Fucking Day: Meet Mr. Smith (Patreon)

God loves sequels.

And Eric Ludy still needs you to know he fucks. Jesus watches, so Eric puts on a show. An exclusive one, unlike the free streams of the unsaved. Keep your crowds: Eric’s subscriber tips in salvation. Leslie has the same thoughts, but in complete sentences. And after Eric’s wretched prose experiments.

Meet Mr. Smith is their third worst book. But perhaps the most distinct.

To the unsaved: the Ludys put the ure in purity culture. Or another syllable, I try to be balanced. This is the second virginity manual I’ve covered, and it looks steamy.

For one, Eric’s found the youth pastor squat. Alongside the magic of putting “sex” in red letters on your cover. A peek at his podcast tells me he’s not a “Leave unto Caesar” kind of guy, unless Caeser’s purging a few pagans. Here Eric’s absorbed enough mainstream culture to pay off his bunker.

We’re in new territory: fundamentalists are usually more set in their ways. We may never know why.

Most artists with a pet topic put a fresh spin on it. Roth covered sexual dysfunction in preteens, old men, university firebrands, boxers-turned reverse Dolezals, and more. Tarantino’s explored cross-genre toes in every corner of Americana. Kevin Hart can squeal about any object in his house. But they belong to the secular world, like smiling and competent music. The saved abstain from variation.

Trust me. I’ve seen McDonald’s GospelFest live. Twice.

It’s odd, considering purity corrupts so much of life. Repression shapes classrooms, workplaces, doomed bedrooms, megachurch podiums, escort agency videos, blackmail letters, public apologies, civil courtrooms, criminal courtrooms, and quiet retirement into money laundering. If Fucking Day proves anything, there are endless paths to sexual failure, and Jesus loves half of them.

The Ludys usually defy that. There’s one path to God, and its 30k large-print words. I’ve toured their back catalog, and it loops like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. I worried they’d never write a sequel to When God Writes Your Love Story worth mocking.

Enter Meet Mr. Smith. A book with a simple pitch: the Ludys get real about sex. That’s doomed. But the real premise is worse: it’s almost all Eric. Leslie just stops by to check your pulse.

It’s too late. Eric’s solo effort bears two revelations: Leslie has all the writing talent, and the shame that sentence implies. The Ludys have a Ringo, and it’s the loud, long-winded one God put in charge. Leslie could ruin more lives, more quickly, without the dead weight.

As a manly man charged with manhood, that’s grim. This lifestyle’s only edge was preserving my ego. If my vast character flaws stay intact and obvious, I might as well stop wearing chastity gloves.

But I’m wrong! Some people love this book. Their testimonials open the 2007 edition:

I’m hyped. Unconvinced Levi’s seen Braveheart, but hyped. I love that “Ludy-esque” and “by far, the best book they have written” appear together. Mary could very well hate the Ludys, their prose, and text on paper. We’ll know in a bit.

The testimonials trend younger. A white belt cynic might say they haven’t read an unassigned book. Have more vision. Leslie and Eric’s marks are desperate parents looking for didactic gifts. For Baptist empty-nesters, an adult child’s like an expensive pet: they don’t want anyone to fuck it, and it’s terrifying when it talks back. These quotes are doing work. Not the Lord’s, but work.

For my intact and healthy mind, Leslie’s foreword builds enthusiasm much more effectively. One sentence, and I’m ready to go. I’m the Ludy Book Club’s current Chief Apostate, so make your own call.

That’s all you need. One line. It should be on the cover. It should be the title. The intent’s cutesy and defensive, but the effect is a promise ring for a Twilight Zone tour. Let’s see if Eric delivers.

What?

Alright, I’ll stop playing dumb. The setup here is inspiring. Sex, as rendered by Hollywood–or at least the caricature of Hollywood Eric’s absorbed from Hollywood–is a person. A vaguely hip font of wickedness. Imagine If Joel Olsteen speed-read Midnight’s Children. He wouldn’t write a word. But someone around Eric’s rank in the fundie hierarchy would be assigned this idea.

That’s an amazing propaganda prompt. I don’t hate that summary with the “you’re a hack” part of my brain. I hate it with the “you’re making human life worse” lobe. This plot is a social credit system. An art stealing robot. A 3D-printed gun. It can only shoot sheltered children, but there’s a whole planet of those. Thank God Eric sucks.

Sweet, sweet incompetence.

I’d love to dive into cat-fucking jokes, but that’s a more interesting book. And focused. Eric forgets how badly he wants to dick down this cat. Instead, he leaves us with four plagues.

The first? Eric puts himself on the page, and not in the usual sense. It’s literally the author, stunting on the American Gods avatar of fucking. A demagnetized creative compass tells him that’s the move.

Purity vow Ian Fleming gets old. The dialogue reflects life with someone raised to smile and nod when you talk. More tolerable than his essay style, but hold that thought.

The second plague? Eric undercuts the perfect born-again jerk show by saying this isn’t the real Sex. That’s a duller, shittier character coming later. Just like when we learned Ignatius wasn’t a real dropout, and we’d spend the rest of the book with a quiet, humble valedictorian.

Blame youth groups banning fantasy novels. Decades later, Eric doesn’t know how stories work. He’s a direct Satanic Panic victim, pulling levers at random like an adolescent sinner.

Which brings me to today’s main tangent. Believe it or not, I’m a mild Boondocks fan. Do you know what made Season 2 perfect, instead of merely unrivaled? Where it found the keys to punchline Valhalla?

Nope.

I mean it.

The secret sauce? Spending more time with bad examples. Riley’s liquid money. We see the world in every socket he dunks a fork into. Huey’s a fun heavyweight champion, but satire entirely about someone right about everything, all the time gets grating. Like, say, a pastor in an abstinence tract. Or a character called “Purity,” dropping gems like this:

Note that Great Sex is like Majestic 12, Azothoth, or that one Brad Pitt flick, making the book worthless. The cover’s pitch is a lie, so you might as well jump on Hinge.

That’s not why I’m irked. A CCP rap never had a chance. This could have been The Screwtape Letters for volcels. Or at least American Virgin for virgins. And for reasons I’ll never understand, Eric loses focus.

In the third plague, Eric keeps jumping out of his dead narrative entirely. He has thoughts about sex that demand direct address. Which was already in his fiction.

You have a doting Gaiman plot at home, and step out to cheat with Jimmy the Shrimp. Disgusting. Isn’t there a commandment? Thou shalt not covet a second, shittier metaphor? Some casual sex would really make this easier to get through.

Jimmy the Shrimp represents “selfishness,” italicized and Capitalized at near-random. The mobster crashes into a third metaphor about monarchy, and a fourth metaphor where God’s the president but you’re a false king sitting in his chair. I’m not riffing, Eric’s just lost.

Hmm. One sec.

Got it. Where’s Mr. Smith? Was it the mobster? I bet it was the mobster.

Impressive. Eric’s written a book-length guide to sex, and I’m still not sure where exactly babies come from. Or why my neighbor likes wrestling so much. Or why she says “This is your baby.”

Then there’s the fourth, and final, plague. Eric rewrites When God Tells Your Love Story. In full. Down to the anecdotes, tone, and astromech droid. I don’t know when Bob Iger acquired self-hatred, but megachurch regulars are probably more open-minded than Star Wars fans.

Eric tours puberty again. He brags about hand-holding, meeting Leslie, and publishing the book he’s remixing. At this point, I can remember his wedding more clearly than mine. After all the promising mescaline nonsense, Meet Mr. Smith turns into the live-action Lion King for dry palms.

Eric couldn’t be prouder. He hands himself the 2007 Ludy award for Best Ludy.

It’s his fourth win. And a new kind of lazy.

Laziness, religion, and art all make sense. Laziness preserves the soul, religion lets you express yourself, and art lets you dick off. Awesome. But I’ll never get lazy religious art. You’re representing God. With all the gifts, locusts, and omniscience that implies. Why make a half effort? Why write a story so shit that more people burn forever? Including you?

Then Leslie checks in. I haven’t died, but I’ve considered it.

Leslie skips the frame story, and gets right to dropping hammers. Her section shows the difference between lucid and sane. I understand everything Leslie says, but none of it makes flarble.

We breezed past this topic in When God Writes Your Love Story. Leslie might surprise us, lied Dennard twenty years post-release.

Ah. That’s why I tagged this book “unpoetic.” Good joke, Past Dennard.

Obviously, I’m an outsider. I left Baptism when Toonami moved G Gundam to Sunday mornings. But I have a bit of practical advice. Grand strategy for culture generals.

Sex or masturbation. Fight one at a time.

Why wage a two front war? They’re both unbeatable, but at least pretend to try. Grinding and jelqing are the tag champs of the teenage brain. Food and water had a good run, but Nestle said we only need one. That’s what happens when you focus.

Leslie has an answer!

Engarde. See what I mean about Leslie being the smart(er) one? Leaky circle or not, her argument exists. Leslie wields all thirty neurons you need to build an empire. She even cites nocturnal emissions and intelligent design in the same paragraph, implying God wants us to cream ourselves. I hope she’s right. We need a God with that sense of humor, not the psychopath in the news.

Casual/oral/enjoyable sex get the same treatment. Whatever. Leslie also remembers the real enemy:

Do critics still engage genres on their terms or whatever? Because tracts embraced begging the question centuries ago. It’s been standard since sermons met bread mold. I feel dumb for even bringing it up. It’s like asking why Leslie doesn’t curse or talk about fossils.

I’ll assume the kid’s real too. He just hasn’t figured out the answer to “Can I?” is “No.” Rapture militias have D students too.

But modern needs a good find/delete, book-wide. None of this is new. Or post-industrial. Or post-flood. I haven’t had one sexual experience or thought that a French writer wasn’t tired of before reaching high shelves. Including internet poison. People get creative.

This point works if you’re a bee, or a larger worker ant. Looking away from the hive is pretty selfish with winter creeping up. SimAnts don’t thrive by winking at the Oregon Trail. Your body has three purposes: finding food, defending food, and emergency food. If that also sounds like Oregon Trail to you, you’re an adulterer.

Actually, that joke’s a little unfair. I’m not here to box strawmen–

I’m learning. For decades, I couldn’t understand aspiring Gordon Gekkos quoting “Greed is good” with a smile. They sounded like aliens, bent on wiping reading comprehension from the galaxy. Now I have context. They’re reacting to professional martyrs like the Ludys. Our humblest, loudest, most incorporated heroes. Finance cyborgs still look and sound like aliens, but for a thousand other reasons.

This is what I admire about Leslie’s relationship: citing your co-authors’ earlier work. With you. That’s an elite plug, and divine recycling. You rarely see this dedication to brand without a McMahon involved. Leslie hasn’t kicked Eric through a barbershop window, so it’s hard to say.

Maybe she should:

Ah, there’s that L.L.-brand self-hate.

I should quit these books. Each line brings me closer to a joke that costs years and money to defend. I may be the Smaug of free time, but my wallet is…light. Nimble. Unfettered by sin, grace, or coins. An economic dex build. It’s safer to play with public servants that sign their crimes in cursive.

Don’t be a Ludy. The chemicals ricocheting across your brain and hips are complicated enough. Do whatever keeps you from calling yourself the Princess of Purity, making a mask out of human genitalia, and fist-fighting Bruce Wayne.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Jimmy the Shrimp, aka the act of ogling mannequins, also known as Sanctified Flesh, other aliases include Big Chomp, The Wedge, and John Dean.

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