Thursday, January 15, 2009

How Ricardo Montalban Led Me To True Salvation

This post was originally going to be about the death of Ricardo Montalban, the hispanic actor most known for his role as Khan in Star Trek II and as Mr. Roarke in Fantasy Island. But in my quest to find out out more about Mr. Montalban and his life I came across one of the most bizarre things on the internet (and let me tell you, there's a lot of weird stuff out there). I came across a forum post of The Landover Baptist Church proclaiming that Mr. Montalban was a homosexual sinner and is probably burning in hell! I couldn't believe it, were these people serious? I delved into the forums of this nightmarish ultra-ULTRA-right wing Christian church and came across all sorts of disturbing posts. "The evils of Valentine's Day" (it's pagan!), "I am chinese, will the creator condemn me?" , "OMG there's a fag in my neighborborhood what should I do?", and "Was baby Madeleine abducted by goths?" - all adorned with "Palin in 2012!" signatures. This was indeed a very scary place.

But something was off, something didn't feel quite right. There's crazy Christians, but these people were just crazy. The tipping point came when I read the first post announcing Montalban's death:

Folks, it brings me great joy to announce that C-list actor and possible illegal immigrant Ricardo Montalban has died at the age of 88. I take this as a personal victory for myself because he and I never exactly got along. The truth is that during the 70's I was going through a hard time and tried out for the part of Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island. I got the part and filmed an unaired pilot episode. Unfortunately it was 1978 and I had an expensive drug habit. To pay my astronomical debts to my dealers I decided to steal Charlie Chaplin's corpse and extort his family but unfortunately that plan had been done several months earlier and now the corpse was under two meters of concrete. I went back to the producers and asked for a raise only to be turned away because this Mexican immigrant was willing to do the job for less money than me. In my pilot episode one guest wishes for a bus full of 15 year old boys to break down in front of his cabana while our other guest, a former concentration camp officer, wishes that the woman he sexually tortured at Auschwitz would come back so he can resume his relationship with her. Studio heads decided that the plot about a pedophile wasn't the kind of upbeat family viewing they intended and the producers of the film "The Night Porter" sued us on the second plot. The episode was burried in an underground vault along with Jerry Lewis' "The Day The Clown Cried" and was later accompanied by Roseanne's sex tape. To this day I curse the name of Ricardo Montalban, but can sleep a little easier tonight knowing he is likely in hell.

Ok, there is just no way this is real. So I went to Wikipedia and came across this enlightening entry. Aha! It's all satire! Well, that's a relief. These people sure do take their satire seriously though, post after post of faux-Christian hate and bigotry. The scariest part is that it can be hard to differentiate from the folks who really think this way, but for now I'll breathe a sight of relief as I say, "Thank you Mr. Montalban for leading me to true salvation!" Amen (Palin in '12!)

1 comment:

  1. Sort of like every time I try to read Faulkner.

    Anyway, it's not every day you see references to The Night Porter and The Day The Clown Cried in the same piece of satire.

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