The Gospel Of Joe

1.1            Let’s get this sorted from the outset, right. ‘Gospel Truth’ is a load of shit.

1.2            That said, here’s some things I thought of last night in a dream.

1.3            Though I’m going to leave out the bit where I was being chased through a bus station by a gang of youths who were angry because I had no shoes on. Feel free to come back to this bit as a parable if you like, but really I doubt there’s much in it.

1.4            Although of course my mates would automatically say ‘That means you are clearly a closeted gay.’

1.5            The closeted bit is the saddest bit of that sentence really isn’t it.

1.6            I’ve got a set of suggestions that I’ll try and explain. There’s seven of them.

1.7            Let’s call them The Ten Commandments.

1.8            No, that was a joke, Seven Suggestions will do for now.

1.9            Let’s start with an easy thing I think we can all agree with:

1.10        Things Are Fucked Up, Let’s Face It.

1.11       . There’s so much bollocks going on – corruption, murder, war, rape, and other heavy metal song titles – that just doesn’t need to happen. Hence:

1.12       It Probably Isn’t Too Late

1.13       To be honest, if all of us just stopped being cunts for a while we could get to the First of our Seven Suggestions:

1.14       Suggestion One: Don’t Be A Cunt.

1.15       If this was written on the hearts of us all I think we’d get along better.

1.16       And in reality that Suggestion encompasses the remaining Six Suggestions but because Things Are Fucked Up, let’s try and get more specific.

1.17       Suggestion Two: Nobody Is More Or Less Important Than Anyone Else.

1.18       Things that are do not make you more or less important: money, material possessions, colour of skin, genitals, sexual preference, land of birth, sporting affiliation, family accroutements, lineage, speaking voice, car, and so on.

1.19       I mean, come on, let’s be honest here: none of that shit really matters but how we treat each other does. You may refer back to Suggestion One at this point.

1.20       Does this sound familiar by the way?

1.21       I seem to remember the last time some daft cunt suggested people were important he got nailed to a tree for his troubles.

1.22       Don’t do that, obviously.

1.23       Suggestion Three: Each Person Can Do Whatever They Fucking Like As Long As It Doesn’t Hurt Anyone Else. This Includes Fucking Themselves Up.

1.24       Because of Suggestion Two, which follows from Suggestion One quite nattily I think. Dread.

1.25       Suggestion Four: Please Don’t Be Nasty To Animals.

1.26       If for no other reason but to avoid countless fucking threads on social media about it. This refers back to Suggestion Three, then Two, then One, in that order.

1.27       Is this starting to make sense?

1.28       Gospel Truth, remember, is a meaningless epigram. It could even be said to be a contradiction in terms given the nonsense that the last lot of gospels led to over the last couple of millenia.

1.29       Suggestion Five: Art Is Valuable Because It Has No Utility.

1.30       Let’s rephrase that a bit. Art in all its forms is useful because if makes people think, or makes people feel whatever way they feel about it.

1.31       Even if that feeling is: ‘That’s Not Art, That’s Just Shit.’

1.32       (As my good friends Chris and Tony once said.)

1.33       But it’s art if it says it is and art if anyone says it is.

1.34       Suggestion Six: There Is Plenty To Go Around So Let’s Fucking Try A Bit Harder Please.

1.35       The previously-ignored Suggestion One and Suggestion Two have led to our current scenario where even in the same city as I type this in my nice warm house full of food and love and cats and that, there are people begging on the streets.

1.36       Maybe they’re alcoholics or drug addicts but maybe not.

1.37       Does that make it my fault?

1.38       Sort of.

1.39       But things like taxes are being used to build bombs and kill other people and make bankers rich instead.

1.40       That’s not my fault, I don’t think. I mean, I voted and everything.

1.41       But that disappointment with the way the world turns out isn’t unique to any one of us.

1.42       Suggestion Seven: Democracy Is A Good Idea Wasted On People.

1.43       It only benefits those who can manipulate it. America got a president who lost an election once, because he got the lawyers involved.

1.44       What was the voter turnout last election?

1.45       Or in any election?

1.46       Apart from those ones which are in puppet regimes where the president gets voted in by 99.994% on a 123.33% turnout.

1.47       Those ones are a bit suspicious aren’t they.

1.48       I sort of think that Suggestion Two being forgotten has led to Suggestion Seven.

1.49       But back to Suggestion One.

1.50       If Nobody is a Cunt, then we’ll probably be OK.

1.51       That includes me.

1.52       I don’t think I really try hard enough sometimes.

1.53       But that’s probably something to do with being a human isn’t it.

1.54       Although that’s a cop-out in itself.

1.55       Anyway there were about ten of these youths.

1.56       And they did take the piss out of me due to not having any shoes on.

1.57       I did have socks on, but my feet were cold.

1.58       We were on our way to Porthmadog for a football game.

1.59       And one of these lads kept hoofing a football at me.

1.60       Then we got to a bus station where there was like a shoe shop.

1.61       But the entrance was dead high up on a wall and I had to jump to get there.

1.62       And someone was holding my feet to try and pull me away.

1.63       But this bloke had some nice blue brushed leather shoes for a tenner.

1.64       I don’t know what happened after that, because I woke up due to a cat jumping on my balls.

1.65       Lo, it was sort of funny but hurt also.

1.66       The little bastard.

1.67       Amen.