FANZINE

Here’s preacher farts! Behold, then read on…

No, but seriously, I was trying to ponder the real meaning of Christmas this morning, so I watched a movie called What Would Jesus Buy, which is about this guy Reverend Billy’s crusade to get people to think about what they purchase, epecially during the holidays, and where it all comes from, and of course everything not made in America comes from Asian sweat shops according to Billy, and so Billy goes out and gets people’s attention by dressing up in a white suit and touring the country on a bus with a full hallelujah choir and stops in Walmarts and other corporate retail places and tells people to stop shopping or else! Well not really or else, but really there’s a good message there behind his manic, demagogic anti-demagoguery.  You’d think it would be a real holiday downer, like having Ian MacKaye yell at you for hours on end, but it’s not.¹

By the time he ends up in Disneyland for the coup de grace (he sneaks in donning a great Chris Penn style jump style suit and then Voila! the white suit was there all the time underneath! and there’s the choir! All draped in red, having snuck their gowns in as well …and they march and sing, and then, oh no, he gets arrested again… but then, hey, that’s what would have happened to Jesus, right?) um… Anyway all of this just made me realize how perfectly great and phony Christmas is.  I even started loving my new eco-friendly fake tree that I moaned about last night when it was brought home already almost fully decorated and with no smell to it.

Speaking of smells, what I miss is the odorama of John Waters and his Castro street holiday Christmas specials.  Those were the shit, and what else should Christmas should be about, but people getting together and laughing (watching someone carol out of their ass or whatever).  In case you didn’t click that video about the preacher farts², go back and do it now, it’ll get your heart rate up enough that you might just go and hug someone. If you do I swear an angel will get their wings and you’ll feel a lot better than/about shopping.

I guess when you are done with that you can start googling about sweat shops. They are real.

And lord if I can’t think of a better Dickensian tie in, you’ll just have to add this spiel to the long list of cynical musings that you’ll hear this time of year in this fucking great Louis Armstrong/Flaming Lips kind of Wonderful World, but if I don’t finish writing this and feeling guilty for whatever I do I’ll never have time to finish internet shopping … Merry Christmas, don’t let the terrorists win! Shop! (but just think before you do, yeah? Right? I dunno).

_-McSCROOGE

<sup>1. I’m kidding about MacKaye…I miss Fugazi.
2. If you were instead looking for cake farts go here (but don’t click if not 18 and up, kids).
3. BTW just noticed it’s kind of fun to get preacher farts, cake farts and fugazi all going at the same time, don’t ask why.
4. Alright that’s enough internet for the day.</sup>