my little comment<\/a>.<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>Why do you have to say the word \u201cactually\u201d?\u00a0 SO, many people have said “I actually enjoyed the book”<\/em> and I go “You can say I liked the book.”<\/em><\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>It made me laugh. It gave me some chuckles.<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>Why did you say you “actually”<\/em> liked the book. I think there\u2019s something deeper here we can identify \u2013 because you\u2019re not the first to say “I actually liked it.”<\/em><\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>I guess you always think people are going to doubt that you\u2019re being sincere \u2013 so to sell it a little bit more , I say “I actually liked the book.”<\/em> So, if you have any doubt, the “actually”<\/em> should, you know, fix that.<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>It can also be used as a word of surprise. You know, “I actually liked it.\u00a0 I actually didn\u2019t think I\u2019d like that movie.” “Yeah, I actually liked that. I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d like spinach.”<\/em>\u00a0 “I actually liked the book”<\/em> to me sounds like \u201cI didn\u2019t think I\u2019d like the book.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>Maybe, I was<\/em> a little surprised.<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>See! Now, we\u2019re getting to the root of the problem here!<\/p>\nLINO, THE ORGAN-GRINDER’S MONKEY<\/strong><\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>You\u2019re family life sounds interesting.\u00a0 What was it like growing up as an organ-grinder\u2019s monkey? (See Chapter 1: Monkey Boy, <\/em>about Lino working alongside his father who left his job as a parole officer to follow his dream of being an organ grinder.)<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>It was ridiculous. It was absolutely insane. Only later can I look back and see how it actually shaped and formed who I am — but I think that’s sort of God\u2019s way of\u00a0 doing things in our lives. You don\u2019t get it while it\u2019s happening. You only look back and say “Now, I see how it all came together.”<\/em><\/p>\nIt was ridiculous. It was embarrassing.\u00a0 I was a teenager. I didn\u2019t want to be a monkey…but it taught me a lot about being creative, it taught me a lot about bucking the trends. My dad didn\u2019t do what everyone expected him to do with his life. So, it taught me a lot about how I act and how I look at my career and being like everyone else. Doing something different actually pays off.<\/p>\n
JWK: <\/strong>So, God\u00a0 said \u201cI\u2019ll make him an organ-grinders monkey and that will have an impact that will lead him to\u2026?”<\/em><\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>I don\u2019t know about all that but you don\u2019t get it at the time .<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>I actually<\/em> know what you mean.<\/p>\nLINO AND POPE JOHN PAUL II<\/strong><\/p>\nJWK:<\/strong> So, you\u2019re respect for Pope John Paul II comes out in the book. Why is he your favorite pope?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>A lot of people my age or younger, or even older, say how much they loved the guy and maybe they loved an encyclical he wrote or maybe something like that. For me, it\u2019s not a great theological thing. For me, it actually is more like a family member. I got my aunt and uncle and cousins all in Rome and he was sort of this grandfatherly figure who every time I would go to Rome I would see and so I just always grew more and more attached to him. He was like part of my family in Italy…So, it was never like \u201cWow, he\u2019s the Vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, the leader of the Catholic Church, the Shepherd.\u00a0 It\u2019s what he\u2019s done with communism.”<\/em> It was none of those things that, perhaps, other people admire and love him for. I just loved who he was and, then in turn, he would make people want to learn more about the Catholic faith and like the Catholic faith.<\/p>\nLINO ON BEING CATHOLIC<\/strong><\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>What do you like about the Catholic faith?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>I like that the Catholic faith encourages me to be better than I am. The Catholic Church strives for perfection. It doesn\u2019t let me just go \u201cAh, it\u2019s okay, I\u2019m a fallen human being.”\u00a0 No, no, no , you\u2019re supposed to be perfect.\u00a0 I like the Catholic faith\u2019s art, the confessional.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>You like the confessional?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>I hate the confessional. I love leaving<\/em> the confessional. I hate going<\/em> to the confessional. I would be a mess without it.\u00a0 There are a lot days where I don\u2019t know if God exists. There are a lot of days where I think the leadership of the Church is wacky, a lot of days where I really doubt why I am a part of this thing. But, down deep, I know it to be true. Down deep, I know how much I love it and that\u2019s what sort of gets me through.\u00a0 The churches are the pope, and its priests and its mystery and everything. I just sort of like the whole thing.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>Have the recent Church scandals given you any pause in your faith?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>It didn\u2019t upset my faith at all. It upset me as a person. It still upsets me as a person. Primarily, because I think there are criminals in the Catholic Church. \u00a0As Pope Benedict XVI said \u201cWhat filth is in the Church?\u201d<\/em> and that makes me mad.\u00a0 It makes me sick but it makes me mad.\u00a0 So, it doesn\u2019t damage my faith. I don\u2019t believe less in American government because of a bad politician. I don\u2019t believe less in the Catholic Church because of a criminal priest but I wish we were doing more \u2013 and had done more in the past especially \u2013 to do something about these things. It doesn\u2019t harm my faith but it gets me just mad that these things have existed.<\/p>\nLINO ON WRITING SINNER<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nJWK:\u00a0<\/strong>What do you hope this book accomplishes \u2013 besides making you a little more money?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>A little bit of money, a little bit of advance in the professional life.\u00a0 I think I wrote the book\u00a0 for a guy or girl like me 20 something years ago — or it could be still be me today — but\u00a0 someone who kinda goes to church but doesn\u2019t always go to church, was raised with some sort of religious foundation\u00a0 and asks himself “Why do I keep trying?\u00a0 I suck at being Catholic. I suck at being Lutheran. I suck at being Jewish,” whatever.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>So, the book could work for people of different faiths?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>I think so. I think the funny thing about my Jewish friends are they\u2019re like \u201cI want some bacon\u201d and I go \u201cYou can\u2019t have bacon!\u201d and they go like \u201cAh, I guess I\u2019m a bad Jew.\u201d\u00a0 Or my atheist friends will say \u201cI lost my key. I\u2019m going to say a prayer to Saint Anthony.”\u00a0 I say \u201cYou can\u2019t!\u201d and they say \u201cWell, I guess I\u2019m a bad atheist.\u201d \u00a0I think were all a part of something. We\u2019re striving (to be) more than we are…I really don’t only see religion as being for people who are perfect. They\u2019ve got it all set. And I\u2019m not like that.\u00a0 I\u2019m not like the pope, I\u2019m not like pastor Joel Osteen, I\u2019m not like a lot of the rabbis or imams I see. They’ve got it all together.\u00a0 This is a book for people who don\u2019t have it all together.\u00a0 And I think misery loves company.\u00a0 The more people I see go \u201cOh, wow! You\u2019re struggling with this too, you haven\u2019t given up,” that encourages me. And I, obviously, hope people are going to have some laughs along the way. This isn\u2019t a serious tome.<\/p>\nLINO ON GUILT<\/strong><\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>You say the Church calls to you perfection and you never quite get there. Does that lead to guilt?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>It leads to guilt but guilt\u2019s good thing.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>Is it always a good thing?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>Guilt is always a good thing.\u00a0 If I kick you in the groin right now and don\u2019t feel guilty about it there\u2019s something wrong with me.\u00a0 Something\u2019s wrong with my conscience.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>Can there ever be too much guilt?<\/strong><\/p>\nLINO:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, everything can be brought to the extreme. Food is good, overeating is bad. Possessions are good, hoarding is bad. Guilt is good, obsessing about guilt is bad.\u00a0 But I think guilt is good because I\u2019m like, “Hey, I just stabbed that guy and I feel pretty good.”<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>Is that a confession to me?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>That\u2019s a confession…I think this is where the quote, unquote, “Catholic guilt”<\/em> gets in the way.\u00a0 Somebody might go, “I went to church but I got distracted. I\u2019m a horrible person, beat myself up.\u00a0 I\u2019m horrible, I\u2019m a sinner, I\u2019m going to hell.”\u00a0<\/em> That\u2019s a psychological problem. You can\u2019t blame all people\u2019s psychological ills on religion. A lot of people were crazy before they got in a religion and they just happen to be crazy and religious.\u00a0 So, guilt is good.<\/p>\n(Comment:<\/strong> I have to disagree with Lino here, if only semantically. More on that tomorrow.)<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>What do you want to accomplish with the radio show?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>I think I have less lofty goals with the radio show.<\/p>\nJWK:<\/strong>\u00a0 What does Fr. Keighron do on the show?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>He\u2019s my sidekick. We have excellent chemistry.<\/p>\nJWK:<\/strong>\u00a0 The priest is your sidekick?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>Yeah, so it\u2019s a turnaround. For five years I\u2019ve been the funny guy and the one who\u2019s supposed to know about theology and it\u2019s tough to do both. Well, we\u2019ve got somebody who\u2019s funny and knows about theology. Fr. Keighron is sort of like me. People say to me \u201cYou\u2019re the Catholic Guy? You\u2019re sorta like me. You\u2019re kinda crazy?\u201d…<\/em>He\u2019s got a wicked sense of humor, he loves sports, he\u2019s not your typical priest.\u00a0 And, yet at the same time, he studied in Rome for five years. He\u2019s a smart guy…Plus he\u2019s Mr. Conservative. He\u2019s only 30 years old. He\u2019s been a priest for five years. He\u2019s like, you know, a 30-year-old young conservative Catholic priest with a crazy, sense of humor, a crazier laugh…When we take pilgramiges with the listeners…he\u2019s doing masses during the day, talking Church history and also singing karaoke and at the bar till two in the morning.<\/p>\nWHY LINO THINKS “CATHOLIC MEDIA SUCKS”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>What do you hope to accomplish with the radio show?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>Catholic media sucks.\u00a0 It’s\u00a0 boring. It\u2019s for old people. It\u2019s not interesting. It\u2019s like you\u2019re in a class with an 80 year old nun.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>Sometimes you are.<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>Nobody wants that! That\u2019s not using the media. That\u2019s not using any of the gifts of what media is. So, I\u2019m an advocate of “Let\u2019s not suck!” There\u2019s a reason why very few people listen to Catholic radio, very few people watch Catholic TV. It\u2019s because there\u2019s no quality to it and so it\u2019s like, if you put quality there, if you\u2019re real broadcasters, you make it entertaining. You make real Catholic radio. So, all we\u2019re doing is we’re doing is what the sports guys are and the same thing Howard Stern is. We\u2019re making entertaining radio. We\u2019re talking about Catholicism and we\u2019re talking about everything else along the way.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong>Why does it seem faith-based projects have such a hard time getting past the gatekeepers in the media? I mean especially on television?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>People in mainstream media \u2013 I guess I worked in it long enough to know\u00a0 that they\u2019re afraid that it\u2019s going to be boring.<\/p>\nJWK:<\/strong> <\/strong>Maybe they\u2019re afraid it going to be popular.<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>No!<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong><\/strong>You don\u2019t think so?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>I mean, at the end of the day, every media entity is in the business of selling soap. They\u2019re not afraid of being popular. Do you know any TV or radio executive who passes on a popular idea?<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong><\/strong>I think sometimes they do.<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>They need to make money, John.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong><\/strong>Demographics I think have skewed the whole system and it\u2019s like a portion of the audience is declared more important than the rest of the audience and they want this sort of edgy programming and, meanwhile, the broader audience might prefer something that touches the heart a little bit more.\u00a0 They don\u2019t get it because they (the gatekeepers) have the game rigged.<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>Well, now you\u2019re talking about two different things.\u00a0 Yeah, I agree with you demographically, but they are in the business of making money\u00a0 and they\u2019re risk averse. So, if there were five or ten or fifteen other popular religious TV shows and they go Holy Cow! Look at those ratings!<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong><\/strong>Touched by an Angel<\/em> was on for how many years and a very popular show. I haven\u2019t seen a lot of imitators.<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>Right. Because it\u2019s crap.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong><\/strong>Right, but (if it was crap), it was popular crap.\u00a0 And if they\u2019re only interested in making money than why haven\u2019t they imitated it?<\/p>\nLINO: <\/strong>I guess it was popular (but) what are the other models out there? I genuinely believe that\u00a0 if its going to get them more eyeballs in the demos that they want they\u2019re going to do it.<\/p>\nJWK: <\/strong><\/strong>Right, in the demos.<\/p>\n