Toking through the Bible

Crate Diving in Modern America

No actual crates this time, but an imaginary rendering of the week to come:

There is a universe out there in which, for a week that’s coming all-too-soon, you can watch and/or listen to leading luminous loutish Americans prove something to someone as they read passages from the Holy Bible.

The Bible itself will never be the same.

These lumpen lites unto our path include Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Sean Duffy, Ben Carson (imagine staying awake for this; imagine his staying awake for this); “home-school advocate” Heidi St. John; and, of course, the man so confused by convincing us that he was playing an AI-generated doctor that he forgot about all those signed autobiographies he was hawking for $60 — the autobiography that he and these others will be reading from.

Can you see yourself locked in for this event? No?

Are you so wanton, needy, starving for scripture that it makes sense to you to listen to these people pontificating about how reverent they are as they continue bombing the Middle East, building gold-embossed fatted and arched calves in and for their namesake, and how only God’s law can direct them to, you know, worship a holy leader not named Pope Leo XIV?

I thought not.

So while America reads the Bible for a week — and what on God’s Green Earth will happen after that week when we will be back to our normal programming? — I have another plan that might interest you and distract you from this idea hatched by the event’s founder, Bunni Pounds (can’t make this up).

You can listen to this new playlist with the theme of what to do when the country you love has been hijacked by people who think you neither understand nor care about, nor are capable of reading the Bible or the Constitution for yourself.

Call this the “I was lost and now I’m found” or “I was found and now I’m lost” playlist for lovers.

1. “Circles Around This Town,” Maren Morris. A primer on how and why you can escape all that, and especially who, ails you. You might as well be the one driving in circles instead of allowing Mike Johnson to do it for you. Why isn’t he at the Bible reading, you ask? OK, focus with me on better questions.

2. “Sympathy for the Devil,” The Rolling Stones. I don’t recall ever having sympathy for Mr. Lucifer, except in this moment when he has to be asking: “And you think I’m bad?” Like when Jimmy Kimmel recently mentioned that with friends like these, he can no longer remember why he was taken off air a year or so ago. Do you suppose anyone reading this week will beg, “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and fame…?”

3. “I’m the Greatest,” Ringo Starr with a little help from his friend John. I suppose it helps to think you are, as long as you don’t take yourself or the insulated world of your greatness too seriously. I love that Ringo always understood that “acting naturally” trumped pretending that you care about and understand what II Chronicles might be saying to you as you read it out to us.

4. “The Beautiful People,” Marilyn Manson. With the leading line, “It’s all relative to the size of your steeple.” He’s not for everyone. You know what I mean. I’m sorry that he proved untrustworthy to be displayed amongst vulnerable people. And that goes for Marilyn, too.

5. “High Time We Went,” Joe Cocker. It’s definitely high time at the OK Corral, so get your spurs on matey, and let’s see who follows. Wouldn’t it be cool if, in the middle of Hegseth reading from the Book of Revelation, Joe were to jump on stage and go into his act, and then we could see if anyone could tell the one from the other.

6. “Magical Mystery Tour,” The Beatles. To get on the tour bus — which I did in Liverpool back in 2000, and in some ways I think I never got off — it takes a few edibles or smokeables or whatever doublemint pleasure you seek. If you stay long enough, you can also pretend that this coming week never happened. In South Carolina, we have THC-laced seltzers which, I’m told, will soon be outlawed by those who also think being raped is no excuse for not bearing your rapist’s child. I need a 12-pack.

7. “Volunteers,” Jefferson Airplane. I hadn’t planned on this one, but since it decided to play naturally after “Magical Mystery Tour,” I decided I was too would-be stoned to argue or resist. This song, in its moment, seemed to defy what was and portend possibilities about being dedicated to something greater than our “leaders.”

8. “What’s Going On?” Marvin Gaye. How many times in the course of one life has someone asked this question, and how many times after Marco Rubio reads from Leviticus will we be asking it again? I’m not really sure what he’s reading, and I hope I never know. And to think we thought Marvin was troubled.

9. “One Toke Over the Line,” Brewer and Shipley. If you do nothing else; if you listen to nothing else on this playlist YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS: https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/1ml9wss/lawrence_welk_one_toke_over_the_line_wtf_pop_1971/ That’s not really Brewer and Shipley, in case you do need to be read to. I had no idea this existed and can’t understand what those who produced it were thinking unless, you know, they were. This will, of course, be the entertainment before the reading begins. I’m sorry, but on the video at the end, the legendary host refers to this song as a modern spiritual, so I guess in that way there is some hope, and if you do have to listen to Ben Carson, I know the way to do it.

10. “Everybody’s Talkin’,” Nilsson. They sure are, and I can maintain the hope that in the intermission — after Chronicles but before Revelation, someone will screen the legendary only-X-rated-movie-to-ever-win-the- Oscar-for-Best-Picture. In that film, there is a Jesus guy who rents a hotel room by the month. His name isn’t Ratso but it should have been.

11. Bonus: “She’s Not There,” The Zombies. Because she’s gone. She’s listening to my playlist and I know she’s grateful. Hope you are, too.