I was sorting through my toenail collection a moment ago, and it occurred to me that I can’t remember the last time I had a good blaspheming.
They say you should never discuss sex, religion, or politics in a group setting because it usually doesn’t go well, but I’m going to see if I can mention something about religion without going to hell before I push the PUBLISH button.
Last night I went to see a couple of friends of mine perform their stand-up routine at a megachurch.
Amy (the Barnes of Barnes & Miner) is the other half of a writer’s club that I belong to in L.A. Depending on how much Comedy Central you watch, you may have seen her before.
Have you guys ever been to a megachurch? Holy Cow! It’s ridiculous. Imagine what a church would look like if it were in the Fortune 500. This place was a compound. A corporate-feeling building adorned the center of it. No steeple. No crosses. No statues. No stained glass. No pews. Just a big space inside with hardwood floors. And a colorful stage that looked like it was ready for an Amway rally. Or Abba.
Just outside the church in the next building where they had daycare for this event, was a Starbucks. A Starbucks! At a church! It was all so….suburban. It’s easy to see why these places are called McChurches.
Before the show started, we were instructed to meet our neighbors, so we asked one of the regulars at our table how large the congregation was. His answer: ten to twelve thousand. Did I mention that this was a church? Not some central headquarters of some corporation (which is exactly what it looked like), but a church. I mean I’d read about these places before, but I’d never stepped foot in one of them.
But anyway, Barnes & Miner do a lot of megachurch gigs. Being Christian, married and comedians, they’ve carved themselves quite the niche. Can you even name the last stand-up married duo? Besides Stiller and whats-her-face?
So if you go to a McChurch, they may very well be headed your way, and I highly recommend them. And I’m not just saying that. Or maybe I am, what do I know? They don’t restrict themselves to church gigs, but they keep it clean, if not necessarily tame. One minute, Amy & Jerry joke about online dating and the next, Amy plays the piano and sings a cringe-worthy but hysterical song about leprosy. So check ‘em out.
And while we’re on the topic of religious humor, I found a little web series entitled Mr. Deity. An irreverent look at the Big Cheese and his assistant Larry as they struggle over the Creation. I’ve enjoyed every goddamn entertaining episode to date.
You can get it at iTunes, or mrdeity.com or YouTube. Each episode is less than 5 minutes. Here’s episode 1 (4 min.):
