Dear Brand-Loyalists…

Photo: "Dan The Man", Wonkette.com

Currently Impeding Traffic in Bowling Green Park

Dear Base,

  Do you like movies?  I like movies.  All kinds of movies.  Miller’s Crossing, by those Coen boys is a good one.  The Thin Man movies?  I could watch those over and over.  I also like The Ten Commandments, (even though there were really twenty-three), and Pulp Fiction.

  I especially like The Ten Commandments because it was a pretty fair depiction of how things went down; if you take into consideration that Moses never looked as good as Chuck Heston, (more like Peter Lorre), and that he and I were mostly wasted the whole time.  This was before I went cold turkey, you understand?  I couldn’t get DeMille to shoot the bit where Moses made the Israelites grind the Golden Calf to powder and drink it.  He shot some cheap explosion special-effect crap.  DeMille was a wuss of the first water.

  I like Pulp Fiction because Samuel L. Jackson is just a bad-ass motherfucker who don’t take no shit from no motherfuckers.

  I especially have these two in mind right now because it has come to My attention that you have lost your minds… again.  If it weren’t for all the money you pay into the vacation fund every time the collection plate passes, I’d have dropped you like a bad habit years ago.  First, you try to give My Chosen People a bad name, and now I catch you red-Me-Damned-handed worshipping idols!

  Don’t try to bullshit Me, either.  I’ve had 6,000 some-odd years to get to know you.  You’re going to try to tell Me that you were really praying to Me and that Golden Calf thing just happened to be a convenient place to do it at.  Let Me ask you a question.  What do I look like?  Do I look like a bitch?  No?  Then why did you try to fuck Me like a bitch!?  You did.  You tried to fuck Me, and I don’t like to be fucked by anybody, except exceptionally talented call-girls.

  There’s this passage I got memorized.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides with the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and with furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know that My name is the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon thee.”

  I don’t really know what it means.  I just think it’s some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I smite his ass.

  Normally, all your asses would be deader than fried chicken right now, but you happened to pull this shit while My finances are in a transitional period.  You see, the truth in that passage above is that you’re the weak.  And I’m the tyranny.  And that’s not gonna change, but there’s one thing you can do to save your sorry asses.  You can give ’til it hurts.

  The next time that collection plate passes, you remember how I let you walk this time and you put your kid’s college fund in that plate.  You put that second car the wife wants in there.  You put that diamond necklace for the mistress you think your wife doesn’t know about in there.  And you smile while you’re doing it, because I have had it with these motherfucking idols in this motherfucking country!

Wish You Were Here,

~Gawd

Dear Richard Dawkins…

scienceteecher.com

 Somewhere In Limey Land

Dear Ricky,

  I got your postcard asking for, (some might say “demanding”), an explanation of your recent death and resurrection.  The death bit wasn’t Me.  I can only assume that gang violence is on the rise in Slough.  It’s possible that it might have been a few rogue brand-loyalists, though.  You know how they are if I’m not standing right there enforcing their moral code.  However, the resurrection trick was all Me… well, more a kind of clerical error.  We haven’t fired quite all of the Guardian Angels yet.  If you like, you can think of it as a sort of “Welcome to My new Chosen People” gift.

  Understand, please, that this is just a one-off.  I’m on vacation and don’t have the time, resources or inclination to do that sort of thing regularly.  From here on out you only get the perquisites and gratuities that come with being one of My Chosen People.

  As to your question about rumours of magical powers, viz; dihydrogen monoxide perambulatory ability or supernormal induction of incremental precipitation, I’m afraid that’s just bollocks.  It may be true that there are temporary side effects, but they’re nothing to worry about.  They should disappear within a matter of days… however, if you experience an erection lasting more than four hours, you should either call your doctor or borrow the address book of any Republican Congressman.  (That’s just a little joke.  They don’t loan those to anyone.)

  It sure is lucky you didn’t get hit by a bus.  I mean, the de facto, if not de jure, high priest of My Chosen People getting his Eternal Reward from a bus that had “There’s probably no Gawd” written on it and then being resurrected, well, that would have been embarrassing.  By the way, as you’ve probably noticed, I let Lottie, over the objections of The Chaplain, talk Me into including even the atheists who don’t believe in Me in My Chosen.

  No, no; there’s no need to thank Me.  Most Jews don’t believe in Me, anyway.  Besides, I’m sick and tired of Halakhah.  I long to reap the entire field, put a Jew to shame and to withhold food, clothing and conjugal rights from My ex-wife, Mary, (may she grow boils on her gigantic tuchus).  Just do Me one favor.  Don’t rub it in the faces of My boys’ followers, the brand-loyalists, or as Republican Jesus calls them, “The Base”.  That’s where My vacation fund comes from.

Wish You Were Here,

~Gawd

Dear Evangelical Totty…

Wherever Fine Contraceptives Aren’t Sold

Dear Blessed Nymphets,

  You have no idea how long I’ve been looking for you.  Like any good father, I’d like nothing more than to see My boys move out of My basement and get married.  So when I heard that brand-loyalist girls get freaky-deaky ten minutes after puberty hits, I knew I could finally unload one of My boys.  You see, My eldest, Republican Jesus, is a free-market capitalist.  If there’s one thing He believes in as much as deregulation, it’s test driving.

  Even when the boys were just little tykes, Republican Jesus would try out the Chanukah toys before He decided which one He wanted.  It’s always been the same with women, too.  While Hippie Jesus was busy “courting” His little girlfriends and invariably getting His heart broken time and again, RJ was test driving.  Many is the time I heard Him tell Hippie Jesus, “You never have to worry about getting Your Clash records and Your favorite t-shirt back from a $200 hooker.”

  It was evident from the start that there were some girls who just weren’t right for RJ.  He needed someone freaky, sure, but they also had to know who was boss.  You’d be surprised how hard it is to find someone like that.  Like RJ says, “Some chicks just won’t do what they’re told.”  Also, as you know, He hates a contraceptive.  Wow!  Does He hate ’em.

  Frightened by a diaphragm as a child.  I blame Myself, really.  He picked up His mother’s from the nightstand one day and I kind of lost it.  I yelled at Him to put it down; told Him it was filthy and would give Him the pox.  (Knowing My whore of an ex-wife, Mary, it might have.)  Ever since He learned in health class that it was a contraceptive, He’s been deathly afraid of every kind ever made.  Sponges especially, for some reason.

  So you can see why you’re such a Me-send.  I want to get Him out of the house as soon as possible, so I’m going to give Him a list of your addresses and school schedules.  He’ll probably go through a fair number of you before He decides on The One; and He may need to test drive some of you more than once, but don’t worry.  It’s all part of Gawd’s Plan… to finally turn My basement into a rec room.

  Now, if only I can find a Birkenstock-wearing earth-muffin who doesn’t mind a guy who soils Himself every time He sees a couple of nails.

Wish You Were Here,

~Gawd

Dear Archangel Michael…

C/O Hooters, Ramat Poleg, Netanya, Israel

Mike,

  You know how it is when you accidentally shift the omniscience into drive when you’re stumbling out of bed in the morning?  Well, funny enough, that’s exactly what I did this very AM.  You know how I hate that.  It invariably pisses Me off.  That’s not the funny bit.  The funny bit is that you thought you could get away with it.  You thought I wouldn’t find out that you kept Guardian Angels on the payroll after I expressly told you to lay them off.

  Beside the fact that I am Gawd and you’re just a poncy Archangel; beside the fact that the Cold War is over and cut-backs had to be made; beside the fact that even though I’m on vacation I’m still the Chairman of the Board – there’s a whopping great, Me-Damned depression in the making!  How do you think I’m going to afford five-star Transylvanian hotels and angel salaries at the same time?

  One thing I could do is cut the salaries of useless, silly Archangels who moonlight as managers of Holy Land Hooters.  How does that sound?  Better yet, How does “Cherubim 3rd Class Michael” sound to you?  That’d clip your wings, wouldn’t it, boyo?  Then maybe I’d promote Colin to Archangel.  He’s been itching for your job for millenia.  Sure, he dropped a meteor on the dinosaurs, but he never had to be reprimanded for “wrestling” with Jacob and he never endangered My vacation!

  Right.  I’ve had a few minutes to cool down and I’ve had a drop of the Holy Spirit.  This is what you’re going to do.  First, you fire every last one of the Guardian Angels.  No severence, no two-week notice and you can take the heat from their union.  Next, you – and I mean you personally – find every person on earth who got any un-earned and un-paid-for luck on My dime and you get it back.  I don’t care what you have to say and I don’t care what you have to do, just get it done.  And when I say “done” I mean done by the time I get back from touring Transylvania.  If Santa can deliver toys to all the good children on earth in one night, then you can repo a bunch of lost car keys and near-death experiences.

  Finally, and this is the most important part, I want you to auction it on eBay.  If The Mavericuda can get two-million for some old plane, I expect a frick of a lot more for all that repoed luck.

  If you do all that right I may, I say may, think about keeping you on as head of the Israel office – at reduced pay.  If you screw up, though, I will bust you down to assistant Seraphim and have you dancing on the head of the pin that holds Donald Trump’s hair in place until The Second Coming of Thomas H. Cruise.

Wish You Were Here,

~Gawd

Dear Satan…

Happy Valentine... er, Halloween

Dear Father of Lies,

  I’m sorry I took so long to get back to You.  As You know, I’m on vacation.  Which actually brings Me around to answering Your request.

  No.  I’m afraid You can’t take the day off on Halloween.  Take Earth Day off or, if you like, the American presidential inauguration… oh, wait; that only happens every eight years or something, right?  Yeah, so take Earth Day or, I don’t know… Martin Luther King Day.  Something like that.

  I know You really had Your heart set on doing some trick-or-treating and then maybe an all-night rave, (although, personally, I’d have thought a rave would be a bit too much like work).  But We just can’t afford to upset the brand-loyalists.  In order to keep the vacation fund in the black, We’ve got to play to the base.  I can think of nothing that would distress that base more than You on vacation, even for a day.  Besides that, You get most of Your best ideas from their “Hell Houses”.

  Look, Beelzebub, the bottom line is that You’ve become more important to the daily operation of the old firm than anyone, (with the slightly possible exception of Republican Jesus).  Without You, the brand-loyalists would run amok.  You know as well as I do that if they didn’t have My list of perfectly-conceived laws and Hell as a consequence of breaking them, the base would be looting, killing and fornicating before you could say “Robert is your father’s brother”.  If that happens, it’s “goodbye, round-the-world cruise”.  No more first-class flights to Cancun.  No more archaeological vacations to Greece.  Lucifer, as I am My witness, no one will stand in the way of My vacation.

  Besides, I thought You liked all that spooky hoakum.  It’s certainly popular with the base.  Look, compare the box office gross for My handful of crappy movies like Oh, Gawd, and Bruce Almighty to the dozens and dozens of yours like The Omen or Rosemary’s Baby or End of Days.  That one about Hippie Jesus made bank, sure, but that’s one to your eleventy-trillion.  And really, His one big money-maker was more a horror flick than anything else.  Heh… it gave Him nightmares for weeks.

  So, I’m sorry.  It just can’t be done.  If it will help at all, though, You can swing by while You’re making the rounds of all the Hell Houses.  The boys and I are hosting a costume party at Dewey’s Flatiron in New York City.  Pop in and I’ll buy You a drink.  I think We can stretch the rules far enough for You to have a celebratory drink on Your own holiday.  I’ll be in the lounge downstairs.  You can’t miss Me, I’ll be dressed as You.

Wish You Were Here,

~Gawd

Dear Primordial Blog…

Somewhere In the Great White North

Dear Brian,

  (If, in fact, that is your name.)  I “logged on” to the intratubes between flights earlier today and “googled” Myself, like always.  It usually helps Me relax in preparation for the gruelling ordeal of flying first class and drinking booze on the brand-loyalists’ dime.  In most cases, I find a lot of people writing about how great I am, how loving, kind and merciful I am.  Today, though… not so much.  You as much as called Me a psychopath!

  My first response was that a few eons in Hell would show you the error of your ways.  I mean, calling Me hurtful names is, like, a hundred extra Hell Points© on your final tally, at least.  But then I thought, “No, I should be the mature and rational One here.”  So I shall destroy you with Holy Argument.

  First, you proposed a ridiculous question about someone who tortures people in their basement and suggested that this is what I do.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  For one, My basement, while spacious, is much too small to hold all you heinous, repugnant sinners.  For another, I don’t do that sort of thing.  Not personally.  I sub-contract it out to an old business friend of mine, Satan.

  On top of that, I give everyone a choice.  Okay, I don’t personally give them a choice.  It’s more like “Chinese Whispers”.  A few thousand years ago some crazy old coot in the desert overheard Me and My pub-crawl buddy, Moses, discussing the possibility of a few esoteric ways people might avoid Hell.  So then he went and told a friend, who told a friend who wrote an unauthorized biography and showed a few of his friends.  Eventually, the thieving SOB got about 4 billion printed, (for which Yours Truly has never seen a dime in royalties).  I’m no math whiz, but that means that if each of those unauthorized biographies is sold, and no one hogs more than one, nearly 4% of the people who have ever lived have had the chance to read a fourth or fifth-hand account of a hypothetical conversation I had over mai tais at the Moab Bar & Grill sometime around 3,000 BC.  So don’t act like people don’t have a choice re: eternal red-hot buggery and lakes of fire.

  And another thing.  It’s not like I enjoy sending people to Hell through an arbitrary point system of My own devising.  I mean, it’s not My fault if you can’t win a game I made up and never personally told you about, is it?  The way I see it, the losers send themselves to Hell.  Yes, I guess I could break the rules and not send the 96.2% of people that never knew they were playing, but that wouldn’t be very fair to the other 4ish%, would it?  And, okay, I could appear simultaneously to everyone on earth, once a year, and tell them the rules – but then, the brand-loyalists wouldn’t feel special, would they?  Besides, I’ve got a very busy vacation schedule.  Who’s got the time for personal appearances?

  And anyway, I’m assured by some very big brains from within the ranks of My brand-loyalists that if I appeared to everyone at once I’d cause an ion flux in the gauge-gravity duality of the superstring time/space continuum… or something.  So you don’t want that, do you?

  There.  I believe I have handily shot down your specious conjecture that I am a psychopath.

Wish You Were Here,

~Gawd

P.S. – You’re going to Hell.

Dear Universe…

In The Beginning...

Universe Gamma-33/Rho-Theta-7

Dear Everyone Everywhere,

  Happy Birthday!!!  Ha, ha!  You thought I forgot, didn’t you?  Happy 6,012th birthday… I think.  Or it might be your 6,008th birthday.  I’ve never been very good at math.  But I do know it’s your birthday, because I have it marked on My calendar.

  If you flip this postcard over, you can see the cake I baked for you.  The boys helped.  I let Them mix up the food coloring, just like in the original, (which is why some oceans are blue, some are green and parts are a sort of mish-mash of all the colors – Hippie Jesus thought it would look like a rainbow, but it just turned out brown – sorry).

  Boy, that brings Me back.  I was so proud when you were born.  I remember humming this very catchy tune that day.  “The sun is a mass of hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm, a gigantic hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm…”  Of course, I’d never heard of plasma at the time.  I understand they’ve changed the words of the song to “miasma of incandescent plasma”, but it’s still catchy.  You know how you get a tune stuck in your head and can’t get rid of it?  I didn’t shake that one until somebody came up with Gregorian chants.

  Anywho, I know I haven’t been around much.  I know you were pretty bummed that I missed your first Little League game… and I’m sorry you had to learn to fly without Me… and I wasn’t there to kiss your boo-boo the first time you crashed.  I really wanted to be there to give you a hand when the school bully was picking on you, too.  I know I’ve never sent any child support – in fact, just the opposite.  And, okay, I wasn’t around to warn you that playing with fire can be dangerous.  But I sent a card for your birthday!  That’s pretty cool of Me, huh?

  I just wish I could be there while you blow out the candles and make a wish.  I’d love to watch you open your presents, as well; but I’ve got to catch a flight in a couple of hours.

  Now, don’t cry!  Don’t cry.  Sheesh!  Don’t act like a 3,000 year-old.  Be a big universe.  Your not in your Dark Ages any more.  I don’t know what Gaia has been telling you, but a universe your age doesn’t cry.  Not even when a deity goes out for a pack of smokes and forgets to come back.  It’s time you learned to take care of yourself, anyway.  You can’t just keep wishing and waiting for things that aren’t going to happen.

  It’s like My old professor used to tell us in Miracles 101, “Wish in one hand and spit in the other.  Now see which one fills up first.”  Words of wisdom.  So the next time you find yourself wishing for Me, just spit in your hand.  At the end of the day no one will want to shake with you and I’ll be on the French Riviera.

  Happy birthday again, from Me and the boys.

Wish I Was There,

~Gawd