No one understands how the universe gyrates. Whether it's a trip to Wal-Mart or a walk down the aisle of matrimony, everything seems rather ridiculous when viewed from afar. If you think you fully understand an idea or believe you can put order to the mysteries of life, you'll always wind up looking silly.
With his heavenly brand of tea leaves, tarot cards, and fortune cookies, no has ever looked more consistently absurd than Pat Robertson. His unfortunate fleeced followers are a boob tube congregation of the clueless; a brood of frightened unhappy Americans. They are hoping for a better go-round next existence, while courting absolution for their beautiful humanity. In this time of marriage-legality debates, the hypocrisy of the unconstitutionally illegal marriage of church and state painfully continues. It seems the longer the hypocrisy persists the more Fellini-esque it becomes. Robertson's proclamation of support for Rudy Giuliani was another classic moment of nonsensical silliness by another of America's holy blowhards.
Pat Robertson told the world that god himself was backing candidate Rudy. Never mind that the mouth was Robertson's, the message was clear, Vote Rudy, or risk going to hell. It's like trying to stir oil and water - mixing politics and religion - it's why we never talk about either at the dinner table. American politics should develop constitutional table manners. What should have been a cockfight between the two men, is an Alice through the looking glass love fest. Giuliani courted Robertson who blamed 9/11 on the ACLU, gays, abortion, pagans, feminists, People for the American Way, and the National Organization for Women. Ambition is apparently not only blind, but deaf and dumb. Instead of being embarrassed by the endorsement, Rudy stepped up to the podium and proudly accepted the canonization by the leader of the misled.
Pat Robertson's life, like 1964's Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, is a waste of a thinking person's time. It's based upon the belief that an omnipresent force sees all, knows all, and forgives most, while dishing out rewards and penalties annually. He sits on high with his legions of little angelic elves, doing good while charging up the battery of joy he unleashes on Christian nations each Christmas. This jolly fellow is benevolent, even when he's kidnapped to Mars.
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is full of chocolate layer cake and banana split pills for the Martian's kiddies who sadly never get the real thing-- but don't waste your time watching it sober. If you can sit through it long enough to see the guy in the bad polar bear suit, you'll either fail a drug test or are gullible enough that you will be voting for Giuliani in order to please Robertson's baby Jesus.
In the film all ends well for the Earth, Mars, Santa Claus, and of course always the children. Earlier when things got dicey, a news reporter in the film utters, "Mrs. Santa Claus has positively identified the kidnappers as Martians"...classic stuff here, really.
The film's mini-starlet is Pia Zadora in her film debut, playing an eight-year-old Martian girl. Pia's real claim to fame came years later when she single-handedly destroyed the Golden Globes credibility by bribing--I mean "courting"--the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with a trip to Vegas to watch her nightclub act. She won both a Raspberry for worst performance by an actress, and the Golden Globe, for best newcomer. She gained further notoriety when she and her husband Meshulam Riklis bought the famously romantic Beverly Hills landmark mansion "Pickfair" in January of 1988, only to demolish it to build a modern monstrosity.
Last night while getting lasagna at a local eatery, I was confronted with "Santa Claus" standing behind me in line. He is a staple character around the west side of Los Angeles. Santa drives a red mini-station wagon with a California license plate personalized to confirm he IS Santa Claus all year long. I said "Hello" ignoring his long white beard and round gold-rim glasses. I agreed with him that we were in the best Italian joint in town. Talk turned towards LA traffic, the price of gas, and then politics reared its ugly, untamed head. Santa asked me whom I was supporting in '08. "You first," I said. "OK, well that's easy," he said. "Hillary." I offered an early Yuletide cheery nod of agreement, all the while bursting with enthusiasm to tell EVERYONE that Santa is a Clinton Democrat! I quickly quelled my excitement, happy in the fact that Hillary has far too much sense to step up to any podium to accept such an endorsement.