I found him. I found Jesus at a Megachurch.

He was in the closet and I outed him.

Here is the story…

I went on a bright Sunday morning to a Megachurch that houses 22,000 people on any given Sunday. I waited to park my car in Lot 47, It took awhile as I was behind 37 SUVs and MiniVans.

Fortunately, I left early enough anticipating this, and I wanted to get a good seat in viewing room 19, or possibly room 11, which is near espresso bar 4.

But I want you, dear readers, to know that I came with one thought, to find Jesus.

As I was about to sit down in viewing room 11 I saw Bob Shindler walking by. I had seen him once about three years back at this church, which is called “Estuary Bay Church”. They had tried to get “Riverbend”, but that and “Creek Hollow” had been taken. In either event it is nowhere near water.

That morning, Bob and I shared a ten minute latte at espresso bar 7 and after a deep three minute conversation we exchanged business cards and promised to keep in touch. I had not seen him since.

Bob saw me and came over.

“Hey, er…”

“Mac”

“Yeah! Mac-Buddy…howzit han…er, how ya doing?”

“Good Bob. Gosh I’ve been here about 30 times since I saw you last but I’ve never seen ya. Did you move?”

“Nope. Been here every week. We have saved seats up in deck 3, aisle 305.”

“Wow. Impressive”

“Sure is. We got it when we became Mustard-Seed Partners. Hey Mac…you know what? My wife is sick this morning…we got an extra seat. Come up with me.”

So I did. I always was kinda curious what the live event looked like. Once before I almost got in service 5 during the NFL playoffs, but only made it to video-room 3.

So this was a real treat, and as I said I was looking to meet the J-Man.

We took the elevator up and made it to our seats just in time.

I admit it was still hard to see. Mustard Seed seats were, well apty named. The pastor and the band behind him looked a bit like a spilled packet of moveable seeds. But it was no big deal because fiftenn rows down a flat-panel monitor was mounted to the ceiling and gave a close up view.

The singing had begun but I noticed no one in Section 305 was singing. I thought that odd. I’d always kinda liked the singing, and they did do some of that in the viewing rooms, but there were only maybe 500 people per room, so it was a lot more intimate.

“Thanks Bob, this is nice. How is the practice?”

“Oh I gave that up two years ago,” he smiled.

“Really, whatcha doing now?”

“Amway distributor,” he said. “yep, 16 of my top distributors are right here in this section, and another 8 over in 307.”

I felt a little ill, so I just looked ahead.

The preacher/pastor, a lively and passionate man named Steven White pranced back and forth with a wide gleam. He spoke passionately about his new book The 7 keys to Successful Living and then invited his wife to come up and explain the various childrens and womens ministries.

Behind him sat associates, about twenty in all, but I guessed their were more serving throughout the Megaplex.

Then there were prayers offered for our leaders and troops and a short play.

Finally came the sermon. There was a quote from Proverbs, then another from Acts.

The sermon referenced neither of these in a way I could detect.

I kept wondering where Jesus was in all of this? What did jesus say about hate, war and cruelty? What words did he have for the religious? If he was here now what would he think of this.

Then it hit me. Of course he was here. I mean, at the core of Christian belief is the notion that God became incarnate (which by the way means that the body is good) and was resurrected to life and is alive…right now…here today.

So why, if these were Christians, did they treat Jesus as if he was stone-cold dead and just an idea? Why did they commemorate him and use him in a formulaic way, but then ignore him entirely.

I said a quick prayer in my head.

“Are you here?”

“Of course I am here,” came the reply in my head.

“That you really…in my head?”

“Well I’m a bit indisposed right now, but who else would it be?”

“Well, you know what they say…”

“What, that you are crazy? Hehe”

“No, the other thingy…bad guy.”

“Oh he cannot hear your thoughts, he’s just good at guessing….kinda like Dr. Phil.”

“Okay, so I am not crazy?”

“No, but only if you believe me and not your ex-wives.”

“I’m gonna go with you on this one.”

“Where are you right now…aren’t you supposed to be down front and center?”

“Well that was the plan, but they did it to me again,” said the voice.

“Did what?”

“I’m in the closet.”

“In the what?”

“On deck two, near section 101 …I’m locked in the closet.”

“Yer joking,” I said, semi-aloud…

“What?” asked Bob.

“Er, nothing. Hey I gotta ..you know…I’ll be back. Save my seat.”

I walked out across the deeply carpeted expanse and ducked into the men’s room. I splashed water on my face and thought about leaving straight away. But I was intrigued by then. And you know what they say about the cat…

I sat down in a stall and put my face in my hands.

“You back?” came the voice. “I thought you had deserted me.”

“I was thinking about it. Sorry.”

“Naw..I’m use to it. Happens all the time.”

“But I thought you were the ‘Hound of heaven’.”

“Where do you get that?”

“I dunno. Jonathan Edwards?”

“Oh he was such a tight-ass.” said the voice. “Look I may be a Lion and I may be a Lamb, but I ain’t Dog. You’re the one with the Doghouse, not me.”

“Oh so you know about that?”

“Sigh… Look I am on level 2, near section 101, I could really use some help here.”

“Okay, I’m on my way.”
_________________

As I hurried down I could hear the preacher/pastor wrapping up his melodic sermon on people’s potential, partnerships and, I dunno….I think there were three other “p’s” in there somewhere. I reach the second floor when I asked (inside my head).

“Okay, why do you need my help if you are who you say you are?”

“It’s complicated, yet really simple.”

“Are you always so enigmatic?”

“What do you think?”

“Yeah… okay, I’ll give you that one.”

“I’m almost there.” I said shaking my head. “And you are in the closet.”

“Yes, they locked me in here.”

I reached what I thought was the door. When I grabbed and turned it just led to a long hall and the sign said something about security for a “studio”.

Suddenly I almost started laughing out loud. Because I am a smartass, I held my wrist up to my mouth the way Secret Service do and in my head said “Sorry, nogo. I hit the studio. Are you East/West from this location?” Then I added a “Qisssshh!” static-like noise in my head (which is not that easy…try it).

“Very fun. I am due West about 20 steps.”

When I got to the grey door it was locked.

“It’s locked,” I said exasperated, “what now..I mean who locks a cleaning closet?”

“I suppose it depends on what is inside,” said the voice.

“Good point. Look I need some help..I mean the service is almost over and this place will be flooded.”

“I said I’d never do that again,” he said.

“Very funny. You gonna sit in the closet and make divine jokes all day long or help me here?”

“You have to pray” came the voice.

“I just did” I said.

“Very good. Clever boy.”

As he heard that he could see a few people releasing from the service…people who had to setup the 78 ministry tables down in the three rotundas.

“But you need to…you know…”

“Oh yeah..okay,” I said frantic. “Father help me with this door so I can get to your son and I ask it in His name and for His glory. Amen” I said under my breath.

“How was that?”

“A little stiff, but thanks. He likes it that way. It gets His attention. And it’s actually good for you on 3,438 different levels of reality which I’ll explain to you after you die.”

“That gonna be anytime soon? I know your track record, people don’t stick around very long. It’s like being the black cop buddy in a major movie.”

“Could you just work the door please?”

I grabbed the door and it swung right open.

I started to make a joke in my head about him being “the door” but stopped dead in my tracks.
____________________
Finding Jesus…

There he was in the semi-dark, bound, gagged and slumped in the corner.

He had rich chocolate skin and deep inset eyes. Not handsome, but neither is Jean Reno and he draws you right in too.

His mouth was gagged, and he was roped up pretty good. I professional job worthy of the Jesus Seminar.

“I heard that” I heard in my head. “Very funny…Can you get this stuff off of me?”

“Oh, sorry ,” I said aloud. “Here let me help you.”

I undid the gag first and wiped his sweating forehead with it. Then I untied him.

“Are you okay to get up?”

“I manage on occasion” he smiled.

It was kind of a moment for me. I have to say that. The smile. The closest smile to that I have ever seen to that was smiles on my children’s faces are various utterly innocent moments, yet here in a grown man.

Now he is not very tall, and I am. When J.B. Philips wrote his famous “Your God is Too Small” I think he missed it by a foot or two. He’s about the size of LaBeau in Hogan’s Heroes, but impressive nonetheless. He could definitely have taken Napoleon except for the non-violence thing.

Anyway, after he got the blood, or whatever runs through a resurrected body going through his veins, he said, “It’s time to go.”

“Wait,” I said. “Don’t you mind that they locked you in a closet gagged and tied up?”

“Happens all the time. During the Inquisition…boy…I would have loved a closet with the clean scent of pine”.

“But what about all these people?”

“Oh I meet them all the time.”

“What here? In tier 3, section 307?”

“Every once and awhile. I met you today didn’t I? And you were in seat 34 in 303 next to Bob.”

“Is his wife really sick?”

“No, she left him six months ago. He gives away his seat every week to a different person. No one knows. You should call him next week.”

“I should?” I asked. “He’ll just get me in Amway.”

“No, he won’t. Take him for a beer and ask him about his life. Tell him your own struggles. He’ll cry and tell all. Be me to him. Be his friend.”

“Okay. I guess I can do that.”

“You did use to be a pastor…”

“ha! yeah…how did I do?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

“NO really…”

“Look I’m a merciful God…don’t push it.”
_______________________

Part TWO

“Where now?” I asked. “Your agenda.”

“I don’t know what do you want to do?” he asked looking up.

“What is this?… like being 10 years old in the Summer with nothing to do kinda-thingy? I mean I just got into my first service in three years and then you start talking in my head and then I find you tied up in a broom closet. It’s a bit much.”

“Okay…okay,” he said shaking his head. “Boy you had some pretty lame ideas when you were ten.”

“Yeah, well some things never change.” I said quietly whispering. “Look do you want to get out of here? I’d like to talk a bit more if you do not mind.”

“Sure,” he said. “Hey one cool thing was when you and Paul Standing made that model airplane and ran it down the wire on fire. That wasn’t lame at all.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Look, duck in here under my coat.”

The throngs came pouring out in thick waves as I hid the Son of Man under my big coat.

We had two floors to traverse and then make for the exit.

We got some looks. I mean the medium income of most of these folks is around $63,000 a year. I walking around with a scruffy looking Jewish guy in a robe under my coat.

One usher stopped me. “Can I help you?” he asked warily.

“I’m just taking this sweet man to the homeless ministry,” I said.

“I wasn’t aware that we had one?” he asked suspicious.

“Oh yeah…It’s great,” I feigned. “Pastor White’s wife chairs it,” I lied.

“You don’t have to do that Mac” he whispered from my armpit. “Things are better in the light of day. Besides. what are they gonna do, kick us out?”

“What if they tie you up again?”

“Oh they will do that again later.”

“What a life you have,” I said.

“Yeah, but it’s all there really is. Life.”

We got more furtive looks as we made our way through the crowd. One man stopped us to explain about various ministries, one of which was to help those with homosexual issues deal with them in a healthy fashion.

“I’ve just come out of the closet” the Son of Man said directly to the man.

He sputtered a bit.

“Yeah,” I said, giving him a quick wink, “and I really love this guy.”

We moved on.

“That was wicked,” I said.

“Not at all,” he said.

From there we made our way into the sanctuary because it was almost vacant except for the choir/band-thingy whatever.

They were practicing for the next three services.

We sat down in the thick padded movie theater chairs and were quiet for awhile.

“So, does your love endure forever?” I asked as the band sang.

“Sure does.”

“Then why do so many bad things happen to people?”

“Who does those things…I mean generally?” he asked plainly.

“Us.”

“You all have so much more freedom than you know.”

“Doesn’t feel that way,” I said sadly.

“That’s because you impinge on each other’s freedom instead of choosing love.”

I sat silent.

“You know you could have left me in that closet, but you chose to come,” he said.

“Well, there is less choice when God is speaking to you.”

“You would be surprised. Ears to hear, eyes to see.”

“Okay, I admit, I did come here to see and hear you today.”

“Disappointed?”

“No. No, it’s actually kinda fun.”

He grinned and so did I.

“Let’s go” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see, trust me.”

______________________

We walked out into the sunshine and he divested himself of my protective coat.

He got some stares, but five kids came over immediate-like and started to dance with him.

I just decided to relax.

Then security came and they wanted him to leave.

“I’m with him,” he said pointing at me.

“Yes, well, actually I am with him, but we’re leaving” I said.

“I can’t take you anywhere,” I said and we walked to lot 47.

“You want lunch?”

“Yeah sure.”

I stopped at the local quicky mart and picked up some cheese, bread and wine.

At the park we stretched out on the salsa blanket.

“Why do you call it that?” he asked.

“You know perfectly well.”

He grinned.

“You know stuff about your kids, yet you ask them and like to hear, no?”

“True.”

“Let me ask you some questions, okay?”

“Sure as long as they are not ones that have been answered 62,000-hunded million times.”

“Why do you let them lock you in the closet all the time.”

“I’m being consistent.”

“Huh?”

“Freewill.”

“That sucks,” I said.

“Yeah, well tell me about it. I still reek of Pinesol.”

“What is going to happen to us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well everything else is so fucked up…er, sorry.”

“I spend three days in hell and you think the word fuck is going to offend me? Dang. Maugham is right, you are a wuss.”

“Well what is gonna happen to Maugham?” I asked. “He thinks you are a myth. He’ll never believe this story even though he’ll want to.”

“Maugham will get what he wants most dear. It may be utter autonomy, it maybe others, it may be me…it’s hard to say.”

“How can it be hard to say?” I asked. “You know everything right?”

“Yes, I do, but my knowing changes as all things move and breath and change at all times and all places.”

“So you are saying it is not static?”

“I am saying that you are not asking the right questions. The only thing static is your laundry because you keep forgetting to buy dryer sheets.” he said “you should look into that.”

“But you know everything ahead of time, and thus you make it so.”

“Amoeba, Abacus, Aborigines and Air Force One Mac.”

“My paradigm is too small and limited is what you are saying,” I asked.

“Yes, just as I am too small for your liking.”

I shook my head down for a moment.

“So do you know and make it happen, or not?”

“Well remember I exist in relationships that are so multi-dimesional and faceted that it’s hard to really explain it to a guy who can barely sustain 9 major relationships, 15 mediocre ones, and maybe 30 acquaintances.” he said. “No offense, but it’s the old “when pigs fly thingy”.

“When pigs fly?”

“Yeah…actually that would have been a fun one. We should have done that the same week we did the platypus and the manatee.”

“Point is,” he said. “The answer is yes-yes and no-no.”

“So let your yes be yes and your no be no?”

“That and more,” he said. “Actually I said quite a bit more that day on that, but Matthew felt that was enough.

“Is your yes, yes and your no, no?”

“Always,” he said. “Anything else is, well bad news.”
___________________________________

Part THREE

Artist unknown

“So you do know and make it happen,” I asked.

“No, and yes.”

“I’m confused” I sighed, then chugged a few gulps of wine and ripped off some bread.

“Let me give you an example,” he said.

“Look at the lovely bread and feel how good the wine is.”

“Well originally when I talked about the bread and wine being my blood and body I was being metaphorical. The ‘love-feasts’ of the early church understood it in a much more organic way. They saw every meal as special and grounded in my very being. So as often as they ate bread and drank wine they did so in a very real communion with me.”

“It was a main staple of existence,” he continued. “So it was as natural a communion as breathing in and breathing out.”

“So what do you do with it now and all the rules and prohibitions and extra stuff attached…and the doing it once a month!?”

“Hold on cowboy,” he said. “We changed our mind.”

“You what?!”

“WE changed our mind,” he said.

“We?..okay..okay..I don’t wanna know…” I said hurriedly.

“You can’t change your mind,” I said finally. “You are omnipotent.”

“Right, but not omnipotent enough to change our Mind?”

I could see I was trapped in my own argument.

“How’s the cheese?” I asked.

“It’s very good,” he said. “Can I have some more? And how about another splash of that wine?”

We sat there, well actually laid down and just looked up at the blanket of trees above.

“So you change your Mind?”

“Mac, it’s hard to explain to you. I’m sorry. But it’s there in the histories.”

“The histories?”

“Yeah…we spent a lotta time setting that up. There…that’s an example of premeditated planning sometimes thousands of years ahead of time. But within that is always relationship.”

“Relationship?”

“Yes, all that ‘is’ is bound in relationship in more forms than you can imagine, but also held together in me.”

“In you?”

“Yes.”

“Well then I am hanging with you if you do not mind.”

“I do not mind at all. I rather like you. In fact I like you a lot more than you like yourself.”

“No comment.”

“Suit yourself.”

Silence.

“Do you remember the story of when Lot was in Sodom.”

“Vaguely,” I said. “It was a pretty wild town.”

“Well actually no. It was really a dead town…no pun intended.”

“None taken,” I said, “But God destroyed the town because they were homosexuals right?”

“Do you actually read the histories?” he sighed.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Can I have some more of that bread?” he asked.

“Sure…hey how does that work for you when you eat bread and drink wine…kind of a double-triple irony huh?”

He rolled his eyes and slumped back.

“look we can take you back to the cleaning closet anytime you are ready.” I said jokingly.

“we’ll get back there soon enough.”

“Okay so what’s your point?” I asked.

“Well we changed our Mind.” he said

“Huh?”

“We were gonna destroy the city and Abraham comes along and starts arguing,” he said.

“Oh yeah..the whole 50, 30 20, 10 righteous dudes thing, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It was a good argument.”

“Like you had not thought of it.”

“That’s the point,” he said. “Abraham came to it on his own and let it fly. We just bought it.”

“Yeah but the city was destroyed anyway,” I said.

“Only because their wickedness was beyond what Abraham or Lot could have foreseen or understood.”

“So it’s the gay thing, right?”

“Gay?” he asked. “These were not happy people. Mac, it was not about sex any more than rape is about sex. It is about destroying other people. It was about humiliating them and making them miserable and utterly damaged. It is very close to pure evil.”

I was silent.

“The people of Sodom did not want to have homosexual sex. The wanted to rape and humiliate the two visitors to the town and leave them for dead. Trust me, I was there.”

“Well this has been fun,” I said suddenly. I guess I felt tired and fragged around the edges.

“I want to say one more thing before we get back,” he said.

“Yeah, what?”

“It’s okay”

“Okay to what?”

“Okay to be angry.”

“You can take me back to the church now” he said. “But thanks for being so honest.”

Sodom and Gomorrah, by Anthony Falbo

We drove back toward the church in silence for awhile.

“Why are you going back?”

“I like seeking the lost.”

“Do the lost usually bind and gag you and throw you in a broom closet?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I admit it gets wearying.”

“I thought you were supposed to come back in some big display of power…”

“Power isn’t what you think it is,” he said. “Didn’t you ever read any of Paul?”

“Yeah some. Most people cannot stand Paul, except Fundamentalists.”

“Yes. They tie me up on the broom closet, but Paul gets the special treatment.”

“The special treatment?”

“Yeah. He likens it to being chained to the back of an 18-wheeler and dragged for 390 miles.”

“Huh?”

“At the end of them massacring his writings he says he feels like ankle meat.”

“Ewwww…” I said crinkling up my face.

“John ribs him about it all time,” he said.

“John, Paul…these guys just hang out now?”

“In a manner of speaking. I’d try and explain it to you but your head would explode.”

“Okay, okay…keep it to yourself,” I said looking ahead at the road.

“But you can understand power,” he said. “There is the power to create and love and there is the power to de-create and hate. One exists forever, the other is a passing shadow no matter how dark and ugly at the moment.”

“So All You Need is Love…” I started singing.

“Yes,” he said smiling. “You have a wonderful voice. I love that song.”

“A John Lennon song?” I said. “But he didn’t believe in heaven and he thought he was more popular than you.”

“He was more popular than me at the time,” he said. “And nobody ever locked him in a closet.”

“So is Lennon in heaven now?”

“I’m not telling,” he laughed. “He likes his privacy.”

“Mac, love is the greatest power there is and when you most reflect God. Ghandi understood this when speaking of the shadow side he said an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blinded. “

“You are quoting Ghandi to me?”

“Why not, he ripped off my material all the time. Truth is truth my young friend, wherever you find it.”

“But if it makes you feel better,” he paused, “it’s all there in Paul and John, not to mention my whole deal. Read the histories.”

I could see the huge Megaplex structure looming larger and larger ahead.

“Pop-quiz!” he yelled.

“Pop-quiz…Geez” I said.

“I’m right here.” he answered. “Okay…we’ll do it like This Week in God.”

“You also watch Jon Stewart,” I said flatly.

“I watch everything. I’d say it’s easier in the broom closet, but it really makes no difference. But I admit I like some things better than others. I like Jon a lot.”

“Okay,” I said shaking my head. Then I did my imitation of the intro “noise” thing they do. “Beepo-boweepo-boweepo-boweepo-boweepo..beep…beep…boop.”

“In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians what are the three things he says outlast everything?”

“Easy,” I say. “Faith, hope and love.”

“Bingo!”

As I turned the corner into the parking lot, I repeated the Boweepo-thingy.

“What were and are the two biggest enemies to said faith, hope and love?”

“uh…er, well…oh I know,” I said. “Legalism.”

“You can thank Dr. Wallmark for that,” he said.

“Hey you quoted Ghandi on an eye for an eye,” I said slyly. “What’s up with that?”

“Truth is a deep well. But well done. And the other?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Actually that is the answer in a roundabout way,” he said grinning. “Having to have all the right answers, all the right knowledge, is just another way of breaking off with God and not being in relationship in love and grace.”

I parked the car.

“What’s gonna happen?”

“Oh let’s just wait and see together.” he said calmly.

We got out of the car and started for the door. I felt strange the farther he walked ahead of me. It wasn’t until later that I would see things very differently. But I am laboring here to be as true to the moments as possible.

The doors were locked and it looked like everyone was gone. My guess was it was about 3 p.m.

We walked around the side. Then I asked “Hey, want me to pray again?”

“Naw, it won’t be necessary,” he said.

“What about the admonition to pray without ceasing? Huh? Huh?” I chided.

“You pray like that a lot more than you realize,” he said. “Remember last week when you had insomnia?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Well how did you deal with it?”

I blushed.

“No not that,” he said. “Finally…before you went to sleep?”

“yeah, okay…it was a kind of conversation,” I said.

“albeit one-sided,” he said as he shielded his eyes and pressed his face up to the mirrored glass door.

“Soooo…” he said peering in, “I would estimate you pray about 6 hours a day.”

“I certainly do not!” I said. “Maybe 5 minutes tops.”

“Nope,” he said. “Just think about it next week.”

Just then another side door popped open and Pastor White stepped out into the sunlight. He fumbled with his brief case for a moment then saw us and grinned a toothy smile.

“Hey there!” he yelled. “How y’all doing?”

Then he dropped the briefcase when I pulled back and he saw him behind me.

He looked flushed, then he looked off as if gathering up a controlled storm.

Finally he walked over much more calmly and put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Thank you for bringing him back. We were worried.”

“Seems capable of taking care of himself,” I said, and he removed the hand.

Then the pastor spoke directly to him.

“You know you cannot keep doing this during services,” he said sadly yet sternly. “We have a place for you here. You know that. There will always be a place for you here at Estuary. Come, both of you, I have something to show you that we have been working on.”

He pulled out his keys which consisted of enough metal that if melted down could craft a small statue.

Once inside he took us to the new wing under construction. It was maybe three-quarters finished and probably the whole of it was another 30,000 square feet of space.

“You’ll be happy to know that we are opening up a whole new ministry here in this wing,” he said with no small amount of pride.

“I ministry to the poor, the homeless, the despairing and spiritually hungry right?” the Son of Man asked.

“WELLL…haha..there you go again..ya-ha!” he said wagging his head back and forth. “Yeah son…Heh! No, no…we got bigger fish to fry,” he said. “We ‘re moving the Christos Institute in here which deals directly with lobbying congress on all significant moral issues to make sure they are carried out by all people everywhere to the letter.”

“Is that all they do?” he asked.

“Nosir,” he said gleefully. “They also have a side project called The Gleanings, which with the use of advanced computer technology is able to sift through significant biblical passages and isolate those with superior practical importance for enhanced living.”

“Is that the logo?” I asked pointing to a large placard with a whale on it which had “GLEANINGS” written underneath its hulking mass.

“Yes,” he said proudly. “It’s a symbol. The whale is able to take in huge expanses of water, yet strain the tiny plankton as it sees fit.”

With that the robed one turned to me and said, “Pop-quiz question two?”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said. “But he forgot about the blow-hole.”

We both laughed hard.

“I saw that coming, but limited my knowledge just before the moment,” he said stooping over laughing, “Cuz I wanted to get it fresh.”

I was laughing hard too, like some great release of pressure.

“Well you fellas are having a good time,” the pastor said looking sullen. “Let me show you what I have to show you and we can finish up.”

I wiped a tear from my eye and cleared my throat and chuckled one more time.

As we followed Pastor White down the hall I put my hand over his robed shoulder. Suddenly I was worried that I would never see him again.

“Don’t worry,” came the voice in my head. And he looked up and winked at me quickly.

I felt better.

We came to the far end of the hall and saw, in the corner, two small rooms. The one on the left was obviously a broom closet.

“NO!” I said.

“Mac, this is out of your control,” he said. “Let Go.” he said aloud to me.

“and let God?” I prayed to him.

“Very funny,” he replied in my head.

“You don’t need to worry sir,” the pastor said to me, which I did not like because the way he said “sir” was obviously dismissive. I was definitely now the “enemy”.

“I have a confession” he said. “It was wrong to put you in the closet,” he said to him.

“So we have built this new room just for you,” he said. “In fact, you have your own broom closet next two it and our janitors will take care of everything you need. They are on 24/7.”

“What about the ropes and gags!?” I asked in a loud voice.

“Hey son! Don’t go poking where you are not wanted,” he bristled.

“Well what kinda joint you running here where you hog-tie the very one you are supposed to adore and follow?” I asked.

“You don’t understand,” he said sadly. “We got a Board that is very demanding, and well, frankly this one here (pointing to the Son of Man) has just lost touch. He’s always over-turning the cart and we can never get anything done.”

There was silence as each of us considered what was coming next.

“No gags and no ropes,” the pastor finally said. “Come let me show you.”

Jesus Room

We walked into the small corner room. I noticed immediately the lack of an ambient noise, then I saw the thick acoustic panels already inset on all sides and the ceiling. The floor was raised and strange.

“What’s with the floor?” I asked.

“It’s actually cut away from the entire building” he said proudly. “We learned that trick when we built our first recording studio. This room actually, in a sense floats. It eliminates all noise and vibration entirely. This whole room is utterly soundproof so he can be at peace.”

“We also are installing an advanced security system to protect him from the outside world,” he continued. “No one can get in without our knowing.”

With that the Son of Man took off his sandals and went and sat against the far wall.

“Well gents,” the pastor said, “we have two services to run tonight, so I need to prepare.” Then he paused, lifted one eyebrow up as he looked at him and said “You will agree to stay here for now until we finish, right?”

“Thy will be done,” he replied.

“And you sir,” he said. “I expect you out of here in 5 minutes, understood?”

“Yes,” I said tersely, “Sir.”

Then he turned and left. I heard him start to whistle about ten paces down the hall. I think it was a rendition of Jesus Loves Me This I Know…

________________________________________________

Give me five minutes more, only five minutes more
Let me stay, let me stay in your arms

Here am I, begging for only five minutes more
Only five minutes more of your charms

All week long I dreamed about our Saturday date
Don’t you know that Sunday morning you can sleep late

~Frank Sinatra

______________________________

I had five minutes more with him, then I was certain security would come by and boot my ass out.

“I feel like I have so much I wanna ask you,” I said.

“Well you always can,” he said.

“Yeah, but it’s not like this, not like today and you know that.”

“Yeah. I do. I agree.”

“Why is that?” I asked looking at him.

“Remember Pop-Quiz answer number one?”

“Yeah?”

“Extrapolate from there,” he said.

“I can’t,” I said frustrated.

“Uh, you can. And you will, next Thursday at 2 a.m. You will get the whole deal,” he said.

“There is no winning with you,” I said.

“Actually you can’t lose with me.” he said. “What else do you want to know?”

“At death do we sleep or are with immediately with you?”

“Light,” he said.

“Light?”

“It’s way thin, but in your terms, speed of light,” he said. “It also answers your next question. But you know more than enough theology don’t you? I mean, you don’t wanna end up in the belly of a whale do you?”

Of course I was gonna ask about determinism and freewill next. I guess the answer to a lot of questions may be as simple as “light”. Maybe the other answer is “love”. Certainly I now understood that the universe is deeply relational…and this one is at the core…somehow.

I shifted on my rump. The air was chalky.

“What will you do now?” I asked.

“I’ll wait,” he said. “thanks for fetching me today though. I enjoyed it.”

“What will happen to them if they keep treating you this way?” I asked.

“I see it, and it is not good,” he said. “But it could change. Life is seething with changes that we enjoy as much as it seems to make them uncomfortable. I want to encourage you to have compassion.”

“For them?” I asked shaking my head.

“Especially for them,” he said looking me directly in the eyes.

“But they are Pharisees?” I said.

“Hey some of the Pharisees were very cool,” he said. “the ones that weren’t were damaged goods. Do you you remember what I said about the Pharisee who was next to the sinner?”

“Yeah…the sinner beat his breast and cried out while the Pharisee says ‘Thank you God I am not like this man, a sinner.’”

“Very good,” he said. And I felt kinda proud…I mean two out of three, maybe 2 and a half.

“But you thank God you are not like the Pharisee, don’t you?” he asked. ” That you are not like this man?”

I got up and walked into the half done broom closet and started to cry.

“You have to go now Christopher,” came the voice in my head.

“I don’t WANT TO GO!!” I sobbed.

“You found what you came for…even at a Megachurch,” he said aloud.

I wiped my face off with my arm and coughed roughly.

“So what will you do next Sunday morning?” I asked, “Tag another accompliss?”

“Maybe, or I might sleep in,” he said. “Most of the real stuff happens from Monday through Saturday night.”

I heard footsteps in the distance. It was time to go.

“What should I tell people about today?” I asked.

“Tell them what you like,” he said calmly. “Just make sure they understand the huge gap between a piece of ‘what if’ fiction and the non-fiction reality that exists all around them right now, today.”

I promised I would, and I have.

As I left and walked past the stoic guard I shot one last mindful question back, hoping for one last answer.

“In my lifetime will I ever see you front and center, loved and adored and utterly seen?”

“That depends on you, and the others,” he said. “Until then, I am all ears.”

Huge Chocolate Nativity in Italy

2004, San Anselmo California, The Citadel. Forget rampant unemployment, social unrest, a country divided in half (okay 50.5 to 49.5), Global Warming, or even “Four More Wars” from George W. Bush…the real crisis the modern world is facing is obviously spiritual.

The cover story of this week’s Time magazine was not the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the above. It was about the “Secrets of the Nativity”. In other words it was about the “creche”…Jesus’ original “crib”.

That is all “creche” means is “crib” or “manger”.

Sure, Jesus’ crib was not like the MTV cribs we are so accustomed to. Not a lot like Ashton Kutcher’s crib (replete with Demi Moore crib), or certainly the cribs of Papa Roach, Tony Hawk or Shannon Elizabeth. But, a crib is a crib.

In fact, Jesus’ crib was literally a “feeding trough” in an old cold barn, warmed only by the family, and later, some shepherds. Oh, and there was also probably a lot of livestock, so there was also the warmth and smell of their methane creating defecations (the beginnings of “Global Barn Warming”).

Looking at other’s nice cribs on MTV is kinda fun (for about 7 minutes), but I never expected to have my own Jesus crib stolen. But it happened.

Somebody stole my Jesus crib.

As an Internet researcher and journalist I wondered and checked the news for other creche-related events…omigod!! A wax “Beckham”, depicted as a member of the Holy Family has been pushed over in a Museum creche (crib) in London:

(Free kick here)

And 70 people protested having George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and Prince Philip as being depicted as the “three wise men” there.

Personally, if you read down, the choice of Samuel L. Jackson as one of the shepherds seems safe, but I wouldn’t trust Hugh Grant around the sheep.

Just me.

*******

Here is just how pervasive this global creche crisis has become. In London, David Beckham, and his lovely wife Victoria, are depicted as the holy parents of Jesus at Madame Tussauds museum.

The “Joseph” (David) and his wife “Mary” (Victoria, otherwise known as the “Posh” Spice Girl) wax figures were attacked by a man offended by their attempts to look after the baby Jesus in his crib (er, feeding trough). It was rumored that the attacker tried to abscond with one of the waxened Holy Family in order to start a small mail order candle business, but he has not yet been apprehended.

Fortunately, Real Madrid star defender Walter Samuel, who just happened to be touring the museum at the time, was able to successfully deflect all of the following attempts to score on the Holy Beckhams.

“It was just second-nature,” Samuel said later.

In harmony with the star thematic renditions of the Tussaud exhibit, the baby Jesus was a simple wax rendition of “Mini-Me”.
*******

As I continued to search I found all manner of bizarre world-wide creche events.

In Naples, 32 pastry chefs decided to construct a huge nativity scene entirely out of chocolate. The baby Jesus is made of white chocolate despite his Middle Eastern ethnicity. This crib also sports celebrity figures that watch over the delectable Jesus. Last year the babe in the manger was surrounded by chocolate renditions of Dubya and Osama Bin Laden (I admit I made up the Mini-Me thing above, but this one’s real. Check it out…)

(Click to Eat)

It took the 32 chefs 4500 hours to construct the 7,250 pound Nativity.

On this one I have a couple of questions.

First, after the Beckham incident in London I really fear for the baby Jesus. I mean some fanatic is gonna get past the guards and eat him (no doubt citing a literal biblical reference in his defense later). And if not, what do they do after Christmas is over? Do they melt the King of Kings down and make smaller white chocolate Jesus bars? (I do not have any problem with them melting down Dubya or Bin Laden…it would solve a lot of the world’s problems.)

In other areas of the world this year they just do the whole Jesus crib wrong. You can buy a llama nativity scene that has no Jesus, no Madonna (not that one! the original one!) or Joseph or wise men…just two llamas, a donkey (or calf), a camel and a duck.

A duck?

No Jesus or Holy Family…a duck with adoring llamas. Sounds more like a Monty Python routine than a nativity scene.
Oh, and I am serious…if you go to the website they are SOLD OUT!

(One duck…no Jesus)

So, Jesus is missing, there is a shortage of llamas and ducks, and gas prices are at an all time high. Surely these are the “End Times”.

And what’s with the three wise men being in the scene at all? If you read the historical texts they come days later to a house with their gifts.

I guess it ups the price of the collectible scenes to have more figurines.

But if so, why not go all the way and add other significant figures to the story? Why not have a King Herod figure lurking in the background? Where is the Innkeeper and his family? It’s not his fault that all the rooms were taken! It was “Census” time for God’s sake! At least he found some safe space for them to have the birthing! He probably didn’t even charge them full rate. He deserves to get in doesn’t he?

I mean, if wise men, who (historically) are hundreds of miles away at the time, and llamas and ducks get in, how come the Innkeeper doesn’t?

Sigh, and elsewhere, in Florida (what is up with that state?) a judge is deciding whether a woman can put up a nativity scene publicly. They already have a Menorah openly displayed, but it’s a whole big mess down there over also putting the Jesus crib out in the open air.

It’ll probably hinge on whether the nativity scene has hanging chads or not.

******

Oh so much more to come…

Idiots.

You ever leave a message to your friend Bob at work, then call his house and tell his wife too?

Well gents, it doesn’t take CSI Bethlehem to figure it out. Let me just give you the forensic evidence for free, untainted.

Matthew wants to explain why Joseph doesn’t go nuts when he finds out his bride is suddenly “preggers” and he hasn’t touched her yet (they are engaged). He doesn’t care, or talk about what happens at the Inn at all! He takes up his narrative days later when the wise men show up at a house with gifts.
As for Luke, he could care less about how Joseph feels. This guy is a trained historian. He wants to record the angel’s visit to Mary and her being chosen, the “Magnificat” and the actual events of Jesus’ birth…what happened that night, not a few days later.
They also bring up a supposed problem with one birth scene happening in the barn, the other in a house.
But according to L. Michael White, religious historian at the University of Texas in Austin, “It’s virtually impossible to reduce the accounts to a core narrative.”
I contacted Dr. White, because I was about to slam him and Time over a couple of issues and wanted him to have a chance to respond before publication.

I was gonna start with the absurdity of Time‘s going to a “religious historian” on an obvious textual question.

For the uninitiated, that’s like going to your sports doctor (a former football player known in his playing days as “Big Hands Jackson”) for your annual prostate exam.

You do not go to a “religious historian” because his primary job is to document and write (almost fictionalize in most cases) what “may” have happened in periods that have scant information.

The fact is, you would go to a “textual critic”, or maybe a professor of New Testament who specializes in the Gospels.

Don;t believe me? Next time to need a new engine in your car, go to JiffyLube.

Whether there may not be a “core narrative” between the two accounts only becomes a question when you bring up deeper questions than the ones quoted in David Van Biema’s article in Time, and is a matter of debate.
I found no great ‘Secrets of the Nativity” revealed in the article at all. But it was weird that the Nativity was the cover story given the above and our own experience.

It was a list of demands and threats. They had the main couch now and wanted the cushions that go with it and they were willing to go to extreme lengths to get them, including damage to the holy crib.

This would not be featured on MTV.

The ransom note was not made using the usual cutouts from various magazine pieces pasted on paper using rubber gloves.

No. These culprits were even more devious.

Obvious regular viewers of every CSI episode, they were clued into every possible criminal mistake (from CSI Miami to CSI Fresno).

The fact was they actually took back cutouts from chocolate Advent calendars and several of the more literate chocolate figures to spell out their terse demands (the one thing never used in any of the 16 currently running CSI programs).

Here is what we were able to make out from the Advent patches and chocolates:

“We have couch and we want pads”

“Holding Holy Family ransom”

“Call the police and the baby Jesus buy’s the farm.” (there is some technical extrapolation here as a a chocolate coin was placed just after a picture of a carrier pigeon and the words “baby Jesus” from a cutout. At the end, after the chocolate coin was a chocolate Advent farm scene. We got the gist.)

1) Every hour that the cushions are not delivered one of the livestock would be sacrificed. The CSI/CBS team was actually hopeful about this because the smell of roasted meat is easier to detect in more vegetarian/vegan areas like Marin than, say in San Antonio, Texas (where the show was rumored to have been originally scheduled). They thought we might be able to sniff out the culprits in a few days.

2) After that, they would move on to the shepherds. As one put it, “so typical…class struggle and all” then on to the wise men, who were, no doubt, not feeling too wise at this time. I could almost hear Baltshazar chewing out the other two, “Didn’t I TELL YOU to check the stars for stuff like this? Shoddy work gentleman. No Exit Strategy!? What were you thinking?”

3) Then, worse, after dispatching the wise men (The Koresh character will be the hardest), they would move on to the Holy Family itself if their demands for the two cushions were not met.

4) Joseph would go first. Even these hoodlums had gotten down to the “core narrative” faster than most biblical scholars and figured out that Joseph was, from the beginning, essentially odd man out. Let’s face it, even a surface reading shows this guy gets beat out for the girl by God Himself. Worse, (for him), he’s a carpenter by trade…so he gets the Mafia treatment, finger by finger (by nail clippers) sent by the captors. “Build cabinets now!” would be their natural mentality.

5) Mary? The CSI/CBS forensic team actually thought the captors would be a little afraid of her. Not a woman to be messed with and they also reasoned, (though most of them were from Julliard) that since (in my set) she looked a lot like Olivia Hussey in her prime (and in a Franco Zeffirellian sense), the captors would probably be constantly stunned. You don’t mess with the Madonna. Not the original one. Not the current one.

6) And the baby Jesus? Well He’d be the Big Prize. All the acting CSI/CBS team agreed: no cushions and we’d never see the baby Jesus again.

Evidence Destroyer

We had made up our minds. But there was one last technical problem.

The CSI/CBS team, as incredibly helpful as they had been were, after all, really just actors. So, well (sigh), some of their forensic work was, er, let’s just say Johnny Cochran would have eaten them alive like a white chocolate Jesus candy bar on some of their “handling” of the evidential issues.

Put frankly, our dog (who ironically, is actually named “Frank”) got a hold of the ransom note at one point and ate the end delivery demands for the cushions.

Well “ate” is not that accurate. Let’s just say that after he got a hold of the note significant gaps in the text occurred. It’s what is technically called “textual corruption” of a certain kind.

Basically, most of the chocolate had been lapped up or licked off, leaving only the bits of paper backing messages from the Advent calendar.

Frank was not feeling well later. We felt worse.

We felt, well, Jesus-less; and frankly confused; and worse, how do you watch “CSI wherever” without a couch?

*******

So long as I am ranting a bit (I admit this) what is with all the “scholar guys” rejecting their first names? It’s always J. Carl Runfummsky; T. Royer Johnson, G. L. Focker.

I figure the only reason F.F. Bruce didn’t come clean was because his middle name was “Fyvie”. How would you like to be F. Fyvie Bruce? Better F.F. Bruce

So he gets off free.

Does calling myself C. Carl MacDonald make me more impressive?

Okay, maybe it does, but I’ll still go by “Mac”. Meet me on the basketball court and you can call me “C-Mac” and I’ll still kick your butt…unless you are in your thirties and in reasonable shape.

My rendition of Ernest Becker

But others are not so. Walter Breuggeman had the guts to spell his first name, and so did Ernest Becker, and Frederick Buechner, and Peter Berger, Kenneth Ballie, Norman O. Brown, etc.

I guess the real thing is you only have the balls to use your first name if you last name begins with “B”?

Ironically, one of the two guys in the Time magazine article who says anything of substance is an actual New Testament scholar (see above recommendation). It is John Barclay

Which only supports my growing scholarly “B” thing theory. No “J. Robert Barclay” crap! Nope…just John Barclay.

Scholar Raymond Brown is also quoted in the Time article and like all the “Killer B’s” he not only speaks wisely, more importantly he has, like the others, accepted his given name instead of a simple letter.

The author of the Time article is Van Biema, The “Van” means “from…”. Suggestion David…get back to being a real B. Don’t just be “from” there.
*******

Frank, had licked away the significant chocolate Advent information. We had to think outside the box.

How to safely get the cushions to the thieves and also have a safe place for the baby Jesus to be returned?  I figured, ultimately, Jesus could take care of himself. So could Mary and the wise men.

The shepherds? I gave them a 50-50 chance, even in Marin. One of them (if he got out of the box) was gonna wander directly out onto St. Francis and be squashed by a huge black Hummer. The other two would probably be picked up like McDonald “Happy Meal” toys by children.

The shepherds were doomed regardless.

So we needed a safe spot nearby. The thieves thought we had the note…well the full note, and not what we now have. All we had now was a scant manuscript, like “Papyrus Bodmer II”, one of the earliest New Testament manuscript fragments (copy) which was only a few decades from John’s original autograph. Ironically it resides near London, not far from where the Waxed Beckhams look after The baby Jesus in his posh crib.

Jesus, what a world you came to save.

So we had only fragments like those early manuscripts: “Leaves for Holy City” tag, then a [chocolate stain]; followed by a “reclining on pillows at table” tag; then another chocolate stain. Then the final panel has the words “Good Friday”, which we took as another threat, and next to it was a partial chocolate stain of a half-eaten Santa.

Thanks Frank.

No “crunchy bones” for you this month.

*******

I still support CBS. Even after they let the dog eat the evidence I felt rather bad for anchor Dan as he was recently fed bad info like chocolate too.

Time magazine has no excuse for their bad journalism. Not only that, Rather was fed his stuff and just read it. The Time guys and this whole secret nativity mess? Those guys had, behind them, two millennium and the thousands of people who have researched it, going back to Luke’s account in 70 A.D.

This is worse than reports of WMD that were obviously falsified in front of the UN.

This is grand fraud. If Colin Powell, who was given bad information and delivered it to the world at the UN, was a biblical critic my guess is he would say this was not “Heilgeschichte” but simply “Bullgeschichte”.

There were, and are, trained experts on the authenticity of documents. Time just screwed up. You might as well have joined the 32 chefs in Naples and spend part of the 4500 hours creating chocolate nativity figures as publish your last issue.

So no excuses. You suck. Van Biema should resign and take up confection making or Alpaca farming, or the art of making warmongers into real-scale wax figures.

I decided to not even finish the Time article. It’d be like reading the Enquirer with a serious mind. Better to read Mad magazine.

Besides, I had cushions to get to thieves. I had to try and reclaim Jesus and Co. and time was running out.

Whoever stole the couch and the baby Jesus did so late and in this neighborhood on a cold and misty night.

They were also able to come back later (quickly) with a ransom note.

So they were very local. Close. Nearby.

The fact they spotted the Jesus Box crib is not that telling (except for the above). But spotting the couch up two landings? No, they were close by and locals.

As we looked down, off our high balcony, I noticed there was a music store down between us and the United Market. It is some kinda “Gospel” or “Good News” music store on a sliver of land. It’s named “Amazing Grace Music” or some such thing. Good transfer/getaway ground.

We figured, if we left the cushions there it was a great neutral ground. The folk who work there were not gonna throw the cushions out immediately. They would not even notice them, but the thieves would…and would be able to, in nonchalant fashion, procure them and return Jesus and His crib in the box.
It’s not like the San Anselmo police were gonna hold a vigil over two couch cushions, or put the missing baby Jesus on “Amber Alert”. So we capitulated. We walked the extra mile. We “gave up the jacket”. You win. We just want our Jesus back.

So we took the cushions down the hill and placed them where they could be seen, but not where they would be a nuisance. My girlfriend and I argued in the parking lot briefly about telling the owners.

“No! The less people involved, the safer for Jesus!” I argued. She backed off. Probably because she knows I can read ancient Greek and she can’t.
*******

While her logic was Greek to me, she was right and I was wrong.

I overslept and did not get down to the Amazing Grace Music place until around 10:30 a.m.

The cushions were gone, but no box.

A few weeks later I noticed that the store had expanded and taken over the next-door furniture store (the type I had hoped would have inexpensive sofas once I had saved up the money to buy a good used one).

Two of my sons are musicians, and they had Christmas money to spend in January. I asked the owner (as my son picked out a special cymbal for his drum set and my other son picked out a used amp for his guitar rig) how they had been able to expand so quickly.

“Oh it was amazing” said the bearded owner. “For years we have wanted to expand, but couldn’t. Then one day we went out back and found a box with an old nativity scene,” he grinned. “It was one of those collectible things. It was from the 1920’s and was quite valuable. Vince here put it up on eBay and we got $8500 for it during holy week. We used that to expand the store.”

My chin hit my chest.

“You okay?” he asked?

“Yeah,” I said. “But do you have a couch I could go lay down on for a few minutes?”

The plane left Sacramento for E3 in Atlanta, the largest rolling party for the video game industry lasting three days and making Hefner’s largest bash seem small and lacking vision. Two huge buildings with an utterly ridic number of large breasted women in tight t-shirts, 167 tons of swag (often propelled out into the arena-like setting) and a lot of big business going on behind closed doors.

As I sat in the airport bar waiting for my flight, I heard two guys nearby laughing. One was saying “and then I took the anthropology test …in bed (laughter) and then watched the Kings game with girlfriend…in bed.“

They kept at it like two cocaine-crazed chipmunks. Everything was “..in bed“.

I thanked the Maker they were not on my flight.

Three days earlier the president of Prima Publishing, Ben Dominitz,  had called my office. A kind and generous man, he fired me with 300 other people two years later in the February 2001 massacre that was the dot.com bubble utterly stabbed to death.

But this was 1999, and I had produced 50,000 free screensaver swag disks on Dominitz-demand in the prior 38 hours at Cold Barn Studios with the Wademan featuring Lara Croft of TombRaider and one for Half-life. (You can download them at the end if you doubt this is a true story.)

So roughly, I slept like a dead man all the way to Atlanta. Once there I had no responsibilities whatsoever except to pick up and ride shotgun with Infamous GenXr Douglas Coupland, who left his laptop on the airplane causing all manner of misadventures “...without God” (that is what I decided to substitute for the ending phrase “…in bed” with at the end of every sentence while escorting Coupland).

He’s a quiet man, so it made him want to drink a lot more and he got foul mooded the more times I cracked this seriously defective and utterly trite and unfunny joke in his presence, such as “”Yeah tomorrow I am really looking forward to playing Starcraft Brood Wars at the Blizzard station… without God“.

“It’s ‘After God’ you moron,” Coupland said through clenched teeth.

Lara's Book by Douglas "....without God" Coupland.

He was there to sign autographed copies of Prima’s new  Lara’s Book about Lara Croft. Sort of a spiritual biography of a large boobed animated game character with guns who millions of men get to manipulate on their computer screens. Very sane stuff. One night,  Rhona Mitra, who was seriously lobbying to be the “real” Lara Croft on the Big Screen before Angelina got the role,  brought Coupland and I a drink as Doug signed books (…without God).

Mitra to Coupland:” I love your book about God,”  she said as she lay the drink down and handed me mine. I looked at her and said “…without God” (but was definitely at that moment thinking “…in bed“).

Coupland: er, thanks (he doesn’t look up, just keeps signing. I hand her a copy and ask “what part of the book, the book Life After God, did you enjoy most?”

Mitra: “I like the part where he talks about rain being a blanket  that helps comfort and make life somewhat manageable.”

Doug pays no notice. I assume he gets hit on more than your average geeky guy.  I mean, Rhona actually gets it and she is standing there in a perfectly shaped spandex outfit. “Forget you Doug…without God” I say to myself.

Rhona Mitra at E3

Maugham to Mitra: “I like the part when he talks about being young and always sort of waiting for life to begin; then finding you are older and nothing has actually arrived.”

This was  gonna end one of two ways. It ended as you would expect. She left. Still, I tried…without God.

Coupland also managed to slip away (in fact I did not see him again for the entire three days, which was strange because he was my roommate at the hotel).

Later I ran into the other Doug  (Douglas Adams) who was there hawking some new piece of Hitchhiker’s Guide software. He was a large man so we actually saw eye to eye. We spoke for awhile. I asked him how his “Christian” mistress was working out and confessed that it had not turned out very well for me and he should prepare for utter disaster and misery”…without God“.

He seemed unconcerned. So I changed the subject and asked him how his “mum was” and that sort of thing. We discussed cognitive dissonance but his eyes began to glaze over when I switched the topic to Starseige Tribes and my infamous defensive strategy called “Mac’s Valley of Death” .

Why was I there? I was actually running primagames.com which I took very seriously (as you can see from the photo). While there I took the little book site from 1600 people a day to 90,000 a day through a variety of clever moves. I also created “eGuides” which was patented in 2002 and I had to spend a week in San Francisco with lawyers  at $300 an hour to try and explain to them “how” I actually came up with the concept and vision for the new product.

I kept insisting “The VP asked me what an online multi-media strategy guide for video games would look like and how much it would cost and I told her four days later exactly what it would look like, what it would do, and that it would cost $250k to do in six months. (In fact it cost only $220,000 and we did four of them in 5 months).

This was not what they wanted to hear, which was not my fault. As Donald Sutherland says so eloquently in Kelly’s Heroes “I don’t fix’m, I just drive’m”. It was at that point that I thought one of them was gonna reach down and fetch one of those creatures they used on Chekhov in the Star Trek movie …you know “they put creatures in our ears Captain! Made us DO things!”

Finally I made up some answers that satisfied them and sounded vaguely legal. They filed the patent which was granted in 2002 a year after the dot.com crash that devastated my former industry. It now belongs to Random House who has never even looked at it.

Bad timing.

Well after I was through with all the Dougs, I still had two days with nothing to do but drink and wander around with my Mini-DV camera and make smartass comments about new games that were utterly useless…and all without God.

yeah it was true. By this time even God had deserted me. Maybe it was the noise, perhaps the senseless use of woman as icons, or perhaps just greed, idolatry and debauchery on levels Dante could have never imagined.

Prima had sent like 50 people to Atlanta, and most of them were stuck at the Prima exhibit. My video of Lara’s Book ran all day long, my CDs given out every minute…no one had any idea why I was there. So I wandered alongside Dougs and spoke out of turn.

Geeks are very smart and as I suggested earlier there are huge amounts of free swag to be harvested if you know what you are doing. Three of he Prima girls conspired and took me aside. “We want swag” they said.  “We are short and we want Eidos Tees” they said in unison.

I caught the drift. They wanted me to go to the Eidos mosh pit and “post up” like Kareem or Shaq. I had to admit, the plan had merit but I feared the crowd. If I posted up in the Eidos mosh and started grabbing down every rebounded piece of swag, the crowd would, sooner or latter, turn hateful, ugly and with sheer numbers do viscous harm to me personally.

Still I went. Rhona came out with the other Eidos girls and winked at me. (Yeah yeah…without God) .  I spread out and held the center court and grabbed seven of the first 10 shirts shot into the crowd.

They turned quickly. The mood of the mosh swiftly became anti-Mac. I went high and brought down four more shirts in quick succession as the mosh began to conspire a way to kill and dismember me. I knew the look and felt the mood. It was quickly dark and ugly. I fled...without God.

Later I ran into another Prima author, Rick Barba,  who offered to be my new roomie as all the Dougs had fled. A nice and gracious man with a good sense of humor.  He did not end his sentences with anything like “...in bed” , or “…without God” so I quickly dropped the whole ruse. Barba was far too human, humble and genuine.  And he laughed at my other jokes.

Dreams are ridiculous. Take this one from last night…

I’m following Al Michael’s around asking him questions about announcing. He just wants a Coke at this ridiculous giant chicken restaurant. I’m immediately pissed because I see they want 1.79 for a stupid 8 ounce Coke.

Rip-off.

Michaels turns to me and says “Don’t worry, it’s on me.”

I figure he can afford it I follow Michaels into the restaurant and we go up to the counter and order.

“Let me ask you,” I say “I know it’s very tough to be ON all the time during a broadcast…but you guys do coast, right?”

“Coast?” he asks incredulously.

“Yes, coast. I mean whenever you tell a story that you have told more than 8 times, you are just coasting…it’s just filler.” I say. “You just start it and your brain goes elsewhere. I mean I’ve heard you tell the Bobby Bonds story 11 times…you are just coasting.”

He grins back at me and says “Yeah, but I am still angry at God.”

“You angry at God? Why would you be angry at God?”

“Who said anything about God?” I am thinking as just then a man in a dark blue suit walks up and looks me in the eyes and says “There is no such thing as God. It is a projection of human need and desire and the fear of death. It is not scientific and therefore irrelevant.”

“Oh Geez,” I say to Michaels. “Ya can’t go anywhere these days.”

“Look buddy,” I say. “First of all you can’t even explain your own existence and consciousness. Haven’t you heard of Heisenberg’s theory? Hey I have my own doubts about God’s existence but let’s not be stupid here.”

He reaches across the counter and takes his order of chicken and walks away mumbling about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Michael’s is not amused.

“Just get the chicken, okay?” he asks. “And the Cokes.”

I do and follow on behind.

We sit down on a park bench to eat and he says “Well I was angry. But not so much anymore.”

SJP

Suddenly in front of us is a large pool and there are several people bobbing around in it laughing. I see Sarah Jessica Parker, Mary Louise Parker, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

This pleases me until I see Philip Seymour Hoffman also bobbing in the pool, then Anthony Michael Hall.

“Do you have a middle name?” I ask Michaels.

“No,” he says “Shut up and eat your chicken.”

“I don’t have to shut-up,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because it is my dream and I could throw you into that pool with only AMH and PSH.”

“Point taken,” he says. “How is your chicken?”

It’s pretty good and I can have all I want and not gain a pound.”

“You have gained weight,” Michael’s reports.

“Shut-up.”

We sit in silence and watch SJP and MLP and JJL bob and laugh in the water. They seem to be having a good time.

“Why don’t you get in?” he says.

“I have a date later with Nicole Ari Parker,” I say flatly.

“Not Parker Posey?” he asks slyly.

“Naw, she’s a bitch, has weird teeth and has no middle name.

“I don’t have a middle name,” he shrugs.

“That only means you are here for a different reason.” I say. “Hey you got an extra napkin? This stuff is kinda greasy.”

Al Michael’s hands me a napkin.

“You have everything Al,” I say “yet you coast on old stories and have no middle name.”

“You gotta point?”

“Yeah…what’s at your core…your center?”

“Right now?…Chicken and Coke,” he laughs and some small bits of chicken end up on my pants.

“I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Hey, I paid. Look PSH is trying to hit on MLP.”

“Great,” I say “You wanna do the play by play?”

MLP

“So, Michael’s…why were you angry with God and why aren’t you now?”

“Well we all have a reason to be angry with God,” Michaels said. Then he started into a long rambling story that I have heard at least 300 times. Everybody has a reason but the same story.

“You are coasting,” I said.

“Yes, I am.”

“What happened then?”

“I realized it was my life,” he said “so I just embraced it.”

“Yeah and you got a $4 million dollar contract.”

“Didn’t hurt.”

“Yeah and you get to work with Madden.”

“Yes, he’s alot like God.”
_________________

Just then I got an outside email on my subconscious palm pilot….

Subject: conjugal yukon advantageous adherent

Do I want to buy a Rolex watch for $3.99, get free Viagra, get 4.9% on my mortagage (I do not have a house) and have a date in an hour?

I decided continuuing to sleep was a lot better and more real.

“Oh God…please let me sleep” I prayed to the unknown.
_________________

SJP got out of the pool and walked up to me seductively.

“You are married,” I said grimly. “And you remind me of my ex-wife.”

“The angry one?” she said sweetly.

“No, the other one…though she was pretty angry too.”

“What’s your middle name?” she asked.

“Carl. But I don’t wanna talk anymore.”

“Why?’

“It’s not funny dialogue,” I say “and I am really into funny dialogue” and she slaps me in the face and leaves.

“That was smooth,” says Michael’s laughing.

“Yeah? Yeah?” I say kind of mad. “What’s your middle name and what is your center?”

Michael’s looks off in a lost way.

“Did I ever tell you about ‘Pudge Fisk’ in 1975?”

“Coasting…”

Just then JJL gets out of the pool along with AMH and PSH.

“Dismissed” I say. They leave.

Mary Louise Parker swims over to the edge of the pool and throws her hair back and smiles that amazing smile. She keeps looking and smiling. The water sparkles around her. Michaels puts some small chicken bones down on my shoe to see if I will notice.

I do.

“That’s where we are all headed,” I say.

“No, ” he says “I’m supposed to be in New York in two days.”

“Yeah, but eventually you will be just bones.”

“You’re a drag sometimes…a guy can’t just have chicken and a coke and watch people with three names swim?”

“What’s your middle name and your center?” I ask again.

“I don’t have a middle name and I am lost,” Michael’s says sadly. “But did I ever tell you about McCovey in 1977?”

“No, you didn’t” I said smiling. “Tell me that one, again.”

_________

Part Two Monday (yeah..tomorrow)