jesus@yahoo.com

This summer I started chatting. Why? Maybe boredom, maybe curiosity, but for whatever reason, it opened up a whole new world for me that I never knew existed.

Apparently, serious chatting is done on MSN and Yahoo. It's free and offers chatter bugs the options of visual and audio technology. I learned very quickly that the rules and physics of nature we take for granted in real life don’t apply in the chatting world. It is inhabited by beings invisible and anonymous, and the moral forces of gravity that keep our feet on the ground in real life don't always exist. More like a séance; you can't be sure if the spirits you conjure are good or evil, male or female, old or young, or even human.

A bit of advice to the new chatter bug: not all that glitters is gold. A 'mom' more often than not can be a pedophile, 'dad' is a dirty old man, and a 'sexy young woman' is probably a gay guy preying on straight men. Be very careful about giving any personal information to contacts, and photos of your kids are off limits.

The common belief is that anything goes in Yahoo land, but it turns out that there is a code of etiquette among chatterers. Texting in capitals is shouting – not nice. Large fonts are rude, and usually used by 'bots' – computer programs designed to lure the unsuspecting chatter to sites selling porn and infected with viruses. Chatting behavior is also regional: among North Americans and Europeans using the camera is only for people that know each other well, and an invitation to 'cam' can be misconstrued as making a pass, while Asians like to see who they are talking to.

Yahoo is a dark and lonely land of shadows, but there are redeeming rays of light for the tourist. I met a young girl who described herself as a 'sad girl'. Her mom's boyfriend was abusing her with mom's knowledge and without her protection. It was the boyfriend's birthday and the sad girl was distraught because he expected to get a 'birthday present' when he came home from work. I gave her (probably unwisely) my sister-in-law's phone number and stayed online with her until her teacher came to collect her. I asked her why she was in a chat room, of all places. She said her friends told her she needed to talk to an adult, and that she would find an adult in a chat room. I think her angel was very creative that day.

Some of the stories you hear touch the heart – sometimes literally. Rebecca is a young mother of Sara, who has a heart condition that could be simply treated with a pacemaker, but their medical insurance won't take responsibility for the expenses unless she literally drops dead. Rebecca doesn’t live every day by faith – she lives it minute by minute.

Laura is recently widowed and lives in the (still undefeated) Deep South raising her only son. She has enough courage and cheer to share with others while holding down a full time job.

Lilia lives in the Philippines. She is a born again Christian in a mostly Roman Catholic nation who raised two sons singlehandedly, and now like many Filipinos she has sent her oldest to work in the oil industry in the Middle East in order to make enough money to ensure his and their family's future. Last Friday night a typhoon hit her city. She woke in the night to the sound of a flashflood tearing through her neighborhood. The power went out all over the entire city, so she and her neighbors broke out to the rooftop and then spent the night in pitch darkness drenched by torrential rains and beaten by 90 knot winds until morning. She describes it as 'the end of the world'.

I chat almost exclusively with women, but with a handle like 'Ami', I get a lot of messages from men (called 'males' in Yahoo). I have yet to meet a man that is not interested in something I cannot and will not provide. The exception to this are Arabs. Once they find out that I am from Israel they are beside themselves with hatred. These are some of my favorite casual chats. Unable to tear me limb for limb in the safe Ethernet environment of Yahoo, Jihad online is very frustrating. I return smilies for swearwords, and eventually they realize the futility of their endeavors to evoke fear or anger, and hopefully I plant a seed of doubt in the bed of misconceptions they have been raised on.

Critics will tell you that Yahoo is ruled by the devil. Speaking as one who has been traveling there of late, I would say that they are absolutely right. Chatterers hiding behind their aliases expose the darkest sides of human nature. But may I remind you that Satan is the prince of the air in the world we live in offline no less than the internet, he is just more successful at maintaining his disguise.

And at this time of the year, when the Christian world is celebrating the advent of THE cosmic surfer maybe we should remember this: He came to dwell with human beings. They were sick and poor. They were wounded and broken. They were lonely. They were slaves to the same sin, lust and greed you find in Yahoo. They were called harlots and publicans; today we call them sluts and con men. And Jesus broke bread with them. He listened to their stories and told them His. He chatted with them.

I think that if Jesus would have come in our age, you'd find Him at Yahoo.

Playing on Passion

Somewhere along the line Mel Gibson evolved from talented actor to serious artist. His career crawled out of the organic matter of blood and guts in the Mad Max series to action/comedy in Lethal Weapon I-IV, and in the last decade or so made the leap to a new level of thought provoking work, directing "The Passion of the Christ" (2004) and "Apocalypto" (2006).

 

Gibson gambled in both The Passion and Apocalypto, presenting historical drama in contemporary languages to subtitle-illiterate Americans, counting on raw violence and a fast pace to retain their attention. The Passion of the Christ is almost docudrama, following Jesus on his Via Dolorosa ("way of sorrow") in the last hours before his crucifixion. Apocalypto takes place in the doomed Mayan civilization literally moments before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.

 

The Passion of the Christ isn't officially censored in Israel, but in tacit consent between the local distributors and the Israeli audience it isn't marketed here. (I was only able to see it on Utube.) It's just a modern version of Medieval passion plays once produced by the catholic church, more often than not the spark igniting drunken riffraff only too willing to exact revenge on the local Jewish community. At least that is how it's seen here. And besides, a crucifixion isn't going to move an Israeli crowd – in Second Temple Judea it was almost death by natural causes.

Objectively speaking, the telling of Jesus' crucifixion is certainly legitimate, even essential for Christians. Gibson's version isn't blatantly anti-Semitic, but he slips a latent bias in between the lines. He washes Roman hands of guilt; a reluctant Pilate who issues the death warrant, and the ignorant bullies who drive in the nails – Gibson forgives them for they know not what they do. He places the Christ's murder squarely on the Jews; if it's sanctimonious priests scheming and manipulating others to do their dirty work, or a lynch mob screaming for blood. But to be honest, Gibson's portrayal of Jews is accurate. The first century Jewish leadership was never accused of being 'nice' by their contemporaries, and Judeans weren't a gentle bunch, as Roman legions would discover time and again. Saying that, let me remind any Christians latching on to the above "admission of guilt" in order to browbeat present day Jews 2000 years removed from the crime, according the gospels it was first and foremost Jesus orchestrating the events that lead to his crucifixion – otherwise he isn't who he says he is and he was simply the sad victim of a case of mistaken identity. And as for Jewish kneejerk defensiveness at any mention of Jesus, we won't erase anti-Semitism by repainting the past.

In Apocalypto, an idyllic indigenous village in the jungle is raided and its inhabitants force-marched to a city belonging to a more advanced Mayan civilization. The story focuses on the captive Jaguar Paw, following him from his abduction on through the frenzied Mayan crowd. After the women are auctioned off, the men are painted blue and led up to a temple where one by one their beating hearts are to be cut out to ensure the pleasure of the gods and a good harvest. Jaguar Paw's life is spared by a total eclipse of the sun (a sign of the god's favor) and he exploits the opportunity to make a break for the jungle. He is doubly fortunate, for just as his pursuers catch up with him on the beach, they meet a landing party of armored Spaniards and priests who appear to them as gods, to Jaguar Paw (and Mel Gibson) as saviors.

It's not hard to decipher Gibson's agenda from his work; it's apologetics for the traditional catholic church, with one hand pointed at Christ killers, and the other twisting a positive spin on the Spanish crimes of conquest (and subsequent forced catholic conversion) of the native population of Central America. But it is in the parallels and contrasts between the two films one can find the fallacy in Gibson's portrayal of Jesus' crucifixion.

In Apocalypto, men are made gods to be sacrificed to save the Mayans from famine; in The Passion it is God made flesh to save men. Both films pivot on celestial signs, the solar eclipse vis-à-vis God darkening midday to night. In both the spectators - the Mayan crowd or modern theater audiences - are riveted to the drama of human sacrifice. And there's the rub.

Human sacrifice plays on passion. By our very nature, we can't help but be moved when observing the ritual murder of another person. So I have to agree with the verdict of the Jewish audience on this one, even if not with their polemics. Gibson's Passion is fueled by the same raw emotion that turned the wheels of idolatry and Papal violence, reducing Jesus' crucifixion to no more than another version of paganism. The Passion of the Christ is only a modern rendition of an ancient universal genre, one that has tugged at human hearts, sometimes literally, since the dawn of time.

Gibson could have featured the gory crucifixion of any one of thousands of Jews 2000 years ago and would have generated the same emotion. The cross doesn't make Jesus the Messiah.













In the last 60 seconds of the Passion, Gibson takes us to a tomb. The stone rolls away and the camera pans over to an empty shroud. Jesus comes into focus, stands and the last we see of him is a nail-pierced hand. An empty grave doesn't play on emotion and it won't generate box office hits, but it makes all the difference between victim and Messiah.

A Bad Joke

A catholic priest, Protestant minister and a Rabbi walk into a restaurant. The priest asks for a glass of water. "May our Lord who turned water into wine turn this water into a bottle of fine Cabernet Sauvignon." The waiter gets the hint and brings the best of their selection. The minister orders a sardine and roll, and then blesses, "Let this sardine and roll be multiplied as the miracle of loaves and fishes." The waiter rushes off and comes back with smoked salmon and French bread.

The Rabbi observes this and orders something from the menu. When all have dined, they ask for the check. The priest refuses to pay up – all he had was a glass of water. The minister puts down a few coins for the roll and sardine. The rabbi tears the bill in half and says, "May the God who divided the Red Sea for the Children of Israel split this bill between this pair of fools."


A bad joke. Not really funny. But like any joke or story there is some truth in it, otherwise it doesn't make sense. True, there is interfaith tension. True, the Jewish stereotype is wily and greedy, not that there's any truth to the stereotype itself.
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There is a measure of truth to William Paul Young's "The Shack". His story is about Mackenzie who grieves his 6 yr. old daughter, who was kidnapped and probably murdered in a shack in the Wallowa Mountains by the 'Little Ladykiller', a perverted serial killer. 4 years on, Mack gets a mysterious message from 'Papa', family nickname for God, inviting him to return to the same shack his daughter was killed.

The story is Young's venue to outline his views on religion. Much of Young's theology is sketchy, but he's explicit at least on one pillar of Christianity: the trinity. Mack goes to the shack, and indeed meets God, who is:
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1. God the Father ("Papa") is a woman, black, fat and in the kitchen. So, there you have it ladies and gentlemen, God looks like this:

2. Jesus. He's not what Mack expected.

"Jesus?"
"Yes Mackenzie?"
"I am surprised by one thing about you."
"Really? What?"
"I guess I expected you to be more" – be careful here, Mack – "uh…well, humanly striking."
Jesus chuckled. "Humanly striking? You mean handsome." Now he was laughing.
"Well, I was trying to avoid that, but yes. Somehow, I thought you'd be the ideal man, you know, athletic and overwhelmingly good-looking."
"It's my nose, isn't it?"
Mack didn't know what to say.
Jesus laughed. "I am Jewish, you know. My grandfather on my mother's side had a big nose. In fact, most of the men on my mom's side had big noses."
"I just thought you'd be better looking."
(From "The Shack")

From this we learn 3 things:

a. All Jews have big noses.

b. People with big noses are ugly.

c. Therefore, Jews are ugly.

If Young researched his "Jewish" character of Jesus at all, he must have done it in a Reform Temple. He has Jesus frying up bacon and eggs on Saturday morning. The Sabbath may have been created for man, but pork wasn't created for Jews, and I think that even the real Jesus would have drawn the line at cooking on Shabbat.

3. The Holy Spirit is a mysterious, fidgety Asian woman.

All three claim to be One, but the story doesn't play that way, Mack having quality time with each of them at one time or another over the weekend. The closest to "oneness" are godhead family meals rustled up by Papa.

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God (namely, God the mother) is essentially the defendant. Why do bad things happen to good people? Or namely, why did God let Mack's blameless daughter experience such a brutal fate? Papa's answer is that instead of sparing her, Jesus was there for her, sharing her suffering, comforting her. The story about Jesus and the imaginary girl is heart warming, but what about real people that are terrified and alone and in pain?

Is it fair to stack the deck by creating man with a sinful nature, and then condemning sinners to hell? The solution is a role reversal exercise, no doubt brilliant to Young's mind. Mack is commanded to condemn 2 of his children to hell, which is unbearable. He begs to take their place. "You see?", says Papa. "That’s exactly what the cross was all about." There's nothing new about this, but we didn't ask how God solves the dilemma, but why does He let it exist in the first place.


There is a measure of truth to Young's arguments, but the bottom line is that he deals with hard questions by not really answering them. His story rings true and pleasant to the ear, but falls apart the minute it hits reality. The gospel according to Young is that mankind is undergoing an educational process, Jesus was an object lesson; if we can only understand God and his plan enough, all things are resolved. I'm just wondering if a god that can be understood by humans is really God. 

You will find many interesting ideas in The Shack. Some of them are true and by sifting them from Young's inventions, the reader can reexamine himself and build a stronger foundation for his/her faith.


It's hard to pin Young down on anything other than his concept of the trinity, which leans more three than one. At very least he has done a great service for detractors of Christianity who claim it's not a monotheistic religion. The Shack is exhibit A for the commandment forbidding making an image of God. Young has made God in the image/images of man/men/women, creating his gods from racial profiles I hoped had passed from this world 50 years ago (the Negro mammy, the inscrutable oriental and the ugly Jew). In the end, Young's gods are small, no larger than his imagination, and their images limited to ethnic stereotypes.


Mack walks into The Shack and meets God – an African-American woman, an Asian and a Jew. It sounds like a bad joke; if only it were.

kissing the mirror

I didn't set out originally to write a book. I had come to a point when I needed to unravel the loose ends in my life, and the stories started to flow.

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"Every time I finish a story, there is a little relief, a sense of release. In every story I give up something and in return I receive something.... With each story I am being healed and the scales fall from my eyes and the glass becomes clearer and I can see."
(from "Losing Control at a Very Basic Level")

I got the idea for the title from one of my stories. One of the girls I dated in high school told me she practiced kissing on the mirror. It struck me that it's a metaphor for those things we often do innocently, with the best of intentions, but in the end don't get us any where with God. And in a way, it's also like our human nature, sinful and self-centered. Until we realize the vanity of kissing the mirror, we will never experience the real thing with God.

Torn Between Two Women

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Most are at least familiar with the account of Mary queen of Scots' imprisonment and execution at the hands of her cousin Elizabeth I, but a less known tale is that of the relationship that developed between Mary and her host/jailer, George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife Bess of Hardwick. Philippa Gregory breathes life into this historical footnote in her novel, "The Other Queen".

A sincere man of honor, George accepts Elizabeth's charge to hold Mary as his unwilling guest, but in the style she is accustomed. His wife Bess is less than enthusiastic about the prospect of entertaining royalty.

Two women under one roof – big mistake.

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Bess is a "much married woman". She describes herself as "self-made" and has made a career of bettering herself through strategic marriages and then helping her spouses rob the Catholic Church which is being dismantled by the Protestants that have seized control of England. By marrying husbands above her station and then carefully husbanding the profits, she successively gains leverage to yet better matches in turn. George is her fourth, the crown of her achievements, joining his noble blood with her new money in a blend that mixes well with the cream of Elizabethan society.

Mary has been to the alter more than once herself, but that's where the resemblance to Bess ends. She is the product of careful breeding and carries in her person the keys to power, a "queen three times over" heiress to the thrones of Scotland, England, and France. Raised as a princess, she takes the trappings of royalty for granted and holds court even in captivity, at the expense of her hosts. Bad enough for ol' Bess that has slaved for every penny, but what gnaws deeper is having a woman said to be the most beautiful in Christendom and half her age to boot sharing her "husband the earl's" attentions.

Indeed, George the jailer is captured by his prisoner's charm and torn between Mary and his wife, the lady of the house out ranked by her guest. He's an honorable man, so there's no question of loyalty. On the contrary, he is played by both women. He tries to make Mary feel as welcome as possible under the circumstances, but she returns by exploiting his goodwill to hatch ever new plots to recruit spies and allies to overthrow her rival. And Bess for her part thinks nothing of spying on her husband and the "other queen" for Elizabeth's henchmen.

On the canvas of 16th century England's religious struggles, Gregory has painted a metaphor of those two bridesmaids of Christ; the Catholic Church and that peculiar invention, the Church of England. Catholic Mary has the pedigree and holds court in grandeur. She's beautiful and glamorous, but has the heart of a harlot and seduces men to rebellion and death. Bess is the Anglican. She serves a bastard queen, a self-made religion conceived in lust by Henry VIII and nursed with greed by Elizabeth I, robbing Catholic sacraments and Protestant reformation to cloth herself in legitimacy. She thinks she's fooled everyone, but even her own husband sees a common thief underneath the trappings of nobility.

And George is the Bridegroom. Grieved and deceived by Mary's scheming and Bess' grubbing, he turns his back in sorrow on both. As if to say, in the words of the poet in Elizabeth's court, "A plague on both your houses."
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Happiness Isn't Fun

This Shabbat's Torah reading, "Ve-yishlach" - the account of how Jacob returns to Canaan and confronts his brother Esau, reminded me of an op-ed by Jonathan Rosenblum I read years ago, Happiness Ain't Fun. Below is an excerpt:

"Each of us is born incomplete. That lack of completion creates a gnawing within. Our natural tendency is to identify that which is missing with something outside of ourselves - material possessions or some physical pleasure - and to make its attainment our goal. Yet attaining the sought-after object rarely does more than stifle the gnawing for a period of time. "

"A moment's reflection would show us why our efforts to quell our inner turmoil are doomed to failure. Our problem is an internal vacuum, but we seek to cure it with things that must of necessity remain external. No physical object can be amalgamated into our being or fill our internal void. But instead of recognizing this, we convince ourselves that we erred only in our choice of objects: We needed a Rolls, not a Cadillac, or two Cadillacs, not just one."

"By focusing on that which is outside of us rather than what is wrong with us, we lose all sense of who we are, what makes us unique, what special tasks we have been created for. Like a teenager whose life revolves around the telephone and the mirror, we lose all sense of ourselves, except as we exist in the eyes of others."

"The soul, which is not of this world, cannot be satisfied with the goods of this world. Only curing our own imperfections can ultimately quiet the ache in our souls, for only such changes as we make in ourselves can be more than momentary sedatives."

"Every material object is, in a sense, borrowed. It cannot become intrinsic to us, part of our essence, and sooner or later it will no longer belong to us. But what we make of ourselves when we conquer our anger or resist the impulse to speak ill of someone else or train ourselves to reach into our pockets for every passing beggar cannot be taken away from us."

" 'Who is a rich man?' ask our Sages. And they answer, 'He who is satisfied with his portion.' They do not say that such a person is also a rich man, but that he is the only rich man. No matter how much a person possesses, he is a poor man as long as he is driven by a hunger for more."

"Upon meeting his brother Jacob for the first time in decades, Esau tells him, 'I have a great deal.'*, implying a desire for yet more. 'Keep it for yourself', Jacob replied, 'I have everything.'** "

* Hebrew: "Yesh li rav" - I have much. (Genesis 33:9)

** Hebrew: "Yesh li kol" - "I have it all. (Genesis 33:11)

Stigmata

On the way home from America, one of the films featured on our United Airlines flight was Henry Poole is Here. Henry is diagnosed as terminally ill. He quits his job and moves back to the quiet neighborhood where he grew up. He wants to close a circle, to end his days peacefully. He rebuffs his friendly neighbors. Really, what's the point?
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A nosey neighbor lady is poking around in Henry's back yard and discovers a water stain in the image of Jesus' face on the back of his house. Henry takes a look. He sees a bad paint job. Nevertheless, word gets out and Henry's back yard turns into a local Mecca. The dumb can speak, the blind can see; and Henry couldn't care less.
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"Hope won't save you", he tells his wellmeaning neighbors. They can't believe it, incredulous that Henry is blind to the miracle staring him in the face.


I have been told that my blogs about movies are spoilers, so I won't go on. Henry Poole is Here is about the eternal three: faith, hope and love; its a thought provoking story with a twist. Just the thing for a Henry Poole like me.


Every now and then you hear about these strange little 'miracles'. Like statues of the Madonna or people bleeding spontaneously from parts of the body where Christ was wounded. (These people are usually Catholics - non Catholics generally go to a doctor when they spontaneously bleed.)

Its called "stigmata". Most people dismiss it as so much bunk, most people not being Catholic. I for one (neither Catholic nor 'most people') buy it. But the question isn't, "Is it true?"; the real one is, "Is it the truth?" After all, that's the conclusion they (the Catholics) would have you come to.


My mother in law's father died once. In fact, he was so dead that they had him all wrapped up in a shroud for burial. (People weren't buried in coffins back then, over there in Bombay.) Fortunately, he came back to life before they got around to burying him. Once his wife calmed down, he told this story:

After he died, he was taken down a hallway to a place and "there was a trial". He was asked if he had any requests. He replied that his youngest daughter Rosy was to be married soon and that he wished he could have lived to see her married. At this point he found himself back among the living, wrapped up in the shroud.

In the monthes that followed until Rosy's wedding the old man told his story to a number of people. He wasn't sick any more. Rosy got married and about a week afterwards he was sitting outside on a balcony or a porch and his wife left him for a moment. She heard him say, "What, you've come already?" By the time she came back to see who he was talking to, he was already gone.


What does it mean?

Not much, really, unless you happen to be a member of the family. At the time it meant a lot to my mother in law, her brothers and sisters. It was a bit of comfort in their time of loss, but there are no spiritual truths here.
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Stigmata is a Catholic thing. It happens to Catholics, it strenthens Catholics, it gives them a little hope. I'm sure the bizzare, gory stories are true, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with the truth. God, for reasons only He knows, sometimes does things a little out of the ordinary. Not to prove this religion or that; it's His way of encouraging people. A little miracle here and there gives people hope.
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No, Henry, hope won't save you. Not always. But you can take this to the bank; if you don't have any hope at all, you're already finished.

In Bruges

The prophets probably didn't know about the afterlife, and even if they did they certainly didn't tell anyone. There's no mention of heaven or hell in the Old Testament. Salvation, judgment, redemption were collective and in this life.
Here and now.

By the time Jesus came along the idea of "there and then" had evolved. He wasn't challenged when He spoke of life after death. (Except for the Sadducees who were old farts that nobody cared about anyway.)

Talmudic Judaism and the early Church developed the idea of the next world; the resurrection, Judgment Day, heaven, hell. Of course this presented a new problem. If there is a day of judgment then, and people are living and dying now, then where are the souls in the meantime? Lets say that Joe died in the year 1000 AD and Judgment Day is only in the year 2000 AD. (Theoretically of course, because who could have imagined that God would tarry so long.) What happens to Joe for a thousand years?

The Jews, or at least the more mystically inclined, decided that Joe is here. After he died he got a second chance and a third and so on. He got reincarnated to make a "tikkun", to fix things he'd screwed up in his former life. His soul would "roll over" (the term for reincarnation in Hebrew) again and again until he got it right. The soul, so they said, is definitely here and now.

The Christians, more specifically the Catholic ones, invented something new. When Joe died his soul went to a place called Purgatory where he worked off any unsettled accounts with God until Judgment Day. According to the Catholics, after the body dies the soul is there and then.

It is this nagging question about the time and place between the debts we accrue in life and payday that is at the heart of the film "In Bruges". Two Irish gangsters are sent to Bruges, Belgium after botching a hit in London. They are told to wait there for instructions, but at least to Ken, the older of the two, its clear that there will be a reckoning.

Bruges is a well preserved Medieval European town, "something out of a fairytale" one of the thugs calls it. Ken is more aware than his mate of their predicament and in no hurry, but young Ray chafes in exile. He is tortured by guilt and oblivious to the charm of Bruges. He wants to move on, not knowing that here and now is all he has left.

Bruges, a place in between, after life but before judgment.

The great sage Maimonadies understood something that eluded others, both Jewish and Catholic. Time and place are created. God doesn't exist in time or place, and when we leave this life our souls are no longer bound by either. We don't have time to kill until "then"; we don't roll back over and over again "here".

"In Bruges" is a black comedy with an irony that makes sense in a daft mad Irish state of mind. The setting and hints like the painting "The Last Judgment" by Hieronymous Bosch (Note how grotesque characters like in the painting appear throughout the film.) point to something deeper. If there is such a thing as purgatory, its here and now. Ray wallows in guilt, but does nothing about it. Ken finds a way to redeem himself.

Bruges – a fairytale land or a tortured conscience in exile. Bruges, untouched by time, is where we are, where we will be. Heaven and hell don't begin when this life ends. For the soul there is no boundary between "here and now" and "there and then".

So maybe the Old Testament prophets were right after all. The next life starts now.

Ray: "Prison...death...didn't matter. Because at least in prison and at least in death, you know, I wouldn't be in ****in' Bruges. But then, like a flash, it came to me. And I realized, **** man, maybe that's what hell is: the entire rest of eternity spent in ****in' Bruges. And I really really hoped I wouldn't die. I really really hoped I wouldn't die."

From "In Bruges"