#134 - the gods MUST be crazy.

oh, religion. you make people do some funny things sometimes. remember that time back in early A.D. when because of you, the romans nailed a guy who claimed to be the son of god to a cross? that was awesome. how about that time back in the high middle ages when europeans went & removed muslims from jerusalem in your name? that was pretty cool too. 9/11, the holocaust, the events in tibet--all as a result of your hand. oh! i can't forget that you're doing a bang up job in the middle east these days. kudos on that! you've got a stranglehold on that region...an epic, bloody stranglehold.

myself, i was brought up roman catholic in a family who practiced their religion without thinking of it as a tool to further a political agenda. we went to church most sundays, i learned a sense of morals & was confirmed catholic. i never thought of my religion as a way to force moral beliefs on other people & as a result, as i became older & wiser & saw what was done in the name of not only catholicism, but a number of organized religions, i eventually decided to stop going to church. i still have the morals & general kindness to others that came from my religious upbringing, but i now consider myself agnostic. i feel there has to be some higher power, but i have trouble believing that that higher power has a belief system that applies equally to everyone.

here in nyc, there's been a lot of talk lately about the athiest movement. beginning tomorrow, the big apple coalition of reason will have ads appearing throughout the nyc subway system, ads that ask "a million new yorkers are good without god. are you?" according to the the american religious identification survey, athiests are the fastest growing religious group (15% of the population), so they figure they have a solid target audience for the ads. i'm curious to see what response they get once they're actually up. people love writing on ads as it is, but last year, when 877-WHY-ISLAM wanted to run ads in the nyc subways that tried to educate people about islam, people got their panties in a bunch, saying that the dude funding them was tied to terrorism.

sean hannity's tried to get people worked up about the athiest ads, asking what the response would be if a christian group did the same thing, but since christianity's been present in the subways for years, that angle's not going to fly. i mean, in the times sq station alone, there are already crazy end of the world dudes who line the tunnels with their signage, dianetics dudes with their "stress tests" & countless people handing out religious pamphlets with "relatable" religious messages. sorry sean, but here in nyc, everyone's got the best religion ever & can't wait to tell you about it, so i don't think the absence of religion will be that big of a deal. as a new yorker, you should already know that. the sad thing is that some people will actually believe what you said.

i mean, people believe in some crazy shit...supernatural beings & alien saviors & what have you. don't even get me started on the mormons' special religious undergarments or the ridiculousness that is scientology or the fact that folks from the white separatist world church of the creator have dubbed their religion "creativity." there are the breatharians, who believe that all they need to live is oxygen. there's the church of euthanasia, whose main devotion is toward voluntary population reduction & whose main principles are suicide, abortion, cannibalism & sodomy. my favorite religion of them all is pastafarianism, whose flying spaghetti monster is a deity among deities. any god who's that tasty can't be denied.

#134 - the gods MUST be crazy.
snack: zapps voodoo chips
drink: blue point rastafa rye ale



in celebration of a religion that believes in mischievous spirits & a non-intervening god & sticking pins into dolls, i decided to try out a bag of zapps voodoo chips. it's the third flavor of zapps chips featured thus far on eat!drink!snack! & definitely the most interesting of the three. zapps is based out of gramercy, louisiana, a town just west of new orleans, which is famous for its voodoo culture & history. louisiana voodoo's a variation on traditional voodoo, with christian & tourist bents mixed in. new orleans loves that sort of junk. in fact, next weekend, there's voodoofest, a three-day festival with eminem, ween, the flaming lips, KISS & a ton of other acts playing. KISS totally has the voodoo!

the voodoo chips are zapps' current mystery "limited edition" flavor, which according to website legend, is "a result of an accident. an employee was moving a pallet of spices off the top shelf, and dropped it. while cleaning it up, someone stuck their finger into the mixture of about 5 flavors and pronounced it great. we recreated in our lab, and like gumbo, it’s an 'everything in the kitchen' flavor." it's true. the flavor is pretty intense, with a spice combo that's like salt & vinegar but with a lot more going on, hints of paprika & sweetness. since i wolfed them down quicker than i should have, i felt a bit bloated afterwards, but after gently massaging the belly of a doll made in my likeness, i felt much better.

for those who think that smoking weed & belief in a former ethiopian emperor as god incarnate should be the main tenets of a belief system, i'm washing down the voodoo magic with a 22 oz blue point rastafa rye ale. since from what i've read, alcohol is frowned upon by rastafaris, i'm a bit confused by blue point's rastafari theme, but i guess they knew a good pun when they saw it & decided to run with it. the dude on the front of the label has your typical rastafarian dreadlocks, but he looks like a character out of a crappy video game storyline, like a grand theft auto knockoff or something. he'd be the shady guy you'd smoke a spliff with while you learn about your next mission.

slightly misguided themes aside, the rastafa rye's an acceptable beer. it's a copper beer with a relatively smooth taste made up of a good balance of hops & malty rye. i mean, it didn't make me want to pop on some bob marley or grow the natty dread, but i still enjoyed it. as a bonus, blue point donates a portion of the proceeds from the rastafa rye to a charity that works with "orphaned, at-risk and underprivileged children throughout the caribbean." that's good to know. usually, when i'm drinking, i'm doing it for the children. its not for the children of israel or anything, but i like to think that jah would still approve.