Hellfire!

I can't help but be fascinated about the story of Fred Phelps, one of the strangest conservative ministers in Protestant Christianity today, and the impact he's having well beyond his base in Topeka, Kansas.

In Sunday's Oscars ceremony, Sean Penn, in his acceptance speech for Best Actor, made reference to some picketers outside the Kodak Theatre, who were demonstrating against gay rights. Penn had won the statue for playing the title character of Milk, as in the assassinated San Francisco supervisor and gay activist. It turned out that the picketers were from Phelps' church, Westboro Baptist.

It made me recall a Web site I saw over 10 years ago with the blunt URL GodHatesFags.com. I don't remember exactly how I found out about the site, except that I was on some conservative or right wing site and saw a link (I research all political points of view, from extreme right to extreme left, in order to try and understand people. I myself am a conservative leaning moderate.) In those early days of the Web I didn't Google, but "Alta Vista-ed," or "Yahoo-ed." I wondered if the organizers of the site, who certainly weren't shy about telling about the evils of being gay, still were on the Web.

The answer is, yes, they're still there, and they are that same Fred Phelps and his church. Godhatesfags.com has been updated to a somewhat Web 2.0 slickness, and how has related sites, such as GodHatesAmerica, GodHatesCanada and PriestsRapeBoys. The writing for the most part is well edited for grammar and punctuation, and is full of scripture and startling, hateful fury at the evil, sin-filled world. A related site, signmovies.net, offers not only video explanations of the signs that Westboro members hold up at their protests, but also some very strange, very strident hymn music videos and the bizarre, clumsy use of hip hop slang to introduce them.

Westboro Baptist says on its main site that since 1991 it has made more than 20,000 demonstrations against gay rights, funerals for soldiers killed in action and anyone who is blatantly disrespecting God. Members hold up signs saying things like GOD HATES FAGS, GOD HATES AMERICA, AMERICA IS DOOMED AND OBAMA ANTI-CHRIST, with a photo of the president growing two huge ram's horns out his head.

From all those Web sites, Westboro appears to be a big church, but it barely has 70 members. And most of them are the adult children, grandchildren and in-laws of Pastor Fred Waldron Phelps, as well as a couple loyal families. The church is basically a house where Phelps raised his family, as well as neighboring homes that his kids bought up, along with a common backyard area.

Besides all-out war on gays, Westboro Baptist says God hates America for accepting homosexuals, and that's why 9/11 happened, and why young men and women keep getting killed in the war effort in the Middle East. The church also hates Canada for laws permitting gay marriage, Sweden for jailing a minister who spoke out against gays and the Catholic church, because it allows priests to molest kids and teaches a warped version of Christianity that sends millions to hell. It hates Asia and says the 2004 tsunami was punishment for not accepting God and allowing children to be used as sex slaves in some of the bigger cities.

Phelps' story is intriguing, to me, because his personality type is much like the the people who get into conspiracy theory. He offers, however, no federal government plots to destroy the World Trade Center or that aliens have infiltrated the government. Instead, everything is due to Satan and sin, and the world is heading for the last days. That is his conspiracy theory.

Phelps rose from a small town in Mississippi to a mouse that roars regularly and viciously. In this rather long expose from 1994 by journalism intern Jon Michael Bell, Phelps' estranged sons paint quite a scary picture of this guy. On one hand Phelps preached a severe, totally Bible based version of Christianity, yet on the other was greedy for money, power and the opportunity to be lord and master of his own little flock or cult group. He bullied, brainwashed, terrorized and injured people into loyalty. At Westboro you not only drank the Kool-Aid but ate the glass and the pitcher, too.

Phelps is heartily avoided by most mainstream Christians, especially Baptists who cringe at the fact he uses that term as part of the church name. He has been called cult leader, manipulator and many other unprintable names and countered with numerous "God Hates Fred Phelps" type Web sites.

Phelps was born in 1929, the same year as my dad, way down in Dixie. He was originally being prepared by his dad, also named Fred, to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. Phelps' dad had even gotten him appointed to West Point, but at 16 he "got religion" with a friend after attending a revival, and he has been preaching ever since. He cut off his dad when the old man married a divorcee, and later his sister and former preaching buddy, who had married. The estranged kids remember that Fred sent every Christmas present and birthday card for them back to his dad and stepmom, and happily ripped up photos of the grandparents while the kids had to watch. The estranged kids never even knew their aunt's or grandparents' names till they grew up and the Topeka Capital-Journal told them.

To Fred Phelps I, Delia Jean Streefkerk, would be a harlot, because I've been divorced for four years. I would be a slut, even though I'm been celibate since 2004, when I separated from my husband, Bill, and even though I've never sold my body for sex, which is what a harlot does. I would be from the gutter, because to Pastor Phelps, there is to be no divorce, no remarriage and no sex but that between a married man and woman. I'm also damned to hell because I'm a Lutheran.

Fred was married in the early 1950s and eventually had 13 kids. He studied sporadically at a couple bible colleges, including Bob Jones University, and earned a law degree. He dictated to his kids that they must never make friends with anyone in their schools or neighborhoods; their duty was to the home and church. The only career they could pursue was the law. Strange that his girls were forced into law, a career that requires much research and oratory, something he doesn't want wives to do. You'd think that only the sons would be required to join the practice.

Two of his sons quit the church and moved to southern California, where they run a small chain of copy shops. They maintain their father severely beat most of the kids and his wife, Margie, because of his belief that children must get regular discipline, and women must submit to their husband's will without complaint or talking back. Two daughters left for much of the same reasons, one going so far as to change her last name to Bird to distance herself from the Phelps family reputation.

Phelps was disbarred in the 1980s for what amounted to extortion of defendants in various lawsuits he filed all over Topeka and the surrounding area.

Despite the accusations against this religious despot, nine of the 13 Phelps kids remain loyal to their dad, working in his law firm and handling the picket duty. There are also several dozen grandchildren now, and they're all involved in the operation, too. Eleven of the kids earned law degrees, as dad commanded. The kids are the associates of Phelps Chartered Law, a firm connected to Westboro Baptist. In 1995 Westboro Baptist jumped to the Web after a grandson suggested the possibility of reaching a global audience. He's the kid who put up that first GodHatesFags site.

Phelps started Westboro in the mid-1950s and is not connected to any denomination. He says it it a "Primitive Baptist" or "Calvinist" church that believes in predestination, or that before people were born it was determined whether they will go to heaven, and "total depravity," that people are born into sin and are slaves of it. Both of these concepts are part of the "five points" of Calvinism.

Though Phelps and Westboro Baptist rage through the Web sites and picket year-round and across the country, they sure aren't in the business of saving souls. They make no effort to get people to believe or recruit anyone to join Westboro. In their FAQs on the main Westboro Web site, someone likes what they're doing and wants to donate and buy a church T-shirt. The gruff answer: we don't accept donations, and if you want a shirt, go to a shop and make your own. Basically, Go away, we don't want you. We're happy to be our own little saved enclave.

Westboro just wants to tell everyone they're going to hell, and that God hates just about everyone for sinful behavior and especially because of the tolerance of gays. They want to scream at the world about the evil, yet because of Calvinist views refuse to do anything to change people or expand the Kingdom of God. Church members believe they are already saved, and very few, if any of the people they reach with their demonstrations will truly repent and believe in God the Westboro way.

From a Christian standpoint, this church's mission is useless and wasteful. They are Christian versions of Muslim extremists, only they don't blow people up, just royally make 'em mad and incite them to possible violence. Jesus commanded his followers to go through out the world, spread the gospel and baptize in the name of the Trinity. But all Westboro does is scream that everyone's got a date with Satan, and there's no escape from that. Total waste.

But time has a way of shutting things down. One of these days Fred Waldron Phelps will meet his maker, as he's pushing 80, and finally he'll get his accounting with God over whether he was really doing the Lord's work. More than likely, that judgment won't be very pretty.

Didn't Take a Lickin'

A strange memory came back to me when I was emailing someone a corporate logo they couldn't find -- she is a graphic artist I know through my neighbor, Cross-Eyed Julie (who gave herself this politically incorrect nickname). I joked in the email, "...how would you like a big shiny new logo? And that reminded me of "How'd you like a nice Hawaiian Punch?"

Punchy was and is this little guy who sells this fruit punch, mostly to kids. He first appeared in a TV commercial in 1962, the year I was born, punching out a stupid, content guy known as Opie or Oaf, who was dressed like a stereotypical tourist, but with no camera. What this violence had to do with a fruit juice I don't know.

My earliest memory of Punchy was the way he walked along, singing, "Hmmm hmmm hmm, fruit juicy..." He had a shirt on like a psychedelic referee and things on his head that to my kid eyes looked like sticks or antlers (which are actually a straw hat -- remember, he sells Hawaiian Punch). He comes up to Opie, and my little self assumed this fellow had a flowered shirt on because he was visiting Hawaii. Punchy offers his punch and then knocks the guy on his butt. A rather aggressive cartoon, I think now, watching it on YouTube.

And this happened repeatedly, until the late 1970s or early '80s, when someone must have assumed Punchy was too violent to sell soft drinks to little kids. On Yo

uTube there is a rather expensive looking commercial for Hawaiian Punch that is all live action and sailing the South Pacific. Punchy didn't return until the 1990s. The rights to the drink passed through about a half dozen companies, until Dr. Pepper/Seven Up Inc. got it a few years ago.

I drank that stuff a lot, along with way too much Kool-Aid. I thought it was 1970, but it could have been 1971 (when it happened was the year I was in third grade, anyway), that I saw an ad on TV for a Punchy wristwatch and asked my mom to send in for it. She did, and I waited what seemed an eternity before it came in the mail.

I felt so grown up! I had my own wristwatch, just like an adult, or at least a bigger kid. It had this extremely wide vinyl

strap, which was the style in those days. The watch's face was white, with a smirky Punchy upon it, and his arms serving as the hands of the watch, much like the Mickey Mouse watches sold to this day. One hand held his beloved Hawaiian Punch. I duly noted that it had a "Swiss made" movement, but that the watch itself was assembled in Hong Kong, which along with Taiwan, was the place for cheap labor before we restored relations with mainland China.

Never mind that the plastic watch band made my wrist sweat and started to smell after a while, or that it just felt heavy and started to numb my skinny little arm, I had a real watch.

That is, until I dropped it one day, and the glass crystal broke off.

My mother scolded the hell out of me, and though I begged my dad, he refused to glue the crystal back on, claiming there was no way to do so. I continued to wear the watch and wind it, but one day I twisted the stem too far and locked it up. It then completely stopped working. Several months after that, the minute hand fell off.

I remember removing the watch from its ugly plastic band at this point and tying it by some string to my umbrella as a charm. (I think I was kind of a weird kid.) My umbrella at the time was this clear plastic thing with pink edging and drawings of little girls on each panel. I think it was made in Taiwan. Like I said, all the cheap crap parents bought for their kids up until about 1980 came from there or Hong Kong. It was second only to the "bubble" umbrella I got around 9 or 10 as my favorite umbrella. I loved running around in the rain in the summer when I was a kid.

Because I broke the Punchy watch, in the eyes of my mother I paid for this sin for years. My mom flat out refused to get me another watch for something like five years or something. Yes, not until eighth grade or so did I finally get the covenience of time on my wrist. I received some cheap generic Timex thing that I don't even remember anymore. There was never anything like the Punchy watch ever in my life again, except maybe the Mickey Mouse watch I bought myself around age 32 -- which did have his arms as the hands.

Today the Punchy watch sells for about 35 bucks on eBay, and sometimes as high as $85 on other collectibles sites. I also found another version with a yellow face that also dates to the 1970s. I have no desire to buy one today, as I like Punchy about as much as a skin rash, and prefer 100 percent juice products like Ocean Spray, not some sugary nonsense that rugrats drink.

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Rotten Apple of the Day: Today's slice from the Apple Cult comes not too far away from Taiwan or Hong Kong; that is, from Japan.

Some Mac Head farmer in the Land of the Rising Sun got some stickers of an iPod and and the Fruit Co. logo printed up and affixed them to some ripening Fuji apples. The result was these bushels of apples branded -- in the sense of both a marking and the name of a product -- with Apple. And here is the original story in Japanese, if you can read it. Get a load of the literal Apple iPod at the bottom of the page, as well as the "Apple Love" symbols.

Rattle & Hum

Yesterday I solved a riddle that bothered my ears on and off for nearly 40 years.

When I was a little girl, Friday nights on ABC gave you The Brady Bunch and Room 222 during the 8 to 9 p.m. "family hour." The second show was a "dramedy" set in Walt Whitman High School in Los Angeles. Since my two older brothers were on the verge of junior high school, the whole secondary education thing was something that intrigued me. This show ran from 1969, when I was 7, to 1974, when I turned 12.

History teacher Pete Dixon (Lloyd Hanes) tries to be a mentor and advisor to all of his students, helped by a counselor (Denise Nicholas), who is also his squeeze, and a flighty student teacher (Karen Valentine). Their leader was the pragmatic principal, Seymour Kaufman (Michael Constantine). Being the late '60s and early '70s, there was lots of stuff about Vietnam, rebellion, drugs, dress codes and more freedom for teens.

It also had this swingin' theme song by Jerry Goldsmith and Benny Golson. If you watch the YouTube clip below, you'll hear it, along with the mystery that annoyed my hearing and almost made me plug my ears.

Overall, this is an elaborate TV theme, sounding like it was done with an entire orchestra. Aside from a couple nice solos by a flute and a trumpet, you hear strings, brass, other woodwinds and drums.  That reflected the music of the 1960s and '70s, where you heard a lot more "real" instruments and musicians, and not just one DJ sitting there with a computer and a synthesizer playing everything, as how music seemed to drift toward too often in the 1980s to the present. The song also goes on a lot longer than today's themes, which are rushed things that are maybe 20 seconds long so the networks can pack in a few more commercials.

What I didn't like about this theme song is that strange sound that went off at certain points in the theme, that sounded like a combination of a gourd and something spinning.  (My ex always did say I was way oversensitive to certain sounds.) I blocked the theme song out of my head and forgot about it for like 15 years, until some TV station either locally or on cable rerun Room 222 when I was in my mid-20s.

And Joe Cocker's verson of "Feelin' Alright", as well as "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne also had that rattly thing, along with, it seemed, the soundtracks of a million other TV movies and low budget drive-in stuff.

As an adult I figured what I was hearing was a percussion instrument, but which one?

One time my ex and I were down at the Detroit Thanksgiving parade, and we had this marching band nut next to us, who screeched every time a high school band went by. She also seemed to know every band instrument that had ever been made. I asked her, and nothing. She didn't know. 

It wasn't a guiro, which is a long, oval shaped hollow thing from South America and looks like a gourd or a hardened loaf of bread with grooves cut into the side. It is played by scraping a stick along the grooves in time to the music. You can hear a guiro in the opening bars of The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter."

I Googled "percussion instruments," looked at images, searched for a directory of common band rhythm makers. Still nothing.

Until I went searching again for that musty old high school genre series, Room 222, and found the clip above. In the comments below the video, someone pleaded, "Cowbell? I don't hear a cowbell. But that friggin' Vibra-slap thing has got to go. Couldn't they have found a different rhythm instrument?"

And that was it. Nearly 40 years after the show, I learned that the vibraslap -- that is the most 

common spelling; Vibra-Slap is a trademark -- is that annoying percussion thing in the theme song. Along with the guiro, it seemed to be a popular choice for jazzy or Latin soundtracks in my youth.  Indeed, Wikipedia says, "The vibraslap was a ubiquitous part of jazz or pop-based film scores, primarily action films and television series, in the 1970s and early 1980s."

Rock and Latin musicians and bands have used it on and off since the 1960s. It basically is a box, shaped like a cowbell (which is also itself a funny instrument, as we learned in Saturday Night Live). There is a set of teeth or pins inside. A steel rod has the vibraslap's body at one end and a wooden ball at the other. The ball is smacked against the body to make the teeth rattle, and the body makes the sound resonate. You hit this thing often enough, and you could drive someone insane.

The vibraslap is descended from the jawbone, which is exactly as it sounds -- an animal's jawbone, often from a donkey, horse or other equine creature, which was played by scraping the teeth with a stick or rattling them.

I also learned that the first season of Room 222 will be out on DVD by the end of March. I could buy it and grit my teeth once again as the theme song rattles with the vibraslap -- or just hit fast-forward as any experienced zapper can.

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Rotten Apple of the Day: Being that I am the Biggest Apple Hater in the State of Michigan, once in a while I will post things that represent the craziest, most fanatical and worst of the Mac Cult. 

This is very old (from 2006), but this guy with the Fruit Museum in his basement that looks like IKEA and the Apple Store crashed into each other, still shocks me with its corporate devotion. He even has the iPod Dancing Silhouette Freaks on the wall, for crap's sake!

Young man, I will be praying for your soul to be freed of this ridiculous devotion. After all, I don't have a basement museum to Ford, even though I like the company. Besides, how would I afford an old Mustang, and how the hell would I get it into the basement?