Rick Warren is no Billy Graham

Notwithstanding the Economist's recent headline, no fat man in a hawaiian shirt can be the new Billy Graham.

Which puts me out of the picture as well but I have no such pretensions.

Did you ever see the interview which Woody Allen did with Billy Graham? I've put it here before but it's worth repeating. I clearly comes to us from a more respectful age.



part two of the interview

I've just ordered a couple of fair trade clergy shirts. My every-day shirts are getting transluscent and greeny-black so I'm overdue.

What gives with these young English clergy tromping around in grubby blue jeans, tho? I wear my grubby blue jeans too when I'm with people I know really well but they're generally worn with the requisite Hawaiian shirt.

Folks would have a fit if I showed up somewhere with my top bits housed in a clergy shirt and my bottom bits looking like the Marlboro Man. Somebody here is not comfortable looking like a priest. It's more about him than it is about anybody else. That's why we had curacies in the old day. You got all this ambivalent bullshit dealt with. The head teacher at the local High School wouldn't let me in the door to do an assembly dressed like this and he'd be right. Jeez!

When the mighty Norwegian Royal Guard with their fearful feathered bowler hats needed a mascot they chose a penguin. Only a Scottish Penguin would do. Sir Nils Olaf: the world's most decorated penguin.