Trying to Be Good Like My Jesus
On writing through my relationship Christianity—plus interviews with John Carpenter, Starflyer 59, & Richard Metzger
“I mean, yeah, you do give off a Jesusy vibe.”
A few years ago, I met one of my favorite writers and thinkers
in person for the first time. Though we’d spoken on the phone for a print interview and over Zoom while producing When The Bridegroom Comes, an hour-long radio special of West Coast Jesus People music from the ‘70s for Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab, meeting someone IRL is always different. Occasionally I’ll meet new folks who tell me it’s strange to hear my voice in person—“it’s like listening to the podcast,” they might say—and I know exactly what they mean, cause that’s what it’s like talking with Erik. I’ve spent hours listening to his sorely missed show, Expanding Mind.I’d just finished a DJ set at the old Recordbar Radio studio on 16th St, and Erik had agreed to meet me at the Royale Lounge just a few blocks south while in town visiting family. There are plenty of places you can take someone to show them the hidden qualities of Phoenix, its unexpected charms and class, but the Royale ain’t one of them. The lighting is harsh, the clientele weathered, and there are pickled eggs on the bar. But what it lacks in atmosphere it makes up for in simplicity, and I figured he’d enjoy the spot. I was right. We were both enjoying glass bottle domestics, having a tremendous conversation, when the talk turned to Jesus Christ, and whether or not the “vibe” he picked up on was rooted in my own personal faith.
So I explain. I’m not a Christian, no. But that’s not the whole story. I grew up immersed in the culture of faith, raised in a small rural nondenominational church rooted in the traditions of the Stone/Campbell “Restoration” movement, a “Bible only” approach which sprang from the Second Great Awakening (1790-1840). My father led hymns, my grandfather offered communion meditations, one uncle ran sound, and a different uncle preached. Clearly, it was a family affair. Soon, I was chipping in, guiding the congregation acapella during services sans a pianist (we never had a reliable one, so this was often). Eventually, I began writing my own communion and offering meditations, and after a few years of that, they even let me preach a few sermons.
After graduating high school, I sensed two potential paths for my life. One was rooted in music—I wasn’t sure exactly how to get paid for anything involving it, but I knew somehow it could be done. The other was ministry. By that point, I was reading heavy theological stuff alongside Adbusters and No Logo; I was listening to controversial artists like Pedro the Lion, whose songwriter David Bazan questioned and prodded American Christianity like a frustrated prophet.
The patriarchal, homophobic, literalist, and conservative culture I found myself surrounded by inspired deep questions and fodder for rebellion, but at my core I still believed. Deeply. Along with the heaps of shame, guilt, fear, and dread my religion inspired, there were also notions of radical hope, love, and peace, the suggestion that “doing unto others” was more than good manners. It was, perhaps, a way to alleviate the weight of human cruelty and time’s ravages, a path of illumination in the darkness of existence, a source of continual rebirth.
Well, seminary wasn’t in the cards. I got a job in a record store, and devoted all my time outside of that to writing about, playing, and listening to music. I still attended church, but the threads were fraying. Online, I read about people embarking on a process of “deconstruction,” complicated negotiations that attempted to wrestle Christianity back from the Right, or make it less literal, or loosen certain knots of dogma. Some of those deconstructors turned fully against Christianity, viewing it as an oppressive force, alongside the parallel thinking of the New Atheists crew.
I never felt entirely comfortable with the “deconstruction” tag myself. Christianity, after all, is a vast and varied tradition. What was being taken apart? And moreover, what the hell was one to do with all the disassembled pieces? I wanted to hang on to my Christianity, but increasingly I felt like I couldn’t. No amount of Rob Bell or Al Green did the trick.
I’m someone who frets and whittles away at thoughts, sometimes motivated by anxieties and sometimes stalled out entirely by them. But when I look back on my “leaving” Christianity, I’m surprised at how nonchalant it was. It seems I didn’t worry about it all that much, or rather, I had an outlet to channel all of the complications from the split into: music writing. The relationship between music and spirituality is intimate. Now that I was freed up from certain strictures, I found myself delighted to write about Christianity and artists The Staples Singers, Sacred Harp music, the Jesus People, and assorted loner folk mystics. I wrote about music rooted in other faith traditions too, and began exploring art centered in new age, occult, and esoteric traditions alongside more mainstream faith structures.
But throughout it all, I viewed Christianity as something like my mother tongue. By exploring and interpreting its poetics, creative inversions, and myths through my creative work, I was able to, in some ways, hang on to it. To mangle a maxim I heard a lot growing up, you could say I was “of Christianity but not in it.” Or something like that.
Over the course of the lockdown, I began tinkering even deeper with religion, diving deep into meditation and some standard grade magical thinking. I began praying again. To my surprise, I found myself seeking out prayer candles, particularly those portraying the sacred heart of Christ. Though Catholicism played a small role in my religious upbringing (that’s a whole other post right there) I never felt all that comfortable with the Jesus and Mary votives I picked up from Food City. It all felt a little too much like Roman Catholic cosplay. After some searching, I found this one from Original Botanica. Something about this Jesus just looks right to me. He looks like a wise but far out friend who knows how to take it easy, but will also drop heavy knowledge on you when he knows you need it. He looks like someone with a secret to share. If perhaps I can aspire to this kind of “Jesusy,” I’ll take it—and all the questions, doubts, and confusions that come with it.
The Demon Slayers: The New Age of American Exorcisms by Sam Kestenbaum
"Americans crave spectacle, in all matters, and exorcisms like this are today experiencing a season of growth."
Speaking of Jesus, here’s a truly remarkable piece in Harper’s by Sam Kestenbaum on the Pentecostalization of American Christianity, supernatural showbiz, and the demon-haunted landscape of the USA. Read it here.
Life of the Record: The making of I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight featuring Richard Thompson and Linda Thompson
"'Cavalry Cross' was...momentous...but I have to admit to being a bit of a heathen about long guitar solos. It may be sexist to say that protracted solos are a male fetish, but there you have it."
What a podcast! Enjoy, and try not to lose it over how funny Linda Thompson is.
Metzger, Martin, and John [Carpenter]
A few recent (and not that recent) conversations I’ve contributed to Aquarium Drunkard:
Sometimes you get a rare interview—and other times you get a really rare interview. This week on the podcast, a case of the latter. As the band’s monochromatic album covers suggest, Jason Martin of Starflyer 59 prefers to let the music do the talking. But co-host/interlocutor Andrew Horton and I got him to open up and discuss it all: Cigarettes, God, motorcycles, family, covetting guitars, and why “wanting” always seems to beat “getting.”
When I discovered SF59 in high school, it was like I found a band that was made just for me—surfy guitars, reverb-drenched vocals about heartbreak, blue collar grit meets arty flair—and the chance to honor that teenage feeling, puncture a few myths, and generally gab with Martin isn’t something I take lightly.
Big thanks to Velvet Blue Music and Horton for making it happen. I hope you enjoy a fly on the wall listen to this hangout. Here’s a link to listen via your favorite podcast player.
Richard Metzger :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
“The first step is for people to come together. Tim Leary used to say ‘Find the others’ and I’ve been using that as a rallying cry myself for the past 25 years. This is my contribution to seeing that happen. The group mind needs to form a conventicle first. I’m trying to do my part in starting that conversation. I don’t have delusions of grandeur, I’m just one node in the system. Changing reality is a group sport.”
Richard Metzger has been a beacon for high strangeness for decades. First breaking onto the scene with his public access show Infinity Factory, broadcasting on Manhattan public access TV, Metzger then launched the wider-reaching Disinfo media project, a production company that produced the Metzger starring Disinformation/Disinfo Nation, which aired BBC Channel 4 and the Sci-Fi Channel in America. At the turn of the century, Metzger staged DisinfoCon, a presentation of mind-bending talks from the likes of Robert Anton Wilson, Kenneth Anger, Marilyn Manson, Grant Morrison, and more. In 2009, he founded Dangerous Minds, an essential archival blog fueled by his esoteric pop counter-cultural enthusiasms.
Recently though, Metzger announced a dramatic return to his telecommunication roots with Magick Show, a forthcoming survey of 50 occultists who explain their practices and occult worldviews in their own words. A wide cast comprises the program, including longtime compatriots like Rushkoff and Morrison, along with the last interview with Kenneth Anger, and conversations with musicians like Luke Haines and Randy Orpheus, occult historian and TV host Mitch Horowitz, author and one-time Blondie guitarist Gary Lachman, Bri Luna, the Hoodwitch, and many more.
I jumped at the chance to ask him a few questions about the state of online media, counterculture, and art, pondering how exactly “magick” and the occult plays into it all.
John Carpenter :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Here’s one of those not so recent ones. Back in May, freshly saddled with my second bout of COVID, I got a chance to speak with the great John Carpenter for AD. And for whatever reason, the interview really flew under the radar. We discussed “noir,” and his album of the same name. Here’s a segment:
Aquarium Drunkard: I was reading a 1972 essay by Paul Schrader where he says that film noir, at least in his conception, it’s not a genre, so much as a style or mood. Do you agree with that?
John Carpenter: Well, I don’t know. It seems equivocating. But it’s hard to know what he’s talking about. Film noir is a French term. Of course, you gotta watch out for the French, but everybody’s doomed in these things. That’s what I find. As a matter of fact, I’m sitting here right now watching Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum and that’s one of the ultimate film noirs, and there’s a mood that hangs over it that we wanted to capture musically. But I will never disagree with Paul Schrader. Never.
And on that note, I’m out of here for this week. Feel free to drop questions or comments down there and I’ll certainly respond.