I was poking around through my library the other day, looking for something to read, and it occurred to me that an awful lot of the titles I saw before me could easily have other stories attached to them; in fact, the more I thought about it, the more your Pope realized that, in some cases, maybe I could change the stories just a tad, and use them as parables, or teaching stories. I wouldn't change them dramatically; let's just say "alter" them a little. (Hey, I'm the Pope Guy of the All John All The Time World Church; what other word but "alter" would you be appropriate for a Church?)
Hang on, the Popephone is ringing...JTT...Mike, how you doin'?...how do you spell it?...altAr...shit...yeah, I thought it was a pretty good pun...you sure about that spelling?...(big sigh of exasperation here)...yeah, okay, I'll fix it...hey, how many do you think the Dodgers will win this season?...yeah, I figure 70 MAYBE, if they're lucky...hey, it could be worse, it could be the Cubs...yeah, okay, gotta' run, thanks...shit.
My consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan, (no, not the one that starred in "Space Jam") tells me I used the wrong word back there in the opening paragraph; well, actually, it was the right word, but the pun didn't make any...oh shit, never mind.
So anyway, back to the titles/stories thing: I decided to take a look at some of the books in my library and come up with alternate story lines that, I don't know, might be more suited to delivering a spiritual message to my followers. So with apologies to the authors, and in no particular order, here goes:
*Stranger In A Strange Land* (by Robert Heinlein)
"Stranger" tells the story of a young man named Charlie Sheen, an actor (using the term loosely) who was born on the planet Mars and who begins to indulge himself in drugs/booze/hookers at an early age. His parents are astronaut/settlers; his father is the astrogator for the colonizing mission, and an actor as well, and confused about the difference between a horrible disease like cancer, and his son's self-inflicted addictions, to which his son, in his sheer mopery, will not admit. Charlie comes to Earth after the colony on Mars fails, and the remaining settlers that bring him home are subsequently taken out and shot as soon as the world learns what an asshole Charlie really is and what a great disservice they had done us all by bringing him back to Earth instead of drowning this douche-bag in one of the Martian canals like they should have done.
There's a lot more to the story-line, but mostly its the same old stupid shit, over and over again, and really not worth telling.
The moral lesson we can obtain from this story is that if you give some guys a johnson, they'll step on it every chance they can.
*Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil* (by John Berendt)
The new story line to "Midnight" is the old basic good versus evil theme, but with a twist; the "good" guy turns out to be a schmuck and the "bad" guys win, for a change.
The "hero" of the story is a man named John Ensign, who grows up to become a U.S. Senator from a sinful state, and throughout the book is portrayed as a God-fearing, conservative Christian man who lives and believes in the principles of the "Moral Right" and courageously defends those principles in the halls of our Congress. Ensign fights the good fight at every opportunity, railing against the sins of abortion, demanding that the evil President who was caught with his pants down in the White House and then lied to the entire country about his actions be impeached (and for my money, ignoring the hypocrisy of Ensign's position, which we'll see in a moment, he was right about that scumbag Bill Clinton; I can forgive the moral lapse, hell, we're all guilty of those periodically, although that still doesn't make what he did right, but to LIE to us all, right in our faces, there is no defense for that) and fighting against the horror of same-sex marriages. Senator Ensign, a married man dedicated to his family and his constituents, was clearly on the side of the angels, and was determined to not let the evils of "liberalness" overrun our great country.
Until it was discovered that the "good" Senator was having an affair with a campaign worker, who just happened to be married to one of his top aides, and to further the insult, had also asked his wealthy parents to pay the aide $96,000 to ensure the aide's silence about the affair, which they did.
Faced with potential charges of hypocrisy, and the rampant inability to keep his johnson in his pants where it belonged, the disgraced Ensign announces that he will retire at the end of his current term, and not run for reelection in 2012, a contest he probably wouldn't have won anyway.
I will use the "good" Senator's own words to portray the moral we can all learn from this sad tale: "There are consequences to sin, and when you're in a leadership role, those consequences can affect a lot of other people," he said. Gee, dumbbell, do you really think so.
*The Witches Of Eastcomptonwick* (by John Updike)
This classic tale tells the story of two African-American sisters, and their loud-mouth warlock father, who grow up in the poverty-stricken area of Eastcomptonwick to become, with much hard work and dedication, incredibly talented athletes and international tennis stars. Unfortunately, at a point in their careers, they become convinced of their own natural superiority to all the rest of us mere mortals, and begin to believe that they may say or do as they please, and utter any kind of vapid, and occasionally insulting, nonsense that enters their heads, and that the world will accept it as "Gospel" (which is, after all, only fitting, considering they're of the Jehovah's Witness faith, so their grasp of the Word is certainly far superior to that of the rest of us), to the point where one of the sisters tells a lowly tennis line judge, who she believes made an erroneous judgment call on one of her shots during a tennis match where she was playing abysmally, that she "would like to shove this fucking ball right down your throat". (That's a quote, by the way; I did not make that up.)
After a time, their skills begin to fade and they begin losing consistently where they had previously won consistently, and the sister with the mouth begins to experience physical injuries that prohibit her from even playing, to the threat of potentially ending her brilliant career. And there is no joy in Eastcomptonwick.
And the moral we might gain from this sad tale? Every now and again, justice prevails, and if you stand still in one place long enough, what goes around comes around.
*Patriot Games (by Tom Clancy)*
The author gives us an deep insight into the mind of the main character of the story, Jack Fryem, who, after foiling a plot by the evil "Liberals" to take over the government of the United States, goes on to form his own "conservative" political "party", which he calls the "Teabags" and is actually just an offshoot of the another "conservative" political party, and then goes about the country exhorting the citizens to rise up and smite the evil "Liberals", who still cling to their nefarious ways despite having their plans for domination foiled by Jack, and to force our legislators to slash spending for necessary programs, to shrink the size of our bloated Federal government and to adhere blindly to their Code: God, Themselves, Motherhood And Apple Pie ala mode with ice cream, as my mother used to say.
Fryem goes on to become a leader of the Moral Right, until the tragic end, when he is committed involuntarily to the Home For The Chronically Bewildered by his own children, because they can't stand listening to his bullshit any longer.
The moral here is simple: most of the people in this country (including myself) don't particularly like EITHER extreme, Liberal or Conservative, and that if the dumbshits in Washington don't learn to start working together for OUR benefit, and not their own, this country could easily go right to hell in a hand-basket.
*'Salem's Westboro Lot (by Stephen King)*
A story of evil incarnate, visited upon a congregation of God-fearing Baptists, whose church is located in a small town in Westboro Kansas. The evil begins when a stupidpire, cleverly disguised as a minister, comes to town to become the pastor of the little church, and begins to infect the congregation with the disease of "repulsive, stupid hatred of all others that are different from us", or stupidshitism.
The entire congregation is slowly turned into "stupidshits", and they begin to attempt, along with their pastor, the evil stupidpire, to infect others across the country and turn all of us into stupidshits just like them. The horror is finally halted when the good citizens of this country, finally recognizing what the stupidpire is up to, round up all the stupidshits and ship them off to an island in the Sargasso Sea, where they are able spew their hate and disgusting ideas out against each other, to their heart's content.
And the moral of this story? With the exception of the Nazis in WWII Germany, hatred as a "growth market" has a limited appeal. While the Supreme Court was correct in its ruling that these repulsive monsters have a right to voice their opinions, eventually they'll go away, and the decent people of this great country will prevail; in other words, if we ignore them, they'll self-destruct. But they are a real bunch of "stupidshits" nonetheless.
*Jurassic Park (by Michael Crichton)*
The author tells the story of two men who have been in the public eye for so long that they eventually become "fossils" of another age when they still had relevance, and weren't the embarrassment they become to themselves and to us all.
The main characters are Hef Hughner and the Mickster of Jagger, and the story is a short one; they have their years of fame and glory, rising to the top of their professions, and then, when they should have the good taste and sense to slide comfortably into their respective old ages, they hang on and on and on and on, much like the Energizer Bunny, who would give them both a run for their money in an IQ contest, and become laughable parodies of themselves.
And what lesson can we learn from this sad tale of too much, too long? Quit when you reach the top, boys, because the only direction from there is down.
It is my sincere hope, as your Pope Dude and spiritual guiding light, that you can take away from the various re-workings of these classic tales a sense of good taste and decorum, and that these "parables" will in some small way make your journey on the road towards enlightenment an easier one.
You're buying into that, right?
Love and book reviews,
PJTT
copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.
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