Did I ever tell you I used to be an altar boy? True story. Sadly, I wasn't one of those that was molested; had I been, perhaps I would be wealthy right now from suing the church and not have to slave over a hot keyboard to bring you these insightful record reviews in an attempt to sway you into purchasing some album.

All my motives for wanting to be an altar boy were totally fucked up and selfish:

 - Access to wine. Alcoholism runs deep in my blood; hell, my blood might even be replaced by alcohol, who knows? I began drinking at an early age and never tired of it.

- C.R.E.A.M. I was told a tale of countless riches bestowed upon the altar boys who served at weddings and funerals. A man could retire off just one wedding, they said. Even build a swimming pool full of gold and swim in it like Scrooge McDuck. It was all bullshit. The most I ever got for serving a funeral was a tener. Shit sucked.

- Seeing ghosts. It's a long story for another day, but my brother before me was an altar boy and at Sunday mass, a priest died in my brother's arms at the end of the service while genuflecting in front of the altar. Legend went that his ghost still walked those halls. And as an altar boy I had unlimited access to the church and to ghost-hunting (This was around the time the movie Lost Boys came out...).

Unfortunatley the head priest didn't care for my long hair and would always fuck with me, going so far as to pull my hair hard as hell. He did it once at the beginning of Sunday mass and I told him to stop, but he did it a second time...again, I told him it hurt and to cut it out and when he did it the third time, he pulled so hard that he yanked a clump of hair out. I screamed "FUCK!" The entire congregation turned and looked at me in horror. I threw the large gold cross down and stormed out and never went back again...until years after I knew he was dead.

More stupid can be found at Chrisnieratko.com or twitter.com/Nieratko.