(One of) My Problem(s)

Here's the deal. I don't want to be serious. I hate being serious. It feels like I've had to be nothing but serious since August 29, 2005*. Like if I wasn't, it would be some kind of betrayal or defection from what's still happening around me. Melodramatic? Maybe, but there it is.

I want to be silly. Comedians are the prophets of our age, but that's not why. I like to laugh, especially (my wife says) at my own brilliance. In the School of Theatre, my friends would anticipate my presence in the audience with either dread or relief but for the same reason. My laugh. I don't just laugh. I have been likened to a hyena on more than one occasion. My brother is embarrassed to sit next to me in a movie. I laugh with my whole body and my whole heart. I have received the scowls of the old matinee ladies and their admonitions: "You should be more respectful of the actors."

A quick aside on the matinee ladies: The Cherry Orchard is a farce. It's fucking hilarious. Americans are just being stupid when they imagine it as post-modern tragedy. Nordic melancholy is dark and tragic; Russian melancholy is fucking funny.

Anyway, my laugh is recognizable in a room filled with 1000 people, all (hopefully) laughing themselves and often when no one else is laughing at all. Nevertheless, "I could hear you out there," whether said with affection or derision, was always said with a smile.

And so I present to you a small piece of farcical brilliance that I recently posted on another blog. The blog is a Christian blog, but not a CHRISTIAN blog. Some setup - and no, I'm not linking you bastards there, he has enough trouble with me - The post is about Genesis and that it truly doesn't matter if it really happened or if Moses made it up or maybe God told Moses to make it up. That last bit got me thinking. Suspend your disbelief for a short time and enter such a world.

In my head with this one, God is appearing to Moses in the form of the guy who played Xerxes in 300 and Moses is more of a Bruce Willis unwilling-but-kick-ass hero type. Die Hard in a robe and a beard. Yeah.

GOD:So you know now what you have to do.
MOSES: I suppose. What if they need proof? What should I tell them about all of this?
GOD:Well, you see, I created matter. Then I compressed all the matter into an infinite space. Then it, um, exploded.
MOSES: What? Why?
GOD: Never mind, just tell them that I what I had left was a bunch of fiery rocks and I picked this one to cool down enough to put some living things on it, then guided those living things through the eons.
MOSES: Fine, but where did WE come from?
GOD: Honestly? I got the idea while I was working on monkeys.
MOSES: Are you fucking kidding me?
GOD: What? I like monkeys. (aside)Should have just quit while I was ahead.
MOSES: That’s never gonna fly. Maybe we should just forget the whole thing.
GOD: Look, if you don’t like it my way, then just make your own story. Whatever, I don’t care. Just get them on board so we can get the hell out of Egypt. I hate it here.
MOSES: sigh You got it. I'll come up with something.
(Moses turns to go down the mountain)
GOD: Hey, Moses.
MOSES: Yes, my Lord?
GOD: Don’t fuck this up.
MOSES: (walking away, to himself) What the fuck is an eon, anyway?

I would totally watch that movie.

/suspension of disbelief

You may resume your lives of despair and nothingness.

Also, this is a work in progress. No stealing. :)

*Except on Thursday nights (City of Heroes night) and just generally whenever I can lie down next to my wife and think about nothing but how silly the cats are. But publicly I'm very serious.