Round Yon Virgin...

Christmas Day comes to all. The day we have all been kinda waiting on is now: Peace on Earth Good Will toward man, but somehow it never works out that way. Once I have my share of rib roast and Yorkshire pudding, open a few gifts, kiss a few babies, and pull the tube's plug, I realize once again: ‘we’ve been had, boys.’ If insanity is defined by how many times you keep trying the same exact thing, expecting a different result, I ask you: how fucking nuts am I really, doc? Tell me. Yet, we carry on and abide. And, I don’t know about you, but it gives me great comfort to know, that so long as there will be next year’s Christmas Eve and an annual showing of The Lion in Winter, through some media source, we – read ‘me’ - will, indeed, abide.

Sitting on the porcelain throne in a semi-altered state on Christmas morn, I muse the original point of it all. Paying tribute to the concept of one’s faith in someone’s baby - one that may not even turn out to be the child we thought we saw coming - is the most likely reason FS can be stupefied, and not high-tailing it into work first thing on a Monday morning. And, let’s face, it: it’s not about the kid or origins. No, it seems to come down to a concept; it’s about the representation of what the child is, stands for, and more importantly the notion that over half the world’s population offers up ‘blind’ faith to him/it. This tribute to a child has moved forward through the centuries in many ways, and has occurred in countless countries around the world and throughout time, probably even before this particular puppy picked up some good management and began to make a real name for himself. Tribute is one thing. Blind faith another. OK, some might say, there is nothing blind about it, because, because…Because why? Because someone told us it was true. Ahhhh. Someone told us it was true. Who then told us it was true? ‘Them.’ ’They.’ You know, the guys who hang around with ‘him’ back in the day. Oh, the back-in-the-day-dudes. Well, that’s a bird of a different feather. Who, after all, wouldn’t believe the specifics, the fine details, the particulars of almost EVERYTHING related to one person who lived over 2000 years ago; and lived at a time where, dig it, there was absolutely NO SOCIAL MEDIA! One of FS’s primary considerations in life: if the message did not get disseminated through social media or the interweb; it just did not happen. So, we are left with a problem as to the veracity of where this so-called faith in the meaning and importance of one youngster’s bloodline is coming from. And with that, I cannot help you. Try one of those fancy, new DNA testing sites who’ll connect you in a close relationship to Ivan the Terrible for a modest fee.

So sorry to disappoint, but there comes a point in everyone’s life where it is likely he or she must engage in self-determination on this very subject. Why? I have no fucking idea, but it seems to be a prime driver in the hierarchy of man’s needs as perceived by people that always, as we learn, have some other self-interest at heart. Personally, I have always found it offensive to have some human – whether he is wearing the correct robes, rings, and headgear or not – to advise, opine, and basically force-feed me words that have been created by other such men; played out like a game of Telephone and parlayed down the phone line, so to speak, through the eons to the point where we are sitting with no less than a dozen versions of what the alleged words mean, to whom they are attributable, or if they even existed in the first place. For my money, I look at it all as spiritually connecting to a giant, well-shaped, tit, metaphorically speaking (or thumb for those of you who got shortchanged by mommy, back during the nursing-period), extended throughout time on a seemingly-permanent basis in the hope that those of us who grow into a state of unease, disbelief, or sense of helplessness at various points in our life will attach their faith and do what any bewildered, hungry person might do – place their lips around the nipple and suck gently and nourishingly.

Happy Christmas.