angelos of hustle. My criminals ego would whisper to me in the televisions glow, " You could do that", and I believe I could have, maybe not on a global level, but in some smaller fashion. But I'd found my niche, banks, and I could assuage any small twinges of guilt with a false sense of moral superiority because I never hustled old people or churches.

So last night I'm watching infomercials, unable to sleep despite repeated therapeutic bong hits and chain smoking, and I come across my now favorite televangelist, Melissa Scott. Maybe you have seen her, usually late at night, a good looking woman, long thick hair halfway down her back, priests collar on a mannish looking suit. She works the stage flanked by a couple of giant dry erase boards covered in cryptic writing, translations from Greek to Hebrew, to English. She was married to some really old, now really dead televangelist, Gene Scott. When Scott died his young widow took over the church. She also has a past, she was a former porn actress, and while she either denies or ignores the accusation, it's a proven fact that she was for some time making adult movies. I usually watch her for a little longer than the Silver Bullet peddlers, her voice is kind of strange, and I really can't explain it, but there is something in it, both disconcerting and appealing at the same time. While she grabs my interest momentarily, she can't hold my attention for too long. She has no flash, she lacks Jimmy and Benny's pizazz. Of course Jimmy has long since been sequestered to some small church or 6 A.M. slot, too many hooker scandals under his belt to hustle even the most naive and susceptible viewers, not sure about Benny, but I don't see him around the late night airwaves.

So I dragged my ass out of bed after a couple of hours of fitfull sleep, and this reel was playin a loop through my head, seemingly all brought about by a few minutes of viewing the former porn actress turned Televangilist. I found myself questioning my original opinion of Melissa Scott, that she was just a better looking, albeit less flashy version of your standard televangilist. A hustler that had taken to the airwaves, mass market hustling, preying on the old man or woman who was kept awake from some infirmity, or the fear of the grim reaper paying a call in the not too distant future. I came to the conclusion that my own cynicism might be judging her based solely upon her past. Maybe she is genuine, maybe she really has turned it around, only she knows for sure. I felt more than a little hypocritical, after all I don't spare the judgement and condemnation on these electronic pages, and it's not like I don't have more than my fair share of dirt in my past.

This post, strangely enough doesn't really have anything to do with my beliefs concerning God, or not, and it's not an indictment upon religion, or the beliefs of others. It's more like a realization that I don't always get it right, that maybe I jump the gun, don't give credit or the benefit of the doubt often enough when I write something. I doubt that this epiphany will change the way I write, or the topics I choose. I'll still be full of judgement and skepticism,. I come by it honestly, and it's served me well, probably kept me alive, when many of my peers and friends have met untimely ends. So not to worry, you won't be reading recipes or poems on this blog. I will continue to be the surly, grumpy, judgemental prick you all come here to read. It's just nice to know my cynicism hasn't completely skewed my perspective, and my willingness to give the benefit of doubt every now and again. Then again if she wasn't an attractive ex porn star, I'd probably have just called her a charlatan 3 paragraphs ago and saved all of you 5 minutes.

Have a safe weekend, see ya Monday.