March 21, 2008
The Long Good Friday
You had to be there — to hear him tell the tale, but you weren’t. And all I’m going to give you is a bald summary leading up to the punch. So, if you can, draw on your imagination till you get to the pay-off.
He was a very smart, very funny, fast-talking East Coast Italian-American fellow, with loads of book-learning and an attitude, and in 1990, just after the downfall of Ceauşescu, he traveled to Romania (on NGO or foundation funds) to teach its people all about freedom of the press. (He spent a good deal of time cowering in a hotel room as rampaging miners smashed computers and fax machines and sought out heads like his to bash, but that is another story.)
The trip from Chicago to Bucharest was a long one (here you must begin to imagine his painfully funny, rapid-fire account of a series of hellish flights and transfers), and the Bucharest airport did not present a welcoming face (again, call on your imagination). Worst of all, a man was to have met him at the airport to help get him settled in, but no such man greeted his arrival. And so he waited, and he waited, and he waited. (Here insert imagined descriptions of the bleak setting.)
And then, after perhaps an hour (an hour that doubtless felt much much longer), a Romanian man dashed up, out of breath, apologetic.
“You are — – ? Yes? I am so sorry to be late. Tonight on television was a film of the life of Jesus Christ. Never has such a thing been shown on Romanian television! I had to watch to see how it ended!”
Imagine now that the American fellow is telling you his story. He pauses. And then he explodes, sputtering the reply he claims to have given his Romanian guide.
“How it ends? How it ends!?! They TACK HIM UP! “
comments
Leave a Reply
Please bring this fellow with you to clusterflockstock.
Alas, we have been out of touch for years. But this could be the year to renew the connection.
sweet jesus.
o Sheila you make me so happy – dammit
Happiness can be so damned uncomfortable, can’t it? Dammit!
nah – i love it – dammit
Oh, dammit.
No.
Dammit! Yeehaw! Dammit!
Dammit, that felt good.
I was in Romania in 1979 and cheered when they killed Ceauşescu. Things got a lot worse after 79 but then the locals could be shot for fraternizing with tourists.
As for Christ, I’d have nailed that trouble making, Bin Laden look a like bastard long before Pilot.
Mike, you best steer clear of Texas you keep talking ’bout Christ thataway.
Stick a tea towel on his head and we have an instant look a like!! Both have caused death and destruction on a massive scale, both continue to subvert the minds of people and both come from the Middle East!! Enough said!
The holy grail has long been thought to be the child that Christ and Mary the whore had………. so Bin Laden must be a descendent of Christ.
mikey mikey… its not the cause its the effect, you know that
[...] this become a holiday [...]