My nominee for the Angelos

So on yesterday's show Lino decided to get in on the Academy Award nomination action by proposing nominations for the "Catholic Academy Awards" (henceforth known as the "Angelos"). One category he suggested was for the best portrayal of a priest. While Lino and the callers suggested some fine candidates, there's one actor that didn't get mentioned who's priest portrayal has always been a favorite: the late George Carlin.

George Carlin?! Wasn't he a Catholic-turned-atheist? Shame on you! By the way, he played a priest?

Yes indeed... and not just a priest, but a cardinal! Take a look at this scene from the 1999 film Dogma:

(WARNING: those of you who don't have a sense of humor about the Catholic Church really shouldn't watch this clip... or any part of Dogma for that matter.)



Get that heresy horn out!

Perception is nine-tenths of reality

I happen to agree with Lino that his engagement isn't real... at least as far as he sees it. But in his girlfriend's view, if there's any truth to the saying in this blog entry's title, then he's screwed. Open up the wallet...

Comments on yesterday's show (1/12)

• Lino's "engagement": Even Lino acknowledged that if there was an engagement via text message, it was probably off after the talk with the girlfriend about Catholic/Lutheran beliefs about communion. Which brings up the bigger issue of interfaith and interdenominational relationships... they aren't easy if there's no compromise. Case in point: I'm Catholic, my wife is Southern Baptist. We have two children: a 2½-year-old daughter and an 8-month-old son. Both were baptized in the Catholic Church, but they also participated in baby dedication ceremonies at my wife's church, and for various reasons the family as a whole is much more involved in my wife's church than my parish. I can already see problems brewing once my daughter turns four and it's time to enroll her in CCD classes at my parish... my wife is going to be very resistant to the idea, and that's not going to make me happy.
  
  My personal scenario above is much more complicated than what I wrote, but the point in writing it is that, if they were seriously thinking about marriage, Lino and his girlfriend would do themselves a favor by talking about the issue of their separate faiths and how they would raise any children they might have. Pre-Cana instruction is helpful, but family circumstances and me and my wife's individual beliefs have changed in ways we never could have predicted during our instruction. None of this should be a discouragement, though... there are plenty of examples of highly successful mixed marriages out there, and I have faith that my own marriage will be one of them. I don't see why Lino couldn't have the same thing.
  

• Coming back to the faith: A great question posed by Lino, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the callers give their personal stories. My own story is similar: I was a cradle Catholic who fell away from the faith after my confirmation. Then by my mid-20s I just had one thing after another going wrong in my life, and in desperation I began to reconnect with my faith. I started going to Mass at the Catholic Center at the university I attended years before (which I never set foot in while I was actually a student there), and before I knew it I was a lector nearly every weekend. The center's chaplain was a wonderful Franciscan priest who made Mass something I wanted to go to and not something I felt obliged to attend. My faith grew leaps and bounds during my time there, and I ended up staying involved there until I got married in 2005 (officiated by that same Franciscan priest, who recently retired after 38 years as the center's chaplain).

• Tammy in Leesburg, VA: She preceeded and followed her coming-back-to-the-faith story with a really low-brow and unprovoked insult against Gus Lloyd. Even Lino's not that bad. Hey Tammy, kiss my...
  
  

• Lino and "Lino Watch": Made mention of the site again, and said he doesn't check it every day. That's fine with me... I don't update it every day!
  

I guess the cat's out of the bag...

As I got in my car about 5:45pm ET to go home from work I turned on Lino, and I just caught the tail end of him talking about Lino Watch! Unfortunately I don't get to listen to the show while I work anymore b/c my company filters most streaming audio from the network, so I'll have to wait for tonight's replay to hear what he said about yours truly.

Lino's back!

After being sick as a dog yesterday...


Lino's back on the air!

In light of the above photo, now Lino says he hasn't vomited since 1995. Yeah, that's about as true as saying the Vikings are going to win the Super Bowl this year.

Wait a minute... where are days 11 and 12?

They're coming... but with kids going back to preschool and me going back to my job I haven't had time to post them yet. So hang tight... they should show up sometime in the next couple of days this week.

On the Tenth Day of Lino: Boring Catholic Radio

March 26-27, 2008: This is one of those moments that turned from eerily uncomfortable to hysterical in the span of a day. On Lino's broadcast of March 26th, with little hint of what was coming, Lino launched into a very testy rebuttal of some comments posted to a popular Catholic blog that (at least to Lino) seemed to criticize the "Catholicity" of the programming on The Catholic Channel. Nick Thomm, who is the producer of the Kresta In The Afternoon show that is produced by Ave Maria Radio and is heard on EWTN, wrote the following in response to a post on Amy Welborn's blog about Deepak Chopra appearing on The Catholic Channel:

This topic will be discussed at length on Al Kresta’s radio show “Kresta in the Afternoon” at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time today (Mon., Feb. 25). It promises to be a different discussion of the merits of Chopra’s theology than the “Catholic Channel” presented. You can listen on any EWTN affiliate around the country or on the EWTN Sirius Channel 160. Or on the internet at http://www.avemariaradio.net

The words "Catholic Channel" appearing in quotes apparently didn't sit well with Lino. Hear his response for yourself:



(By the way, many thanks go to Discerning Dan from CatholicGuyShow.com for having sleuthed this information last year.)

The next day Lino still felt that he had a point to prove about the legitimacy of The Catholic Channel's programming, and boy did he ever. He decided to turn his show into the kind of show he felt exemplified traditional Catholic radio: boring, monotone, orthodox and mistake-prone. For the next hour and forty-five minutes we were treated to a low-voiced Lino droning on with caller after caller (with the occasional suppressed laugh thrown in), no Lou Rugierri or Maureen McMurray joining in, no theme music or sound effects, and Lou exceling at making one technical mistake after another. Even program director Rob Astorino joined in the fun by calling in and posing as a Catholic author being interviewed by Lino. (Sorry, no sound clip. You can blame the original hard drive that Apple installed in my laptop, and me for not bothering to back up any files.)

All in all, it was a treat for the ears to behold... and it proved Lino's point that Catholic radio can be true to the tenets of the faith without being boring.

I should also point out that Nick Thomm, the Al Kresta producer who made the post that started the whole thing, is currently suffering from a recurrence of brain cancer that he has been battling for several years. You can read more on a blog that Nick's friends have set up. Prayers for his recovery would certainly be welcome; as the parent of a daughter about the same age as his, I know first hand that little girls need their fathers in their lives.

On the Ninth Day of Lino: Bald for a cause

April 9, 2007: This Lino moment didn't even originate on his on show, but it sure ended on it. Back in March of 2007, Speak Now with Dave and Susan Konig had on the air a representative of the St. Baldrick's Foundation, an organization where volunteers shave their heads in solidarity with children who have cancer, while requesting donations of support from friends and family. At one point a listener from Florida named Dave called into the Konigs' show and said that he'd "give $250 for Lino's head". (Presumably he meant the hair on Lino's head and not the actual head itself... who would want that?) Anyway, Lino took up the challenge and decided to solicit donations for this worthy cause on his show during the remainder of Lent, culminating with Lino getting his head shaved live on the show on the day after Easter Sunday.

Fast forward to the day of the shave. Speak Now producer Adam Hamway's father, Fred (who is a barber), did the honors. Click on the photo below to see more snapshots of the grand event...



After the deed was done we learned that the fundraising effort was several hundred dollars short of the $5,000 goal. Then, for some reason beyond anyone's comprehension, Adam Hamway declared that if Lino's listeners could exceed the goal, he'd get his head shaved, too. You can pretty much predict what happened next:


Thanks in no small part to calls from three of Adam's brothers (including one who lived in Australia), the goal was met, and his hair... sideburns and all... was history.

On the Eighth Day of Lino: 6 wins, 1 loss, 1 tie

December 2006-February 2007: Here's a real oldie-but-goodie that only listeners from the very beginning would remember. Back in the earliest days of the show, before Lets Make A Catholic Deal, The Inquizition, or Him, Hymn or Her, there was the show's first game: Beat The Catholic Guy.

The premise: Lino would match wits with another member of the Catholic Channel crew in a trivia contest, with subjects ranging from church history to current events to TV show theme songs. Each contest was 'hosted' by Adam "The Hammer" Hamway, who is currently the producer of The Catholics Next Door with Greg and Jennifer Willits (10:00am-1:00pm ET weekdays). One interesting (and I think by far the funniest) component of the game was that the rules of the game were constantly modified as the series ran its course, primarily because some unforseen event actually happened in a game and there were no rules to deal with whatever happened. So the rules were tweaked to deal with it, only to seemingly have something else go wrong the next week.

Over the 2½ months that the game ran, Lino competed against Father Dave from The Busted Halo Show, Gus Lloyd from Seize the Day, Dave and Susan Konig from Speak Now, and Bob Dunning from Across the Nation, as well as program director Rob Astorino and general manager Joe Zwilling. (Father Paul Keenan of As You Think declined to participate, which probably was a good decision on his part.) He was a perfect 5-0 against the other hosts, and he scored a win against Rob as well. But when he was matched up against Joe Zwilling the contest ended in a tie. This prompted a rematch several weeks later (and a tiebreaker rule so that it wouldn't happen again), where Lino's unbeaten steak came to an abrupt end... as did Beat The Catholic Guy.

Shortly after his loss the show did a 20 minute retrospective of Beat The Catholic Guy, featuring many of the best clips from the various games. Lino then told us that the contest would be going on hiatus for the next few weeks, but sadly, the contest never aired again. It's a pity... while it was on the air it was hilarious fun.