influence

If I was more charismatic, had more charm, I’d convince everybody to take off their shoes and throw them up in a tree as a symbolic gesture of one kind or another. Maybe for the fight against whale abortions. It’s got to stop, people. Anyway I’d get them all riled up about something and get them to huck those shoes as high up a tree as they could. Nothing funnier than watching the whole world try to fish its shoes out of a tree with a stick.

But I wouldn’t have that kind of influence, not like a Kennedy or the cute drummer in a boy-band that plays its own instruments but has help with the songs, not like Paris Hilton or Paris Texas or Tex Perkins or Carl Perkins or Charles Manson. I’m too lazy to drum up support, I appear sallow on television, my left thumb does not bend correctly and never has. People suspect I broke it, but I was born that way. Makes it hard to play certain chords on the guitar. No, I have no business trying to lead people.

Jesus had good thumbs, fine long thumbs. Couldn’t play guitar worth shit, though. I believe he preferred the banjo. Bluegrass. People warm to that, people like that. And Jesus could make wine at will, also heroin, a lot of people like that too. So it’s no wonder Jesus had so many disciples. I wonder if he ever tried the shoes-in-the-tree thing. Probably not. They wore sandals then and trees weren’t invented yet.