​Which one motivates you more? Which one do you think is truer to reality?
 
Are you, in fact, beautiful—currently, right now, no matter what? If so, how are you beautiful? Physically, spiritually, generally? Does your beauty come with any obligations? Does this statement/fence make you feel better?
 
Or are you, in fact, a loathsome sinner worthy of hell? Have your deeds made you a delicious snack for a demon? (I love his expression; you make it after your fifteenth Cheeto—dude is zoning out.) If you are not currently a stand-in for one of the munchable-damned in this painting, do you think you could be if you gave in to a few temptations? Do you see something like this and not laugh from the safe distance of the post-Enlightenment, but instead react like Rilke before the torso of Apollo and hear a voice saying, “You must change your life”?

Most jokes about Catholicism are just jokes.  Most insults against the church are too frivolous to denounce.  And far too many of our scandals are of our own doing. 

The cooler heads among Catholicism know this, but cable news programmers do not rush cool heads into a studio to remain placid in front of a comedian’s jab or emit sorrow over an abuse case.  When they need someone to decry and denounce—to say absurd, insulting, and crazy shit—they can always count on Bill Donohue, president of the august-sounding Catholic League, to show up and act pissed.

Bill Donohue is a professional bully.  Since he bullies on behalf of religion, he creates a hard-edged irony that makes for good TV.   Actually, that’s a cliché:  it makes for extremely shitty TV, but it makes for good ratings. 

I’m not gonna play his game by quoting his obnoxious copy (the advertising term is apt) about gays, Jews, women, liberals, or whoever is the target of his silly ire.  If you are not familiar with him, just imagine someone saying something outlandish and cruel in the name of Jesus.  Bonus points if you imagined an assistant dean.

I just received this chilling email—sent from my own email account.

Dear Dennis,

Read every word of this letter.  We are the cops and we are not fucking around.

Steve Jobs died a week ago.  No one reading your blog would know that.  We keep hitting refresh, but there is still no assessment of his life, legacy, and cultural impact.  Is our browser broken?  No dude, YOU are broken. 

It’s impossible not to romanticize Patrick Leigh Fermor, who died last week at 96. 

When he was 18 he got booted from military school, so did the logical thing:  walked alone from Holland to Constantinople, sleeping in forests, farmhouses, bars—wherever he set down his pack.  During World War II he and a band of British commandos parachuted into Nazi-occupied Crete and set up shop “disguised as Cretan shepherds, complete with black turbans and sashes and armed with silver-and-ivory daggers.”*  In 1944 he kidnapped a German general—not something I’ve done, but I assume it was exciting. 

Here is a sample of some of my work that either was broadcast or published.

Stuff you can read:

• McSweeneys: I Will Fax Anything
  
• NPR: Mayor Rahm Emanuel
• Chicago Tribune: An Elegy for the Phone Book
• Chicago Tribune: Everybody's Running for Mayor
• Chicago Sun-Times: My take on people who don't believe in Oprah
• Chicago Sun-Times: My take on people who don't believe in that other God
• Chicago Tribune: The Great Wing Crisis of '09

Stuff you can listen to:  (FOR WBEZ LINKS: click "download" on the WBEZ site. The "Listen to this Story" button does not work.)

• DO'T solo joint: The Blizzard of 2011 Press Conference
• NPR: The Primacy of Short Men
• WBEZ: The Secret to My Success
• WBEZ:  Chicago, The 11th Angriest City
• WBEZ: Me (i.e., Dennis O'Toole) for Lt. Governor
• WBEZ: Letter to Obama

BONUS:  Photo of me in studio during a giant beard phase.