Open Threads

At last, penis jokes that involve a religion other than Catholicism! Glen Runcifer at Defamer explains a NYPost interview with J.D. Shapiro, winner of the “Worst Picture of the Decade” Razzie:

Shapiro—who also wrote Robin Hood: Men in Tights and, um, X-Treme Biography: Santa—blames this film’s existence and resolute awfulness on two things: His penis and John Travolta. The only reason he was given the opportunity to write the movie was thanks to an ill-advised girl-hunting trip to the Celebrity Center:
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“It started, as so many of my choices do, with my Willy Wonker… It was 1994, and I had read an article in Premiere magazine saying that the Celebrity Center, the Scientology epicenter in Los Angeles, was a great place to meet women… Touring the building, I didn’t find any eligible women at first, but I did meet Karen Hollander, president of the center, who said she was a fan of “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”
[…] “Karen called me a few days later asking if I’d be interested in turning any of L. Ron Hubbard’s books into movies. Eventually, I had dinner with John Travolta, his wife Kelly Preston, Karen—about 10 Scientologists in all. John asked me, “So, J.D., what brought you to Scientology?”
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“I told him. John smiled and replied, “We have tech that can help you handle that.” I don’t know if he meant they had technology that would help me get laid or technology that would stop Willy from doing the majority of my thinking.”

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And while we’re speaking of new religions, somehow I had not previously heard that an episode of the Colbert Report led to the proclaimation of a new Messiah:

…Raj Patel appeared on American TV to plug his latest book, an analysis of the financial crisis called The Value of Nothing. The London-born author, 37, thought his slot on comedy talkshow The Colbert Report went well enough: the host made a few jokes, Patel talked a little about his work and then, job done, he went back to his home in San Francisco.
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Shortly afterwards, however, things took a strange turn. Over the course of a couple of days, cryptic messages started filling his inbox… [H]e was being lauded by members of an obscure religious group who had decided that Patel – a food activist who grew up in a corner shop in Golders Green in north-west London – was, in fact, the messiah.
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Their reasoning? Patel’s background and work coincidentally matched a series of prophecies made by an 87-year-old Scottish mystic called Benjamin Creme, the leader of a little-known religious group known as Share International. Because he matched the profile, hundreds of people around the world believed that Patel was the living embodiment of a figure they called Maitreya, the Christ or “the world teacher”.
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His job? To save the world, and everyone on it.
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“It was just really weird,” he said. “Clearly a case of mistaken identity and clearly a case of people on the internet getting things wrong.”
[…]

To say Patel – with his academic air, stammer and grey-flecked hair – is a reluctant saviour is an understatement. In fact, he rejects the entire notion of saviours. If there is one thing he has learned from his work as an activist in countries such as Zimbabwe and South Africa, it is that there are no easy answers.
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“People are very ready to abdicate responsibility and have it shovelled on to someone else’s shoulders,” he said. “You saw that with Obama most spectacularly, but whenever there’s going to be someone who’s just going to fix it for you, it’s a very attractive story. It’s in every mythological structure.”
[…]

While he struggles to cope with this unwanted anointment, his friends and family are more tickled by the situation.
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“They think it’s hilarious,” he said. “My parents came to visit recently, and they brought clothes that said ‘he’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy’. To them, it’s just amusing.”

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