Thoughtless for the Day

The other day, one of my colleagues stopped by my office for the sole purpose of imparting the following bit of trivia:

SHAZAM is an acronym for Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury, AKA the members of the Council of Elders. There's a whole lotta wrong there (even if you don't count two employees who hold relatively important positions in one of the world's largest corporations spending the better part of an hour discussing the subtle nuances of SHAZAM); let's round up some stray bits of info and hand 'em over to Cooky in the chuck wagon to gut and skin (assuming that he's sober and hasn't been spending all day hangin' 'round the school house askin' the younguns if they'd like to see the "Jizm Trail". Damn you, Cooky. It was the rattling of your pots that started that stampede! Now Billy is dead; and I promised his ma' that I'd look after him. Git a rope, fellas. Looks like ol' Cooky's gonna be the guest of honor at a "Necktie Party". Whooooeeee! )

If you're roughly between the ages of forty and fifty, then (like myself) you're entire knowledge of SHAZAM comes form of a painful collection of low production values, scraped together and presented as a Saturday Morning TV show (To this day, when I think of Saturday morning, I think of Coke and Frosted Pop Tarts. Hey, my folks wanted to make certain that I ate a hearty breakfast). If they word SHAZAM means Captain Marvel Comics to you, then you're obviously too old to own one of those new-fangled computing machines and are, therefore, not reading this post.

The Saturday Morning version of SHAZAM (for this moment forward to be known as the real version) would always kick off with Billy Batson getting some sort of touchy-feely advice from the aforementioned Council of Elders. I want you to know... that I try. When Jean and the kids at the school tell me that I'm supposed to control my violent temper, and be passive and nonviolent like they are, I try. I really try. Though when I think about the Council of Elders... of what a truly asinine concept it is... and I think of the number of years that the Shazam!/Isis Hour was on television (two: to be precise)... the savagery of this idiotic butchery of mythology... I just go BERSERK!

Are the Council of Elders really the right beings to be dispensing advice to a young man (or to anyone for that matter?) Many would say "No", but only RATYHTL says "No fuckin' way, me bucko" and then presents the cold, hard facts that back that statement up. Let's take an unflinching look at the members of this Council of Elders:

Solomon: Am I the only one who find it strange that a character from the Bible is on a council with a bunch of Greco-Roman gods and heroes? Sure, it's wonderfully subversive in that it sends the subtle message that the Bible is also a collection of myths; but I just hate to see different mythologies mixed together: "Well paint my testacies and call me Sal Mineo; if it ain't Jesus Christ and Thor battling Brahma and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir."

Solomon is on the Council of Elders owing to his alleged wisdom. Let's look at Solomon's most famous Jew-dicial decision: Two women come before Solomon claiming that each is the mother of the same child (Where's Poppa? Is the origin of Heather Has Two Mommies?). Nowadays, this entire episode would be settled in a matter of minutes with a DNA test on the Maury Povich Show (If you're at work, you'll wanna turn the sound down on your computing machine before clicking on that link), but these were much simpler times. Solomon produces a sword and says "OK, I'll just cut the baby down the middle and you can each have half. Then we'll all go to the deli for some whitefish." That's quite a gamble (of course Sol's not risking his own life). What if both women would've been just peachy with this proposal? As it was, according to this violent and dubious tale which has been repeated to countless generations of children, one of the women did think that hacking junior in half was a damn good idea. What was she going to do with half-a-baby? Was she hoping that no one would notice? Anyway, this incident clearly demonstrates that, at least in matters of child welfare, Solomon is unfit to hand out advice.

Hercules: First of all, the name is spelled HERACLES. Secondly, Heracles killed his wife and children. Sure, his defense was that he had been overtaken by a fit of madness sent by Hera (for whom he was named, oddly enough), but I've noticed that no one has ever claimed that in court since. Heracles would end up killing himself by jumping into a funeral pyre in order to end the pain caused by an aphrodisiac gone awry. Billy Batson, I hope you're taking notes.

Atlas: What the freewheelin' fuck is Atlas doing rubbing oily shoulders with Zeus and Heracles? Atlas had been the leader of the Titans: those child-devouring maniacs who overthrew and then castrated their own father. It was because Atlas had been on the losing side in the war with the Olympians that Zeus sentenced him to shoulder the pillars that keep the earth and the heavens separated (it's pretty unclear exactly what kept the earth and the heavens separated before Atlas got the gig).

After Heracles went all Richard Ramirez on his wife and kids, he was sentenced to Community Service: AKA "The Twelve Labors of Heracles". One of these labors was to retrieve some golden apples guarded by Chuck Norris in the Octagon. One his way to Whole Foods in order to pick up some apples which he later planned to paint gold, Heracles bumped into Atlas and a deal was struck wherein Heracles would temporarily hold up the sky while Atlas got a change of scenery by fetching the apples. Understandably, when Atlas returned he was more than a little reluctant to take up his former position. So Heracles asked Atlas to hold the sky one last time while Heracles placed a pad on his head (Apply directly to the forehead). The moment Atlas resumed holding up the sky, Heracles beat cheeks.

Scholars are still a little uncertain as to when Zeus, Heracles, and Atlas buried the hatchet and joined the dysfunctional Council of Elders, but they all tend to agree that anyone stupid enough to take advice form Atlas deserves what they get.

Zeus: Just because we here at RATYHTL worship Zeus as the King of the Gods doesn't mean that we're oblivious to his idiosyncrasies: like marrying his sister, kidnapping a young boy (Ganymede), his numerous seductions of young maidens, and then there's that whole "golden shower" episode between him and Danae. Oh, and he turned Io into a cow. The point is that while it's OK to pray to Zeus and beg his favor, if the Son of Cronos should offer you any advice, just smile, nod, and back away slowly. Of course there's one other obvious problem with having Billy gaze directly upon Zeus...

Achilles: The original Cpl. Klingler, Achilles attempted to avoid service in the Trojan War by dressing as a woman. So, unless you're one of these guys, Achilles won't be ponying up any information that you might find even remotely useful anytime in the near future.

Mercury: First of all, the name is spelled HERMES. Hermes invented the lyre which would be a plus if he hadn't done so during a break in the theft of a herd of cattle. So, Billy Batson, if you want to take advice from a cattle rustler, be my guest.

I suppose there are many, many even less qualified characters who could've been assigned to Council of Elders. After all, SHAZAM could've ended up being an acronym for Stalin, Hitler, Attila the Hun, Z arqawi, A imee Mann, and Charles Manson.

My point, if I ever actually had one, is that our gods and heroes used to be a great deal more like us: they were fallible. And that's the great lesson about taking direction on the advice of the gods: whether it be invading Troy or Iraq.