The Frank Mendacity School of Business

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As He arranges His leather briefcase and lemon Perrier on the podium, the sound of cascading coins brings a smile to Free Market Jesus’s face: another enterprising student has hacked the vending machine next to His classroom.

Free Market Jesus is “the Passover Textiles part-time Business professor” at the Frank Mendacity School of Business of the University of Judea. He created both the position and the program with His own money, and then bribed the administration to make most of its content mandatory in other programs. Needless to say, the metallic clanging of a vending machine jackpot reminds Him of His own freshman days as a Rhodes Scholar in the very same school.

Today, He’s delivering His first lecture of Lying 101 . (Course description: “Learn to lie like you really mean it! This 6-credit survey course will take you on a roller coaster ride through the exciting world of lies and postmodernism.”)

Many undergrads use the opportunity to ask The Star Prof some questions about His many published essays.

Solomon: “A lot of businessmen who’ve tried to compete with You say that You don’t allow competition – that You ruthlessly lobby to have their enterprises banned or shunned by lobbying and bribing local governments that You often own. And the leftwing media has said that You maintain suspicious links to organized crime associates – a group who call themselves the disciples – who use pressure tactics against competitors that are sometimes illegal. Is this true? And if so, is it good business strategy?”

FMJ: “As I have written in many of My books, ‘I am the Life.’ This means that no one else gets to have one when I’m around. It’s My entitlement, and I’m proud of it. Next question.”

Lot: “Professor Freemarket, in Your latest Op Ed article in the Judea Times, You say that You bought your nephew an Armani so that he could experience some of what You were denied as a young messiah. And yet You mentioned in Your first book “Glory to Me in the Highest” that You got Your first Armani when You were seven. Is this the kind of lying we should be imitating?”

FMJ: “What money-making purpose would a lie like this one have? No. It was true.

I bought FMT his first Armani for his third birthday. But I, on the other hand, didn’t get My first Armani until I was seven. That’s four long years of self-esteem damage I had to endure because of My negligent parents. I just don’t want Free Market Thomas to suffer like I did.

Now for next week, we’ll be reverting to a more standard lecture format. I want everyone to read the first chapter of Cannibalism and Dollars and pay special attention to the sidebar essay on page 11 regarding the importance of placing strict limits on public education. See you then!”

Abruptly, twenty minutes before class is scheduled to end, Free Market Jesus pushes the pink button and jumps into a get-away chute inside a trapdoor on the stage behind the podium. As His lilac cape disappears, all that lingers for his fans/students/apostles to ponder are a cloud of purple glitter and the the sweet smell of pecuniary acumen.

…

The Greatest Love of All

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It’s the hot spring of A.D. 16. Free Market Jesus – a sophomore at the Sons of Gods Boarding School – reads his award-winning essay to the junior class.

FMJ: I’m a type-A, Alpha male overachiever. My mother – who was sinless – always told me I was meant to do better than anyone else. And as I slowly mature like fine wine, I’ve grown to prefer the dynamic and risk-filled adventurism of my corporation to the dull monotony of my surroundings. I love my corporation. Let me tell you why.

My corporation gives me the power and independence I need to really excel. I love my corporation so much that it makes other lesser mortals squirm. By submitting to the collective self-interest of its board of directors, I can live out my dreams and imminentize the novel that my mind has written while interfacing with other administrators and elite-targeted media products.

Currently the corporation I love is on trial for contaminating drinking water and sterilizing women without their knowledge. But we here in the corporation know we’re not guilty. This is our unanimous opinion, so no other opinions are really acceptable to us.

How is it even possible within the shadow of a doubt – that such a benevolent job-creating corporation as ours could do nasty things to potential human resources? Maybe these victinhood-milking complainers – who run in circles very far from my own – maybe these ambulance-chasers who don’t have well-paid jobs with the corporation are just jealous that we do. And I don’t blame them for being jealous; I’d be jealous in their place too. But jealousy can’t pay for clean drinking water now, can it?

The world’s losers mustn’t forget that the corporation tells us all that we need to know to do the things that are most beneficial to all the corporations we cherish. Without these large and successful corporations, who would we orient our earthly routines around? Our surroundings?

**crowd boos**

Our instincts?

**As crowd begins to boo again, teenage FMJ lifts a diamond-studded hand up to hush their paid-for participation. Then the applause sign comes on, and everyone claps as he disappears into a puff of periwinkle smoke with a strobe light accentuating an I heart my corp logo**

…

FMJ wins the Nobel Prize for Marketing

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Celebrity intellectual Tish Steinberg – the seductive spokesmodel of the PETA think tank – ends her three-hour presentation with this:

Tish: “All of us at the Morality Institute are proud to present the results of our year-long study! Our team of world-class Fashionologists have concluded that mammal nudity leads to civilization-threatening levels of immoral and destructive behavior. We urge all responsible governments all over the free world to immediately restructure their societies by making clothing mandatory on all mammals within their borders.”

For Passover Textiles, every shekel of Morality Institute funding was well invested. In the next few days, all the newspapers the corporation owns will print the findings of this highly respected think tank, and Passover Textiles will be made the official animal-clothier of cities, towns and wildlife refuges in every city with a McDonald’s.

Back in Jerusalem, Cynthia is worried about scheduling.

Cynth: “But Jesus, how the fuck are you going to appear at a fashion runway with PETA fund-raisers in Hebron at 3 pm, and then fly off to receive your Nobel Prize for Marketing two hours later? That leaves you five fucking minutes to take off, land, and get your hair prepped for the presentation ceremony. Shouldn’t you at least warn your cousin in Norway that you might be late?”

FMJ: “A star doesn’t warn. A star sets the agenda. Those geek bitches can wait an hour or they can kiss my queer ass.”

He practices his speech.

FMJ: “Someone at the sauna suggested that animals are sinful and that their young probably get harmed morally by seeing their parents and siblings’ sex organs. Five minutes later, I had PETA on the line with a billion-shekel offer…. And now, here I am, accepting this prize for Marketing – and for marketing something as lucrative as social morality, I might add.”

Cynthia interrupts FMJ and hands him the latest edition of the Alternative Hebrew Times. Bernie Silverberg has been using his editorial space to accuse the Nobel Prize jurors of being “shallow social-climbers who are kissing a pariah’s ass to move up in the world of Academia.”

Bernie concludes: “…many of the judges are probably pining for a cushy PETA think-tank position of their own.” Recently, in a shocker story, Bernie’s news magazine reveals that the head thinkers at Free Market Jesus’s privately-owned tank make more money than the presidents of any of the nation states they monitor and influence.

FMJ: “Bernie’s just sore because I don’t advertise in his low-volume rag. I could own his fucking toupee if I wanted it. But I let him rant on and on about me because…well… his is a kind of publicity that even huge bags of sweatshop money can’t buy.

His editorial bitching just makes me look more human to my loyal followers. I just hope bitch shows up to my Nobel ceremony tomorrow so that it gets all the press coverage it deserves…uh…that I deserve.

God among men. God among men…”

And with that, FMJ flicks his pastel-lilac cape and hops into a Mazda Miata.

…

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 in his hand. The cover is an illustration of Moe  Silverberg’s  satirical novel I Saw Something Nasty in the Manger. On page 57, 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 $450,000 an hour, I go out there onstage in a few tons of makeup and lip-synch the prerecorded track while strutting around in gaudy costumes. The only original talent in my shows are in 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 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)

Ear-shattering noise from a nearby NASCAR race 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.

…

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Prophet Air

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

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!”

Jesus 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.

FMJ: “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 biting the invisible hand.

You’re supposed to be my press attache at this staged confrontation between me and the union-president, Free Market Earl – my second cousin. I’m not paying you to tell me how to live my life – what to buy and sell.”

FMJ rolls his eyes and pops a yogurt-covered date into his gaping mouth.

Judas: “I just think you ought to put off buying photogenic big-ticket products until your trial is over, Jeez. Think what Moe or Bernie Silverberg could do with a pic of this. It could make you look like a bit of a prima donna.”

Free Market Jesus inhales deeply, flaring his nostrils as he exhales.

FMJ: “I haven’t bought any private lakes or polo fields in five years. 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 blurts out of Judas’s white leather belt as he lifts a razor-cell to his ear.

Judas: “Mary, I have to take this call.”

Jesus flirts with his reflection on the metallic gas cap of the plane as he applies organic lip-balm to his collagen-laden lips. Finally, he finds himself face-to-face with tangible proof of his value as a human being in the form of a gift to himself from himself.

Amen.

…

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Greed: It’s the original ideology !

Fashion Parachute

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Cynthia grabs Jesus by the leather epaulette and spins him around.

Cynth: “What’s with this fax I just got from my friend Arial in Beirut? You actually asked the Phoenician government — the one you’re accused of owning —  for a 700-trillion shekle bailout, and you’re asking the government you own for this money while you’re on trial for extortion, criminal negligence leading to genocide, entrapment, and just generally being a thoughtless CEO?!! You even went so far as to threaten to shut down their water filtration plant if they don’t contribute to your non-existent recovery plan?!!

You know that closing that plant would lead to another million dead plaintiffs, and worse than that — another class action suit which I just don’t have the resources to take on right now, in the middle of my botox-reduction treatments. And those poisons in the water are from your own organ disposal plants which — while highly profitable — are now public domain.

Offering your own government of Phoenicia inc. the “choice” between poverty or death isn’t really the image we’re trying to cultivate here, Mary. Extortion isn’t marketable right now and I don’t know if I’d feel comfortable representing you if you give the tabloids any more reasons to put hidden cameras in my toilet.”

FMJ: “Cynth, of course I’d never do something insensitive like kill a million people by poisoning their water just to get my own way on something like this. It’s just not my style. I’m not an ideological monster, I’m a people-person. …

And by the way, I own those tabloids that put those cameras in your toilet. I love people so much that I’m in the people-industry. And since the tabloids seem to make the people such happy shoppers, who am I to judge what common trash want.

…Remind me to tell Mark to tell Bernie to turn off the bathroom-cams tomorrow. And don’t ever tell Moe Silverberg or his shadow army of bloggers anything about them. He’s got such a constitution-obsession. As if the best-and-brightest can’t update their own texts once in a while. ” (eyeroll)

Jesus pauses to text for a sushi delivery, and notices Cynthia sizing up his freshly-dyed jet-black hair and Born to Rule leather motorcycle jacket.

FMJ: “Why are you gawking at my ear plugs and hair, Cynth? This jacket was a gift from the the president of the Federal Reserve of Phoenicia. It’s not some constructed rebellion statement, it’s just meaningless style!… Oh, fuck you, Cynth! Fuck Phoenicia and extreme fuck this trial!”

Jesus scrapes black nail-polish residue off the index finger of his left hand.

Cynthia resents that Jesus is resorting to working-class vocabulary and gothic fashion to make himself look pathetic. She has taken a night-course called Class Bias in The Language of Politics and senses that he’s just trying to manipulate her – his gorgeous and super-intelligent legal guardian — by situating his bored bourgeois grief in the ramshackle company houses of late 19th-Century England.

She looks up at his Rolex-themed terrycloth head-band and smiles.

Cynth: “Trying to look athletic for Jamil, are you, Mary? And after trying to sound so weak and pathetic for me just a few minutes ago. And all in one cigarette break. I guess it’s all those drama classes you took in college.”

She picks a piece of glitter off her velvet skirt.

“You know, I bet your pent-up sexual frustration is where all this recent aggression has been coming from.”

Free Market Jesus blinks in slow-motion and then speaks slowly and ironically.

FMJ: “I wonder how aggressive you’d be if you were being sued by the entire common-trash planet for some trumped-up celebrity crime. Like the biggest scapegoat in history, maybe?

Why is my re-financing of Phoenicia’s debt even an issue in this fashion trial? I bought that country fair and square! No wonder those people have no freedom or democracy. They chafe against the very thing they need when it struts there way in an Italian leather jacket and Dolce and Gabanna ear plugs.”

Her gaze fixed on the protruding buttocks of a male in his sexual prime, Cynthia opens her take-out sushi and then tips the half-naked Algerian delivery boy 5 billion shekels – 5 billion units of joy.

…

Zion Motors

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Cynthia can’t help noticing that FMJ has missed his Vidal Sassoon organic cucumber eye-treatment and Fiji Island laser-guided pedicure. What could be bothering him so much that he would miss a weekly self-focusing ritual like this one?

She lay there on the Corbusier massage table staring up at the Second Empire chandeliers when Free Market Mark comes whisking into the private clinic in a tasteful brown leather shirt and metallic-silver culottes.

Mark: “Cynth, Mary is skipping the trial today to resolve some middle-management ickiness at his Zion Motors affiliate. Apparently… (he looks at his nails) …Caucasia’s newly-elected socialist government wants to nationalize “their” share of our multinational.

We  need to figure out how to deal with this heresy. Perhaps a ‘Free Market excommunication’ – wink-wink – might help open their minds to the sacredness of the shareholder-holdee relationship.”

Instantly panicking, Cynthia pulls the cucumber slices off her botoxed eyelids.

Cynth: “Oh,Mark, no! Not another civilian bombing campaign! How can I look the jury in the eyes tomorrow?

We just had FMJ’s favorite astrologist on the stand yesterday as a character witness. You heard what they said, Marcia dear: Saturn-in-Libra is not the right time to seek out new challenges. Guess what? Bombing a foreign country is a new challenge, and Saturn will be in Libra for another four weeks. This is really bad sun-sign karma.”

Mark pauses to grab a canapé from the pewter tray next to the fireplace. As he turns around, his backless shirt reveals a large tattoo at the centre of his back, with the words libido dominandi inscribed in the middle of a rainbow-colored heart.

Mark: “Oh, it’ll be over in a few days, Cynth. Caucasia hasn’t even invented gunpowder yet. Anyway, Zion Motors needs to be saved. No one else still offers 8-passenger chariots at a family price, and if Caucasia nationalizes it, how can we be sure they offer the same Free Market personal luxury vehicles? It could hurt the entire brand.”

Cynthia ties a knot in her Laura Ashley towel while looking around the clinic:

Cynth: “I’m not worried about him winning his war, or getting his motor company back. I’m worried about winning our celebrity trial. What if we lose?

We almost lost his last trial – Remember that, Marsha? Those Druid women smuggled some of his sperm from the Club Zero Health Club, and then tried to sue him for child support to feed a hundred of “his own” children.

Then, in the middle of his trial, FMJ bombed Phoenicia.

We almost ended up signing away a full one percent of his after-tax profits because of that intervention. I know his heart is in the right place, but there is a time to bomb, and there is a time to pose. And this is a time to pose.”

She strikes a pose while clasping a maraschino cherry which has been glued to a whole-wheat cracker with cream cheese.

Mark bites into a piece of roasted broccoli wrapped in bacon and Havarti:

Mark: “Yes, but you won in the end, didn’t you, bitch. If I recall, you even won a counter-suit against those women – for theft. How in the world did you get their welfare boards to pay those massive fines? I didn’t know the Phoenician government even had an extra hundred-trillion sheckles to give away like that. Guess it helps to own their government.”

He swallows the broccoli spear, and then takes a sip of lemon-grass mineral water from a fair-trade bamboo mug.

Cynthia gets up from the table and walks toward the Provençale bay window.

Cynth: “Yeah, it was a lot of money. But we spent half of that settlement on two huge Free Market Pain museums. It was the only way to fight off the bad press. Who would have thought that a couple of photos of CEOs selling their mansions would change public opinion so much.”

He grins.

Mark: “Never underestimate the power of a good art director, Cynth-Pop.”

…

Why Organs, Superstar?

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The dry courtroom air has taken some of the bounce out of FMJ’s famously curly hair. Cynthia looks into his wrinkle-free eyes and speaks to her own reflection in his colored contact lenses:

Cynth: “Mary, they’re for sure going to ask how you got into the organ-trading business from textiles. It’s an obvious talking point so we’d better have a non-rehearsed-sounding answer we can stop that line of questioning with.”

FMJ: “I can’t believe I have to answer to those nobodies out there in non-designer pret-a-porter. Those icky people are just jealous that I’ve been more successful than any of them could ever have hoped to have been in a thousand of their worthless lives. Their idiotic jealousy fills them with hate, and that hate gives them incredible bitch energy. This is what scares me: all that misdirected hate being pointed at an innocent corporate success-story like myself. I’m just a glamorous lightning rod for all their loser frustration.” Jesus reaches into his Gucci satchel and takes out a baroque hand mirror with rubies and designer logos encrusted in its gold-leaf frame. “Sometimes I even hate myself, Cynth. But then I realize that I too may be jealous of my own success.”

Cynth: “Jeez, that makes no sense. But you know what, I don’t care about sense. Let’s just go over what we’re going to present as our explanation for how you evolved from textile success to organ-trading success.”

FMJ:“Alright. On with the trial!” He takes a drag from his tenth menthol cigarette since the trial began. “I started trading organs because people kept dying at my textile mills. It started with old people who would just slouch over and stop breathing on company time. But then even the kids started keeling over after the new accountancy team rationalized our air-supply equipment. Getting rid of their bodies would cost me up to three weeks of their wages, and their families rarely had that much money saved. So I ended up paying to dispose of their bodies myself even though it was them who were doing all the dying. It just wasn’t fair. Something had to change. Why did I have to suffer because of their inadequacies.”

Cynth: “That’s horrible, FMJ. Why didn’t you stop them from dying by punishing them? Or you could have put up signs telling them to go home if they felt sick.”

FMJ: “I tried whipping them, but once they were dead, they rarely noticed the pain, so it didn’t actually bring any of them back to work… uh… back to life, I mean.” FMJ takes a sip of a glass of Perrier and ginger ale. “So, I had to figure out a way to make back all the money that I was shelling out for cardboard boxes and backhoes.”

Cynth: “Do you have any receipts for the backhoes? Some actual numbers might make our case more compelling to the judge and make our story even more tabloid-friendly.”

Jesus ignores Cynthia’s suggestions and emerges from a cloud of his own cigarette smoke as he applies pancake makeup to his forehead and temples.

FMJ: “So then I was reading the personals in a gay porn magazine, about some older gay man who needed to buy a bladder, and I thought, ‘How can I make money from all that need?’ And then I remembered that my textile mill employees sign waivers giving Passover Textiles the right to their internal organs if they die while on Passover Textile property. Next thing you know, my organ trading affiliate is grossing more than the textile mills. I mean, where is the incentive to improve worker safety with those kind of economics?”

Jesus snickers and then stubs out his cigarette on the stuffed carcass of an extinct bird.

FMJ: “So mine was a pretty common rags to riches story.”

Cynthia looks down at her perfect breasts:

Cynth: “Now I’m worried these implants are actually recycled bladders.”

Free Market Jesus places his hands on top of hers on the mahogany desk between them.

FMJ: “Let’s not forget which one of us is the drama queen here.”

And with that remark, he finishes dabbing his makeup, shakes his hair, and walks out into the courtroom to sing the first number of his trial. His ex-boyfriend and former employee – Jamil Tericho – sits in the courtroom that has been rapidly transformed into a concert venue with flashy colored lighting and a hidden rotating stage that comes gliding out of a hardwood floor-panel in front of the judge’s bench.

FMJ emerges centre-stage, the spotlight catching a plastic tear that he has glued onto the pancake makeup of his face. He begins to sing directly to Jamil:

Well I guess what you say is true,
I could never be the right kind of girl for you,
I could never be your woman.

It will be the best-selling fashion-trial video-clip compilation of all time.

…

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The Nest Egg Program

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As he clears his throat, FMJ tries to put a positive spin on the Nest Egg Program – his representation has told him to avoid saying the words Nest Egg Program while the trial is being recorded:

FMJ: “Well, we used our accumulated expertise to organize a cooperative and benevolent project with a reputable food distribution conglomerate to provide free food and clothing to all the orphans that my organ-seeking affiliates were finding in the foreclosed homes of my textile employees. To get a generous monthly cheque from Best Bagel International, all the staff had to do was to make sure the little monsters took their sleeping pills, and that they were all hooked up to the audio equipment before they passed out. The nightly routine took only took a few minutes to set up after we let Best Bagel’s imagineers wire earphones right into their hearing canals, so…”

Cynthia makes a neck-slicing motion with a celery stick she pulls out of her drink. This is their code for “no more details, you verbose diva bitch, or you’re going to wreck your own show trial.”

Jesus stops at the words “hearing canals.” He shakes his hair and looks at the small flowers he’s had painted onto his fingernails this morning by a team of fine arts students.

Pretending not to notice FMJ’s  nails, Abdul Bouq Emmisayar approaches the bench, and then dramatically points at a preening Free Market Jesus:

Abdul: “What exactly was this program called… for the record?”

Moe Silverberg’s blog and local weeklies have turned the name of the program into a national scandal, and Cynthia has warned FMJ that they have to avoid actually calling it by name.

But the prosecuting attorney has a knack for asking questions everyone already knows the answers to, and this has FMJ feeling flustered by the sheer ennui of justice. FMJ absentmindedly throws Moe a headline:

FMJ: “It was called The Nest Egg Program.”

As the judge reaches under his bench to take another piece of sushi, he calls Jamil Tericho to the stand. When Jamil stands up and turns around to grab his microphone, Free Market Jesus glances at his hairy chest and protruding ass half-moon, and then bites down on his Charlie’s Angels key-chain.

The judge asks Jamil to state the plaintiffs’ case in their class-action suit.

Jamil: “Your honor, since leaving the orphanages a few decades ago, my fellow orphans and I lead dead-end and hopeless lives of disappointment and insatiable desire. We don’t sleep enough hours. We can’t concentrate on a thought for a very long time. We spend hours and hours just sitting listlessly in front of our televisions or computers waiting for something to happen or someone to do something. It’s as if our ability to experience life has been taken away from us before we could defend ourselves.”

Free Market Jesus snickers out loud, and the room freezes as all eyes turn to FMJ – the star defendant – with his Gucci sunglasses and a freshly bleached smile.

He turns to whisper something loudly to Cynthia:

FMJ: “Oh those plaintiff losers are just trying to find self-affirmation by trying to bring down the god who made them what they are. I read all about this in a magazine at my pedicurist’s office. One of my own publications. They’ve got what scientists call Jan Brady Syndrome. I can’t believe they would dare show their ungrateful common-trash faces at my celebrity trial. Why don’t they just try to get on one of my reality TV shows where the audience can watch to see which one of them has to disappear every week.”

Jesus reaches into his satchel and takes out another Kool menthol. The judge tells him he has to go to the bar if he wants to smoke. Jesus turns to the judge:

FMJ: “Oh, Steven, you know this is how the Nazis started. Telling those poor Jews they had to smoke at the bar.”

He gets up as if performing a ballet move, and then pirouettes over to Jamil who is sitting on the front bench lifting weights while reading a muscle magazine.

FMJ: Jamil, my sweet piece of Phoenicia, don’t ever wear that Adidas belt with those flip-flops. It makes my cunt hairs burn.”

His gaze drops to the rising Phoenician beacon in Jamil’s strategically-faded low-rise French jeans.

…

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Aqua Phoenicia vs. FMJ

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Stubbing out a half-smoked cigarette on the wall, the judge reads aloud the first charge:

Judge: “Free Market Jesus, you and your mother corporation – 107844 Nazareth Inc. – are accused of polluting the groundwater in Central Phoenicia with waste products from your organ-disposal installations. This is a class-action suit being filed by Aqua Phoenicia on behalf of a million Phoenician plaintiffs. How do you plead?”

Jesus has just applied organic aloe-hazelnut moisturizer to his hands and is in no hurry to answer. This particular charge seems like a trivial affair better suited to non-designer-wearing working-class lawyers – in the kinds of no-holds-barred trials that the families of murdered labor organizers are always staging to spin their insignificant stories into conspiracy theories.

FMJ: “Your Honor, before I answer this proletariat lawyer’s questions, I’d like to have five minutes to consult my astrologists and color consultants.”

As far as FMJ is concerned, it’s always the right time to look your best, and that means astrologers and the right colors. His new collagen lip injections aren’t going to go unnoticed at his own celebrity trial.

The prosecuting attorney – Abdul Bouq Emmisayar – furrows his brow and flares his nostrils as he crosses the court to approach a nonplussed Jesus, grinning with his already-open Versace cellphone clamped to his surgically-enhanced ear.

Abdul: “Your Honor, I would ask the defendant to please put down his cellphone.”

He turns toward FMJ and his attorney:

“I would like to remind Ms. Popovic and her client that this is a very serious charge. There have been over 1000 deaths directly attributed to one of Mr. Christ’s organ-disposal factories in Sidon. And this is to say nothing of the various cases pending against him for suspicious organ purchases involving children as young as three.”

The glamorous courtroom goes silent and Moe Silverberg – sitting behind the huge pink wig of a drag queen to hide from arch-nemesis FMJ – types something into a no-name laptop with a library sticker on the back.

Blinking for half a second, Jesus rolls his eyes, and crosses his legs as he begins:

FMJ: “Oh please. Those selfish orphans all signed legally-binding contracts. Those who couldn’t write their names were assisted free-of-charge by my legal staff. It’s all perfectly legitimate.

And Phoenicia’s water problem is a government problem, nothing to do with me and the Free Market, may it continue to thrive. I pay my corporate taxes to the Phoenician government just like any other respectable numbered corporation.

If Aqua Phoenicia can’t keep its water clean, then they are the ones who need to change. Not me. Passover Organs has been around longer than most of the plaintiffs have. Your Honor, my representation and I feel that Aqua Phoenicia is just another citizen action committee looking to make a quick buck by attacking a celebrity.”

Abdul leans into the judge and speaks to the entire courtroom:

Addul: “But didn’t another one of the defendant’s affiliates – 87553 Nazareth Inc. – buy the government in a hostile takeover only a few months before the organ-disposal site was approved?”

FMJ stops filing his nails and asks an ungrateful world a little question:

FMJ: “And how am I supposed to know what all my little baby Free Market children are doing? The big picture: they got a lot of jobs out of the deal, and I contribute hundreds of shekels in taxes. Even more than I collect in subsidies, some years. It’s win-win for everyone, and trickles down like mercy from the market’s rain gutters.”

The jury are awestruck by the beauty of his prose as his hair glistens with the special celebrity lighting that was a pre-condition of his personal appearance at the trial

…

The Fashion of the Christ

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…

Flicking his ashes into a plant, Jesus sneers at Cynthia’s plastic hoop earrings.

FMJ: “What are the tabloids saying about my fabulous trial so far, Cynth?”

She opens a needlessly large magazine and starts reading:

Cynth: “Ari Applebaum of the Nazareth Free Star writes: ‘This will be the Holy Land’s most glamorous celebrity trial. FMJ will make you want to stand up and cheer! ‘ So I guess he’s already decided he likes it before it even starts.”

FMJ: “Don’t read the reviews in the newspaper chains I own! …I want to hear what the other one… that independent guy – what’s his name… Moe Silverberg, I think.”

Memory for detail has been sacrificed at the alter of drugged up celebrity raves and latenight sex in mirror-glassed limos.

FMJ: “Tell me what the film reviewer I don’t own is saying.”

Cynth: “Well, Moe says you’re a criminal and need to be locked up forever to protect the human race from you and your insane greed.”

Jesus exhales menthol smoke from his nostrils:

FMJ: “Fuck, I can’t believe what an antisemitic prick he is, Cynthia. I mean, he actually called me a parasite in one of his columns. If that doesn’t sound like something Goebels would say about a celebrity, then I just don’t…”

The judge loudly calls for order, and signals for everyone stop talking and sit down.

Judge: “Free Market Jesus Horatio Christ III, please rise and take the oath.”

The judge is a family friend of FMJ, and he went to the same cliquey private school as Jesus’s now-separated dad, Joseph.

Jesus places his white-gloved right hand against a beautiful gold plaque with “Division of Labor” carved into it, obviously by a skilled typographer.

FMJ: “In the name of a free market, I promise to say the most cost-effective things that my PR firm tells me to say. Amen.”

The prosecuting attorney then approaches the judge, and quietly asks for an additional five minutes to address new information currently shooting out of a fax machine sitting between an eight-track player and a game of Pong.

The trial stops once again. As the audience waits to see what the fax says, Free Market Jesus seizes the moment to continue vapidly chatting with his severely-botoxed corporate attorney – Cynthia Popovic – who is now enjoying some take-out falafel and a diet Coke.

Cynthia is still on the same page.

Cynth: “How can Moe Silverberg be antisemitic, Jeez? He’s Jewish himself, isn’t he?”

Jesus rolls both eyeballs into the back of his clean-shaven and lightly talc-ed face.

FMJ: “He’s self-hating, Cynthia! They’re the worst kind of haters! It’s a medical condition or something.”

Cynth: “How do you know he hates himself or the Semites? He’s  only ever written really hateful things about you, not about himself or all the people he does business with.”

Losing both his patience and his capacity to focus on boring non-celebrity-type things, Jesus leans over and opens his silk robe.

FMJ: “Just forget that loser indie media weasel for a second and look at this chest job, Cynth. Fifty-five shekels, and worth every bit. No stubble, no bikini shadow. Plastic pecs, just like GI Joe.”

Cynthia scrunches up her face and leans into his drama queening:

Cynth: “Mary, that’s your fifth chest-wax in two months. Are you sure you’re not just addicted to the pain?”

Jesus smirks, and then – pulls an eyelash to make it curl.

FMJ: “If you think that’s extreme… I’ve got a client who’s had four cosmetic kidney-transplants in the last year and a half. She says new kidneys make her feel fresh and young. I’m running out of orphans who have a kidney to sell me, Cynth.”

Jesus reaches into a box of expensive chocolates and takes out a large, heart-shaped one which he bites into and then freezes as the vanilla cream drips into his gaping mouth.

The prosecuting attorney walks back to his own seat. He whispers to the bowler-wearing hipster seated beside him, and then rises again to begin his opening remarks.

FMJ:“Well, they’ve already lost the Evening Gown portion of this boring pageant,” Jesus hisses to his attorney. “Now let’s see if they can squeeze more money out of me with a guilty-verdict than I’ll eventually get out of them when I counter-sue.”

He winks at his celebrity lawyer, and then sends a remarkably bitchy text-message to the prosecution.

…

Mullahs in the Stock Exchange

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…

“Jesus, the graphic designers are here.”

Free Market Jesus has been waiting for his secretary – Free Market Judas – to come back from his power-lunch with the marketing department of their fashion-distribution corporation – Passover Textiles.

“Well  Judy, send them in!”

Two Greek weight-lifters walk in wearing leather shirts open down to the waist. One of them is carrying a large portfolio bag with an oversized blue plastic rose sticking out of it.

As the masculine designers begin the multimedia presentation, Free Market Jesus dozes off. He has been spending too many late nights at the Year Zero health club and juice spa. When he wakes up an hour into the presentation, he can see the powerpoint has begun; there is a picture of a large crucifix on the screen with a cone-breasted drag queen hanging off it wearing a portable head microphone. The text in front of the image says, “Making It Work; Closure and the Aesthetics of Perfection.”

Jesus clears his throat, and picks a piece of glitter off of the manicured end of a long, gorgeous strand of hair: “Well, if we’re going to be bought out by the Gnostic Corporation, we can at least brand ourselves on the way out the door. It’s all about legacy… And finding shoes that match the legacy.” FMJ smiles. He is known all over suburban Nazareth for his divine taste in accessories.

The sweating, virile graphic designers explain how the cross logo will help maintain a strong visual link long after the hostile takeover by Gnostic Phallustine S.A.. Jesus is unconvinced, but sees no harm in investing in marketing to raise Passover’s stock value before selling. And even if he does know that Passover is being leveraged out of existence beforehand, no one could call this “inside” trading since FMJ can find out anything he wants to know about virtually anything anyways. FMJ is the ultimate insider because of his family connections with the invisible hand. And that’s okay, because Free Market Jesus is both God and the CEO of a marketing and design firm!

As the powerpoint presentation cuts to a photo of blue-eyed children buying crucifixes at an idealized mall, one of Free Market Jesus’s receptionists – John – walks in holding a large, saphire-encrusted Princess cellphone.

“That was Free Market Marcia calling from in front of the stock exchange, Jesus. The sale is being postponed – maybe even canceled. A gang of radical mullahs has broken into the stock market building and they’re trying to close it down and turn it into some kind of radical mosque. Anyway – long-story short – Gnostic S.A. thinks this might not be a good time to invest in textile companies with blasphemous names. Our stock sunk 46% in one hour, Mare. Looks like the mean old bear has popped our falsies.”

Jesus’s jaw drops onto the colorful-but-tasteful office-quality short-pile carpet. “Those mullah bitches are really starting to pick my ass. Tell Marcia that I’ll be over there in an hour with a taser and the appropriate leather chaps. Damn it, maybe a little free-market girl power is just the thing to get those vicious mullahs out of that stock market.”

John cuts in again: “Mary, Marcia says that it’s just a gang of teenage mullahs holding a sit in. You don’t really need a taser. Though the chaps are probably a good idea.”

Free Market Jesus looks down at his Birkenstocks and smiles – he has a pair of ass-less chaps the exact same color. He turns to the rest of the board of directors and, still beaming, says: “I’ll be back in three days, ladies.”

He hops onto his pink scooter and zips over to the stock exchange building, hair shimmering in the metal-laden traffic breeze. The vibration from the tiny 200cc engine gets FMJ increasingly excited as he gets closer to the young mullah demo. When he finally gets to the stock exchange, he changes into his leather chaps and, in a display of brutish masculinity, flips over all their folding tables and massage chairs, sending pamphlets and Qurans flying all over the marble floor. Girl, was Free Market Jesus ever ticked.

When one of the young mullahs tells him that he really needs to chill out, he confesses that he’s a bit of a drama queen, and the other mullahs all laugh and offer him mint tea. FMJ helps them pick up all of their stuff (“mythological capital,” Jesus calls it), and they kiss and make up. And after a few bongs of Moroccan consolation hash – it turns into the most exciting sleepover any of them has ever been to.

Momentarily, at least, the Year Zero health club and juice spa is a remnant of a former Jesus.

…

 

The F and B Curves

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…

Free Market Jesus has a bit of a dilemma: soon there will be 5,000 gay men looking for sushi and croissants, but the caterers have only delivered five emaciated  salmon and a kilo of French pastry flour. What is a girl to do?

He turns to Free Market Mark for advice and consolation.

“Marky, what the hell are we supposed to do now? The drag queens are here, the lights and dessert-themed stage have been paid for, we’re 75,000 Shekels in the hole, and I’ve got no finger food for these top-dollar gay tourists!! I could pull my muff-hair out right about now, Marcia my sweet.”

Free Market Jesus and Free Market Mark like to call each other by girl names, and they also refer to each other as “she” and “her” when in the company of other disciples.

Mark pats Jesus softly on his freshly talcum-powdered back: “Oh Mary, I just know there’s a free market solution here somewhere.”

FMJ likes it when Mark calls him Mary. In fact, he likes it when everyone calls him Mary – it makes him sound creative and benevolent, and his PR people are always telling him that this type of association works.

As the lineup in front of the club grows bitchier and bitchier, Jesus opens up the Business section of the Nazareth Times and skims the Page 3 stock market results for inspiration.

“Marcia! I’ve got it. Supply and Demand! We’ll let Supply and Demand fill the paper party plates of all those leather and euro-bronzed queens. Supply and Demand!”

And Jesus does five holy-rave pills and stays up all night dancing to house music as he sways and flexes to the beat of Supply and Demand, and all the gay dancers go home and tell them what an amazing time they had at the circuit party.

Jesus wakes up briefly from his drug-induced coma: “That Elisha bitch is gonna be so jealous.” He smiles and falls back into his yellow boa-draped futon.

…