towards the sun

As the story goes, three men saw a star in the east and followed it to a small barn where a child was born in a manger. That child would grow up to be the world's salvation and a life long lover of frankenscense. In what has to be the greatest example of soothsaying in the history of man, these three men put on their best vesments, loaded up extraordinarily expensive gifts on the backs of their camels and headed out across the dangerous, bandit-ladden desert with no idea where they were going. There is no mention of whether or not they took food and water or how long the trip even lasted, in fact, there is only one mention of these three men in the bible. One sentence in they entire book and we have made a huge Christmas shopping and lawn care decorating industry out of it.

In that same vein of determination, I am heading across mormon-ladden Utah, cowboy-ladden Wyoming, cornhusker-ladden Nebraska and deep into the heart of Kansas, all with the intention of bringing humor to the blessed people of Michigan... Eventually. I follow the biggest star in the eastern sky that I can see and it's a pretty tricky deal. For some reason, I can only follow it east for 6 hours before the damn thing starts heading in the other direction and leaves me confused about what to do. I am left to decide whether the bright glowly thing in the sky is "rising" from the glory or "settling" into the glory. Does the glowly ball seem to be beckoning me west... or east?

Colorfully, we refer to the three men that rode across the bandit-ladden desert with expensive gifts as wise men. Wise because they saw the star? They knew that a baby was being born in a barn that would be the lord and savior? That they would be safe? They knew where they were going? What was wise about it? I think I have an idea of why we call them wise...

Suck ups! They were suck ups. They took a gamble that the rest of the people thought foolish and it paid off. People that invest in something when no one else will are always referred to as wise as long as it turns out in their favor. You won't hear anyone calling you a wise man if you do something against the advice of others and their advice turns out to be correct. If you bought $100.00 worth of Microsoft stock in 1985 when it first came out, it would be worth two million dollars today. Wise investment. If you invested the same amount of money in Wang computers, you would be.. the same person you are today. If you get innoculated for a deadly virus before it arrives and wipes out your entire neighborhood... wise. You get innoculated and it causes you to die when others live... bad. If you train for months before a fight... wise. You slack off for months before the fight... ass beating. If you agree to do some low paying comedy shows half way across the country during the highest gas price hike in history...

I follow my star across the sky with the best intention that it will work out in my favor. The only way for anyone to consider what I am doing wise will be in hindsight. If the tour pays off in ways that I do not even see yet, everyone will consider me wise. If it sucks ass, I will be looked upon as a fool and another case of, "see, I told you so." Had those wise men gone to the wrong barn or if they had been robbed, then I'm sure they would be referred to as the "those morons that should have listened."

A little forgotten fact that there was some band in town the night Jesus was born and the drummer stopped by and banged on his drum for the little snot. I don't know if you have ever heard a drum playing by itself, but it's not the soothing sound the song would indicate. That's why other instruments were invented. No wonder Jesus was so screwy, his first night on earth and he had to listen to a Tommy Lee solo. For some reason this drummer is left out of every nativity scene you will ever see. I wonder.