Pilots love to bitch, and breakfast at the Sofitel in Jeddah during the Hajj, is always a bitching session. Fed up with Saudi Arabia, Arabs, and the Saudis in particular, Islam is usually the butt of our jokes.
Mark Lippi, “Herr-Lippi” poses this question to us… “what do you call an Arab with a slab of pork on his head?… ‘Ham-head,’ and what do you call an Arab with two slabs of pork on his head? … ‘Mo-Ham-head’…. and what do you call that same fuckin’ Arab with two slabs of pork on his head, squattin’ on his vibrator?… ‘Sheik Mo-Ham-Head,’ get it?”
This is my 37th day without a beer,” moans Wally Hudson, “fuckin’ sandbox!”
“Herr-Lippi” asks: “What were Mohammed’s final words to the Arabs, before he ascended to heaven?” ….silence, Mark’s on a roll “Act stupid until I return!”
Not to be outdone, Bubba adds: “Hey Mark, Mohammed returned… He told them ‘I didn’t mean that stupid!’”
“Fuckin’ beans and rice again,” Wally complains.
Mark, “Moses and Jesus and Buddha are meeting for coffee and donuts They’re discussing their comparative religions…. One of them looks up, looks around, and asks ‘where’s Mohammed?’… ‘Oh yeah, says Moses, ….Hey Mohammed, more coffee!’”
Jimmy Lynch, with his mouth full of rice, The fuckin’ Saudi’s and their fuckin’ squattin’ attitude. They invented nothing, developed nothing. The Brits and Americans found the oil, and did it all for them. Look at them, strutting like Allah’s fuckin’ chosen people.”
Herr-Lippi leans forward and pulls his glasses loosely down to the tip of his nose. “Hey, Bubba, what did Moses say to God, when God offered that the Jews become the chosen people?”
“What?”
Mark feigns studying the contract presented by God for Moses’ signature. Mark peers left over his shoulder (looking at the Arabs). Then looks down closely at the “contract.” Looking over his right shoulder, at God, Mark says: “Moses says to God” (this in a pretty good broken Jewish/Yiddish accent): ‘Now let me get this straight…THEY (the Arabs over his left shoulder) get all the oil…and WE get to cut the heads of our WHAT off?”
Al-Waleed, turning serious now, “Al Brandon is great for the pilots, but fuckin’ Lithgow is a snake, a fuckin’ opportunist, he’d sell anybody out for money!”
“Yeah,” I volunteer, “for a quarter of a million a year he’s gonna get someone killed. Lithgow’s gonna’ force someone into a dangerous situation and it’ll bite him in the ass someday….. look at Jesus, He was an opportunist, and look what it got him!”
“Rabbi, you got too much Jew showin"’ says Sheamus O’Connor, as he relieves me of the podium.
“Jesus was no opportunist,” Sheamus continues, “He was a young schmuck, duped by his own parents. Jesus was an unwitting patsy.”
“Oh shit,”… Father Larry’s had enough. Gruffly bidding the room goodnight, he storms from this sacrilege towards his room.
Sheamus continues his argument, “Jesus’ parents were con-artists, con-men…”
“No, they were con-menschen,” (I can’t let the opportunity pass).
Unfazed, Sheamus continues, …“Do you think that because this all happened 2000 years ago, there were no con-artists? Human Nature’s never changed, for a full 3600 years before there ever was a Jesus, Jews were crawling out of tents every couple hundred years or so, claiming to be the Jewish Messiah.”
We were all beaming now, not knowing exactly where Sheamus is heading, but sure it’ll be a bruising, brilliant and fun ride.
“Mary and Joseph were a couple of Jewish kids who got pregnant on a road trip, so to speak. The carpentry business was slow at the time, so they came up with the virgin birth routine. All that attention, man it was great in the beginning, meeting Kings and wise men. Free meals, housing, and the limelight, man, the limelight… fame is a powerful drug… they rode that scam for all it was worth.”
Sheamus pauses to sip from his Swann’s fake beer. A pink mole of a tongue burrows out of his lips to tidy up his mustache, then retreats.
“Their only problem was that Jesus bought into the story, hook, line and Torah!” He smirks, leaning forward, knowingly, “One night in bed, Mary whispers in Joseph’s ear that she’s troubled, she’s worried about Jesus …. ‘He’s starting to believe that he really is the Messiah, and Joe, our baby’s going to get into trouble.’ Joseph tells her not to worry, ‘when the kid’s a little older, when they think he can handle it, they’ll tell him the truth.—
“They just waited too long,” Sheamus explains, “Yeah, poor, dumb kid, he got hoist on their wooden petard, permanently!”
“You are saying that our Lord Jesus Christ was not the son of God? Is that what you’re saying?” Father Larry demands, having returned (smelling sweetly of Sediki) to bravely defend the faith.
Al-Waleed answers for Sheamus, “Jesus was a pain-in-the-ass Jew Rabbi. He had this holier than thou attitude!”
“Look Larry,” Sheamus says, trying to calm him, “Don’t get into a snit. If Jesus was the son of God, He was into getting himself crucified. If he wasn’t, he’s just some delusional kid that came along, like they did every couple a hundred years or so for those first 3700 years, His crucifixion
just cleaned up the gene pool a bit. The poor dumb kid was on a trip started by his parents, and their scam overtook them. After all, it was only the most gullible Jews who took up the “Christianity thing,” strengthening the pure Jew-gene pool, by removing a considerable contingent of fools.”
Father Larry groans, gut-shot, stalking once again towards his room.
“Hey Sheamus,” I ask, “is this the philosophy that led to your t-shirt and bumper sticker business… Body piercing — Jesus loved it! ….And by the way, how’re sales?”
“Rabbi, you’re gonna’ roast in hell” Sheamus winks.
As I head for my room later that day, Father Larry intercepts me in the deserted hallway.
“Steve, Steve, com’ere.”
“What’s up, Larry?”
“Really, I know you were kidding earlier, right? You really believe in Jesus.”
“Larry, I think I’m actually an atheist. I don’t actually believe in a God.”
“Not even in a Jewish God?”
“No Larry, not Jesus, not Jehovah, not Buddha, not no one. I’m okay with it.”
Larry gets feisty now, his face reddening. “You are a character, and… and you have NO character,” he spits at me.
“Look Larry,” trying to calm him some, “character and integrity, that’s really about what you do when nobody’s looking.”
“I agree, that’s good. I agree.”
“Okay, Larry, so now we agree on something. But, I contend that the only true person of character and integrity is the atheist.”
“What…. where you comin’ up with that shit from?”
“Simple. If one of your believers does the right thing when nobody is looking, it could be because you think that God is always watching, keeping a secret tally of your sins. See, you always feel you’re being watched. Your doing the right thing, but you feel you’re under God’s constant scrutiny, like you can’t cheat.
“When an atheist like me does the right thing when no one’s watching, and there is no God watching, then that atheist is a true person of integrity and character.”
Father Larry seems stunned. “Devil’s spawn,” he declares, marching away from me, up the hall.