Interview with Jesus

Jesus is not an easy person to track down. Oh, they will tell you he is everywhere, but finding him and securing an interview is like trying to find Santa at a hardware store in the middle of July. I finally caught up with him in a bar just south of the Peruvian/ Columbian border and traded two tequilas and a cheap whore for an interview.Zero: So, what made you do it? I mean the whole religion business and all that.Jesus: Well, Bob, it is not something I had intended from the start. Back when I started out, guys like Zeus and Apollo had a corner on the market. They had temples and harems of women. I delivered fish in the desert. One day I backed over a guy while I was dropping off a load to a crowd of people and the next thing I know they are calling me the messiah. To make a long story short, being the son of God is a little bit of an upgrade from handling dead fish, so I made up a back story and went with it. Word of me spread like wildfire. People were a lot easier to fool before cable news and the internet came along.Zero: That\'s cool, but my name isn\'t Bob. So, if it was all a hoax, what about the miracles and the whole crucifixion thing?Jesus: The miracles were all smoke and mirrors. I had hired some actors to convince people they were sick or diseased and then I would come in, say something wise, lay my hands on them, and they would get \"better\". We worked hundreds of dumb villagers for everything from their livestock to their daughters. Those were really good times.The crucifixion is another story. You see, there were only so many little villages around the desert at that time. We got too well known. One night I was sitting around the campfire with Judas and some Romans drinking wine and smoking opium and we came up with a little plan. I can\'t really go in to specifics, but let\'s just say that while that other guy was rotting on the cross, I was laying down with a couple of busty maid servants in the Emperors private chamber. They buried that poor schmuck in a cave, then, three days later I show back up and the rest is history.Zero: Wow. That is an incredibly wicked lie to perpetrate on people. Don\'t you feel some sense of responsibility for the hundreds of years of war that lie has caused?Jesus: Not really, Bob!Zero: My name is not Bob.Jesus: Like I was saying, not really Bob. If it wasn\'t me it would have been someone else. All the guys did it. Buddha, Mohammed, even that David Koresh guy got in on the act a few hundred years later. It\'s all about business. I\'m pulling in more than Bill Gates here, Bob. I got a store on every corner. And I\'m not the only one making money here either. I\'m sure you have noticed that your local pastor is not driving an old Honda!Zero: You are a terrible, terrible man. I feel like just meeting you somehow made me a really bad person myself.Jesus: It\'s all about perspective, Bob. You\'re not looking at the big picture here. I just did what every other asshole in my situation would have done. Someone has to take advantage of the people, if not me, who? Gandhi? He is a big pussy. Buddha? Sure, give it to a fat ass that claims to never eat. Thor was a tough one but he gave up all his rights to religious domination when he joined the Avengers.Zero: I think Captain America would kick your ass!Jesus: See, a few hundred years ago a mouth like that would have gotten you burned at the stake. Now you got all these god damn environmentalist hippie liberals out there who cry every time you try to drown a woman for witchcraft. I personally blame the Buddhists, but what can you do!Zero: So, with all this money you are raking in, what in the blue hell are you doing way out here, in the jungles of South America?Jesus: They don\'t ask questions when the hookers disappear.Zero: Well, this has been fun. I thank you for your time and wish you the best on your world domination thing.Jesus: Didn\'t you mention something about a couple of shots and a hooker?