The Last Testament: A Memoir (51 page)

CHAPTER 22

¹
A
nd now I find myself in a much better place: heaven.

²
When I returned to the office I was eager to resume my regular function as the L
ORD
thy God, King of the Universe; but I was a bit behind on current events.

³
So the first thing I did—after a warm reunion with Ruth and Kathy, and a hearty reconsubstantiation with the boys—was get a full update on all that had transpired in the world from April 1912 through the present day.

⁴
Lo, it’s been quite a century!

⁵
Verily, thou hast certainly been keeping thyselves busy.

⁶
I seem to have missed quite a number of fascinating incidents and trends.

⁷
The moon landing, for instance: I am sorry I was not there to witness it; though perhaps thou shouldst be glad of that.

⁸
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”?

⁹
Forgetting someone?

¹⁰
I was also absent for the rise and fall of communism, a philosophy that was doomed to failure: it is as if Karl Marx had taken Jesus’s teachings and distorted them
totally
within recognition.

¹¹
But easily the most astonishing marvel of the last 100 years is the Internet.

¹²
It is a cosmic wonder, and in theory a legitimate rival; for it already knoweth 6 percent of what I know about the universe, and 350 percent of what I know about MILF hunting.

¹³
When not busy transcribing these words, I have spent much of the last year exploring this new world of thine; I have plumbed the profundities of Google, and YouTube, and
www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com
;

¹⁴
I have gleaned mirth from Numa Numa Guy; I have rolled my eyes at “Double Rainbow” (though I appreciated its numerous shout-outs); I have reeled in horror at 2 Girls 1 Cup; and I have seen Rebecca Black do her level best to help remove the phrase “Thank God It’s Friday” from the popular lexicon.

¹⁵
Threescore thousand memes have washed over my divine display; and if I believed the World Wide Web a true threat to my universal hegemony, I would shut it down faster than thou couldst say “rogue solar flare-up.”

¹⁶
But I have come to the same conclusion as many of you: the Internet is ultimately no more than a global electronic alchemical device that mystically transforms time into pornography.

¹⁷
Verily, if I had known humanity would devise a way to spend so much time watching porn, I would never have allowed it to be created.

¹⁸
Time, I mean.

CHAPTER 23

¹
Y
et there is one aspect of the high-tech world for which my appreciation is boundless: Twitter.

²
Other of thy so-called “social media” do nothing for me; LinkedIn is useless, as I am gainfully employed and not hiring; blogging is nothing but a cross between keeping a diary and shouting into the void; and as for Facebook, let’s just say I have grave privacy concerns.

³
But Twitter is the most effective means of corresponding with mankind ever devised; and I have already informed my associates that henceforward all direct communications from me to them (and to thee) will be conducted via tweet.

⁴
Some of you already follow me on my Twitter account, @TheTweetOf-God; those who do not may wish to put this book down and do so forthwith;

⁵
For I am watching thee, and know that thou hast arrived at this verse, and therefore no longer have ignorance as an excuse; and I may choose to factor in thy compliance or disobedience on this matter when making future decisions on certain larger issues, issues whose nature I am not prepared to fully disclose on the record but may concern thy eternal—

⁶
Welcome, new Follower!

⁷
As astute tweeps will observe, I myself only follow one other person, the one thou callest “Justin Bieber”; whom some have speculated is the earthly avatar of my oldest son H. G., sent here to usher in the dawn of a new age; an interesting speculation I herein neither confirm nor, more notably, deny.

⁸
When I send a message on Twitter, all my Followers receive it instantly and identically; there is no ambiguity, and no sassback.

⁹
Lo, if I could have tweeted the Ten Commandments to the Chosen People, I would have; it would have gone a long way toward meeting our unattained goal of getting Judaism tablet-free by 700 B.C.

¹⁰
Moreover, the 140-character limit is a much-needed restraint for those with a tendency to ramble, like me; but that is not to say I would ever stoop to use any of those popular web initialisms that cheapen language.

¹¹
Besides, the meaning of these acronyms often differs between heaven and earth, in ways that could lead to confusion.

¹²
For example, in heaven, LOL means “L
ORD
of L
ORDS
”; as in, “Praise thee, Almighty God; the Everlasting Father; the King of Peace; LOL.”

¹³
And IMHO means “in my holy omniscience”; as in, “IMHO, Renee Zellweger was woefully miscast in
Chicago.
”

¹⁴
And WTF means “whither the forgiveness?” as in, “Gretchen and Slade won’t apologize to Tamara for talking trash about her to Peggy? WTF?!?”

¹⁵
And ROTFL means “rolling on the floor laughing,” as it dost on earth; only when
I
do it, it causes a hurricane.

CHAPTER 24

¹
Y
ea, I have been gone, humanity, gone far too long; but now I am back with a new attitude, and a new self-acceptance, and I am looking forward to working with you on making this next, last year of the human race as rewarding as possible.

²
I’ve also been playing a lot of golf.

³
Once (or if I’m lucky, twice!) a week, I slip out of the office a little early, don a body, and play a round of 18.

⁴
I have become addicted to golf over the last few months; it has deepened my understanding of the agonies and ecstasies of the human experience; more than that, it is a metaphor for my career.

⁵
For though it is the most challenging, maddening, infuriating activity imaginable; though it is the entirely physical outcome of an almost purely mental exertion; and though it can test me beyond all measure and reason;

⁶
Yet once in a great while, I will roll that perfect putt into the cup, or crash that perfect lightning bolt onto the slow golfer in front of me;

⁷
And for one glorious second, all is right with the universe.

⁸
Golf is one of my two new obsessions; the other is reality television.

⁹
I love reality TV; love it to the depth of my being, the breadth of my spirit, and the width of my selection of cable channels.

¹⁰
I have learned more about humanity from watching 15 years’ worth of reality shows than from overseeing 6,000 years of human history.

¹¹
And I will go further: the entirety of human history held less drama for me than did a single season of
Survivor,
or
American Idol,
or
Dancing with the Stars,
or
The Bachelorette,
or any of the
Real Housewives,
except for maybe the season in Miami.

¹²
But these are only the most celebrated series; I, the L
ORD
thy God, King of the Universe, have seen them all:

¹³
I have salivated at
Top Chef
; I have winced as Joan and Melissa bitched their way through
The Apprentice
; I have marveled at Tim Gunn’s sartorial chivalry on
Project Runway
; and I have learned much about good parenting from
SuperNanny.

¹⁴
The pathos; the laughter; the triumph; the failure; the backstabbing; the heartwarming; the public judging; the “private” ridicule; the glamorization of unusual occupations; above all the spectacle, the sheer magnitude of the spectacle...

¹⁵
You have humbled me, mankind; yea, this time, you have truly outdone yourself.

¹⁶
I made reality; but you made reality television; well played, humanity; yours is much better edited.

¹⁷
Next time out I may skip the “reality” reality era, and go right to the good stuff.

¹⁸
I may create an entire six days’ worth of original reality programming; and on the seventh day I shall watch them.

¹⁹
And on the eighth I shall create TiVo.

COLLATIONS

(“Recipes”)

CHAPTER 1

¹
I
am not a foodie.

²
This is partly because I have no physical body requiring gastronomic sustenance for fuel; but mainly because I am already enough different kinds of asshole that I do not need to be one more.

³
But my editor informeth me that cookbooks are a very popular genre in publishing right now; that people love recipes, as they combine their love of following orders with their yearning to recollect how humans once made food.

⁴
So I rounded up a few of my favorite culinary creations from the 25 billion I keep in my 250 million recipe Rolodexes.

⁵
The full-course meal that follows has a little something for all monotheisms, and is an easy, delicious way to stuff thy face, esophagus, stomach, intestines, and rectum with my glory.

⁶
(As always, before eating these delicious treats, be sure to say grace and thank me for thy bounty.

⁷
Me
, and not the actual farmers who toiled to grow the food.)