There was a time when Easter was all about commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the famous fictional character in the classic fairytale, The Bible. Not sure when, exactly, Jesus became a fuzzy bunny humanoid that lays eggs like a chicken (in an abundance of bright colors) and has a chocolate fetish, but I’m guessing it was somewhere around the same time Santa Claus became a thing and Hallmark cards were invented.
Not that I give a shit about Jesus, I don’t buy into any of that, nor do I buy into any of the consumerist holidays. Growing up, my dad was pretty firm on the idea of Santas and Easter Bunnies being “gay” — and he hated giving them credit for the toys and goodies he worked hard to buy us — and for me with my own kids, well, they were just too smart early on to believe in any of that shit. Jesus, Santa and the Easter Bunny included.
The only holiday that ever mattered to me growing up was Halloween because I got to play dress-up, go out after dark, bang on doors and panhandle for candy. Then, after my brothers and I were jacked-up on sugar, we’d sneak back out to egg houses, shaving cream cars and throw toilet paper in all the trees. THAT was a holiday!
I often hear the religious folk complain that the holidays “aren’t about Jesus anymore”; that they’re all about buying gifts and candy now; that they’ve lost their “true meaning”. Granted the word “holiday” is derived from “holy day” and I can certainly agree they’ve been hijacked by Capitalism, but let’s call it what it really is: it’s all about money.
There was a time, when people gave all their hard-earned dough to the church, especially around the holidays. Churches were cash-rich and sprung up everywhere — many of them like castles overlooking the poor folk who worked hard to build them, thinking they were doing it for God. Over in Rome, a entire Golden City was built, for Christ’s sake! (Literally!) Priests lived like nobles, secretly drinking good wine and banging nuns and altar boys to no end. Preachers bought themselves hot wives and beautiful homes and even private jets to fly around and do the “Lord’s work” even faster. The Religious Industrial Complex became the largest, most powerful enterprise in human history.
But then along came Santa Claus and his furry friend the Easter Bunny to muck it all up, dipping their hands in the collection plate, stealing more and more cash from “Jesus” as time went on. Soon, other “holidays” cropped up out of nowhere — Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, Juneteenth and so on — all designed to take more of your money, er, more of the church’s money (because they think they’re entitled to it) and alas, now they cry that they’ve been beaten at their own game.
Truth is, the holidays have ALWAYS been about Consumerism. They’ve always been about spending money on something that makes you happy, and for most of human history the only thing you had to look forward-to was Eternity in Heaven (according to the fairytale, anyway). There was no cool shit to buy. You bought food. You bought clothes. You worked, you came home and ate and drank and fucked to hopefully make more kids to whore out to the collection plate so you could give more to the church and buy your way (and their way) into Paradise.
Anything beyond that fell into one of the Seven Deadly Sins. If you drank too much, or fucked too much, or ate too much, you were a drunkard, a sinful whore or a glutton taking money away from the church. There was no such thing as “vanity” — only Kings and Queens were allowed to have that — so if you got too much, they found ways to make you give up more, or they just fucking took it away from you. We were all kept in our place as little worker bees.
Today, the church no longer rules over us. We’re ALL kings and queens and there’s lots of cool shit to be bought that makes us happy. Life is one big, fat buffet. Whether it’s shit to make ourselves look good or feel good, or shit to put smiles on our kids’ faces, or shit that gets us laid, there’s always some shit to buy for something, somewhere, that guarantees us Heaven right here on Earth — real, physical Heaven we can feel and taste — without having to wait for the afterlife. And the church fucking hates it, so they cry consumerism, but for centuries that’s exactly what they did, peddling the idea of happiness which just can’t compete with a new Xbox or Toblerone chocolate.
It was recently reported that for the first time in American history, “religious nones”, that is, people who don’t identify with any religion, now outnumber those who do. That’s a major kick in the balls to Jesus to add to the holes in his hands and feet and that spear in His side. The religious folks are in panic-mode, religious Conservatives are LOSING THEIR SHIT — “I still say Merry Christmas!” — they’ve been ripped a new asshole by the Cock of Consumerism and they’re butthurt and of course, they blame it all on the left-wing, Marxist, radical, Communist, Democrat, woke, snowflake Liberals…
But the fact is religion only has itself to blame. For years they fucked with us. They lied to us with their fairytale promises. They took our money. They made us feel guilty. They made us live in fear. They diddled us …or our kids. And they proved over and over again their hypocrisy.
As a society, we are obviously moving away from religion. Jesus just isn’t cool anymore. We’re smarter now than we ever were. They don’t scare us anymore. That whole concept of Heaven is pretty fucking stupid anyway: you can’t drink, you can’t smoke, you can’t fuck, you can’t swear, you can’t do any of the fun shit The Bible forbids. To me, that sounds a lot more like HELL.
To paraphrase that J.G. Wentworth commercial, “it’s our happiness and we want it now!”
So as much as I hate Consumerism, I hate religion more and as much as I think Santa and the Easter Bunny are “gay”, I think they make the holidays a hell of a lot more fabulous and fun to celebrate than the grim fairytale of an all-knowing, all-seeing, mystic Creator of the Universe who late-term aborted His only Son (and somehow suicided Himself in the process) by having him brutally beaten and crucified to a cross so that YOU may enjoy Eternal Life in Heaven. (Only to Rise Again as a zombie a few days later.) Whatever.
They say that licking your wounds actually helps to heal them faster. (Not that Jesus could have licked His, because he was nailed down.) It’s something to do with the friendly bacteria in your saliva. Unfortunately for religion, for whom the wounds of consumerism cut deeper and deeper, licking them won’t help because the deadly sins — especially the one of Greed — have come back to bite them in their asshole and their tongue can’t reach it.
They won’t go down without a fight though. The Right-Wing Conservative powers-that-be keep trying, harder and harder, stretching that tongue further and further into the evil serpent tongue from their fairytale in hopes of one day licking their asshole clean of wounds and putting Jesus back in our schools…
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This week’s featured art is called “Le Petin Lapin Noire” (2021) by Pictor Mulier an erotic artist from Valenciana, Spain with a passion for feminine exhibitionism and the taboo.
—TV
Contributor
Tony thinks his shit don’t stink. He acts like he’s rich and thinks he’s a gigolo, but he’s actually broke and a total loser. He writes articles for SCREW in exchange for the fancy byline and dinners and drinks and whatever other free shit we get.
