Bee-otch of the Day: Duane Vander Klok

Name: Duane Vander Klok
Age: 71
Occupation: bible thumper
Last Seen: Grandville, MI
Bee-otched For: mixing oil and water

According to their website, Resurrection Life Church was founded in 1967 by Pastor James E. Bugg in a motel conference room in Grandville. 

Now, the only thing that the church has shortened is its name. 

ResLife Church is one of the largest houses of worship in the Grand Rapids area today. It is headed by the Reverend Duane Vander Klok, whose church attracts over 7,000 attendees every Sunday. Vander Klok is also a televangelist whose show, Walking By Faith, airs on several TV stations in Michigan and GOD TV, a British-based religious channel with an American version that also features Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, and other televangelists who solicit donations.

Vander Klok is proving why many people are moving away from religion. 

In a recent sermon, the pastor raised eyebrows when he told his parishioners that the devil was a homosexual and people must flee from the Democratic Party. 

During the speech, Vander Klok made comparisons between the Republicans and Democrats. "Here’s God’s original design: one man, one woman," he said. "Should you vote for a party that’s for all sorts of sexual perversion? Vote for a party that accepts transgenders into women’s restrooms and showers and in sports? Should you vote for a party that wants to cut off little girls’ breasts and tell them they're a boy? The antichrist is a homosexual," he said. "It’s part of the antichrist spirit is sexual confusion."

Vander Klok also trashed the Dems for their treatment of Israel and abortion. 

ResLife has become political before. In 2020, the church invited Trump's son, Eric, to use them to push his father's presidential campaign. In 2015, the church made headlines when it refused to return money stolen by a Ponzi scheme that had been given to it.

Vander Klok is also an author. For fun, I've read some of his excerpts and groaned when I saw that he wrote something along the lines of "This world would be a better place if we could rid it of bigotry, racism, pornography..." etc. When I read that, it reminded me of the anti-drug commercials I saw as a young boy where they grouped marijuana in the same category as heroin, crack, and cocaine. But unlike those three, cannabis has never killed anyone.

Because of Vander Klok's statements, many wonder if his church needs to start paying taxes. Under federal law, non-profit businesses, like churches, are forbidden from endorsing political candidates. Since they are a house of worship, Reslife does not pay taxes. 

For years, churches have been under fire for being tax-exempt while their staffers -- especially their pastors -- have lived in luxury. Many megachurch pastors have been known for living in mega mansions, driving luxury vehicles, and even flying in private jets. Some have been known for condemning their poorest parishioners for not tithing enough money to their church.

What's funny is that while Vander Klok is known for spreading hate regarding the LGBTQ+ community, many churches in West Michigan embrace their presence. Not only that, but some churches even acknowledge that the Bible verse where Jesus allegedly says that homosexuals are not allowed into Heaven is poorly translated. Some Bibles claim this in 1 Corinthians 6:9, but others use words like "sodomites", "effeminate", and "male prostitutes" in place of "homosexuals". That is because the Greek texts that the Bible was translated from had a word that could not be properly translated. 

Because the right has always been gung-ho against anyone who is not white, straight, or male, Vander Klok simply acts like he feels like he can use his pulpit to attack anybody he wants. He attacks the Democrats while it's the Republicans like Drumpf who all want to give the wealthy a tax break. Since I assume Reslife is yet another church that only preaches from certain sections of The Bible that reflect their business strategies, then I assume that the story of Jesus telling the rich, young man that "it's easier than for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to Heaven" means nothing to him. The same goes for Jesus expelling the Den of Thieves from the temple. 

I'll betcha that churches like ResLife and others will and have rebuked their critics over the years for being blasphemous. In reality, it's pot calling the kettle black. When I think of such places, I don't think of Jesus or God. I think of the Catholic Church and its long, disgusting history of yanking young Indigenous people from their homes and making them suffer in their schools, forcing them to eat spoiled food, plus raping and even murdering them. I think of the same Catholic churches, that also molested young altar boys for generations and covered it up. I think of televangelism and the destruction they've caused over the years. I think of the old woman with cancer who donated her life savings to Kenneth Copeland because his wife proclaimed that if anyone with the disease gave them money, the cancer would go away. In the end, the woman died. I think of the Trinity Broadcasting Network and the fact that for years, they preached against homosexuality, yet founder Paul Crouch paid a former male employee $400,000 after he claimed that Crouch ordered him to perform sex acts on him or else he'd lose his job. Plus, TBN hid the fact that for years, Paul's then-13-year-old granddaughter Carra was drugged and raped by a 30-year-old male employee in a hotel room and they never pressed charges against the guy. Thankfully, after Carra's side of the family was fired from TBN, her sister, Brittany Koper became a whistleblower against the religious broadcaster and revealed that her grandparents were using the channel as a front for their excessive wealth. A judge then ordered TBN to pay Carra Crouch $2 million for failing to report her rapist. 

In a future BOTD, I will write about why even left-leaning churches are problematic, too. Sorry, but because of experiences I've had with both churches on the left and right of the political spectrum, I ain't going back. Thanks, but I have a dog who needs to go to the park at that time.

Hopefully soon, in one way or another, Duane Vander Klok's time will run out. 

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Bee-otch of the Day: Shell Shock II

Name: Shell Shock
Age: 2
Occupation: rock music festival
Last Seen: Orlando, Florida
Bee-otched For: inviting a conservative crybaby to their event

The dictionary defines shell shock as "a condition with psychological and psychosomatic symptoms resulting from exposure to active warfare, first identified in soldiers undergoing bombardment in the trenches in World War I. Shell shock would now be regarded as a form of post-traumatic stress disorder."

Over the years, awareness of PTSD has been raised, including through a music festival in Orlando aptly named Shell Shock. However, the event organizers made a poor decision by hiring someone who actually caused PTSD in some people to speak at the festival.

That person is none other than murderer Kyle Rittenhouse. 

During the protests regarding police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020, Rittenhouse decided to march on the wrong side of history. At 17, the native of Antioch, Illinois drove across state lines to Kenosha, Wisconsin, and stayed with a friend who gave him an AR-15 rifle. Rittenhouse was a Drumpf supporter and an ardent supporter of the police. Rittenhouse learned about a potential riot in Kenosha, 20 miles away, so he went up to "protect" some buildings from protesters. 

The Kenosha riots were in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black male who is now paralyzed from the waist down. According to the officer who shot him seven times, he claimed that Blake was about to stab him after he tried to enter the SUV that belonged to the mother of his children. The officer, Rusten Sheskey was not charged and has returned to the police force. Needless to say, Sheskey's actions led to rioting in Kenosha, and Rittenhouse thought that he and his trusty murder machine would benefit the police force. 

Rittenhouse and his friend, Dominick Black went to protect a used auto dealership called Car Source. During the Kenosha riots, Rittenhouse was confronted by several people, in which he shot three and killed two. The two men Rittenhouse murdered were unarmed, though the man whom he injured was. 

Rittenhouse was charged multiple times for the murders, though two of the charges - possession of a dangerous weapon by someone under 18 years of age and not obeying a curfew - were both dropped by the judge in his trial, Bruce Schroeder. He was sentenced to a juvenile detention center on $2 million bail, which was posted by outspoken ultra-conservative Christian MyPillow inventor Mike Lindell. During the trial, Schroeder, a Democrat in name only ruled that the people Rittenhouse murdered were not "victims", but "arsonists" and "looters". It was no secret that Schroeder pressured the court to not convict Rittenhouse, even by admonishing prosecutor Thomas Binger. During the trial, Rittenhouse cried crocodile tears, claiming that the two men he killed were attacking him. Ultimately, Rittenhouse was acquitted and became a spirit animal for the right. 

Since his acquittal, Rittenhouse has worked on multiple projects and has even written a book called "Acquitted". However, many feel like Rittenhouse is using the fact that he was innocent of killing two people to boost his celebrity status. 

And because of that, Shell Shock is facing major backlash.

Since they booked Rittenhouse, several bands pulled out of the festival, including metalcore band Evergreen Terrace (named for the street The Simpsons live on). The group posted on their socials that they don't want to be associated with Rittenhouse or any events aligning with them. Other bands that have pulled out include Southpaw, Let Me Bleed, and American Hollow. 

Now, Shell Shock II's headliner is (SiC), a Slipknot cover band from Texas. No word if Corey Taylor and his ilk will lawyer up to stop them. The concert is scheduled for Saturday, October 19 in Orlando.

Shell Shock II is hosted by The Antihero Podcast, which claims to help those battling PTSD and other disorders related to it. They also claim to help first responders and military personnel. 

Now, as someone whose grandfathers were both Navy men during World War II, I feel that fighting PTSD is a good cause. My maternal grandfather lost his dad when he was only nine and his mother kept marrying and divorcing throughout his young life. He lacked a good father figure. He was humble and enrolled in the Navy, fighting in WWII and the Korean War. However, his military experience left him with what was then called shell shock. Because there wasn't much science behind it back then, the only cure for his PTSD - and with other people as well - as being told, "Go home, grow up, and be a man". Because of this, my grandfather became an alcoholic. Together, he and my grandmother had a daughter, my aunt, ironically born on July 4th, 1945. They should have divorced not long afterward, but ten years later, my mother was born. Because of her, my grandparents' marriage lasted another 12 years.

When she was a little girl, my mother would have nightmares. She would come into my grandparents' room and tug on my grandfather to wake up. However, my grandfather had many nightmares himself of being attacked by the Japs and his Navy ship being torpedoed. As he was being awakened by my mother, he ended up slapping her until she cried. Because of this, my grandmother told my mother to simply be gentle with him if she needed him to help her fight the evil monsters along with those Japs at the same time. 

Yes, my grandfather was a drunk, but he was a super nice guy. I was told that his drinking was so bad that he should have died around the same time I was born, but he beat the odds. Hell, he outlived my paternal grandfather by seven years. Now, my paternal grandfather did drink, albeit more moderately. He did smoke heavily up until about 20 years before he died of lung cancer in 2001.

As someone whose family had a military past, I'm very disappointed that the organizers of Shell Shock II decided to politicize the event with Rittenhouse's presence. What's even more disgusting is that the festival is supposed to be loaded with artists from the metal genre. 

To me, mixing metal with conservative politics is like mixing oil and water. Let's remember that back in the 1950s, the right tried their damndest to kill rock 'n roll, but failed. In the 1980s, they condemned everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Judas Priest and wanted to "protect our children" from this type of music. Today, I see more people wearing T-shirts displaying those acts, plus Metallica, Slayer, Guns 'N Roses, and other acts that the right condemned back then than people wearing anything advertising Amy Grant or Sandi Patty. 

So, if you call yourself a metalhead and you want to cry that the bands pulled out of Shell Shock II were being too woke, guess what? CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS HAVE DONE IT FOR DECADES! "oH! bUt GeOrGE FLoYd WAs a JunkIE wHo ROBBeD a LiqUOR StORe!" "thE pEOPlE kYlE RiTTenhouSE KillED weRE aTTACKing hIm!" 

Yes, I understand. Rock has its fair share of conservatives like Kid Rock, Sully Erna from Godsmack, Staind's Aaron Lewis, and (ugh) Ted Nugent to name a few. However, what these people stand for - destroying women's rights, gun rights even for felons, making sure that Americans don't get single-payer universal healthcare, and so on - is a poor representation of what rock 'n roll is really about. Granted, there are plenty of lefty rockers out there: Rage Against the Machine, Green Day, Pearl Jam, and others who lift the genre and unify rock fans from all backgrounds. 

To me, PTSD organizations need to unify people instead of breaking them apart and making sure that they have no place at the table. These assholes getting a lunatic like Kyle Rittenhouse to speak at this event is just as bad - or maybe worse - than someone with PTSD living in a place where the Blue Angels fly overhead all the time, like my birthplace of Traverse City. Kyle Rittenhouse is no hero, folks. He's a murderer and deserves to rot in prison for what he did. He protected a building and not people. If that car lot he was guarding burned down, the owners would have simply rebuilt bigger and better. People, however, cannot be replaced. Granted, the two men Rittenhouse murdered had mental issues, but unlike Rittenhouse, they would have never murdered a soul.

Inviting Kyle Rittenhouse to a concert is like inviting Hitler to a synagogue.

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Bee-otches of the Day: KOMP and KXTE Radio in Las Vegas

Names: KOMP and KXTE
Ages: KOMP: 58, KXTE: 38
Occupations: radio stations
Last Seen: Las Vegas
Bee-otched For: saying "Good Riddance" to Green Day

Christ, I'm getting old.

It's been 30 years since I was a 13-year-old lad watching MTV when I saw the song " Longview " video by a new band called Green Day. The group's major debut album, "Dookie", was a 1990s cornucopia of polished punk rock that has stood the test of time.

In those 30 years, they had their good hits with the ballad "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" and the blockbuster "American Idiot" album. They had their low points, too, like the follow-up to "Dookie", "Nimrod" (although "Brain Stew" would become a rock radio standard with or without "Jaded") and the experimental "¡Uno!", "¡Dos" and ¡Tre!" albums. Their current offering, "Saviors", has been called one of their best albums.

If you want to hear any of their new album or even their classics in Las Vegas, you're SOL.

Two of Sin City's radio stations, active rock KOMP 92.3 and KXTE X107.5 "Xtreme Radio" have pulled the iconic punk band's music from their playlists because of comments made by lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong at a recent concert at Oracle Park in San Francisco. Armstrong, who was born in nearby Oakland, voiced his anger over his hometown baseball team, the Athletics, moving to Vegas by calling the city a "shithole" on stage. 

No word on if the band's opening act, Rancid - also from the Oakland area - is still on those stations' playlists. On stage, guitarist Lars Frederikson attacked A's owner John Fisher because his family makes money off of the backs of Bay Area people only to abandon them. Fisher, whose net worth is $3 billion, is the son of Donald and Doris Fisher, the co-founders of the Gap clothing brand. Fisher, a Republican, has owned the A's since 2005 and is considered one of the worst owners in sports. The team finished with a 69-93 record this past season.

For decades, Oakland had the A's, Raiders football, and Golden State Warriors basketball teams. The Warriors, who played in the aging Oakland Arena, moved to the Chase Center in nearby San Francisco five years ago. The Raiders moved to Vegas in 2020 and now play at Roomba-shaped Allegiant Stadium. 

The big elephant in the room for Oakland was its stadium and arena. Oakland Coliseum opened in 1966 and has long been considered one of the worst stadiums in sports. As a matter of fact, the Raiders moved out of Oakland for Los Angeles from 1982-1994 only to return. The Coliseum was one of many cookie-cutter multipurpose stadiums built in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, along with The Kingdome in Seattle, Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, and Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. While most cities successfully replaced those embarrassing relics of late 20th century America, Oakland failed miserably to replace the Coliseum, noted for its design flaws. 

When the A's played their last game in Oakland recently, Fisher wrote a letter apologizing to their fans. Fisher blamed the city of Oakland for not pulling through in building a new stadium which would have kept the A's in town. However, many in the community and even a few in the sports business all agreed that Fisher is a man of multiple excuses. He could have financed a stadium with his own money but chose to abandon his hometown because another town was willing to build his stadium for him, free of charge.  

The proposed Las Vegas ballpark is scheduled to open in 2028 on the site of the soon-to-be-demolished Tropicana Hotel and Casino. The stadium, which some people joke about looking like the Sydney Opera House, will only seat 33,000. If it's built, it will be the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball next to the Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field. Until then, the A's will be playing their home games at a minor league ballpark in Sacramento, where the team will simply be known as the A's.

After Armstrong's verbal bitchslap of Vegas, the programmers of KOMP and KXTE - a former affiliate of Howard Stern's - decided to punish him by doing the same thing country stations did to the Dixie Chicks when lead singer Natalie Maines trashed Dubya on stage years ago: dump their music. KXTE midday jock Carlota confirmed the purge on her show last week. On the station's website, they detailed some of her anti-Green Day speech, stating that what Armstrong said was "inflammatory" and "crossed the line". Carolta even pointed out that the Raiders were only worth "a billion or two" while in Oakland, but are now worth over $6 billion. 

KOMP announced the ban on their Instagram page. KOMP 92.3 has pulled any and all Green Day from our playlist. It’s not us, Billie…it’s you. #vegas4ever, said the statement.

In the radio ratings, KOMP is in 11th place with a 2.8 share while KXTE is at a 2.2 in 16th place, its lowest book in months. KXTE made headlines last year when they temporarily flipped to a hot talk format with Stern clones loading up the schedule, including the godawful Grand Rapids-based Free Beer and Hot Wings Show. The format was a ratings bust and it returned to alternative rock, a format it had since 1996. 

Not all Vegas stations have banned Green Day; IHeartMedia's classic rocker KYMT 93.1 The Mountain still has the band on their playlist. 

Radio stations banning artists and certain songs from their playlists are nothing new. It even happened before the days of rock 'n roll when the BBC in England banned certain tunes because of everything from sexual innuendo to product placement. The Kinks' "Lola" was originally banned until lead singer Ray Davies flew from New York to London to rerecord the line "Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola". The Beeb had him replace the name of the beloved soft drink with "cherry cola".  Throughout the 70s, some American radio stations banned certain songs all because of various reasons, such as The Buoys' "Timothy" (cannibalism), Billy Joel's "Only The Good Die Young" (sacrilegious), and Chuck Berry's sole #1 hit, "My Ding-A-Ling" (guess). Let's not forget that when MTV played music videos, they heavily edited some songs- even more than some radio stations- and banned some music videos. Madonna's "Justify My Love" was banned for being too racy and it shot to #1 on the pop charts. 

Remember during the pandemic when "WAP" by Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion went to #1 on the pop charts? Interesting to note that the song was not a huge hit on Top 40 radio. Maybe it was because of the fear that if radio stations played it, even the edited version might have gotten them a fine from the FCC. Just my guess. You never heard of any announcements from any radio station that they had banned "WAP" because 1) it would make them uncool and 2) it would have made people buy more records. 

IMHO, KOMP and KXTE are nothing more than attention whores and they think that banning Green Day will help their image. In reality, I think most true rock fans have abandoned terrestrial radio long ago for SiriusXM, Spotify, and other areas of digital radio. As someone who grew up in a part of Michigan where the radio sucked ass, I'm entitled to my opinion on whether or not I want to listen to crappy radio or not. I'm a grown man who doesn't need someone to tell me that this band is bad because they badmouthed my hometown or they did this or that. Let's remember that Ted Nugent had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl in his 30s decades ago and classic rock stations still blare his music. Creed's Scott Stapp threatened to kill President Obama and many rock stations still play "Higher". Phil Anselmo of Pantera screamed "white power" at a concert a few years ago and stations still play his music. And yet, Green Day is bad because Billie Joe's hometown baseball team moved away and he's bitter about it. 

Personally, I think every town in America has its problems. I grew up in Elk Rapids, Michigan, a beautiful town. But, there are buildings across from the Village Market that are run down. I know one of them was or is inhabited by a child molester I worked with in high school. Ditto with nearby Traverse City. Recently, Michael Moore wrote about an encounter he had with actor James Earl Jones several years ago. Moore told Jones that he now lived in Traverse City and Jones told him that TC was racist. Back in the 1940s when he was a teenager, one of his teachers took him and his classmates to a nice restaurant in town. As he was sitting down, a staffer at the restaurant told Jones, "No colored people will be served here." 

Yes, this shit happened in Traverse City, a town that's far, far away from the Mason-Dixon Line. After all, the town is 92% white, and in the surrounding areas, racism is everywhere. Hell, I have family that live on a farm up north and they're HARDCORE racists. I'll never forget a convo with them where they compared President Obama to failed Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. When their little butt buddy Drumpf freed him from jail, I didn't know whether to laugh my ass off because of what they said, or cringe because of what he did to the people of Detroit. 

Last year, I was on Facebook when someone posted that the band Trapt was playing a show in Kalkaska, over by Traverse City. I posted about how their lead singer, Chris Brown (no, not the douche who beat up Rihanna) was a racist and the average rock fan has abandoned him and his band. I even posted a video where they're playing a small bar and the place only had a few dozen people. Regretfully, a few folks poured Hatorade all over me, bitching that people in Kalkaska should be excited that the band behind "Headstrong" was coming to do a show in their town of 2,000. 

Folks, this is why I started this site. It was because when I was a teen, I felt like I had no place at the table. I wanted to go to concerts and other things that involved going to Detroit. Instead, I got stuck living in a place where you had to be over 21 to do anything remotely exciting. Hell, some people call Traverse City "Tragic City" because a few years ago, a study proved that the town had the highest amount of alcoholics in the state. Not only that, I fondly remember when the former mayor Jim Carruthers was arrested for drunk driving. 

Because of this, there's a part of me that wants to call northern Michigan a place loaded with racist, drunk losers. I don't mind visiting, but I don't want to live there, especially since I read that the average person in TC only makes $33,000 per year and I make WAY more than that here in Grand Rapids. Now, is somebody going to ban me from going up there? Not really. But, I hope someone will think about what I said and hopefully, they can make positive changes.

Personally, I don't think Billie Joe meant to truly hurt the people of Las Vegas. However, I think he should clarify his remarks about calling the town a "shithole". Kinda like how when John Lennon said that The Beatles were "More popular than Jesus" some sixty years ago, people went ahead and burned their records. He then said that he wasn't knocking God and apologized. However, there was one Christian that he offended and it sadly would bite him on the ass. That man was Mark David Chapman. In Billie's case, he should say that he didn't mean to hurt the people who call Vegas home and that his statement was directed at billionaires like John Fisher, who cares more about his personal wealth than the people who made him wealthy. 

Until he makes that clarification, people in Sin City will think that he's the American Idiot.

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Got a Bee-otch to nominate? E-mail us @ chuck69dotcom@gmail.com. All suggestions (except for me) are welcome!

Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com

Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!

CHUCK69.COM IS ALWAYS ON!