My San Diego Mission Of Religious Decommission

San Diego. Eh. I don't see what all the fuss is about. I had a job there for 7 days the other week. Julie lived there for a short time after college, so I used some miles to bring her along to give me a tour of her old stomping grounds. The thing about San Diego that sucks is that it's ALL highway. Want to go a couple of blocks away for dinner? Get on the highway. Not because it's a shortcut, but because the only roads are highways. But one thing we found that was super cool in San Diego was the Geisel Library on the San Diego campus of the University of California.

Cool right? Because he once said that if he were to ever design a building that it would look like that, it is named in honor of this guy:

 

The human, not the cat. You know, that one there with the hat. We happened to be there on the good Dr.'s 106th Birthday, and they had a few of his sketches on Display.

Apparently they were also going to have their annual birthday party for him out in front of the library, with punch and pie, but they canceled that this year due to some racial incidents that have recently plagued the University. It apparently began with the Compton Cookout, a frat party where guests were supposed to come dressed as racial stereotypes, and then someone put a KKK hood over the Dr. Suess statue's head, and then someone hung a noose in the library. It's all very weird and I don't understand it. I thought that California was supposed to be a bastion of tolerance? For different types of people at least, as long as they drive a hybrid, are vegetarians, and recycle, etc etc... Well I guess I was myth-taken. Between their unusually deep economic troubles, their recent vote against equal rights for homosexuals, and now this, I'd have to say that things are going downhill over there, and that's a bad sign for the rest of us, shall we say, less plastic liberals in the country. (Not to mention what's happening to public education in Texas; not that it's a surprise as such, just that every day our once great nation gets weirder and weirder and more willfully ignorant, and it's happening at an alarming rate. Dollhouse.)

All I can say is, if you're going to cancel the birthday party of the man who wrote 'The Sneetches' and 'The Butter Battle Book', well, the terrorists win again. I mean the racists! The racists win again. Whatever. Same thing. Bad people scaring good people into reacting ineffectually. (Thanks for stealing my thunder by the way, Miss Luongo. :)

Well anyway. We took a drive up the Pacific highway, which is "one of the good ones"... highways, I mean. Obviously. We stopped on an oceanside cliff in La Jolla.

Paragliding is cool. My friend Dirk, when we lived in Germany, used to snowboard all day, then strap on his paraglider and fly down to the river where his VW Van (which he called his toybox) was waiting with his kayak, and he'd kayak down the river into town. One of his less insane friends of course usually had to help him out with the logistics of that of course.

The last adventure of ours of note, besides lunch on Laguna Beach and a corona in Tijuana, was our visit to San Juan Capistrano. There's some famous mission there. You know, a church built by missionaries back in the early days of westward expansion for the purpose of bringing God's word to those stupid heathen Native Americans.

And how best to make these savages understand that God means business?

 Why stand around and be all holier than they while making them do all the laundry, of course! And then make them build the building that honors your God through slave labor!

That will teach those stupid dumbbrain injuns to not have ever heard about Jesus. Everyone knows you can not teach an injun to be holy except by showing 'em how, with ancient European holy martial art; holy-shit-I'm-so-holy-stance!

I especially love how the present day mission museum was ashamed enough of these dioramas to shove them in a back corner that I was super lucky to find but not enough to, you know, get rid of them.

So what did I learn about the San Juan Capistrano Mission?

That priests love being in authority over children of ALL ethnicity. And are very holy fucking creepy about that fact. Isn't that right, Pope Friendly? Seriously! Look at this guy! He is the best Pope ever, because he gives the creepy shivers like no other! Hey Pope Child Molester! I have a funny religious joke for you: What do you call a pregnant virgin? A fucking liar!

Comments

[Miss Luongo]

A conquistador and a monk as your overlords? That's got to be the worst job ever. The military and religion ruling your world...wait a minute... Damn.

[messiestobjects]

Yes, we've gone native in the 21st century.