Too Much Jesus (Not Enough Whiskey)

My brother turned me on to this song by Mighty Sam McCLain called Too Much Jesus (Not Enough Whiskey).

This is a philosophy I can whole heartedly embrace.

His friend gives up partying to party with Jesus, ends up running all his friends off, now he's questioning what has gone wrong even though he picked up the cross, because something doesn't feel right. Sam is there to explain it to him.

We are all looking for something. We can't exist in a vacuum. We need answers. Actually I take that back. There are those who stop looking for answers. I see the dull look in their eyes and hear the predictable jaded rationalizations. They bore me.

It's not that much of a trade off to give up whiskey for Jesus. Personally I would rather drink whiskey with Jesus. I would love to get the man drunk and get at The Truth. But you know he is too cool for that. Reality is, I'm sure I would get a belly full and end up talking myself straight to hell.

I have this vision of me tumbling out of the sky followed by a plume of empty Crown Royal bottles as the gates of heaven clang shut with a sonic boom. I end up lying at the feet of The Devil who is towering over me with a wicked grin. He dumps the last half inch of whiskey onto the ground out of the only Crown Royal bottle left in Hell and says "Why don't you crawl over there and tend to that furnace, little man."

Whiskey has as much chance of saving your soul as Jesus does. Anything that loosens you up and allows your mind to operate outside the straight jacket of daily life gives you a chance at understanding. Gives you a chance to investigate things from a different, sharper angle instead of taking things dead on.

Life comes at you dead on. You have to look straight ahead. To do your job, balance the budget, manage the details of your life. This is what prevents you from seeing what is real. The real beyond what we pretend to be real.

Cock your brain to a jaunty angle and you can see light leaking around the corners, slipping under the edges of the rules that constrict you. That light is life. It is what you are missing.

Judicious use of drugs will get you there too.

Hunter S. Thompson knew how to manage this. Keith Richards knows how to manage this. Hunter kept a copy of the Physicians Desk Reference handy and studied it. He knew how drugs interacted with each other and was able to ingest copious amounts and variations without kicking off. Keith consumed only the highest quality drugs and worked only with dealers that he knew and trusted.

I maintain that sort of discipline and knowledge is comparable to that practiced by successful people in their careers and is as admirable.

Judicious is the key word. You can drink too much whiskey, you can drink too much Jesus.

I am going to start a movement of Enlightenment And Compromise. Inspire churches to replace holy water with whiskey. Instead of dipping your fingers in holy water and making the sign of the cross, you grab a 3 ounce Dixie cup from the holder next to the basin and grab yourself a quick shot.

That will fortify you to withstand the feigned piousness of the person next to you and get you through the sermon.

And if priests develop a relationship with whiskey like they have with wine, the sermons might start sounding like Richard Pryor at The Apollo.

I could dig that.