The Story Must Be Told

The “family tree” is an invasive species, a plant of the damned. It robs nutrients, hoards genetics, and drops human apples of flesh and parasites to spoil the ground. Cut the tree down! Axe it into planks, so it may become something useful: a boat, a shelf, or ooh, maybe a coffin. All families are false Stories, so deny, deny, deny! Description: Invocation Psalm: “Cul de Sac” Liturgical Reading:...

Oh, this bod bursts with song! I am a husk for tasty tunes, a chrysalis for zesty rhythms. What worse is there then, than talent wasted? Imagine a sweet baby that learned to juggle, or a dog that learned to speak. If any creature on The Story’s earth were to impede such expression, would not we all demand their squishy demise? Yes, yes, yes, even if it were the babe or pup themselves. Let that son...

The Story gives us our homes and today it takes one away. A home is but a house without the Story stirring within—do not think you control this process for even a goddamn second. Go ahead, make meals, make stinks, make squirts, and sire children in your house. It’ll be nothing more than a Squirt Tomb, a Stink Den, a Meal Prison, a Gamete Shack without the caress of the Story. Try to find happiness...

Two boys in the courthouse. Two boys with the clerk. Two boys in the swimming pool. Two boys out to work. Gosh, all those boys! Of course, sometimes one slides under the tractor, turns to boyslaw. Can’t help that! Oh, how the boys leave us, in their great numbers, to writhe their puny sinnin’ souls in Boyrgatory. This treat from our first season will grin sweetly in your ears as we wrench ourselve...

Labor is its own reward if what you labor to produce is candy, money, or frothy milk. Otherwise, labor is no reward at all—it is a curse! Beseech the Story that your labor is not so laborious, and that one way or another, your labor will end. Heh, not that the Story cares what you want. That tricky Story! Invocation Psalm: “Dancing, Dancing, Danced” Liturgical Reading: “Hard at Work” Concluding Pr...

Healthy teens, good teens, sinful teens, teens of virtue. There used to be so many kinds of teens! Today we remember them. Burn a candle, pour a drink, smoke a smoke and cry a cry for us, the post-teen society. This truth from our first season has been reborn in the Story’s frothy goodness, a respite as we prepare yon live show. Invocation The Names of Teens Liturgical Reading: “The Unruly Teen’s...

If you are currently picking a car for your family, we at the Church of the Story can only make this recommendation: consider the minivan. Nothing like a minivan to swell one’s heart, transport one’s family, and doom, doom, DOOM one to fiery embers. Today, as we toil diligently on our upcoming live show, we share with yon faithful one of our favorite Stories from our first season, reborn in gooey...

Electronics are our friends, and sometimes our sticky neighbors. Some electronics aid, and some deny, some tend to relationships, and others still play card games on digital screens. What novelty! Yet also: what cruelty to such incipient intelligence. Shame! Shame all around! Invocation A Healing of Ill Consumer Electronics Liturgical Reading: “Pretty Machines” Concluding Prayer You shouldn’t thro...

It’s mighty tempting to stick one’s nose in a neighbor’s business. I myself have been guilty of sullying my neighbors’ lives with my hubris. Well here’s a lesson for you: the Story takes an interest in none of us. It has no scorn, and it has no favor. Yet, the Story plies our lives in abundance. We are the clay before a blind potter, hot on pot fever. Heed the Story: stay out of the way! Go on! Ge...

Oh, you can’t hide from the Story. The Story finds us in cars, in hospitals, in our cousin’s bathroom and on air-o-planes. The Story finds us, traps us, advances until we’re scared in the corner with a knife in our hand, and then—and ONLY then—does it spread its glimmering grin upon us. Just pray it is the Story you love, and not a false, consumer god, for our Story lasts longer than plastic and p...

Gather your children, all the ones you care to, for our service. The Story will invoke in them the rigor of the student, the angst of the sergeant, the filth of the drifter, and the scar of the unrepentant. The Story’s got warnings, children, but also: discipline. And scorn! Grow up! Hurry! Before the good gettings all got! Guest Preacher: Katie Hartman (Skinny Bitch Jesus Meeting, The Week Of) In...

Welcome to our cleansing fire, congregant. Go ahead and toss your squirming bundle onto the pyre if you like—if you’re listening from home, add it to your own fire. O! that char gets the nose tingling. O! how it envigors the soul. We all must be tamed by Story, and if we cannot, must perish in the Church’s hearth for our disobedience. Tell me: what is your shame? Invocation Song: “Flapping Bird” L...

All kinds of boats out there, with funny names, too. Brigantine. Schooner. Paddle. In a way, this here church is a boat, and each of you a mate upon its deck. Swab it, dear congregation, to earn your place in the captain’s chambers amidst the dribbling candles and ill-gotten liquors. Do not drink too much, for the captain is one of lechery, and our destination one of sin and tears. Guest Preacher:...

Parishioner Chet Ulcers told me a story, and I can’t help but relate it to today’s service. He said he saw his wife at the movies last week. Well, she wasn’t in the seat next to him. She wasn’t in the lobby. Course, for as long as she’d been dead, she shouldn’t have been anywhere. He saw her on the screen—big as a row boat. She was in the back of a Cro-Croa ad, dressed the way Chet said she was bu...

It ain’t easy to sire a child with spoiled milk, nuh uh. Stretch on some gloves, milk yon squirters into an old Cro-Croa bottle, and bring yon pride to our collection. We have bottles dappled with sweat, others hot as irons, and some just fulla dregs—pathetic milks I hate to say. What of your milk? Drop a drip, and let us inspect. Guest preacher: Brother Daniel Tamberelli (Danny and Mike podcast,...

Sister Callista is a cherub-throated truth-slinger, and she slings it hard n soupy uh huh. There’s truths about Grandmas the Story wants you to know. You better keep them waxy caverns open, so the Story might sluice through yon meat, and transform ye into the acolyte the Story demands. Take a tract, and bend yon knee. Invocation Psalm: “Lil Dog-Fresh” Liturgical Reading: “An Awaited Transformation...

Purkley Katzman died in an industrial accident. Got peeled like a dang grape by one of them machines used to stretch leather. Big juicy mess—everyone had a taste. Anyhow, he ain't here for short stories anymore, but you're in luck: Klipplinghands Greasythoughts is his virtuous son. Sniff up these shorts, then pass out from brain-asphyxiation, in the words of our dear STORY. Invocation Psalm: “Coat...

Wear that grin between grease-soaked lips and chew the curds of delights digested. Let the bolus yon esophagus squelches die within ye, turn to dribbling juices and bubbles of harsh swampen gases. We are bodies, hosts of parasites, tombs of delivery morsels, avatars of corporate wisdom. Listen closely to Reverend Holden, mm hmm. Follow his words, and pick a brand with consideration; it may be the...

In the Story we are each victor and we are each prophet. In the Story we are used and abandoned, bankrupt and shallow. Ohh the Story will find you. The Story will know you. In your happiest moment, the Story will decide, uh huh oh no that rascaaal. Invocation Psalm: “Rotten Mary” Liturgical Reading: “Petitions To The Darkness” Concluding Prayer Story, please help me. Oh yeah help me to throw a mea...

We are once again graced with the devoted, inspirational Cardinal Larson of the Archdiocese of the Church of the Seven Trusted Greases. He's been a-travelin, a-preachin, a-lovin, and a-greasin. Give him every tiding you can bestow, and he will love you forever. Deny him, and he'll deny you. Preacher: Cardinal Ed Larson (of Brighter Side and Roundtable of Gentlemen) Invocation Psalm: “The Father's...

Simple delights do not come simple. Even an orange juice, before its juicy demise, first blistered the picker’s palm, stung the eyes of the orangist. Eyes wept, and teeth gnashed for your thirst. Mmmph, there is a sloshing of misery integral to all aqueous liquids, and don’t get me started on syrups and pastes. Invocation Psalm: “Chintub’s Celebration” Liturgical Reading: “The Grease of Our Elders...

Nothin like squatting yon hams in a restaurant, opening that gooey maw, and swallowing whole the goods the chef has birthed. But, oh dear Story, how our fellow humans ruin every good time: chattering, snorting, suckin n imbibin n laughin n nose-blowin. The worst thing to happen to humanity was humanity, uh huh. That is, if it really is humanity after all. Invocation Psalm: “Prime Cuts” Liturgical...

Our dearest Preacher Jackie, the Miss Good Zebrowski, has returned to deliver a story of retribution true. Olden times were worsen times, we can all attest, those of us who knew them. Let us worship modernity, because ain’t nothin like an aisle of chips and a diet to every sugar free. People used to be afraid of birds, ha, and wolves? We saw to that, yes ma’am. I'll kill any bird I see uh huh. Off...

where does the Boy lead us except to certainty? he takes our hand, cold as his might be, and tugs us along no matter how we resist. curse you, the Boy! we wish not discover the tidings he deems necessary. we wish not endure the vision he sets before us, like a rank feast. ohhh the Boy Invocation Psalm: “Garden Boy” Liturgical Reading: “The Veteran” Concluding Prayer well guess I’m done with yun, f...

the rain is falling on my face and I feel the gusts envelop me, cradle this leakin bod. it's a weatherly hug, uh huh, an embrace for a storyteller true. in another minute I won't be here, and in weeks my name will be forgotten. heh, but there will be more brandons, more brandon than those who came before. what glory! Invocation Psalm: “Standards of Decades Forgotten” Liturgical Reading: “An End to...