im in a bad mood because i just went through all of my expenses for last year bc im seeing my tax lady tomorrow, who i love, but still, last year was Rough and i had no idea how much money i spent on just fixing my car alone.

but todays good friday so lets talk about the Lord

i was in a Zoom call today and someone said good friday is actually sad

and i wanted to get into it but zoom’s lag is so bad that i fucking hate it

anyways good friday is good.

this was the part in the movie where Jesus

had to die.

first so he could pay for our sins

but also so he could rise from the dead.

both of those things are the coolest ever so whats the biggie being “dead” for a few days?

no one ever talks about the shitty time he spent right before his death wandering in the desert for 40 day and 40 nights being tempted n shit

and those temptations are so not-so-hard temptations.

hey Jesus, jump off this cliff, the angels will save you

hey Jesus, sell out to me and all of this will be yours

hey Jesus, if you’re so hungry, make bread outta this rock

those are super hard for the son of God?

maybe they are.

not being on social media for most of the day is hard for me.

not arguing with people on twitter is hard for me

so i guess everythings relative

i also dont think Good Friday is sad except for one moment when Jesus really became man

it was the part where he was nailed to the cross and He thought death was about to come

and it didnt

he just laid up there

actually suffering

actually paying for all of our sins

all at the same time

and it probably hurt like hell

in all the ways imaginable

in super villain ways

unbelievable pain that Only the son of God could withstand without dying

and then He probably hurt so band He thought it’ll be ok because this will just kill me and i can party back home in Heaven annnnny minute

and it didnt come

and Jesus yelled out

WHY HAVE THOU FORSAKEN ME?

like you would if your uber just doesnt fucking come

even if the little dot is like a block away and its been there since for ever it feels

and thats when Jesus felt human

and it fucking sucked.

then he died.

good.

friday.

once i was in college i stopped going to church

partially because once i started reading the bible in Isla Vista i learned that a lot of what i was taught in the Catholic Church wasn’t in the Good Book, which ends with it saying, “anyone who adds to this text will get the curses written herein” or something.

but the Catholics just wrote new crud anyways like nbd.

a few years ago a guy i hired way back in the day told me about a church in Koreatown that plays really good music. he invited me to come and who doesnt love good music? so i went and it is now my church.

but because of the Plague ive had to watch via YouTube and it’s super good. maybe better than IRL?

YESTERDAY the gospel was from the Sermon on the Mount, which we’ve all read a million times but it wasn’t about how the Meek shall inherit the Earth which i wrote about just the other day, it was about The Children of God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

so here’s the crazy thing about the Bible. they say you should read it over and over because little things that don’t mean squat to you when you’re twentysomething in Isla Vista during the Grunge Era will totally ring true to you once you are old fat bald living in Hollywood.

as i have revealed to you, sometimes i go on Twitter and pick fights.

im currently undefeated and find it rude to refuse to engage if i am called out.

we didnt do that in the streets, why avoid it in the tweets?

but… i want to be a child of God.

that sounds a ton better than inheriting a ruined, desolate, scorched Earth.

and all i have to do is be a peacemaker? done. DONE!

but that means not having twitter wars, flame wars, or wars of any kind.

that means not even having wars in my heart.

when i realized this, and trust me, it hit me hard, i immediately went to Facebook where i had left some verbal landmines on a rival Howard Stern group that has been overtaken by Trump supporters, and i deleted them.

because modern warfare, in my life, is not actual guns and actual weapons, it is the battles that i have about this or that where we are verbally sparring. sure my goal is to change people’s minds, but really it’s just crude ways of me saying “you’re dumb, im smart, and here’s several reasons why you should be ashamed of yourself.”

that is not being a peacemaker.

which means i will not be considered a child of God when my number comes up.

Black Sabbath will sound and i will be introduced as a War Pig, probs.

fuck that.

the good Lord has bestowed me with a nimble mind, a sharp tongue and a semi charmed life. why am i fighting on the stupid internet, probably with bots?

to hone my skillz? those skillz BEEN honed.

the skills Jesus is daring us to hone are not to dunk on each other, but to be the alley for some stranger’s oop.

you cant fuck around and score a triple double simply by hanging from the rim, shaq.

in conclusion: challenge accepted.

while at the house with the spectacular view i was asked if i am a born again Christian

and i hesitated because im not sure

for me to be born again means that as an adult you choose the religion

and it helps if something magical brought you to the conclusion.

thats me.

but we all know the world rarely fits into the tony pierce definition for things

the world probably says you have to be baptised again and several other requirements.

but being born again isnt something thats in the bible so to me it’s all made up and therefore insignificant but i dont want to avoid answering questions simply because it’s complicated.

but the mere fact i was considering saying yes seemed to surprise the gentleman asking

i guess because i dont come across as a born again Christian

which, i hate to say,

is probably a compliment.

which is sad because i bet you there are tons of believers who, like me, aren’t stereotypical in the negative way.

and arent trying to convert or debate or judge.

if anything i think i am religious because religion was never forced on me.

one day in college i decided to take a class called the Bible as Literature

and the more i read the stories the more i was shocked at how different they were from what i thought they were. how much wasnt in there. and how short they were.

so i ended up reading the whole thing to see what else i thought i knew that i didnt know.

the best part of the story is this: i ended up taking two classes about the Bible,
became super into it
and i still got bad grades in both classes.

neither teacher appreciated my interpretations.

i remember one guy

we were studying the new testament. Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount.

He says that the meek shall inherit the Earth.

so my paper was something like “I Still Think The Meek Are Screwed”

and in it i gave example after example of how Christians and Jews are instructed to aim higher than just the mundane things: money, property, idols, the flesh. Story after story about guys who want material things — or gets them — and they’re still unhappy.

everyone is being told, turn away from the things of the world, you treasure will be in Heaven.

then here at the mount we are told the Meek will get the Earth in the future.

i was like, in Revelations they said the earth is going to be uninhabitable, locust everywhere, worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. so who wants to inherit that?

i wrote, unless the Earth means The Heavens, why should anyone want to inherit something theyve been told is a red herring?

well this teacher flipped out.

my paper was jackson pollock of red ink.

fortunately it was pass fail so since i did the paper on time he couldnt truly punish me for actually reading the book and writing down what i thought.

i know i write a lot about the Bible.

i do it because i am surrounded by the most interesting, most well-read and brilliant minds, but they refuse to read the most misunderstood tome ever.

sometimes the devil wins.

i do it because i am the least interesting, least well-read, confused mind, and i am fascinated by it.

for a so-called book of propaganda, page after page reflects a basic human condition: rebellion.

either corrupt leaders are rebelling against What Is Obviously Right, men are cheating on their wives, the powerful are enslaving the poor, or the privileged are refuting what they have experienced in favor of what is poisonous for them.

ignorance, fear, foolishness… whatever their motivating roots,  in the Bible, just like in life, people themselves are often their worst enemies.

and the devil wins.

some propaganda when chapter after chapter tribes and cultures would rather make wooden idols and pray to them instead of following the God who oversees miracle after miracle.

some propaganda when the Son of God appears and is ridiculed and mocked and shunned by even those who see him work his magic up close.

some propaganda when there is rarely an ah-ha moment by any of the main characters in the New Testament, and those who were faithful are portrayed as insane, criminal, and whores.

i believe the Bible because it keeps it so real that even the impossible to believe parts don’t seem so wild because what is more confounding than to constantly listen to the devil in your head instead of the angel in front of you

ride or die.

critics say God shows very little love for his people in the bible: he floods them, shuns them from the Garden, plays deadly games with them, asks them to Believe with zero proof

and i agree there are very few scenes where Jesus or Moses or David takes a child or a hater or anyone on his lap and strokes their hair and says, “I love you so much, I wish I could connect with you, I wish you could see what I see when I see you.”

but the Bible isn’t a cheesy movie. it isn’t Hollywood. it isn’t all the phony baloney melodrama we’ve grown accustomed to. it is a reflection of real life, real relationships, and real struggles and rarely do those include some poetic soliloquy

and ironically there are very few come to Jesus moments.

what there is is a general theme of patience.

God is frustrated by his creations from the first couple and then again by their kid who kills their other kid. and on and on and on.

At first He’s like fuuuuuuuck these people and wipes them almost all out, but realizes that isn’t gonna solve anything. and the rest of the book is about God trying his best not to slaughter every last asswipe himself.

but damn if the devil doesn’t win page after page after page.

without even trying.

just by being there.

just by being Bad.

humans are so attracted to Bad and Fear and Sadness and Misery in the good book – and in life – that they feel more comfort and safety in it than with Love or Peace or Unity or even being a good neighbor.

every ugly violent act is portrayed in the bible – while beauty is rare.

but when it does happen it startles even Jesus.

one of my favorite stories, which seems ridiculous out of context, but when framed by all the suspicion and confusion of the Gospels is when a woman makes her way though the throngs to get near Jesus.

for 12 years she was, basically, a hemophiliac – she couldn’t stop bleeding.

she thinks to herself, “if I can just touch him, I will be healed.” so when she finally gets close enough, she touches the hem of his clothes and she is instantly healed. he can feel it all through her body.

Jesus felt the power leave him too and turns around and says to the crowd, “who touched me?”

some wise guy said – and im paraphrasing, “bro look around at this giant crowd, everyone is touching you.”

but the woman, knowingly, but afraid, gets on her knees crying, admitting it was her.

and Jesus, in one of the most loving moments he will have, says,

“because of your Faith you are healed. go in peace.”

the devil doesn’t always have to win.

he wins a LOT but not always and sometimes it’s the smallest things that we are all capable of

that can bring healing to our lives.

but what the story of the bleeding woman teaches me is

sometimes you just have to walk,

for once,

towards Good.

well that was crazy talk

i read it last sunday, just like i have every sunday for the last ten years or so

or twenty? who knows. who cares.

all i know is its good to have a little routine in your life if youre a somewhat crazy person like i am.

i have to do my laundry now. this is probably the only sad thing about my life. my landlord and my request to put a washer dryer in my apartment.

at the beginning of the year i called her to ask her if i needed to do anything to get a washer dryer and she said first of all you cant have one

i said but everyone else has one.

and she said and secondly youd have to write a letter asking if you can have one. so i wrote the letter and it was not answered. now a lot of things could have happened. for example it could have gotten lost somewhere between hollywood and santa monica. it was probably routed to downtown and then something crazy could have happened to it like it was burned by clowns on a smoke break.

or she doesnt really respect me because i pay the lowest rent in the building. and she thinks that if i have to haul my laundry to the laundramat all the time i’ll eventually get fed up with the lack of basic laundry equipment and move.

but ive lived here over 15 years. the first five of those years i didnt even have a car and i still figured out how to get my clothes to the laundramat. now i have a bad ass german luxurymobile. i can get my cubs shirts cleaned, have no fear.

you know what the bible teaches about this? it teaches that i should keep asking. moses’s jews were slaves in egypt. he had no leverage, just like how i dont neither. but he kept saying let my people go. of course he also said i will torture you through freaky plagues, but at the root of it – moses was gonna keep asking until it happened.

part of me wants to say, look i’ll pay $20 more a month, you know, to cover any water costs. but fuck that. she never responded to my first letter. why should she get an extra $140 a year for being rude to me? i dont even spend that in a year in quarters at the laundromat.

but i will ask again. i will say. hello, tony pierce here. earlier this year i sent a letter about me purchasing a washer dryer. i believe clowns may be involved and intercepted the request. may i please install a washer dryer in my apartment, in the spot where there are washer dryer hook ups ready to go? thank you so much.

hopefully shes been reading the bible too

im almost done with reading the gospels. they’re all a little different.

it makes me think maybe some biographies should be written in four chapters

all by different authors

that way if one guy is easily impressed, thats fine,

but maybe the next guy wont look at all of it the same way.

one thing that ive noticed is pontious pilate gets a pretty fair shake in each of the books

every time its his turn he says

whats the damn deal here

and jesus is all

and pp is like, why are all of these people super pissed off at you and wanna kill you?

and jesus is all

and pp goes are you the king of the jews

and jesus is all

and pp is like who even cares? angry mob i see no crime here, im out. peace!

and they were all, no peace unless you kill him

and pp was all omg finnnnnne whatever!

so i wonder what four writers would write about bob dylan