amorpheus

Welcome to The Sydney T. Bernstein's One-Man Show and One-Man Tell Christmas Special, and by "special," I mean "mentally challenged." Those of you who are familiar with me and what I do may know that I tend to ramble and meander and it generally takes me fucking forever to get to the damn point, so I think I should start this monologue with my point, which is that in this season, miracles really do happen.

This is a very spiritual time of year. It is the time when we, as a nation, dust off our Yule and Saturnalia decorations and desperately pretend it has something to do with Christianity. Going into it, though, I was feeling a bit blue. You see, ever since Mitch Hedberg died, I haven't had a clear moral example to aspire to. Then, one day, I came across a guy on a street with a button on his jacket that said, "What Would Jesus Do?" Now, of course, I had seen the WWJD hats and t-shirts and keychains and the ill-advised line of feminine hygiene products, but this was the first time I had read what that actually stood for, and it was an inspiration for me. Of course! People LOVE the Christian messiah. I should live my life according to the moral example set by Joshua of Nazareth.

The big thing he did - the one everyone knows about - was dying and coming back to life three days later. I decided I should have some smaller miracles under my belt before trying that one. Unfortunately, my attempts to get fig trees to wither at my command was met with failure, but not as grievous a failure as my attempts to walk on the East River. It was then that it occurred to me that I may be putting the cart before the horse so to speak, so, taking a page from the Gospels, I disowned my mother and my siblings and went from town to town claiming to be God, but I failed to attract a group of people to follow me around and write down everything I said. Then I thought, "Of course I don't have any followers! They haven't seen me heal with my touch yet!" I looked around for a cripple or leper to heal, but there was no one handy, so I took off some guy's glasses and touched his eyes. He didn't appreciate that.

After a week of doing everything I could remember from the New Testament, I found that just about the only thing I could do right was hang out with whores and, to be honest, I was already doing that anyway. Then one day, after being beaten up by someone who had the advantage of the vision that I had restored to him, I ran into the same guy with the button on his jacket. I told him about all of the trouble I had been having with his advice, and he told me, "You misunderstood. My role model isn't Christ. It's my Mexican friend Jesus Gonzales." As luck would have it, Jesus hung out with whores a lot, too.

So the following night, I went out dancing, as Jesus would, and at the club, there was this concessions stand. They were selling t-shirts that said, "Knowledge Kills Faith" next to jewelry adorned with pentagrams. I pointed out the subtle irony to the woman working there, and she told me that the pentacles were actually appropriate, because Paganism teaches knowledge over blind faith. I thought to myself, "This is a woman who knows something about religion!" I wanted to ask her what she thought about Judaism, which had used the pentagram centuries before NeoPaganism even existed and has a long-standing tradition of valuing knowledge over blind faith, but Depeche Mode was playing and I had to dance!

What I'm getting at is that I find religious superiority hilarious. I love everyone who thinks his faith is the one that makes sense, from the proselyte who feels the need to educate all of us poor lost souls who must have never heard of Christianity to the staunch atheist who knows in his heart that if only "Thus Spake Zarathustra" had a larger print run, there would be no such thing as organized religion. That's why I love this season. It brings out everyone whose religion is better than everyone else's. It also brings out one of my favourite mythological figures - Santa Claus.

Now, of course, I know there's no Santa Claus. I am well aware that there was never such a person as St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, and that nobody really believes that saints can bestow favour upon the faithful. I went through the same disillusionment as a child that we all did when we discovered that our parents giving us presents means that there's no God. I'm not an idiot. But bear with me for a moment. The thing that sort of bothers me about the story of St. Nicholas is a peripheral character in the mythology - Mrs. Claus. Some of you may not be aware of this, but St. Nicholas never married. Are we so insecure that we have to make up a wife for him? Can we not trust the patron saint of children if he is a bachelor? Nevermind that he's also the patron saint of sailors. Now, I'm not insinuating anything, but he did go on pilgrimages, when he would be out at sea, isolated, surrounded by men. But setting aside rumours of nautical life and his nickname - "The Old Stocking Stuffer" - how does someone get married posthumously, anyway? Sainthood is a very male-dominated industry - needless to say, Joan of Arc gets laid constantly - it must be impossible for the average cadaver on the prowl to find someone to get together with, let alone marry. That's what I thought until I saw an ad in the paper:

"Single white noncorporeal manifestation of a religious icon seeks pious woman for companionship, sharing spiritual epiphanies (if you know what I mean). Must not be disturbed by the fact that, technically, it is necrophilia. No Christ-hating Jews, narcs, or fatties."

And reading that, I thought, "Keep on trying, Johnny, because in this season, miracles really do happen."