Diamonds Are A Pope's Best Friend, Or So My Best Friend Tells Me

"...wadda' ya' mean, what's Harley up to, what's he doing?" I asked my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan (no, not THAT one), when he called me earlier today on the Popephone.

"He's been dragging things out to the Kidding for the last couple of days, like he's leaving or something. You guys don't have any trips scheduled to anywhere that I know of," he said. "So why all the loading up?"

"You know, now that you mention it, he has been acting weird lately, at least, more weird than usual. I'd better look into this; I'll call you later."

(No, the picture above has nothing to do with today's message of the soothing balm of Johnism; I just thought it was pretty funny, and thought that you guys might like to see it as well.)

Now for those of you folks who are not faithful followers of the Pope, and shame on you, let me give you a little background info.

First, the "Kidding" that Mike referred to: that would be the Royal Unionship Kidding, or RU Kidding for short. The Kidding is the Pope's atomic powered rocket ship, and is capable of speeds in excess of the Speed Of Aroma. She has cabin space for 8 adults, or a shitload of midgets, err, excuse me, vertically-challenged persons, plus a swimming pool, a lap pool, a wading pool, a car pool, a McDonalds, a pool parlor, a pool cleaning service, a synagogue, dry cleaners, two Pizza huts, the Leaning Tower of Pizza and it's own area code; yeah, she's a beauty.

In addition, as I said, she's capable of haulin' ass, ahh, sorry, of reaching, and exceeding, the Speed Of Aroma, which is a measurement of velocity akin to the Speed Of Light, which is a visual gradient, or the Speed Of Sound, which is an aural gradient; ergo, the Speed Of Aroma is an olfactory gradient. As opposed to a pepperoni pizza, which you can get onboard the Kidding at either of the two Pizza Huts that serve the crew and passengers of the Pope's ship.

Second, the "Harley" that Mike referred to is my roommate, sidekick, BFF and the official mascot of the All John All The Time World Church, the Harley Dog. He's also the backup navigator when we're onboard the Kidding, a position of responsibility he takes very seriously, or as serious as someone who's favorite pastime is to lay on his back with his legs in the air while I rub his tummy is capable. Yeah, we're a real serious group here at the AJATTWC.

So now that we've gotten all that out of the way, I better go find out what my dog is up to, and why do I have the feeling it's no good?

...later in the day...

"No, that's final, no, we're not going."

(...a piteous whine is heard in response...)

"I don't care how much you want to go, it's not gonna' happen. Are you crazy? Do you know what kind of press we'd receive if what you want to do ever got out; no, no way, fur-breath, ain't gonna happen." I shot my dog a scathing look of intimidation as I finished, which he ignored, which is his general reaction anytime I try to affix him with the "evil eye". (He doesn't listen well.)

I set out to track down the Church mascot to see what he was getting into that he shouldn't, and it didn't take long to find His Harleyness, face-first in the cupboard in the kitchen where I keep his food, trying to drag something out with his teeth.

"Hey, what are doing in there, huh? Out, dude." He backed out, tail swishing back and forth, and sat down on his haunches, with a look of "well?" on his face.

"What are you looking for in the cabinet? You know you're not supposed to get in there. And just what are up to anyway?" I asked, as if Harley would answer.

Actually, in his own indomitable, doggy-way, he did. He stood up, walked down the hall into my office, where I could hear him rummaging through some papers for something. Next thing I know, here he comes towards me with several papers and reports in his mouth. (Oh, and there's nothing better than the smell of dog-breath all over something you're trying to read.) He walked up to where I was standing and dropped what he had in his mouth at my feet.

The first item was a recent edition of the LA (pronounced LAH) Times newspaper, with the paper open to page A16, which had an article on the right side of the page called "Science Briefing", and when I looked at Harley questioningly, he "nosed" at the final item in a column of several.

"Planet thought to be diamond", the headline read.

"So?" I said, looking at him and shrugging my shoulders.

He "nosed" it again; obviously he wanted me to read what the article said about the "diamond planet".

Here was the article in its entirety:

Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet apparently made of a diamond racing around a tiny star. The planet, lying 4,000 light years away, is far denser than any other known and consists largely of carbon. Scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of it would effectively be diamond. “The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon — i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours,” said lead author Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. The study was published in the journal Science.-Reuters

That was it.

"So?" I asked again, for the second time in as many minutes.

Then he pawed at another paper on the floor, lying with the others. I picked it up and read the headline at the top of the page: it was a preliminary report from one of my staff members on the value of the religious and secular art treasures currently being held by the Roman Catholic Church in various locations all over the world, particularly at the Vatican. (It's possible that the value of the art in the Vatican alone may be incalculable.)

Once more, with feeling.

"So?"

Back to the pile on the floor; this time it was this week's TV Guide, open to yesterday.

"Yeah?" I thought a change of pace might be in order.

He nosed the listings from the previous evening, right around dinnertime. I looked at the page, and realized we had watched the Evening News together last night, something we rarely did, because I NEVER watch TV news; it's inane for the most part. I thought that was what he was trying to tell me, that it had something to do with the news report we had seen.

"Does this have something to do with the news from yesterday evening?" I asked His Furriness; the tail started going back and forth at about the Speed Of Aroma.

"Okay, what about it?" I asked; Harley barked in response, a sharp, quick bark.

I tried to think of what part of the news Harley was trying to get me to remember; it was obviously something in which he was interested.

Then it dawned on me.

"Does this have anything to do with the story about that dog at that jewelry store?" Another quick bark, accompanied by almost spastic tail-wagging.

"Okay, the story was about a dog that lives in a jewelry store that his human owns, and where he hangs out all day, and how he ate a bunch of diamonds off one of the showcases one day recently. I don't get it." I looked at him quizzically.

He nosed around for another sheet of paper on the floor, a picture that I had printed out from the 'Net, showing Paris Hilton Hotel holding one of those useless little puffs of fur that purport to be dogs, which was wearing a diamond collar. (Paris had on a matching collar as well.)

"You want a diamond collar?"

One thing about having been around Harley for all these years, I've gotten to know when he's frustrated with me. He pushed the Vatican report at me again with his nose, and then the article on the "diamond planet", and then sat back on his haunches again and looked at me like, are you kidding? (That's the name of my ship; I knew I had heard that phrase someplace before.)

A diamond-eating dog, a diamond-wearing dog, a report on the art treasures of the RCC and a "diamond planet"?

And then it clicked.

"You want to take the Kidding, head out 4000 light years away to a planet that MAY be made out of diamonds so you can have a diamond collar and live a life of luxury and the Church can get rich like the RCC, is that what this is all about?"

The look of triumph on his doggy face said it all.

"First of all, since when do you give a shit about "having" things? You've never cared about stuff like before." Harley cast his eyes towards the floor; I think he heard a "BAD DOG" coming, and believe me, for Harley, a BD is the nuclear bomb of punishments. He HATES being told he's a BD, which is why I so seldom do it.

"Second, the AJATTWC doesn't need all that dough to spread the message of the soothing balm of Johnism, you know that. The two things just don't have anything to do with each other." Now the head is really hanging down.

He looked up at me, and then bent down again to the papers on the floor, and uncovered one more I hadn't seen before: it was a brochure on the Pagani Huayra, which to my mind is the most beautiful automobile on the planet (and the source of great longing in your Pope's heart). Then he looked up at me with this "pleeeeease" look on his face.

"No, that's final, no, we're not going. I don't care how much you want to go, it's not gonna' happen. Are you crazy? Do you know what kind of press we'd receive if what you want to do ever got out; no, no way, fur-breath, ain't gonna happen. (Scathing look at canine companion here.)

"And besides, you don't even know if the planet IS made of diamonds; they just THINK it is, you big dummy."

Damn dog tried to bribe me.

I called Mike back to tell him about Harley, and to ask him to check with our head pilot, Captain Art Senscrafts, to find out about how long it would take, at the Speed Of Aroma, to travel 4000 light years.

Do you know how good a Huayra would look in my garage? WAY better than that Nissan pickup with the ass on the tailgate.

Oh yeah, and that line back there about how "the AJATTWC doesn't need all that dough to spread the message of the soothing balm of Johnism, you know that. The two things just don't have anything to do with each other." 

Maybe someone should explain that to the Roman Catholics.

Love and carrots, (that's "carots", you bird-brain),

PJTT

copyright 2001 Krissongs, Inc.

East Coast Disasters With An Left Coast Theme

 

...now I understand why James Bond ("Shaken, not stirred.") drove an Aston Martin...

  ...and now I understand why some people say the Roman Catholics don't have the sense to come in out of the rain...

 ...and I doubt I'll EVER understand this, but I promise to continue trying...

Your Pope is giving some consideration to running for President.

...(several minutes pass while the hysterical laughter dies down)...

That's not funny.

Why wouldn't your Pope Guy be a good President, huh? Americans seem to want their leaders to be male, tall, good-looking, somewhat articulate and charismatic as hell.

Okay, let's take them one at a time:

*Male...last time I looked.

*Tall...duh, check out my name.

*Good-looking...hey, it's all in the eyes of the beholder.

*Somewhat articulate...please.

*Charismatic...what, are you kidding, I have boatloads of charisma, I have super-tankers of charisma.

So why wouldn't I make a good president? Anyway, I said I was just considering running for President, I didn't say I'd made up my mind to do it. Geez.

We'll talk more about this later. (Boy, that sounds ominous.)

I will tell you that I, like so many of my fellow Left Coast residents, particularly those of us who live in and around the environs of Southern California, made light of the recent distress of our East Coast friends and neighbors, in their response to a 5.8 magnitude earthquake that hit parts of Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and New York earlier this week and was said to have been felt as far west as Chicago.

If the news reports are any indication, and in this instance, since there's so many of them telling the same story, I'm pretty sure they got it right, it was chaos and terror all over the Eastern Seaboard, as folks who had never had the unique experience of living through an earthquake poured into the streets, basically scared shitless.

Now Left Coast folks, SoCal area veterans especially, don't even begin to acknowledge an earthquake until it's at least a 6.5 or better. Yeah, 5.8 on the Richter scale, that's nothing to mess with, but after you've been through a half-dozen or so of these things, anything under 6.5 is a yawner. (Ever see the movie "Independence Day"? Think of the scene where Will Smith wakes up suddenly in bed next to Vivica J. Fox, and believe me, that's somebody I would love to wake up next to, thinking they're having an earthquake in their neighborhood of LA (pronounced LAH), and when he says, "Hey, I think we're having an earthquake", and oh yes, thank you, Mr. Obvious Man, Vivica Fox puts her head up and says, "Not even a 4.0, baby, go back to sleep.")

Yeah, it takes more than a 5.8 to get our attention out here.

So, and I'm a little ashamed to admit this, like so many of my fellow LaLaLand residents, I chuckled a little maliciously at the sight of all those battle-tested veterans from the front lines of the daily political and financial market wars, running around looking like they didn't know whether to shit or go blind. (I have no idea what that means, but I like the sound of it. My old man had one even stranger: "Put his brain in a pee-wee's ass and it would fly backwards." I have NO idea what that means, but you have to admit, it's evocative as hell.)

This derision from we veterans of the "Quake Wars" here in SoCal towards our terrified brethren in New York, Washington, et al. is based, I believe, on two factors:

a) East Coasters in general, and New Yorkers in particular, have always cast a jaundiced eye downwards towards residents of LA; the East Coast has the nation's capital, the country's seat of power, the financial markets, media giants and corporations of New York, the intelligentsia of Boston, the Terrapins of Maryland (what the hell else is in Maryland?) and the beauty of New Jersey (???); we have Miley and Charlie and Paris and Lindsay and the 236 Kardashians and Disneyland, so there's an inferiority thing going on here, and;

b) we have just as many assholes out here as they have back there.

But just as I was getting some good chucks from watching NYC execs running around the streets of Manhattan in their Armani suits and Hermes ties and Prada handbags, trying to find a place to hide from Mother Nature, I started thinking about my first experience with the phenomena of an earthquake.

(You hear a story coming?)

I moved to LA in late 2000, after spending the bulk of my life in the Chicago area, and mostly I moved out here because I was sick to death of freezing my ass off every winter. So like so many before me, I heeded the words of Horace Greeley and migrated west, along with six oxen, a covered wagon, my wife Bess and my good Sharps rifle at my side, and as we moved over the plains where Indians...whoa, did I wander off or what? (I really hate when that happens.)

On a Saturday afternoon in February is when it happened to me the first time, and it was an experience I will not likely forget soon.

It was a pretty much a typical day here in the Southland; the weather was in the 60s as I remember, and it was sunny and pleasant outside. I had done some shopping and run some errands earlier in the day (hey, this was before my Pope gig with the All John All The Time World Church, so there was no staff to haul your water or bake your bread), and was settling in for a couple of hours of NBA basketball, because for some reason, there was an early Saturday afternoon Lakers' game on the tube that day, and I was all over it.

Now I'm about to admit to something illegal, and I hope that all my loyal followers will allow their Pope his little peccadilloes, and not call the local constabulary: I find that a couple of good hits off the ol' pipe enhances the "Laker Experience" considerably.

Especially the Laker Girls part.

So there I sat, in my lovely home here in the bucolic and generally misunderstood San Fernando Valley, basking in the warm glow of marijuana, Lakers basketball and an In N' Out Double Burger with cheese, a large order of fries and a Diet Pepsi, (have to watch the old waist line), watching as Kobe pours in about 20 in the first quarter when, very suddenly, I noticed one of my hanging plants was swaying in the breeze...

...inside my apartment, with no windows open.

Even stranger, my "swivel rocker" across the room was doing both, swiveling and rocking, like someone walking by had bumped into it.

Except that I was the only one home, and hadn't moved from my chair in the last half-hour, and Harley hadn't budged off his spot on the floor for at least a millenia.

Then I felt it; my chair moved, with me in it. Not much, but it moved.

No, wait, that's not quite right, the floor moved, not the chair.

No, wait, that's not quite right, the floor didn't move, the building moved.

Ah, excuse me, ah, anyone, THE FUCKING BUILDING IS SWAYING BACK AND FORTH LIKE A WILLOW IN THE BREEZE, THANK YOU, WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE, PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?

Now I have been through numerous earthquakes since that first one; typically, and I think this is the reaction of most SoCalers, it's oh, we're having an earthquake, what time does the Dodgers game start?

Sorry, but no biggie.

But the first one, your first time, whoa; I was scared shitless.

No, actually, that's not accurate; I'll explain that in a moment.

Now I admit that being half way to I'mBakedLand does have a way of enhancing your first experience with an earthquake in a very scary manner; I believe straight it would have been much less frightening. But Mother Nature had not consulted me as to the most convenient time to start shaking the crap out of Southern California, so there I was, stuck in an unfortunate situation.

Putting it mildly.

Fifteen or twenty seconds into Bedlam, I realized what was happening, and I started to calm down. Hell, I had slept through tornadoes that took half the roof off our next-store neighbor's house when I was a kid, so I was pretty sure I would live through this as well, once I understood what it was that was, as Richard Pryor once put it, "making everything go gibbety-gibbety-gibbety".

So when everything settled down, and after I had taken a shower and changed my underwear, I called my sister, who also lives here in Valley, to ask if she had felt the quake. (This is my older sister, who came to LA back in the 60's; 18, not 19.)

"Yo, big sis, did you feel that?" I asked rather breathlessly.

"Feel what?" she responded.

Sorry, East Coast sissies, 5.8 is just no big deal, pretty much like Times Square, Fenway Park and Carmelo Anthony.

And did you see the pictures of the lavish wedding that Kim and Kris threw over the weekend, gush, gush? (Oh, and FYI, that "change underwear" thing was just literary license; I wasn't THAT scared.)

But I was pretty scared.

Love and natural disasters,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs Inc.