You can't realize your potential if you're sitting on your ass. You're wasting what the Holy Rock and Roll Ghost done gave you: thousands of internal twitch-codes waiting to be unlocked by fast and furious drums, a military bass, a twanging (or scraping) (or stabbing) (or exploding) (or chink-a-chinking) guitar, a rolling piano (no, we haven't heard a fresh one of those in these parts since Fess died, have we, folks?), wake-the-dead horns. The needle hits the record. You get up. You move this way and that. It feels good. You can't stop. Your shirt's drenched. You're far away now, from piling up nuts in your cave, from baring your teeth at the other animals, from wondering if you're gonna make it through winter. You're in touch with the rock and roll world. You're in touch with salvation--yeah, I said it...what of it, ye deaf, soulless, humorless heathens? Temporary, you say? Not if it's a ritual. Not if you get outta the stands, and into the game...the rhythm of the game...24-7, 365. In the immortal words of Sam the Sham, "Let's not be L-7/Let's learn to dance." Alone, together, on the dance floor, in front of your bedroom or bathroom mirror, hell, in your dreams if your obstacles are too daunting.

Need help? Prophets of twitch-liberation abound in the grooves of rock and roll's holy history. Kick up some sawdust to Bob Wills and his magic Texas Playboys. Float on lazy, shifting clouds with Pres and Lady Day. Grind your groin til your bloodshot eyes bug out along with Mr. Blues, Wynonie Harris. Invent your own one-legged, knee-knocking maneuvers with the help of a tag-team tutorial administered by Brother James, the MGs, and the Meters. Space-boogie in an ancient trance induced by the Arkestra. Too sophisticated to get this far out? No problem: Slap on some Chic for some elite syncopation. If you need your instruction brand-spanking-new, well, the gospel of body-movin' hasn't been fully co-opted by techno machines; the Human Underground Stasis Resistance Squad is in full effect, behind a plethora of masks (that means you may have to look hard for 'em). Goodie Mob, Ray Condo and the Ricochets, and James Carter, among others, are stirring new spices into old recipes for butt-shaking, ankle-twisting, back-breaking communing with the Holy Rock and Roll Ghost.

What the hell is soul, anyway? Maybe we can get a clear idea by reeling off the names of a few of the Devil's minions who don't have it (remember the words of Saint Dylan:"...I love you/Not because of what you are/But because of what you're not"). Kenny G(erm). Stink. Mitch (Run of the Mill)er. Air Biscuit Supply. Dan Fogey-berg. Celine D-yawn. Pat B(uff)oone. And those are just some of the schmucks who invented their own strain of lifeless, selfish, masturbatory musical disease--we won't call out the phonus balonuses who have made life miserable for some and confused the rest since Al Jolson, Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Jimmie Rodgers, Charley Patton, Emmett Miller, Louis Amstrong, Charlie Poole, and Bessie Smith-- the first messengers of the Holy Rock and Roll Ghost--revealed to us the Light of the Wavelength.

Maybe what it boils down to is a genuine acknowledgment--in your writing, singing, playing, dancing--of the pure pain and ecstasy, of the tears and laughter, of the confusion and clarity, of the boredom and thrills (both cheap and earned), of the choking darkness and blinding light that is being alive. This is the heart of the Gospel of Rock and Roll: "I am not alone. I am not insane. I am not wrong for feeling and thinking this way. And it is not OK for me to lie here in my room jerking off and feeling sorry for myself--there's a connection out there to be made before it's too late."

The way out of the shadows and into the light is to walk with the Enlightened Ones, and walk with them always (a sure invitation to soullessness is to believe there's nothing left to be revealed). In the religion of Holy Rock and Roll, the Enlightened are not few--they are many. They are not all gone, awaiting resurrection--those dead have immortal voices, and the rest walk the earth (if not inhabit the airwaves). And, unlike with liquor, you should start with the strong stuff: Billie Holiday, Hank Williams, Sr., Ray Charles, John Lennon, Otis Redding, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Gram Parsons, Marvin Gaye, George Jones, the Clash, Al Green, Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, the Mekons, Steve Earle, Public Enemy...and there's much more. Sup with the saints, and rejoin the living.

Lord Elvis knows that life is a cosmic joke, and you better let laughter into your life or you're gonna be busy dying. The world of rock and roll is full of holy fools who've saved almost as many souls as the pure rush of the best music. And the thing about a holy fool is, in the same moment that he's reminding you that you're taking yourself way too seriously, that the world is too fucking much with you, he's giving you a wink as if to say, "It can (and does) happen to me."

Problem is, today, you ain't gonna find too much of this on the old radio dial. You may laff, but not because the artist is trying to be funny (we'll make an exception for Eminem, who's a holy fool if there ever was one, his "homophobia" notwithstanding). American hits radio is a grim multimillionaire pulling the handle and hitting a billion dollar jackpot.

So--and you're gonna hear me say this again and again--you gotta dig for your deliverance. A rock and roll heart that's never been full of Huey "Piano" Smith or the Coasters or Slim Gaillard or Loudon Wainwright III or the Dictators or Mojo Nixon or Biz Markie or Homer and Jethro or Satchmo might as well be virgin territory to the stab of humor. You gotta do some homework, but, if you do, you're gonna feel a little less alone for sure.

Get this straight: We of the First Church do not outlaw a high time. As the Greeks (that's not a typo) understood, Apollo ain't doodley-squat without Dionysus. Responsibility, good sense, intelligent choices, a healthy diet, and regular exercise are fine...in moderation. Too much of these, and you become, say, the equivalent of a contemporary "country" Hat Act or Calendar Cowgirl: pretty on the outside, empty on the inside, distortion- and grit- and idiosyncracy-free, an air-brushed 'borg. As Tom Waits has often said: "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." And the wonderfully weird je ne sais quois of his work testifies that he knows whereof he speaks. Celebration, careening emotion and audacious whim, sublimely ridiculous notions, THE PURSUIT OF FUN, is the essence of great rock and roll. It ain't illegal; it's good for you, though what you use to get you there might not be. 'Cause fun might be right over that (l)edge...

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint), rock and roll has offered martyrs (see left, for example) who've died or come close exploring the furthermost boundaries of fun for us, just to let us feel that feeling when the needle hit the groove (or the laser begins to read or whatever the fuck it does). Just remember, though: wearing a "WWGCD" ("What Would George Clinton Do?") bracelet ain't enough. You gotta at least try to walk in those footsteps, too, if you're gonna sip from the Grail of Good Times. That might mean something as simple as grabbing a six-pack and a guitar, calling up some friends, and doing what old Nashville cats called some "roaring." Or it might mean something more complicated, like disrupting a George W. campaign rally by blasting Alfred E. Newman's "It's a Gas" during the Bush One's speech. Either way, it's holy rock and roll fun-power!

Another thing we Holy Rock and Rollers ain't against is sex. In fact, it's awfully hard to stay in the fold if you're sexless (Attention Bob Dylan: better drop your drawers for a monkey gland shot or we're excommunicating you, pronto). Not that shameless exhibitionism without an equal level of rock and roll energy (Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, or, hell, Nashville Pussy: we're talking 'bout you) will get you front row seats for the Annual Howlin' Wolf's Birthday Mass and Seance, either. Elvis' voice was just as sexy as his (early) bod and his gyrations; Mick added whole layers of sexual innuendo with his phrasing and intonation. More importantly, one of the unwritten laws of The First Church is that extends to the scrawny (Patti Smith, Hank Williams), the chubby (Etta James), the homely (Polystyrene), the four-eyed (Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley), the downright unhygienic (Lester Bangs), the crippled (Ian Dury), the deformed (Little Richard), even the dead (Jim Morrison, Johnny Thunders, Gram Parsons) and the near-dead ('66 vintage Dylan, '69-'78 vintage Keith) the power of sexual magnetism. That's some major democratic shit, folks: when it comes to rock and roll, literally anybody, given a mic or an axe and (a big key) an unfettered personality, can awaken the desires of the unsuspecting listener or concertgoer. Don't need to tell you how thoroughly this contradicts your basic Hollywood/Madison Avenue-variety take on the (sexual) worth of your basic yob or yobbette, and which viewpoint is closer to God and America (fuck the apple pie).

We could go into the "rhythm," "soul," and "kicks" (even "laffs") aspects of this topic, but I've always felt the less said (and the more left to the reader/listener's imagination) the better. Except that, if you think holiness and sex aren't connected, you've never really heard Al Green. And you've probably never really had sex.

Over a half-century before the era of political correctness, rock and roll (and its sisters, brothers, fathers, and muthas) had its arms open to every flavor of human the planet had to offer. Whether it was a teenage Mary Lou Williams, leading and writing and arranging for a big band of men mostly twice her age, or a gay and leanin'-towards-transvestite Little Richard invading white adolescents' bedrooms, whether it was Wanda Jackson warning everyone within earshot about her volcanic orgasmic habits or Roy Orbison quivering in his leather boots at the thought of his honey walkin' away with another guy, whether it was Ernest Tubb grinning and singing "Thanks a Lot" or Jerry Lee glowering and snapping "Keep Your Hands Off It," the music's doors have been wide open to anybody thinking he or she had something to say. A far cry from today's indie rock Mensa enclave, which breaks its own ribs congratulating itself on its cleverness and "irony," and sneers at anyone looking for an unpretentious good time, anyone who might just be--horrors!--naive (not "naive") (and Bob Dylan and Lou Reed, this is what you wrought: elitist "rock"). Funny thing is, our doors are even open to those folks, 'cause, dammit, our church is more serious about America than America is.

The man at your immediate left once said, "Rock and roll is attitude. You don't have to play the best guitar." He said it and lived it (and died it). Life is more often than not a cheat. You can stand there drooling, catching flies, you can just hand your shit over to the bastards and shine their shoes, you can start cheating folks yourself (go with the flow, bay-bee)...or you can lock into the Spirit of Man, be a true rebel like Jesus Lee Christ, and start spitting into that foully-breaking wind. What's it gonna be? Huh?

Back in the day, my fellow disciples and I had a running joke: every time we were confronted with a moaning, self-involved twit, way-too-intimately familiar with the exquisite details of his (sometimes, but seldom, her) existential torture--say, a Bono, or a Michael Stipe or a Robert Smith or a Morrissey (or later, Perry Farrell or Trent Reznor)--we'd fantasize about stickin' 'em in a van with Black Flag and the Replacements for a cross-country road trip. That'd fix their monkey asses, unglue their eyes from the mirror and get their hands off their rods...and get 'em out in the world. What ended up happening to Henry Rollins and Paul Westerberg just goes to show how vigilant our congregation has to be against those creeping twins, narcissism and solipsism. A little, hell, a little-plus reflection is necessary. Gotta give your guts and grey matter a good going-over every once in a while. But too much results in the unbroken circle of auto-fellatio. There's a world out there, buddy boy, ripe with possibility, and heights much loftier than those reached through listening to playbacks of your own vocal tracks, reading your own endless words, ogling your fabulous self-portrait, or just plain flogging your log. Sure there's danger and disappointment; they're just there to make the highs higher.

This is the promise of the First Church, and one of the hardest for its flock to deliver. This is not to say that some bullshit doesn't have some truth value embedded (Tom Waits, John Lurie, Beck, Pavement might be some examples of this paradox), nor to say that a lot more might be enriched with fun value. What the Church does say is that, much more often than TV, much more directly than novels, and a helluva lot quicker and less complicatedly than films, its hymns deliver the goods necessary to stay sane and survive.