April 5, 2005
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The Daily News
1 Somehow, I'm not here.
2 Somebody, and I'm pretty sure it was Jose, asked me yesterday why they had the Pope dressed like Santa Claus. I humoured the question, and moved on with my lesson.Well, I got home last night, had some dinner, talked about utterly nothing with my wife, and finally settled in to write the DN, always grabbing the Merc, and my little Walgreens $5.00 radio boombox I bought around eight or nine years ago so I could tune in to ballgames, and the news.
3 Grabbing the Merc and turning it to the front page, there, in all his horizontal glory, lay Pope John Paul II, decked out in what truly does resemble a Santa outfit, only instead of the classic Santa hat, they put that weird pointy Pope hat on his head.
4 I pictured those cardinals and bishops and things sitting around wishing THEY could be the next Pope, crowding around him and asking him for any last requests.
5 And waiting for a reply.
6 And waiting.
7 And finally, the reply:
8 "Just bury me in my hat, man."
9 Yeah. I could totally relate.
10 In keeping with the way they totally overdo EVERYTHING these days, it wasn't long before I turned to pages 8A and 9A, a two-page spread that looked like a gameboard for The DaVinci Code. It was a HUGE rendering of the Vatican, telling us what we could expect in the coming days. A two-page comic rendering of the Vatican. It seemed to have every nook and cranny of the covered. I'm thinkin' Dan Brown studied it for new areas to write about; it was THAT complete.
8 Well, they had this cartoon sketch of the late Pope lying in state, complete with his weird hat. It actually had those little lines that go from an object to a definition, as in a textbook? Turns out the Pope's hat actually HAS a name. It's called a "Bishop's mite", and it is supposedly shaped like inverted shields from 11th Century Rome. I'm not even kidding. Isn't that AMAZINGLY useless information?
9 They also explained the Santa suit as a "Red chasuble", a silk outer vestment which, when placed in the Santa context, rings almost ironic, as it "symbolizes Jesus Christ's yoke".
10 Huh? Jesus's "yoke"?
11 Somebody's idea of a yoke...
12 Oh no you dih-int!
13 Anyway, that explains THAT.
14 Who knew?
15 The history, I imagine, is palpable.
13 Palpable. Look it up. Sounds religious, no?
14 Oy.
15 Midway through all this ploy, I realized I was missing some teevee show called, I think, the Mork and Mindy story.
16 Ah, vell. I was playing the radio, the teevee, and this really soulful live Simon and Garfunkel (who?) CD, bombarding myself with blashphemy at every turn. You can run, but you can't hide.
17 Seriously. Try a computer, radio, CD, teevee, and newspaper with comic book pictures of the Pope at rest in a Santa suit, and you get a pretty convoluted DN, man. All apologies, but that's how it happens sometimes.
18 Oy.
19 Interestingly, there is a huge conspiracy theory about this Pope. Actually, it's more about his predecessor, Pope John Paul I. He was only in office for a little over a month when he went to sleep one night and never awakened. Nobody thought twice about it.
20 But if you grab a book called In God's Name, by an author by the name of David Yallop, you'll see a LOT of evidence that John Paul I was poisoned by a strange group called P2, masterminded by a puppeteer thug named Licio Gelli, who stood right behind Ronald Reagan at his inauguration. I kid you not. There are PICTURES of the guy, standing right behind a smiling Reagan, who was probably oblivous.
21 Anyway, pardon me if I don't go in for all the pomp. I'm sorry the guy is gone and all, but JAY-zuss. I'l bet he's in the best place around right now, and we're still down here dealing with pink slips and Ed Trust, whoevuh HE is.
22 This stuff ain't cozy.
23 But I love throwing it all out there. Had to, I imagine.
24 Well, it's getting late over here in the Press Room. I think I'd better put this baby to bed.
25 And then I think that I'LL go to bed.
26 I might even sleep with my hat on.
27 Peace.
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