Caviar and Doritos

Dear God,

I wish you would shut the fuck up.

I know that, in the old days, when you talked to people, it was a miracle or some shit. These days, we call it psychosis. People in 2011 who hear your voice are prescribed medication and are generally believed to be experiencing auditory hallucinations.

That's the popular belief, anyway.

You might think you're doing this sector of the population some kind of really big favor by giving them instructions or advice or commands, but they're actually doing some pretty terrible shit to others and to themselves because, in their warped, cobwebby minds, they believe they're somehow serving you by fasting or breaking themselves.

They're not saying their novinas, getting down on their prayer rugs, nor are they baking challah bread and lighting candles on Friday nights, that's for fucking sure.

I realize that it must be rather boring for you, keeping watch to see who's been naughty or who's been nice (that's you, right?) and making sure I'm not eating too many pastrami-and-cheese sandwiches, but, if you're really starved for something to do, why don't you try talking to yourself for a change? Believe me, we've got enough problems down here on earth without you mixing up trouble by whispering in people's ears.

They can't handle it. Believe me.

You know what would be a real miracle? A cure for schizophrenia. What are your thoughts on that, big guy? Do you think maybe, in your spare time, you could swing that? You'd be sure to fill the pews after a humdinger like that, that's what I think. Of course, who am I to say? I'm nobody, really. Certainly nobody who's ever heard the Word of God.

Way back when, when this whole organized religion thing was cooked up, and you first thought it would be a great idea to start talking to folks to give them guidance, you came up with some seriously crazy shit, I have to say. Or, they did. Or... anyway, it was shit and it was pretty crazy. It was all nice and opportune, too. Mortality was as big as the Beatles and people needed explanations for the terrible things that were happening, and they didn't necessarily require these explanations to be logical.

After all, logical explanations require, well, logic. And we all know that logic and religion go together about as well as caviar and Doritos.

So, I guess what I'm saying is: while you have probably psychotic folks like Moses and Abraham to thank for getting to be all exalted and shit, I think it would be great if you would quit while you're ahead. Don't worry, though-- crazy people will still be crazy without your assistance. They've got a bevy of creative delusions-- they'll still believe that there's microchips implanted under their skin and that people from the CIA are following them and that they're working for the Russian government. But they'll all get along just fine without hearing your funky ass as they fight through an endless forest of other demons as they try to find their way to the first peaceful night's sleep they've had in months, or years.

So, really-- shut the fuck up.

Sincerely,
Mr. Apron

P.S. See you on Yom Kippur or whatever.

Shalom

"Really," I've said to my wife on numerous occasions, "we don't need to encumber the twinners with names dripping with Judaism because, coming from us-- they'll have the map of Israel tattooed on their faces anyway. No one will ever mistake them for anything other than Jewish. Trust me."

Honestly? We could name them (both boys) Brentwyck and Victoria, or (1 boy, 1 girl) Ghyll and Emmaline, or (2 girls), Brittania and Glucerna and still nobody would think that they are descended from anything other than the purest of Semitic bloodline. If you've ever seen pictures of my wife and I, or, better yet, the real deal in person: you know.

The elderly, toothless man yesterday knew.

My mother-in-law, my wife and I had just sat ourselves down in a booth at a greasy spoon diner for brunch on Tuesday. After the entire staff (admittedly, it was the waitress and her mom, the short order cook) were informed by my mother-in-law that we were expecting twins and I already wanted to crawl under the table and die, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, an elderly, bent-over man with trousers that might have fit him thirty years ago shuffled over to us.

"I just want to ask you," he said, looking directly into my eyes in an unsettling way, "are you a veteran?"

I stared at him. You didn't need to work in the mental health field or have your Cra-Zee-Meter set to "Sensitive" to know that something was... sensitive here.

"Um, no, I am not," I replied, hoping this encounter would be brief and painless. It was neither.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that," the old man said, and I don't mind admitting that I was briefly offended. Like, what-- I couldn't fight in a war? But, then, after a moment's reflection I thought two things: 1.) this guy is crazy and, 2.) frankly, I would imagine that, were I not me, I would be relieved finding out that our nation's safety wasn't entrusted to somebody like me, too.

"I'm a veteran," he contined, "I'm eighty-nine. I was at the Battle of Iwo Jima. Have you ever heard of that?"

"Um, yes, I have heard of that."

"I was hit three times," he said, "twice, in my equipment" (I assume he meant his military equipment, not his male... equipment) "and once in my head," he said, tapping his left temple.

I wish I could say that this was the first time in my life I had ever conducted a conversation with somebody who had been shot in the head, but it wasn't. I try not to make a habit out of it, as it can be unpredictable, but these things have a way of happening to me.

"All I want to say to you is 'Shalom'-- do you know what that means?"

I nodded my head, half in despair.

"You must be Jewish," he said definitively, then, he perhaps thought it would be polite to ask, "you're Jewish, aren't you?"

If I were at work at the psych hospital, I would have responded with my pat rhetorical game that I use whenever I am asked this question by a psych patient-- which I am asked with frequency. I usually come back with, "Why is that important to you?" or "I don't really think that's relevant to your treatment here." Unfortunately, I didn't think I could get away with that, in this little diner. So I told him that, yes, I was. Because, you know, he knew anyway.

"Well, I just want to say that I thank God for the Jewish people, and a lot of gentiles won't say that, but I really do thank God for the Jewish people. And, really, we're all the same. We all come from each other-- there is so much hate. But Shalom to you. I am thankful to God for the Jews."

I thought I would return the compliment, from someone who, had circumstances been very different, might not be alive were it not for soldiers who fought in World War II to say,

"Well, I am thankful for you."

And I thought we could shake hands in mutual... thankfulness and be done with it. But it didn't quite work out like that.

I mean, I did say that, and we did shake hands, but we would shake hands seven times before he finally walked out of the diner.

He asked me if I read the Bible. I said, "Not recently" and I was going to add, "why, has it changed much?" but I didn't think that would have been appreciated, or noticed by our uninvited guest. My wife repeated my response when asked. And my mother-in-law, ever the independent spirit, said, "Yes, I do."

It wouldn't have mattered much what she said, because his eyes were locked on mine.

"You should really read the Bible," he said. He wasn't exactly toothless, I noticed at this point, he had maybe three or four in there-- well, one full tooth, but the shatterings of several others, jagged and rough-- looking like mini polar icecaps. He recommended some passage, but I don't remember which book it was from. The number he cited was "53" and the only reason I remember that is because, of course, that's Herbie's racing number.

I was going to tell him that "53" was my favorite number, but, again, I don't think he would have cared. Nor noticed. Or heard.

I kept trying to end the conversation, using pragmatically-appropriate language and socially-acceptable and universally-recognized lingo and isms, but our elderly warrior was impervious to all of these shrewd techniques, just like, apparently, he could not be felled by Japanese mortars and bullets.

There were more shaloms and thank-yous and handshakes. Paper-thin handshakes.

He left. And, five minutes later, while we were eating-- while this Jew was consuming bacon, sausage, ham, pork-roll, and scrapple, all on one plate-- he placed two pamphlets about the Messiah on our table, thanked us again, and walked out.

The waitress apologized and confiscated the pamphlets.

"I keep those so that, when he comes back, I can give them back to him and say, 'Do you see this? You think people want to talk to you, but they don't.' and I give him the pamphlets back so he understands that you're just being polite, because nobody's going to tell him to go away. Nobody."

And, of course, she's right. And, also of course, she's doing a far better thing for him by serving him up a plate-full of reality rather than suffering through his diatribe with forced grins and false handshakes.

We do what we do because it makes us feel better, not him.

"Look," I said to my mother-in-law and my wife as we were driving home, "for a guy who's been shot in the head, he's not doing so bad."

Shalom, indeed.

If Your Birthday's May 22nd, Celebrate Early

Remember all that horseshit about the world ending in 2012?

Remember that terrible movie?

Well, forget about it.

May 21st is the new D-Day. At least, that's what they say.

Well, that's what he says.

According to radio evangelist Harold Camping, May 21st, 2011 is when the world is going to end. Of course, from the looks of him, that may very well be the end of his world, not ours. I'm not even sure he'll make it that long. I do kind of dig his sideburns, though.

Camping asserts that, on May 21st, 2011, "this world will be a horror story beyond anything we can imagine." I don't know if Harold Camping has been unable to open his eyes for the last 89 years of his life, or if he just had them closed for that photograph, but isn't that kind of where we've been for a long time?

Fella: this world IS a horror story beyond anything we can imagine, and it has been since "The Carol Burnett Show" went off the air.

I suppose the world is going to end some day. I don't necessarily believe it's going to be a religious event, but, if it is and Jesus comes back here, he's going to be disappointed.

"What? You couldn't even be bothered to clean up your fucking room?"

My room is not clean, and it will not be so on May 21st, I can promise you that-- spring cleaning be damned. Not only will my room will not be clean; it will not be clean enough for Jesus. Can your room ever be clean enough for Jesus? Christ-- my bedroom is a goddamned mess. You should see the top of my bureau. There are, like, four old wristwatches on there and a bunch of papers and gloves and shit. And a big book about Sondheim. Jesus is going to look at all that shit and he's going to think I'm some kind of hoarding homosexual with four arms.

And he's going to vaporize my sorry, bony ass.

Not because I'm Jewish-- but because I'm a fucking, holy-rollin' mess.