Waiting for Godot to Leave

At one point I took all of these posts down, because I felt I had been far too willingly brainwashed into a religious system that was doing more harm than good.   But, lately, I decided to republish some of the more interesting posts.  What follows is about ten percent of what I posted from 2007 to 2021.  They are in an odd chronological order, becuase Blogger is a clunky. Meanwhile, you can find my more sane (and more recent) musings here -  https://theateroftheword.substack.com .

For those of you who know me from EWTN, the Society of GK Chesterton, the Prairie Troubadours or The St. Austin Review, I am no longer affiliated with any of those groups. "The truth will set you free" ( John 8:32 ) "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." ( John 18:37 ) If we deny the truth, we are bad Christians and bad human beings. If we put our faith in a lie - including a Big Lie - we are bad Christians and bad human beings. If we endorse vulgarity, violence, bullying, gaslighting, fraud, irrational conspiracy theories, sedition and hate, we are bad Christians and bad human beings. Since March of 2020, I have felt like a character in the play Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco.  In that play, the bestial inhumanity of rhinoceroses becomes a fad and people start turning into them - willingly discarding reason and free will and mocking others who don...

... from The St. Louis Review ... August 8, 2008 ‘Journey of St. Paul’ to bring apostle to life on local stage by Jennifer Brinker, Review Staff Writer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SAINTLY PRODUCTION - Theater of the Word founder Kevin O'Brien portrays St. Paul in upcoming performances of 'The Journey of St. Paul.' Want to learn more about St. Paul the Apostle? Theater of the Word, a local Catholic theater production company, is offering to archdiocesan parishes performances of "The Journey of St. Paul," to coincide with the Year of St. Paul designated by Pope Benedict XVI. Presentations will be offered to parishes for free, with donations accepted, said Theater of the Word founder Kevin O’Brien. "Our main focus is to evangelize, to share the word of St. Paul and to let people know who we are," he said. Theater of the Word launched its inaugural season last year at the Cardinal Rigali Center in Shrewsb...

By popular demand, here is an article I wrote for my Upstage Productions Murder Mystery Newsletter in May of 2000. I am not making it up. As I’ve boasted in previous newsletters, we were invited to perform for what I was told were a group of “top HBO producers” at the Belhurst Castle in Geneva, New York in April. The HBO folks wanted me to do a parody of “The Sopranos”, their fascinating, violent, vulgar, and addictive hit drama series, which features what we kindly call the “F word” as a mainstay adjective. And so I set to work writing a parody of the show and faxed it off to HBO. They called me in March. “We really are happy to be working with you on this project,” they told me, “but we feel your script is a little … vulgar.” This is because in the first act, Tony introduces Uncle Junior, his 87 year old uncle, and Uncle Junior uses the “F word” literally 17 times in his first speech. To which Tony replies, “Uncle Junior, ever since you got cable, you been a real pain in the ass...

Last week my actors and I had a great time in Evansville, Indiana with Bill Baer, creative writing professor at the University of Evansville and founder of The Southwell Institute (Bill is third from left in the photo below.) I told Bill about my latest post re. HBO and The Sopranos and he told me the story of how his brother helped create and develop The Sopranos , but was never paid for it, and eventually sued the producer of the series. This made me tell the story of how I'm pretty sure I helped create The Simpsons , TV's longest running cartoon situation comedy. This is all true and I am not making any of it up. The story begins in the late 1970's, when I began writing and drawing a comic strip about a real-life St. Louis family that I knew as acquaintances. I turned them, in my strip, into a horrifically dysfunctional group of people, giving them bizarre and vulgar adventures in the rich St. Louis suburbs. The family consisted of a father named Homer, whom I made b...