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ME

What terrorists and communists and dictators hate most of all is guys like me. Guys who make a living writing the kind of stuff you are reading right now. Humor, comedy, satire-these are the first things to go out the window in any society ruled by an iron fist or organized religion. Remember the uproar in Muslim countries over political cartoons lampooning the prophet Mohammad a couple of years back? Their first response was, of course, abrupt and absolute violence and when that was ridiculed they decided to publish their own Hitler and Bush Jr. cartoons. Which, of course, weren't funny.

In America, you have the freedom to say/paint/sing/dance or film whatever you want, and within your chosen medium you can satirize/ denigrate/lampoon/cajole or blister any place, person or thing. Except Jesus.

Oh boy-stay away from Jesus.

I still remember years ago when Rudolph Giuliani was mayor of New York, an up-and-coming painter no one had ever heard of had a showing at a gallery in the city that included a piece in which the Virgin Mother was either urinating on Jesus or vice versa. I can't remember-which probably shows just how lapsed a Lapsed Catholic I truly am. Giuliani held a press conference and announced that such a piece of so-called art would never be displayed while he was the boss of the Big Apple. Much press coverage and many lawsuits ensued. Giuliani's approval rating shot through the roof. The Catholic Church went crazy. And considering how crazy the Catholic Church is to begin with-well-nuff said. I love an organization that says you can't paint an abstract portrait of Jesus or His Mom because that would be sacrilegious but hey-if you happen to see the face of Our Lord The Saviour or His Mom in a grilled cheese sandwich or in a bunch of random wood knots on a bathroom door or even in the wet birdshit-ridden bark of a public golf course maple tree-it's a miracle!

Call CNN! See if we can get Anderson Cooper down here-even though he's gay and we believe Jesus hates him!

I met Jesus once at a party in Boston sometime during the summer of 1985. He slipped out of a cloud of smoke in the living room-full beard, long hair, flannel shirt, scabby hands, the whole nine yards (I figured the flannel shirt was his way of fitting in a little). He walked up to me and said "Hey-they orderin' pizza or what?" I was so stunned, I didn't have the chance to tell him I think so but lemme ask you about the whole hell-fire and damnation thing and whether The Clash will get back together or not because he kinda snarled at my silence and disappeared back into the crowd. My first reaction was shit-he better not hit on Ann (then my girlfriend and now my wife. By the way-I trust my wife now and I trusted her even then but, c'mon-we're talking about the Son Of God here. Even though she hates beards-who knows what tricks he has up his Holy Sleeve). Later when the pizza came I saw Jesus grabbing a slice and heard someone call him Doug and realized that in fact he wasn't the Messiah but a stonemason cousin of the guy throwing the party AND I'd had about seventeen beers and eight shots of Jameson's. So there ya go. Ya see what ya wanna see.

I was raised under the thumb of organized religion-I did twelve years in a Catholic school. The beauty of it was, the nuns and the priests and the monsignors and the bishops pretty much forbade laughter in the classroom and the hallways and in the church itself and all that led to was us laughing and giggling. When they published the list of banned books and records and movies in the church newsletter every Sunday, guess which books and records and movies we immediately sought out.

So-talk about simple math-because of Giuliani's public outrage and the front cover stories in the New York Post and the fact that it takes weeks to get the legal system lined up-the painter's little-known show became a sold-out sensation. Yup-it was good old-fashioned American-style capitalism gone wild. No one talked about whether the