"How Many Jesuses We Got On This Ship Anyhow!?"

As the holiday of Christmas draws ever closer, I am drawn thinking of what this day means to millions of people.

As I have recorded in a previous post, December 25th is not the day that Jesus Christ was actually born.  At the risk of sounding repetitive, the Old Testament actually puts his birth sometime in September - moving the celebration to the 25th was an excellent way to help convert pagan tribes to Christianity, as they were already celebrating the death of the old god on the 21st.  

Millions look to Christmas as a religious holiday, as a day to honor the birth of their messiah.  Others look forward to decorating and presents and large meals and the gathering of families.  

I wonder how Christ wanted Christmas to be remembered.

Now, as I have said before, I am not religious.  I don't think of Christ as the son of an all powerful deity who lives in the clouds anymore than the rest of us.  But I do see him as a philosopher who had the radical idea that we should all be nice to each other.  

I think that he would like us to always love each other, despite race or creed or social standing or who we like to have sex with or what job we have or what car we drive.  He was a very smart man.  Love really is the most powerful emotion, the most powerful force we as humans have.

Take a king, or leader of men.  Teach your people to fear you, you will never die in your bed.  You will be shouted down in the public squares and decried in free republics around the world.  Citizens will take to all media, social and otherwise, and call for you to be deposed in the most awful way.  

Conversely, give your people every reason to love you, to be proud to have you lead them.  You will be remembered long after your peaceful death in songs and statues and speeches and by future leaders trying to inspire the love that you did.  

Get another person to love you - and that doesn't mean romantic love, this is the love one human can have for another in the most pure and brotherly way - and you will always have an ally.  

There is a trick to this.  The easiest and most direct way to inspire love in another is to fiercely and without any restraint love that person.  You don't have to approve of everything your friend does.  You don't have to blindly follow where that person leads.  But find that element in them that you can love above all, and that's all you need.

I think that's what Christ meant.  

. . .

I wonder if Jesus was a popular name after he died.  You know, he was all famous, after he was crucified, was there a slew of children named Jesus Christ?  Was there a feminine form of the name?  Jesusette?  

I bet they were a little embarassed when roll was called in school.

"Jesus?"

Six hands go up.

"Ok, here we go, Jesus Anderson?"

A New York Holiday Tradition

Today is that most magical of days in New York City when hundreds of people (men and women) dress up as Santa Claus, get piss drunk and run amok all over the city.

Today is one of the days I hate living in New York City.

I work for a yoga studio in the city for my money job, and as I was signing in a class - a very busy class I must add - I got a little bit of that New York magic.

I had just fixed a problem in someone's account, and I look up to the elevator to see four drunken idiots dressed as St Nick falling over each other into our studio.  I asked them what the fuck they thought they were doing. (Nicer, of course.  This is a yoga studio.)  One of them replied, "Oh, this is the wrong floor, we need to go up to the 4th floor!"  There are only four floors in this building.  We are on the 3rd and 4th floor.  Naturally, being the conscientious manager that I am, I  ask them what the fuck they want on the fourth floor?  Nicer, of course, as we do try to promote peace and harmony through physical expression.  One of the sloppier drunken merry old elves kindly replied, "Relax, bitch, my brother's up there."

The only other space on the 4th floor is a single large room that the landlord stashes his mistress and illegitimate son.  Here I had a dilemma, as mouthing off to the landlord's brother, however soused he may be, would be frowned upon.  On the other hand, there was no telling if the fine, upstanding gentleman slouching against the wall before me with a bleary stare and a crooked beard even knew what building he was in. 

I was busy at the desk, so there was no time for me to chase them up the stairs, but I sent one of my co-workers up there to make sure they didn't cause too much trouble.

They did anyway.  Turns out they had no relation to the landlord at all and I missed an opportunity to make a group of tanked Santas cry.  I threatened to call the police and they left, with more than one choice word hurtled in my direction.

I ask you, is there anything worse than a drunk asshole?  Why people drink to that extent is beyond me.  I have never been a drinker, alcohol has never once appealed to me.  It has nothing to do with my family or anything, my dad never came home blind drunk, my mother didn't drown her disappointment in me with a bottle of gin (she would tell me sober and to my face) - I simply never had the desire to drink.

Plus, that alcohol taste is awful.

It just amazes me that people go out of their way and spend a good deal of money to get shit faced.  What a lovely term, by the way.

Alcohol is a depressant.  It slows you down, and enhances whatever you are feeling.  So, if you are sad or angry or - heaven forbid - depressed, you are going to feel that emotion all the more, but with the added benefit of not having a censor button, so you're going to talk about everything you're feeling. 

Even if you are feeling happy and jubilant, because of the way alcohol works, you are going to feel like shit - emotionally and physically - at some point. 

I am not saying that no one should drink or we should go back to the days of prohibition or anything like that, I am simply pointing out the folly of this adult "recreation".  Some people drink just to get a little buzzed and feel good, some honestly enjoy a good wine or a good scotch - these people are not like the girl who vomited in front of my fiance and me on the subway last night. 

Explain to me why weed is illegal?

Cease and Desist

*Editor's Note - This was obviously written a while ago, but it's been itching for an audience. So deal with it.*

I know people think this is a joke, but there is nothing funny about equality.

Equality is what this country is all about. We as a nation were built on the idea that no one is shown preferential treatment, no one is held higher than another.

I think we all know what I am talking about here.

On behalf of both Halloween and Thanksgiving, I must order the winter holidays to cease and desisted.

Its been happening little by little, my friends. Every year its gotten worse. At first, it was just a couple if Christmas ornaments in TJ Maxx in late September. We’d look at them and say, “Hey, that’s awful funny to see those this time of year!” Slowly that one shelf in the discount stores grew to two shelves, and before you know it, we have an entire section of the store completely dedicated to the major winter holidays of the major religions.

First of all, Jesus wasn’t even born on December 25^th. Not even close. The Old Testament puts his birth sometime in the month of September, so we can rule Christmas out entirely as a viable holiday. The date of his birth was actually moved to closely coincide with the winter solstice, so it would be easier for the church to convert pagan tribes to the Christian religion. Christmas is a holiday built on lies and deceit. It is there only to encourage us to consume consume consume!

Hanukkah traditionally has NOTHING to do with giving gifts. It is a celebration of the victory by a small army of Jewish guerrillas against the Syrians, driving them from Israel, after which the Jews reclaimed the Temple and set about purifying it, and the oil which was meant to last one day ended up lasting the eight it took to make more oil. It should be a celebration of the continuation of the Jewish people. Honestly, overall it’s a pretty bad ass holiday, but it needs to stay in its place!

I'm not Jewish, by the way. I was recently ordained a high priestess of all religions - mostly so I can take all the holidays off.

Halloween has never gotten the due it’s deserved in hundreds of years! One of the most ancient of celebrations, the Celts honored Samhain as far back as 800 BCE. That’s before Christ, bitches! With the veil between worlds at its all time thinnest it was a time to dress up in scary costumes to keep evil spirits away, to go door to door to gather food to offer to gods and build BIG ASS bonfires. Can’t we allow ONE DAY for this without sullying it with Christmas waiting in the wings to pull it off stage with one of those big hook thingies. We are messing with other worldly shit here, people!

Let us not forget the most American of holidays, Thanksgiving. We aren’t basing this on a book or oral tradition here, this is shit that really happened! Maybe not exactly the way the teach us in kindergarten, but Honest Abe, Lincoln himself proclaimed the last Thursday of every November to be a day that we thank each other and our very LIVES for our happiness and family and credit cards and SUV s and overly elaborate baby strollers and Lindsay Lohan’s inevitable decline into insanity and everything else that makes us AMERICANS.

All I am saying is give credit where credit’s due, keep the winter holidays in the winter. Let them stay on their side of the line!

Later, I’d like to talk about how rabbits laying eggs has nothing to do with Jesus' zombie –like rise from the grave.

I’m looking at you, Easter!