Archive for December, 2021

For those unfamiliar with the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, I’ve provided some FAQs to help people reacquaint themself with the great Savior:

1. Did Jesus ever get stoned? No, but many times he came close to getting stoned when he ran afoul of the Romans.
2. Did Jesus write anything? Nope. All his gospels are “as told by.” Think of them as being ghost written – by the Holy Ghost.
3. Did Jesus have dates? Yes. Hundreds of them. He loved dates and they were a very abundant and cheap food source in the greater Judea area.
4. Did Jesus’s brother James, suffer from an inferiority complex? Yup. How could he not? His older brother was a light unto the world, whereas James once lit a manger on fire. Surprisingly though, James could change water into ice, but only if the temperature dropped below 32°.
5. Does Jesus have the ability to integrate the content of all your applications into one seamless platform? Child please!
6. Why doesn’t Jesus just return and shower the world in beatific love? He has. Several times, but most people are antagonistic toward this itinerant, long-haired hippie spouting off about doing unto others and loving thy neighbor. He’s had poor management of late – like Elvis did in the 1970s. Where’s an apostle when you need one.
7. How dark was Jesus’ skin? Let’s put it this way – he wouldn’t exactly be welcomed in some of his churches today.
8. If Jesus had a residency in Las Vegas, what would he perform? Well, he’d probably kickoff the show with Sermon on the Mount and maybe follow that up with a version of “Crocodile Rock.” He’d blow away illusionist David Copperfield’s disappearing spectacles. Instead of making an elephant vanish, Jesus would do the same with hate and anger. Great stuff. At the end of the show I’d envision a mic drop and then an ascension up through the proscenium arch.
9. Did Jesus have any tattoos? Yes. One. It read: WWMD – What Would Moses Do.
10. Did he throw a ball like a girl? No way. Not JC. In fact he could slingshot a rock better than David (not me, but the Biblical David,).
11. Was Jesus musical? Kinda. He could play air versions of all the popular instruments back in the day: air drums, air flute and a mean air harp. And yet he was scrupulous about never putting on any airs.
12. Who cut Jesus’s hair? A very young Barbara Walters.
13. Was Jesus at Woodstock? Inconclusive. He would’ve blended in so well with the rest of the hippies, nobody would’ve noticed except maybe Crosby, Stills and Nash who referred to him in their song Woodstock, “Well I came upon the child of God, he was walking along the road…”
14. Was Jesus aware of the dangers of asbestos? No…asbestos we can tell anyway.
15. Did Jesus get along with his father? Yes, although he thought his dad was kind of an absentee father, who was there in spirit only.
16. Do people still love Jesus today? Well yes, but people seem to love the “idea” of Jesus more than actually practicing his message of non-judgment, self-reflection, forgiveness and the Golden Rule. Many use his good name to fleece their flock of donations to buy mansions on the ground, instead of mansions in the sky.

 

“Holy holiday on ice, Batman,” exclaimed 9-year old David Hardiman, upon hearing the jolliest words of the holiday season. It was 6:30 in the morning and I’d waited breathlessly in paralytic anticipation next to the radio for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably about the time it takes for a snowflake to fall lazily to earth. This unexpected Snow Day electrified my body with ripples of sheer joy, causing me to shimmy down the hallway in a funky celebratory gyration – like the way Steph Curry does after swishing a spectacular trey.

 

Ode to Joy for this Snow Day – Well at Least Owed to Somebody I Suppose

For my snow day good fortune I felt a great debt of gratitude to somebody or something. This bonus day, this meteorological windfall, this unexpected gift of the Magi was way better than frankincense, myrrh or gold. It was the pinnacle of pre-pubescent happiness. And when I think of the small world I inhabited in the early 1970’s, I’m surprised I even fit into it. But fit I did, and some experiences were tailor made for me. Case in point: a sweet and dearly unearned school “snow day” – or as we called them back in the days of the Ice Capades, a “Holiday on Ice.”

 

When those cheery words “All Syracuse public schools are closed” were broadcast over the airwaves from on high, all public school pupils were elated, and all the pupils’ pupils were dilated. This eye-opening experience allowed us to see our way clear to a sensuous morning of deep, cozy hibernation nestled in our beds, followed by a strenuous afternoon of deep, snowy celebration sledding with our friends.

y

As it was, we were already knee-deep in juvenile joy because the brawny forces of nature had defeated the bureaucratic powers of mandatory school attendance. Truant officers would have to find someone else to hassle today, because when afternoon came we’d be chest deep in snow drifts – and that’s no drift. I mean, and that snow drift was huge.

 

In my little 9-year-old way I realized that when mounds of the white stuff triggered a school closing, it was a kind of “white privilege” that everyone could share in equally. Snow: the equal opportunity precipitate.

 

My early Christmas present was given me by WNDR’s “Dandy” Dan Leonard – 1260 AM on your radio dial. His unctuous radio inflections are imprinted on me like a tattoo I can’t remove. The larger point however, was that there’d be no school on this fiercely-snowing, traffic-snarling Tuesday in the arctic tundra masquerading as the city of Syracuse, NY, and I couldn’t have been any happier if Marcia Brady had asked me to a sleepover. Read the rest of this entry »