So, there’s this song that you might know if you go to church ever, it’s actually a really pretty song with well-written lyrics, I even liked it myself. It’s called “Pescador de Hombres” [Fisher of Men] because it was written by a Spanish priest in 1974, but it’s been translated to dozens of languages – they sing it in Croatian at a Croatian church I’ve been playing at, and of course they have several popular English translations. It’s inspired by the part of the Gospels where Jesus tells Peter and his fellow fishermen, “Now you are just fishermen; come with me and I will make you FISHERS OF MEN.” (I.e. proselytizers.) I always wondered if that little play on words worked also in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin as it does in English. Here’s the first verse, in Spanish then English:
“Tu has venido a la orilla,
No has buscado a sabios ni a ricos
Tan solo quieres que yo te siga…”
“Lord, You have come to the seashore
Neither searching for the rich nor the wise,
desiring only that I should follow…”
Here’s some alto singing it in a really low key:
I like the fact that this slow easy-going 6/8 tempo is often known as a “Barcarolle,” which in the Italian imagination was the sort of song a Venetian gondolier might sing while rowing his boat – I don’t know if the songwriter, Cesareo Gabarain, was aware or thinking of that. (By the way, twenty years ago I had a bitter dispute with Oregon Catholic Press over two notes in the verse melody, a dispute I lost, but that’s another story.)
So, me and a singer were up in the choir loft yesterday practicing this song for a funeral, and the priest ran up the stairs to tell us, “Don’t do that song! It’s blacklisted! The songwriter turned out to be a pedophile!” Really, Cesareo Gabarain a pedophile? That’s weird and depressing. Now it’s gonna be a little creepy listening to that song, just like hearing “I Believe I Can Fly” on the radio. Utilizing a technique known as “black humor,” I said “I guess Cesareo was a Pescador de Niños,” and the priest and cantor both laughed before feeling guilty about laughing.
Did you know a lot of churches won’t allow Wagner’s Wedding March (which we think of as “Here Comes the Bride”) to be used at weddings, because not only was Wagner an unpleasant thieving cad who “lived in sin” with Liszt’s daughter Cosima, but was also an outspoken and obnoxious anti-Semite (as so many Europeans were back then.) Most people don’t know that popular wedding march is just the middle section of this stirring “Fanfare and Bridal Chorus” from the opera “Lohengrin,” which most of us know from either the Marx Brothers’ “At the Circus” or the Beatles’ “Help!” movie.
[Fun fact: Everyone gives credit to Wagner’s contemporary Mark Twain for saying “I understand Wagner’s music is better than it sounds,” because everyone likes to give Mark Twain credit for everything, and he DID say it on a few occasions, but he always gave credit to the guy who first said it, the 19th-century humorist Bill Nye, who before you ask was NOT a Science Guy.]
The composer Carl Orff is blacklisted in many circles because he managed to get along so well with the German Nazi government, which loved his “Carmina Burana.” Nowadays everybody associates the “O Fortuna” movement of Carmina with horror movies, even though it was supposed to be a joyful pagan chant to the God of Fortune. Carlton discovered that it also makes an excellent beer commercial:
I actually lost a great church music director job a while back because (mostly because) I played, at the family’s request, John Lennon’s “Imagine” – WITHOUT WORDS! – at the beginning of a funeral. That priest was livid – “That song is anti-religion!” It didn’t help for me to protest “I only played the music,” and “John says IMAGINE no religion, no hell below us, above us only sky, etc…” – it really IS an anti-religious song. That priest, just like Lennon’s assassin Mark David Chapman, had grown up as a huge Beatles fan and then felt outraged and betrayed by “Imagine.” Chapman, when that song came out, actually went around singing “Imagine no John Lennon,” and a few years later he went to New York and killed him. NOT making this up, you could look it up.
It makes sense that the Catholic Church would blacklist Gabarain’s songs, they’re trying so hard to get away from that pedophile look – a real bad look. But I still can’t help but have mixed feelings – it’s not the SONG’s fault that the guy who wrote it was a sexual predator. I guess I just feel, as someone who’s written hundreds of songs myself, after a few years they seem to exist independently of me. Like my sons. Like some kind of aural/verbal creature out in the ether that’s pretty much forgotten about me. Same with “Pescador de Hombres,” loved by millions – it can’t speak for itself. It can’t exactly pull a Ronan Farrell and say “My progenitor was severely flawed but don’t take it out on me!”
So, I guess this all came out back in August. From Catholic News Agency, August 9:
According to the Spanish newspaper El País, there are four former students of the Chamberí Marist school in Madrid who have accused Fr. Gabaráin of abuse dating to the 1970s.
One of the alleged victims, Eduardo Mendoza, 57, said that he reported the priest to his homeroom teacher in 1978, the probable cause of Fr. Gabaráin being removed from the school. [Four years after he wrote Pescador – V]
Another alleged victim of Fr. Gabaráin, César Aguilera, spoke about what happened with his father, who reported the case to Brother Aquileo Manciles, now deceased, who supposedly admitted that the abuse took place.
Shortly after leaving the Marist school, Fr. Gabaráin was appointed vicar of the Our Lady of the Snows parish in the Mirasierra neighborhood of Madrid and was assigned to San Fernando school. [Moved around. Checks out. – V]
He died of cancer in 1991 at the age of 55, without being charged or tried for abuse.
And within weeks of that more victims (total of 8) and witnesses (4) came forward.
We all hope the Catholic Church is doing a lot more than Cancel-Culturing songs to address this problem. And we all know what they NEED to do:
- Let priests marry.
- Let women be priests. And
- Not only tolerate, but CELEBRATE open homosexuality, like the rest of the civilized world does. After all, if 10% of us are born gay, that clearly indicates that GOD IS FABULOUS!
Until then, the Catholic clergy will be the sort of culture that the noted religious scholar Louis CK described back in 2007 (the same year they fired me for playing “Imagine.”)
On that note, talk about that or WHATEVER you want, it’s your goddamned late Halloween Weekend Open Thread! And tomorrow I’ll have an All Saints’ Day joke for you!
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Update Monday: Happy All Saints’ Day!
TOMORROW is Dia De Los Muertos (and All Souls’ Day) – PBS had it wrong this morning in their zeal to get all ethnic. Anyway here’s my All Saints’ Day joke:
Q: Did popular, regressive, early 20th-century composer Ralph Vaughn Williams write the hymn “For All the Saints?”
A: AND HOW!
(This hymn by William How and Ralph Vaughn Williams is actually a great tune, I think.)
As a Christian who loves John Lennon and that song I would have told the priest that it isn’t anti-religion so much as about the world one day no longer needing it. I would furthermore argue that was the whole point of religion to begin with until churches decided it was bad for attendance to let people know it…
“Working Class Hero” by John Lennon more less states the truth of America.
Having said that, Joe Manchin is a turncoat Dino who sold out to Trump four years ago…for whatever reason….perhaps for his Coal Mining interests? This guy was Governor of West Virginia and even Robert Byrd could not stand him.
As far as the Supreme Court on the Texas and Mississippi laws about Abortion are concerned: They should put together a National Organization to create double the number of Pro-Choice Health Centers in all the States that allow it and provide free transportation to and from any Restrictive States. Going back to the days of the Coat hanger World………is totally unadvisable.
*Perhaps all the Tribal Areas of the United States can take the Pro-Choice Heath Centers on their land? Perhaps those women that live in Restrictive States can get Free Transportation to the nearest Pro-Choice Native American Health Center? Perhaps, we can tell the Men that want to keep women “Bare foot and Pregnant” to go skip a rope?
When men start having babies and periods…..maybe we will change our minds….but in the meantime!
Democrats’ loss in Virginia. Depressing. I was thinking a week or so ago about how stressed out Democrats get about elections, no matter what the polls say, ever since Trump unbelievably beat Hillary.
Then I started thinking about all the similarities Terry McAuliffe has to Hillary. Loud, obnoxious, arrogant. Says things unthinkingly such as “Parents shouldn’t have a say in what their kids are taught” that play into all the public’s fears about liberals. Been around since the 90’s. Not particularly exciting to progressives but more of a “lesser evil.” Actually one of the closest people to the actual Clintons. And if we’re tired of seeing him on TV, think about poor Virginians.
And then, I started actually watching Youngkin on TV. The guy is smooth! He makes his racist dog-whistles sound like the voice of reasonableness and tolerance.
The boogieman of Critical Race Theory (whatever that is) worked so well for Republicans here that I’m afraid we’re going to hear it in every race for years. Democrats need to be ready to address that (whatever it is.) I know one thing that’s going to happen – some Democrats will distance themselves from “Critical Race Theory” (whatever that is) and others will get mad at them, and there’ll be more schisms in the Party.
I sure hope those Infrastructure and Voting Rights bills get passed soon.
*Yeah Vern, the Trumpster Cool-aid is cheap and available to all. All just to obscure where Youngbuckkin gets his cash for his campaign. Manchin or Manchini as he was originally called gets his money from Big Coal. This is not Space Science, this is called: “Look…Halley’s Comet!”. Meaning that just keep people’s eyes on something different …at all times. Terry is a good one….and made very few mistakes actually. He got the support of Joe and Kamala and others. However,
since he was prior service as Governor……he had a track record he had to run on which may not have endeared him to that 10% he needed to win. Hey, the Murphy win, no matter how small was great. Also, the Black Lt. Governor in Virginia was a good win too. Not to worry….it is not exactly the “End Times” just yet.
Since this the”open thread” I thought I would post this question to Greg and Vern, who vigorously defended Julio Perez after allegations and eventually proof of his REPEATED sexual harassment.
Mr. Perez was hired at CSULB, presumably with Dr. Moreno’s help. I am interested given your attacks on Jordan Brandman and Vetns troubled history abusing women.
The thing is girls, you are great at casting stones. But, when you see Brandon Pho publish “How selective blogging poisons politics” article. Oh wait. He is just like you. A biased political blogger, willing to sacrifice young women for his pimp: Jose Moreno
Come on. Don’t be pussies.
WeOC IS COUNTING ON YOU.
1. I never wrote a word about Julio (since 2012 or so) let alone “vigorously.” I didn’t follow that whole thing. If he did those things he was accused of, that is bad, and it’s good that he was removed from his position of authority. I’m not sure that means he shouldn’t be allowed to ever work again.
2. I have no “troubled history of abusing women.” What I do have is a history of people sometimes making shit up about me. I realize that comes with the territory when you ruffle a lot of feathers.
3. Claudia Alvarez is a famous person in the OC, a former Santa Ana Councilwoman and an assistant DA, who recently ran for SA Mayor. I doubt this is her writing. Let’s see what happens when I write to the e-mail this commenter provided.
4. The e-mail doesn’t work. This isn’t Claudia Alvarez. I’m going to go ahead and add “Some jackass impersonating” to your name. Pretended to be Avelino recently?
I’ve written plenty about Julio and I think that he got a raw deal. He did run a casual workplace with a lot of joking around, but for the most part it was tight-knit. (Gloria could attest to that if she were still Gloria.) If women did feel uncomfortable due to his informality, there was a process in place for them to follow — a process that did not involve leaking anonymous complaints to an ambitious centrist Democrat who has by now probably learned quite a bit more about workplace issues from her law firm job.
But I don’t think that there’s much doubt that, despite some decent people buying into the convenient-this-time attacks on Julio, the power structure went after him because of his politics, his independence, and his effectiveness. And I will say that by the standards of union leaders, Julip was way below the mean on the hostile work environment scale. I’m sure that Gloria sees worse all of the time, but averts her eyes because she likes her job. I mean, do you think that Ernesto Medrano keeps his workplace nice and polite on race and gender issues? I really doubt it.
Sadly, attacking posts such as this anonymously, and taking contrary “butter won’t melt in my mouth” stances for attribution, are good ways to boost one’s rep in the union governance world, so expect to see a bit of that here and now. So be it.