Spring Trends: Jazzercise, Religion Founding
by Rebecca Schuman
It has recently come to my attention that I need shitloads of money. Not just because I would like some $500 jeans (made from pieces of real pirate, and now available all the way up to waist size 27, for fatties!), or because I have suddenly and for reasons beyond all comprehension decided that FUCKING LEGGINGS are at all acceptable to wear anywhere outside a Jazzercise class that itself takes place only in a Jay McInerney novel.
Yes, it’s true that I can’t afford to be ostracized because of my salt-of-the-earth insistence on wearing normal pants, but that’s just because I’m already ostracized because of my disturbing antisocial behavior. These days, the closest I get to regular human contact is mentally reenacting every stupid argument I’ve ever had (and even against imaginary people, I come off sounding like a moron).
But see, money will make my antisocial behavior “quirky” and “eccentric” instead of “totally barmy,” and everyone will think I am cool. If I have enough money, my “hobby” of locking myself in my room to watch Law & Order and eat carrot cake will become even more essential than leggings, and Ian Schraeger will open a bunch of exclusive clubs where all you do is pay $500 to go sit in a room alone with a TV, and then they bring you carrot cake and you have a choice between regular Law & Order and all the Law & Order spin-offs, and then maybe an old episode of Knight Rider now and then because hey, talking car. That sentence you just read would be “edgy” and not “crazy” if I had so much money that I could throw an open-bar party at Doc Holliday’s in honor of its release.
The problem is that I don’t have any money, and I also don’t have any skills that could bring me any money — OR SO I THOUGHT, until recently, when I realized that I am actually little more than a normal-pants-clad goldmine with an extraordinarily loud voice. And that voice and these normal pants are about to change the world.
Have you ever noticed that all those sweet megachurches with their charismatic Pastor Scotts and their pyrotechnics and their CEO Worship Hours all have one thing in common? Yes, that’s right, Christianity. But the problem with Christianity is that you can’t be Jewish. Do you see where I’m going here? I hope you do. I don’t see any reason why I can’t start a Jewish charismatic movement, based on superfluous and selective readings of the sacred texts (which I retranslate to be rad, obviously), eschewing Hebrew for Tongues — because let’s face it, they kind of sound the same anyway. We even have our own shitty, watered-down rock music — it’s called Maroon 5. Sure, it might take some cajoling to convince your bubbe that indoor fireworks aren’t verkockte, but once she checks out the valet-parking services at my One True Light of the Rockin’ Torah Nondenominational Syne-GAWESOME, she’ll change her mind. Pretty soon, they’ll start serving matzoh ball soup at Chili’s for the after-service rush at the strip mall.
And then, thank G-d, I’ll be loaded, what with the government grants and the outrageous tithes I will force from my congregants for all that Jewish missionary work — after all, we’ve got about 5,000 years of proselytizing to catch up on, now that I’ve arbitrarily decided it’s allowed due to the lack of reading the Torah directly responsible for my charismatic religious leadership. And I’ll finally have money — money to protect me from the judging masses, who judge me not just for my “eccentric personality,” but for the way I’ll look teaching Pentateuch Jazzercise in my sweet new $400 leggings.
Yes, it’s true that I can’t afford to be ostracized because of my salt-of-the-earth insistence on wearing normal pants, but that’s just because I’m already ostracized because of my disturbing antisocial behavior. These days, the closest I get to regular human contact is mentally reenacting every stupid argument I’ve ever had (and even against imaginary people, I come off sounding like a moron).
But see, money will make my antisocial behavior “quirky” and “eccentric” instead of “totally barmy,” and everyone will think I am cool. If I have enough money, my “hobby” of locking myself in my room to watch Law & Order and eat carrot cake will become even more essential than leggings, and Ian Schraeger will open a bunch of exclusive clubs where all you do is pay $500 to go sit in a room alone with a TV, and then they bring you carrot cake and you have a choice between regular Law & Order and all the Law & Order spin-offs, and then maybe an old episode of Knight Rider now and then because hey, talking car. That sentence you just read would be “edgy” and not “crazy” if I had so much money that I could throw an open-bar party at Doc Holliday’s in honor of its release.
The problem is that I don’t have any money, and I also don’t have any skills that could bring me any money — OR SO I THOUGHT, until recently, when I realized that I am actually little more than a normal-pants-clad goldmine with an extraordinarily loud voice. And that voice and these normal pants are about to change the world.
Have you ever noticed that all those sweet megachurches with their charismatic Pastor Scotts and their pyrotechnics and their CEO Worship Hours all have one thing in common? Yes, that’s right, Christianity. But the problem with Christianity is that you can’t be Jewish. Do you see where I’m going here? I hope you do. I don’t see any reason why I can’t start a Jewish charismatic movement, based on superfluous and selective readings of the sacred texts (which I retranslate to be rad, obviously), eschewing Hebrew for Tongues — because let’s face it, they kind of sound the same anyway. We even have our own shitty, watered-down rock music — it’s called Maroon 5. Sure, it might take some cajoling to convince your bubbe that indoor fireworks aren’t verkockte, but once she checks out the valet-parking services at my One True Light of the Rockin’ Torah Nondenominational Syne-GAWESOME, she’ll change her mind. Pretty soon, they’ll start serving matzoh ball soup at Chili’s for the after-service rush at the strip mall.
And then, thank G-d, I’ll be loaded, what with the government grants and the outrageous tithes I will force from my congregants for all that Jewish missionary work — after all, we’ve got about 5,000 years of proselytizing to catch up on, now that I’ve arbitrarily decided it’s allowed due to the lack of reading the Torah directly responsible for my charismatic religious leadership. And I’ll finally have money — money to protect me from the judging masses, who judge me not just for my “eccentric personality,” but for the way I’ll look teaching Pentateuch Jazzercise in my sweet new $400 leggings.
