Tilly Gokbudak is NOT Moving to Bulgaria (It was an April Fool's Prank)

For those of you in El Salvador, Dubai and Sri Lanka who read this blog on a daily basis, it is time to fully fess up. Though the American College of Sofia in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia is a real place, I have not accepted a job as an English teacher there. In fact, I have not been to Bulgaria since our family traveled through there en route from Belgrade, Serbia (it was the capital of Yugoslavia then) to Istanbul, Turkey, when I was a child in the 1970s.


We also need to add a correction to yesterday's piece as the national airlines of Bulgaria is actually called Balkan Bulgarian Airlines; perhaps they can find you a flight from JFK or Dulles to Sofia or Varna (another Bulgarian city).

Approximately 11-14 people fell for my prank yesterday, but it is nothing compared to what my good friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, did for April Fool's Day of 2009.

For that prank, Knight convinced people all over the globe that a radical minister named the Rev. Johnny Robertson from the Church of Christ in Martinsville, Va., created an unholy scene in Vatican City, of all places!

Here is a sample of that entry (we will post a link bellow):

"Johnny Robertson has been arrested in Vatican City following what is being called a 'coordinated and persistent' attempt to threaten Pope Benedict XVI within the very Papal Apartments of the Apostolic Palace."

Knight said in a April 9, 2009, entry that he received messages from both the State Department and Vatican City expressing concern about the 'incident.'

http://theknightshift.blogspot.com/2009/04/breaking-hard-johnny-robertson-arrested.html

http://www.theknightshift.blogspot.com


http://www.air.bg/en (Balkan Bulgarian Airlines)

http://www.acs.bg (American College of Sofia)

http://www.bulgaria_embassy.org (Bulgarian Embassy in Washington, DC)

http://www.allaboutclowns.com

Quote of the Day- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The editorial board here at "The Daily Vampire" which consists of managing editor (mr) Tilly Gokbudak (that's me) and a Honduran intern named Javier Gonzales (actually, a fictional person) decided late this afternoon to feature quips from literary and creative radicals for the month of August.

So, we begin with the late, great American novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who penned "Slaughterhouse Five," which was available at the Shenandoah County Jail Library in Woodstock, Va. (I am not making this up!), at least it was when I profiled the correctional facility as a reporter some 11 years ago.

According to Stephen King in King's book "On Writing," Vonnegut would type the same page 75 times until he got it just right. This practice sounds a bit like the perfectionism of the late film director Stanley Kubrick, but I don't if I should mention that since King reportedly disdains the 1980 film version of King's novel "The Shinning." And we like Stephen King. In fact, we are wondering if the temperature in King's hometown of Bangor, Maine, is less than 97 degrees as it is here in Mount Airy, NC, at the moment (not really where I am at).

The liberal magazine "The Nation" has apparently been posting some famous quips made in its pages over the years, and Vonnegut made this provocative statement in the magazine's Nov. 28th, 1981 issue, which we imagine the Rev. Johnny Robertson of Martinsville, Va., (a real person) might not appreciate:

"God shouldn't be put in charge of everything until we get to know him a little bit better."

SIDEBAR: On a more somber note, we want to send our condolences to the family of Gizem Dogan, a 17-year-old Norwegian girl of Turkish heritage who was killed at the summer camp in Norway last week. All total, the attacks in Oslo and on the island where the summer camps took place, claimed 77 lives. Both the NPR news program "The World" and the English-language Turkish newspaper "Today's Zaman" reported that Turkey's Foreign Minsiter Ahmet Davutoglu attended Dogan's funeral in Trondheim, Norway.

Gizem Dogan is perhaps the most high-profile casualty of a violent action in the Turkish media since Furkan Dogan, (we assume they are not related) a 19-year-old Turkish-American from New York state was killed by Israeli commandos during the infamous armed raid fiasco aboard the Marmara Flotilla, which aimed at giving food and aid to Palestinians, in June of 2010.

We learned today that Furkan Dogan's father filed a lawsuit in an American court against the Israeli government in May.

Status Update_ Perhaps, God Meant for Us....

I must profess that those who know me well, and perhaps all too many of you reading this actually do, know that I'm really not a religious at all.

But, since I can't remember the over-the-top church sign I saw as I was driving past a fundamentalist church near Boones Mill, Va., on Route 220- not far from a radical, in-your-face pro-life billboard, I was thinking what I might say if I were to put something on a church sign (obviously, it would have to be a Unitarian church).

And, since I was a lot of problems trying to watch the 1970 film "The Landlord," from the late director Hal Ashby ("Harold and Maude") via Netflix streaming, I think it would have to be this:


"Perhaps, God Meant 4 Us to Watch Movies in a Cinema and No Place Else!"

That would assuredly get some passer-by's attention....well, we hope!

As for old cinemas, The Lyric Theatre in Balcksburg, Va, (pictured here) is showing "The Black Swan" with Natalie Portman, which could my choice for the best film of 2010 (don't worry kids, I'm making a list as we speak).

And, another one of my favorite college-town cinemas, The Varsity Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, which is one of the few zip codes in The Tarheel State without a hell-fire Southern Baptist church (well, there probably is one there too) is screening "The Social Network," which is also a film that I might designate as my favorite of 2010?!

Speaking of radical, hell-fire churches, I wonder what the Rev. Johnny Robertson of Martinsville, Va., is up to these days. He happens to be a real person; and he does actually match the stereotype of an over-the-top preacher! If you don't believe me, then just ask my good friend Chris Knight.

Lastly, one does not have to see films at an old cinema to be a devout cinemaniac. My friend Jason Garnett will be screening "Heathers," the vintage late-80s teen comedy that is definitely darker than your typical John Hughes flick at 8:00 at The Shadowbox in downtown Roanoke (damn, wish I could be there!).

Political Confusion Test (18 of 21)- Whacky Religious Groups

As we gradually come to the end of this series, which seems to be more popular than "Know Your Congressman or Senator," we decided to dwelve into a deep philisophical question which has been pondered by the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

But, beyond asking if God exists or not, we should think about which radical religious group would make us feel more uncomfortable.

If there is one thing I have noticed in life, it is that very conservative small towns like Rocky Mount, Va., have crazy, radical churches where people actually do things like speak in tongues.

And, in turn, very liberal college towns like Chapel Hill, NC, have their own brand of extremist kooks who borrow from aspects of Eastern religions.

This brings us to ask: "Who is more insane?"

Let us start with a Church of Christ minister named Johnny Robertson in Martinsville, Va., who was the target of a brilliant April Fool's Joke by my friend Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, in which Knight claimed that Robertson flew to the Vatican in a botched effort to attack the Pope.

Robertson has made claims that the good lord hates homosexuals, and he is now currently fighting with the local natural history museum over (what else?!) evolution.

I have also heard that Robertson who not only thinks you are going straight to hell if you don't go to church, but you will in fact go upstairs if you don't go to his particular church.

Robertson hosts a show called "What Does the Bible Say" on WSGR-TV in Reidsville on Sunday nights from 8-10 p.m. It is opposite both "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy," and I must profess that the Rev. Johnny's show is funnier than either one of them!

But, not to be outdone there is a Hare Krishna congregation called the New Goloka Temple in Hillsborough, NC, just outside Chapel Hill, where the Lord Narashina will apparently be making an appearance on May 7.

Between these two extremes, I might well choose the Krishnas though I have no interest in walking barefoot, dressing in strange ritual clothing, eating tofu or bothering folks in airport lounges.

All of this made me think of Louis Theroux's book "Call of the Weird," where the author met with survivors of the Heaven's Gate cult. If you recall this was the group in San Diego which killed themselves by eating poisonous butterscotch pudding so they could get on board Haley's Comet. The 39 people who killed themselves (there were two more who did the same deed several months later) were all wearing brand-new Nike tennis shoes.

Amazingly enough, the group somehow maintains an active web site!

We have a link for it and these other crazy religious groups below. I hope no one actually joins any of these groups as a result of this!

And, as a disclaimer, I should also mention that I firmly against all forms of ritualistic suicide.

Useful links:

'Secular Sites:"

http://theknightshift.blogspot.com (Chris Knight's blog)

'Religious Sites:"

http://blog.whatdoesthebiblesaytv.org (Johnny Robertson's site)

http://newgoloka.com (New Goloka Temple)

http://www.heavensgate.com (Heaven's Gate)