The Road to Gameshowdom

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FMJ gains a small fan-base while teaching an Economics course at Naza U, and is asked by a student (who is his cousin) to participate on a popular Economics gameshow called The Road to Gameshowdom. The producer is FMJ’s sister-in-law so he agrees to appear.

Mary Contraire, the skinny big-breasted hostess, holds an index card while carefully articulating each word of her introduction.

MC: “So FMJ, you were given the three challenge questions regarding Economics in real historical contexts. We’re now going to ask you to tell us your answers.”

**she beams a huge horse-smile as she backs away from the Vegas-style lite-up board behind her, arms outstretched as if presenting the messiah with the keys to a fabulous new car**

MC: “First question: If you were the captain of the Titanic, how would you have bailed out the troubled ship and saved all the passengers using only Economics?

**she purses her lips while still smiling**

FMJ: “If I had been the captain of the Titanic at that very moment it struck, I would have immediately sold the lifeboats and bought cocaine. This is because – in the first few seconds after the ship hit that iceberg – liferafts would be way over-valued and cocaine would bottom out. So it would make sense to sell the lifeboats when they’re high, and buy cocaine when it’s low. You know, Mare, Economics isn’t rocket science. It’s high-end common sense for the thoughtful.

**the audience applauds**

MC: “Excellent answer, Jesus! Now for the second question: A scroll manuscript rumoured to have been written by Milton Friedman himself has just washed ashore on a Chicago beach. It says that Socialism and Sodomy are basically the same phenomenon and appears to be written in Aramaic or something. What is this visionary trying to tell us?”

FMJ: ”That Sodomy and Socialism are basically the same thing. The ancient texts tell us that Lot left his village because the Free Market told him to. Sodom, at that time, was an example of social democracy. In ancient Aramaic, “socialism” and “sodomy” have the exact same pronunciation: dem.

Likewise, in 1775, England tried to impose universal health care on its colonies. The colonists didn’t want this imposition of socialism on their state, so they threw vaccines into Boston harbor. These Free Market faithful rightfully interpreted social medicine as a type of sodomy.”

**the audience awes in unison, and then applauds**

MC: “What an excellent and quirky answer, FMJ! Let’s go on to question three, and then we’ll cut to a sponsor break.”

**camera pans to neon logos on signs in the parking lot of the studio**

MC: “Okay, FMJ – it’s story time. There was once an altruist who saw that a gang of monkeys had acquired bombs and rocket technology. The altruist immediately yelled at the monkeys, What are you doing? You’re going to for sure hurt yourselves with those bombs, you idiots. Okay, FMJ – finish this story with an Economics theme.”

FMJ: Okay. Well, the smartest monkey – the one wearing the monocle – he calls this supposedly-altruistic guy a socialist – or sodomite, if you prefer. And these guys – the socialists/sodomites – they’re the guys we’ve got to be on the lookout for at all times because they want to take away our bombs so that they can control the world themselves.”

**sponsor break**

Neither Do I

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Suvee and Van get off the monorail just in time to avoid their fur getting caught in the rubber strip on the outside of the automated doors. It’s lunchtime, and the little bears are off to get some free sushi from the People’s Chinook a half a kilometer away in the public school they have never attended.

“How was Modern World Problems class this morning, Van? Did you see another movie about spike thaws?”

“No, we didn’t. But you know how melodramatic Miss Glaciermelt is. She spent half the class telling us where the expression kangaroo bar comes from. As if that’s important.”

Suvee looked off towards the bad end of town. “I ran into a really weird roobar a couple of days ago. It was really creepy. He kept singing the same old song over and over to scare me. Where does the expression come from? It is Latin or Greek?”

“Miss Glaciermelt says that the word originally referred to an accessory that humans used to attach to the front of their motor vehicles. Apparently, these decorative metal things killed children. They were so dangerous that the European Union banned them for the entire continent, but some of the other continents liked the way they looked – dangerous and masculine. It was an English word originally.”

Suvee shook her furry head. “They used to kill their own children with useless decorations? No wonder humans went extinct.”

As they spoke, a giant mutant seal popped its head out of an ice hole the size of a breeder reactor.

Suvee continued, “I used to think that the humans got themselves in trouble because they didn’t understand nature. But now that I know that they understood it enough but just didn’t care, I don’t feel so sorry for them anymore, Van.”

“Neither do I, Suvee.”

Liewood Acres

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Soon, the bears became so successful with their post-human survival program that they decided to have a civil war. The bears who were the most free also had the worst slums which were full of willing and desperate bucks. These starving caveless bucks were known as kangaroo bars or – more commonly – roobars in Veggie Hamlet.

One night, little Suvee was walking alone in a strange bearhood littered with roobars selling ice trinkets and slushees.

“Excuse me, sir? Where’s the nearest monorail station?” he said trembling as he came across a hunched roobar leaning against a hydro pole.

“Wanny buy some crap? If not, leave me alone, puppy,” the kangaroo icily slurred.

At that very moment, the Eastern Bear Army (EBA) flew by in their flying crazy carpets. The leader was always riding a red one, while the others rode blue. Suvee always thought it was interesting that they didn’t even have the freedom to choose the color of their crazy carpet.  He rarely thought about why roobars didn’t have a dry place to sleep though. Western Bear media emphasized the misery and incompetence of the East between informercials.

The EBA was always trying out innovative psyc ops. For the post-reality school of war theorists, there was little more to war than discourse. The leader of the school, and general of the EBA – Aztec Brougham – was inspired by a story he had read about the last years of human civilization. It described a psyc ops used by one of Freedomia’s many victims – The Oilerians. Their last effort before being completely obliterated with cluster bombs was famous as being the bestest psyc ops moment in history.

In the heat of an aerial bombardment on the east coast of Oileria, the crafty Oilerians set up a complete communications jam that played the second line of the Bruce Springsteen classic Born to Run over and over and over and over and over on all their communications equipment.

The pissed off and cold kangaroo bar starting singing that very line to Suvee.

“Runaway American Dream. Runaway American Dream. Runaway American Dream…”

So Suvee ran away.

…

The planned suburban subdivision where Suvee’s family moved to a few years later was one of the nicest ones within a half-hour drive of Veggie Hamlet. Ice Flow Acres is 500 hectares of the best Modern architectural planning that the bear world has seen in these parts. One of the bungalows was even featured on the reality-TV show Bears with Ideas.

So why is Suvee so bored most of the time?

“Why don’t you walk down to the Ice Sheet Simulacrum and play Survival with the virtual kids there?” his mom asks between commercials. Without answering her (she’s back to her program anyways),  Suvee heads down the slippery hill to the Ice Flow theme park. The admission is free to children with a special Ice Flow Acres identity card.

But when he gets there, there is no one there.

“Welcome to Ice Sheet World!” yells the electronic penguin that sits next to the mall entrance.

Suvee walks past the self-serve metal detector, and enters into a simulation of an actual film of a realistic copy of one of Hollywood’s ice-flow special effects. And yet, Suvee feels bored in spite of the exciting ice flow action that’s taking place on widescreen TVs suspended on the walls all around him.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slushee square he was saving for before dinner.

“I will eat this and ruin my appetite,” he deviously plots, as he looks around at the moving images on the screens. He gets so distracted that he doesn’t notice the trap door and accidentally falls into the garbage incinerator. Soon, the TV screens will be filled with burning fur and screaming bears. That is as close to “incineration” as the theme park is allowed to represent.

Suvee gets bored and walks back home to chat with his gay cousin in Greenland.

WTM and the Coach

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Jesus locks and unlocks his new airplane, sending loud electronic yelps through the village. As he pushes the keys on the remote starter, the repetitive “bleep! bleep! bleep! works like an ear-shattering cry for help, and his freshly plucked face squeezes into a pointy smile.  “This is the kind of therapy I probably need” he says.

The therapy he probably needs is a result of the magazine he’s got in his hand. The cover of it’s got an illustration of Moe  Silverberg’s  satirical novel I Saw Something Nasty in the Manger. Inside, the Silverberg-owned publication contains a particularly inflammatory excerpt as its centerpiece.

The latest twist in the FMJ trial scandal is that Silverberg’s newsmagazine is cross-promoting his own scathing fiction story, one which resembles – a bit too closely – the actual people and events in FMJ’s glamorous life. Free Market lawyers are already preparing a libel case, but they can’t really move forward to the litigation stage while FMJ himself is being sued from so many angles. There just aren’t enough overpaid hours in a day.

FMJ is taking other steps – besides playing with his obnoxious remote locking-device – to deal with his trauma. Murray Davidson, Registered Professional Motivational Coach – a paid friend to CEOs worldwide – has been hired to build up FMJ’s confidence during his trials. And Jesus has hired a private investigator to dig up some dirt on Moe.

But he still feels vulnerable and victimized. His bottomless well of pride has been filled with tears, and he just hasn’t been the same old messiah/attention-whore that his self-centered associates know and pretend to love so well.

FMJ tucks a thousand-dollar handkerchief into his Gucci slacks: “Sometimes, in the morning rain, I feel like a useless rich bitch who was born into money and just had to kiss all the right asses to succeed. It’s like I live to exploit other people – to bully them out of their human dignity and their spare time  – just so that I can have an obscene number of useless status symbols to ease my isolation and self-inflicted pain.

I can’t even sing my own fucking songs – I get a million-dollars per concert, and yet I can’t even impress my own family at a karaoke bar. But for a few hundred thousand dollars, I go out there onstage in a few tons of makeup and I just lip-synch to the prerecorded track and strut around. The only original talent in my shows are the costumes and the financing.”

His Registered Professional Motivational Coach turns to FMJ, and speaketh: “You know, Jesus, I think your main issue is that you just don’t believe enough in yourself enough. And if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either. Always believe in yourself. Always believe that you are a god among men.”

FMJ will repeat this self-love mantra at least twelve times a day. Doctor’s orders.

…

I Saw Something Nasty in the Manger
Mortimer Silverberg
(extracted from Chapter 4;  A Gangbang on Salt Street, p. 68)

The pervasive noise from the NASCAR finals nearby masks her ecstatic screams as White Trash Mary is serial-nailed by Joseph and his buddies from carpentry school. The percussive engine buzz and rouge-tinted air make everyone hornier and hornier.

She takes another deep hit of amyl nitrate, lies back and enjoys each plunge of the non-stop penetration being provided by five well-built Italian jocks with thick, calloused hands. The drug cocktail makes her numb and giddy – she feels like she’s riding a rotating roller coaster sitting on a fleshy, vibrating prod.

Waking up covered in Italian cum a few hours later, WTM sniffs a fat line of coke off the glass table. She catches a reflection of herself as she vacuums up the energy powder. Pantyless and out of breath, she quickly throws on a make-shift toga and a third layer of mascara, and then jumps onto the jet-ski to go and meet her dealer/fuck buddy in the middle of the Dead Sea.
…

Technology and the Little Bears

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The soundtrack above the illustration is playing on Bimmer’s toy radio when the glass door slides open. “There’s no airbag in real life, boys. You just go right through the windshield, split your head wide open and die!” Old Bear Roger has been listening to their storytelling the whole time.

“Roger, you scared my fur right off!” gasps little Bimmer.

“Well, I must be going on home now,” chugs the old bear. “I really like how you integrated wiki articles into your little story, lads.” And off he goes into the frozen air, back past the Climate Institute, avoiding the oil mercenaries on ANWAR hill.

“I’m sort of scared, Range,” adds Bimmer. “Maybe we should go downstairs and play with the girls’ barbies just to calm down. I’m not gay or anything. I’m just kinda nervous.”

“I used to find barbies sort of faggy too, Bim, but if it’ll help you sleep, why not. I’m confident enough in my bearhood that I think it can withstand the occasional fashion drama.”

They head to the girls’ room and quietly sneak out with a nice set of tastefully-attired dolls.

Ten minutes into a mediocre round of How do you like this outfit?, Bronc’s doll has a flash of doll-playing brilliance. “I just discovered an amazing new technology, Rangina. Want to try it out? It’ll revolutionize your life…”

“Why sure, Nurse Bella!” Ranger walks his Chanel-knock-off-cloaked Barbie over towards “Nurse Bella,” Bronco’s nurse-uniform-wearing counterpart.

Bronc whips out a can of industrial varnish and gently sprays a few wisps onto Rangina’s hard, round cheeks. Putting on an exaggerated high female voice, he says: “I am not endorsing or soliciting anything, but I just know that this product will give you a lively complexion and a glow that Ken will love!”

He empties the entire can into the trendy doll’s smiling face.

“I LOVE my new look!” shrieks Rangina in a faux-excited  Barbified voice. But then, the doll’s plastic hair catches fire from combustion with the varnish fumes and Ranger drops the glamorous melting clump of plastic onto the snowy tundra.

“Oh, I think my face is melting, Nurse Bella!” Ranger giggles. “Maybe you should have tested your product a bit more.”

“As it says in the fine print, I’m not really a nurse. The nurse outfit is just a way of branding my technology. It gives it a science feel that everyone can believe in.”

And then Nurse Bella hops into her expensive beach bus and drives quickly to the next town where the local Barbies have never heard of her or her “revolutionary” product or service.

My American Dreams

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My American Dreams

By Ann Aipac Monrovia

Submitted to:
Mr. Tomley
Twelfth Grade Enriched English,
Deering High, Portland, May 15, 1980

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My first American Dream happened after my first ever nightmare! When I was about six years old, I had a recurring nightmare where my mother gets squished by a giant Lego block.

The child psychologist at school told my parents that this was because I felt ashamed to grow up in a one-story house. So, my first American Dream was to live in a two-story house where Mommy would be safe from the blocks.

When I was seven, I got my dream! We moved into a larger bungalow with a finished basement and I stopped having that nightmare, which I later found out was a Socialist one. The new house had the same stereo system as the one that my mother dreamed about (from the Lucy Show) and had a carport which my dad dreamed about watching I Dream of Jeannie. I love to make my dad egg salad sandwiches and bring him fresh Tang when he’s thirsty, just like the very dreamy Mary Tyler Moore used to do between commercials.

Then, my American Dream of 1972 was to own an Easy-Bake oven. I cried and I cried every time I saw one on TV. But, through prayer, crying and promising not to pull my little sister’s hair, that wonderful empowering dream came true! And – not coincidentally I think – it came true on the savior’s birthday ! American Dreams are related to Jesus !

And then there’s the story in Iran. They used to have a pro-Western Shah who was in favor of Easy-bake ovens and Lite Brite. But then the people went crazy because they don’t have Christmas, and then they stopped making toys, and the people couldn’t dream correctly any more. What a tragedy for dreams.

Now, my brother Allen wants to have a phone with no wire like the crew on the USS Enterprise. Of course, it’s still just a dream, but this is America. And I’m sure that one day, he’ll be able to bravely call people who have never been called before! (Just like on the show!) Or maybe not, but it doesn’t matter. The dream lives on.

A lot of people criticize the media, but it helps us find our dreams. It’s sort of like the song “Dream Weaver.” The media weaves together the dreams of all the audience members into one big, great dream that is fantastic for everyone who watches movies and eats ice cream. And that dream is called America, and it happens every single day !

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Mr. Tomley, as a post-script, wrote:

Ann, you didn’t really fulfill the assignment criteria. You were supposed to discuss a modern world problem. And though you do touch on the Iran problem very briefly, you haven’t really made this the main bulk of your essay. Nonetheless, you obviously care about this subject, and you did such a good job, that I’m giving you an A.

It was later revealed that Mr. Tomley’s wife worked for General Electric – proud sponsor of the American Dream Series of Films for High School Students that may have inspired Ann’s precocious essay.

Towards A Gay Homeland

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Gays have been discriminated against since the beginning of organized heterosexual religions. Forced to live scattered among the world’s (often violent) heterosexualites, a diasporaed Gay Nation has nonetheless thrived by cultivating enriching international relationships and by setting up parallel societies within the hetero cultures in which the Gays find themselves trapped and repressed.

But if the Matthew Shepard Tragedy/Iranian Hangings have show us anything, it is that the time has finally come for a Gay Homeland –-  a nation-state where Gay culture and values can thrive and evolve with the needs and desires of its loyal Gay citizens.

The traditional Gay lands of Sodom and Gomorrah have been inhabited by members of the Gay community since before the age of religions and nation-states. Throughout the region, there are stone-age cave drawings depicting Gay acts which pre-date the Sodom/Gomorrah period by over 40,000 years. There have actually been Gays living in the area continuously for over 60,000 years, long before the Akadians, the Sumerians, the Arabs or the Zionists.

The biblical story of the tragic genocide of the Sodomites demonstrates the extent of state-sanctioned persecution the Gays have been subjected to since the beginning of heterocentric religions and nations. The events of the last few years in Wyoming and Iran point to a pressing need to provide a safe haven from homopobianism – and the Levant is the most significant region on earth for Gay History. With a thriving and successful Gay nation in the Holy Land, Gays all over the world will benefit from the presence of a pied-a-terre at the center of world politics and oil production.

It is time for the Gays to return to their Ancestral Homeland (as promised in an email signed by Barack Obama). The current heterosexualist “states” of Lebanon and Palestine are their ancestral home. The current inhabitants are opportunistic heterosexualites who could live comfortably in any other part of the word. There are over 200 heterosexualite nation states, and NOT ONE Gay state. The absence of a Gay political entity is the reason for Gay suffering, and Gays will only know freedom when this situation has been remedied – when the earth has at least one rock-hard Gay nation state.

Lubeland and Phallus-stein (their original names) are the natural provinces of the Gay Homeland. Together, with Sodom and Gomorrah as their undivided capitals — one for gay men, the other for lesbians — this new state will be a beacon for Gay Culture that shines out all over the world – a safe place to live out the Gay Dream. It will also provide a model of what can be accomplished when the earth’s crust is divided into various thematic tribes, when some of them just have more fashion sense and irony than the others.

It’s time for the Gay Nation to rise to the occasion in the beauty pageant that we sometimes call civilization! It’s time for the Gays to return to their Gay Homeland!

Little Bear Authors

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Ranger and Bronc have decided to downsize Old Bear Roger. His terrifying stories are making sleep difficult, and Ranger has started picking the fur off his inner thigh because of what his beariatrician calls Generalized Environmental Anxiety.

“Bronc, until we get the TV back, let’s make our own stories instead of getting Old Bear Roger to come over and creep us out with his,” suggests Ranger. “This way, we can stop them just before they get too scary. Or slap on a happy ending.”

Ranger nods. “That’s a great idea, Bronc! I already have an idea for a story. I wanna tell about how airbags were a form of military-industrial propaganda back in the human days.”

“How’s that, Range?”

“Well, airbags were supposed to save human lives after they slammed their SUVs into telephone poles, right? Well, in this way they’re sorta like the douce axe machinia that always saves everybody at the end of a scary movie or TV show. No matter how badly the good guys screw up, the airbag saves them from paying the price. With the airbag, you don’t have to assume adult responsibility for your own actions. It’s empowering in a way. It lets you do some pretty violent and dangerous stuff.”

“I think it’s called “Deus Ex-machina,” Range. What does it have to do with airbags? Try to frame your answer using a critical vocabulary. Don’t just rely on folkloric cuteness and terrifying punishments to tell your story, like Roger does.”

Ranger straightens up. He has just written a mid-term test on Critical Polar Bear Discourse. “Well, the airbag acts as a commonly shared metaphor. This symbolic saftey-net manipulates the general public into feeling that automakers and governments will always come up with solutions to whatever damage their previous products cause. ‘In an interstellar burst, they come back to save the universe,’ as that miserable human being Thom Yorke used to sing. This is a type of spin.”

Bronc smirks. “So car-makers use a comforting historic symbol that is taken from a commonly shared mythology? Are you arguing that airbags – and perhaps all technology – are miracle signifiers? And that humans treated them as if they were actual miracles from a special magical messiah corporation?

If humans were so good at saving lives with miracles, where did they all go? And how did such smart creatures end up believing in magical miracles?”

They look up at the black-light Star Wars poster on the bedroom ceiling and start chuckling at the airbag cupidity that was so socially accepted just before humanity’s endtime.  “He’ll save us. The airbag will save us!” Ranger laughs so hard that he drops his Spiderman doll.

Bronco continues. “I think it’s a great idea for a story, Range. And why don’t you include the Radiohead song by the same name?”

“I would, but I can’t get the copyrights, Bronc. And anyway, it might be overkill to use a song called Airbag in a story about airbags. Maybe I’ll  just root through Roger’s old record collection to find an obscure Australian techno track, and quote some of the Radiohead lyrics in my story…”

In an interstellar burst

I am back to save the universe.

—

MADD Kuwait

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A great day for pedestrians?

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The unprovoked invasion of poor, innocent Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s totalitarian regime in 1990 was an evil deed in itself. The mental picture of babies being thrown from incubators gave a generation of media-viewers nightmares and rekindled their desire to improve the human condition via military campaigns in resource-rich Arab countries.

But what many media outlets at the time missed (or ignored) was the troubling story behind the story: the sick ideological plans of Elsa Hussein – Saddam’s equally totalitarian sister – for the future of their shiny new state.

First a bit of fake context: In the summer of 1954, Elsa Fatima Jamilla Hussein was hit by a car while biking home from volleyball practice at The American Elementary School of Tikrit at the tender age of eight. Though confined to her bed for several months with broken bones, she quickly re-learned to walk. Her doctor said it was a miracle.

After several months of torturing lower-class males, road-sweeper Saleem Foukhar confessed to having ruined the beautiful young heiress’s Olympic dream by driving while drunk (it came out, after his hanging, that he had never actually driven a vehicle and didn’t drink alcohol). For the rest of Elsa’s youth, she participated in no sports, cloistering herself in the basement torture room of her parent’s 45-bedroom condo reading huge volumes of victim literature.

Many years later, at the summer Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, Elsa and big brother Saddam watched the Iraqi woman’s volleyball team lose a close match for third place against the Israeli team. She would never forget this moment.

Later that evening in a South Korean tea room, she suggested to Saddam that he should invade Kuwait and turn the entire nation into a theme park with a Mothers Against Drunk Driving theme. At first, Saddam and his CIA advisers thought her nation-building idea had too many logistical problems. Abstract causes are rarely sufficient to garner popular support for nation-building and war. Also, an ideologically-constructed anti-car theme park might hurt the oil industry, and that would be bad for everyone – Iraqi officials and multinationals alike – they wisely concluded.

But Elsa Hussein and her small army of like-minded car-accident survivors were unstoppable. Their poison-tipped emails and hordes of post-its on the family fridge finally paid off when, in August of 1990 -  only two years after that fateful volleyball game – the Iraqi army were in Kuwait setting up breathalyzer checkpoints and burning effigies of Dean Martin.

The decision to limit the new nation’s death penalty to driving offenses provoked some infighting among the new sober commuting inhabitants who immigrated to the new land from Iraq and the United States. Another scandal for the new nation state was the  selection of Daniel Libeskind as the architect to design the Lady Di Museum of Car Atrocities. According to Al Jazeera, the Hussein family were the sole jurors for the competition. Libeskind’s five-hundred million dollar high-tech temple was to feature special effects that would make each visitor feel as if he was being crushed in a car tunnel as he entered the lobby and gift-shop.
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The winning entry in the Lady Di Centre competition of 1990. Many MADDians thought the building’s lavish structure betrayed their national ideal of a common, shared humanity.

Things moved very quickly for the earth’s new nation. Only one week after the invasion, Elsa Hussein was shown on Arab TV triumphantly holding up an oxygen-deprived blue baby she had just torn from an incubator and yelling, “This is a great day for pedestrians all over the world!”

But Elsa Hussein’s ideological project would be short-lived. Saddam’s army would be taken out just like the Nazis were before it, and for the very same reasons.

Prophet Air

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Tracing a line in the dust of the bulletproof window with a finger, Judas looks puzzled: “But Jeez, you already own 400 learjets. Why buy another one you’ll never use?”

FMJ: “Why not buy one more? is just as good a question, Judas Buzzkill,” replies FMJ. He doesn’t like it when Free Market Judas tries to interfere with the natural rhythms of His Shopping. This is a crisis, and with all the celebrity trials and union mutinies, it’s no time for Consumer Interruptus.

“Look Jude, if I don’t buy a learjet every few months, I get depressed. And when I get depressed, entire continents can starve – the entire economy can come down with me. So stop interfering with the invisible hand, or it might slap you across your two-faces wearing a big diamond ring.

You’re supposed to be my press attache at this staged confrontation between Zion Motors union-president Free Market Earl – my second cousin – and myself. You’re not supposed to be telling me how to live my life – what to buy and sell.”

FMJ pensively balances a Kool Menthol between his ear and euro-gelled hair.

“Sorry, Jude, I’m kind of venting on you, but I really don’t get why these union cogs are so pissed off at their senior upper management superiors. We give them more than they deserve. And I’ve always deferred to their own sacred texts to decide how much to reward them for the loving sacrifice of labor they offer to me – their earthly representation of God. That means they get a fully ethical ten-percent of what they produce.

I use to pay them a twentieth of their production at first. But so many of them starved to death unnecessarily. So many in fact, that one day, they got a priest to come visit me at my condo. I don’t know why David let him in. A priest, in my home?! I think I was wearing a leather thong when he rang the doorbell.”

Judas is interested, so he opens a can of Tab: “Why didn’t they send the union president instead?”

FMJ rolls his eyes and pops a yogurt-covered date into his wet, gaping mouth: “This was before one of my cousins invented the idea of a management-run trade union. So there was no one with any authority to bargain with. Anyway, common trash are so superstitious and ignorant that I guess they thought a priest might help them get more money out of me.

Anyway, I was way too busy with the graphic designers that day, and so I didn’t actually get to meet this closet-case holy man. But he left a bible behind for me to “read”, so I had my man-servants skim it and highlight the important words with a gold-leaf pen. The word tithe really caught my eye. It seemed a bit socialist at first – religions are always a bit populist unfortunately – but it just had such a nice ring to it. Such a perfectly formed number – a line and a circle. Just like a pewter knife sitting elegantly next to a Wedgewood plate.

My lawyers thought it was a good choice for a salary, since tithe is actually specified in God’s contract with the common people. So now, for these union pawns to be arguing for anything other than a tenth… They’re actually arguing against the creator himself. They’re arguing with their own mythological capital – which they paid a lot for. It’s their most valuable and stable currency.

So because of the sacred text connection, one could say that the union’s latest demands are unnatural and evil in a religious sense. If I were to pay Zion auto-workers any more than I do now, I could risk the wrath of God and His Market.”

Judas pinches his own chin, smearing his gold-flecked foundation: “I’m not sure if the sacred texts clearly specify that a tithe is the correct share that workers should receive of their own labor. I think maybe ten percent might have been a suggestion about a fair tax rate for social services at some point in history.”

FMJ: “The only history that I care about is the one my cousin and I wrote for this riffraff. That collective agreement means they have to do exactly what I need them to do. Each step they should take during their daily routine is lovingly explained on each boring page. The boringness of the document makes it more legal, apparently. Which explains why I’ve gained five kilos since my trial began.” Jesus yawns, exposing a newly-pierced tongue.

Judas: “I still think you ought to put off buying any more photogenic products until your trial is over, Jeez. Think what Moe Silverberg could do with a pic of this baby photoshopped onto a photo of some of your starving ex-employees. It might affect some of the more weak-minded jurors. It might make you look like a bit of a prima donna.”

FMJ inhales deeply, flaring his nostrils as he exhales: “First they came for the learjets, and I didn’t own one so I was silent…  The next thing you know, the Depression Nazis will be asking me to give up my private lakes and polo fields. Jude, I’m not sure I want to live in a world where it’s not safe to buy a learjet when you’re feeling under the weather.”

A tinny electronic remake of Daft Punk’s One More Time emanates from Judas’s white leather belt, as he lifts a metallic lilac razor-cell to his ear: “Jeezy, I have to take this call. But listen, why don’t you wait until after the union photo-op to buy the plane. We can make it look as if we’re on our way back to Nazareth, and we’ll swing back here and fly back home in this baby.” Judas waves a showcase hand.

FMJ: “Good thinking, Jude. That’s why I pay you a full half of what you produce. Because we’re equals – fifty-fifty. Sisters!”

Jesus flirts with his reflection on the metallic gas cap of the plane as he applies fair-trade coconut lip-balm to his parched collagen-laden lips. Face-to-face with tangible proof of being a valuable human being – this freshly acquired plane is a token of the world’s appreciation for his Free Market Mercy, in the form of a gift to himself from himself.

Amen.

…

Greed: It’s the original ideology !