Johnny Coli

If you've ever seen "Bad Taste" you would wonder how he got any money to make a movie ever again. Mainstream it ain't. I loved it, of course.

Oddly enough, today is the 30th anniversary of Jaws. There was a great article in the paper (Boston Globe) yesterday making a good case that Spielberg and Lucas ruined modern cinema as we know it with the summer blockbuster.

You'll either get Kliban or you won't. Regardless, he came before Larson. B.Kliban selections

Give the people what they want.

Larson was good, but Kliban was great.

So you are welcomed in with open arms and can give freely to the church, you just can't receive the sacrements. I let all my gay friends know. They'll be so pleased.

Unless you are a homosexual, a divorcee.....

If someone said the basket represented something relevant, like Moses floating down the Nile, then maybe I would agree that it holds a purpose and not just cash. BTW, if you would let us genetically alter your food, then you wouldn't need to teach anybody how to farm. You'd have to teach them molecular biology, but we'd all be smarter.

Then why have the basket passed around at all? Why not have the basket/box/slot near the entrance to the church where people can unload their pockets on their way in or out? It's been a while for me, but isn't the basket passed around while the priest is preparing the sacrements? Shouldn't that be a time for personal reflection rather than emptying your pockets of spare change? As an example, maybe a bad one, but here it is none-the-less.... You're walking down the street thinking about something important (job, kids, life, the Bills), and a homeless person cuts you off and asks for your spare change. What's the first thought that crosses your mind? Seriously. If you are being truthfull, you're probably a bit irritated that this person is begging for change. You may give them some change, but what was your first reaction? Or...you tune into NPR (I know, quite a stretch for some of you) and they are having another damn fund drive. You wanted to hear the news, and they're asking you for cash on your commute. You wanted to hear more insightful analysis regarding the MJ trial, and instead these commies are hasseling you for your hard-earned cash. To top it off, you're at a stoplight and there's yet another vagrant walking between the cars begging for change, and another one soaping up your windshield. Leave me the hell alone, you say to yourself...the guy at the gas station just squee-geed my windshield, and I tipped him with all my spare change. This country has gone to hell.

True. The money grab is not exclusive to the RCC. I just don't think it should be part of the religious ceremony. But, truth be told, it doesn't really matter to me, because I don't go to church. Look, I'm not a religious person if it is to be defined by how and where a person worships. I just try to live my life without screwing anybody over. I probably react the way I do because I was formerly Catholic. I'm only in this thread to piss off Ben Franklin, anyway.

Where did I say I was outraged? I AM a catholic...well, WAS a catholic. I find the catholic church to be hypocritical and exclusionary. I find my own views completely opposite to their views/stance on abortion and gay marriage. Their handling of pedophile priests bordered on the criminal. I am not outraged, I just do not identify with what their version of faith is.

This has been happening for years in Boston/Cambridge. Most of the old punk venues are closed down due to gentrification of the neighborhoods, or expansion of the Universities (Boston University tried for many, many years to shut down the Rat in Kenmore square. The owner refused to sell to BU, but eventually caved to a hotel developer. They razed the entire block and put up a hotel. Kenmore Square is dead to me). It's nothing new. Money talks...what a shocker.

When they take the collection is just another glaring example of the Catholic church's reliance on guilt and shame. Why not just have an anonymous box for depositing their "donations"? Why, because then the entire congregation wouldn't get to see who donated and who didn't. It's only purpose is to shame people into opening their wallets and dumping cash into a basket on a stick.

Sorry, wrong thread. I thought you were talking about Schiavo.

What's to avoid? The government is taxing the hell out of the corporations to pay down debt. You chose an odd subject to pick a fight with. I say tax'em, then tax'em some more.

Didn't they cremate her?

I moved to Beantown from Upstate NY back in 1989. It is true that Sox fans know a lot about the Yankees because they obsess about them constantly, and have obsessed about them for 87 years. Outside of the Yankees, though, they are just as provincial as Pats/Bruins/Celtics fans. If you are an out-of-town fan of a team in the NHL/NBA playoffs and neither the Celts or Bruins are in the playoffs, good luck getting decent coverage here. A lot has changed with the internet and cable/sat packages, but you won't hear ANY informed sports talk in this town if it doesn't pertain to their teams, and trying to call into WEEI about it will only get you hung up on and/or ridiculed. I love how major publications think this is a "sports" town. Look, there are genuine fans here, fans who have had Pats tickets for 30 years. They are pretty informed, and generally cool to talk with because, let's face it, they have had some pretty lousy teams here. But try talking to some of the "newer" fans and if you don't praise Bellicheck or use the word Dynasty or admit that Brady is the greatest QB of all time, they think you are disrespecting them. I do enjoy living and working here, though. There are some good people. There are actually a ton of Bills fans here.

Everything reminds you of beer and ferrets.

I'll take a stab at this one. I believe he is saying that discussing something that is truly absurd lends legitamacy to it. This was the tactic that the scientists down in Kansas recently took when confronted with the Intelligent Design theory. Instead of going to the hearings, they refused to go on the premise that debating something so entirely stupid as the "theory" of intelligent design would legitamize it. Notice how I took the initial statement by beausox, translated it into something that most people would recognize as a sentence, then used an actual relevant event to serve as an example. Did that help at all, AD?

I may not have any dignity, but I do have 75 cents.

I rest my case. Your best defense was to not take the stand.

I'm in mine. It's a picture of me right after "the incident."

I stuff envelopes for Macys from my home. I only go down to the subway to pretend I have to commute to get to work. It makes what I do seem more legit. I never get on the subway. I found the subway pass in a gutter a few months ago. It was expired and worn down from the elements, and now it just says "ubwa". The title of this thread is "I'm Going Nowhere", and I'm clearly not.

Too late. It fell out of my pocket while I was fishing for my subway pass, and it rolled into a sewer. I have nothing to look forward too.

I found 25 cents on my way to work this morning. It was clearly the high point of my day, maybe even the week. I think I'll combine it with 3 other quarters and buy something neat at the dollar store, maybe one of those fuzzy things with the plastic eyes that sits on the end of a pencil. Good times.