He’s big. He’s Puerto Rican. He wears a diamond-encrusted Rolex and has “666” tattooed on his forearm. No, he’s not a rapper. He’s the Jesus Christ Man.

There’s a new nutjob in town, winning converts and making headlines, according to a recent media spike including spots on Anderson Cooper 360 and NBC’s Today Show. I’m talking about Puerto Rican minister Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who claims, at various times and moods, to be both Jesus Christ and the Antichrist. That’s a rather complicated duality for a man in his sixties, with or without the spooky tattoos.

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, a former convicted thief and heroin addict, had an epiphany one day in 1973 that his soul had been integrated with the soul of Jesus Christ. Cute. I once had an epiphany that I was moving so fast that raindrops couldn’t touch me, but then I realized that I was just too drunk to notice and woke up later with a hangover and wet jeans. After taking some time to ponder his epiphany, Miranda started his Growing in Grace church in Miami in the ‘80s, which claims to have thousands (or millions, depending on which interview you read) of members, spanning thirty countries. He’s got an expanding media blitz going, and focuses most of his recruiting efforts on the heavily Christian Hispanic population.

Miranda has declared that he can be considered as Christ or the Antichrist, explaining that the Antichrist is really just Christ’s replacement. He proudly brandishes a “666” tattoo on his forearm, and his congregation has taken it up as a fashion statement, getting the Number of the Beast tattooed on ankles, wrists, the small of the back, basically anywhere your average 19-year-old girl typically gets a rose or a tribal symbol that she doesn’t understand. Remember the Buddy Christ from Kevin Smith’s movie Dogma? Think of this guy as the Buddy Antichrist.

CNN also says that, “De Jesus preaches there is no devil and no sin. His followers, he says, literally can do no wrong in God’s eyes.” This sounds like a half-assed Crowley interpretation to me, one which you might hear from any lazy Thelemite trying to pick up goth chicks in a bar on a slow Thursday evening.

Dig deeper, and Miranda comes off as one unstable son of a bitch. According to CNN, “followers have protested Christian churches in Miami and Latin America, disrupting services and smashing crosses and statues of Jesus.” Wow. I’ve seen the hymnal sing-a-longs and the damnation sermons, the potluck picnics, and even the hippie preacher with an acoustic guitar singing “Jesus is My Buddy” off-key, but never have I come across a preacher who says, “Alright guys, it’s Sunday morning. Time to go fuck shit up!”

Now, the Book of Revelations makes about as much sense as a novel written by William S. Burroughs at the peak of his heroin phase (heroin being something Burroughs and Miranda have in common), but I think I recall something about the Antichrist being a charismatic superman, able to sway millions on the strength of his seductively evil personality. Well, Miranda does wear plenty of bling and ride around in armored BMWs and Lexuses. He actually comes off a bit like Ricardo Montalban’s character Khan Noonien Singh on Star Trek.

When I first learned of this development, it occurred to me that news of someone claiming to be the Antichrist seems almost overdue. It’s the 21st century, right? The last time I can remember anyone talking about being the Antichrist was Marilyn Manson, and anyone with half a brain and a couple of analytical hours can tell you that A.) he’s only kidding, and B.) Mechanical Animals was a far more timely and poignant album than Antichrist Superstar anyway. What have we been occupied with in the meantime?

Well, seven years ago it was Y2K bugs. For the last five years I suppose it’s been terrorists. And of course there’s that damn 2012 thing, inspired by an incomplete Mayan calendar. But no one seems to know if 2012 is the result of clerical procrastination, a metaphor for Quetzalcoatl in the guise of a solar flare, or The Monster at the End of This Book. And it doesn’t really matter, because the Ancient Mayans are all gone now, and if they can’t be any more straightforward than this, then they can go play with a nut for all I care.

But the Antichrist? There are still people who think that one is actually possible (stupid people, but people nonetheless). And, at least according to tradition, he’s super-scary and super-evil. But not according to the Growing in Grace congregation. Miranda says that, “Antichrist is the best person in the world.” When accused of being a cult leader on the Today Show, Miranda nonchalantly replied, “If it’s a cult, it’s the best cult I’ve ever seen. It’s a nice cult. I’m proud to lead a cult like this.”

As near as I can tell, the evidence that people are eating this shit up can be attributed to the fact that we haven’t met any space aliens yet. Hey, science fiction staples suggest that we should have run into somebody by now, and the knowledge that we haven’t is leaving a serious hole in the collective human imagination. With no space people, many of those with a serious Weird Craving are turning to ancient myths and superstitions. This is at best a complete waste of time. Unless you’re an old crook junkie with nothing to lose, of course.

While analyzing this story, my editor Varius has pointed out that, were there any hypothetical plausibility in the Revelations story, there’s no way we as a culture wouldn’t be onto the clues in a heartbeat. How would an Antichrist figure actually sneak by, when the talking statues and seven-headed dragons would be a dead giveaway? Much to our embarrassment, neither of us even considered the possibility that some smiling anus would just come right out and say it like it’s a good thing.

It’s bad enough that Nick at Nite is now playing reruns of Growing Pains (I’m lying; pre-9/11, pre-global warming, Reaganomics-wallowing 1980s American sitcoms make me feel guiltily nostalgic, and I love it), now the Educational Testing Service and the College Board are in on making us twentysomethings feel like old fogeys before we should. At least, that’s what I discovered after I was told that my teenage cousin recently scored a 2300 on her SAT’s. What’s that, you say? When did that become possible?

Members of Generation X (”back in my day; get off my lawn!”) will no doubt recall an SAT with a maximum possible score of 1600: 800 math, 800 verbal. You might even remember the time slacker-wonderboy Zack Morris humiliated Jessie Spano by scoring a 1501 on Saved By the Bell. Well, kiss those days goodbye.

The SAT, which used to mean Scholastic Aptitude Test, Scholastice Achievement Test, and Scholastic Assessment Test before the words were officially declared meaningless in 1994, was altered in 2005 from a 1600-point scale to a 2400-point scale. The categories? Now they’re broken up into Mathematics, Critical Reading, and Writing, each worth a maximum of 800 points. Yep, equal representation for all three of the R’s. Meaningless? Maybe, and maybe not. Depends on how you feel about math.

If you’re good at math and suck at reading & writing, you’re screwed now (or maybe not, as we’ll see). But if you suck at math and kick ass at writing and vocabulary (like myself and many others on The Beak’s staff), you’re in much better shape. Or, again, maybe not.

Because while a higher English skills-based SAT score will still get you a better shot at college acceptances and scholarships, college and employment are two very different things. According to CNNMoney.com’s “Most Lucrative Degrees for 2007 Grads” article published on February 8th, English and other Liberal Arts-related jobs are still in short supply, and short on cash.

Engineering, Accounting, and Computer Science jobs are all expected to see solid growth in both availability and income this year. Marketing and Business Administration-related jobs are expected to skyrocket in lucrativeness. What’s projected to go down this year? Income and employment for people with Liberal Arts degrees, and that includes English, the college major where people who are good at reading and writing go to party for 4-to-6 years.

Let’s review: America’s educators and test administrators have recently decided that reading and writing are a top priority for our students, and deserve more time and testing than mathematics. America’s job market, on the other hand, prefers economics, mathematics and technology. So why wasn’t Marketing or Mechanical Engineering a required course in the 11th grade? I don’t know, but in retrospect, it’s pissing me off.

We’ve got some dubious news out of Hollywood this week, folks.  It seems that a certain Frederick Evan Young, 44, of Los Angeles, California, who works as a Chewbacca impersonator outside of the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was booked by the LAPD on battery misdemeanor charges on Thursday, after allegedly assaulting a pair of young Japanese tourists.  According to tour guides on the scene, Mr. Young was seen “harassing and touching tourists” and shouting, “Nobody tells this Wookie what to do,” in a depraved display.  He then proceeded to head-butt the tour guide, presumably while mewling and bellowing.

I am, frankly, disgusted with this news.  This will simply not do, people!  Dressing up as Chewbacca is a sacred institution, much like dressing up as Santa Claus or Chuck E. Cheese. The heroic greatness that is Chewbacca should not be taken lightly.

I’m not saying that Wookies are to be confused with Boy Scouts; they have, as is well known, been known to tear people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose at Chess.  And Battleship, and Clue, probably Hangman, but hey, anyone who dares to play board games with a Wookie should have already known that.  Besides, board games are just inherently annoying. They piss me off, and I’m lazy as hell, so just imagine what having to build that stupid Mouse Trap would do to someone with that much pent-up muscle mass and adrenaline?

The point is, Chewbacca is not a petty thug.  He’s an outlaw hero, a criminal mastermind, a powerhouse rebel, and quite possibly the greatest sidekick of all time.  His destiny is to fight tyranny and oppression and to bring down The Man, not to harass innocent Japanese tourists!  For shame, Frederick Evan Young of Los Angeles, California.  As a Chewbacca impersonating street performer, you had so much potential to do good in the world, and you frittered it away because someone wouldn’t pay you five bucks to pose for a postcard.