Greetings, gentle readers! Happy 2010! So I come to you having just opened the crazy farce Out of Order, which is doing brilliantly well. People seem to like it when they get to watch politicians running around like idiots. Ah, nothing like art imitating life, is there? So before I go any further, I just want to say a little bit about Pat Robertson. Now, i don’t usually do extremely topical humor because I hate watching the news, mostly because it isn’t news, it’s celebrity dogging or people screaming about the government, and really, I work in children’s theatre. Unintelligible screaming is my day job. I don’t need that on the news. But every once in a while something like the Pat Robertson thing floats across my facebook page--yes, I’m on Facebook--look for me, friend me, because I need the casual acquaintance of complete strangers to feel better about myself. Facebook--yay FARMVILLE! Before I go on, can I just say that whoever thought of that game was a genius. Not because I think it’s brilliant but because he figured out how to make people obsess over something NONE of them would want to do in real life. Seriously, if I came up to you on the street and told you that I would set you up with a farm and you just had to take care of it, what would you say? Hell no, exactly. because farms are stinky, farms are hard work, farms are sweaty, and they are nowhere near a quirky avant-garde coffee house/poetry slam/open mic on Mondays place. See, I’m a professional, I tailor my material to my location. But put this stupid game on Facebook and all of a sudden people can’t wait to slop the hogs and buy a silo! There’s nothing FUN about slopping hogs.
Anyway, where was I? oh right--Pat Robertson. I’ve figured out where the problem is. Well, besides the fact the man is batshit crazy. The problem is in the Bible. Now everyone calm down, I’m not gonna pull a Sinead O’Connor and tear up a picture of the Pope or anything. You can’t do that with this pope--the Gestapo will get you. And this problem only appears with Christians, so all you Jews--you’re okay. For once, nobody’s blaming you. And can you hear the sigh of relief from the Muslims? Anyway, the problem is that the Christians have two parts to the Bible. The Old Testament and the New Testament. Now, the Old Testament is basically the history of the Jewish people. You know, Adam and Eve Rosenberg, their kids Cain and Not Able to Duck. The Slaves in Egypt, who apparently sang black spirituals. All those tribes wandering around in the desert because they couldn’t agree on the best place to get an early bird dinner. And it was good. Everyone sort of just went along, with the testament. Well, they didn’t call it the Old Testament back then. it was just The Testament. But then along came Jesus, who was Jewish, so at first everything just clicked along nicely, but then he made a sharp left. He started slapping around moneylenders and put together a gang. Had a moll with him too. A woman of loose and easy virtue. Well can you blame him? I’d want one of those too if all my friends were guys in robes. And he started teaching things like be nice to people (except apparently, moneylenders) and his followers wrote a new testament. Now if they had done that and moved on, all would be well. But they didn’t. The attached it to the old testament and called it the Bible. Now, here’s the problem, the Old Testament and the New Testament are completely different. God in the old testament is turning people into salt and flooding the world and kicking serious ass. Making people kill their own kids to prove their love to him and shit. I mean, that is one deity with some ISSUES! But the new Testament is all Mr Rogers. Love everybody, turn the other cheek, do unto others. This is what fuels all the messed up problems with the Christian religion. Because we have these two books that are NOT supposed to be together. Look, when you buy a new sofa, do you keep the old one and try to make them one big piece of furniture? No. When you get a new car, do you try to attach your old one to it? No. You throw the old one away. And that’s what the Christians didn’t do. They didn’t throw the old testament away. The Jewish people don’t have these same problems because they have ONE book. We get rid of the Old testament and all of a sudden we’re dancing around like Woodstock. I mean the first one, the good one, the one without the $40 bottles of water and the fire.
Now, this won’t keep Pat Robertson from being crazy, but it will keep people from listening to him, hopefully. And if it doesn't, then really, the nice thing about the Old and New Testament being together is its really heavy when you smack them upside the head with it. See, who said the Bible had no practical use?
