Shalampax Speaks

Religco launched its Infinitiaty cult religion only a short time ago, but it is already a tremendous success, gathering a steady stream of believers daily. Despite the newness and success of Infinitiaty, the Sages of Infinitiaty are already considering a revision to the theology underlying the cult’s religion’s core belief system.

As you know, Infinitiaty is founded on the principle that nothing can come into existence without something causing it to have come into existence. Thus, there must be a god who created our God. And there must be a god who created that god. And so on into an infinite regress of gods. The impossibility of a causeless cause demands no less.

In the beginning, the only possibility that the Sages of Infinitiaty considered was that every god in this infinite hierarchy of gods is an only child. Rethinking this issue, the Sages now recognize that, given the infinite number of gods, it is inevitable that at least some gods, and likely many gods, created multiple child gods, rather than just one.

The Sages of Infinitiaty are determined to integrate this sibling god belief into the Infinitiaty theology because the Sages recognize that these sibling gods can serve a noble purpose in our world.

We live in a world rife with strife. Unbridled hate of one group—regardless of how that group is defined—for another leads to intolerance, oppression, brutality, loss of life and, worst of all, considerable commercial impediments.

Sibling gods offer a way to resolve these global conflicts.

The problem with monotheistic religions is that they are too often the cause of strife as true-believers fight to defend their version of God. Assigning a single impartial god to negotiate between the warring sects won’t work because the ingrained, fanatical intolerance of every group by the every other group assures that no group will accept any god that associates in any way with another group.

And, of course, when it comes to assigning godly negotiators, no group will tolerate being assigned a god who is lower in the god hierarchy than the god assigned to an opposing group.

Sibling gods provide an opportunity to eliminate these clashes. The Sages of Infinitiaty propose that, for a fee, they will ask the sibling gods to act as negotiators, with one sibling god assigned to each of the warring factions. Then, if the sibling gods cannot reach an acceptable agreement, their parent god can be called upon to impose an impartial, binding settlement, while not acting directly for either of the warring sects. Problem solved.

You’ve got to hand it to the Sages of Infinitiaty. They are always on the lookout for ways to make this a better world, for a price, of course.

The Shalampax Medical Clinic has asked me to pass along the following public health advisory. Shalampax privacy conventions, scant though they may be, do not allow me to comment or expand on an advisory of this nature, so I will simply present it verbatim.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Shalampax Medical Clinic; October 30, 2009

HEALTH ADVISORY #885

All males who have had unprotected sex with Cherrytart within the last 60 days are advised to visit the Shalampax Medical Clinic. All females who have had sex with Cherrytart within that timeframe should visit the clinic as well.

Everyone covered by this advisory is urgently recommended to come to the clinic as soon as possible and, with the exception of the first people to arrive, expect to find long lines and lengthy waits when they get here.

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Sorry folks, that’s all the advisory says and I’m not allowed to add more. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run to the clinic and get ahead of the massive lines that are sure to form when this is published.

Hi peeps, in my last post I told you about Openfly miraculously stumbling upon Marie in a bar in Honolulu. Here’s the latest. Marie left Hawaii yesterday and returned to her place in California. Before going, she invited Openfly to join her. Openfly, not having anything better to do, went.

Openfly assures me that she is in the United States legally. She claims that, on the advice of Marie, she checked in with an office of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) shortly after docking in Honolulu and sharing a drink or two or three with Marie. According to Openfly, CIS granted her a B-2 tourist visa that allows her to stay in the United States for up to six months.

I find this rather bizarre because very few countries recognize Shalampax. And among those handful of nations that do acknowledge our country, none, to the best of my knowledge, recognizes our passports due to the fact that they are printed on newsprint using a cheap inkjet printer and the picture is stapled on.

Nonetheless, Openfly swears she has a valid B-2 visa.

When I said that Marie returned to her “place” in California, that might have been a bit misleading. According to Openfly, Marie’s place consists of several acres—Openfly is not sure of exactly how many—within an hour or two’s drive of somewhere that Marie refers to as “Big Sur.” I don’t know if that is a town, a landmark or a well-hung guy named Sur, but from the way Openfly talks about it, I think I’m supposed to be impressed.

Marie runs a five-star resort on half of her property. On the other half, she runs a hippie-retro commune. Surprisingly, the commune makes as much money for Marie as the resort does. Apparently, there are a number of old hippies who gave up being hippies, joined the establishment, made a ton of money, and now want to retire and relive their hippy days.

The story of how Marie was able to buy her land and start her businesses is interesting. After fleeing Shalampax and returning to the United States, in addition to being largely responsible for initiating the hippy movement, she started a cult that competed with Shalampax’s cults religions. Our cults religions were only getting started back then, so she had no problem competing with us.

Marie’s cult was quite lucrative, but she shut it down when the authorities started hassling her and threatening her with charges related to the cult. Clearly, there’s not nearly as much religious freedom and commercial latitude in the United States as there is in Shalampax.

Marie used the money left in the cult to construct the resort on the property where she had built a religious retreat for her cult. Later, when her old hippie friends started calling her up wanting to recapture the spirit of their hippie days, she built the commune.

That’s history, but the future is looking decidedly exciting for our little Openfly. She wants to stay in the United States and Marie thinks that might be possible, even within the law.

Marie suggested that the easiest route that Openfly could take to a U.S. green card and eventual citizenship would be through an EB-5 investor class visa. The U.S. gives up to 10,000 of these visas each year to people who invest at least $1 million in a U.S. business, or just $500,000 or more in an area of high unemployment, and hire at least 10 Americans.

It looks like things are moving forward in this regard. Marie and Openfly have come up with an idea for a business that Openfly can start. The owner of a large chunk of property adjacent to where Marie runs her retro-hippie commune wants to sell his property. Marie suggested that Openfly buy the land and build an outlet mall for manufacturers of new age paraphernalia. The now rich, former and retro hippies will love it.

I know what you’re thinking. Where would Openfly get that kind of money? Well, it was as great of a surprise to me as it will likely be to you, but Openfly is rich. Very rich. Over the past few years she had been given many shares in a number of Shalampax spam and cult religion companies as gifts in return for “special favors” she performed for the various owners.

Shortly before leaving Shalampax, Openfly sold those shares back to their original owners for hundreds of millions of dollars, half of which she invested in dividend-paying U.S. blue chip stocks, most of which have held up reasonably well even under the current economic conditions. The other half is socked away in accounts in some of the few rock-solid (thanks to government bailouts) U.S. banks.

This was wise of her because, considering our reputation, the U.S. authorities would, no doubt, have looked askance at any investments in Shalampax companies. In addition, shares in those companies are not very liquid outside of Shalampax.

So, that’s were it stands. It looks like Openfly may not be coming back to Shalampax. That should make Cherrytart, Openfly’s former best friend, very happy because it will mean that she’ll be able to take over Openfly’s apartment in Shalampax. It would serve Cherrytart right if she got Openfly’s apartment and then was the one selected to fill the gap in Shalampax’s population that was created by Openfly’s departure.

I’ll keep passing along information as I get it, peeps.

Till next time, be cool. I don’t know what that means, but it’s something Openfly picked up when she took a stroll through the commune.

There is nothing more uplifting than the soul of a being of flesh and blood that rises up high above its corporeal body to experience life on a far loftier plane.

There is nothing more beautiful than two souls who have merged in a bond of everlasting, unconditional, true love to form a single whole that is far more sublime than the sum of its previously separate parts could ever be.

There is nothing more glorious than the melding of the collective spirits of a people of mutual faith who unite in a fellowship of humanity unified through a pure energy that exudes peace and love.

There is no one more full of shit than I am.

Damn! Writing this spirituality column is driving me out of my frigging mind. I’ve got to get off this beat! Either that or I’ve got to start taking drugs. There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep churning out this piffle otherwise.

Well, that’s your freaking spiritual message for today. Now, buzz off until next time.

If anyone knows who has keys to the chambers of Shalampax’s Parliament please call the parliamentary office immediately. There is no record of who has been given keys or who has been assigned the role of Parliament Security Officer. And the people who have a very urgent need to know these things can’t remember who the key-holders might be.

Parliament is in recess this week and for the following two weeks as well, so you would think that the lack of a key wouldn’t be a serious problem. Unfortunately, last Friday, before they were scheduled to rise for their three-week-long recess, all Members of Parliament fell asleep at their desks. As is often the case, they all slid off their chairs and dozed comfortable on the floor.

What happened next is not entirely certain, but the current thinking is that the Parliament Security Officer, whoever he or she may be, came by sometime after Parliament was scheduled to recess, took a look inside, didn’t see the Members of Parliament because they were resting quietly under there desks, and locked up Parliament.

The doors can be unlocked only with a key and the Parliament Security Officer is not expected to return until just before the recess is scheduled to end.

Fortunately, there is a water fountain and a well-stocked liquor cabinet in Parliament so none of the members is suffering from dehydration. However, they’ve finished all of the mixed nuts and pretzels that were in the liquor cabinet and the members are now getting hungry.

The funny thing is that, they’ve been locked away for almost four days, but none of their spouses noticed that the members hadn’t come home yet. Either that or they noticed, but preferred it that way.

We wouldn’t have known about this predicament were it not for the fact that, early this morning, one of our brilliant Members of Parliament got the bright idea of using one of the many phones in Parliament to call for help. That option hadn’t occurred to any of them in the first three or so days they had been locked in.

So, if you know someone with a key please tell them to head over to Parliament as quickly as possible and unlock it. Otherwise, our Members of Parliament might die of starvation and we would have to elect new members—maybe you or me. Please hurry! Your sanity may depend on it.

Peeps, if you’ve been reading Shalampax Speaks for some time, you’ve likely been wondering what happened to Openfly. To be perfectly honest, so have I. For about four months now, neither she nor Doctor Don have responded to any of my many emails.

I was beginning to think that the ship they were on had sunk with all hands—not to mention all other body parts—lost. But no, Openfly is very much alive and she’s finally gotten back in touch with me.

The first news to tell you is that the experiment in which Dr. Don was trying to disprove his own hypothesis that Shalampaxians are not Homo sapiens has ended. As you’ll remember, in that experiment, Dr. Don, who is presumably Homo sapiens, was trying to impregnate Openfly, who is very much a Shalampaxian.

The thinking was that if Dr. Don was able to impregnate Openfly and the resulting baby was a viable human being, that would, pretty much by definition, prove that Openfly is of the same species as Dr. Don.

Openfly had been through four fertile periods during the experiment, and despite having sex as often and as vigorously as possible, she did not get pregnant.

Openfly denies it, but if you ask me, I suspect she was taking birth control pills on the sly. Openfly is a known nymphomaniac of the highest order, but she is also well known to be exceptionally averse to getting pregnant, to the extend that her aversion will override her nymphomania when necessary.

She gets severe morning sickness just thinking about the prospect of pregnancy. Whenever it comes time to select a woman to make up for a deficiency in Shalampax’s population quota, she scouts out the best spot to stand to avoid being chosen. Then, on the day of the selection, she rushes to get her spot, elbowing out any contenders who might have somehow managed to get there before her.

As much as she enjoyed sex with Dr. Don, Openfly agreed to try to get pregnant only because Dr. Don promised her a large monetary reward just for participating in the experiment—whether or not she got pregnant. Openfly began to doubt Dr. Don’s sincerity about the payment when she overheard him offering an IOU to buy a box of facial tissues from shopkeeper who came on board to sell his wares at one of their ports of call.

Dr. Don was furious when Openfly refused to continue with the experiment.

The ship they were on recently docked in Honolulu, Hawaii, but, before they approached the pier, Dr. Don locked Openfly in a room so she couldn’t escape. Fortunately, Openfly heard the resident bonobo walking past the room. She called out to the bonobo to open the door and he complied.

(By the way, apropos of nothing, no one onboard ever bothered to give the bonobo a formal name. However, Openfly often referred to him affectionately as “her Studmuffin.”)

Openfly then stripped naked, threw all of her belongings into a suitcase and ran off the ship with the bonobo. She figured, correctly as it turns out, that everyone would be so dumbfounded at seeing a naked woman and a bonobo running hand-in-hand that it wouldn’t occur to anyone to stop them.

Once safely away from the ship, Openfly put on some clothes and told the bonobo to shove off and enjoy his newfound freedom on his own. Upon spotting some bikini-clad women on the beach, the bonobo complied.

Totally out of character for her, Openfly had not touched a drop of alcohol while onboard the ship, but once on dry land she reverted to form and made a beeline for the nearest bar.

Inside, Openfly decided to put her libido on a leash. She, with great difficulty, gave no encouragement to the many men in the bar who stared at her lasciviously. Instead, she mounted a barstool beside a woman who, despite looking very spry and in good health, appeared to be in her mid- to late-seventies. Although, there was something about the woman—Openfly couldn’t quite identify what it was—that made Openfly think that the woman was somewhat older than she appeared.

The two of them began chatting. The woman, Marie Kurveh, was quite gregarious and immediately volunteered that she was on vacation from California. Openfly kept the conversation going by telling Marie about Shalampax. As Openfly spoke, Marie’s jaw dropped and a look of sheer astonishment engulfed her face.

Those of you who are familiar with Shalampax history probably know where this is going. Yes, it was that Marie; the Marie who, early in 1952, washed up on our shores, taught the inhabitants of our island their first language, English, assigned the name “Shalampax” to our land, and taught us about civilization. There is no record of exactly when Marie left what, thanks to her, is now called Shalampax, but it’s generally believed that she hadn’t been here for much more than a couple of years before the inhabitants of the day grew tired of her and frightened her into leaving our island.

In the whole time she had been here, Marie never told anyone what her last name was, but now we know. I have no idea why she kept her last name a secret while she was in Shalampax. It sounds like a nice enough name to me and she doesn’t seem to be bothered by it anymore.

Hell, living in Shalampax, I’ve heard many names that are much odder sounding than Kurveh. In fact, almost all of our names are way weirder than that. Maybe Kurveh has a hidden meaning that I don’t know about. That’s always a possibility because there’s a lot that I don’t know about and little that I do know about.

Marie’s last name aside, does this situation amaze you as much as it amazes me? Think about it. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, what are the chances that Openfly and Marie would find themselves in the same one at the same time? The probability has to be damned close to zero, but there they were.

Marie, who was only going to be in Hawaii for a couple more days, was staying in a two-bedroom suite in a nearby hotel. She offered to let Openfly stay in the second bedroom until Marie checked out. Openfly accepted the offer because Marie was a part of Shalampax history. To put it simply, Openfly was star-struck.

That’s where it stands, peeps. I’ll keep you posted. This could get exciting. That, in itself, is exciting because Shalampaxians are not used to excitement. Stay tuned.