Gather ye loaves of fish...

Artie the Pearl brings spirituality to our troubled world

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

03/16/03

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Humor/artie1.htm

It was Mt. Shasta, noon. In other parts of the world, it wasn’t noon, nor was it Mt. Shasta. I was sitting on a bench on the boulevard, eating my usual anchovy and chocolate sandwich, and taking in the day. It was 38 degrees, and there was a driving rain mixed with snow on 45 mile an hour winds.

You just can’t beat our summers.

A figure staggered out of the wind and fog. The purple swim trunks and T-shirt, combined with the Jehovian head of white hair, told me that it was Artie the Pearl, making his rounds. He was staggering, but since the wind was only gale force and Artie doesn’t drink ("It makes me urinate in inappropriate places"), I assumed the burden he had slung over his right shoulder was a heavy one. So far, nothing unusual. Artie likes to slog about in the sleet, carrying heavy burdens. It’s frequently part of his religion.

Seeing me, he veered in my direction, slipping slightly in the slush, and gave me a genial wave. He came up, and with a grunt and a heave, pushed his burden on to the bench alongside me. While he gasped to get his breath back, I examined his burden. I wasn’t surprised he was out of breath. It was a large, dead salmon, and at about 40 pounds, weighed half what Artie did.

I poked it. It was dead. If this seems like an unnecessary test on my part, then you probably haven’t envisioned just how hard it was raining.

I sniffed. It was VERY dead.

Mom had never prepared me for this particular sort of social encounter. I was going to have to wing it. "That’s quite a dead salmon you’ve got there, Artie."

"Thank you." Evidently his mother HAD prepared him for this particular situation. I felt a stab of envy. "Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m carrying around a dead fish?"

I had been resisting that very temptation. But I couldn’t see any particular disaster in asking. "Why are you carrying around a dead fish?"

By way of an answer he pulled on a plastic loop that was protruding from the base of the fish’s skull. A tinny, vaguely girlish voice was emitted by the gills. "Won’t you be my friend?" Artie gave me a grin and pulled on the loop again. "I don’t like math." Well, few salmon do. With good reason.

I gave Artie a level stare, and wondered if maybe those years as chief of staff at a major psychiatric hospital back east were finally taking their toll. I chose my words carefully. "Artie, did you take the speaking mechanism from a child’s doll and put it in the cadaver of this fish?"

Artie beamed. He always liked it when I showed flashes of intellectual insight, especially since I was frequently a disappointment in that regard. "I did, and you and I are going to use it to save humanity."

I regarded the fish. If we were going to use that fish to save humanity, we either needed to get it in a freezer, or save humanity before sunrise tomorrow. "How are we going to do that, Artie?"

"Have you heard of the Miracle Cod of New Square Market?"

I could HEAR the capitalizations in his voice. "The miracle cod..."

"Of New Square Market. It’s been in the newspapers, and Jews world wide are hailing it as a modern miracle, a visitation from Jehovah. It is a crucial moment in the course of humanity."

For someone who lived in the desert, the Old Testament God sure had a thing for fish. Still, I felt a sick need to know more about this particular fish and that particular god. "What does this, um, miracle cod do?"

"Well, it doesn’t do anything NOW. It got butchered and sold as gefilte fish."

That sounded like the traditional response to a miraculous visitation. Being filleted had to be quicker than crucifixion. But I was getting more confused, not less. "Artie, why don’t you start at the beginning?"

"That sounds like a good idea.

"Back last winter, two guys in the New Square Fish Market, which is out on the upper margins of New York City, were cutting up a bunch of cod to process into gefilte fish. Suddenly, one of the fish began shouting at them in Hebrew."

"One of the . . . fish . . . began shouting at them? One of the dead fish?" Not that a live fish shouting in Hebrew would be any less extraordinary. "This is a joke, right?"

"I never joke about miracles. In any event, the fish shouted apocalyptic warnings at them, and they took their story to a couple of Hasidic rabbis."

I pondered that. "...Who took quite calmly the news that a dead fish was shouting at two of their synagogue members in Hebrew."

"One is a member of the synagogue. The other is a gentile."

"Who spoke Hebrew?"

"No, he didn’t speak Hebrew. The fish spoke Hebrew. So did the other."

"Oh. So what did this fish say?"

"It said ‘Tzaruch shemirah!’ Then it said ‘Hasof bah!"

"I don’t speak Hebrew, Artie. What does that mean?"

"Roughly speaking, it means to account for yourself to the Lord, because the end of the world is nigh."

I was impressed. "Artie, I didn’t know you spoke Hebrew!"

Artie shifted, looked uncomfortable. "Do I look like a fish? I don’t speak Hebrew. That’s just what I was told."

"Are you sure it wasn’t Finnish?"

Artie gave me a blank look. Another perfectly good joke ruined by religious sincerity.

"Look, Artie. You don’t speak Hebrew. These two..."

"Fish cutters," Artie supplied.

"Fish cutters, repeated accurately what the fish supposedly said."

"It said ‘Tzaruch shemirah!’ Then it said ‘Hasof bah!’"

I shook my head. "It’s just gabble to me. I doubt I would have remembered it exactly, even if I wasn’t distracted by having a dead fish start yelling at me."

Artie looked stern. "It’s in the nature of miracles that extraordinary abilities are vouchsafed to those at hand, that they may be able to reliably witness for the Lord. You have to accept, Zepp."

"So the fact that this story has made it out of the confines of the New Square Fish Market suggests that the story had feet." Artie looked blank, so I elaborated, "Those two got some people to believe their story."

"Of course." Artie said placidly. "Thousands. There’s an entire Hasidic sect called the Skvera who believe the story, and the story is spreading around the world."

"OF course! And these two fish cutters, they’re out on the lecture circuit, telling all who will listen of their miraculous intervention at $2,500 a pop, right?"

"No. They want nothing to do with it. The gentile thinks the voice from the fish was the Devil. He clubbed it until it stopped talking. The Jewish guy, Rosen, had tried to kill the fish but injured himself instead. He apparently doesn’t like the fish either."

I shook my head. "Artie, you swear you aren’t making this up?"

"As I said, I don’t joke..."

"...about miracles. Right. OK. Obviously, this has something to do with this fish you’re lugging around, and the fact that you wired it for sound is throwing some horrid suspicions into my head."

"I have an important message to give to the world, and the other night, at 3am, Spirit inspired me to catch this fish and make it the instrument of my voice."

Artie always gets these ideas at three in the morning. I’ve suggested sleeping pills. "So you want me to gimmick this salmon so it speaks your message instead of Mattel corporation’s, right?"

"I want it to be the instrument of my divinely inspired message, yes."

Hmmm. I did have one of those "talking picture frames" lying around in my office. I probably could rig something, if Artie could curb his usual enthusiasm for windiness....

"I could probably do it for $50, Artie."

"Would you consider the spiritual awards inherent in spreading the Word and saving humanity?"

"Fifty."

Artie sighed. "I suppose I could move back into the cardboard box..."

Oh, hell. He would, too. "Artie, let’s go up to my office. I want to show you something. No, leave the fish."

"But I don’t want someone to take it..."

I pulled out a notepad and a ballpoint pen, and scribbled, "This fish belongs to Artie the Pearl. He’s had it for several days." I showed the note to Artie, and, not having anything else to attach the note to the fish with, impaled it onto the fish’s side with my ballpoint. "Divine Guidance will protect your fish, Artie."

He looked satisfied with that, and we went to my lair.

I pulled open a closet and started riffling through. Back a few years ago, I made the grotesque mistake of telling Paulie Five Fingers that his taste in music was pedestrian. Since then, on the anniversary of the day I made that casual remark, Paulie sends me a gift of music that could be described in a variety of ways, but most certainly not "pedestrian." Paulie, who I learned that day had purchased a conductor’s baton so he could listen to opera and neo-romantic music properly, was probably going to send me these . . . musical gifts . . . until the day one of us died.

As a result, I have in that closet an album by the 1910 Fruitgum Company. I have a collection of bagpipe music accompanied by a tenor who, I’m pretty sure, ruined himself on the penultimate note of "Scotland the Brave." Not to put too fine a point on it, but the way he hit that note, it sounded as if his scrotum split lengthwise like an overcooked hotdog about three-quarters the way through it. Paulie found a collection of Slim Whitman songs as performed by Tibetan throat singers. Led Zepplin as done by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. I shudder to think how much effort he is putting into this musical vendetta. I will never mock his taste in music again.

I found what I was looking for among Paulie’s gifts, pulled it out, and put it on my desk. It was a bass, mounted on a plaque, like the ones that exist in millions of dens and watering holes around the country.

I pressed a button, and the "fish" – plastic – turned to face us, and the tail started swishing in accompaniment as it began to sing "I Only Have Eyes For You". The lips, grotesquely, moved with the song.

Artie gave no sign of dismay, but regarded the fish levelly. "That’s a sin against nature."

I’m sure that’s exactly what Paulie had in mind when he bought it. "It’s pretty bad, all right. Artie, they sold millions of these things back about ten years ago. It was a big fad."

"I see. And you are worried that my talking fish might look ridiculous."

Now why would I think that? "I think, Artie, that the New York thing is a one shot, and if you just try to copy whatever happened in New York, you will only fail."

"But Spirit said..."

"I suggest talking to Spirit tonight, and tell him what I just showed you, and ask him for a less derivative idea."

Artie considered. "I’ll do that, I think."

I was pretty sure I knew what Spirit would say. The salmon population would be safe from Artie.

"Say, Artie, how would you like this singing fish here as a gift? It has the bonus of not stinking..."

Artie gave me an indignant look. "THAT thing? Do you think I’m nuts or something?"

**********

The actual news story (and you thought I made it up...)

Word is made flesh as God reveals himself... as a fish

http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,915125,00.html

Edward Helmore New York

Sunday March 16, 2003

The Observer

An obscure Jewish sect in New York has been gripped in awe by what it believes to be a mystical visitation by a 20lb carp that was heard shouting in Hebrew, in what many Jews worldwide are hailing as a modern miracle.

Many of the 7,000_member Skver sect of Hasidim in New Square, 30 miles north of Manhattan, believe God has revealed himself in fish form.

According to two fish_cutters at the New Square Fish Market, the carp was about to be slaughtered and made into gefilte fish for Sabbath dinner when it suddenly began shouting apocalyptic warnings in Hebrew.

Many believe the carp was channelling the troubled soul of a revered community elder who recently died; others say it was God. The only witnesses to the mystical show were Zalmen Rosen, a 57_year_old Hasid with 11 children, and his co_worker, Luis Nivelo. They say that on 28 January at 4pm they were about to club the carp on the head when it began yelling.

Nivelo, a Gentile who does not understand Hebrew, was so shocked at the sight of a fish talking in any language that he fell over. He ran into the front of the store screaming: 'It's the Devil! The Devil is here!' Then the shop owner heard it shouting warnings and commands too.

'It said "Tzaruch shemirah" and "Hasof bah",' he told the New York Times, 'which essentially means that everyone needs to account for themselves because the end is near.'

The animated carp commanded Rosen to pray and study the Torah. Rosen tried to kill the fish but injured himself. It was finally butchered by Nivelo and sold.

However, word spread far and wide and Nivelo complains he has been plagued by phone calls from as far away as London and Israel. The story has since been amplified by repetition and some now believe the fish's outburst was a warning about the dangers of the impending war in Iraq.

Some say they fear the born_again President Bush believes he is preparing the world for the Second Coming of Christ, and war in Iraq is just the opening salvo in the battle of Armageddon.

Local resident Abraham Spitz said: 'Two men do not dream the same dream. It is very rare that God reminds people he exists in this modern world. But when he does, you cannot ignore it.'

Others in New Square discount the apocalyptic reading altogether and suggest the notion of a talking fish is as fictional as Tony Soprano's talking_fish dream in an episode of The Sopranos .

Stand_up comedians have already incorporated the carp into their comedy routines at weddings. One gefilte company has considered changing it's slogan to: 'Our fish speaks for itself.'

Still, the shouting carp corresponds with the belief of some Hasidic sects that righteous people can be reincarnated as fish. They say that Nivelo may have been selected because he is not Jewish, but a weary Nivelo told the New York Times : 'I wish I never said anything about it. I'm getting so many calls every day, I've stopped answering. Israel, London, Miami, Brooklyn. They all want to hear about the talking fish.'

A devout Christian, he still thinks the carp was the Devil. 'I don't believe any of this Jewish stuff. But I heard that fish talk.'

He's grown tired of the whole thing. 'It's just a big headache for me,' he added. 'I pull my phone out of the wall at night. I don't sleep and I've lost weight.'

************

What do Martin Sheen and George W. Putsch have in common?

Neither are Presidents of the United States __ they just play one on TV.

Not dead, in jail or a slave? Thank a liberal!

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