Holly Jolly Nothing by Daniels Vincent

Author:Daniels, Vincent [Daniels, Vincent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tiny Word Books
Published: 2016-12-10T16:00:00+00:00

Second Peter

Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Midwest used to gather annually for a four-day District Convention at the former stadium of the Detroit Lions, the Pontiac Silverdome. Over forty-thousand members attended. The event was held in mid-June when the stadium felt like a sauna. It was a lesson in suffering since the traditional garb for men is a wool suit and neck tie. Conventions had themes like, “Zealously Preach the Good News!” “Be No Part of This World!” or “You Can Survive the End!” and were dedicated to pumping you up to preach, donate, and obey. It was like an Amway convention, but instead of getting rich, you were trying to get to the top of a pyramid made of God points.

A lot of time was spent clapping after loud, echoing motivational state­ments, like, “DO WE NOT WANT TO DO OUR UTMOST TO WARN OTHERS OF GOD’S IMPENDING DAY OF JUDGE­MENT-MENT-MENT -MENT!? ” Incessant thunderous applause.

“ARE YOU NOT HAPPY TO HAVE ESCAPED SATAN’S CLUTCHES WITH THE PROMISE OF ETERNAL LIFE IN PARADISE-DISE-DISE -DISE!? ” Palms on fire.

As instructed, I took hundreds of pages of handwritten notes during conventions. Everyone did. I started taking parody notes at a young age because it helped stave off boredom and sleepiness. My parents didn’t know what I was writing, they were just happy to see me sitting there putting pen to paper. On the drive home, we’d review the program via our notes, and I could still gather the main points from mine despite that everything I wrote was incredibly absurd.

I like to bust out those old note­pads from time to time because, when read in context, they’re a religious satire goldmine . Before I give you a random sampling though, let me add this disclaimer: These notes will obviously ring true with anyone who’s familiar with Jehovah’s Witnesses, and most of them will make sense to the Christian world in general, but some of you might be like, “What the fuck does all this gibberish mean?” Well, just picture yourself as a coming-of-age teen in a huge, hot stadium with a cult-like atmosphere, listening to endless sermons, wishing only for it to be over so you can scope out chicks and go to Applebee’s.

Amongst the doodles and comic strips, which are tough to recreate here, there’s tons of spoofing JW lingo. For example, pioneers were Witnesses who pledged to preach ninety hours every month. Loosely quoting the speaker, I wrote stuff like, “Would you like to pioneer or just be near a pie? God will reward pioneers with life in paradise along with a custom-made pair of dice. If you don’t pioneer, you’re pio-queer.” Corny shit like that was abundant.

When speakers relayed inspiring experiences from around the globe, I’d “summarize” them in my notes. Some examples:

“Brother Hall from Luzon Island, where Godzilla’s nephew lives, was thrown in jail after having his Bible confiscated. Undeterred, he said, ‘I’ll never stop preaching! They can’t confiscate my mouth!’ But to his surprise, they confiscated his mouth, sealed it in a Ziploc baggie, and tossed it in a locker.

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