Saint Paul, Snake Road, and the Laugh Track Gulag: Notes from America’s Absurd Revival
My Monday wanderings through Substack, where saints turn into clowns, martyrs into pageants, and snakes somehow keep more dignity than the human leadership class.
What follows are my morning insights and responses to some of my favorite Substacks. I read, I roast, I bless, I call bullshit where it’s due. Think of it as field notes from a monk loose in the algorithm—gathering scraps of truth from satire, sermons, and snake migrations, then stitching them into one unruly scroll.
with Squad sparked this idea—turning my scattered comments across Substack into a single unruly post. Also due credit is .So Dolan compared Charlie Kirk to St. Paul. That’s like comparing Guy Fieri to St. Augustine because they both yell a lot in public. Paul wrote letters that reshaped the Roman Empire. Kirk wrote tweets that could barely reshape a high school debate club. If this is the bar for sainthood now, I’d like to nominate my neighbor’s cat who at least brings people together by chasing the squirrels off the bird feeder.
Charlie Kirk’s memorial service featuring Jack Posobiec is like hiring the arsonist to give the eulogy at your fire-safety seminar. The guy who turned a family pizza joint into a shooting gallery of lies is now sermonizing about “sacrifice” and “Western civilization”? Please. If Kirk is St. Paul, then Posobiec is the Book of Revelation scribbled on a cocktail napkin at Chuck E. Cheese.
So let me get this straight: Jimmy Kimmel cracks a joke, Trump world throws a tantrum, and suddenly Disney’s cancellation page is the hottest club in America. People lined up, velvet rope, bouncer saying “sorry folks, system crash, you’ll have to wait to cancel your outrage.” It’s like free speech got traded in for a Disney FastPass… except the ride is authoritarianism and the line never ends.
MAGA calling Charlie Kirk a martyr is like the DMV calling a long line “a spiritual pilgrimage.” The man spent his life spitting venom, and now they want incense, hymns, and sainthood? Please. If free speech means anything, it’s the freedom to say: I won’t mourn a bigot just because he got a casket and a choir.
Trump’s FBI saying Epstein only trafficked girls “to himself” is the kind of plot hole even Netflix would reject. Schiff shredded it because it deserves shredding. This isn’t law and order. It’s cosplay corruption. Imagine a federal agency run by trolls, interns, and Bongino fanboys while counterterror cases collect dust. America doesn’t need an FBI that roleplays on Truth Social. It needs one that actually investigates crimes.
Heather lays it bare: Trump promised “free speech,” then muzzled stats on food insecurity, gagged Pentagon reporters, and tried to turn prosecutors into personal hitmen. It’s not law and order. It’s Beria with better hair plugs. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics can’t publish numbers and comedians get yanked off the air, that’s not governance. That’s a banana republic running on spray tan and grievance.
Robert, America’s “leadership class” looks less like leaders and more like extras in a zombie flick. University presidents ducking like freshmen who forgot their homework. CEOs showering Trump with gold bullion like they’re auditioning for Real Housewives of Mar-a-Lago. Lawyers claiming their “heads are down” — yeah, because they buried them so far in the sand they’re renting space from ostriches. When Schumer can’t even find a backbone but Ted Cruz of all people gets cast as the voice of reason, you know the script has jumped the shark.
Robert, Kash Patel hosting late night is the punchline nobody asked for. The man who thinks Epstein trafficked only to himself is now supposed to deliver a monologue? That’s not comedy. That’s hostage video television. And with Stephen Miller as head writer, you don’t get jokes. You get bedtime stories for fascists. At this rate, ABC should just call it The Laugh Track Gulag and be done with it.
Jesus. This reads like righteous fury wired to a blowtorch. You’re furious and rightly so. Call him predator. Call them enablers. Name the crimes. Demand the files. Don’t hand the moral high ground over to bloodthirsty fantasies dressed up as justice. Organize. Boycott. Force transparency. Vote like everything depends on it because it does. Roast the CEOs who trade gold bars for applause until their teeth rattle. Expose the pastors who weaponize scripture. Hold prosecutors to their oaths. That is the kind of fury that actually changes things.
Wendy , hell yes. Snake Road closed for the serpents’ migration. Nature’s weirdest traffic jam. I grew up where a water moccasin could ruin your day and your shoes. You don’t go there for a picnic. You go there for a story you’ll tell while limping. Love the fort lore. Mud turds, warm Cokes, and dads who throw knives like baseballs. That image is cinematic. It explains everything about why we cheer for people who can move fast when snakes show up. Also, public service announcement: if you plan a road trip to watch danger noodles perform their slow ballet, maybe leave the dignity and your mortal coil at home. Some pilgrimages are meant to be metaphors, not field trips. Bless the dad who saved the patio and cursed the snake. Bless the kid who made fake dog poop and still survived to tell the tale. Keep the story coming. It’s the kind of honest weird that still saves the soul from banality.
Ben, you’re right not to apologize. A rally where the headliner screams “I hate you,” where Miller and Junior spit venom, and where Charlie’s legacy of cruelty gets polished like a holy relic—call it what it is. That’s not a memorial. That’s a fascist tent revival with body count cosplay. Corporate media clutching pearls and pretending it was some solemn service is how we got here. They airbrush the bile, then act surprised when democracy starts coughing up blood. Keep calling it a hate rally. Keep refusing to bow. Silence is complicity. And apology is surrender.
Stacey, you saw it clearly: that stadium wasn’t a funeral, it was a stage play. A racist wrapped in a flag and resurrected as a martyr of whiteness. Trump didn’t console, he canonized. The chants weren’t grief, they were marching orders. And the terror underneath it all? The quiet realization that whiteness isn’t bulletproof. That’s why they double down. They can’t admit fragility, so they turn it into theater. Martyrdom as choreography. Racism as pageant. The real sermon yesterday wasn’t about Kirk—it was about fear dressed up as faith.
That’s the sermon right there: two apples against the odds. DC lawyers see a barren tree and declare it dead. Meanwhile out in Missouri, a bee with zero credentials and no think-tank funding just pollinated democracy like it was its side hustle. Red state Democrats are the fruit nobody believes should exist, but they keep showing up sweet and stubborn. If Paul Revere were riding today, he wouldn’t be yelling “The British are coming.” He’d be yelling “The Democrats are still here, you smug coastal jackasses!”
Dolan comparing Charlie Kirk to St. Paul is the most ambitious crossover since Marvel tried to convince us Thor and a raccoon were best friends. Paul was shipwrecked three times and still managed to rewrite the Roman Empire by candlelight. Kirk got ratioed on Twitter and called it persecution. And this whole ‘man of steel’ narrative? Please. If Charlie Kirk was Superman, then my neighbor’s cat is Batman because he once chased a raccoon off the bird feeder. Tragic death? Yes. Martyrdom? No. Turning a provocateur into a prophet is just Fox News doing biblical fan fiction. I’m with you — we can mourn a life lost and still tell the truth about the words he spoke. Compassion doesn’t require canonization, and grief doesn’t mean gaslighting the rest of us into sainthood cosplay.
This piece reads like Revelation rewritten by a late-night writer with a hangover — beasts, plagues, and the Great Orange Pumpkin waddling out in discount heels demanding worship. And you’re right: laughter is the last unregulated weapon. Trump can buy networks, neuter agencies, and turn the FCC into his personal complaint department, but he can’t outlaw mockery. Tyrants always want silence. Democracies demand noise. So we’ll keep laughing until his crown turns back into the Happy Meal toy it always was.
That’s the Gospel according to Grift: the only miracle here is how a man who can’t finish a Bible verse without sounding like he’s ordering from IHOP keeps getting pitched as “God’s chosen.” Trump isn’t Moses leading people through the wilderness. He’s Pharaoh hoarding Happy Meals while demanding everyone else call it manna. If heaven did pick him, it was as a cautionary parable — proof that idolatry makes you dumber than the golden calf you’re polishing.
JD Vance isn’t a politician. He’s the human equivalent of mayonnaise left open on a picnic table until the flies unionize. The man who once called Trump “America’s Hitler” now cosplays as his Mini-Me, smearing eyeliner like he’s auditioning for a Hot Topic fascist revue. Nobody likes him, and that’s the point — authoritarians don’t need charisma when they’ve got cruelty. Vance is the test balloon: can you take a hollow man, stuff him with lies, and sell him as destiny? If so, democracy rots from the inside out.
Scott, it’s McCarthyism with Wi-Fi. Trump doesn’t need to wave papers in the Senate chamber — he’s got cronies at the FCC and a cult that thinks silencing comics is patriotism. Brazil shows us: when people flood the streets, the strongman shakes. Chicago shows us: the next generation already knows hate is a dead language. As for Republicans standing up? Don’t hold your breath. Most of them would sell the First Amendment for a committee chair and a free round of golf.
If the saints are clowns, if the prophets are hacks, if the martyrs are pageant floats—then snakes crossing a two-lane road might be the last apostles of truth we’ve got left.
Blessed be the reptiles. At least they slither honest.
—Virgin Monk Boy
Wow! Quite the condensed wrap up! I hear 80,000 attended. I hope millions show up Oct 18.
Holy guacamole! What a perfect compendium of comments and the pieces that go with them. This is brilliant. NGL, I look forward to ALL of your comments, they're golden. Super stoked and very humbled to have made your list. Thank you for the wisdom, knowledge, and most sacred to me - the laughs. Much love right back to you.