"In Just Seven Days...."
Disillusioned words like bullets bark | As human gods aim for their mark | Made everything from toy guns that spark | To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark | It's easy to see without looking too far | That not much | Is really sacred.
Indeed. My work is never done.
Still, who am I to complain?
I'm human, for Chrissakes. So there was no need for my Spiritual Guide and Mentor (SG&M) to be so rude.
"You fucking lazy white shithead!" he screamed.
I withdrew the phone from my ear and stared at it.
Gingerly placing it back against my ear, I asked "Father Christopher?"
"...less than twelve days to go and you've missed your fucking copy deadline," roared the unmistakebly Omnipotent Voice of The Jesus Bunker (Boulder, CO HQ).
His Immaculate Finger more perfectly placed on the pulse of popular culture than any other so-called Sentient Being, I felt my SG&M's rantings equated to those of an arrogant boor. I am, after all, a man of honor. Separated by an ocean, several thousand miles, and hidden at the foot of The Dark Continent, I felt sufficiently empowered to answer back.
"Huh?" I replied, trying to remember what deadline I'd missed. "What's it now? The bombing of Iran? An EGR Irregular AGM? The sub-prime lending chickens coming home to roost? Christmas?"
"Yes!" he screeched, his voice akin to electrical feedback generated by young James Marshall Hendrix on one of his better or (remembering my parents' reaction to him) worse days. "Christmas!"
Even Hendrix was mild by Father Christopher's standards.
"So?" I responded, "Who gives a damn? We get to take the day off."
Father Christopher is nothing if not patient. Nevertheless, I felt a searing pain separating my occipital lobes.
"You Goddamn baboon," he roared (I think the phone — Stateside — was hurled to the floor at this point). "I need the blurb for this year's release of Father Christopher's Jesus Bunker Joke Book. It's the thirteenth edition and I've had Locke working on it for weeks."
Editor's note: Chris Locke, a sometime blogger, new-age mystic, eugenicist, and resident of Boulder, works as Father Christopher's stenographer.
D'ja ever hear th' one about th' hooker and th' pit bull?
While preachers preach of evil fates | Teachers teach that knowledge waits | Can lead to hundred-dollar plates | Goodness hides behind its gates | But even the president of the United States | Sometimes must have | To stand naked.
I noted my mortality at the start of this entry but, Jesus H. Christ — I'd forgotten all about the cover blurb for this, the thirteenth (or Judas) edition of the annual Jesus Bunker Homily to the Faithful.
Strictly interpreted, such an error might be construed as Mortal Sin.
It's been a special year on the financial front too. Embracing globalization, Father Christopher has had his assistant, RageBoy — a social-suicide bomber in training, put together a massive marketing package including toy figurines, metallic bumper stickers, a cartoon series, a soon-to-be-released movie with Jennifer Aniston as Jesus, as well as the soundtrack of the movie (Radiohead).
All I had to do was deliver on the copy.
"But wait, there's more, you low-rent jerk," I heard RageBoy bellow in the background. "We're releasing a Slimline edition for the illiterate, the weight conscious or morbidly obese, a New Age++ edition for the Mystic Bourgeoisie or those otherwise uplifted, and a Charlton Heston edition for religious freaks and those who've read Ulysses from cover to cover."
"What about the Cecil B DeMille limited edition?" I asked snidely.
"We'll release that on CD at Easter," answered RageBoy without hesitation. "We'll bump it up with some Old Testament jokes and call it The Director's Cut."
What can I say? I felt bad. Father Christopher's Jesus Bunker Joke Book keeps Amazon afloat and the publishing industry in the disgustingly opulent style to which it has so readily become accustomed. My SG&M refuses to speak to J.K. Rowling in general and Sixpack Chopra in particular, snubbing them at book signings, circle dances, and Magic School swap meets. These people are, after all and when all is said and done, what we in the EGR Irregulars like to call "small fry".
FC and RB cut me some slack — they always do, and I put down the phone and returned to doing what I do best, i.e. nothing. Let the copy write itself; it always does.
The extraordinary irony behind megachurch philosophy is its conspicuously Darwinian core. In order to compete in the 21 st century for that unsaved, consumer-junkie soul, it's clear: Adapt. Evolve. Or die.
Exit: crown of thorns. Enter: the swoosh.
Maryann Mann | The Megachurch Juggernaut
Sponsored by Paypal Encyclicals Online, Inc.
An' though the rules of the road have been lodged | It's only people's games that you got to dodge | And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.
Bob Dylan | It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
Images courtesy The Jesus Bunker Archives, Inc., Boulder CO.
