The Armageddon Wine Bar

He is injustice, hypocrisy, bigotry, prejudice, military, reactionary... Ho boy, aint this fictitious omnipotent just about the end of our world now too? Whose god? Who really believes in these bozos anyway? What holy thought can possibly transpire from the cockpit of a Toyota Corolla? Who has ever dreamed of gracious god while saliva squirting into a quarter-pounder with cheese? All these propped up Gods and god-affiliates! As if Jesus of Nazareth, or Indra the blue fairy never in their glorious, holy virginity gave their desires a hand behind a bush or a big rock. Hypocrisy is the only immorality, and it abounds in the pretend religious, which is anyone, anywhere who has ever touched plastic. Religious hypocrisy is an easy target, I understand. Everyone knows that the twenty-eight year old rabbi in the 200,000 dollar cape cod is a hypocritical tool. How could he not be? Where, for the love of Job, is his fathers sheep herd? What, he is too delicate to dry mud bricks in the sun? Of course he is! Hence, the hypocrisy of the Jew. Match it to all income levels, across social strata, from Tel Aviv to Miami Beach. Judaism is spiritual capitalism boasting the virtues of trickle-down religionomics. It has been so for over two hundred years. All organized religion shares in the bounty. None are innocent. Even the Hari Krishnas need the attractive wealth of airport tile to get their spirited love message across to traveling infidels. Yet religious hypocrisy can only exist because of germ theory, vaccines and the internal combustion engine. Nobody dies unexplained anymore! Starvation is obvious. Virus invasion is easily detected. Any hapless refugee can see the mine was placed under that cute and cuddly stuffed animal by a human hand. Our babies are surviving childhood. Not only that, but accumulating insatiable desires along their smooth, paved highways to adulthood. Material comfort begets hypocrisy. Hypocrisy begets competing gods. In this age, ancient gods have become a back room card game where sit the power brokers of a stupendous mafia cartel, making bets on the human race. The Political Jew Mafia, Self-detonation Muslim Mafia, Vatican Molestation Mafia, Kobe Beef Cow Buddhist Mafia, Holy Cow Indian Mafia, North Carolina Army

Base MafiaYoure either with their Jesus, their Buddha, their Muhammad, their Vishnu or against him. Each crime gang has amassed huge populations of initiates all pining to get made. Its a quick and simple ceremony. Promise to devote all your love, (in mafia lingo, a four-letter-word to encompass human vice, prejudice, intolerance, arrogance, impatience, cruelty, vanity, myopia ) to the plot of a hack written fictitious story, swear that a pretend faith in abdication to the tale will get all believers saved, then set out that new day to neglect and shame any species of life that appears to dwell outside of the beloved story line. Okay. One big obstacle. The consistent, persistent underlying theme running throughout these ancient made-up stories. That is this: Imitate the protagonist(s)! Yet no initiate will admit, even though it is always written simple and clear in their good books of devotion, that their Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Abraham, or Rama would always, under every single social and private encounter, do the exact opposite of the current mafia boss. Hence the hypocrisy of Popes helping altar boy fingering priests to become innocent before God. Or the holy mulla packing the truck up with ammonium nitrate and a cleansed devote. Or the learned rabbi holding a Torah bound by the leg leather of a Palestinian school girl. Or the priest from Mumbai blessing the tip of a shiny nuclear warhead. Or the pornographic Baptist minister holding a Koran burning ceremony to commemorate a day of mass murder... Damn! Where are the holy imitators? Some of the little people of the neighborhood possess a sense of protection, and they might live quiet lives of simple anonymity. But even they are amassing way too much wealth under the modicum of faith. The mafia has control of whole governments now. The twenty or so media giants of the world were cut a piece of the action. They want to be faithful angels too, sitting beside their bosses at the table, sucking oysters, twirling pasta, tearing at a country loaf and dipping it in garlic oil... The generals and industry ceos are holy in the sense that they scheme up truly god like ways to put holes through people from very, very far away. Job and his family cannot understand what they have done to deserve such a smiting. Amassed a fortune perhaps? Enslaved a significant portion of the populace to ensure their own personal comfort? Oh well, it doesnt matter. That Jesus is one tough son of a bitch. Not only does his bomb completely devastate the landscape, but all the kids, if spared by the endearing savior, are guaranteed to 6,000 teensy tiny shrapnels embedded in their soft tissue.

Ouch! Im in! says Job. Holy Yahweh, what a tough bastard. Ill kiss the bosses fat ring finger so I can get back to amassing my personal fortune. And the people, all the people, have pledged their allegiance to their respective geographical boss. They need protection, and imitating ancient holy men gets you nowhere. Child services always shows up at the door demanding you cooperate with the racket, or else. And if youre like one of those stubborn Afghan goat herders, youre just gonna get face-slapped in front of your fiends anyway. We all know the parable of the kings uniformed guards and the handcuffed wife who had her head scarf urinated on... So this autumn I plan to get religion. I am crafting an armageddon wine bar out of an old telephone table. Among other doom-related paraphernalia, a sickle, ghost-piano playing, paintings of epitaphs and pagan joy, I plan to include a video installation of a private book burning. My theory is that the death of true religion is inversely proportionate to the massive CO2 inflation of our atmosphere. On top a knoll from my beautiful land in the country I will stage a religious book and sacred text conflagration The Torah, Bible, Koran, Bhagavad-Gita, the Sutras, excerpts from the Rig Veda, the Kabbala, the Dead Sea Scrolls, maybe even relics like a cherished slice of Muhammads cactus toilet paper, or a whole American Indian mouth, since none of those goobers had the sense to write anything down... I will throw the whole kit and caboodle of religion onto the pyre. A makeshift cauldron, chock full of ice, will be suspended over the blaze. My hope is that as the books burn, the ice will melt, and fresh water will spill over the blaze, distinguishing the fire. Maybe Ill pontificate some of my own religious paranoia, or sing a song, or chop wood alongside the hot burning spectacle of pretend blasphemy. The point I need to make is that because supernatural fear is dead among the well-fed of the world, desire for and obtainability of creature comforts has risen exponentially. Manufacturer Greed married Consumer Narcissist and now their children demand an iPhone. All desires have been met and exploited. Smallpox hasnt stopped by for a visit in over a century. The dreaded childhood diseases have virtually disappeared. Sure, Malaria and Cholera still visit the poor and desperate, but the poor and desperate are an ocean away from the obscene comforts of a McDonalds Playland. And those unfortunate no-nothings still possess a wild fear of the supernatural, therefore possess neither the power nor the will toward annihilation. Merely 200 years ago European pioneers of my local paradise could be downright God-praising thankful with a hard packed floor and a daily self-gathered

and cooked meal in February. Today one should expect nothing less than marble tile imported from Moldavia, and a dinner of Colorado beef, Guatemala Brussels sprouts, Michigan butter, Spanish olive oil, Japanese rice noodles, Mediterranean salt, Mexico avocado and California greensall washed down with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, imported on an airplane from Argentina... If Johnny and Susy arent dead from starvation or disease by their fifth birthday, then there is more time and energy available to improve upon the lives of the family. Johnny will leave the farm and open a hardware store in the vil- lage. Suzy will go to college and marry the son of an industrialist. Just this turn of one generation might triple their output of CO2. Proportionately their fear of punishment after death has subsided, and church or synagogue or mosque has become a symbolic hour a week of going through the motions. Their children perform the ritual, but with more expensive presents under the Christmas tree, a golden dradel, or imported Medjool dates for Eid ul-Fitr. Most of their children abandon all houses of worship and scientifically become agnostic or atheist. A very few, usually the fringe of perverse, will buy into the hypocrisy of fundamentalism, and twist their saviors message of peace and love into a military-industrial occupation of their brains. So no surprise that relinquishing a total fear of God has become the final wrath from Mother Earth and Father Sunour eternal, true worship-worthy deities. These two manifest omnipotents didnt seem to care much that false gods were praised during the rise of agriculture, as long as the creepy bipeds kept the ppm levels static. The less they know, the better, counseled Father Sun. Then harvests grew, science blossomed, children lived to a ripe old age, and civilization warped in definition to mean, stay politely out of the way of the millionaires dear children, whilst they rape your fruitful mother dry. So the Armageddon Wine Bar will be a big hit this year at the local art association. Everybody will get the picture and leave with the promise to neither wash their hands nor ingest a life-saving antibiotic ever again. Children will suffer. Many will die young, and soon there will be a push to re-enshrine the old saviors of yesteryear. Johnny will lay shivering on his death bed, and Mother will hold the Good Book to her breast, praying every second for the fever to go down. Father will wail from the barn begging not to be forsaken. The fever will lift, the family heave sighs of thanks, and although Johnnys blind as a mole now, at least his wretched life was spared, and nobody ever dreamed again a credit card fantasy shopping spree. Suzy got good at shearing. Johnny whittled pegs by the fire. And they lived the dutiful life of fear of smite from an angry God, and prospered more or less.

Superstition is the only way back to survival. Science can prop up our numbers into the billions of healthy and strong. Though I dont see the light of how it will maintain these numbers for several more decades. Do you?