Brother Russell

May 7, 2008

My old friend and former bandmate, "Brother" Russell, will be officiating at our wedding, and Deborah and I thought it would be a good idea to meet him for dinner to discuss what little there is to discuss concerning our small, simple ceremony.

We met him at his apartment in Queens and walked to a nearby Peruvian restaurant for chicken and sangria. The restaurant was loud, with South American music blasting from the speakers, and I watched Russell's lips move as he asked the hostess if she could find us a quiet table. She just smiled, shook her head, no, and sat us in the middle of the room. It was hard to hear each other talk, but we made do until we finished eating and headed back to Russell's place.

Russell was particularly fascinated by Deborah's Pentacostal upbringing, and after having discussed it over most of dinner, he dug through his extensive collection of DVDs for the Oscar-winning documentary from the 1970s called Marjoe about Marjoe Gortner, at one time billed as the "world's youngest ordained minister."

Russell held the remote in his hand and shuffled through the film, finding a few choice scenes, including one where the four-year-old Marjoe performs a marriage ceremony.

Deborah made Russell promise to perform ours with the same inflections.

"If that's what you want, I can do it," he said.

Deborah had never heard of Marjoe, but was well acquainted with many other evangelical showmen, and listed all the television shows her parents used to make her watch — including Tammy Faye Baker's morning puppet show, which she watched every day before school.

Russell's eyes widened. "I love Christian puppeteers," he said. "Do you have any tapes of that stuff? That's something I would love to have."

"No," said Deborah. "It was on a station that barely came in, anyway. It was mostly just snow and static."

"I'm sure it was mostly snow and static regardless of how well the reception was," I said.

"Are you sure you don't have any old tapes of it? Maybe your parents do? I could trade you something for it. I have some worldly things I could probably interest you in," he said, and winked like a back-alley salesman.

Russell is what you might call an eccentric and complicated character. Writing about him and his vast media collection would require a lot more time than I have right now. But these photos speak volumes.

*Pun intended.