(Pope-Received Transmission #006 In The Numeriolosociologically Delicious Class, A-(Do)-Do-Do, A-(Da)-Da-Da.)

          (By Popular Demand, I, Pope Fez, Pope Of All Pagans Including You, now present a small re-worked writing originally published on the Kaleidoscope Gathering e-group. It has received popular reviews, so with some small changes and additions it is my pleasure to present it now. Admittedly both sporadic, author and following recollections exist only in the hopes that You Will Be Entertained. It is the Pope's fondest wishes that yet more brain cells in the Earthly Shell he inhabits may be recovered in order to share more memories with All Of You Who I Love And Wish To Hug Tightly For Longer Than Necessary.)

          Pope Fez would like now to share a bit of himself on a more personal level with "y'all" now here...and I think we all need cheering up during these slushy days lurching towards the end of winter. Kaleidoscope seems far off, but it's really only three monthes, which is about 90 days, or about 2160 hours, or..or..well, there's my own personal Divine Math Wall.
          So to bring back fond memories of "The Little Festival That Could, And Did, Generally All Over The Landscape", I'd like to share some memorable moments in my own personal experiences of the various areas in which Our (Sometimes Pregnant) Lady "Pameela" hostetted us all with Her cruel-yet-loving upraised Fist Of Rightful Discipline.
          These will all be quick flashbacks, however, for which I must apologize in advance. My memory is generally very spotty at best, being somewhat crippled by Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, a family cat pushing a large stereo speaker on my head when I was fourteen, and a sufficiently advanced intelligence that's just high enough to be horrified by what's going on around me in life, yet too low to figure out how to do anything about it except be real nice to people and watch for any quick moves by friends, family, and strangers whenever I open my damn mouth and say something extremely inappropriate.
          Ah, but such memories of Kaleidoscope that I do remember! For example, I recall looking up in the sky during the first night of a festival a few years ago and seeing a quickly moving red dot zipping around among the clear country background of the stars. "Holy crap, I'm seeing a UFO!", I thought to myself, which is probably the dumbest, most obvious thing to think. I had read that the first rule in a UFO sighting is to get the attention of any other people in the area in order to corroborate the sighting. I was standing on the path about 200 feet from the main bonfire, and the only other people I could see were back there whooping it up, their dark jumping silhouettes backlit by the bright flames. Obviously, not one of them were in the lucid and calm, "objective scientific researcher" frame-of-mind.
          Now, I probably should have gone to the bonfire anyways and asked some observant Pagans back to the area in which I'd spotted the alien craft, yet standing on that empty path I realized many things that would make executing my quick plan very difficult:

          #1) I was drunk.

          #2) Everyone at the bonfire was drunk, natch.

          #3) As usual, I hadn't brought a flashlight, and it had already been a     miracle by the Goddess that I'd made it this far without tripping on a       rock and breaking my neck, to be found by a horrifed Steve Clayton in   the dew-dusted morning.

          #4) I was -very- drunk.

          #5) With my Piscean luck, the UFO would probably, in professional    UFO investigator's terms, "screw off" when I came back with other     witnesses, who at that point would already think I was more of a nut         than I actually was, uh, am.

          So I watched the zipping luminescent sucker awhile, and after a few minutes it did indeed sink away into the unknown black depths. I was feeling quite dizzy, both from the alcohol and keeping my head at a jaw-dropping "Cletus"-country bumpkin-like ninety degree angle while astonished at the unearthly display. But I must state that my vision was quite, quite clear, however...and my vision always remains horrifingly clear up until about three seconds before I pass out during my one and only yearly binge at Kaleidoscope, my 20/20 slowly dimming out, the last image a blurred collage of other Pagans' faces leaning over me in shock and horror.
          So, I knew on some sober level, what I saw was probably..Real. And I've never told anyone about it, until now. A year later I had a dream of aliens leaning over me, but that probably didn't have anything at all to do with it.

          ***

          Pope Fez remembers, in perfect clarity (up to the individual dancing smoke motes in the sky, The Holy Syndrome Of Aggravated ADHD being like that) the Celtic Welsh Reserve Pagan Guard Kneecappin' Mofos (or whatever the hell Doug and his crazed bunch called themselves that particular year, just as long as it involved wearing kilts and painting themselves blue and spouting poetry at bemused women) crossing the lake at Bob's land at night.      Our proud craft was a battered canoe, made clear and apparent by tiki torches duct-taped (MANLY!) to the sides. Again, the Goddess (probably calling us idiots under her Divine Breath in a low repetitive, tired voice) bestowed us with the Miracle of Doug's Long Hair Not Catching On Fire. Although, to think of it, it -would- have made a very memorable opening to the Bardic Fest that year. Doug, however, did himself proud when he stepped off the canoe; hastened by Pope Fez's curses upon him, he hopped onto the small dock and unintentionally drove his right foot through the very surface of the dock who's sole purpose (heh) was to keep one's damn foot OUT of the water in the first place. Suddenly immobile, Doug was paralyzed as Pope Fez, first seeing that Doug was not indeed actually hurt, rained down more curses and hauled his Celtic Ass out of the shaky dock's embraces.

          Resolving itself, The Holy Feznostic Entourage ritualistically stumbled away from the slowly immolating canoe and treacherous dock. A crowd of happy Pagans quickly formed around, as the Welsh Guard insulted the menfolk and propisitioned the ladies, or vice-versa, depending on sexual orientation and availability of livestock. Pope Fez rained His Blessings down upon the Heathen Masses as they bore him towards the Sacred Bonfire, the place that would become the Center Of The World as the Bardic Circle came to be yet once again for a small moment within the Great Wheel Of The Year.

***

          In Your Pope's nightmares, I remember at one Festival the hideously repetitive sound of a particular outhouse's door as it was opened . At approximately 125 decibles, and as what I described at the time as "two garbage trucks mating", this commode of nature just had to be, HAD TO BE, placed a mere seventy-five feet from the yearly Bardic Contest. I, Pope Fez, still remember begging, BEGGING, you Pagans not to open the door during said Bardic, since it had already been opened and closed about seventy-two dozen times with that inorganic-yet-Guinea Pig-like "GURREEEEEEEEEE!!!!" sound that had stretched my Holy Host nerves like piano wire being coveted by two opposing, extremely p.o.-d professional Sumo Wrestlers.
          Begging, I tell you my loving Gaping Pagan Flock, BEGGING with you to not open that damn door when you had to perform your disgusting biological functions. But no, No, NOOOO...in apparent GLEE the repetitive HELLTENOR continued into the night....
It was that door's fault that year Your Pope "tied one on" beyond all limits of good, or even moral, taste. Just give me that one, ok?

***

(Note: I, Pope Fez, found the following written on a torn-out diary page. Obviously, it was authored by the earthly spirit of the body I choose to inhabit whenever I reside on this Prime Rib Material Plane. Read it if you will, but take whatever My Shell says with a grain of salt: My Holy Possession can't be as bad as he says...can it?)

          (Page Begins)

          ....and my last memory is Clayton's high-pitched girlish screaming as I fall to the ground.

          In the morning I crawl out of my tent (or somebody's tent, but anyways) exhausted by the last night's Bardic Circle hosting duties and my body being thrown about the entire forest by Pope Fez and the ever helpful, gleefully co-operating Pagans. I decide to shock-wake myself up by crawling to the cold waters of the lake; my Piscean instinct drives me forward in a hung-over, mewling, reverse-evolutionary crawl, in the hopes that the  pounding in my head will just stop from its "Please Goddess-I'll-Be-Good-Ok?-Please?!?"-style hangover PainHaze.
          I shamble up, a not-so-modern Promethean blurry horror show on two legs, and begin the painful journey towards the rocky beach. Tree roots seem to heave themselves up in my path, yet I continue on. Large rocks mock me as I crawl up and over them, gasping like an oxygen-starved Soviet spacemonkey in orbit, towards the hopeful waters of sobriety.
          I roll onto the level rock path towards the beach, resting a moment for the various times I shall have to basically throw myself off one small ledge onto the other. During a theoretical sober moment, it would be easy-as-pie  due to my enhanced Badger Kung-Fu Training...but now Deeply And Religiously Hung-Over, all opposing ledges spring up and down like a happy-go-lucky elevator operated by a manic leprechaun who likes drinking triple mocha cappuchinos topped with a dash of crumbled amphetamines.
          Somehow (Thank You Goddess), I Make It, and the water of the lake shimmers into my rheumy-red eyes, inviting me as it always does...but the memories of the inevitable moments when my screaming testicles retreat up into my body as the cold mocking water grabs them like a jilted icicle tells me, not yet, not yet...I will take my time walking towards the lake, since that would be the safe thing to do in my conditon, and besides, a beautiful naked woman is suddenly standing in front of me offering a cup of coffee. At me.
          I blink, trying to wipe away the hallucination. But (Goddess Be Praised, selah), I find myself still actually In Reality, made less stark by She Who Stands Naked With Nice Heathen Hooters In Front Of Me. Rational thought evaporates like a hamster fleeing the inattentive housewife's vacuum cleaner. Ah, yes, I race inside myself, so now the Goddess Herself Has Decided, In Her Perfect Earthly Grace, to Visit Me. And, I'm hung-over. Natch.

          "Fez?", she (She) said.

          "Dan, please", I respond, simultaneous realizing that correcting the Goddess is A Very Wrong Thing To Do, being apparent in the fact that correcting ANY woman on this planet is A Very Wrong Thing To Do. "Pope Fez is just a medical condition I make acceptable in society." (Pope Fez Notes: So that's how the little weasel describes me when I'm "vacant", eh? Just wait and see what I do to his Shell next Fesitival.")

          She laughs at that, not a big guffaw, but a small pleased and pleasurable giggle. She offers the coffee thermos-muggy-suitable-for-camping drinking device. Caffeine! I humbly accept The Cup, suddenly and joyfully weeping inside myself to be sharing this moment with Her.
          I think, damn it, or try to think! Brain..so fogged. Oh, the PainHaze! There's a thing we do here, right? Pagans like to get together and raise cups, don't they? Yes...yes they do. Wing it, or She Might Smite Me!

          But this beautiful, naked Goddess doesn't LOOK like She currently wishes to Smite me! More like, she looks a bit amused at my stumbling, "Not Of This Earth" conditon...
          Aha! I stand erect, and hold the steaming Cup in front of me. Sudden inspiration heaves itself out of the fibre-glass-like coating of the night's indulgences on my brain. I speak, as clearly and formally as I can:
          "Goddess, My Goddess, I Thank You, And Love You, For Your..uh...(C'mon! C'mon! THINK! She's LOOKING at me!) Your Boon..no, Gift! GIFT!)...Upon Me!" I shake nervously, waiting for the beautiful Goddess Herself to respond.
          She regards me, pausing, thinking, head tilting slightly to the right. A hushed, quiet moment of Her Divine Grace, and then:

          "You know, Dan...you really look like shit," She says in a happy, tinkling, laughing voice...

          ....and I honestly, honest-and-for-true here, believe I pass out at this moment from the shock of Her Words. I had expected maybe a "Thou Art Blessed" or something, maybe a little "Loved Are Thee" would be nice. I certainly don't have any memory after Her Divine Utterance, or who that particular beautiful woman's identity actually is, now. However, as all women do, She reflects a portion of the Goddess to me, but made yet more complete and joyful by the surrounding new-day sun catching all of Her in that morning. Who can blame me, really? I remember the coffee being quite good, and the small mocha aftertaste of it on my lips when I regain conciousness.

          After I stand up, I walk over to the lake and throw myself into it. Curling up into a helpless cardiac fetal ball, I sink....

          (PAGE ENDS)

          Blessed Be to you all for this week, My Faithful And Loved. Know that the Lord and the Lady look down upon you yelling, "look out for that tree!" as you George-Of-The-Jungle swing your way through Life.

- POPE FEZ