Saturday, December 11, 2010

Those Funny Catholics

I have a pretty good bit of mileage to get Hank to daycare and get myself to work so I’m either blathering on the phone or listening to XM talk radio. I can’t believe I like talk radio but with a condition – no call in shows. People that call in usually say the exact statement the host just said in a long winded, round about, too many uhh’s kind of way. Wastes my time because they never get to a point.

I’ve found some channels that really get my imagination stirred up, like I needed that anyway. I’ve wrote before that Hank will know who Bob Edwards is before he can talk and now I’ve got another personality that will give his subconscious something to gnaw on – Lino Rulli from the Catholic Channel!

I heard about this through an ad on another channel I listen to. This channel is serious then it’s serious fun. Sometimes I’ll catch the Saint of the Day, which tells me about one of the seemingly 1000’s of saints. It’s Christmas so there is a lot of information about Advent, which I knew nothing about and wondered what an Advent calendar was other then a sweet way to count down to the 25th. I get in my car and there are these shows that are like Bob and Tom morning shows but with Catholics all yukking it up talking about funny everyday Catholic things. And they are really pretty funny. The jokes can be funny in a literal sense but what really makes it a hoot is the imagery invoked by the snarky comments. Or even the serious ones.

My best example of this came up the other day. Lino Rulli, “The Catholic Guy” or I’ve heard him a called Lino UN-Rulli, was having a spelling bee between someone that called in and some Father David. I’m assuming the Father guy would blow anyone out of the water since all the words were Catholic related but he didn’t and they were cracking up! Spell sepulcher. Spell Pope John Paul’s original last name – Wojtyla – he got that one. Spell the little hat with a ball on top that clergy wear – biretta. Spell Ecclesiastes. Thessalonica. Ok ok that’s all fine and good but when the call in person won they won a prize. Like Wink Martindale Lino shouts out that they have won a prayer card blessed by the Pope! THAT’s what made me crack up! How much of the day does the Pope set aside to bless things that are sold in the thousands of Catholic related stores around the world? I can see him with stacks of cards blessing them like so many tiny little sneezes. I know it’s important to them as the caller was really excited to get it but I thought it was funny imagining the Pope waving his hands over stuff or whatever he does.

The Busted Halo is another show. The opening line goes something like “We can’t live a perfect life, but at least we try” This one sounded like a really clean Howard Stern show- I feel it’s sacrilegious to even compare the two but there you go. It’s just that it was annoying hearing everyone talking and laughing at the same time. I guess they get to a good topic at some point.

There is the Catholics Next Door show. Of course, they have a slew of kids and they talk about all the trials that go along with that and familial blessings.

So there seems to be something for every good Catholic and it’s got me thinking and researching. I like that.

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