This is about the Ten Commandments. It probably would have remained in the draft pile, but I just saw this story about Ethan Cohen one-acts, Almost an Evening:
"Debate," the last and longest chapter, begins in what appears to be an auditorium where God (a hilarious F. Murray Abraham) is cursing out an audience for breaking his Commandments: "You miserable sacks of sh-. I want to see this sh- observed," he rants.
And it made me think that if he can write about them for an off-Broadway show, I can for an off-off-off-off-off-off-off-off-off-Broadway blog.
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I don’t know why I was thinking about them, but I like the Ten Commandments. I like the concept. I also like that there are 10. I just wonder what people thought back then when they had to number them on a list because the concept of zero wasn’t supposed to be common:
"How many rules are there?"
"Ten."
"Ten? What the hell is that?"
"You know, nine plus one more."
"Why the hell didn’t you just say so? You like busting my balls?"
And I like the Ten Commandments because they’re like a window back into time.
You have to wonder what was really going on back then that they needed to come up with these rules. And why just these ten? How come there weren’t any outrageous commandments like:
You shall not open my mail, Larry.
You shall not pee in the well, Troy. (He does, you know. And it's Lawrence. I hate when he calls me Larry.)
You shall not read my personal diary, LARRY.
You shall not use the last of my conditioner, TROY!
You can tell just by looking at the Commandments that there really could have been a conversation between God (or Giant Robot or Hyper-intelligent Space Turtle or whatever you want to substitute) and Moses:
God: Listen, Mo-man, I called you here because your people are out of control. You better tell them to get their sh-t together or I'm gonna have to rain a world of fire and pain on them. They're making me look bad.
Moses: Ok, don't get your panties in a bunch. But can we make this quick; my kids are going nuts down there, nobody's watching my stuff, my wife and this dude have been making eyes at each other, and if I don't get back down there soon with something solid to tell these people, they're gonna kill me.
God: Ok, calm down. I have an idea: We're gonna split ten rules 50-50. We'll have five about my problems and five about yours.
Moses: You gotta do better than that. I mean, you're God; you can smite us whenever you want, but man, it's hell down here.
God: Ok, ok. How about 40-60: I take 3 or 4, but they're at the top of the list. You know, like, people should worship only me; they should go to church, yada, yada. They shouldn't try to be gods themselves, and they gotta stop saying, goddamn at stuff, especially when they see some hotty. I don't need everybody disrespecting me. [Pause] And maybe we need to add something about not coveting all the hotties. If we add that to the stuff you said earlier about stealing and killing, I think we'll have a deal.
[Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll be here all week. The dinner show features cannelloni. The voice of God was performed by Mort Sahl; the voice of Moses was performed by George Carlin; the voices of Troy and Larry were performed by Andy Dick.]
