Roseannearchy

by Roseanne Barr

  “The operative word there was had!” I snapped, barely letting Him finish. “Yeah, I knocked ’em dead in Denver, had them rolling in the aisles in L.A., and then had a gigantic hit show for nine seasons, and could still rake in some goodies in the wake of all that … but …”

  “But what?!” my seemingly all-too-real apparition or whatever He was demanded.

  “But a ton of it’s GONE! Yeah, I made some serious dough back in the day, and I got my attention and all the rest, but I’m still a writer and a comic and a thinker and an actor, and now, if I want to work anywhere besides my little studio—which, by the way, is conveniently located just minutes from LAX and is equipped with state-of-the-art Macintosh hardware and editing software and high-tech, industry-standard, top-name audio and video gear and is available for viewing by appointment, call us!—if I want to work anywhere where I’ll have an audience of any size. … I mean, can You imagine how degrading it is to have to parade what’s left of my ass in front of a bunch of midlevel studio drones who went to high school with my kids before they dropped out? (My kids, I mean.) Do You have any idea what that’s like? Within a few years of having that gigantic show that’s actually been studied in sociology classes in universities for the impact it had on our culture—that show that was a training ground for people who learned enough to go on to massive careers—within a few years of that, I actually started to hear the word has-been whispered behind my back!”

  “I know the feeling,” said the Dark Lord. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m not supposed to have feelings, but I do know what you mean about that whole has-been thing. There was awhile there, in the ‘90s, when the economy seemed to be booming, but I couldn’t get a major war started to save My ass. Houses were appreciating like, well, like a house on fire. Most people weren’t too miserable. A black man and a fat woman—a feminist, in fact—had big TV ratings. I mean, people were starting to wonder if I was out of business! Those were pretty good times for lots of folks; needless to say, it wasn’t good for My brand.”

  He paused, kind of wistfully for a Devil, I thought. But then He brightened up and shot me a self-satisfied grin, and said, “But then—well, let’s just say, thank G-word for religious fanatics, Republicans from Texas, cheap foreign labor, right-wing gasbags on the radio, the Catholic church, Mormons, hatred coming out of both sides of the Holy Land—I love that one!” He said it like a kid in a candy store, giving hatred and Holy Land an extra push. “Shall I go on?” He asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Oh, baby, one of my biggies: WALL STREET! Yeah, it’s all cooking up nicely again, and Devil stock is through the roof. Forget gold, kid—invest in war, homophobia, porn, payday loan shops in poor neighborhoods, that BS war on drugs, AND drugs—the legal kind, of course, the ones they push on TV—and anything having to do with insurance. It’ll stay bad—I mean good—for Me, of course, for a while, because even suggesting that something may actually be unjust and need fixing is, remember this now: negative thinking! Remember that one; it’s huge. Take this Devil’s word for it: Teach people that it’s not the stuff put into the food and the air and the water that gives people cancer or autism, it’s their own negative thinking! Holy hell, I really knew what I was doing when I cooked that one up. You know that book The Secret? It was My idea to call it that instead of Blame the Victim. Nice, huh? And the dopes LOVE it.

  “Hell, with a little help from My conservative minions, who luckily don’t know what conservative actually means, I’ve got ’em rewriting the Bible and taking out all that ‘be kind to the poor’ and ‘don’t think about money all day’ thing that the Bronze Age Jew hippie told ’em about! And can I just give a shout-out to the Texas School Board and the textbook companies that kiss their Holy-Roller, snake-handling asses! Yeee-haaw! Let’s get evolution out of the schools, and take sex education out while we’re at it, and science along with both of them! Oh, baby! ’Scuse Me, while I kiss the sky! The dumber the Taliban-gelists can keep the Americans, the less they are taught to compete for jobs in the international workforce, and the more desperate they will be. And that’s makes for a gi-normous payday for all of My subsidiaries.”

  I was staring, by now, with my mouth hanging open like an inbred, corn-fed white woman at a Sarah Palin rally demanding that the word intercourse be taken out of the dictionary, and taxes lowered, while escalating the war in some far-off country that doesn’t have the sense to be Christian. The Devil held up a single gnarly finger, like a litigant on Judge Judy just before she tells them to put their hand down or she’ll bite it off.

  I jumped in anyway. “Hey, that’s all good, but I did a reality show on a big-ass network about trying to get a show on a little-ass network, and it turned out to be a giant cluster fuck that I had to hemorrhage my way out of. You call that fame and fortune and getting my ass kissed? You broke the contract, Mr. Dark Lord. What’s up with that, Homeboy From Hell?”

  He said, “You have to realize that sometimes it gets complicated. Yours is not the only deal I try to honor. Believe it or not, a few people have made deals with me that run concurrently and include screwing with YOU! I’m a demon, not a proctologist—I don’t always have the luxury of dealing with one asshole at a time!”

  “I beg your Devil-Ass pardon!” I said, indignantly.

  But He held that finger up again, and said, “Okay, just to make up for a little of your trouble, here’s a tip for a shrewd investment while you’re getting advice from the original inside trader: Reality shows: They’ve really gotten better, and by that I mean, worse. You can’t go wrong getting behind marketing during the new ampedup reality shows. I’m talking about the ones where the people on the screen are way dumber than the ones who are watching, which makes everybody involved really feel good about themselves. You can so sell things during the breaks—you know: pills that make your ass smaller, your dong bigger, your wrinkles harder to see, your kids smarter, your marriage better, your attitude shinier, your …”

  I’d heard enough.

  “Been there, done that,” I said, feeling back in charge of the proceedings. “I’ve tried to go through the Home Shopping Network drill. That’s another cheesy hoop I wouldn’t have jumped through if You’d stayed on the case like You were supposed to. That sucked! I had to get stuff made by Chinese slaves, brought over on nonunion asbestos barges, jack the price through the roof, and stand in front of the camera with way too much makeup on, and act like I was happier than I’d ever been in my life, like I was selling the greatest thing in the world! Trust me, it’s not as fun as it sounds. I lost my dignity and made a hundred and thirteen dollars! Another example of You not coming across!

  “Now, let’s get back to the big stuff. When we made that deal, I seem to remember the word eternal being in there, as in: eternal soul. Even when I was a kid, I wasn’t dumb enough to trade something eternal for ten years or so of being top dog. Do You really think I’d fall for that and sign up for a hitch with You that never ends, without You at least getting me serious face time in the media right up to the end of my role as me? You’ve gotta be shitting me! Even when I was marrying all those special-needs dudes, most of the time I was thinking, I have to make this last … all the way to the divorce! I mean, it makes me mad that You’d think I was that stupid to lock in ‘forever’ with the likes of You! Even as a kid! You know a little something about being mad, don’t You, O Mighty Angel of Anger?” I took a breath.

  “Do I?!” He said, with a curled lip and a raised eyebrow and a furrowed forehead (I guess He doesn’t like the Botox). “You know what really gets My pointy tail in a knot? When I watch those award shows you showbiz types like to throw, the ones where everybody likes to act all genuine and sincere, while wearing zillion-dollar dresses and tailored tuxes and talking about what an honor everything is, and how thrilled they are just to be breathing the same air as a bunch of other ego freaks they hope to outshine.”

  “THAT gets under YOUR skin?” I asked. “I figured You’d love those gushing fountains of swollen self-es
teem on steroids!”

  “Oh, I DO! Are you kidding?” He said, tossing His head back in disbelief. It was amazing how His face held its shape while smoothly morphing into everybody from Mick Jagger to Dr. Phil to some generic studio head type, to the pope, Oprah, Bono, Suzanne Somers, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, some hillbilly Ayatollah TV evangelist composite, and Dick Cheney—unbelievable! It was a bit like I’ve imagined LSD to be, but without the peaceful hippie vibe.

  “Hey, are you paying attention?” He snapped. “I’m listening to your griping—have some respect for Mine!”

  “Sorry,” I said, a little sheepishly, but then I realized I was apologizing to SATAN for STARING! “Go on,” I said. “Hell, I’m not getting any younger.”

  “I can see that,” He said.

  “Don’t piss me off,” I shot back. “Finish telling me what pisses You off! And then I’ve got the floor again.” I waited for Him to compose Himself.

  “What pisses Me off at those cinematic circle jerks is the way some people actually thank GOD for their success. Okay, I said the G-word, just to make My point. And by success I mean the ass shining from their peers in the ass-shining business. Can you believe that they’re not only vain enough to actually think that the CEO of the Universe, Inc., gives a good goddamn about whether some artsy-fartsy neurotic on a tiny, tumbling grain of sand in the middle of nowhere gets an award for their skills or not? Their skills are entertaining, but let’s face it—their craft consists of pretending to be someone they’re not, or making up stories, or rapping about how much sex they get or money they make or sex they’ll get and money they’ll make after everybody sees them on this glitzy spectacle in a tiny corner of a world half full of hungry people in rags. “Oh yeah,” He said, somehow even more sarcastically. “G-word just can’t get enough of that.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “I thought You said You love all that crap?”

  “Are you listening?” He said, getting hot around His already smoldering collar. “I said it’s the thanking God for their success that pisses Me off! Think about it! Do they really think that the alleged author of all that’s good and caring and sharing and unselfish would be The One who provides them elbows sharp enough to slice their way through all those tux- and gown-clad careerist attention junkies and their rabid, conniving agents and publicists and crap lappers? I’m talking about the same weasels with a phone in each claw who live to get their clients’ faces blown up on the big screen that passes for reality in this sad charade of a world—the same world I work like a sock puppet! Baby, let Me tell you: In the entertainment capital of the world, like you said, the breasts may be fake, but the assholes are real. All that effort I put into working for them around the clock from the time they go to their first podunk high school drama class all the way to the podium of that massive, monolithic monument to bullshit that is big-time showbiz—and then they have the nerve to thank the alleged Source of Kindness, and selflessness!

  “Come on! Has one of them ever had the damn decency to look into the camera and out at all those uplifted, face-lifted masks in the audience and say, ‘I deserve this adulation like a son of a bitch because I followed Satan’s brilliant direction to a T. It was HE who taught me you don’t get anywhere in a world where ‘money talks and bullshit walks’ unless you miss no opportunities to be noticed! They have absolutely no fucking integrity at all, Roseanne, or else they would honestly say, ‘It was the Devil who brought me the craftiest, highest-paid people in a crafty, highly paid web to do the pushing for me! Just once, I would like to hear, ‘Thank you, Dark Lord, for this moment where everyone is staring at me, me, ME!

  “Listen, Roseanne, I agreed to have this lunch with you because I have a proposition to make you that I think will make you very pleased.”

  “What?!” I shrieked, feeling outsmarted, almost.

  He continued, “I want you to be the spokeswoman for my various business entities. I want you to speak for Me, and put a human face on My Brand. There can be a whole campaign, starring you … books, tours, television, radio, all media, and then an extended career in politics. Your own commercials, just like you dreamed of as a child.”

  “Wow, it sounds amazing!” I remarked. “I like saying the things that are true and that no one else has the guts for.”

  “I know you do, and I think you and I are the right fit,” He went on.

  “Yeah?” I said. “I have always dreamed of selling out in a big, big way for the right price, but—before I consider Your interesting offer, indulge my curiosity for a moment, please.”

  “Of course, I will,” He assured me.

  It just tumbled out of my mouth. “You make things happen the way people ask You to. Then they get famous by selling their souls, and once they realize that they haven’t got one, they quickly hit bottom, which is where they always seem to see the Light! It seems that You are the One who brings most of us to God, though in a roundabout way, as if You and God are like good cop, bad cop. You are both on the same team, really. Aren’t I right, Mr. God-Devil?” I delivered the shot like David did to Goliath.

  Unmasked at last, He smiled and shook His head from side to side, amused and amazed at the depth of my deciphering abilities. Eventually, He spoke and said, “You have figured it all out, Rose-anne. Everything, including Me, ends up working for The Greater Good, yes.”

  I said, “I have moved out of childish things these days, and no longer care anything about commercials or success or show business or any of that bipolar stuff, so I think You should move on, and ask Glenn Beck to be Your number one disciple, and hawk Your message for You. He will do well for You, I think, better than me, really.”

  Perhaps as a consolation to me, He said, “You know, you are probably right. That guy really knows how to divide people and as you know, Roseanne, that is how I am really able to control the world, for now. All roads do eventually lead to Rome, of course. You are on the right track of things, but a little bit ahead of the times, as usual. The entire concept of spiritual duality is vestigial, really, like hibernation. And one day, people will just slough it off, but until then, how else can storytellers tell people about the unfolding of Divine Awareness in humanity, huh? If you can come up with a better story, then, by all means, do so!” He turned to look me straight in my eyes.

  I saw Those Eyes again, just then, as I did at age twelve—green and black plaid with a stripe of yellow around the edge and a combustible red center. There He was in all His glory, the Fallen Angel of pride and ego, now named Lucifer! He had showed Himself to me, Shana Rifke Bitnam Katz Davidovitz Borisofsky. We were looking at each other pupil to pupil, and I did not flinch, as His face morphed into an exact copy of my own. I had learned to calm the panic and horror that rose in me, so I could calmly confront the worst of my own ugliness, and I breathed deeply. I was on a mission to create myself over again, in wholeness, and to integrate shadow and light.

  “What is it you are doing to Me?” His lips turned a shade of blue. As He searched the mirror of my gaze, I said, “I am giving you the Evil Eye.” He was getting pretty scared now. “You are using Law against Law! Stop it! Not the Evil Eye of an Old Jewish Woman, NO!” He began freaking out.

  “Oh yes, and I am feeling empathy for You, too!” I said, knowing that He could not exist in the presence of it.

  “I am out of here!” He said, horrified, and then fell to dust and blew away.

  Chapter 28

  The Real Big Super-duper Perverse Reverse Secret

  Like most thinking women who have ever lived on this planet, I have been asked repeatedly, “Why are you so angry?” The question is often posed by drunk, drugged women, and it is always asked accusatorially, as if there is—honest to God—no reason to be angry. It pisses me off and tempts me to scream back, “Why aren’t you more angry?” Am I the only one who sees that the world is turning to shit, and that most people are unaware of the constant game of smoke and mirrors that is in play to keep us from realizing what is really going on?

&
nbsp; I watch in amazement as the completely restorative power of anger is being demonized in America by those would-be mind controllers who are employed in religious organizations, pharmaceutical industries, the psychiatric association, government, and the advertising industry and all the media it spawns. To me, this is the conspiracy to end all conspiracies, a crying shame of epic proportions. Only the Evil One could have thought of this!

  Imagine for a moment that you are the Evil One, old Beelzebub himself. First of all, you are all about the nasty, the vile, and the wrong. Your goal is to persuade as many thinkers as you can to ignore their own rational self-interest and act on your orders. You must cloud their minds, and make them think that they themselves came up with the ideas that ultimately defeat and destroy them. You want to persuade as many thinkers as you can that everything is okay, and for those who do not buy that, and think they can make a difference, you must convince them instead that no matter how much they try to create change, they will not succeed. Your stealthy servants serve up Hope to the Hopeless, in order to disarm them, because you know that the hopeless could become your greatest enemy. Those with nothing to lose are the potential soldiers for Truth.

  You know that the racket you are running, if exposed, will go down fast, as all Ponzi schemes always do. Your business is persuasion! You know how to use law against law. Using religion, you have leveraged God against Humanity! That is how smart you are! You have given us complacency and named it Faith! By remaking anger into something that must be numbed and turned away from, your minions, the zombies and ghouls who do your bidding, have rendered the common citizen helplessly paralyzed.

  Score one for Big Devil Daddy! The Dark Lord grinds His chops, growing stronger each time a thinker is confounded, each time fact is disregarded. Hoping to render more unquestioning slaves to do the bidding of His minions, who run the banks, governments, diet franchises, and pharmaceutical companies, He seeks to replace public anger at injustice with capitulation or apathy. These methods are His most effective tools against insurrection and overthrow. He knows that anger and hatred are the most transcendental of all human emotions, and that they move mountains.