Steppin' into Eden.


That's not a legitimate use of member funds. Take if from me - that would be considered, I don't know, embezzlement or something. Don't do it. Put the money DOWN!

Whoops, sorry. I didn't know anyone was listening in. Well, this is kind of embarrassing. Actually, I was just giving a small piece of advice to Marvin (my personal robot assistant) with regard to what is acceptable and unacceptable when one is contemplating organizing a major religion. Not that I know all that much about it, but I think I know more than Marvin does, and I think that gives me "tell you something right now" rights and privileges. Especially with a bloody robot. (Don't tell him I said that - he'll start sulking again.)

Um, yes, you heard me right. Marvin's other money making schemes have all been huge disasters. So he's decided to take the Pat Robertson route and start a back-porch religion operation. Of course, being a deductive thinker (and not terribly inventive for a robot, I must say), his idea was lifted from a favorite (of his) episode of the original Star Trek television series featuring a tribe of space hipsters (or "groovsters") who hijacked the Enterprise to travel to a planet called "Eden." Often considered one of the most impossibly lame and pandering segments of a generally ludicrous show, it offers some unintentionally hilarious musical numbers in a psychedelic rock vein. I give it one thumb up and one thumb.... Whoops... lapsed into television review mode. Cancel! Cancel!

Sheesh - now who's the robot? (I guess that still would be Marvin.) Marvin was looking for a religious movement that would be, well, sticky enough to draw some fanatical adherents even in this forgotten backwater of Central New York. Kind of a back stoop movement, if you will. Marvin would do the organizing, with a little help from anti-Lincoln, who is himself a pretty effective fanatic. (Thing is, I don't know if he can get the space-age guitar thing just right.) I am a bit skeptical, but even so... it could kind of work. Here you have a millennial movement whose goals - hijacking a fictitious space vessel and driving it to an equally fictitious planet - can never be realized, only hoped for - worshipped, if you will. Pretty much the stuff successful religions are made of. And hell, Marvin's got his first converts: Lincoln, Big Zamboola, and the man-sized tuber.

Now if he can just keep his claw out of the till. Always the hard part. (Just wait till he starts broadcasting!)

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