North Hollywood, California, was a truly diabolical place in the 1980s. Which is to say that, guided by the loving paranoia of my family and churchmates, I found Satan absolutely everywhere I looked. He was prevalent in popular music, movies, cartoons, and role-playing games. Watching an hour of MTV was a sure ticket to Hell. […]

If this were the NFL, he’d be fined for the shit he pulls when he licks me in a match. He cackles with glee as dances about the living room chanting, “Uh huh! I’m awesome! You suck!” He gyrates those hips and pulls faces, all the while maintaining eye contact for the rub. It’s maddening.

Most adults were amused and bewildered by my precocious ways at only four years old, but by September 1st, 1981, my mother had enough of my constant questions and demands for explanations and decided it was high time I went to kindergarten so she could have a break. Trouble was, most schools required that children […]

I felt slightly like a traitor. Jesus, after all, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and buried, and I was throwing a tantrum over spending five minutes in a holy wading pool. But traitorous or not, I held my ground: Jesus did not have to suffer two weeks of amoxicillin.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior; I went to a Lutheran school and I believed in God and everything. But if we had to do all this tonight, it meant we wouldn’t have time to play Kid Nicky on the Nintendo, and I was really hoping to make it to the next level.”