As/Is







12.11.2004


Excerpt from "The Great Game"

Some said it was the price of Gold.
Others, the bubble
of the Tank market back in '03.

One analyst, ever the self-described
contrarian, even predicted again
that this was "the End of the World."

It caused quite a panic
in Purgatory, Mississippi,
just outside of Crawford, Texas.

But all agreed on one formula -- God
was in short supply --
and investors of all
stripes and checkered pasts,
even Hedge Fund managers at Nature
and Love
, rushed to their brokers
to cover their butts
and buy back their shares.

The brokerage houses were soon overun.
The Catholic Church, Baptists,
Hebrews and Muslims, Latter-Day-Saints,
alike, had been selling short
for years to a mysterious plunger.

rumored the reincarnation of J.
Livermore, himself. But
nobody could say for sure.
It was all done electronically,

these days, even the big orders --
War, Drought, Pestilence, Prosperity,
Freedom, Science, Humility, Common
Sense, Pain, Separation of
Heads of State, you name it. IT
controlled everything.

Then a Mexican-American-North
American named
Gautama rocked the Religious Derivatives
markets one day with a bonafide
apparition of the evangelist pat robertson
etched on the surface of a sacred
grilled cheese sandwich evidently
holding his, er, um,

wallet in the left hand
of Justice Antonin Scalia. The next
day, the Religious Derivatives market
recovered without anyone saying the word
that takes one of the lord's names in vain.

But God was still in short supply.
All the King men and all the King whores
couldn't put their deities to work anymore.

Some of the most responsible citizens
in society started to downsize
their families.

Finally, everything seemed
on the verge of Chaos. Which
some felt reassuring. Which
others calculated they could take
advantage of. Which was true,
also.

A small accountant about
the size of the late John Denver
appeared, as if by miracle.
She was a virgin, too,
or so she claimed on her taxes
at the IRS.