577 – Gorch • 04


On June 17th, 1603 Joseph Desa was born to Felix and Francesca in the town of Cupertino Italy. (Well, Francesca anyway. Felix died just before Joseph’s birth.) Joseph grew into an extremely dim-witted young man, and was known around town as “the Gaper” for his tendency to stare slack-jawed into space.

Not having any real prospects, Francesca tried to get Joe into a few different friaries around town. (At least monks always got fed.) Unfortunately Joe was a bit of a spaz (god had gifted him with “ecstasies”) and none of the monks were willing to let the stupid kid play any of their reindeer games. Eventually the Franciscans decided that while he might not be bright enough for chanting and tonsures, he was plenty smart to clean stables and wash socks. So they took him on as their servant and set about getting some socks for him to clean. Later they made him a priest. (Franciscans apparently embrace a very corporate, “promote to your level of incompetence” governing structure.)

At the Feast of Saint Francis is a-Sissy (I can’t help it — I can’t even write it correctly anymore.) on October 4th, 1630, Joe got so ecstatic that god gifted him with the power of flight, and the young man buzzed around the crowds for the remainder of the afternoon. After this Joe started flying all the time. Any time he’d get really into his prayers, or just thinking about Jesus, or if someone sneaked up behind him and whispered “Mary” into his ear, ZOOM! Off he’d go.

Clearly seeing no possibility of divine providence in a monk who could pick up and fly around the friggin’ room at the mention of Jesus’ name, Joe’s superiors in the church forbade him to fly ever again. God however, had gifted Joe a little more sternly than that, and Joe’s ecstasies and his flights continued unabated. Suddenly armed with more-or-less incontrovertible proof of god’s handiwork, as well as the fact that people were coming from all over Europe to witness the Flying Saint, (really the Flying Idiot, since you can’t be sainted until someone kills you for flying) the church did the only thing that made any sense, and locked Joe away in first Assisi, then when crowds started coming there to see him, Pietrarubbia, then Fossombrone, and finally Osimo. Every time he was moved he was forbidden another form of communication, until finally he restricted to speaking only to his direct superiors among the other monks.

During this time Joe got kinda depressed and god took away all his gifts, because no one like a whiney baby.

In 1663 Joe got sick, and began to die. He was pretty excited at the prospect, having had everything there was to live for taken from him by the church and by god. (In his wisdom.) A month later Joe died, and huge crowds showed up to his funeral, which must have pissed the boss monks off.

In 1767 (two hundred years before my birthday) Joe was canonized. Among other things, Joe is the saint of astronauts and very stupid people.

If I was a saint, I’d want to be the saint of appreciating boobies and people who aspire to become alcoholics but can’t afford it. What would you like to be the saint of?

64 Responses to 577 – Gorch • 04

  1. Sacrilege! You shall be denied the touch of The Noodly Appendage!

    ….I guess that means by default I’d represent a good saint of cynicism, sarcasm, argumentation and the freedom to dissent. This doesn’t work though since at least one of those things counts as the sin of heresy in the world of god-botherers.

  2. I’d like it to be something cool, but it’d probably be ‘procrastination and mild disappointment.’ Oh and there would have to be something odd in there too, so how about ‘Newspaper Editors’.

  3. I can’t believe it Kevin, but you managed to offended me. what if this guy really was flying? flying is my DREAM man!

    I want to fly dammit and NO planes are not acceptable, maybe jet packs, maybe.

    • I never said he didn’t fly. I’d like to think that he really did zoom about the sky, if only because it highlights how ridonkulously the Catholic church acts. They shouldn’t have locked this dude away, they should have tied a string to his toe and taken him on tour.

  4. This proves Douglas Adams’ thesis that the secret key to flying is falling to the ground but missing. Only a dimwitted spaz could have been a natural at that.

    Which explains a lot about that farmboy Clark Kent.

  5. i would be the saint of apathetic pot smokers “come one come all and hear the words of …(puff puff inhale) nahhhhh nevermind…” wonder if thats where they got that old tv show “the flying nun” from ( sally fields when she was young).
    oh and damn martins an asshole heh heh heh

  6. Can I be patron saint for things that start with the letter B? Brains, Beauty, Boobies, Billions of dollars, Banana splits?

  7. The patron saint of INVINCIBILITY.

    *And as a footnote that history will oft-ignore in light of this awesome INVINCIBILITY, also the patron saint of death metal.

      • Sufficiently divergent indeed.

        Compare and contrast the following:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgcDlqwxhl4 (Second wave black metal. Probably the most famous black metal song EVER. Note what the song is about MUSICALLY: brutal, pounding riffs. Lo-fi. A lack of emphasis on technical skill and more on the emotion, a similarity it has with punk. The guitar solo here is actually really unusual.)

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bFRE0Jmk0M (Death metal is called death metal because of the band Death. This is Death. While the genre has gone into many directions (from Gorod to Cannibal Corpse), a very complicated and technically difficult theme remains. I am really into death metal though, and can talk about it all day, and I have a half-written first draft of a paper due in about 3 hours so I am not going to.)

        *Exceptions exist to all of these. Plenty of them.
        1) Black metal vocals are high, death metal vocals are low.
        2) Black metal is low-fi. Death metal is not.
        3) Death metal is complicated, musically. Black metal is not.
        4) Black metal is much more counter-culture in real life. Mayhem is famous because Varg murdered Eponymous (the guitarist) for being ‘incompetent.’ Then starting his own project (Burzum).

  8. Patron of Ludicrous Acts.

    One of my favorite such acts is the culmination of the story of Alexander Alekhine, it makes an interesting counterpoint to Joe Dase’s story. In short, AA was born in Imperial Russia, was out of the country during the revolution, stayed away, became World Chess Champion, worked for the Nazis during the war, died in Portugal while preparing for a title defense. Then the USSR declared him “the ideal Soviet man”. That’s right, the USSR decided a Nazi collaborator was the perfect representative of the communist state.

    • Well, the Soviets had their own Jew-hunt thing going on so maybe that had something to do with it? It couldn’t possibly have been just a cynical attempt to repatriate his successes and fame for propaganda purposes.

  9. Can I be the Patron Saint of “Stubbing your toe on the coffee table while having a nasty cold”?
    Happened three times this week.

  10. I want to be the patron saint of cake. Cheesecake will be the blessed food of my saintyness, but all cake is covered. Everyone loves cake! To my followers I send big cakes with nekkid chicks popping out of the top- or beefcake for the ladies. Sing hymns to the holy frosting! And lightest thou many candles atop the yummy cakey goodness.

    • Ah, and I guess I’m the guy who martyrs you because the cake all has milk, butter, cream, cheese, yoghurt or some derivative of the above in it.

      Yes, that allergic.

      • Thank you Kevin- may cupcakes rain down apon thee.

        As to the other two, the anti-saint of cakes- the evil cake nazi has taken notice and says “I make special poop cake just for you! Open wide!”

  11. I’d have to be the Patron Saint of Bikers, Prostitutes and Pickpockets. Someone has to look out for those people.

    I love Martin. He’s the character I always wanted to play.

  12. The saint of Loony tunes and kinky S#X.

    except that they’d never give out the second one, Too many priests would have a saint then……Zing

    Nobody flame me I could not be a saint since I’m Jewish.l

  13. I’d be patron saint of arguing our gods are dumbass alien fratboys, but that Michel Bruno or whatever his name is already got burned at the stake and recently forgiven for believing in aliens(anybody remember his name?)
    Kudos to the big Mo Church for taking a slack-jawed moron who thought he could fly, and turning him into a souvenir factory. Pales in comparison to the Pentagon turning a moron with a permanent smirk who thought he could fly fighter planes into a two term presidente. Also most saints / magic people are completely bonkers, but it stands to reason they’d go nuts pretty fast if they did have real magic powers. Hey look I just summed up the whole Wheel of Time series:)

  14. Can I be the Saint of People who Notice that Dog is God spelled backwards and Assumes this has Significance? I know it’s a Terry Pratchett ripoff, but Dogdammit, the Catholics deserve a saint like that too.

  15. I would very much like to be a non-saint, since saintlyhood would contradict what I believe in and stand for! Hoooorrraaaaaaay! 😀

    Though what with the mormon custom of post-mortem “baptism” of, well, whoever they feel should have that particular honour… NO ONE IS SAFE. RUN. RUN FOR THE HILLS.

  16. I’d be the patron saint of “Sharp stabby things” and “thinks that go boom, and make pretty fire.”

  17. Patron Saint of Astronauts, eh? I would love to have that. But, since that position is taken, I guess I’ll make do with Patron Saint of Faster-Than-Light Travel and Starships.
    Saint Morgan* of the Warp
    Too bad I am not Catholic.

    • Oh yeah! Ahead of the curve!

      This is totally the time to be jumping on stuff like that. Saint of Teleportation, Saint of Terraforming, Saint of Tattoos That Move Around, Saint of Holographic Porn… all that stuff!

  18. Saint of Asteroid Impacts
    If you annoy me, BAM there goes your house.
    Make me actually angry, WHAM there goes your whole town.
    Really piss me off? Well, lets just say the last T-Rex I talked to left me in a really bad mood.