Well now. It seems that in all the excitement of moving to The City That Cannot Sleep, I may have temporarily lost sight of my commitment to my fine and generous employers here at Vomitola. Indeed, it took no less than a visit from Lambchop herself, during which vigorous chastisement may or may not have taken place, to remind me of this most pressing obligation. {ed.– We do NOT beat our New York Bureau!} So, it is with a merry but terror stricken heart that I have come here to the interweb to once again shamelessly pollute it with inconsequential ramblings.
Now, as some of you may have heard, New York City recently went insane when some jackass came to town with a few thousand of his jackass friends, causing all the “normal” people who live here to take to the streets screaming and exposing their nether regions for some reason. However, along with this large contingent of socially conscientious nudists, there also came the compulsory hordes of half-assed fascists and doomsday extolling religious maniacs who showed up just to help their chosen leaders gain back some much needed credibility.
Watching these cavorting zealots, I think my attitude could be best summarized by a quote from The Monster in Hal Hartley’s No Such Thing that goes roughly like this. “Jesus, huh? Well, I can see this is going to be a disaster.”
See, it’s time we got together and hashed out this nonsense of religion once and for all, and I believe, by making some sound observations followed by a proposed resolution, I can get this process started.
Observation #1: People are nuts. It seems a frighteningly large portion of our society has been driven a bit mad as of late, due to a recurring nightmare in which their children and grandmothers are repeatedly blown to bits by hordes of rampaging apocalypse bombers. Conversely, there are a whole bunch of other folks who apparently lie awake at night absolutely certain that plans are currently being drawn up for the construction of a drive-thru window at their favorite mosque. Now let me state right now that I wouldn’t for a moment label either of these fears unfounded or even doubt their likelihood of becoming reality. This, however, is still no reason to begin behaving like a maniac simply because you have suddenly decided you need to be “all up in God’s thong.”
Observation #2: People are short sighted and greedy. This is a painfully obvious fact. I mean, for God’s sake, it is no longer enough that stressed out Japanese business men can order soiled panties through the mail. They now additionally require 12 forms of state notarized documentation assuring them that the panties were soiled by “an actual schoolgirl” before successfully doing whatever it is they do with them. And it’s not just those wacky Japanese either. Why the other day, I heard a person right here in Manhattan actually tell another human being that they needed “extra mayonnaise” on something they were about to seriously eat. You see? It’s bedlam.
This started me wondering if all this nonsense about eternal life, and basking in the light of God/pile of 72 defiled virgins might be nothing more than a world wide form of paranoid dim-witted spiritual greediness that no one who actually succumbs to it has taken the time to properly think through.
It seems to me that if you asked any well balanced individual why they would want to live forever, the answer should be something like “You know, I guess I don’t. I mainly just want to have a 300 year pancake breakfast with all my dead friends and every member of my family that I do not despise while we watch what’s going on with Earth on a gigantic flat screen TV, and maybe there should be beer there too.”
Thus, I cannot understand why someone has yet to propose a new religion that simultaneously caters to our inherent fear of death before we’re thoroughly bored AND has the sense to not throw around words like ETERNITY which should terrify the rational among us. Not so much a religion even, but more of an Extended Viewing Package or a “Super-Sizing” of the length of time we are conscious that has a definite expiration date about 300 years down the line. This way, on our deathbeds, a man will come wearing a tidy uniform holding a clipboard and ask us if we would like to “Go Large with our mortality today.”
These extra few centuries would provide the ample time needed for people to satisfy their curiosity about all manner of things such as; the tragic ends of our enemies, if they discover a cure for The Vagina Monologues, and what David Bowie looks like these days. And once it’s all said and done and those not already thoroughly disgusted by humanity in all its imaginable forms have had the chance to become so, the package you signed on for comes to term and LIGHTS OUT. Hell, I would sign on to a program like that. Wouldn’t you? Remember, there will be beer there.
