Happy Ramkwahanusolstimas!



Ramkwahanusolstimas is a self-invented holiday (by me and some long-lost friends) born of the coincidence of Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Solstice, and Christmas all happening within two weeks of eachother one year (1999), causing mass overbooking and stress in well-integrated communities. So we thought it would ease things up if we merged them all.



The gist is that you fast for forty days and forty nights, eating only foods that are taupe or mauve, at the end of which you burn your Christmas Tree. The Ramkwahanusolstimas pageant is a parade of housewives watching daytime soaps. Now, here is the gospel of the prophet of Ramkwahanusolstimas, Harold Angel Ali Jamal Jones Ravenstar Fenkl, a cabbie, written by me in the madness of the moment, December, 1999.



~

Found Stuffed Between Seats on the BART Train

(XXX is destroyed or illegible text)



RamKwaHanuSolstiMas XXXXX!



And spoke unto Us, the God of the Cabdrivers

And said he thusly Io!* (*Latin for "Yo!")

And we were afraid, very afraid,

For it was Yet as like unto an Hallucination

Such as like unto That state thereafter

Begotten by listening to Christmas carols to Excess

And so we Hearkened to the Harold Angel

   (Harold Angel Ali Jamal Jones Ravenstar Fenkl).



Said he Thusly-

Go ye forth Blessed among Cabfares

And respect ye the Traditions of ... me.


   To the Good of all things Wild and Free

   And the Five Pillars of Cabbiedom

   And for the Children of Terrib-El
(Second Cousins of the Children of Isra-El)

   And the Seven Principals of the Corner Store

   And for the Son on a Stick who redeems all Unpaid fares.

Thusly shall ye go forth And from the First day of the
Five Foresaken Holidays,

Ye shall make your bodies Chaste of All foods

And excepting only those foods appearing in color To be

Taupe or mauve, such as Triscuits or cranberries,

Fasting for Forty days and Forty nights,

In which Time ye shall sleep And Watch Daytime Soaps

Exchanging Daily a Present numbered in Parts similar to the Fast Day

  Such as (one) a Beer (technically only those beers colored taupe) or

  (forty) cranberries.



And preparing all these forty days shall ye a Tree

Decorated with Such Things As Shall Be Flammable

In order that ye May to Please your Ancestors

Who may have been acolytes to Mass Transit if not
themselves Cabbies,

At the end of the Fast

So then this Tree Burn.



   Pine burns very well, being of Hardwood,

   And so thusly let it be Pine blessed among Trees

   To be thus Sacrificed.



In this Fulfillment of Tradition may you

Observe these truths: Cabbies are Your Shepherds

Ye Shall Not Want. They knowest the Great Secrets of Your Kind.

The most Secret of secrets being that which may either

Save or Destroy you, which is XXXX

XXXXXXX



End Manuscript (Remainder of Text Destroyed)

~

     --- Now everyone be good to eachother this year, 'kay? 'Kay.