Beware the Swiss Reprise

In honor of the Pope's visit (and because I just got nothing,) here's a repost from February.
Don’t piss off the Swiss!

Last Olympics the Swiss hockey team didn't get a medal.  Although they were excellent skaters, they didn't fare well for the following reasons

1)    When the referee called icing, they thought he was talking about pastry

2)    They were penalized for attempting to build a large ice-capped barrier around their goal

3)    They spent far too much time in the “neutral” zone.

We think of Swiss and we see people in fairy tale clothing, blowing 12 foot horns in between bites of chocolate. 

 Amiable, comical, harmless people: hardly a people to fear. 

Those who have visited the Vatican (or those, like me, who've seen pictures of people visiting the Vatican and been spared the 18 hours in a tour bus next to retired couple from Toledo who ate something they shouldn't have) have seen the famous Swiss guards.  They look like they just came off the label on a bottle of scotch.  On the ferocity scale they appear to fall somewhere between Tony the Tiger and Winnie the Pooh.

And so they are – assuming Tony was a real Tiger and Pooh a real bear.

Those of us of German descent pretend to be tough.  We go around spitting threatening “ach” sounds at the end of our words and stare malignly at any collection of items or people not in a straight line.  We've been living next to the Swiss for centuries but you don’t see us ever bothering them.  Martin Luther was once impolite to Zwingli and the Reformation nearly met a tragic end right there.

In all the World War II movies, refugees are always escaping to Switzerland.  Do you think Clint Eastwood, Donald Southerland and Don Rickles were concerned that the Nazis would try to get their gold back?  Do you think Maria and all those sickeningly sweet children worried that Papa Von Trapp would be snatched back up and put on a U-boat?

Nah!

As they climbed the Alps and crossed the boarder they met one pudgy guy in leather shorts who greeted them.  “Welcome to Switzerland, have some chocolate, pet the Saint Bernard, bend over and moon Berlin.”

Rumor is the Heidi and her Grandfather alone, held off an entire SS company using nothing but a shepherd’s crook and hair ribbons.

  Once, the finish to a professional football playoff game was preempted to show a rerun of the movie “Heidi.”  If Roone Arlidge was scared of them, so am I.

It’s OK, you tell me.  The Swiss can be tough but we don’t have to worry about them.  Sure, every citizen over the age of three has an automatic weapon

 but the Swiss gather only short-range defensive ordinance.  They’re interested in stopping an enemy from climbing over the Alps.  After all, Hannibal surprised them with arrow-proof elephants and they want to make sure no one ever does that again!

Oh yeah, smart guy?  You’re so sure you won’t see the Swiss rolling across Europe, North America or even (for the hell of it) Australia, establishing marshal law, resetting clocks and disposing of inferior chocolate?

You’re forgetting one thing.  The most devastating tactical assault vehicle known to man.  The M-1 tank you ask?  The Bradley fighting vehicle?  No, I’m talking about the Pope-mobile.

Whenever you see the Pope traveling, he’s always safely ensconced in a Pope-mobile.  These vehicles are not built like some spit guard on a salad bar at your local Ponderosa; these babies are high tech!  You could launch a smart bomb, a nuke or even Oprah at one of these machines and you wouldn't even bother the man’s pointy hat.  All of this advanced armor is there just to protect an icon of peace?  C’mon, we know better.

Still, you argue (you just don’t give up do you?).  What do we have to fear from just one Pope-mobile?

You don’t see any crumbling “I break for baby ducks” stickers on the Pope’s bumper do you?  No!  The Pope has no interest in keeping a vehicle past its first oil change.  The man gets a new ride for every trip.  I bet he’s gone through hundreds, if not thousands of these suckers.

You never notice a Pope-mobile blowout at Billy-Bob-Joe-Ben McGinty’s Used Car Heaven?  I’ll tell you why.  The used papal assault vehicles are stored in a massive alpine bunker directly below a coo-coo clock manufacturing plant and several thousand of Donald Trump’s safety deposit boxes.

Do you want to wake up at five every morning to the sound of elongated brass performing cough drop jingles?  Are you willing to surrender the Swiss Miss cocoa company executives to a Geneva war-crimes tribunal?  Are you prepared to be conquered by an army that speaks five languages better than you speak English?

Write to our President.  Tell him to forget middle-east terrorism and stop Pope-mobile proliferation.  Only when every Pope-mobile is safely decaying in a New Jersey hazardous waste dump am I going to feel safe sleeping at night.

Then maybe we can do something about the Tony the Tiger and Winnie the Pooh threat.

Don't believe me?  Check this animated documentary from the mid 90s.  They're even more scary now.

The Popefying of Francis

Welcome Pope Frank!

I guess Pope Benedict was too pooped to continue popeing.

Like so many things, religious, the choosing of a pope is shrouded in mystery, requiring mental imagery, rather than broadcast-ready action and drama.

At the same time, it’s an ancient spectator sport – a bit sedate, but far less deadly than most of the games from the late Roman Empire. We join together and focus on a port-a-chimney placed atop the Sistine Chapel, and wait to see what 100 guys in red hats are smoking. We cheer for the white smoke (usually Jamaican, but maybe this time, Argentinean.) I’m never disappointed by the black smoke though. It means OVERTIME, and the secondary high keeps on going.

Of course, I’m not in Rome, and as my buddy didn’t order the hi-def smell feature on his new flat-screen, all my hopes of rockin’ with the Vatican went up without smoke.

(Children – Headley Hauser in no way endorses the use of illegal substances for recreational purposes, be it marijuana, papal ballots, or shiitake mushrooms, diced fine, dried with chive, oregano, and a light vinaigrette.)

(First time I’ve ever written ‘shiitake’ in anything – pretty disgusting mental imagery)

Forty-odd (or even) years ago, Tom Lehrer wrote a song, The Vatican Rag.

 

Make a cross on your abdomen

When in Rome, do like a Roman

Ave Maria

Gee it’s good to see ya.

Doin’ the Vatican Rag

 

(copyright Vatican Rag by Tom Lehrer MCML something-something)

Professor Lehrer offered his paean to Catholic propagation in a time of significant change for the Holy Roman Catholic Church. His thinking (as he said on his album,) was that if the church really wanted to sell the product, it needed to appeal to the people in the modern vernacular. He then presented a song in a musical style that was a generation and a half out-of-date.

These are different times for the Rome team. People aren’t talking Vatican 2 anymore (so good – you’ll forget all about Vatican 1.)

They’re pissed.

They’re pissed about discrimination, gay rights, birth control, abortion, the price of gas (which I’m told has nothing to do with Church, but it’s bugging me, so I’m including it.)

They’ve also just about had enough of ‘celibate’ priests instructing the youth in ways not found in the catechism. Of course priests have been doing this as long as Cardinals have been smoking papal ballots, and reformers have repeatedly discussed putting an end to it. Maybe we’ve reached the two millennia procrastination limit.

Recent popes have been firm, but apologetic in their response to this growing dissatisfaction. Pope John Paul 2 (who hung out nearly thirty years in the funny hat to make up for the first John Paul, who skipped the mortal coil before the lacquer on his ruby slippers was dry,) was so sweet and endearing that people almost forgot why they’d been genuflecting with middle finger extended.

That was not going to work long-term. How many guys in Cardinal University (or is it still just a college?) remind you of your favorite childhood teddy-bear?

I think the blessed Tom Lehrer – may he rest on his couch (‘cause I think he’s still alive – though freaky old. If he’s dead, the couch might not be the best place for him.) had the right idea in bringing out-dated musical forms to the church issues of the day. Using his of out-of-date algorithm (he did teach math,) our generation and a half interval leaves us with a wonderful selection of music from the late 60s through the early 80s.

But the tone has to change as well as the form. The Vatican Rag was upbeat, optimistic – you could almost see the dancing altar boys, glad-hands flashing (careful with those mental images, Friar.) The firm but apologetic approach won’t work either, not only is it unworkable, it severely limits the music available.

Remember the classic Ali-Forman fight years before George started selling hamburger makers?

Well, it looks like the Cardinals decided they’ve been riding the ropes long enough – no more pope-a-dope. They picked a Jesuit. Time to kick some acolytes!

So what theme can we create for our new Pope Frank?

I’d eliminate Barry Manilow off the top – his music doesn’t fit, and everybody out there secretly wants to eliminate Barry Manilow.

(Mental image of B.M. being eliminated – is he gone? Don’t forget to flush.)

Even without Barry’s one hundred and sixty-seven identical chants, we still have a number of potential anthems for our pleasantly pugilistic Pope.

What about (Every) Mother’s Son Bites the Dust?

(Bit of a stretch? What was I going to change it to – Another Nun Bites the Dust? No, I don’t like hate mail unless it’s from people giving me money.) All you need is to add a few smells and bells, and it sounds aggressively liturgical.

Play That Funky Music, Padre would have the dual effect of intimidation, and getting congregants groovin’ on those kneelers instead of scooting to the front of their seats and faking it.

There has to be a way to adapt Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting. You like that one Papa Frank? I’ll work on it for you.

Maybe you could even turn around that back-room altar-boy problem with a little James Brown - Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Monsignor.

?

Maybe not? Just throwing it out there.