Rendesvous on Mt. Gilboa

Part Three - THE PASSION PLAY

The Feast of Tabernacles was coming up and Jesus said that he would not be attending, for he had heard people in Judea wanted to kill him as a blasphemer. But his brothers said to him, “If you do good works, should you not do your good works so as to be seen by all that all give you the glory?” Therefore Jesus did go but in a secret way. The crowds were divided. Some said “He is a good man” while others said, “No, he deceives the people”. Jesus spoke mainly about light verses darkness and the children of God verses the children of the devil, and life verses death, saying that he who came to him would have everlasting life. At one point the people picked up stones to throw at him, but as they were throwing the stones- - the scene changes to color and you know what that means. People were being hit by other people’s rocks and blood was pouring out but when all is said and done, Jesus had managed to slip the net again. Also during this trip is the woman caught in the act of adultery. Here is a case that when they posed this question to Jesus, he began writing names on the ground with a stick, as if he weren’t listening to them. Others said “What is that he is writing” and others said “He’s writing it in Greek. It appears to be names- - does anybody here know Greek?” Of course you know how Jesus said to the woman, “Go thow, and sin no more”.

In this next scene people tell Jesus, “Leave this place, for King Herod wants to Kill You” and Jesus responds, “Go tell the esteemed gentleman that I go my way this way and the next but he will not see me again in Jerusalem until the people say “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”. So Jesus crossed the Jordan.

Now Jesus is in Jericho. This is where blind Bartameus was healed saying “Have mercy on me son of David”. This is also the town where Zacheus climbs a sycamore tree to get a better look at Jesus, and Jesus tells Zacheus that today he shall dine in his house and Zacheus says “If I have defrauded anybody I will pay them back four-fold. We place the raising of Lazerus here, too, as does the secret book of Mark. In this version Jesus lays on top of the corpse and places his hands on Lazeruses hands, etcetra and presses his face on Lazerus’ face, laying on top of him, and Lazarus is brought back from the dead. While ascending the mountain tword Jerusalem- - Judas says, “When you come into your Kingdom we will indeed have great glory, won’t we?”

Jesus dines at the home of “Simon the Lepper”, who apparently isn’t there. This is where Mary, his wife, pours the expensive ointment all over him. This ointment was expensive and could have been sold for three thousand dollars. Judas objects saying that Mary is not even Jesus’ wife referring to her as “this woman”. Jesus gets on Judas’ case for disrespecting his wife. And Judas says, “I swear on my honor as a disciple, if you knew all this woman has done and been through, surely you would have had the marriage annulled within days”. Later on Judas speaks with Matthew, and again goes on this tyrade about how it’s pointless to live this nickel and dime existence, trying to save five cents on a box of paper clips, when there is a three thousand dollar charge on the ledger. And he says, “I know Jesus has money he hasn’t used. He’s just doing this poor boy act for whatever reason but if he gets into his father’s trust fund- - -“ and Matthew stops Judas right there saying “The master’s financial situation is none of your concern”.

On Palm Sunday Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a horse and not a donkey. But it soon becomes apparent that the crouds aren’t for him but Barrabus can be seen riding into town and the people’s shouts become louder. And a riot ensues and a man is killed by Barrabus and other Roman troops are injured and several of Barrabus’ men are killed. And Jesus sees it and says “Behold I came to bring not peace but a sword” and the other disciples hear this and ask one another what Jesus might mean by this.

The last supper is done in the normal manner only a little more religiously than in most movies with the enphasis on the four herbs and the four ceremonial glasses of wine and the ritual Hebrew prayers and such. Then after that stuff Jesus gets to the Ucherist and does the thing with the bread and wine and says “As oft as ye do this act ye shall remember me, until I come”. Meanwhile Judas has already left to betray him as Jesus had fortold, “He who dips his bread in the dish with me is the one”. While Judas was with the pharicees they said to him, “Do not consider this money a bribe. Do not consider it blood money. It is simply- - a gratuity, that’s all”.

The arrest occurs in the usual manner- - more along the lines of John where Jesus says, “I am He” and then he says “If it is me you seek then let the others go”. The other disciples make plans to leave town, and many say they need to get back to their wives and families and that they’ve had enough excitement in their lives. But Judas hangs around and watches all of the trials of Jesus when he is before Chaiaphus and later when he is before Pilate. Only before Herod, Judas did not attend. King Herod Antipas (?) had been wanting to see some miracle from Jesus “I have been wanting to meet you for some time, Jesus”. Then Herod- - still eying Jesus suspiciously says, “Here is a small clay cup. Not a very large cup. Turn it to gold”. Jesus asks for a white sheet and covers the cup with it- - and then produces a gold cup with the same carvings on it that appears to be the same cup only gold. . Herod says, “Make it thunder”. First it thunders off in the distance and Jesus stares intently out the window at the storm, and someone in Herod’s palace says “A voice spoke to him”. Then it flashes lightning really bright so as to light up the entire palace, and a really loud clap of thunder occurs almost instantaneously. And Herod stands there as if frozen with awe and says “I shall do everything I can to expidite your acquittal. You are free to go”. And the guards escort Jesus out the door. Jesus returns to Pilate and he talks about his Kingdom and all of that stuff you can read about in the Bible from the Gospell of John about.

Then Jesus and Barrabus are both before the crouds and the people shout for Barrabus to be released and for Jesus to be crucified. Pilate says “I shall have him flogged and set him free” and the croud shouts louder to crucify him. But Judas is watching the beating of Jesus, the 39 lashes, and then upon seeing how bloody he is he runs to the Pharicees and throws down the thirty pieces of silver and says “I have sinned for I have betrayed innocent blood”. And they say “What affair of that is ours?”

Judas was riddled with guilt now. He just went out and walked around, staring up at the tall Temple buildings. He heard voices tauntingly calling “Judas!” and “Well done, Judas” and “You’ll Be Remembered Forever for This”. And Judas answers the voices, “I don’t want to be remembered for this”. Judas has to do some fast thinking. He now thinks he's come up with a way to deflect his own sense of guilt. He knew that Jesus’ inner three disciples may not have left town, but he knew of a secret hiding place they sometimes used. Judas went there and indeed found Peter, James and John, none of which was at all happy to see him, believing that he “probably was the traitor”. Judas says, “I have something to say to you. A few nights ago Jesus confided in me privately and he said that he knew I would be the one to betray him, and he said he understood and said that the saying is true “Some acts are not necessary evils, they are just necessary”. And Jesus said that after three days he would rise up again from the grave and that in doing this he would draw all men to himself”. The others had doubtful fords for him. But Judas insisted “Go and ask around. All week it has been rumored that if something untword befell the Master during this holy week, that Jesus’ death would not be in vain”. And Judas left them and they talked among themselves, “Do you suppose that any word of that could be true?” And they sought to round up the other disciples to “talk this matter over with them” and decide what if anything would be their response.

Jesus was taken out and crucified carrying his own cross. He fell three times during his trek up the hill and each time there were those mocking him for not having the strength to bear the burden. Now emissaries from Joseph of Arithmea, who was staying at the house of Nicodemus in Jerusalem were present at the crusifiction. And three times during the crusifiction Jesus said “I am thirsty” and each time he was given gall on a sponge as kind of a numbing narcotic. Before the third time they administered the drug, one from the crowd and said “Wait, les us see if Elijah will cone down and save him” for Jesus appeared to have been calling for Elijah from the cross. Jesus took the drug the third time and said, “It is finished” and then as his last words while alive, he said “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”. He said this and died.

The scene now comes in color again and stays in color for the rest of the movie. Other emissaries of Joseph of Armethia bear the body of Jesus down from the cross, for Joseph had petitioned Pilate for the body of Jesus before the High Sabbath, and Pilate gave his concent. But they took Jesus to the wrong tomb. One of the tombs was already open and they laid Jesus there. But when they told Joseph where the body was so he could bring the spices and anoint the body for burial, Joseph said it was the wrong tomb and they moved the body of Jesus out of the other tomb leaving the rock still opened, to the new tomb, wherein no body had yet been buried and they anointed the body there.

Judas had a very restless night tossing and turning. At one point the full moon was shining in the window and into his eyes and Judas got up and closed the drapes. When the rooster crowed at dawn, Judas began to bawl, dreading the idea of facing a day without his Lord. Joseph and Nicodemus came to the residence of Pilate and knocked on the door and the doorman agreed to escort them inside but they said they were not allowed to enter because it would ceremonially breech the Sabbath, so Pilate came out to them. They said to Pilate, “We have but one more request of you. That you place a guard on the tomb because there are roomers that Jesus’ other disciples will come and steal the body away. And if they did it would profane the grave and the body as a gross violation of Jesus’ body to disturb it after it had been interred into the ground. They told Pilate there was a belief in some crazy resurrection. Pilate said, “Do you believe this?” “What I believe is of no account. The point is the disciples believe it.” Pilate said, “have you got any money” and they paid him some cash, and Pilate said this would buy them three days of protection, through to 9:00 AM Tuesday. “That will suffice”.

They had returned to Nicodemus’ home to prepare for morning temple when a knock was heard on the door. Judas wanted to know if it would be OK for him to visit the grave today and say good-bye to Jesus, and they told him, “Absolutely not”. Judas walked through the city. It was a fairly quiet day except for the sounds of prayers and songs in Hebrew being lifted up to the LORD. Judas came to the tomb and there was indeed a guard out front. He asked to see the inside of the tomb, and the guard told him that no unauthorized personnel were permitted to see the body” and Judas left. He now went to a hardware store that was open, for it was run by Romans and he bought a sturdy help rope, and he went out to the east side of town and found a tree that was virtually dead and climbed out on a branch and tied the rope and hung himself. And the camera pans away for a moment to see the outline of the body dangling over a cliff.

Barrabus was another man feeling very guilty and his wife wishes that he would just shut up on the manner because the things and self loathing he were saying was making her feel uncomfortable. Barrabus felt strangely guilty, as if he needed to do some great, worthy now, in order to feel “right” about himself once more.

Mathaius was a man who was hired by Joseph of Arithmetha and Nicodemus to spy on the disciples of Jesus to keep tabs on them. Now Joseph and Nicodemus told him that they needed his services once again to do something to get the disciples out of Jerusalem as quickly as possible, lest they attempt to profane the grave.

The three women came tword the tombs as it began to dawn on Sunday morning saying to themselves, “Who will roll the stone away”. They were startled by the presence of the open tomb and looked inside and found other bodies but not Jesus. Then Methaius came to them dressed in a white robe and said to them “Why do you seek the living among the dead? Jesus is not here. He is risen. Go now and tell his disciples that he will see them on Mount Gilboah in Samaria. Mary had strayed from the other woman being overcome with grief and she nad gone a stone’s throw away to weep privately. Methaius came to her. And Mary said “If you are the gardener, tell me where you laid him”. Methaius said “Mary get a hold of yourself”. And said to her “You need to control your emotions because the baby can sense your emotions”. “Baby?” she said. “Yes, you are with child and it will be a girl and you shall call her name Sarah, after the mother of all believers.” Methaius followed the disciples so closely he even knew that Mary had not had her period in over two months. She ran away from him with tears still in her eyes and back to the other two women saying “our business is through here”.

On Saturday, Barrabus rested as the Sabbath commanded. But on Sunday he spied two secret disciples walking and he followed them as a great distance to see where they might be headed. They were headed west to a town named Emeus. He joined himself to them and began to feel them out in conversation to see how they felt about Jesus. He mentioned all about the pardon of Barrabus and the crusifiection of Jesus and then proceeded to quote Isaiah 52 and 53 about the suffering servant. He was trying to make himself better about the whole substitution thing and he found solice, somehow quoting this scripture. He was intending to dine with them that night but dinner was two hours away still. But having learned enough he made an excuse about his mule not being tied up securely outside. Before the two disciples could even think a minute and realize he didn’t have a mule but had walked up, he had fled. He found indeed a mule and as he was untying it to take off for Jerusalem as quickly as possible, the man who owned the mule came up and he told the man “The Lord has need of it” as he rode off.

Barrabus came to the home of Mary and opened the wrought iron gate and crossed the courtyard and knocked on the door. The housekeeper Rhoda answered. She asked Barrabus to state his business wanting to be careful for fear of the Pharisees. Barrabus entered the house of Mary, mother of John Mark at about dinner time. He was hoping to see the twelve disciples gathered together as he had heard through the grapevine they had planned such a meeting. But Mary told him the disciples had fled Jerusalem and would not be returning, and he thinks it’s because they had heard some kind of news, but she didn’t know what it was. The housekeeper, Rhoda, escorted him out. He looked at the house one last time, “So this is where the betrayal happened!”

A number of days later and after much prayer, the disciples came to Samaria. All eleven of Jesus disciples made it to Mt. Gilboa and climbed nearly to the top of it and waited all day for Jesus to arrive on the day that they one and all had “had a feeling that Jesus would come”. But as the sun began to sink in the sky they came down from the mountain, not wishing to spend a cold night there. Peter said, “I am going fishing” and six other disciples joined him. Once again Barrabus showed up on the shore and he too was wearing a white robe like Jesus used to wear. “Have you caught anything?” and they said “We have fished all night and caught nothing”. It now was beginning to dawn and the sun was almost over the horizon. But Barrabus had seen a large school of fish in the unusually calm waters they had missed from their preoccupation and he said to them, “Cast your net on the right side of the boat” and when they did and caught all the fish, Peter said “It is the Lord”. None of them dared ask him “who are you”. Barrabus thought of milking the Jesus role by asking Peter repeatedly “Do you love me more than these fish”. And finally they called him out. Thomas said “Untill I see the nail marks in his hands and the wound in his side I will not believe that it is our Lord”. Philip chimed in too saying, “We know you talked to those two disciples, and yesterday a currier came to us with a letter from Mary saying that a man was inquiring after you and did you know him”. I ask you. “Are you that man”. Barrabus could keep the ruse no longer and said plainly to them, “I am Barrabus. The man who was freed in Jesus’ stead by Pontious Pilate.” Peter said unto him “When you were young you girded yourself and did as you pleased. But when you are old others will control you and stretch out your hands and lead you where you do not wish to go”. By this Peter indicated the sort of death Barrabus would die. Barrabus said, “Then I ask your Jesus for forgiveness. Perhaps if your lord is truly great he can do this. If he truly has the power to grant forgiveness to those who seek it, his life will not have been in vain”.

And with this remark, our movie comes to an anti-climatic end.

The Jellybean Redistribution Program

You may have seen that Ronald Reagan skit where the President is asking his experts what they think of his "redistribution plan" and are arguing back and forth. And one guy says "No matter how you slice it Whites will always end up on the top and Blacks will end up on the bottom" and another says "It's not just a question of blacks and whites but reds, yellows, and the greens, and all the other constituencies". And it turns out they are talking about jelly beans. But Thom Hartman has been thumping the need for more equitable income in the United States. The reason is pretty simple because all the problems we face about suicide and mental illness and drug addiction, and crime, are all products of the inequity of incomes in the United States. It doesn't have to do with wealth per se, but equity of income. In France and Germany and Scandenavia and Japan and other places they don't have these sort of problems that we do here. But other places such as India and in Africa and even Portugal, you have this inequity problem. Hartman points out that even among the States you see this phenominon. In states like Minnisota and North Dakoda and Utah and Vermont and Wisconsin you have equity of income and the crime statistics are low along with the others such as suicides and mental illness. But in other states such as New York and California they are worse, and worse still are states like Texas and other southern states such as Louisiana and even Florida, where the malodies of society run high. The solution would be clearly the thing conservatives dread, which is an extensive income redistribution plan. The least we could do is raise the income taxes on the wealthy back to fifty percent. That would solve a whole host of problems, not the least of which is the deficet. And Hartman points out that no matter how "right wing" a European nation may appear to swing, not a one of them has suggested abolishing the Health Care programs they have in those nations because they work so well. Even in Canada they have much fewer problems with crimes commited with firearms than we do, despite the fact that percentage wise Canadians have just about as many guns as we do. If you listen to people like Ed Schultz and Thom Hartman you know that gun elimination is not on either's agenda, along with the free and open "way of life" it represents. It is said that we would be "making people give up the Health Care coverage they love" with their private insurers. And yet if you scratch a little below the surface it comes to light that the only reason why some people love their insurance plan is because they have never had to use it. Which is also why so many people are satisfied with their religion. But they dare not test their plan with an actual personal medical disaster that could wipe them out, or you'd soon have them singing a different tune. Some liberals wonder why the United States is the only nation in the civilized world with such an antiquated government. I don't know.

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JESUS – A MOST AMAZING MAN – Part Two

When Jesus was about thirty he began traveling about the land of Palestine. He left Tyre traveled to Jerusalem where he attended a Passover in Jerusalem, and here he drove the money changers out of the temple and the people told him his life would be in peril if he stayed. He gave his "Born Again" speech to Nicodemus about being born of water and of the spirit, and how Salvation is life in the spiritual dimension and this connection with God transcends death. Later on he went to Samaria where they practiced animal sacrifice apart from the Temple in Judea and Jesus told then that "ye worship outside the law of Yahweh and his grace". Then he came to Capernaum and observed a tax collector named Matthew cheating people. Some people told him this is the town of Nahum the prophet and the town has a history of being open to new ideas. Jesus went to Cana and bought a nice house there. It was here that he healed the Roman Centurian's son of a fever saying that he had but to "give the word". Jesus departed and came to Madgola and there he met a woman named Mary, and they fell in love and were married. Jesus had a nice home in Cana that was well maintained by a staff whether Jesus was absent or there. Jesus and Mary were married very near-by. As the ceremony was about to begin there were murmers in the croud. People were saying that if Jesus only knew the true nature of this woman he would never have married her. Some said that seven demons were driven out of her. Others only said that she was a woman of sin. But the ceremony was concluded and they smashed the wine bottle as is the Jewish custom. The reception was in a building nearby. Jesus was hanging around some big vases or ceramic jars and saying incantations and waving his hands over them. When the others arrived and his mother said that they hadn’t ordered enough wine, Jesus turned the water into wine. They brought some to the magistrate of the city who was an honored guest and he said, “Most people let people drink freely and then after a while bring out the wine of poorer sort, but you have saved the best wine till now. Jesus’ brothers were notable for their absence. The people there were people you don’t know but mainly friends from either Magdola, Cana, or Tyre.

Jesus called the first four disciples as described in the boat while they were fishing by the sea and the nets filled up with fish such that the boat was about to sink and so they enlisted the assistance of the other boat. Peter said to Jesus “Get away from me for I am a sinful man”. Jesus and his disciples one day were by the Jordan River to hear the preaching of John the Baptist. According to this movie a lot of stuff attributed to Jesus in the Bible was actually preached by John. John’s message included a lot of stuff on “the coming of the Son of Man” and he invariably used this term, as used in the Book of Enoch. He said, "When the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth? And also said "The day of judgement will come as a thief so be awake for it, and it's like if a man knew when the thief would break into his house he would have been awake. He offered up the parable of the talents (longest version) the parable of the wedding feast (longest version) and the parable of the ten virgins and the parable of the unrighteous steward, and interestingly also the parable of the wheat and the tares. Then he gave the parable of the tennants in the vinyard who mistreated the prophets. He saw some pharicees and said "Ye vipers. Who told you you could escape the day of wrath?" They switch camera angles and lighting during these speeches to indicate the passage of time. Then Jesus decided to be baptized. When it came his turn he said to John, “If you know who it was who was talking to you, you would ask to be baptized by Me”. John said, “Suffice it to be this way for now for in this we shall do everything that the law requires”. John held Jesus down in the water for what seemed an incredibly long time. During this experience Jesus freaked out and heard voices quoting Ezekiel 28 when it said “Thou art a man and no God, and ye shall die the death of those who go down to the sea”.

Jesus was preaching to a crowd and he said to them “You are the salt of the earth, but if that salt has lost its savor, where again shall it be salted. Do not let yourselves lose your savor. For then the salt is good only to be cast along the path and trodden under the foot of men. You are the light of the world. But do not hide your light under a bushel basket but on a lamp stand for all to see. If you believe in the light- - come to the light- - come now and receive a healing to your body. And people came and he healed them of such things as leporicy and withered limbs and crooked spines, and various fevers and demonic possessions. It was clear that Jesus had found his nitch.

Jesus and his disciples encountered a storm and it occurs just as it does in the Bible and he ordered the wind and waves to be still. When the disciples were at the back of the boat bailing water saying “Help us. Care ye not that we parish?” Jesus kind of just strode the deck with an air about him as a captain supervising the hired help. When they got to the other side Jesus drove the demons out of the man with 2,000 demons, and the demons each rushed into a swine, and the swine rushed over a cliff and were drowned.

Jesus was told by the magistrate of the city to leave town. (next scene) Jesus calls Matthew at his tax accounting office and Matthew leaves his work. Jesus told him that from now on he should not try and swindle people. Jesus dined at Matthew’s house on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. His old tax collector friends were among those who dined with him as Matthew tried to preach to them the error of their ways. But the religious officials took note. The next day Jesus preached parables of the Kingdom of Heaven from a boat omitting notably the one about the wheat and the tares. But Jesus was apparently having an off day and gets tangled up in his words with the explanation of the parables, saying, “Some seed falls on the rocks. Sometimes life can get rocky, and you get hot and tired working in the hot sun. Sometimes there are weeds around. These are like unwanted people in your lives. Some people can be like weeds, you know, springing up unwanted. Weeds are pesky things and sometimes you wish they would just go away - - . The people appeared bored and by their remarks - appeared not to understand a thing he was saying. “God has blinded their eyes” Jesus kept saying. But it’s less them I don’t trust then myself. How do I know I’m on the right path?” Jesus was told of a “Virgin spring” up on a hill that would provide all the answers to life. His disciples needed to get away from things for a while anyhow. While there - - Jesus met a woman at the well who looked like a prostitute, for she was veiled. And she said “If you drink of any other water you will thirst again, but he who drinks of this water shall never thirst again. People began gathering around as Jesus was conversing with this woman about her life. Jesus grew inspired and began preaching quoting Isaiah 61 about opening prison doors and setting the captives free. Then he pointed out how Jehovah often used outsiders to teach Israel a lesson when they needed it and how Elijah during a drought was sent to a woman in the desert- - away from the population- - and Jesus talked about how evil this generation was for thinking God had chosen them above all the others before them. And the people grew angry and rushed tword him carrying weapons and some holding rocks- - and you see a rush of people rushing by. Then the picture comes in Color- - and the people are at the sea shore and others rushing up to see what happened to Jesus but he was nowhere to be seen as the camera pans across the sea and down below. Others said “There is a sheer cliff here and if Jesus had decided to jump he would have been dashed to pieces by the rocks below”.

The scene shifts and an official is emploring Jesus to come to his house because his twelve year old daughter is gravely ill. But on the way Jesus is touched by the woman with the internal hemmerage and he says “Who touched me” and then heals her. When he reaches the home of Jarius, he goes into the bedroom with the little girl named Tabitha. The room is dark and candles are lit. The flute players are playing and the mourners are wailing in the other part of the house. The little girl had died. But Jesus brings her back to life and tells the others “She was only sleeping- - send the musicians and the mourners away- - - and give her something to eat”.

Then we have the saga of John the Baptist first being arrested and then sending an emissary with a note from jail saying “Are you indeed the promised Messiah, or are we to await another?” And then we have all that stuff with the Herodius and her daughter Solome, who seduces King Herod Agrippa with the dance of the seven veils and all and the King rewards her by giving her the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter.

When Jesus hears the news he tells his disciples they need to get away for a while but a croud follows them and demands to be laid hands on for their sicknesses. And some point out that many of these people are homeless and starving and haven’t eaten in days. So we get the feeding of the 5000 here, as in the Bible. Then they row across the Sea of Galilee in the moonlight by night. But Jesus is not in the boat but appears ahead of them apparently walking on the water. The disciples exclaim, “It is a Ghost”. But this time Jesus comes clean and says, “Look, Peter, it’s only a sand bar a few feet down. Come and join me if you have the faith” and so Peter gets out of the boat, but then sinks into a hold and Jesus pulls him out and we know all of that stuff.

Then Jesus takes them to a high mountain waterfall. Here he talks about the natural beauty and splendor of God’s creation all around you. But then to throw in a miracle he turns off the waterfall, and all there is is an occasional dripping from the rocks. Then Peter gets on his knees and says “Truly you are the Son of God” and Jesus says “Blessed are you Simon for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven”. He then said, there are other sights I desire to show you. And says to the disciples, “Try not to get wet on the way down”, and just then the waterfall turns back on full force, as Jesus and the men work their way down off the mountain.

The Hide and Seek God

Before today's feature presentation I believe we should pray for the situations in North Korea and in Iran with those three college students. We pray for all captives anywhere in the world that the Lord may extend his protection on them and free them at the earliest possible date. We also pray for Hillary Clinton and all others who would be in one manner or another ambassadors for America that their message would get out to others and their words taken to heart.

I'm also like to address a few questions you may have from a couple of postings back. You may want to know "Did you visit your father on Fathers Day of 1998?" I most certainly did. I would also like to say that all of my Dad's photographs that he took are in the safe possession of Pete Richards, who had said that for those photographs still on bulletin boards he said he intended to put them up on the walls of his drum room as sound proofing. None of the VHS movies from my Dad's collections that I have tried to find- - -were missing. I have always found every movie I searched for that I knew he had. None of the movies I have searched for have been erased.

The following movie is for
entertainment value only and should not be construed
to be any theological position taken by the author or authors.

JESUS – A MOST AMAZING MAN

This movie is mostly in black and white and starts off that way. Roll opening title credits to the tune of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” by the Animals, song to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun” and such a recording actually exists. Opening shot of a sign written in Hebrew that says “Bethlehem” and the caption “Bethleham” appears beneath the sign. Shots are of a rather desolate hilly countryside that’s wind swept with blowing snow drifts. Out in the distance three men in fancy Oriental Pursian garb are seen trudging through the snow, laden with gifts. They approach the sign. They converse in Pursian and English subtitles are given. They point and take off. Switch to a scene of a crowded bustling tiny home. The family is just finishing up breakfast and the dishes are being cleared away. It’s the Holy Family. Baby Jesus is six months old and can be heard insessently crying and Joseph the dad says, “Can’t somebody shut that damn baby up”. Meanwhile Mother Mary is preparing to get the kids ready for school making sure the younger ones have brushed their teeth and that they have their homework and all. She calls each of them by name so we know who they are. James, Simon, Judah, and Joseph, and they are all elementary school age. They let us know that baby Jesus is now six months old. Joseph bitches about the baby not really being his within ear shot of the kids, who don’t appear to be listening to him. After the kids leave Joseph talks to Mary about his dream about being a famous architect and brings out a lot of plans he has for public buildings, and says to her “Some day we’re going to move out of this dump”. He then says he has to get to work, and leaves for his carpenter’s shop, and as a parting shot says to his wife, “Oh and try to clean this place up while I’m gone, it looks like a pig sty”. Joseph leaves and the camera zooms in on Mary’s face and she assumes a rather dreamy expression- - - and we then go into a flashback.

The film now becomes in color. A caption says “fifteen months earlier”. Mary is a member of a holy order of prophetesses that pray every day in the women’s court of the Jewish Temple. Some nun person is addressing them and then says it’s time for the prayers that come several times a day. The young women are in royal blue robes and line up in the temple court and raise their hands to God and begin praying in Hebrew. In the next scene Mary is sneaking off to visit her not quite lover. He is a Roman Centurian named Pantera, and he is hoping to wed her. But she informs him that she has become espoused to a Jewish man named Joseph who told her that he had money- - some inheritance. He gets amorus with her and she after a while tells him to stop; he is getting too carried away- - and she says that she’s in an order of virgins. He corrects her to say that this order is ceremonial virgins only and that over half the women in the order are not virgins, and he names several by name. She tells him again to stop, and he goes on and rapes her and afterward she had a desolate expression on her face.

Back to black and white now. The three Wise Men have approached the magistrate of the city. They are looking for birth records and inquire whether there have been any births in the town in the past day or so and are told no. “Are there any women now great with child?” and again greeted with shrugs. They speak among themselves, “The angel did tell us that this day is born to you a savior of Israel”. Another asks, “Perhaps it wasn’t a literal 24 hour day but some Biblical day meaning time or season”. They head for Jerusalem to speak to King Herod. King Herod is very sick and is in the process of dying and in great pain and spiewing invectives at everybody, and says he knows of no other King who would dare rival him. The wise men ask to see birth records of all children two years or younger to see if they find what they are looking for, and are given a long list of names that they pour over in frustration. They then decide that they should again consult their astrological charts to see if they mis-figured.

In the next scene a month or so has passed and Joseph gets the word that King Archelius is now appointed King of Judea. Joseph and Archelius have connections and friends in common and he informs Mary that he has a good architect job lined up in Egypt. A representative of the King tells Joseph that this would be a good time to invest in gold if he has the money because Caesar is going to soon conthiscate all the free gold to make gold coins with images of himself, and melting down Roman coins is a serious offence punishable by a long prison sentence. Now it’s a couple of weeks later and they are loading up a bunch of camels and headed off to Egypt. Meanwhile the three wise men have refined their calculations and decide they know who the Messiah is and head to Bethlehem only to find the now vacant house of Joseph and the people inform him that the family took off for Egypt only a few days ago to find better work.

In Egypt Joseph is put in charge of designing public buildings and even Temples for the King, who has sway in Egypt. We flash forward to when Jesus is about seven or eight and learning magic from the local folks and books he has looked at. He does tricks such as turning clay pigeons into real pidgins who fly away. He strikes people with blindness who doubt his word, and does many other tricks. He even gets a rooster to speak in Hebrew “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”. One of the children knows Hebrew and exclaims excitedly.

In this scene Joseph has made a killing in the commodities exchange and is now awash in money. King Archelius was replaced and Joseph lost his employment in Egypt and so that now they move to the city of Tyre in northern Israel. Others tell him of the idolatry and rebellion in the place but Joseph says that he doesn’t believe in the old superstitions. Joseph had gotten the money to invest in the commodities exchange by raiding his sons’ trust fund that had been set up. He used his connections with King Archelius to break the trust fund that was set up to send his kids to architecture college so that they could have a better life than he did. Now Joseph is awash in money and decided to become an industrialist and buys a tin mine near Kent, England and makes many trips to England and is often gone for months at a time. By now Jesus is about seven or eight and now he has mastered the art of tele-portation and one day he teleported himself to the tin mine where his father was supervising. He said to Joseph, who was shocked to see him, “Is it not fitting that a son should be at the work place of his father?” Joseph had vowed to be a just and fair employer. He paid his workers well above the prevailing wages for mining work. He insisted that they under no circumstances work longer than a twelve hour shift and have breaks for fresh air every three hours, and that they get time off for sick days, and that his employees receive health care.

Now Jesus is twelve and there is a new census of the population. But they don’t have to travel to cities of birth. Quarinius was the governor of Syria. Then there is a rebellion in the land and twelve year old Jesus goes off to watch the ensuing battle- - and he watches the carnage from a safe bluff. A Roman officer comes up to him and informs Jesus that he knows of his Roman patronage and the circumstances of his birth. And he tells Jesus that the Hebrew people will never again win any battle against Rome by means of war and that the smartest thing they all could do is be passive and submissive before the Romans. Jesus appears to take these things to heart- - and he can be seen in prayer wondering what contribution his life could make tword the liberation of Israel and what should he now do with his young life.

Joseph announces that he is now able to send Jesus to magicians school in England and he takes a boat there- - - this time. He is enrolled in the Salisbury Institute of Sorcery and he studies there for many years. After he graduates there at age eighteen or so he stays linger being hired on as an instructor. He is thus employed for another five years or so. But one day he learns that his father Joseph has been killed in a mining accident. Meanwhile Jesus’ older brothers and he have frictions. They point out that he raided their trust fund so that Joseph, prompted by his irresponsible wife (not proven) decides to blow all his money on that cmodities deal, and if he’d never done that he’d have never gone to England and bought the mine and he would be alive now. After the funeral, Jesus’ brothers quote to him the proverb, “If any among you would not work, neither should he eat”. Jesus takes this proverb to heart and finds employment as a carpenter building “tables, chairs and oak chests”. His older brothers are not exactly hurting for money. They all have respectable jobs in Tyre, but none of them is getting really rich either. More years pass. This is the end of part one.

You Know - This Means War!

Well, Congress is off on its break now, and suddenly I’m seeing the light. I see why the liberals wanted so desperately to get the Health Bill passed before the break. You know their goal, don’t you. First they want to slow the bill down to a crawl, and then they will kill it altogether. The neo cons had a whole “war room strategy” just for the break we are having now. They intend to flood the Town Meetings of the congressmen with their own stooges to sit up front by the stage and shout loudly and ask a lot of embarrassing question. They are advised to make them “professional” question meaning they are long winded and choked with statistics. And then they are advised to fire back with aggressive follow-up questions. But these neo con representatives need not even reside in the district the congressman serves. Those are trifling ethical details. What is important is to cow the congressman into thinking he dare not vote for any of the five health care bills lest the people rise up in the next election and defeat him. The whole idea is to paralyze the representative with fear every time he even Thinks about voting for a bill. Of course the other and perhaps greater leg of this assault by the right wing is the millions lobbyists are spending to buy congressmen’s vote. They talk about what a feat it was to pass Mc Cain – Feingold but that bill is near meaningless. It’s like you aren’t ingesting poisons in your food. No- - you are main-lining the poison right into your blood stream by-passing all those pesky digestive organs like the liver, which may dilute the poison. Can’t they just make it a felony for any Insurance Company or Drug Company to try and buy off a congressman’s vote? As long as we have the sort of system we have in this country we are doomed. To those on the left, we should be saying “This Means War”. Why don’t we do a little Public Relations of our own with massive protests and sit-ins, like the good old days? Of course now the media won’t cover these - - - -unless we escalate the action into something illegal. The axiom just might be true in this case that bad media attention is better than being ignored. (Selah) I don’t even know which, if any of the five health care bills is the one to support. But if we don’t least have an atmosphere where we can openly discuss the issues we’ll never find out. Where are the networks on this issue. Why not have an old fashioned TV debate?

You've heard of the bridge to nowhere. Well now, in a throw-back to the Bush administration we have the airport to nowhere. The little hamlet of Uzinki, Alaska is getting awarded a new hundred and fifty million dollar airport, courtesy the US tax payer. Uzinki is one of a number of isolated little hamlets in rural Alaska with no stop lights and are little more than bunches of houses- - that the FAA has declaired worthy of a new airport. You wonder what sort of spell that Sarah Palin has cast over the Obama Administration.

You've heard roomers of it from us, and now it's official. There is a vitamin deficiency crisis among our youths and young people. Seventy percent of young people don't get enough Vitamin D in their diets. The reason is simple. Today's youngsters just don't get enough sunlight because they no longer play outdoors. These children don't even get the bare minimum 400 Units of vitamin D, which is less than is really advisable. Besides, they don't drink milk like we did when we were young. And of course nobody ever considered the adverse affects of sun screens in preventing the body from manufacturing vitamin D. Research has shown that less than an hour in sunshine will give you 2,000 or whatever units of vitamin D or five times the minimum required. This seems like the next perfect public relations push for President Obama to undertake.

Well, Clowie is going to wake up from her coma one of these days and say that her killer is right here in this room, and point to Kate Roberts. Lucas acts like he doesn’t believe that- - but most of the things he’s saying to Daniel in their “jail cell summit” are said out of sheer reflex like a boxer, rather than any cerebral thought process or logic taking place. If Lucas thought about it dispassionately for even a minute, he would see that everything Daniel says is true and that his mother would stoop to anything to exact Vengeance on someone she doesn’t like. What we know is that Kate Roberts never lets go of a grudge. Ex husband Victor is there to prod and taunt her every step of the way, threatening constantly to expose the truth. Now Nicole has chimed in saying that Clowie told her she was still in love with Daniel, and always has been. But the whole theory of the prosecution hangs on the notion that Daniel murdered her because she spurned his advances. Is there anyone who hasn’t figured out that Kate has three motives in poisoning Clowie. Because Kate is the one whom Daniel rejected in favor of the younger more vibrant Clowie, and Kate can’t stand to be spurned. And Clowie is a slut and Kate never liked her to begin with. And of course Lucas has to be “protected” from her, and mama always knows best when it comes to the affairs of her son. “Mama won’t let anyone dangerous get through” - Pink Floyd

It sure is nice having good air conditioning in this room. We have had some monsoonal breezes today with this mixed cloudy weather akin to times like August of 1992. Several strong earthquakes have struck the Gulf of California. There were four big quakes and the two biggest ones were 6.9 and 6.2. The reason why this is a little alarming is that (a) you usually don’t see such a concentration of earthquakes but more importantly (b) all the quake activity was quite close to, if not on, the San Andreas fault, and you know what that means. You know in “Wheel of Fortune” you have to know when to get out of the game before getting wiped out. Unfortunately, Scotty is not circling above in the Enterprise to beam me up. Christians are of course thinking that the Apocralipse is here because of President Obama’s massive health plan- - and it is much more massive than the American People are led to believe if you’ve read one of the summaries of the bill. Personally I’m holding out the olive branch to God. I’m asking Him whether or not I should put out that “Jesus” movie screen-play on blog or not. I continue to be in a state of indecision. I don’t want to “declare war” on God.

We had tacos tonight. There were the two and the refried beans and the extra cheese and the sour cream dallop. Then Dora came by with a third taco, and more beans. I was going to buy cigarettes at the store but it’s closed. I’d be spending money I owe someone else and don’t feel entirely ethical about that. John was at the bakery and now he’s even letting them over-charge him for stuff. But other times they give him freebies. I bought a plain Double Diamond from Larry for 25 cents, which they aren’t worth.

One More Jobless Recovery

You know the more things change the more they stay the same. Haven't you had about enough of Summers and Geitner, Obama's chief economic advisers? Now we are hearing that for the rich the recession is coming to an end. The stock market is up and so are corporate profits. Banks that were going down for the third time last fall are solvent once more thank to the Obama-Bush adminestration, and the banks are now awash in money. Of course since the government pays them six percent not to lend that money out, the rest of us are not profitting from either increased liquidity or spending power. One person on the right told me, "Well, the banks are hoarding their money because next year there will be another round of real estate defaults. Oh yes, these conservatives will serve up the doom and the gloom when it suits their purposes. They are hoping that in 2010 the economic statistics will still be poor so that the people will turn against Obama. And dag nabbit, the President is playing right into their hands by having his henchmen act as "apologists" for this economy, defending the giving of money to the rich, but letting the poor fend for themselves, as it says in Revelations, "Starve the comon people but touch not the olive oil and the wine", for these are associated with rich people. (Either that or Italians) Now the banks are so well off that the fat bonuses for their CEO's is returning. Happy times are here again- - whoppee! But this is a jobless recovery. How often have we heard that addage in the past 28 years. This phenominum of the jobless recovery began under Reeagan and Bush continued the tradition with the 1990 - 1992 recession. This recession put Bill Clinton in the White House. But as Thom Hartman points out- -Clinton received a progressive mandate from the people, and yet government as a centerist, promoting such pet conservative projects as N A F T A. Indeed, and it's difficult to over-state this, it was President Clinton that gutted our economic regulations which were our safeguards in the 1990's. They have been saying now (though I don't remember it) that Obama promised that if the stimulus package was passed by Congress, which it was on February 17th of this year, that unemployment wouldn't rise above eight percent. It is now 9.5 percent. So despite what they have been saying, more people are still being laid off than are being hired. For most people, this is the hallmark definition of a recession. We are salved with news that "The economy went down less last quarter than it had, and that we had been expecting, so this is a good thing." We keep hearing of a second stimulus to deliver more cash into the hands of the buying American public. And yet congress seens, not snake-bit but "blue dog" bit. The blue dogs in congress appear to be running the show and dictating all the terms. No wonder support for the health plan has fallen from 58% to 49%. People sense that the bill is being talked to death. And the right-wing media is filling all of us, including me, with all sorts of doubts about whether it wouldn't just be easier to scrap the whole health care plan for a while and save a lot of money that we could use for other things. Conservatives love to attack Obama's spending saying the money could be better spent for "other things" but I doubt that "other things" refers to the comon man on main street looking for more spending cash in his pocket. Liberals on the other hand are criticizing Obama for not being more out front and pitching his ideas but instead leaving the issues for congress to wrangle with. In this day and age, outspokedness is no vice, and passivity is no virtue.

This cash for clunkers plan may not be what people are expecting. Apparently they pour corrosive liquid in the engines to make them useless ever to be used again. Perhaps we should put in Oscar Schindler at General Motors and really "fix things". (If you've seen the movie you know what I'm referring to) But if we cripple our economy, space aliens aren't going to swoop down and liberate us at the last moment. We have to live with our problems. We certainly don't need in thye process of dealing with one problem, like pollution, make a far more urgent problem, economic recovery and production, that much worse. What about all the used car dealers that need cars to sell. This program is taking merchandise out of their hands. I'm kind of a fan of letting the free market decide these sort of economic issues.

This is Sunday August 2, 2009, and the 42^nd anniversary of my first threatening to commit suicide in 1967. Today all day I’ve been thinking it was Saturday because the change in events yesterday threw me off. I went down to the courtyard in the afternoon for coffee. I sat in that swing like thing both in the morning and afternoon sessions. Then I played the remainder of “The Letter” on VCR, which was most of the movie. We are told Bette Davis didn’t like the Hollywood ending, although that ending was fore-shadowed all through the movie with the full moon going behind a cloud and the creepy Orientals. But the last scene in the original script was Bette Davis saying “I can’t help it; I’m still in love with the man I killed”. The last time I watched this movie was the Saturday before Father’s Day in 1998. After watching this movie while it was still light, I went out for what became a habit, those Cisco wine coolers 18% fortified.

I turned KFI on briefly and was surprised it wasn’t John and Ken, since I still was thinking it was Saturday. It was a guy talking about global warming, and he was saying that only white people from Santa Monica and Malibu care about such things. I’m not going to have him “dis” every other race. He can stick his opinions and stick them where the son don’t shine. They rang the bell just after four when I had KLOS on. But once in the dining room we weren’t served till after 4:20. 4:00 is too early to eat anyhow and I doubt anybody is happy about the change in time. We had roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy, with apple sauce for desert. Sarah handed me my phone bill, and I’ve never known the bill to come as early as the second since living here. I had a smoke upstairs and then went to the bakery for the very last of the coffee from the thermos.

Hollywood had its morals in 1940 with the Hayse office and all and they weren’t going to let them put out anything that might not be morally upright. I’m working or rather re-working that Jesus thing from April or so of 1994 that like Schindler’s List had “the past” in black and white and “reality” (scenes where Jesus wasn’t there) appear in color. Phone. I don’t know who thinks that I live in the LA Unified School District.

I watched the Mc Laughlin report. I found the whole thing disheartening. They were all bashing the President mentioning his pathetic efforts to try and redeem himself in the public’s mind with the “beer sumet”. They put Byden in there to balance the races and because Byden has “credibility” as a blue collar white man. Eleanor Clift wasn’t holding up her end of the conversation. I wonder if the American people are just as lily livered by be cowed by every little thing the right wing media puts out.

The Simpsons - Revisited

The following is a transcription of sorts of the snail mailing of the Saga of the Simpsons that was written March and May of 1994 and mailed to the media in early May. This story has undergone a few “revisions” as you can compare with the original.

Written by Bill Gunderson and Guy Owens

“Beauty and Sadness” (Smithereens) opening credits

The Samuelsons lived in Springfield, Mo and in the summer of 1989 they agreed to do a year long documentary on their family life. The whole family was excited. The filming commenced in the fall of 1989. At that time Bart Samuelson was ten and his sister Lisa was nine, and Maggie was a year old. The parents were Benjamin and Marge Samuelson. But it soon became apparent that is they were going to make this series every day and light hearted, there would be problems that they had to “work around”.

Back in those days Benjamin worked at a nuclear plant for Montgomary Bernes. He spent his spare time drinking beers at Moe’s Tavern with his drinking buddies, Homer, Carl and Lennie. Benjamin was seriously overweight and one day after a routine visit to Dr. Hibbert, Benjamin was diagnosed with the twin malodies of high blood pressure and diabetes. Benjamin was given medication for the high blood pressure but this played havoc with his sex life. His wife Marge complained but Benjamin appeared oafishly indifferent to his own state. Later on that winter after a period of wearing heavy snow boots, Benjamin developed a condition in several of his toes on his left foot, perhaps complicated by the diabetus. But one day Marge was shopping with her lady friends and one of them had heard a radio program on a Saturday morning where that specialist recommended massive doses of vitamin E for just this case of threatened amputations. Benjamin eagerly took the pills. Filming for the series was frequently interrupted because several times Benjamin would black out from a sugar overdose and have to be taken to the emergency hospital. But finally the Vitamin E worked on his toes. Benjamin regularly rated as the least safety conscious worker at the plant.

In the spring of 1990 the plot thickened when Marge found herself to be pregnant with her fourth child. The filmers of the series agreed then that they would not extend this documentary beyond the original first year, but it was calculated that if they ran all the film they had shot in this one year it would take them twenty years to air it. It was at this time around the summer of 1990 that Benjamin showed the first signs of going a little bonkers. He doubted whether he was the father of Marge’s child. He also at this time began obsessing on his family history. His grandfather, Ziek Samuelson looked like a Black man and had Black features. But Benjamin was convinced his family had no black blood. His father Abraham even had problems himself being on record as having a black father because they tried to put him in the Negro wing of the service, but he managed to convince the authorities he was really White. Benjamin was an avid watcher of StarTrek the next generation and in the final episode Piccard was taken over by the Borg. Later in the next season when Piccard was home at the vineyard with his brother, Benjamin kept saying “His brother ought to be court-martialed for disloyalty”. Then when his new son was born they decided to name him Earl, because it sounded like royalty. Earl was born just a few days into Gulf War II in January of 1991. Marge heard Benjamin saying some really strange things to the baby in his crib, such as “I hope there is a war going on when you grow up because that way you’ll get to fight in it and be a credit to your country”.

It was sometime in the spring of 1991 that some friends of Marge suggested that she and Benjamin attend an religious meeting of an offshoot of the Church of Christ. Marge thought maybe they would heal Benjamin of his health problems. Marge soon found these people at the meeting really weird and only went a few times. But Benjamin loved it and kept going. As the months and years progressed Benjamin became more and more restless and his work performance got even worse as numerous minor industrial accidents kept occurring. Benjamin was always a master at making excuses for himself and now was no different. Around the first of September 1992 Benjamin was fired from his job. Benjamin found employment at the Church of Christ cult offshoot. He later learned that they had more contacts in Phoenix, which interested him.

It was around March of 1993 that Marge was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She remembers the date because Benjamin was home with a hangover from celebrating St. Patrick’s too much at Moe’s bar. Of course Benjamin gave her sympathy and all and prayer vidgels were held for her. Bart though thought these prayers of his father were incencere. Kids pick up on these things. He said that Benjamin didn’t really love her and that he cared more about his work at the church than he did life with his family. Benjamin was among those who raged against President Clinton and listened to Rush Limbaugh constantly, echoing every line of invective that Rush spiewed out.

In January of 1994 the Samuelsons moved to Phoenix. They said it was for Marge’s health and the warm, dry air would restore her to full health. That works for sinuses but not for pancreatic cancer. Nature took its course and in early May of 1994 Marge died. Earl would later say that it was the earliest memory he had as a child and he always marked the date. The years passed and Bart and Lisa graduated high school. Bart decided to become a cop on the Phoenix PD. Lisa became involved in journalism and folk singing, occasionally writing her own songs, and also worked with P E T A, people for the ethical treatement of animals. Bart married a girl named Melinda. But the marriage was over in just under three years because while Bart never committed physical adultery, that anybody can prove, he was emotionally unfaithful and would often fall for hard luck stories he met of women in bars, and secretly give them money. After Bart’s marriage ended he became involved as a Seventh Day Adventist. He loved all of that groovy stuff about the end of the world and monster-demons. He also gave up pork. This move in part pleased his sister Lisa since she was a vegetarian. He had read something about pigs being smarter than other barnyard animals. Bart eventually quit the police force because there were three dog shooting incidents in just over a month. Bart didn’t care if you treated people like scum, but he always hated mistreatment of animals. He then joined his sister Lisa at P E T A and also went to work as an accountant for the Seventh Day Adventists. Bart had a flair for math. His talents were also put to work as a salesman and money raiser, because Bart was known to spew a good line of bullshit over the phone. They all missed Marge and thinking about it was depressing.

When Maggie graduated high school at sixteen she got a full scholarship to Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she went and got stellar grades. She graduated with honors. Earl meanwhile was kind of a lazy, shiftless teenager who was heavily into drugs and pornography and treated women shabbily, and spent money like a drunken salor and was heavily into pornography. He was still living with his father and one day he said to his father, “Give me my share of the inheritance”. Benjamin’s will had stated that the males, Bart and Earl were to get one third of the estate, while the females were to each receive only half that or a sixth of the estate because they were women and would presumably marry a rich husband. This occurred about mid summer of 2009 when Earl was eighteen. He roamed the country spending his money on gambling (he usually lost) and booze and prostitutes and drugs.

His father, Benjamin meanwhile had become a Pastor of a large and growing church congregation in Phoenix. He preached an odd mixture of hellfire and brimstone fundamentalism with a lot of paranoia and spying on the activities of the congregation, mixed with a little Jim Jones style communism saying his goal was to move to a commune somewhere in the Caribbean Islands some day. Every time he sensed the congragation’s spirit was ebbing a little low with to much brow beating from the pulpit he would wow them with visions of this Island Paradise. Earl meanwhile was reduced to hitchhiking and the last driver had kicked him out of the car just a few miles from home when Earl made a homosexual advance at the driver. Earl said he was just “experimenting” with bi-sexuality but these adventures dated from his high school days. Now he was reduced to walking. On the day he returned home it was Martin Luther King day in January of 2010. There was a powerful earthquake in the Pnoenix area this day. This was in the middle of one of the worse droughts the West had ever seen, and the temperature this January day was in the nineties. Global warming was a clear and present reality. The quake occurred as Earl was taking a shortcut down a rocky river bank. The river was bone dry. He had a cell phone trying to contact people in town that he would be arriving soon, trying to hit them up for money. But the quake struck as Earl was hiking down the rocky bank and there was an avalanche of sorts. And one large rock hit his hand holding the phone and knocked it out of his hand and Earl didn’t know where it sent but now was being beaten and pummeled by other large rocks so that he was looking rather bloody and contusioned and now was in pain.

His father, Benjamin lived now in a large farm style mansion-estate. One thing that Earl noticed right away was that while all the grass around was dead, his father’s fields were lush and green. Even the cows mooed with contented expressions on their face. The shrubbery around the house was neatly groomed, and the house was freshly painted white decked out in trim of red, white and blue. There was a new gold knob on the door gleaming in the noon day sun. He tried his key but someone had changed the lock. Inside his father was busy with a bunch of blond bimbos and one of the house-keepers saw Earl’s wounds and used iodine on them, which hurt like hell. Bandages were applied. Earl saw that the furniture in his bedroom had been completely replaced. His father had filled this house with a bunch of expensive pictures on the walls and vases and antiques of every sort. He marveled that nothing had toppled. His father must have earthquake proofed everything. He made his way into the bathroom looking for some topical pain killer. But all he saw in the medicine cabinet were a lot of bottles of peroxide. For dinner that night they had fish, and Lima beans and parsnips and rhubarb pie for desert. He knew he was allergic to rhubarb but ate it anyhow and broke out in blotches all over. He later learned that his brother was now working for his father as his money manager. This made him jealous. He spent his time in the den with a lot of girls he called up to have sex orgies with, when they weren’t watching pornography.

It was one Saturday morning Earl remembers, almost the anniversary of his mother’s death in early May, when he woke to the news that his father Benjamin was dead and that he had been knifed repeatedly, OJ Simpson style by his brother Bart. When they questioned Bart on the murder and compared notes it seemed that Benjamin would pit the boys against each other. He would tell Earl that he was a bastard and a nobody but he was “willing to overlook that”. And he would taunt Bart with the idea that Earl still had another third of the Estate coming when Benjamin died. Benjamin would constantly play mind games on Bart. The two had gotten into numerous religious arguments over various Doctrines. They argued about the Sabbath, with Bart insisting that it was to be observed on Saturday while Benjamin insisted it was Sunday. Bart regarded Benjamin as kind of a pig who didn’t really care about either his congregation or his family and that all he was in it for was the glory and the greed. He would often make reference to his sainted mother, Marge, and how if she were alive she would be shocked at the state of moral depravity to which her husband had sunk. He was now in a jail cell and lay down for a night’s sleep. Bart dreamed that he bribed a guard by promising him sex with his ex wife Melinda but he had to make a phone call, and he wanted privacy “because it’s kind of personal” so while the guard was just around the corner he slipped into a heater vent and made his escape from the prison, but then they discovered he was missing and so sounded the alarms and the lights and there was a car chase- - and then the breaks on Bart’s car went out and he was headed right for an oak tree- - and then he woke up. And then the next morning his sisters Maggie and Lisa visited him and he talked about how he couldn’t help it but his father drove him to it, and his attorney showed up and the sisters left and they sat down and prepared the Court strategy for Bart’s defense.