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Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

Thank God for the Journalists at the Onion.

Tellin' it like it is!

'Cuz it's almost Monday.....that's why!

And here is Mr. Zombie (with a little help from Jim Carrey) to thrown down his services for your listening pleasure.

PLAY IT LOUD.



Thanks KC!

scorched earth policy

First thing in my Naomi morning I grabbed the phone, called in sick at work and was goddamned glad to do it.

Then I took her to a breakfast place I hoped she might enjoy. I took her there because I was starving and I took her there because I didn’t want to let her go. I had bacon and eggs with potatoes on the side, everything good and hot. She ordered buckwheat banana pancakes. When the waitress set the plate down in front of her Naomi immediately smothered them in syrup and I never saw a girl eat pancakes or anything else the way she did; she ate like it was her last chance to do it on her last day on the planet.
Naomi didn't talk while she ate, I liked that. She’d pause for a smile and a,
“OOOOOOOOOOO” or
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” and
“MMMMMMMMMM!” every now and again or maybe it was just to catch her breath, I didn’t know but she polished off her plate like she was shoveling coal into an engine before she looked at me and beamed. Orgasmic.

“Oh thank you Walter… Oooh how I loved that. It was perfect.”

Then she sipped her coffee and grinned at me wickedly over the rim of the cup. Something about her hunger made me want to drop to my knees, crawl under the table and bury my face between her wonderful thighs but I got busy with the fork instead and managed to stick to my eggs.

I noticed men sitting at tables near us cutting not-so-subtle glances in her direction, whether they were with women or not. I knew how they felt. If she noticed anybody watching her it was impossible to tell. She seemed oblivious to anything but me and her cup. Over the coffee I unreeled my best sales pitch ever and pretty quick we decided to pick up her bags from the Hostel and move them over to my apartment so she wouldn’t have to bother about paying for a place to stay. Neither one of us mentioned how long she’d be in town; I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want her to get any leaving ideas.

When I’d woke up next to her that morning and for the first time I felt like I was still in a dream, the star of a great movie, undisputed Champion of the World and as far away from the railroad as I’d ever been. I touched her everywhere to make sure she was real. When Naomi woke up smiling a happy little girl smile she showed me exactly how real she was. She slid her warm lips down my body, swallowed me whole and sucked me until I had to pull her mouth off. Forcefully. I had to do that because I needed her legs around me like I needed to breathe. As I drove my cock into her, her angel face was a portrait of pleasure and pain, lust and longing. When I sprayed my cum onto her she kissed me breathlessly and didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.
For now she would stay in my bed and that’s all I wanted her to think about, I didn’t want her to ever even begin to think of leaving me. I wanted her thinking about joining me. After our breakfast we rode back to the Hostel and when I watched her rock that tight little caramel ass into the doors to pick up her stuff I had plenty of good thoughts of my own, enough for both of us.
When she walked back out with her bags in her hands I never felt more proud of anything I’d ever accomplished in my entire life up until that day.
I jailbreaked it back to the apartment, hustled her through the door and threw those bags on the floor. Then I threw her onto the bed. She laughed and I dove in. That’s the way I wanted it. See?

'Cuz it's Monday.....That's Why!

And yes I know that Johnny Cash's version is superior and say what you will but Reznor knocks this one out of the park.

Period.



Welcome to the Pain.

Interview with JC- Part II

AB: And we're back. So, Jesus..........the Miracles...um.....well, where do I start?

JC: Bill, before we even begin to explore the....uh........mysteries........let me just state right up front that you have to remember that these.......events...happened in a very, very different Time and Place in every sense of the word and we really have to bear that in mind as we go along and also, please try to keep the Big Picture as our main focus rather than.....you know........getting ourselves all bogged down over every tiny detail about who saw what and how many and, well................... you gotta remember we're talking about at least a couple thousand long years ago over here, you know sometimes even I'm a bit foggy as I look back.
I mean.......whew.....talk about a crazy time!

AB: I hear you. I can't remember what I did last weekend without looking at my schedule.

JC: That's all I'm saying.

AB: Check.

JC: Just to give you an idea of the craziness though, you wanna take a wild guess at the average life expectancy back then? The Romans calculated it....but then they were always good at that kind of stuff.
Crazy about statistics those people. Nutty for numbers.
Great little census takers they were.

AB: Hmmmm...... lemme see............45? 50?

JC: If you happened to be a Roman Senator maybe. (chuckles)
No, Billy it was 29 years young for men and if you were lucky enough to make it that far in the upright position you were officially an Elder Statesman and had to consider your life a splendid success. Anything after that was pure gravy, trust me, gravy.
Women?
If you weren't married by 12 you pretty much had to resign yourself to spinster exile or, you know, turn pro and from what I heard, neither option was any picnic and, suffice to say, there weren't any retirement plans back in those days, you were damn lucky to die on the job.
Times were tough!
Yep.....We didn't call it the Good News for nuthin'!
And Brother, there wasn't much of that around.

AB: Rough. But I did want to get to at least some of the Miracles today...

JC: (spreads his arms in welcoming gesture, smiles)

AB: For example, the famous “walking on water” incident. How or why or WOW!
Can you tell us about it?

JC: Absolutely. But let's just remember that this all started on a fishing trip.

AB: Oh, really? OK. Didn't know that.

JC: Been on many fishing trips, Billy?

AB: Actually no. I'm kind of a City Boy myself.

JC: Well, let me paint you a picture-
A bunch of men taking a little time off from the grind, no wives, no gf's, a couple of cases of wine, a good day on the water, peace, quiet, the whole schmear.
Knowhattamean?

AB: I think I follow. Little drinking happening that day?

JC: Just a bit. Not too much fishin' tho'. (winks)

Well anyhow it looks like a lovely day, for once, and we're sailing along across the lake at our leisure when this black little storm starts making a move for us and so I decide, pretty wisely I thought, to call it a day.
Unfortunately, somebody, I forget who...think it was Peter.....always something with that guy....gets the bright idea to turn the boat back into the front, for kicks I guess, just as we're finally heading to the far shore somehow still in one piece.

Well long story short- He loses the sail, flips it in the waves and everybody's gotta swim for it....I had to make sure everyone was clear of the boat so I was the last one to make it in............Pete and the rest of the Guys gawkin' from the beach.
The next day when they got back home, sobered up a bit and had to have an explanation for no fish and losing the boat, and that was no small expense either, they, you know.......mentioned to about anyone who'd listen that they thought they may have seen me.......well..........walking on the waves.
Well, you know, we didn't have the internets but word got around.

AB: Walking?

JC: Bill lemme tell ya', the real thing was better than walking.
Brother I was flyin' through that water!
And that was some tall chop too, this wasn't no Olympic swimming pool with a surface like glass like nowadays. I tell ya' that Michael Phelps kid couldn't of kept up with me that day!
Yea buddy, I was a heck of an athlete back then....heckava good little athlete........and you should've seen me wrestle!
Coulda' went to the Coliseum and cleaned up. Betcha' didn't know that. (sighs)

Good Ole Pete, you hadda' love him but sometimes...................Oi!
You just wanted to give him a swift kick, you know?

AB: Got it.
Howabout the “feeding of the multitudes” events? 5,000 and 4,000 fed with just a handful of loaves and a fistful of fish. Care to share?

JC: Yea.......well, first of all you have to sort of keep an open mind about that multitudes figure.
I mean, who was counting? Hey, we weren't selling tickets!
We were giving it away!
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
And this word, “multitude”? What's a multitude?
No direct translation in the original Hebrew. That's a fact.
Multitude, schmultitude I say.............it was a lot of good people is what it was.


AB: Gotcha.

JC: But this was a great story. And great, great crowds too!


Next- Part III

scorched earth policy

If change it was then let it come, I was ready for it and more than ready.

You know the guy at work who doesn’t give a quick shit about anything? The one who the supervisors really can’t tolerate because the very existence of such a seemingly carefree presence inside their holy temple of the almighty paycheck is an affront to their own fragile dignity and an intolerable challenge to their flimsy self worth? The guy whose mere entrance into an office is the equivalent of someone pulling the pin on a grenade and rolling it into the room? The happy asshole that never seems to be bothered by anything no matter how bad things get? The one who comes back to the salt mine smiling and whistling a happy tune the day after he’s burned his last sick day? The misfit? The fuckup? The loser?

I was that guy but I had lots of company.

The place was the railroad and I’d been working on it for ten long years and had heard all the jokes but go ahead if it makes you feel any better. I worked in the largest RR station in the second largest city in the good ole U.S. of A., right smack in the middle of the country. Every passenger train in the nation that was heading from one coast to the other or anywhere in between passed in and through our little world, along with 20 or 30,000 suburbanite commuters dashing out of their morning trains and into their office cells and then bolting back to their evening express’ and subdivision prisons each and every day.
It was fun in the winter to watch the crowds freeze their asses to work while you kicked back to sip coffee and it was much better in summer when you got to enjoy the non-stop parade of tits and asses bouncing into and out of the station. Dodging supervisors in order to enjoy the sights wasn’t always easy but after 10 years most RRers considered work to be “optional” and avoided its assorted indignities with collective blue collar aplomb.

A lean decade ago I’d been busting my ass selling hardware and outdoor BBQ grills during the day and then liquor at night. I wasn’t any good at either but I did become adept at robbing the supply of airplane bottles (back in those days they sold them off a rack right behind the counter) from the store’s inventory and in some ways was sorry to see that gig go but I had an apartment full of mini-bottles to ease the pain and I hadn’t yet sold a single BBQ grill at the hardware store so when a drinking buddy mentioned to me about a job on the RR (sweetest deal you’ll ever find he assured me) it sounded like an idea. He’d been there sucking it up for years and enjoying his good life and I figured maybe it was my time. I was damn grateful.

I started off my illustrious RR career humping food to the kitchen cars on long haul trains and in my 10 years there I’d done most everything imaginable while I worked my way up to Janitor. It was a big place with plenty of opportunity to go nowhere.

There was the actual Union Station, which had been built in 1921 and remodeled in the 80’s before I got there; its exterior buildings squatted over two massive city blocks (one building a neo-classical Grand Old Lady and the other the ubiquitous 70’s glass and steel box brick) and were surrounded in two squares by eight main downtown arteries with traffic and an army of taxis buzzing it like twin hives. One building was strictly for office use and the other contained a health club for yuppies along with numerous shopping opportunities and both buildings were jammed with fast food places (and the army of workers that were needed to staff and clean them) to feed the huge herds of lazy fat ass office slugs who poured in daily to stuff their faces with grease. There were even a couple of pathetic bars catering to the commuters that wanted to talk big city tough before they walked all of a hundred yards to get on their trains back to their split levels and faceless condos with their sterile oasis parking lots filled and their 4-wheeled pride and joy waiting faithfully to confirm the righteousness of their existence.

It all got going around 5 in the morning and didn’t stop until after midnight. Depending on the season and where you stood around the Station, it was a great place to waste time or hunt for pussy. If you had to work somewhere there were worse gigs, I’d had a lot of them.

Then there were the Yards- About 3 miles of tracks stretching north and 3 miles south along the river with the station right in the middle like the head of a giant octopus. Around a hundred commuter trains shared the 20 or so tracks with Passenger rail trains daily. It was no small operation. All those miles of track required daily maintenance and it required working in the sub-zero winter and blazing hot summer to do it and so, consequently, I avoided those jobs whenever possible.

Just under a mile south from the station was the largest post office in the nation and the tracks ran right underneath it. We hauled mail on the trains and had a huge decrepit facility for loading, unloading and shipping it up top to the postal guys. This cooperative enterprise had been in existence since the 20’s and had seen its better days.

The mail terminal was an ancient 3 level labyrinth (only one of the levels being above ground) filled with vast tunnels too long to walk through (so we raced through them on little battery operated tugs used to haul heavy loads), dim 30’s lighting, cubbyholes, steam pipes, chutes, ladders, dilapidated conveyer belts that went nowhere, weird mad scientist machine shops and decrepit locker and lunch rooms used for sleeping, drinking and watching TV.
Sometimes we had lunch there too.
The tunnels were so endless that a legion of cats had taken up residence years ago and roamed freely as they feasted on leftovers and whatever else lived down there. Everyone was happy they were there because we all considered the alternative, which surely would’ve been monster horrorshow rats.

The mail terminal had once been a booming enterprise.
Back in the depression years and all the way through the 60’s it’d been the one sure place where a man could make a honest living and get a decent paycheck to feed his kids with, but in the 90’s, it had fallen on hard times and its giant ghostly caverns of disrepair, echoing past gold rushes, were nothing but a sad reminder of the beginning of the end. Still, somehow, the mail terminal crews (now numbering only about 50 when once they’d been in the hundreds) retained a bitter, salty pride and tenaciously defended their territory. During rush hours when all the trains in the station would be gunning their engines at idle and pouring diesel fumes everywhere we’d crawl out of our underground locker/lounge/lair to go up top and sit and wait for the mail cars to back into our docks so we could pop the doors and unload. Sometimes we’d have to wait for 10 or 20 minutes, sometimes more and while you were up there you could see the air, it was an oily blue and it smelled of gasoline. The Old-Timers would plant themselves in their seats, light up and blow clouds of cigarette smoke through that oily blue air as if they were kicking back on a sunny beach next to the ocean while working on their tans. That was how they were. The collective personality was that of a mean old dog who knows his best days are past but is patiently waiting for you to come just a tiny bit closer so he can show you what he’s got left.
The favorite saying over there, snarled at all newcomers who dared invade their domain, was-
“You don’t want to work, go home.”
The hostility bubbling out of their mouths as they spit the words at you. I always felt perfectly comfortable there.
As it was considered “man’s work” women were generally unwelcome and, reading the writing on the wall, generally avoided the lovely environment altogether.

Then another mile or 2 down the river were a trailer and another loading dock used to transport truck containers onto and off of the trains. This department was dominated by a 17 year and up crew of 7 seniority drunks who were so solitary, surly and out of control that everyone, supervisors included, was happy to leave them alone and adrift at the end of our RR outpost. A lot of fellow employees tried to tag my buddy as the ringleader but I happened to know that he had no real interest in the position, perhaps it came to him naturally but to be sure he had no designs on it. They were known as the “River Rats”. No one went there to check on them and no one cared to and their place ran just fine until some management genius got the bright idea to fix the situation.
While the Rats were there the place ran like clockwork and had made a profit ( in spite of or because of their drunken antics no one knew), one of the few enterprises on the RR to do so, but after the genius’ solution it was another government money pit and the Rats headed back to the Station. I was already there.

I’d done just about every job in the place by that time. I’d hauled baggage, hauled food, hauled garbage- shipped, wrapped, loaded and unloaded every conceivable bike, bag, box and body- swept, mopped, scrubbed, wiped, vacuumed, power-washed and detailed every inch of its millions of square feet- I’d took tickets, checked baggage, answered questions, gave directions, fork-lifted pallets, hand-cranked wheelchairs holding giant fat asses into and off of the cars- I’d kicked ass, kissed ass and got booted in the ass more times than I could count and still I came back for more. You see I didn’t know much else.

So after my long decade of soul destroying labor and mind numbing monotony that zoo of a RR reminded me of nothing more, and certainly nothing less, than jail and in more ways than one.

First but not least, it was populated by what had to be the absolute lowest end of the social spectrum- dropouts, lead heads, mental defectives, lazy malcontents, the otherwise unemployable and guys that didn’t have the drive to become drug dealers. And scattered into the mix, just to keep it interesting I guess, just plain unlucky fucks who had somehow ended up there through little fault of their own. I fit right in somewhere and tried not to think about that too much.

Second, it’s overriding objective, the order of the day, the main theme on a minute to minute, hour after hour, day by day till the days turned into months and then those months turned into years grind and you finally understood why those nuts show up at work with automatic weapons; it’s very reason for existence seemed to be to finally, utterly and completely crush all individual hope of something better then ceaselessly pound the inmates into complete submission while simultaneously pulverizing any dreams of escape until the lowlifes who ran the place (desperate lifers themselves clinging tooth and nail to any firm hope of income and security) had everyone marching in line and saying “Yes sir” and “No sir” most sincerely only because it fit comfortably into their tiny vision of their tiny, dried up, lifeless world. Well maybe it wasn’t that much fun but almost.

And just like jail what you mostly got in response was drugs, drunks, fights, passion plays and bitter hatreds simmering steadily in slow-witted but deadly animal brains. The cast of characters was about the same as the slam too: every breed of nut, goofball, freak, psychopath, straight-john, honest-Abe, hustler, bullshit-artist, dope-fiend, boozehound, cocksucker, snitch and just plain fuck-ups represented equally, stirred into a hot pot and left to boil as soon as you punched the clock. It was about the same color as jail too. About 80% black, 10% white, 5% Latin and 5% Other. I was in the Other category and wouldn’t have had it any other way even if I could’ve but you can’t anyway, you know?

And it was all about Time.
The place ran on a seniority basis and that was the biggest fact of life and the most important factor in your RR existence. Every single inmate had his seniority date (date of hire) memorized and could quote it to you on demand, which we often did. The most moronic 20-year bum (and there were plenty to choose from) was infinitely more important in the scheme of things than any hard working go-getter with two years and no clues. Merit didn’t mean shit and if you struggled with that idea your life only got worse as the years crept past you. We’d say,
“There’s the right way, the wrong way and the railroad way.” And everybody knew what the hell that meant if you managed to punch in there everyday for ten years or so.
You had to go along with the ride.

My personal RR mentor, Marshal Decket, a handsome blue eyed devil, 20 yr. vet and besides Keith Richards the coolest white man on the planet, used to tell me between puffs on his cancerous non-filtered cigarettes as we kicked back and enjoyed the show,
“Hey Kid,” he called everybody Kid, “You can work hard or you can work easy,” then he’d pause to lean in with the punch line and his crocodile grin,
“But the pay’s the same.”
Once I learned that simple lesson the ride got much smoother. It only took me about 5 of those 10 years and a little drink every now and again to help shake out the kinks.

About the only difference between Us and the slam was that the constant threat of overt violence wasn’t always present as in the shithouse and also, more importantly, no one seemed to ever want to escape or just ever be free from it all. Every goofy jackass, desperate loser, smug winner and solid citizen clung to that gig and fought over it like two starving rats on the last piece of cheese. Oh they complained constantly and non-stop about how much they hated the place and everyone in it but when you said,
“Why don’t you just fuckin’ quit then.” Right into their faces they looked like they’d been slapped.
“I gotta pay those bills, you know.”
Yea don’t we all brother, don’t we all.

There were crazy old janitors, 30 year-plus lifers (janitors mind you! you know with the mop and the broom and the little dustpan all piled neatly onto their little cart they wheeled around with that familiar zombie shamble) working there who made 80- 90,000$ a year because they, literally, never went home. They’d work double shifts, 16 hours, swabbing out toilets, sweeping up cigarette butts and emptying garbage cans, in between long leisurely breaks of course, then wrestle for the third consecutive one when a young guy’d call off sick. If the cheese gave them any shit about not being able to work 3 consecutive shifts due to safety regulations they’d raise holy hell and quote Union rules and make phone calls until the bum ass supervisor would gratefully cave and give them the shift. This only happened when there was a rookie boss that hadn’t yet learned about life on the RR and wasn’t properly broken in yet. Then these lunatic lifers would do their third consecutive 8 hour shift, at time and a half of course (about 22.50$ per hour), again, slide into the locker room and sleep for a few hours (they had beds set up in there) then catch a quick shave at a locker room sink and come right back for their original morning shift smiling like they just got a blowjob from a movie star.
They took a day off every couple of months or so and took their 4 weeks of vacation every year and other than that they lived at the station.

I had a locker next to one of the oldest. An Irish character named Jim “peek-a-boo” Levy. He looked like W.C. Fields and had a similar misanthropic disposition. Everyone called him Peek-a-boo because he was always around but it was next to impossible to find him. He detested physical labor and successfully avoided it whenever possible. On the occasion of us meeting at our lockers to change, me into or out of street clothes, Peek-a-boo to change into a different blue uniform, always spotless, (in my ten years there I never saw Peek in anything other than his matching blue work pants and shirt with the same tired old boots), I’d say to him,
“Hey goldbrick, ain’t you dead yet?”
He'd squint at me sideways and retort.
“Yea the funny thing is, Rangel” here he’d almost snicker, “I’ll be going to your funeral.” winking, “Maybe take a nice piss on your grave.”
Then he’d make a to and fro peeing motion in front of our lockers, his pot belly sticking out hard and firm as a basketball.
We were very fond of each other
Whenever I came in to do my eight straight if I didn’t see that old bastard at least once I just figured he croaked. It was that rare not to spot him on the job sometime during the day or night. He had the vigorous pallor of one of those moles that lives under ground that you see on the Nature Channel and he waddled around the station like a suspicious spy and furtive pipe bomber.
And he was nowhere near the strangest of the bunch.

Interview with Jesus- Part 1

As part of a new and exciting feature of AnalogBlog, we are proud to present this first in a series of Personality Profiles and Interviews with prominent figures of the Past and Present.
But mostly the Past. (due to certain legal restrictions)
And so, as they say, without further ado-

Well what can I say to start this one off.....obviously someone who needs no introduction and has been for Centuries World renowned as a Philosopher/Savior/Messiah and All-Around Good Guy.......

AB: Mr. Jesus Christ, Thank you for sharing some time with us today and welcome to AnalogBlog.

JC: Thank you for having me Billy...and Jesus is just alright with me. (winks)

AB: Our pleasure. OK, Jesus it is.....although I stated that you needed no intro I guess I'm gonna try to sum up your, well, career for the 2 or 3 people out there who haven't yet heard of you.....

JC: (beaming, nods encouragement)

AB: You were born dirt poor in Bethlehem, a small town in what was then Jerusalem, about 2,000 years ago, give or take, to a carpenter named Joseph and a virgin named Mary (we'll get into that later) then had what was by all accounts a fairly normal childhood before establishing yourself as a leading Prophet/Revolutionary sometime in your early 30's as you rapidly gained a sizable and dedicated following along with unfortunate persecution from the Government before being falsely accused, arrested, convicted and crucified by the Roman Empire only a few years into your peaceful campaign, a ghastly death that oddly enough lead to your lionization, deification and eventual global preeminence these thousands of years later.....and now you're certainly one of the world's most recognized, if not always agreed upon, icons of religious faith and moral/ethical righteousness.
How's that feel today?

JC: (shrugs, grins bashfully) Well I'm absolutely humbled and grateful but I do want to straighten a few of the more minor details out before we all get too far off track here.

AB: The Virgin Birth thing, you mean?

JC: Oy! Billy please........I wasn't even there yet, you know what I mean? I mean let's stick to the stories where at least I was a Sentient Being, eh? Maybe like more than 1-day old, fer instance? Whattya say? (chuckles)

AB: Right, my bad.

JC: Virgin birth....... I mean, yikes! No comment.

AB: Gotcha. Well I've alluded to the fact that your Christian Faith and Following has since grown into the, what, at least 100's of millions of True Believers around the globe.....
Do you feel vindicated after such a brief period of spreading the Word before your untimely, earthly, death?

JC: Of course I'm pleased with the way the stories have grown and if they've helped the World to be a better, safer, more loving place then I'm happy but I was always pretty sure about the Message so vindication is not really a term I'd care to use.
Having said that, however, when I think of how easy it all could've been today what with the Internets and YouTubes and MySpaces......Oy! It gives me a pain!
I mean We were walking! In cheap sandals or barefoot!
Miles and miles from dusty little village to drought-ridden run-down towns, if you can call them that when most didn't even have a simple, common marketplace to get a bite or anything, and lucky to scrounge up a couple of half-starved goat herders or 5 or 10 near-dead farmers who weren't too exhausted to listen to the Good News. Maybe a few lonely fisherman on their 1 day off a year was a big crowd for Us.
Talk about rolling the rock uphill!

Now?

3 million hits in one week for that Lady with the voice over in England? How can ya' go wrong?
I give up!
Forget about it!
Great set of pipes tho'. Fact.

AB: Quite a lot has changed. Was all the hiking the major difficulty of spreading your Message of Non-judgemental Love and Forgiveness throughout the Middle East back then?

JC: I wish...oh how I wish it were.

AB: The Romans?

JC: The Romans were no treat, lemme tell ya'.....brother, they were building an Empire and they were gonna build it!
Slavery, torture, indiscriminate prosecution and murders.......what a collection of Hard-ons those guys. And try figuring out what they were gonna come up with next if you didn't want to sleep at night or get a moments peace.
And the taxes!
Trust me , you don't even know from taxes!

AB: So it was the Romans?

JC: no.........Billy, you know the main problem was and is the same hurdle we'd have to jump today. Ya' see Peace, Brotherly Love , Fairness, Forgiveness, Compassion, ........those are all tough, tough sells to the Money Men, then and now and that's really the nut buster right there.
And just try cutting into some shyster's established religious base sometime if you really wanna make your enemies line up with stones in their fists. Philistines...Yeeesh.....you can talk 'till you're blue in the face, don't get me started.

AB: I hear Ya'. But don't you think we could update the Message a little bit now.......give it some spin...sex it up a bit, you know, just to sort of freshen up the Brand and get the Kids into the tent, so to speak?

JC: Bill, (beatific smile) have faith. I got this one.

AB: 'Nuff said. Well, I guess the burning question so many readers are dying to ask, or should I say questions, concern the Miracles.
Any objections?

JC: Bring it on, Kid.

(Part II to follow.)