The Dangerous Lives of Altar Egoes or...
...how to Get to Google Before They Close the Door
Father Christopher faces up to Google...
Yes, it's true. Way back when (last week, I think), I called Father Christopher a "perennial dirty old man and lecher". Since then, my Spiritual Guide and Mentor (SG&M) has refused to give me advice on matters of great ecclesiastical import. But I'll get over it. I am a hard man, a professional and a blogger to boot. I am used to these things.
Besides, if the shoe fits, fuck it. Anything is better than the flogging I regularly receive from a Mind Infinitely Greater Than My Own. A question such as "Should we strengthen the perimeter fence surrounding the Jesus Bunker?" is liable to be met with a diatribe against a judicial system hell-bent on destroying all that is good, noble and just in this venal world.
But he has a point. Who indeed are these fat-walleted slime balls to stipulate we should reduce the voltage to non-lethal levels?
Truth (as in "dirty old man", "lecherous", and "authentic") is, however, a relative thing. And relatives being a pain in the ass, I refuse to go down that road. That Angel has taken Swan's place at the head of the table (so to speak and as it were—or is) is of little consequence. There are plenty of girls to go round.
I therefore recant. Father Christopher is not a "perennial dirty old man and lecher".
See? It's easy when you know how.
Now, I'm not going to bore you by reciting the Jesus Bunker Creed. Nor will I reveal Father Christopher's lineage, details of his adventures with his stock, or the nature of his conception aboard a Virgin Atlantic airliner at 1,824 meters. You can read of these things yourself in my SG&M's latest encyclical, Father Christopher and the Temple of Gloom (a veritable blockbuster on the art of "begatting" and being turned down by Google's AdSense program).
It has kept Dr. Phil's Practical Guide to Home Lobotomies off the New York Times' bestseller lists for forty days and nights.
My task is to explain the mystery of The Trinity, a mental muddlefuck that has seen fish heads with nothing better to do scratch their scalps for centuries. According to Saint Annie (Father Christopher's pedicurist and foot fetish favourite), it is a disgusting habit easily cured by regular washing and a good anti-dandruff shampoo. According to my SG&M, it is the only hair-brained scheme in town.
I digress. As Father Christopher (He who Was, Is, or Sometimes May Be) has explained countless times on free-to-air community radio stations and any blog that will have him, The Trinity boils down to simple math. For our purposes, it boils down to Father Christopher, his all-purpose trouble-shooter and random suicide bomber RageBoy, and his slave-wage stenographer Chris Locke.
Here's how it goes. In the beginning...
You've heard this one before? Shit. Well, okay, the short version then. First, you get the Jesus Bunker, a bomb-proof shelter built by Father Christopher and Ed Yourdon in 1985 when, after eating black-magic mushrooms, they foresaw the end of the world (as we know it).
Ed: "Did ya see that."
FC: "What?"
Ed: "That."
FC: "Yeah. Far out, man."
Ed: "Are you out of your head? 'Far out' be damned. They went straight in."
FC: "'KABOOOM!' Bring on the Apocalypse. So what, Ed? What's your problem?"
Ed: "What should we call it?"
FC: "9-11?"
Ed: "Forget it. Not catchy enough. How about Y2k?"
FC: "Okay. Jesus Christ man, just don't hog that pipe..."
Ed was thrown out of the Jesus Bunker early in 2000 and Father Christopher, with RageBoy and Locke, donned the mantle defiled by the Cardinal Oligarch, becoming what we refer to simply as The Trinity.
It's actually a lot more complicated than that (and includes Holy Wars), but I left the story in meg's comment box and can no longer find it.
"So what do I tell them?" I asked Father Christopher when the huddled masses gathered at the gates of the Jesus Bunker demanding that we explain Himself.
"Tell 'em to fuck off," He replied, getting straight to the point.
"But Larry Page and Sergey Brin are out there."
"Tell them it's an Eternal Mystery. That'll keep 'em happy."
For the most part, and faced with Brother Marek behind the 30 mm cannon mounted to the hood of his Cadillac, it did. Brin and Page were the exception though, slouching off into the wilderness, swearing Eternal Revenge on Eternal Mysteries.
Chris Locke and RageBoy each claim culpability...
Years passed.
Ed Yourdon became a New Age novelist, the Cardinal Oligarch re-established His Kingdom in Hell, and Page and Brin founded Google, a mammoth-project-cum-evil-empire designed specifically to exact revenge on my SG&M.
I was sitting in the War Room one morning nursing a psychosis when news of Google's onslaught on the Jesus Bunker beat my spam filters and trashed Outlook's Inbox. It was Father Christopher.
"Get down here now, you swine," he roared. "Mobilize the Irregulars. Ev's sold out and he and those Google bastards are throwing everything at me."
I felt sick. I knew exactly what he was speaking about. Somewhat guiltily (knowing of Brin and Page's evil intent), I had just added Google's AdSense program and Search feature to my blog.
Google knew it and I knew it. They had waited and now they knew they had either Father Christopher or me. How could I face my SG&M? Google had me wrapped around a dilemma packaged in a conundrum (I've always wanted to write something like that). It was a case of "They knew that I knew that they knew..."; a classical outflanking maneuver.
When you fear the worst, it cheerfully realises itself. Agh... you can read the diabolical story yourself. I am too traumatized to speak of it.
Needless to say, it was imperative that Father Christopher mount an immediate counter attack on Google, but our options were limited. PorridgeBoy was visiting Family in Sicily, RageBoy had been dispatched to blow up Dr. Phil in a suicide mission calculated to cause maximum damage (but had snuck of with Sweet Melinda for the day), CheeseBoy was Shrinking the Gap with Gruyere cheese, and the girls formed my SG&M's comfort detail.
I had my own guilty secret and opted for a pre-emptive strike.
"It was Locke's fault," I told Father Christopher, showing him my blog with AdSense included.
He didn't buy it. "Locke has been recording this shit for prosper... posterity," bawled my infuriated mentor. "He has nothing to do with this."
I pressed on: "He hacked my PC and put AdSense and Search on it. He slotted it in above profane posts rubbishing racist pigs and Dave Winer."
To his credit, my Spiritual Guide and Mentor did not go through the roof (as He does on special occasions and to impress the girls).
"Listen, you conniving little dipshit," he screamed, "Locke was researching pharmaceutics. It's my job to know these things. He didn't do it."
I played the ace I'd been hiding up my sleeve.
"RageBoy perhaps?" I suggested demurely, knowing he would return before Google started its bombing runs. "This morning I saw him with Sweet Melinda in Boulder, browsing Barnes & Noble."
I'd hit the jackpot. Father Christopher did not go through the roof, but he did spin around the room like a demented quark on Electric Kool-Aid.
"The treacherous little viper. I wanted McGraw dead and he didn't go through with it. This is in direct violation of everything we stand for. Jesus Fucking H. Christ, I'll have the vicious shit head put through a grinder before serving him up for breakfast. That fucking bastard..."
I decided to rub it in. "He's been spamming the search engines and putting up pictures of the girls."
"Swan?"
"Sadly, yes. Indeed."
Father Christopher's eyes were flaming coals and foam flecked his lips. He started babbling.
"Why don't we send him to Mountain View?" I suggested. "Bomb the Googleplex? That'll teach them to turn you down."
I knew immediately it had worked. Father Christopher grew visibly calmer. His eyes changed colour and he smiled beatifically.
"Beautiful," he thought aloud. "Just beautiful. That'll teach them to fuck with us."
"Yeah, that'll teach them," I echoed, knowing it to be so... the Truth as it were and so to speak.
RageBoy is sent on his way...
"Y'know, Golby, there's hope for you. Your sins are forgiven, my son. Go in peace."
"Thank you, Father," I intoned, feeling a great weight lift from my shoulders. I backed gently through the door before running pell-mell to the Dick Cheney Room under the bomb shelter. I set the time locks.
It did not take long for RageBoy to return. Following a trend set by members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), he had hacked off a foot to make it look as though he'd tried to do the job on McGraw, but my SG&M was having none of it. That night I could not sleep. RageBoy's screams penetrated 30 meters of concrete and seven floors.
EGR Irregulars are well aware that it hurts Father Christopher a great deal more than we could ever know to keep us on the straight and narrow. But he had Sweet Melinda assist him.
We call it penance.
At daybreak I headed for the Dining Hall. Somebody had sent Bulgarian prawns. Father Christopher was in a good mood.
"Hey, how're your ads going?" he laughed. "Make any money yet?"
"Oh that? Yeah, I dunno," I answered, feigning indifference. "You think I will?"
That cracked him up.
"Ha! RageBoy's taken the heavy Semtex vest and a dirty bomb. He's on his way to Bayshore Parkway as we speak. In fact, he should be arriving anytime now."
As Father Christopher finished his sentence, a loud rumble shook the earth. We all rushed to the picture windows facing north. The sky shimmered in dawn's early light and a crimson cloud mushroomed on the distant horizon.
My SG&M headed back to his seat and plate of Bulgarian prawns. Sweet Melinda hopped onto his lap. He appeared more than satisfied and laughed harshly. "Ha! AdSense? NonSense. That'll teach the fuckers to mess with a Mind Infinitely Greater Than Their Algorithms."
He turned towards me. "Now, we have serious ecclesiastical matters to attend to. Why exactly did you want to strengthen the perimeter fence around the Jesus Bunker?"
"Umm..."
His laugh was warm, gentle.
"O, ye of little faith... Let's all head for the Jacuzzi. Where the hell are Swan and Angel? I believe she just got back from the coast."
Note Without wishing to detract from my assertion made at the beginning of this post, viz. that truth is relative, I feel that I should point out that the events sketched above are to be taken literally, i.e. they are true in every way. Trust me.
