Metaphysical Stuff 13
McHajj
by
Jaye C. Beldo
Netnous@Aol.Com
*Please note: The McHajj series you are about to read came to me
directly via a series of disturbing dreams, dreams which continue to
haunt me at present. These dreams, more like interminable nightmares,
have resulted from life long exposure to advertising in the
relentlessly predatory, capitalistic society that I'm haphazardly
posited in. In order to deal with the severe psychological trauma
such exposure has caused me, I have translated what my unconscious
mind has directly conveyed to me into the story below. It is the only
way I know how to cope with the constant trespassing into my psyche
by the corporate powers which loom about in a most menacing and
merciless fashion. Thank you for understanding my dilemma. BTW: I am
currently starting a twelve step support group for those who may
believe that they are victims of a similar kind of corporate
psychological terrorism. I will provide more information in the near
future...if there is one. Thank you!
McHajj: Part I
Ronald McDonald saunters through the range country all alone, exiled
from Playland. He comes upon the Marlboro Men, all maudlin, yet
steadfast, sitting around a campfire. He tries clowning but cannot
even eke one single grin. One offers him a smoke. Ronald reciprocates
with Big Macs for all. They eat hamburgers and smoke, staring into
the embers. Ronald lets out a conciliatory chuckle, but the others do
not respond.
The next day, they mount the steeds and set out. In the course of
their round-up, they encounter Joe Camel, the Pillsbury Doughboy,
Colonel Saunders, California Raisins, the Hamburger Helper Hand,
Charlie Tuna, Palmolive Madge, The Tidy Bowl Man, Mr. Clean and other
iconomorphic cuties traversing the desert in search of greener test
markets. All caravan across the wastes, drawn towards a mirage of the
eternal milk pour shot. The posse grows in legion. They tour cancer
wards, deforested tracts in South America, fished out oceans, tobacco
farms with spent soil and carked farmers. They pass out campaign
pamphlets to Jivaro Indians and work their way down to Tierra Del
Fuego. A vote is to be cast for the next Messiah, since the first one
(anthropos) cannot return, cannot get his sandaled foot or staff into
Ogilvy's Madison Avenue door.
A vote is cast. Ronald wins. The Golden Arches of Triumph remain.
The division works its way towards Mecca. Upon reaching the ka'ba,
Ronald ventures an entrance. With a grin he greets the twelfth Imam
who patiently engraves upon a piece of plutonium the size and shape
of a bowling ball. The Imam reads aloud what he has inscribed on
Allah's favorite alloy:
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,
Praise belongs to God, the Lord of all Being,
the all merciful, the All-compassionate
the Master of the Day of Doom.
A television in the North West corner runs a Prime Time Shi'ite
Evangelist special. Oppenheimer makes a guest appearance. He quotes
the Bhagavad Gita. The t.v. casts a debile numinosity, reminiscent of
decaying isotopes over the interior of the ka'ba. The splendor of a
thousand suns, however, lay dormant in the Imam's plutonium. Ronald
offers the Imam a Big Mac, but is solemnly declined as the final
filigrees are added to the stanza. Mr. McDonald shrugs his shoulders,
skips over to the Southeast corner, kisses the black stone and savors
its meteoric flavor. A tongue emerges from the stone. The stone tries
to sing Allah's glory but Ronald begins to French kiss the stone.
Allah's eyes open but he cannot recognize who is kissing him. Ronald
tears his wig away and smears the make up off his face. The clown
introduces himself to Allah and demands a sacrifice of every child
watching Saturday morning cartoons in America. Cheers can be heard
from as far away as Algiers. Outside, the Marlboro men gallop their
horses around the Ka'ba, tossing cartons of cigarettes to the
pilgrims, while Van Allen asteroids with angel wings hover above like
Hummingbirds, forming a double helix pattern.
Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff in the War room at the Pentagon. A satellite
picks up the action over in Mecca. All chiefs ponder the
implications. 'Flexible Response' is briefly discussed.
While Ronald and Allah make out, the Imam carefully places the
scripted ball into a missile's warhead compartment concealed directly
beneath the center of the ka'ba. Ronald just laughs, fluffs his wig
out and puts it back on. He fixes his make up and steps outside. It
dawns on him that he forgot to takes his clown shoes off upon
entering. But no one outside notices his disrespect. His secret would
not be betrayed. The pilgrims fervently, ecstatically kiss the
Pillsbury Doughboy, the Hamburger Helper hand, and the California
Raisins. Joe Camel lets them take turns riding on his back. He
circumambulates the ka'ba seven times. The Imam steps outside and
climbs up the minaret and sings to the sky and all activity below
stops. He holds in his hand the remote control launch button.
Palmolive Madge noticed that the cuticles of the Middle Beast were
hardened.
The legion works its way over the Great Wall of China and marches to
the center of Tienanmen Square. All the cowboys, clowns, fuzzy little
denizens of the west sit in front of a giant statue of Mao. Ronald
runs his tongue over the plinth. It too tastes meteoric. Soon
refugees from slave labor camps, both Tibetan and Chinese, clutching
onto Mickey Mouse dolls are paraded past the icons. Ronald feels
something. Yet his make-up won't betray his sorrow. The Pillsbury
Doughboy deflates a little. The four fingered Hamburger Helper Hand
offers to help but cannot grasp the situation. The Marlboro Men hand
out cigarettes to the refugees but they are refused. All wait.
============
McHajj: Part II
by
Jaye C. Beldo
Netnous@Aol.Com
*Please note: The McHajj series you are about to read came to me
directly via a series of disturbing dreams, dreams which continue to
haunt me at present. These dreams, more like interminable
nightmares, have resulted from life long exposure to advertising in
the relentlessly predatory, capitalistic society that I'm haphazardly
posited in. In order to deal with the severe psychological trauma
such exposure has caused me, I have translated what my unconscious
mind has directly conveyed to me into the story below. It is the
only way I know how to cope with the constant trespassing into my
psyche by the corporate powers which loom about in a most menacing
and merciless fashion. Thank you for understanding my dilemma. BTW:
I am currently starting a twelve step support group for those who may
believe that they are victims of a similar kind of corporate
psychological terrorism. I will provide more information in the near
future...if there is one. Thank you!
Joe Stalin nudged Ronald McDonald, grateful that the clown had
the chutzpah to invite him to his stag party. The cadre was a bit
beaten and weather worn after the China tour. Mao never even showed.
Ronald then made the announcement while passing through Cambodia that
he was to marry. So a stop was decided, in Berlin, to celebrate
before going back state side to the jubilant swarms.
On a stained and battered movie screen that had seen the likes of
Caligari, Dr. Mabuse and Nosferatu, a flick starring Goddess Kali and
the Virgin Mary played, for the umpteenth time that evening. In it,
the Pope, all dolled up in a leather Teddy once owned by Madonna and
clutching onto a sequin covered Crozier, watched the gals carpet
munch each other. Kali's garland of severed heads, consisting of
card carrying members of the United Nations trembled as she
climaxed: each head speaking in tongues while an entourage of angels
above listened in ears. Mission accomplished, the Virgin appeared
demure, scanning her Rolodex, trying to decide which country next to
infiltrate with Marian visions via NASA holography. Star Wars
indeed.
"Jimmy Swaggart....eat your evangelical heart out.", was the Pope's
only line. He delivered it deadpan enough to pass, but who pays
attention to dialogue in skin flicks?
Down below, the cadre of commercial icons took on a luminous hue in
the porn film light.
Pol Pot announced that the cake would soon be wheeled out. The
Marlboro Men tossed some confetti. Joe Camel popped some champagne.
All the lights were turned off and silence ensued. A Menorah floated
in the darkness beneath an exit sign dimmed below code. It hovered
around the theater, leaving sevenfold trails of candle light, which
streaked and then formed into Hebrew letters : yod-he-vau-he, UFO's
far more convincing than anything Spielberg has cinematically
conjured for the masses. The candle flames/letters grew brighter
causing the darkness to finally yield up its secret: A Golem had been
guiding the Menorah all along. Instead of seven candle sticks there
was a septet of finely molded, perfectly uniform wax Porky Pigs with
wicks protruding from their snouts. But were they really 100% wax?
They sizzled and crackled like some kind of animal fat, a fat which
ran down and melted into the cracks in the Golem's thick earthy
flesh. Ronald climbed up on the stage, made a wish and blew out the
candles and chuckled. But an actor dressed up like Rabbi Loew came
out of the wings and chided him. It wasn't a god damned birthday
party. Ronald chuckled, bore the brunt of the catcalls from his
fellow icons and signaled for the real cake to be wheeled out. An
angel handed the Golem a trumpet and noticed the clayey android's
breastplate: A Masonic pyramid with an eye in the apex.
Pol Pot signaled his military band to start playing along and the
sounds of a million Cambodian skulls cracking in a hydraulic vice
washed over the theater like a sonic flood. Joe Stalin wept as the
ossified sonority echoed over the Siberian veldt of his soul.
The Golem sounded the first note on his horn, thus breaking Seal
Number One: From out of the cake popped Barbara Walters in a bikini.
There she was, the carnal frosting on the cake of test market
destiny. Soon Berlin Gynecologists dressed like the sorrowful Young
Werther, rushed in to see if the Hymen was still intact. It was.
The real Mecca was finally reached. All were glad. A sacred
pilgrimage spot was declared. Soon they'd be flocking to ABC's New
York T.V. Studios and not to cleanse themselves of iniquities with
the leftover bath water of Hugh Downs.
A mini-resurrection ensued in the cemeteries surrounding Berlin. All
the young men Goethe conned into suicide rose from their mother's
graves and began heading towards the theater. Would Gabriel lead the
way for them? Or would it be Heine? Maybe Kafka himself would show
them the short cuts through Berlin's sewage labyrinths? No, no
compasses... they honed in merely by instinct. Once they arrived
they were amiably greeted, but relegated to the last rows where the
footlights from the stage barely shone.
The film ran again. Yet this time three dimensional like a
holographic dodecahedron. Each facet contained an image, a precisely
focused promise of salvation. On one facet of the screen was the
land of the Houris, on another facet: the New Jerusalem, on another
facet: Ashtar Command and other cinematic variations of the Chosen
People Syndrome. Each promised land refracted kaliedoscopically like
a disco light in which that scientologist John Travolta danced under
so soulessly. The dodecahedron floated higher and higher up into the
rafters and out through the roof and hovered over Berlin. Soon there
were Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus all flocking to
take in their personal slice of the flick.
Inside, the Rabbi pulled the plug on the projector and searched
within the machine for what could possibly fabricate such a hideous
illusion. All he found was a crystal, where the projector bulb should
have been, a crystal holding the form of some kind of eschatological
fractal yet to blossom.
The Marlboro Men ignored the No-Smoking signs and lit up. Barbara
and Ronald did a little tango up on the stage in celebration of their
union. No one would arrest them. No one would ask for their
papers. All was steamy, sultry collusion across the board, that
evening. There would be good stories to tell , yes, back on the
range, of the strange pariahs abroad.
to be continued
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