I've listened to preachers,
I've listened to fools
I've watched all the dropouts
who make their own rules

Crazy Train ~ Ozzy Osbourne 

😵😵😵

The crazy carnival that is Venice on a weekend, begins and ends with something known as the Eternal Drum Circle. The Eternal Drum Circle starts every Saturday morning at about dawn and lasts until the final drummer gives up, usually sometime around sunset on Sunday? With drummers drifting in and out of the Eternal Circle as they see fit. Sometimes up to hundreds of drummers are pounding away rhythmically on everything from bongos to big basses, down to two dudes with an old blown-out RUN DMC beatbox.

There are lots of very strange people to see dancing around to the drum beats, drinking and on drugs or in some rare cases just "high on life". Some of them are even wearing clothes ...sometimes? So of course, that was my first stop of the day, to check out the congo line of half-clad bellydancers. After watching the ancient hippy chicks burn their bras again, I realized that this must have made a hella of a show back in the 60's. So I decided to get something to eat and maybe check back later, to see if some of their hot granddaughters might make an appearance a little later on in the day. 

One of the things that Venice is known for is having the first World Famous Pink's Hotdogs. Which happens to have the hands down best beach meals around for under five bucks. So I headed over to the long line and paid my fiver for a dog and a coke. After which I looked around for a spot to call my own by the benches. Where I was lucky enough to displace a Midwestern tourista family of four, with their uber-cool black sock and sandals by the beach.     

I was sitting on top of a picnic bench in the shade, just at the edge of the dead grass where the Boardwalk meets the sand. About halfway through my lunch when I first saw the face of GOD. I spotted a seriously strange-looking homeless guy, standing almost thoughtfully over a half a hot dog that one of the tourista brats had dropped in the sand. My first thought was of course that this weird homeless dude was contemplating whether or not to pick it up and eat it, or not? But like most assumptions people make about GOD, this turned out to be very wrong.

"Try not to think about the tragic past so much. It was all the mother's fault for having sex with a pig." GOD gave the dead piece of pork his final benediction, before summarily burying it in back into the sands from whence it came. I should probably mention that at the time GOD was down on his hands and knees whispering a little too loudly to a hot dog in question.

"Okay...that's oddly true." I shrugged off the insanity and went back to consuming my own unlucky little pig product. 

When God finally looked up from the hot dog burial in the sand, he stared right at me. Or maybe right through me? It was hard to tell based on the insane intensity in his eyes exactly what he was actually seeing at the time. But in that moment, I knew without a shadow of a doubt ...that he was going to ask me for money.

While I didn't go to Venice that day intentionally to find GOD. But once I saw the insane face of GOD I knew I only had two choices. Turn around and run the other way as fast as possible to get away from the crazy. Or just sit still and listen to some of the things he had to say. Maybe even find out some of the mysteries that he must hold in his insane brain. Because in looking into the face of GOD I was pretty certain that he had seen some pretty crazy shit in his life.

Once upon a time, I am pretty sure that GOD had another name. Like the legal one he was born with on his long-expired license. But no one remembers what that name is anymore...not even him. Because like a lot of the little things, GOD has long forgotten what that was. Or even why it was even important once upon a time. Probably because no one has called him that name for a very long time, so he may have even forgotten it by now himself. Because everyone always called him The GOD Guy, or just GOD for simplicity's sake.

Because how GOD got his name is pretty simple, and also somewhat relevant to the rest of the tale. Because right across the center of his forehead in big bold letters was writing the name of GOD. In exactly the same font as the dollar bill's "In GOD we Trust", that he was eternally after.

So when you see a guy with GOD tattooed across his forehead coming right at you with an insane smile on his face, you really have one of two choices. Turn around and run away as fast as possible ...or stand your ground and listen to a little of what this guy has to say. Because it's a good bet that he's lived through some seriously strange shit in his short time on the old blue salt ball. Because no one who has ever lived an uneventful life would ever get the name of GOD tattooed on their face. 

"Wazzup stupid staring kid ...you got any money for GOD or what?" GOD asked me almost casually as if we weren't complete strangers. 

"Not really." I eyed him hard right back. "Why?"

"Cause I am trying to put myself through that summer camp for disadvantaged kids?" God smiled his second-best snaggly tooth smile. "You know ...so like I won't join a street gang and steal all your shit someday?"

"Aren't you a little too old to old to join a gang? Let alone go to summer camp?" Unless maybe it was the Westside Homeless Hobos?

GOD kind of blinked at me like I was the one talking crazy for a second before his benevolent smile widened to reveal several missing molars.  

"Okay Kid, you got me." He finally sighed all put out that I had seen right through his charade so easily. "Obviously, I really need money to buy some alcohol and drugs, in order to remember to forget why I need money." 

Which based on his current state of sobriety sounded a lot more plausible to me than his gang-related summer camp story.

"What's in it for me?" I countered evenly maintaining eye contact at all times. 

"What do you want?" He mugged back.

"The answers to mysteries of life, the universe, and everything." I snorted in retort, thinking I was pretty clever waxing philosophical with a crazy homeless beach bum.

"GOD doesn't grant free wishes kid, but he will do a deal if the price is right." He nodded excitedly pronouncing the specifics of our new arrangement. "So it's a buck a pop for an answer on Life shit. Five for the fucking Mysteries of the Universe. And ten for Everything else. Okay, it's a deal?"

"And if you don't have an answer, then what? You give me a refund?" I eyed him hard, already knowing that "refund" was never gonna happen with this dude in a million years. 

"Trust me Kid, that's never gonna happen. I know all kinds of crazy stupid shit you never ever heard of, let alone thought of the shit that I can think." He grinned his second-best snaggle-toothed smile back at me. 

The strange thing was, I did oddly trust him on this. Probably because he looked exactly like the kind of guy who knew a lot of crazy stupid shit that I had never thought of.  

"So what's your first question there, Siddhartha?" GOD inquired intensely. 

"Why are we here?" I asked my first unanswerable question on existence.

"Why else man!?! Cause it's a great day to be at Venice Beach!" GOD laughed like a lunatic and held out his hand. "Gonna need that buck now, bro."

I thought through this for a second and decided that he was probably right about this. After all, it was a pretty great day to be at the beach, which was why I ended up in Venice in the first place.

"Good one," I handed him over a dollar.

"What else you got, Gandhi?"

"Okay GOD, let's see just how good you really are?" I decided to drop one on him that had been bothering me since Sunday school when I was nine. "So if you're all omnipotent, omnipresent, all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful and shit? Then why is there so much unnecessary suffering in the world?"

"What? Did you forget that I am fucking funny, too?" God proceeded to jump around laughing like a lunatic again. "Gonna need that buck now, bro!"

I just stared down at God dancing around like a lunatic and tried to think my way out of his last answer. 

"That wasn't an answer, that was a question." I threw back at him, to confuse this crazy Confucius.

"What? Now I'm not allowed to have a sense of humor either?" God smiled slightly, but I wasn't buying into his simplistic bullshit this time.

"You think that African AIDS babies are funny, GOD?" I countered evenly.

"Oh yeah...that?" GOD sighed sadly and frowned down at his filthy feet. "Okay, so here's the real deal with all the bad shit in the world. See kid, all that super bad shit going out there? Yeah, that's there to give good people an opportunity to do something about it and make a difference in a little child's life. I guess you could call it a cosmic karma character test? You either pass ...or your burn forever in the fires of Inferno."

"So gonna need that buck now, Bro." GOD beamed happily. 

It began to dawn on me that everything GOD said was oddly true, but only when completely taken out of context.  

"Fair enough." I handed the dog another bone.

"Com'on Zarathustra, give GOD something hard to work with here?"

"Let me think about it." I nodded slowly trying to parse my way through his last comic Koan. "Okay, so here's the next question..."

Thus began what was to be the single most interesting philosophical dialogue of my life to date. As I didn't really have anything better to do, I spent the rest of the day with God following me around, listening constant crazy chattering, observations, and insights on life. And of course handing him over a buck every now and then, to keep the insane flow of crazy crap coming out of his mouth flowing. Sadly in the process, learning more about his insane world of wonder than I ever wanted to know. Or would ever be able to forget ...even if I tried. 

(Including, where to score the best bud for the best price on the boardwalk. Which oddly enough also turned out to be a chick named "Buddy" the beach benches right by Pink's Hotdogs, so go figure?)