An Easter Discussion

Jesus did not go get a burrito first thing after coming back from the dead. They didn't have burritos then. He probably had a matza ball and some gebrattens.

He was JESUS. He could turn a pile of camel shit into a burrito if he wanted to.

I don't know. It's not like he could have whipped out a miracle to do anything he wanted to do. They should have cut off his head instead of crucifying him. Apparently, he could rise from the dead, but he couldn't heal his wounds, since he still had the holes in his hands and feet from the nails and the gash in his side when he came back. They could have taken his head and thrown it into the ocean, leaving the rest of him in the tomb.

When he showed up in heaven, god wouldn't have known who he was - "This can't be right, my son had a head the last time I saw him. Are you sure you aren't Holofernes? How did you get out of hell, you bastard?!"

Unless he compared Jesus' footprints to the footprints the manger medical staff took and put on his birth certificate.

Plus, the beheading would have delayed his return to life because he would have had to take some time to find his head. If he didn’t, the disciples would have had the same doubt god would have had - "You're not Jesus! Where's your head? You’re that bastard Holofernes straight from the crags of hell, aren’t you?! If you really are Jesus, turn my wife's foot into a gefilte fish. Go ahead. I dare you."

Instead of three days, maybe we would have a full week of holiday, which means a full week of boozing if you are anything like the Christians I know.

"Drinkin' thy blood" all week long!

It definitely would have thrown a wrench into the entire religion. And the iconography would have been totally different. Instead of a cross, it could have been a decapitation axe, maybe with drips of blood coming off of it. Do you know how cool that would look hanging on a necklace?

Holy heavy metal religiosity, Batman!

Or maybe an octopus beak.

No, that wouldn’t work unless they killed him with an octopus beak.

But, it would look cool on a necklace.

Yeah, it would.

Jesus would have come back and said something like, "Uh, fellas, yo apostles, I would've been back sooner, but I had to wrestle my head from the beak of an octopus. It took me a while to figure out how to get under the water because I kept walking on the surface out of habit. The trick is in weight distribution. And I can't seem to get my head to stay balanced on top of my neck. Anybody got a staple gun? I'm not setting a very good example as a savior here, am I? I thought they were going to hang me on a cross. Who knew Pontius Pilate was so adept at wielding a battle axe. And jeez, was he ever pissed off. As god as my witness, I never saw it coming. Of course, if god was witnessing me, maybe he could have warned me. You know, 'Look out Jesus, axe at 2 o'clock!' or something like that. My father never loved me. I can't believe he put me through this. I think it's because I throw like a girl. I'm the worst messiah, EVER!"

Stupid, incompetent Romans. They ruined everything. No wonder their empire fell apart.

Yeah, I know.

William Byrd: A High School Report

William Byrd was one of the most celebrated English composers of the Renaissance. He was born in 1540, underneath a milking cow. He had begun as a musician at an early age. He was so young, in fact, he whittled a flute in his mother’s womb out of one of his newly generated femurs. Later in life his leg would play beautiful music when he stood pantless in the yard on a windy day. He sang in the Chapel Royal during Mary Tudor’s reign which placed him in the best choir in England. He was the worst one in the choir, but it was still the best choir. It looked the same as the best singer on his resume’. He had trouble hitting the middle E #. Because of colon polyps in his throat, his voice would skip right over it. William was 18 when Mary Tudor died and her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth, succeeded her. Elizabeth was only her half-sister because the other half of her was her cousin Murray’s half-uncle. It was a strange family. In his middle 20’s Byrd became an organist and a choir master of Lincoln Cathedral, and lived at 6 Minister Yard in the Cathedral house. This is significant because most Lincoln Cathedral organist lived in the boat house, but he was probably given better quarters due to his role in the choir. He was the first to incorporate show tunes into the mass. The Clergy apparently had to reprimand him for playing excessive length services, although he did continue to write music specifically to be played at Lincoln even after his move to London. They never played that music, but he wrote it for them, anyway. William Byrd married Juliana in 1568, and had at least 7 kids. He lost count after a while because he wasn’t really trying to have kids – he was just trying to have sex, but the damn kids kept coming out. After being named a gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1572, he moved back to England. Prior to that he was considered a churlish brute of the Chapel Royal and didn’t feel he could show his face in England. He worked there as a singer, composer and organist for more than 2 decades. As an inside joke, he always set a bouquet of tulips on his organ, just to lighten his mood. He wrote a large amount of Anglican Church music for the Chapel Royal, and they were toe-tappers, to be sure. In 1593 William moved with his family to the small village of Stondon Massey in Essex and spent the remaining 30 years of his life there. From a very young age, Byrd was fascinated by stone hills. Moving to Stondon Massey completed him as a person. On July 4^th, 1623 he died and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Stondon Churchyard. He didn’t want anybody looking at him when he was dead. How embarrassing. William Byrd’s life is interesting because of his association with the Roman Catholic Church and his work in the court of the Anglican Queen Elizabeth I. Yes, that was VERY interesting. Unbelievably interesting. So interesting, in fact, that when somebody speaks of his life at a cocktail party, I always say, “My, how interesting.” William Byrd was a great composer, a talented man and should be remembered for a long time. But he won’t be, unless people are forced to keep writing stupid reports about him.

In the Depps of Fandom

Good news! Johnny Depp is in the area filming a movie. I think it’s the sequel to Johnny Dangeously called Johnny Dangerouslier. I’ve never met a veritable cinematic superstar before, so I decided to brave the wilds of northwest Indiana and make my way to Crown Point (about 40 miles away from me for those of you cartographing at home). I was excited to be ON LOCATION, at the Old Lake County Courthouse, with Johnny Depp!

When I got to the set, I was impeded by a sea of starry-eyed, maniacal teeny boppers, throngs of delusional middle-aged women, and a handful of creepy guys such as myself. It took me about an hour to squirm my way to the police barricade at the front of the crowd. Searching for somebody that looked official-like, I saw a guy wearing a hat and playing with the movie clapper board, as if he was trying to squash bugs on his lips with it. Thinking quick, I put my car keys in my hand, jumped the barricade and crawled clandestinely to him. I showed him my hand with the keys and told him I was the replacement key grip. He seemed suspicious, so he made me grab his crotch real hard to test my gription dexterity. I passed the test. He gave me a pass and told me to “git along”.

“Grip your key, sir” I offered to other movie makers as I walked around the set looking for Johnny Depp. Eventually, I found him, drinking a flax seed oil milk fizz, sitting in a pup tent next to a lighting rig. He was alone so I entered his tent. Before I could say anything, he told me that he didn’t have any keys. “That’s OK, Johnny, I was just hoping you’d autograph my chest.”

He didn’t autograph my chest. Nor would he kiss my baby. Nor would he read an old scene of 21 Jump Street with me (where I would play Holly Robinson’s character, Officer Judy Hoffs). Nor would he not have me arrested.

I don’t know what office this joker is running for or why so many people are interested in looking at him while he's trying to do his job (nobody looks at me while I'm working), but I certainly won’t vote for him. As they dragged me off the set with a traffic cone enhancing the end of my digestive system, I looked back and saw Johnny Depp standing there, bowing with his hands together in prayer formation. I didn’t know he was so religious. Had I known, I would have kissed HIS baby.

Wear Mauve for St. Patrick's Day

Everybody is wearing green and drinking green in honor of St. Patrick’s day. But they shouldn’t be, if they cared at all about the wishes of the man, St. Patrick.

I did some research. St. Patrick despised the color green. It reminded him of the pagan Druids, who were a torment to Patrick. Not only did the Druids not believe in Patrick’s god, they used to sit in their sacred oak trees, giggling, and pelt him with acorns while he was badgering villagers into becoming Christians. Patrick grew to associate the color green of the oak tree leaves with the nasty Druids.

St. Patrick preferred the color mauve – which was the color of the socks god wore most often back in the fifth century. When the Ministry of Public Relations in Ireland’s government decided to promote St. Patrick’s Day as a feel good Irish celebration, they chose green instead of mauve for the official color of the day because most Irish people could not pull off the color mauve without looking a bit fruity. And, frankly, mauve beer is repulsive. It looks like a runny beef stroganoff sauce gone bad.

Secular Santa

Ask most Christian kids what the best part of Christmas is, and they’ll probably tell you it is Santa Claus bringing them a boat load of presents. Ask a Hindu kid the same question and the response you’ll receive will probably have something to do with not eating cows and bathing in a cholera infested river. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. The idea of Santa Claus has nothing to do with Christianity. The fact that he doles on Christmas Eve is a crazy coincidence resulting from, among other factors, marital stoicism.

If you believe the story told in the made for television special Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, by Rankin/Bass (and why wouldn’t you believe it – they wouldn’t put it on television if it wasn’t true), Santa’s decision to strafe the youth population of the world with gifts was not based on responsibilities or contracts he had with any religion. Also, nowhere was it disclosed that only Christian kids would benefit from their beliefs and his generosity.

Santa began his deliveries as a way to reduce the inventory of toys produced by the Kringle elves, who were neurotic toy makers incapable of curbing their toy-making compulsion. Let’s all thank our lucky britches they didn’t have the same compulsion with M. Night Shyamalan movies. All Santa wanted to do was clear out some of the toys to make room for a pool table. By the time he got back from Sombertown each night, those bastard elves filled up the den with yo-yo’s and sawdust dolls again. Plus, he was tired of sleeping in a bed full of wooden ducks, jack-in-the-boxes and toy soldiers. The miniature elf bed they gave him was hard enough to get comfortable in as it was. And the Winter Warlock was no help ever since he kicked his Angel Dust addiction. Kind of like how Sid Vicious ruined the Sex Pistols when he stopped shooting heroin. And stopped breathing.

Santa’s popularity grew, and more kids, of all creeds, looked for a handout. These demands caused him to reduce the frequency of his treks to once per year. He chose Christmas Eve, but it wasn’t because he felt he owed anything to the Christian faith, in which he may or may not have believed.

As divulged in the TV special, Christmas Eve was also Santa’s wedding anniversary. It was expressed on the program as the “most holiest of nights” . I happen to believe February 29th is the most holiest of nights, but that’s my bag. It was also a night that Mrs. Claus expected to be wined and dined and romanced. In addition, she expected some sort of diamond concoction each year. Santa was sensitive to Mrs. Claus’s anniversary needs for the first few hundred years of their marriage. After a while, his hankering waned, and accommodating his wife became more of a chore than anything else. So much of a chore that he chose to spend that particular night delivering gifts to every damn kid in the world rather than spending it swooning his honey.

This is the real reason Santa picked Christmas Eve to oblige the masses. It had nothing to do with celebrating the birth of little baby Jesus. It had everything to do with Santa being sick of his wife. Can you blame him? You saw Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Did you see what Mrs. Claus looked like by the end of the show? She must have been spending most of her time taste testing the Christmas candy. As far as animated figurines go, she looked pretty good in her younger, school marm days. Once she snagged her man, she let herself go big time. Huge time. There was no reason for her to try anymore. Not that Santa is any prize, either, but he didn’t place any unreasonable demands on her, like the want of diamonds and being paid attention to. He understood why she didn’t grope him anymore. With his size, it would take her weeks to grope him. Santa knew she did not have that much free time (because she was busy taste testing , of course). This explains why he gets delayed each year in Pattaya, Thailand, causing the Australian kids to get their presents a little late (and slightly soiled).

Since this evidence shows Santa’s generosity is not limited to those children who have been brainwashed with a Christian slant, every kid should expect something on Christmas morning. You don’t even have to call it Christmas. It can be referred to the Fat Guy Gift Day: “Hey, Fat Guy Gift Day falls on a Thursday this year. At least it won’t screw up the weekend.” Most of you get that day off from work, you may as well have something to call it.

Now that the moose is out of the rucksack, all of you non-Christian parents out there better start up a Christmas account (do banks offer Fat Guy Gift Day accounts?). Santa gives to children of all faiths. You’ve been getting off easy for too long. As for you Jewish people, you are really screwed. You’ve convinced the kinderlech that Chanukah is better than Christmas by bribing them with eight days of goodies. Now you’ll be flippin’ the bill for both occasion.

For the record, and beside the point (assuming I actually had one), I’m not Jewish but I celebrate Chanukah, because I really hate Antiochus of Syria.

Snot-Nosed Christmas

For those of you who don’t read the Bible, I have some information for you. The story of the birth of Jesus is depicted a number of times throughout the text of the New Testament. None of the accounts describe the occurrence with extensive detail. The tales inform us of who was there and how they came to be there, and the setting is explained, but not much else.

I’m guessing that from the time that Mary’s holy water broke to the time a manger cow licked the baby Jesus clean, at least twelve hours should have passed. Add in the travel time to Bethlehem by all the characters involved, the post birth celebration and the gift presentation by the three kings that weigh the same, it must have been at least two full days before the manger nurse kicked everybody out for violating visiting hours.

It seems to me that the birth of Christ is one of the most defining events portrayed in the Bible, but in each of the Books that chose to describe the incident, the authors could only belt out a few paragraphs to venerate the miracle. First he’s born and, all of a sudden, John the Baptist is giving him a sponge bath in a river. What the hell happened?

As an author wouldn’t you expect your readers to want to know more about such a significant happening as it relates to the rest of the plot? I know when I was reading it, I wondered how Mary handled the delivery, was Joseph worried about the manger bill and life insurance, was Jesus in danger of contracting Lyme disease or some other insect carried bacterial ailment, who signed the birth certificate, did Joseph have to legally adopt Jesus, did the Wise Men have the decency to provide gift receipts, how did the Holy Spirit live with itself knowing he let another man raise his son, who ate the afterbirth, did an episiotomy need to be performed, did they have to order out for food, was all this covered in the HMO - even the neonatologist, etc.? The questions pile up with no answers in sight. The stories are suspiciously lacking.

This leads me to believe that the truth of what happened in the manger is not known or, at least, it was not made known to the common folk. It makes one question the validity of the entire Christian belief, not to mention the very existence of the Little Drummer Boy. Why would the authors omit such important information? Were they trying to hide something? You bet they were, but what?
To find out we must trust our faith and read between the lines. I have done this for you, so there is no need for you to waste your time trying to figure it out. What I have determined is remarkable. I understand why Matthew and Luke and Pat Robertson and the others chose the conservative approach to their retelling.

It turns out that the tiny infant Jesus could talk. True, he was part deity, part mortal, but he had to learn his human skill just like any other child. But, God wanted him to begin "spreading the word" as soon as possible, so he blessed Jesus with the power of speech. The unfortunate part, and I’m not saying God screwed up, is that God did not bless Jesus with the power of tact and courtesy. These were human skills that JC would have to be taught - an unexpected responsibility for which Mary and Joseph were not quite prepared the first night on the job.

Being a newborn, Jesus had a lot of questions and thoughts that an immature (non-existent) super ego could not restrain. If recorded, these first words of the savior’s wisdom would have scarred Christianity until forever. Had the authors included this scrap of history in their narration, the religion would have had a difficult time getting off the ground, attracting only the most vulgar and uncouth followers (like me). For those of you interested in starting your own religion, if you want it to consume the world, start by attracting the popular people, like movie stars. Then the more abundant mopes will follow. Look how well the Church of Scientology is doing. I’m still waiting for my application to be approved so I can finally give Tom Cruise a foot bath.

As the notion of a speaking baby Jesus was denied print, so too was any dialog that may or may not have occurred. After months and months of research, I have unearthed a snippet of his first words of wisdom. Here is a sample of what transpired:

Jesus: Pss. Hey Joe!
Joseph (dumbfounded): What? Who said that? Is that you, God?
Jesus: Well, sort of. Down here, dude.
Joseph (looking down at the child): Holy Shit!
Jesus: Oh, you can smell that? Sorry. I couldn’t find a bathroom.
Joseph: You can talk!
Jesus: Mom didn’t tell me you were a genius. Of course I can talk! But don’t tell anybody. I want it to be a surprise.
Joseph: It’s a miracle!
Jesus: You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. Just wait until I stop shitting in my pants.
Joseph: Now, son, I don’t approve of you using that foul language.
Jesus: Look, before you start getting all heavy on me, let’s get something straight. I know you are not my real father, so can the orders, pops.
Joseph: I am you worldly father. It is my duty.
Jesus: Duty my ass. You haven’t even done the nasty with my mom yet. From what I’ve heard, you were the only guy hard up enough to agree to this gig. Where’s your self respect, man? Can’t you get a chick without divine intervention?
Joseph: I do not intend to discuss my personal life with the likes of you. You may be the savior, but you must respect your elders.
Jesus: Take it easy, big boy. I’ll go easy on ya. Hey, what’s that? (Jesus eyes a donkey standing in the manger.)
Joseph: That, my son, is an ass.
Jesus: Can I have it?
Joseph: Yes, I suppose so.
Jesus: Oh, goodie! I got myself a new ass. I love my ass. It’s a big ass, too. I love my new, big ass.
Joseph: Yes, Jesus, you are very lucky.
Jesus: That ass is sure hairy. I've got a big, hairy ass. Take a look at my big, hairy ass, Joe.
Joseph: I see it. It is very impressive.
Jesus: You know what else? It’s kind of smelly. Don’t you think?
Joseph: I’ll agree that there is some pungency wafting our way from that direction.
Jesus: My big, hairy ass is smelly. I’ve got a big, hairy, smelly ass. What’s a boy to do with a big, hairy, smelly ass?
Joseph: You can try washing it.
Jesus: I think I want to shave it. Joe, can you do me a favor and shave my big, hairy, smelly ass? Please?
Joseph: Ask your mother.
Jesus: I think he’s hungry. Maybe he wants a carrot. Hey, Joe, go get a carrot and stick it in my big, hairy, smelly ass. That should make my big, hairy, smelly ass feel better.
Joseph: There are no carrots to be found.
Jesus: I’d like to take my big, hairy, smelly ass for a ride. But I can’t. I'm too little. Wow, if I could ride my own big, hairy, smelly ass, I would never leave the house. Maybe you would like to ride my big, hairy, smelly ass, Joe. You look like the type.
Joseph: Maybe in my younger days, but I’m too old for that now.
Jesus: Did a little experimenting in college, huh, Joe? Oh, well. My big, hairy, smelly ass is standing kind of funny. Maybe he’s sore. I think my big, hairy, smelly ass is sore. Joe, I need you to rub my big, hairy, smelly ass. Could you do that for me? But don’t rub too hard. I don’t want my big, hairy, smelly ass to start bleeding. There is nothing worse than a big, bloody, hairy, smelly ass, don’t you think?
Joseph: Enough already! I’M SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT YOUR BIG, BLOODY, HAIRY, SMELLY ASS! NOW SHUT THE HELL UP, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!!
Mary: Did you say something, Dear?
Jesus: Uh oh, somebody's in trouble. Yo! Melchior, what did you bring me...

As you can see from this depiction, the true story does not lend itself to the creation of a successful religion whose major premise is faith. It’s tough to convince people to have faith in a snot-nosed kid with a potty mouth. The authors may have done right when they chose to overlook this part of history. Otherwise, their religion could have gone that way of the Davidians and Jonestown. And what kind of Christmas would that leave us? I shudder to think of the possibilities.