Friday, April 20, 2007

Wanted: One Good Satan

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we ... emm, excuse me.

(sniff sniff)

The cats are running for the crawlspace, and the sulfurous odors are multiplying by the second. That can only mean one thing...


Oh, yes. Here he is, my old ancestor Satan. Looking quite the picture in his evening attire.

Satan: Please call me "Mr. Applegate," Anne. You know I hate all those devil names.

Anne: And I hate you. So there! How about if I call you Stinky? It's more precise.

Applegate: Go ahead. Hurt my feelings. Where's your compassion? How would you like to have my job?



Anne: Not much, Stinky. (For my newer readers out there, I'd like to note that I allow Satan to vent on my blog because I'm not afraid of him. I've got my afterlife booked with a different carrier.)


Applegate: I heard that. Actually I applaud it. The waiting lines in the One God terminal get longer every day.


Anne: Actually, Stinky, there was something I wanted to talk to you about.


Applegate: Fire away ... pardon the pun.


Anne: I just read an article by Los Angeles Times writer Geoff Boucher about an entrepreneur who is planning to issue an audio performance of the entire Revised King James Bible on CDs. That's 70 in all.


Applegate: That's correct. It's called "The Word of Promise," and the first 20 CDs, New Testament, will be out in October ... hopefully.


Anne: It's that "hopefully" part that intrigues me, Stinky. Apparently the director, Carl Amari, has cast all the characters in the NT except you. He's got Jim Caviezel doing Jesus (talk about a typecast you'd want to avoid), Luke Perry as Judas, and Marisa Tomei as Mary Magdalene. But no one wants to be the devil.


Applegate: Even though I've got the best lines.


Anne: I had nothing better to do today than think this over, and I came up with some actors who might fit the bill. I've never quite been able to shake Alec Baldwin's performance in Glengarry Glen Ross. What do you think of Alec Baldwin?


Applegate: I saw that movie too! Yikes! Chilling.


Anne: Aren't you going to help me here? Steve Tyler came to mind until I saw the YouTube posted at Jesus' General.


Applegate: That's worse than chilling. I'd call that performance "The Taming of the Shrill." Please, no Steve Tyler. Dream on.


Anne: Why should it be up to me? You're Satan. You must have some idea who sounds the most like you.


Applegate: Sarah Vaughan.


Anne: Yeah, right. Right. I can believe that. Okay, I'm ready to buy the Brooklyn Bridge now.


Applegate: No, I'm serious. See, you earthlings don't know about me. In my prior post, on a beautiful little planet in the Crab Nebula, I was the god of singing for a perfectly adorable praise and worship team. Oh, the music we made! (wipes tears)


Anne: Some of my more recent readers won't know the backstory. Fill them in.


Applegate: Meteor the size of Pluto smashed into the planet. My pantheon had to tighten its belt since it wasn't getting any new angels into its afterlife. I was let go.


Anne: So you can sing like Sarah Vaughan. Prove it.


Applegate: "Whatever Lola wants ... Lola gets ... and little man, Lola wants you..."


Anne: By damn, you weren't kidding! You sound just like The Divine One!


Applegate: Duhhhhh. I am divine!


Anne: I don't think they'll find any musical divas of that high quality willing to be Satan on a 20-CD rendering of the New Testament. But maybe that Sanjay guy is available.


Applegate: That's it. I'm leaving. I'm not standing around here to be insulted anymore!


Anne: Said it before, say it again. Don't let the door bump your tail as you go. And stay away from my sofa!


FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS


PS - No one will believe me, but I wrote this entry before hearing the Baldwin rant on Countdown with Keith Friday night.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

angier, nyt:
Rootedness also complicates a plant’s love life, which brings us back to the blooming bounty of spring. Plants, like everybody else, want to spread their seed around and diversify their genetic stock through sexual reproduction, but it’s hard to meet fresh faces when you don’t have legs. A number of plant species like pine trees, oaks, cottonwoods and grasses rely on wind to blow their pollen around, with the hope that some of the male sperm contained therein will land on receptive female parts of their far-flung kind. Or if not the same kind, at least something in the same general group: the boundaries between plant species are far more porous than they are in animals, and different species and even genera of plants cross-hybridize with each other surprisingly often.

Nevertheless, wind sex is highly iffy and inefficient, and many species of modern plants, the angiosperms, instead manipulate members of the animal kingdom to serve as yentas in a more discriminating style. The plants offer up brilliant blossoms to entice a specific pollinating insect or bird, which gets drunk on the blossom’s nectar and wants more and so seeks out other blossoms of similar shape, color or scent. And as the bee or hummingbird flits from one favored flower to the next, it incidentally delivers pollen pockets to just the right spots.

Anne Johnson said...

Anonymous, pardon me for asking, but what are you smoking?

BBC said...

"I've got my afterlife booked with a different carrier."

There you go, heaven is what you want it to be.

"an entrepreneur who is planning to issue an audio performance of the entire Revised King James Bible on CDs."

Ah crap, how can that shit get so much mileage?

Are these monkeys really that gullible? Never mind, stupid question.

BBC said...

Anonymous actually said something that was eighty percent correct.

Anonymous said...

was referring to article in new york times science page, 4/17, by natalie angier. if she was only 80 percent right, bbc should write a letter to editor.
i just think concepts like 'wind sex' might be important to those who worship trees

Tennessee Jed said...

Thanks for the interview with the most complex deity ever. I think most folks would not know how attractive in every way Satin would be in person. Do be careful Anne when hanging out with the higher immortals like Mr. Applegate I understand they work hard to mess withty us with a lifespan.

Anonymous said...

Did you know that the word satan originally just meant messenger in Hebrewf? At least that's what I remember from an Elaine Pagelsd book.

Interrobang said...

"Satan" (small s when not at the beginning of a Sentence) is "adversary" in Hebrew, and is still used that way in modern Hebrew. Dunno about the Hebrew etymology of the term; my Hebrew's not that good. In Hebrew, it's pronounced like s'TAN, with the stress on the second syllable.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Jack Nicholson.

He's the only one who could pull it off with any degree of authenticity.

Oh, sure, when you hear Bar Bush open her slitted maw and release the belching of a sulfurous firepit in the 9th level of hell, she seems like a perfect fit, but even I would not inflict that torment even upon the most spit-flinging, raving-idot bible-banger.

Get him while he's still on this planet. He's the only one who could play "satan." Period.

Morgaine said...

Jack has already done it - Witches of Eastwick. I'd do it if thery paid me. I would laugh my ass off at making money from those people.