Hill Cumorah 2007
Sorry for the lack of cool HTML things, I wrote this kinda fast...
* I absolutely love watching sane people visit Hill Cumorah for the first time. Their initial blunt, shocked reactions to the religious madness going on all around them are priceless! And the innocent questions they ask (the really obvious questions that Mormons must've asked when they were young, but then forgot after so many years of exposure to the insanity) -- also priceless! :)
* That's why I try to bring someone new along with me each year when I visit the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palymra, NY. [links to 2004, 2005, etc.]
* The first thing we did this year was visit the Mormon gift shop on main street (they give out free DVDs). The "new guy" that I brought this year (Justin) was unable to tell who was "Mormon" and who was "non-Mormon" as we walked around main street. He eventually settled on: "If they look like they could beat you up, they're NOT Mormon". ;)
* I was a little disappointed in the gift shop this year. They didn't have any copies of Mormonopoly (a board game I've been meaning to buy for some time). Instead they had "Palymra-opoly" and some board game about "Sparing the rod"?
* They also sell action figures for the various characters in the Book of Mormon, along with postcards and various books by Mormon authors. My friend Pat bought an undersized T-shirt that said "I *heart* Mormon boys". It was in the discount bin for only 9 dollars (we all chipped in). But when he put it on, he found it wasn't small enough (he wanted everyone to be able to see his belly). So he took scissors to it and made a headband out of the extra parts and wrote the following on the headband: "LDS MORON I" -- *a little heart icon* -- and then he drew a rocket-ship that looked like a penis (It was supposed to represent his method of traveling his planet -- the planet he was supposed to inherit when he becomes a Mormon God -- but it wound up just looking like a penis...).
* We visited the Joseph Smith shack (which had a new, giant Buddha-Jesus set of idols in the waiting room), but nothing memorable happened there. A similar Buddha-Jesus sculpture is on display in the museum next door to the pageant, and that sculpture talks! (Sort of like those giant animatronic puppets at Chucky-Cheese.)
* Next, we drove to the Pageant, and man, was it different this year. For previous pageants, all the parking was across the street. Everybody had to park on one side of the street (in a giant open field), and cross the street at the one designated crosswalk. This one narrow crosswalk was where the protesters would line up and put on their insanity-incorporated show. But this year, all the parking was on the SAME SIDE OF THE STREET as the pageant itself (in another giant open field). This was bad news for the protesters. The protesters remained on the street, but they were about 50-100 yards away from the people they wanted to yell at. Nobody could hear them!
* As soon as we arrived, we went straight for the protesters. (They're usually more fun to watch than the pageant itself.) So we spread out our blankets right in front of them and shouted "entertain us!" Each protester usually give about a 2-3 minute rant about several completely unrelated topics, and they only stop when they either run out of things to say, or they have to catch their breath. Each time they stopped, I would applaud. I gave one guy a standing ovation. :)
* I don't think the protesters are used to that. It almost seems like they want people to yell back at them. Very strange...
* Every once in awhile the protesters would walk away from us. Also strange... So, we'd pick up our blankets and follow them down the road a bit. One guy had a megaphone, and I fed him a few lines. I actually got the protester to say the following into the megaphone: "Listen up, Mormons! If all of the American Indians were originally Jewish, do you really think they would've sold Manhatten for $24?" [Background info: according to the Book of Mormon, all Indians were originally Jewish] [More Background info: "Jews" are considered to be very cheap and thrifty] [More Background info: these protesters seemed to hate Jews as much as they hated Mormons!] --I thought it was funny. :)
* One protester was dressed in a Satan costume (and kept screaming something about the angel Moroni and how Moroni was an agent of the Devil--hence the costume?). [Background info: one of the uniquely Mormon angels is named "Moron-i".]
* I felt I _had_ to talk to this guy, but he was too far away from me and in the middle of a rant. So I sauntered up to his kids. His kids were between the ages of 7 and 13 (he brought at least 4 of them), and they all looked like extras from the movie Deliverance. * I asked the youngest one: "So which branch of Satanism are you with?"
* Kid 1: We aren't...
* Mitchell: Are you sure? I mean, he _is_ wearing his Satan costume...
* Kid 1: No, that's supposed to be...
* Mitchell: Whatever. Hey, does he wear that around the house?
* Kid 1: No...
* Mitchell: Does he wear that for Halloween?
* Kid 1: No...
* Mitchell: Does he wear any other insane-person-costumes just to get attention?
* Kid 1: ...
* Mitchell: Does he ever get attention when he's not in costume?
* Kid 1: Ya...
* Mitchell: Is your daddy a drag queen?
* Kid 1: I don't think so.
* Mitchell: Are there any other groups coming? We're expecting to see some other protesters.
* Kid 1: There's gonna be some other people.
* Mitchell: Do you know what time their show starts?
* Kid 1: ...
* By that time their dad had taken off his Satan mask and came over to talk to me (apparently he didn't want me fuckin' with his kids). :(
* He told me he used to be a Mormon. I asked "Did you ever go into the temple?" (I've heard that a lot of crazy shit happens in the temple--and very few Mormons ever get to visit it. And the few that do aren't allowed to talk about it!.) * Satan-Guy: No, I never went in. That was the next step for me, too. But I was saved before that happened.
* Mitchell: That's too bad.
* Satan-Guy: [pause] So... are you Mormon?
* Mitchell: No.
* Satan-Guy: Have you been Born-Again?
* Mitchell: No. [And immediately after answering I started kicking myself for not replying: "I was born right the first time."]
* And then he started telling me how his life was changed as soon as he became Born-Again. He said he stopped listening to rock music, and how he stopped drinking alcohol, and didn't even want to drink again... At that point I butted in:
* Mitchell: Wait, I thought you said you used to be a Mormon?
* Satan-Guy: Yes, that's right.
* Mitchell: But you said you were a big drinker? An alcoholic?
* Satan-Guy: Ya...
* Mitchell: But Mormons aren't supposed to drink at all.
* Satan-Guy: Yes, well, but a lot of them do...
* Mitchell: But that means you were a bad Mormon to begin with. Maybe _that's_ why you lost your faith?
* Then he went on this HUGE tangent about how he "gained" his faith and he really wouldn't let me get a word in edge-wise. Very "preacher-like". You have to hate that. Eventually the topic came back to rock music.
* Satan-Guy: I'll tell you what, all rock music comes from the devil.
* Mitchell: All of it?
* Satan-Guy: Absolutely.
* Mitchell: Even the Beatles?
* Satan-Guy: Yes, the Beatles! They were all drug addicts! And John Lennon said he was bigger than Jesus!
* Satan-Guy: Can you name one song that wasn't about drugs & blasphemy?
* Mitchell: How about the song "All you need is love"?
* Satan-Guy: That's evil, too! But... you know... not all of those songs were evil...
* Mitchell: What's evil about love?
* Satan-Guy: Yes, well, ...
* And then he changed the topic to all the _other_ ways that his life was changed when he was saved. Again, I couldn't get a word in edgewise, and after a few minutes, we parted ways...
* Another protester had a giant sign that read, "Ask me why you deserve Hell". We saw one Mormon teenager approach that sign and try to talk it out with the guy for a VERY long time. We never got to approach this character because that kid was hogging him! But from what I could over-hear, it sounded like EVERYONE deserves Hell because that's what the Bible says. Duh! ;)
* Another protester was calling everyone who wouldn't talk to him a "sissy!" Once, some upstanding Mormon gentleman came near the protester, and his wife said to him, "Oh, honey, don't talk to those people!" and the protester screamed "I KNOW WHO WEARS THE PANTS IN YOUR FAMILY, YOU SISSY!" :o You could really feel that distinct _christian_ love in the air.
* At one point, Pat asked one of the protesters "Have you seen this guy with short blond hair, a really loud voice, etc., etc." * Lady protester: No, I haven't seen him.
* Pat: That's too bad, he's one of my favorite speakers.
* Lady protester: Speakers?
* Pat: ... Ya ... speakers?
* Lady protester: ...
* Mitchell: I think my friend means "preachers".
* Lady protester: Oh yes, of course. When the men are called to preach, they can be very forceful. That's what they're doing: preaching. They're not "speakers". We're not here to entertain you.
* Mitchell: One man's urine is another man's bottle of urine that he really doesn't want to taste or put on his bread.
* Lady protester: What?
* Mitchell: Nevermind.
* Eventually, the pageant started, and the protesters had to put away their megaphones. Turns out the Mormons got a permit that said they don't want to be disturbed during the actual pageant (and one of the protester told me that someone was arrested on Thursday (7/19/2007) for using his megaphone during the pageant).
* So we moved our blankets near the giant outdoor pageant stage, and proceeded to make a drinking game out of the entire production. We brought vodka and "Caffeine Free Cocoa Cola" bottles (because real Mormons don't drink Caffeine). So we mixed the two and had a "drink" every time someone died during the pageant (every Mormon prophet died), and every time the phrase "he pitched his tent" was heard through the loudspeakers (which happened about 4 times), and every time someone FORGOT the word of God and sinned (which happened at least 10 times). We were probably the drunkest people @ Hill Cumorah. Ever.
* After the Pageant, I went back to the protesters, and they were talking to Mormon Security guards! One of the protesters claimed the security guard called him a "fatass".
* Mitchell: Is that true, officer?
* Security guard: No, I didn't say that.
* Fatass: Yes he did!
* Security guard: Are you drunk?
* Fatass: What? No, I'm not drunk.
* Security guard: Yes you are, I can smell the alcohol on you!
* Mitchell: ... [backs away slowly]
* Fatass: I don't know what you're smellin' but I am definitely not drunk!
* I'm not sure what kind of trouble you get in for drinking on "sacred Mormon ground", but I didn't want to find out. Anywho, that's the last thing I remember about Mormon-ville 2007.
The End.
EDIT: iworshipsatin and E-bones-jones also went with us. :o