Welcome to the spiritual side of the repulsive website at TroutPomeroy.com called 'Ask Rev. Trout'
February 2010
Dear Rev. Trout,
They say it is really hot in Hell, worse than Palm Springs in August. If it is un-holy hot in Hell does that mean it is similarly frigid in Heaven?
Billie Jean Renfrow, Waco, Texas
Dear Billie Jean,
With a name like that I'd bet you could whup the living daylights out of an infant gorilla. I've been in Palm Springs at various times of the year and agree with you that it is terribly expensive place to park especially if you're pulling a Hummer behind your Winnebago. As far as Heaven being proportionately as cold as Hell is hot, we can turn directly to The Scriptures for our answer, although I think it would be better if you tried to do that instead of myself. I can offer one clue: the truth is in either the New or Old Testament. That should be helpful. Regarding which climatic extreme appeals to me most, I can only say "keep the thermostat down but don't get an STD." If there really is a Heaven I know my mother is there and she always had a sweater on.
Dear Rev. Trout,
I'm opening up a religious clothing store in Vatican City and need some advice. Do you think "Osama's Pajamas" is too limiting for most tourists? People bring a lot of extra spending money when they visit here but I'm not really sure most of them are interested in burlap ensembles however ordained. We're also toying around with a few other names -- "Socks 'n Lox" is probably my favorite. We'd have just a few Hebrew delicacies but mostly Roman Catholic staples like fish 'n chips and anything by Connie Francis. There's barely any barley over here so we don't do soup although there is chili in Heaven.
Denise Fulcher, Lake Chiwawa, Italy
Dear Denise,
Please let me know when you begin selling franchises. I think you've got one of the better ideas I ever heard, a concept so potentially profitable and spiritually rewarding it's amazing no one else thought of it before you did, especially considering the fact you drink vodka for breakfast. I'd stay away from any Muslim references and expand beyond just pajamas, possibly adding a few lines of slippers and perhaps some personally monogrammed towels featuring catchy phrases such as "Perot for President." Vatican officials, and they number in the tens of thousands, are all about fancy gowns and lofty hats and opulent candle-stick holders and jeweled shafts. They're gaudier than a Peruvian bowling team with an unlimited expense account and build multiple colors into their wardrobes as mechanisms to project their particularly proximate relationship to God in the smaller scheme of things. Knowing that be sure to hike up the profit margins on anything resembling either the birthplace of Jesus Christ or the hometown of Bishop Sheen.
Dear Rev. Trout,
Where did you study The Bible? As a regular reader it is beginning to occur to me you are a complete fraud and probably not a very good Christian either. Have you ever been in a church other than to steal from the collection plate?
Casper Weinberger, Costa Hosta, California
Dear Cap,
I studied The Holy Bible at the College of Joe Mama and am as far from a fraud as a woman can be during a horrible thunder storm. I am one hell of an excellent Christian and ask myself this question several times every hour: What would Jesus do? Actually I think Jesus would do the same thing Buddha would do, or Mohammad or Barney Fife for that matter. To complete my response, I have been in more churches than either Jim or Tammy Faye Bakker combined although my time behind bars always took place in the custody of the warden as I spent my career as a newspaper reporter covering lifer's organizations and the like. To confess, father, I have taken coins from church collection plates ... but I always replaced them with equivalent amounts of paper money. So just because you worship in a synagogue and served under George Walker Bush, always remember I can recite passage and verse with the most cynical of them all and can also do an amazingly convincing imitation of the actor, Mr. Ed.
Ask Rev. Trout
Revvin’ – 12-29-09
Dear Rev. Trout Mon,
Hey, man you crazy or something? I found this web site while dialing for Dali and just spent most of the night reading your premature prose. You have more alter egos than the Vatican and some of your characters clearly have no fear of God. Attempts at humor fall on depth beers as your cup surely doth runneth overeth, Hubert. You tilt at gin mills like Cervantes wilted at the Battle of Toledo. You dally in dizzy wordsmithing abusing the computer keyboard and possibly even violating the religious laws of some obscure sect in rural Ohio. What are religious laws and why do they even exist?
Andre in Europe somewhere
Dear Andre,
I am crazy enough to write back to you which should serve as an indicator of how far one man will go to one-up another man, assumedly. In our culture your name, Andre is a man’s name but these days I realize anything goes, especially in your part of the world where women repair motorcycle engines. So no matter your gender and ignoring mine, please know how tickled all of us are to welcome you to super friendly America, home of the grilled cheese sandwich and pro wrestling. And to think you found this specific web site when www.sex.com remains free touches my heart ignites my Visa accounts and causes the small finger on my left hand to vibrate involuntarily. If you think you’re fascinated by religious law I can only say, you’re not the homely Juan. How about this Juan, one: You cannot eat meat on Friday but you can eat fish. I have another Juan, one: If you are not a Jehova’s Witness you cannot get to heaven, let alone, Heaven. One-sixth of humanity believe if you do not believe in what they believe in, they are entitled and even expected to kill you ASAP if not sooner. Now there is a law I can get behind – on the Nude Jersey Turnpike that is. And if they succeed in killing you, they are entitled to having their way with 62 virgins when THEY get to heaven, AKA, Las Vegas. In the church where my parents dragged me until they became too weak to lug me up its stairs, we learned that God is the father of Jesus. Same said savior who died for our sins and is expected to return to our midst at which point we will all be expected to stop what we are doing at that sacred moment and convey some sort of sincere appreciation for all the dimension transition and positive role modeling. That I was able to buy that as a youngster and continue to cling to its message of hope and transformation all these many years later is sheer testament to what happens to the imagination when hundreds of neurons convene on an alien impulse and all the virgins adapt to the environment. Please never change and always write, just keep writing, forever and beyond.
Rev. Lupe L. Trout Mon
Dear Dr. Trout,
Your insights saved our marriage. We were so close to calling it quits I’d already sold my wedding ring and put a picture of my privates on a social web site. Perhaps you saw that film, “Saving Private Ryan?” That was me man, Dick Ryan. Gretchen and I have never been happier. We thought we were at the brink but it was really just a culvert. Thinking it was over I believe each of us had second thoughts at the 11th Hour. Then when we read your book on yodeling, it was if all the original reasons we had to team up in the first place fell back into order in our hearts and minds so we got behind that and no longer feel bass-ackward about our relationship, as it were, or, was. Your character, Happy Bill Hansen, finally comes to his senses when he wakes up from the bad dream he has about being a yodeling dude and realizes he’s just the guy he was before he took a nap – Timothy McVey. Once again, thanks Reverend and God bless you sir.
Dick Ryan, Los Lobos, California
Dear Dick,
Can I call you “Rick?” Thanks, Rick.
Look, Rick, if Happy Bill can help you and Gretchen get through another week together without any more destructive name-calling or other verbal hyperbole then I’m just glad I didn’t check out on ‘ludes back in the late-‘60s. To merely think I still have a purpose here in spite of all the sarcasm and lack of respect for female members of the informal clergy is frankly sanity inducing in a rather demented sense. Your message leaves me thirsty, craving alcohol, oddly. God be with thee, Rick. And, to all my readers, may your soul know the love of Lassie in this lifetime and beyond.
Rev. Trout
Waterford, MI